HSoftheNYCourts Podcast

The Historical Society of the New York Courts is pleased to introduce its new Rule of Law podcast series. This season, the series seeks to highlight a variety of important, influential, and inspiring individuals in New York legal history, including lawyers, jurists, advocates, and leaders in the legal profession. This inaugural episode of the series is entitled “Abolitionism & Advocacy in New...

At his death, the 96 year-old Albert Sprague Bard had occupied the landmarked Broad Exchange Building for six decades after becoming the structure's very first tenant. Within those hallowed walls, Bard hatched statewide legislation known as the "Bard Act" which gave New York's communities the legal right to regulate aesthetics — and crucially, protect historic buildings and neighborhoods through N...

In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate, won the presidential election against Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. The outcome, however, was one of the most controversial in U.S. history because Tilden won the popular vote and the result of declaring Hayes as the winner was only finalized after months of dispute, earning the accolade of “the Fraud of the Century” by Tilden’s supporters and s...

Host Eric van der Vort, Ph. D., speaks with retired judge Richard A. Dollinger about his Judicial Notice Issue 18 article, which explores two strikingly different figures from the early 20th century: a powerful GOP machine boss from Buffalo who became a federal judge and a Russian immigrant from Rochester known as the “high priestess of anarchy.” Though John R. Hazel and Emma Goldman never met, th...

Wrecking Ball Series Episode 5 In this fast-paced episode of our podcast series Wrecking Ball, host and creator Adrian Untermyer, Esq. discusses the present and future of historic preservation advocacy in New York with Andrew Berman, whose name is now shorthand for New York’s history-saving movement after leading the venerable Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (now “Village Prese...

Judicial Notice Editor in Chief Hon. Helen E. Freedman sits down with podcast host Dr. Eric van der Vort for a conversation on the subject of her Issue 18 article: Samuel Jones Tilden. The two discuss Tilden’s early years, his contributions to New York’s legal community (including breaking up Boss Tweed’s ring), and, of course, Tilden’s presidential bid in the 1876 election. The 1876 election was...

Wrecking Ball Series Episode 4 The Empire State Plaza's white-and-gray silhouette dominates the skyline of New York's capital city. While the futuristic, stone-and-steel complex looks like it's been there forever, the Plaza has a twisted history covering politics, intrigue, and the Rockefeller Family's one-time dominance over civic and cultural life in New York State. In this episode, former Chief...

Inaugural Latino Judges Association Mendez v. Westminster Moot Court Project Discussion: The Gap In Bilingual Education, the Impact of Aspira v. BOE, and How the Landmark Mendez Case Inspired It All. In a special co-production of the Historical Society of the New York Courts podcast and Amici, the podcast program of the NYS Unified Court System, an insightful panel discusses with Host John Caher t...

In this episode of Chatting with the Authors of Judicial Notice, Professor Mary Noé tells host Eric van der Vort, Ph. D. all about a murder committed in full view of a theatre full of witnesses in the early 20th century. The case is full of twists and turns, including escapes, extraditions, and major challenges for the courts to iron out. You won't want to miss this dive into New York's true crime...

Manhattan’s High Line is one of the world’s great parks, with a rich history at the crossroads of historic preservation, the law, and the great City and State of New York. In this episode of Wrecking Ball, host Adrian Untermyer welcomes Jonathan Broder, former General Counsel of the Consolidated Rail Corporation (or “Conrail”) to recount Broder’s key role in the formation of the High Line as we kn...

Two of the articles in Judicial Notice Issue 18, the Society’s periodical publication, feature stories from the life of Benjamin N. Cardozo, once Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals and Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Host Eric van der Vort, Ph. D. welcomed authors Prof. John Q. Barrett and Henry "Hank" M. Greenberg, Esq., to discuss their pieces. Together, they expl...

Lower Manhattan's Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse and Foley Square are now preserved and continue to define the aesthetic of justice in New York and the nation. But when the complex was still new, a greedy Chief Circuit Judge named Martin T. Manton orchestrated his campaign of judicial bribery from within the Courthouse's awe-inspiring halls — until the building itself served as an “ina...

