Hon. Alan D. Scheinkman

Alan D. Scheinkman served from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2020 as Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department. He was a member of the Administrative Board of the New York courts and served by designation on the New York State Court of Appeals. As Presiding Justice, he was responsible for the administration of the court, one of the largest in the country, as well as for the administration of the court’s ancillary agencies, including those relating to the admission and discipline of attorneys and the representation of indigents and children. From June 2009 through December 2017, he was the Administrative Judge of the Ninth Judicial District and the presiding justice of the Commercial Division, Westchester County. He is retired from judicial service and is affiliated with NAM as a neutral arbitrator and mediator.

Justice Scheinkman served from 2019 to 2021 as the Chair of the State Bar Association’s Task Force on the New York Bar Examination and is a member of the Court of Appeals Working Group on the Bar Examination. He serves on the Chief Judge’s Advisory Council for the Commercial Division. He served as co-chair of the Judicial Task Force on the State Constitution. He was a member of the New York State Bar Association’s House of Delegates and the State Bar’s Committees on Courts of Appellate Jurisdiction, Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, and the State Constitution. He has been a member of the Pattern Jury Instructions Committee – Civil of the New York State Association of Supreme Court Justices. From 1975 to 1977, he was law clerk to Hon. Matthew J. Jasen, Associate Judge, New York Court of Appeals.

Prior to election to the Bench, he was in private practice, taught law full-time at St. John’s University School of Law and served as the Westchester County Attorney. He authored New York State Bar Association handbooks on practice in the New York Court of Appeals and in the Appellate Division as well as a treatise on New York domestic relations law and practice commentaries for McKinney’s Domestic Relations Law. He has been a speaker and panelist at numerous judicial and bar association programs. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert (JALBCA).

• BA, George Washington University
• JD, St. John’s University School of Law

• Professional Responsibility

• New York Law of Domestic Relations (West 2d ed.)
• Author, 1982-2019, Practice Commentaries to McKinney’s New York Domestic Relations Law
• Practitioner’s Handbook on the New York Court of Appeals (4th Ed. 2021 N.Y. State Bar Assn).
• Practitioner’s Handbook to Appeals to the Appellate Divisions of New York State (3d Ed. 2021, N.Y. State Bar Assn).
• Finding the Perfect Number, Judicial Notice, 2022, Historical Society of the New York Courts.
• Co-Author, New York Needs a New Bar Exam, New York State Bar Journal, September 2021.

• Merit Award, New York State Bar Association Judicial Section
• Boris Kostelantez President’s Medal, New York County Lawyers Association
• Constance Baker Motley Award, Westchester County Black Bar Association
• Neil Shayne Award, Jewish Lawyers Association of Nassau County
• William Goodstein Memorial Award, Association of Law Secretaries to Justices of the Supreme and Surrogate’s Courts
• Honoree, Westchester County Bar Foundation
• Honoree, Westchester County Bar Association
• Honoree, Suffolk County Bar Association
• Honoree, Rockland County Bar Association
• Honoree, Roosevelt Chapter, American Inns of Court

Courts, Judicial Administration, Appellate Practice and Procedure, Judicial Ethics