Contact: Darren Johnson, (631) 761-7062

March 12, 2007

Touro Law Center Hosts Women’s History Event
Honoring Justice Gail Prudenti

Central Islip, NY – Suffolk County District Administrative Judge H. Patrick Leis III and Touro Law Dean Lawrence Raful will host a Women’s History Month Celebration honoring Justice Gail Prudenti on Thursday, March 29, at 5 p.m., at the new Touro Law Center campus located at 225 Eastview Drive in Central Islip.

In 2002, Justice Prudenti became the first woman to hold the position of Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department. 

The event is sponsored by the Suffolk County Women in the Courts Committee and the Touro Women’s Bar Association, and co-sponsored by the Suffolk County Bar Association’s Women and the Law Committee, the Suffolk County Women’s Bar Association and Touro’s Student Bar Association. Justice Prudenti will give the keynote address.

The public is invited to attend the 5 p.m. keynote, and refreshments will be served. RSVP to Kate Howlett at 631-761-7065 or e-mail khowlett@tourolaw.edu.

There will also be a special invitation-only reception at 3 p.m. at the Law Center with Justice Prudenti along with other top women judges, including New York State Supreme Court (Kings County) Justice Gloria M. Dabiri, Acting New York State Supreme Court Justice Sarah L. Krauss, and Nassau County District Court Judge Sondra K. Pardes. The reception is co-sponsored by the National Association of Women Judges and the New York State Association of Women Judges.

Justice Prudenti was appointed to this position by Governor Pataki in February of 2002.  Before this appointment, she was the first woman from Suffolk County to serve as an Associate Justice of the Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department.  Before her service on the Appellate Division bench, Justice Prudenti was the Administrative Judge for the Tenth Judicial District (Suffolk County) for almost three years. At the time of her appointment as District Administrative Judge in February of 1999, Justice Prudenti was the Surrogate of Suffolk County and, at that time, was the first and only Surrogate in New York to hold the position of District Administrative Judge.

She earned her law degree from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, which also awarded her an honorary Doctorate of Laws in 2004.  Her undergraduate education was at Marymount College where she graduated with honors.

Her legal writings are extensive. Over 1000 of Justice Prudenti’s decisions have been published, and she has contributed articles to many publications such as The New York Law Journal, Newsday, The Suffolk Lawyer and The Jurist.  She has also published handbooks for guardians ad litem and has written extensively on guardianship proceedings.

Justice Prudenti is chairperson of the Office of Court Administration’s Mental Health Curriculum Committee for Trial Judges, co-chair of the Chief Judge’s Task Force on Delay in the Courts, a former member of the Chief Administrative Judge’s Judicial Legislative Group and a member of the OCA’s Gender Bias and Anti-Discrimination Panel.  In addition, she is the former Presiding Member of the Judicial Section of the New York State Bar Association, a member of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and the New York State Women’s Bar Association, a former co-chair of the Surrogate’s Court Committee of the Suffolk County Bar Association, a member of the Suffolk County Women’s Bar Association, which she helped found, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Suffolk County Columbian Lawyers Association.  Justice Prudenti was a founding member of The John A. Prudenti Lodge - Order of Sons of Italy in America #2442, which was named in her grandfather’s honor. 

While appreciative of the recognition and numerous awards she has received, Justice Prudenti feels her greatest honor has been the opportunity to serve the people who reside in the Second Judicial Department. The judge lives with her husband, former Suffolk County Attorney Robert J. Cimino, in the Village of Bellport, NY.

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