About Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye
JANUARY 2020
Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye (1938-2016). In 1983, she became the first woman appointed to the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court. In 1993, she became the first woman to be appointed Chief Judge of the Court, and by the time she retired, in 2008, she was the longest-serving Chief Judge in the court’s history.
“CASA is a wonderful example of how ordinary citizens can contribute to the well-being of their communities by brightening the future, one child at a time. Just the other day, in a newspaper report, Monroe County Family Court Judge Anthony Sciolino summed up how our Family Court Judges feel about CASA: ‘We couldn’t do our jobs without people like you.’”
As a staunch advocate for the needs of children, Chief Judge Kaye, in her 2004 State of the Judiciary, announced convening a work group of current and former family court personnel along with other court personnel to explore sustainability for the Court Appointed Special Advocates of New York State network. The recommendations of the work group included (a) development of court rules regarding CASA; (b) institutionalization of the program within the Office of Court Administration (OCA); and (c) ongoing statewide funding. These rules were the first step to formalizing CASA as part of New York’s Family Court system and were passed into law in 2018.