Just weeks after stepping down from the bench, the Hon. Samuel Green will be honored for his decades of service to the Western New York legal community.

Dedication of the Honorable Samuel L. Green Courtroom will take place at 3:30 p.m., Jan. 24 at the M. Dolores Denman Courthouse, 50 East Ave., Rochester.

Green, who retired Dec. 31, was the longest-serving justice in the 115-year history of the Appellate Division, 4th Department. He was a member of the court for 28 years and 10 months. He was the first African-American judge to be appointed to that department in the Appellate Division and the first such judge outside of New York City to be elected to the Supreme Court.

During his tenure, Green served as acting presiding justice and later was appointed to the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court.

He is a graduate of the University at Buffalo Law School and was admitted to practice April 3, 1968. He practiced law in Buffalo until his appointment to Buffalo City Court in 1973. A decade later, he was named associate justice of the Appellate Division, 4th Department, by then-Gov. Mario Cuomo.

Green wrote "General Obligations Law Section 15-108: An Unsettling Law," published by the New York State Bar Journal in October 1983, and "The Good Faith Exception to the Exclusionary Rule," published in the New York Law Journal on March 2, 1986. He is a lifetime member of the NAACP and the Buffalo Urban League and serves on the governing board of Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

Green also was a member of the New York State Judicial Commission on Minorities. He served on the Governor's Advisory Panel for Project 2000 and was a member of the Committee to Utilize the Services of Retired Judges, as well as the New York State Task Force on Permanency Planning for Children in Foster Care.

In 1995, he received the Outstanding Juris Award from the Erie County Bar Association and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from UB Law. He also received the Award of Merit for distinguished service on the trial bench from the New York State Trial Lawyers Association.

In 1977, he received an Honorary Degree of Humane Letters from Canisius College for outstanding work on municipal courts.

The 4th Department, which is based in Rochester and encompasses 22 counties, covers most of central and Western New York. It hears and decides appeals from the trial courts.