I am the Citywide Administrative Judge for the Civil Court of the City of New York (one of the three citywide courts along with Family Court and Criminal Court). The Civil Court operates in all five borough and is best known for our housing part (the court that landlords go to when they seek to evict their tenants and to litigate other housing matters).

That is an extremely high-volume court, approximately 225,000 new cases are filed every year. The other well-known operation of the Civil Court is the Small Claims Court. My job is to oversee the day-to-day operations. I deal with budgets, with problems like disciplinary issues, and attendance issues as they come up. I also deal with what we call access to justice, which is the court’s effort to make these high-volume cases fairer for people.