COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP
At Retirement, Justice Marcy Kahn Lauded at Center
Veteran jurist, LGBTQ leader looks forward to new advocacy pursuits
BY PAUL SCHINDLER
Justice Marcy Kahn, the
fi rst out lesbian appointed
to the New York City
Criminal Court, in 1987,
and later elected to the State Supreme
Court, in 1994, has retired
from the State Appellate Division’s
First Department bench in Manhattan.
Kahn’s colleagues and friends
— from the New York State Unifi ed
Court System, the LGBT Community
Center, the LGBT Bar Association
of Greater New York (LeGaL),
and the Richard C. Failla LGBTQ
Commission of the New York Courts
— gathered at the Center on October
30 to honor her contributions
both to the criminal justice system
and to the LGBTQ community.
Since 2016, Kahn has served as
co-chair of the Failla Commission,
which works to “foster a more equitable,
supportive environment”
for LGBTQ members of the state’s
justice system. According to the
commission’s executive director,
Matthew J. Skinner, Kahn will remain
active with the group but is
stepping down from her co-chair
post, as well as the bench.
Prior to her appointment by
Mayor Ed Koch to the City Criminal
Court, Kahn was a partner at
Anderson Kill & Olick, after having
served as a special assistant attorney
general investigating corruption
in the city’s criminal justice
system.
During the same period, Kahn
was also the founding chair of the
LGBT Community Center. In that
role, she led the negotiations for the
purchase of the Center’s West 13th
Street building from the city — a
critical moment in creating a permanent
space for LGBTQ groups,
organizing, and gatherings in
the city. Kahn has also served on
the boards of Lambda Legal, the
Hetrick-Martin Institute, and Gay
Men’s Health Crisis.
Kahn served on the city’s Criminal
Court bench from 1987 until
her election to the State Supreme
Court in 1994. She was reelected
in 2008, and Governor Andrew
Justice Marcy L. Kahn (rear) with Failla Commission executive director Matthew J. Skinner and (front
row) Appellate Division Third Department Presiding Justice Elizabeth Garry and Court of Appeals Associate
Justice Paul G. Feinman.
Justice Marcy Kahn (center in green print dress) with retired Justice L. Priscilla Hall, Justice Ruth Pickholz,
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, Richard Burns, Justice Elizabeth Garry, Joy Beane, Matthew J. Skinner,
Justice Paul G. Feinman, and Dr. Diane Churchill.
Cuomo appointed her to the Appellate
Division in 2016.
The October 30 event featured
longtime leaders in the LGBTQ
community and the state’s judicial
system who all spoke to the
extraordinary reach of Kahn’s diverse
work over the years.
Richard Burns, who is the interim
CEO of Lambda Legal and
for 23 years served as executive
director of the Center, recalled
AMY MAYES PHOTOGRAPHY
AMY MAYES PHOTOGRAPHY
meeting Kahn in 1985, describing
her as an “early activist” in forging
New York’s LGBTQ community
and highlighting the key role she
played in pushing a reluctant Mayor
Koch to allow for the West 13th
Street building’s purchase.
Joy Beane, a court attorney and
referee in the Westchester County
Surrogate’s Court, and Justice
Elizabeth Garry, who presides
over the Appellate Division’s Third
Department, spoke of Kahn’s role
leading the New York Tribal Courts
Committee, which works with judicial
offi cials from the state’s sovereign
Native American nations.
Both recounted Kahn’s participation
in a delegation that met with
Pope Francis and urged him to rescind
a series of 15th century papal
bulls that purportedly provided
justifi cation for Europeans to take
lands in the Western Hemisphere
in the name of Christianity.
Congregation Beit Simchat Torah
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum lauded
Kahn for her humility in undertaking
her bat mitzvah as adult about
15 years ago. Though a renowned
jurist, Kleinbaum said, Kahn was
willing to acknowledge that in her
faith she was a “beginner.” The
rabbi recalled the ceremony where
Kahn combined an ancient prayer
with an affi rmation about the rule
of law in civil life and the paramount
importance of distinguishing
between the role of faith and
the authority of the state.
Other speakers at the event
included State Court of Appeals
Associate Justice Paul Feinman,
State Supreme Court Justice Ruth
Pickholz, and retired Appellate Division
Associate Justice L. Priscilla
Hall.
When it came time for Kahn
herself to speak, she recalled being
raised by civil rights activist
parents in Phoenix and spending
much of her college career as an
anti-war/ SDS/ anarchist activist
until she decided to attend law
school as a senior at Stanford. After
graduating from the New York
University School of Law and passing
the bar, she said, she was the
only lesbian lawyer she knew.
“I never dreamed of a career on
the bench,” Kahn said of her early
years as an attorney. But she also
recalled that her parents taught
her “not to be afraid to take risks.”
Kahn has not announced her
specifi c plans for the future but
indicated that she plans to do advocacy
on issues including climate
change, sustainable development,
➤ MARCY KAHN, continued on p.15
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