NANCY BANNON FOR CIVIL COURT

The letter accompanying the invitation reads as follows:

Dear Friend: 

 

For the second time this year, I have been found "Most Highly Qualified" by an Independent Judicial Screening Panel, this time for the countrywide Civil Court vacancy. I would be honored to have your support.

 

Since being admitted to the bar more than twenty-one years ago, I have been quite fortunate to have gained a broad range of the highest quality experience which uniquely qualifies me to serve as a Judge of the Civil Court. This includes private practice at the real estate litigation law firm, public service as a Court Attorney in an appellate court (Appellate Division, Second Department), a criminal trial court (Criminal Court of the City of New York), a civil trial court (Supreme Court of the State of New York), and as a Small Claims Court Arbitrator (Civic Court of the City of New York).

 

I began my legal career at a real estate litigation firm where I represented owners and tenants in the Civil and Supreme Courts. That experience as well as my work as a paralegal for a solo practitioner during law school, taught me to be an effective and sensitive advocate.

 

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court is the second highest court in the state and reviews the decisions and proceedings of the Supreme, County, Surrogate and Family Courts. There, I reviewed entire trials and drafted opinions in approximately 1,600 criminal and civil cases with issues as varied as homicide, residential and commercial real-estate transactions, corporate frauds and embezzlement, wrongful death, and divorce and custody, to name just a few. Many decisions concerned issues of first impression. Intensive, demanding and exciting, there is no better legal training.

 

In addition to my fourteen years of appellate experience, I have spent the past six years in the trial courts. As the Principal Court Attorney to Justice Deborah Kaplan in the Criminal Court and then the Supreme Court-Civil Branch, I have gained an exhaustive knowledge of the workings of a trial court and all of is components, and have conferenced and settled cases daily in addition to drafting hundreds of opinions.

 

Since 1996, I have volunteered as an Arbitrator for the Smalls Claims Part of the Civil Court, where I have tried or settled numerous cases in which at least one party was self-represented.

 

I am proud of the time I have spent in my bar association and community activities. In particular, as the President of the Brooklyn Women's Bar Association, I partnered with the Borough President in commissioning a portrait of the first female Supreme Court Justice, which is now displayed in Borough Hall, along with the portraits of the first African American Justice and the first Hispanic Justice. For this and other work I was honored with the Association's Sybil Hart Kooper Award in 2006.

 

My education, legal experience, and professional and community associations, which are set forth in the attached resume, demonstrate my dedication to the law and our system of justice and would enable me to serve well and honorable as a Judge of the Civil Court. 

 

Thank you for your time and consideration. Please feel free to contact me with any questions regarding my candidacy.

 

I also invite you to join me at my "meet-and Greet Party" on Sunday evening, June 29, 2008. The party details are enclosed. I look forward to seeing you there.

 

Very truly yours,

Nancy M. Bannon