Renwick insists on high standards and opening doors

Dianne Renwick, presiding justice of the Appellate Division, First Department.
Photo by Ramy Mahmoud

When Justice Dianne T. Renwick was elevated by Governor Kathy Hochul to serve as Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division, First Department of the New York State Supreme Court, she took on one of the most important judicial positions in the state. She presides over a court that in 2023 disposed of more than 4,700 appeals and more than 5,100 motions and swore in nearly 2,800 new attorneys.

The First Department has jurisdiction over civil and criminal appeals from trial courts in the Bronx and Manhattan and plays a pioneering national role due to the variety and novelty of the legal issues that come before the court.

“This court is looked upon as one of the premier courts in the country,” Renwick said.

“Other jurisdictions look to the First Department because of the uniqueness and magnitude of the issues in Manhattan and the Bronx. After all, New York City is considered one of the cultural and financial capitals of the world.”

The First Department has cultivated an especially notable reputation for its business law decisions. The first Commercial Division was launched on an experimental basis in Manhattan in 1993 and expanded throughout the state in 1995. As the commercial and corporate center of the state, the First Department often rules on high-profile business disputes that range from
labor issues to real estate development to mergers, contracts, and other transactional matters.

When Governor Hochul appointed Renwick Presiding Justice in 2023, she became the first woman of color to lead any appellate court in the State of New York. As the steward of the
First Department, Renwick holds the court to the highest possible standard and considers it “a privilege to give voice to the generations of people who were not accorded the opportunity
to serve on the court.” In addition to keeping the court running at full pace, Renwick said she has been reflecting on the need to create opportunities to further diversify the state’s courts
by educating our youth about how the courts work and career pathways within the court system and creating opportunities for young lawyers.

Renwick has moved to broaden access since becoming an Associate Justice at the First Department in 2008. As chair of the Anti-bias Committee, for example, she led an effort to install
a female sculpture to join the male statues that line the courthouse roof.

A top-line accomplishment in her first year as Presiding Justice was establishment of the Justice Forward Initiative, a program that brings New York City high school students into the
courthouse to help them understand the importance of civics and the role of the courts in their own lives. In September, she made another imprint on the court when she replaced the nameplate of Roger Taney, the U.S. Supreme Court Justice and author of the Dred Scott decision, in the courtroom’s ornate stained-glass dome with that of Constance Baker Motley, a civil rights hero who became the first Black woman appointed to the federal bench in 1966.

A PREMIUM ON COLLEGIALITY AND PROFESSIONALISM

As Presiding Justice, Renwick reviews the decisions that the court renders in the appellate process, and she presides over committees that play a key role in court operations. Included among those under her jurisdiction are the Attorney Grievance Committee, which handles complaints against attorneys; the Committee on Character and Fitness, which reviews appli cations for admission to the bar; the Assigned Counsel Plan, which appoints attorneys to represent indigent defendants in criminal cases, and the Office of Attorneys for Children, which appoints attorneys to represent parties in Family Court.

The 21 justices appointed by the governor to the First Department bench sit in five-judge panels to hear appeals. As each panel scrutinizes a lower court’s judgment or order, Renwick is confident that each decision will be well written, thoroughly researched, and timely decided.

She expects the same level of professionalism from lawyers who come before the court.

Her advice to attorneys: know the facts, know the law, and lead with your strongest arguments.

“Our court is known as a hot bench. What does that mean? It means that the court is familiar with the facts and the law of the cases.

So, we usually begin questioning the lawyers almost immediately,” Renwick said.

Renwick’s commitment to excellence came out of her upbringing in the Bronx. Her parents were both immigrants from Grenada who, though not formally educated, understood the importance of education. Her father, who was a union carpenter and her mother, a seamstress, were some of the first people of color to move into the neighborhood of Williamsbridge in the northeast Bronx, effectively integrating it.

“They were people who weren’t afraid. They were very sure of themselves,” Renwick said.

BROAD PERSPECTIVE GAINED FROM EXPERIENCE

Growing up in the Civil Rights era, Renwick recalls being impacted by her parents’ horror at the news coverage of the Jim Crow South. “Little did I realize how those scenes would ignite my quest for fairness,” Renwick said. During her undergraduate education at Cornell University, Renwick got involved in the anti-apartheid movement. At Cardozo School of Law, where she graduated in 1986, she took an interest in criminal justice working with attorney Barry Scheck, who founded the Innocence Project. She began her legal career as a staff attorney for the Bronx office of the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Defense Division before joining the Federal Defenders where she represented criminal defendants before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

“The experience of representing indigent defendants helped to inform my judicial perspective. One must develop respect and compassion for people and their circumstances,” Renwick said. “No matter what they might have done, you have to sit across from them and treat them with respect.”

Renwick joined the bench as a housing court judge in 1997 before the city’s right to counsel law was passed. Tenants were largely unrepresented. “The dockets were heavy with many prose litigants; I had to ensure litigants understood their rights, but also had to maintain neutrality and guarantee that all parties had their day in court.”

CREATING OPPORTUNITIES

Renwick remains keenly aware of the historical absence of women and people of color from the New York State judiciary. But demographic changes in the court proceed in phases, Renwick pointed out.

Betty Weinberg Ellerin was the first woman appointed to the court in 1985 and named Presiding Justice in 1999. Though only 22 of 140 justices in the court’s history have been women, by 2024 women became a majority of the 21 justices on the First Department bench.

For Renwick, education is the force that must be deployed to diversify the court system, because “real opportunity comes only through proper education.”

“What’s so important to me is ensuring that there’s a pipeline. Right now, at our admission ceremonies for new attorneys, there are few Black men or Black women among them,” she said.

To this end, the Justice Forward Initiative is aimed at exposing students in grades 6 through 12 from schools in Bronx and Manhattan to civics and career opportunities that intersect with the judiciary and legal profession. First Department Associate Justice Bahaati Pitt Burke, who Renwick appointed chair of the Anti-bias Committee, leads the Initiative, which brings students into the courthouse to meet judges and other staff members, introduce them to careers in the courts, listen to oral arguments, and discuss a previously decided appeal.

Renwick said her goal is to “inspire students to become intellectually curious about the law and its impact on people in their communities. Perhaps they’ll even become lawyers and judges. Our institutions, including our judiciary, are better prepared to achieve justice when they reflect the communities they serve. This not only adds legitimacy and instills confidence in our courts, but it also leads to decisions and judgments informed by broader perspectives.”