In the premiere episode of Wrecking Ball — a new series featuring tales of preservation, the law, and the places New Yorkers love — host Adrian Untermyer welcomes author-historians Christina Greer and Anthony C. Wood to tell the raucous story of how ordinary people pulled together to craft New York City’s Landmarks Law, which safeguards historic buildings, neighborhoods, and landscapes to this day...

In the rough-and-tumble New York of a century and a half ago, enterprising lawyers like Paul Cravath and Samuel Untermyer invented the modern practice of corporate law – all while dastardly crooks grabbed headlines and forced innovations among the police who pursued them and the attorneys who prosecuted them. Author John Oller, Esq. spent years researching this distinctive crucible in New York’s l...

This conversation with Henry M. Greenberg, Esq. and Hon. Albert M. Rosenblatt chronicles the steps then-Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye and Judge Rosenblatt took to create a historical society honoring the courts of the state of New York. From the moments that inspired its creation in the late 1990s to its ultimate inception in 2002 and beyond, learn about the people that laid the groundwork to found t...

The late M. Dolores Denman was a true judicial trailblazer; among her feats, she was the first woman appointed as Presiding Justice of any Appellate Division Department. In this special episode of the Judicial Notice Podcast, host Hon. Helen E. Freedman gathers three of Judge Denman's colleagues and friends — Judge Richard C. Wesley, now of the Second Circuit; Judge Eugene F. Pigott, Jr., former A...

In this episode, attorney and urbanist Adrian Untermyer discusses George McAneny’s sprawling legal legacy with historian Lucie Levine and preservationist Brad Vogel, Esq. George McAneny is sometimes called “the most influential New Yorker you never heard of.” Over decades of civic activism, McAneny had an incalculable impact on planning, zoning, and preservation laws in New York and across the nat...

Host William H. Hinrichs chats with the Historical Society of the New York Courts’ most recent Judith S. Kaye Teaching Fellow Lauren DesRosiers on her experience teaching the course American Immigration and New York State to high schoolers in the Queens and Lower East Side Bard High School Early College campuses. Bill and Lauren discuss the unique aspect of this partnership of teaching legal histo...

In this episode, host David L. Goodwin talks with Paul DeForest Hicks about the incredible influence of Connecticut's Litchfield Law School on the bench and bar of New York State at the founding of the nation, and how Litchfield paved the way for Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and other leading law schools of today. Paul DeForest Hicks is the author of The Litchfield Law School: Guiding the New Nation,...

Chris Kwok talks with Hon. Randall T. Eng about his remarkable life and career, marked by a series of firsts for the Asian American community. They reminisce about Judge Eng’s early days in Queens and China, how he became interested in the law, his rise in the legal profession to become the first Asian American Judge in all of New York State, and his years after retiring from the bench. The conver...

Hon. Randall T. Eng and Hon. Lillian Wan share their personal experiences as Asian American judges overcoming challenges, and provide advice to Asian American attorneys on how they too can bridge the gap. Judge Wan is a Kings County Supreme Court Civil Term Judge and member of the Society’s Board of Trustees. Judge Eng is former Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department, and c...

In the United States Supreme Court, it's nine. In the United States Courts of Appeals, it's three. And in New York's Appellate Division, Second Department it's . . . four? Presiding Justice Alan D. Scheinkman talks about his article, adapted for Judicial Notice, which explores how the four-Justice appellate panel became the norm in the Second Department — and, briefly, in the First as well — and s...

Director of Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking Dr. Erica Kaufman and Dean of Bard Early Colleges John Weinstein discuss the teacher and student initiatives we partner together to produce, including teacher workshops, the Harlem Law Program, and the Judith S. Kaye Teaching Fellowship, and the rich resources the Society provides. Erica and John also discuss lessons learned during the mo...

Host Daniel F. Loud, a student at Columbia Law School, chats with Hon. Robert S. Smith, retired judge of the New York Court of Appeals, head of the appellate practice at Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman LLP, and former professor at both Columbia Law School and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, about his article in the Society’s journal Judicial Notice about Chancellor James Kent, one of New Y...

William H. Hinrichs, Dean of Academic Life at Bard Early Colleges, speaks with Aaron Welt on his experience as the Judith S. Kaye Teaching Fellow at Bard High School Early College in Queens and Manhattan over the past three semesters. They chat about the importance of the Society’s grant to facilitate these civics courses that focus on the legal history of New York State, the positive effect it ha...