FIELD DAY OR PAY DAY? 
On Friday, The Syracuse Post Standard ran an investigative piece dissecting the function of “acting” judges. Those are the jurists elected to a lower court and yet authorized, often with a concomitant pay raise, to hear cases at a higher court throughout New York’s court system. According to the state comptroller’s office, at least 264 judges in New York have “acting” designation. The article openly questions the procedure, wonders about the politics involved, and asks whether the highly specialized “boutique” courts for divorce, domestic violence, and substance abuse, for example, where many acting judges have been elected, are at odds with Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye’s efforts to consolidate the state’s trial courts into one trial court with unified salaries. In the Fifth Judicial District, where the article focuses, 12 of 14 acting judges are Republican, just like the Administrative Justice, James Tormey. "We have to follow the work," Tormey said. "We need the flexibility to assign judges where they are needed the most. This affords us that flexibility and it's working out very well."

 
IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES
Elsewhere, The Journal News has an interesting editorial on the stalled bill in the New York Legislature that would have addressed the state’s antiquated divorce law, which doesn’t recognize irreconcilable differences and (uniquely nationwide) requires the finding of fault as the basis for a divorce. Last year, a Matrimonial Commission appointed by Chief Judge Kaye released a report finding that 35 jurisdictions "recognize some form of irreconcilable differences or irretrievable breakdown of the marriage as a basis'' for ending marriages; others recognize incompatibility and allow living separate and apart — without formal legal proceedings — as grounds for divorce, resulting in reduced legal costs. “According to the state court system, as many as 62 percent of marriages end in divorce; 65 percent of divorces involve children,” writes the Journal News. “Divorce is a fact, however unwelcome in some corners, of married life. Undoing one should not be 'easy,' but it should be more clear-cut, with the process expedited by individual and family needs, and financial protections for all of them fairly founded. And, of course, lawyers' billable hours shouldn't factor into the equation or prolong the waiting for divorce reform in New York.”

 
BOONDOGGLE OR BRAIN SWALLOW? 
From The Rochester Democrat and Republican: a story about the 200 or so lead paint poisoning lawsuits currently clogging Rochester’s Supreme Court — enough for court officials to appoint a judge, Matthew A. Rosenbaum, to oversee many of them. The piece points out a debate at the center of lead paint poisoning litigation: is it an epidemic leading to increased homicide rates, or has the issue been overblown, unfairly burdening landlords with the responsibility of cleanup? Said one property owner who decided to sell due to the increased threat of a lead paint poisoning lawsuit: "The court time [and] money defending frivolous lawsuits, where the tenants did not clean their apartments, damaged door jambs, damaged window casings, scraped up the house, did not watch their kids . . .  is no longer worth my time.”

 
ASSASSINATION LITIGATION 
And the tabloids are hot on the trail of the latest twist in the case of Viola Plummer. She's the aide to black firebrand City Councilman Charles Barron who was asked by Speaker Christine Quinn to sign a six-week work suspension and abstain from rude behavior in order to keep her job after Plummer threatened to assassinate Queens Councilman Leroy Comrie. She made the threat after Comrie abstained from a vote to rename a Brooklyn street in honor of black activist and alleged racist Sonny Carson. Plummer refused to sign and filed a $1 million racial discrimination, defamation, harassment and retaliation suit against Quinn. On Friday, Manhattan federal Judge William Pauley allowed the matter to move ahead to trial, The New York Post reports. The Daily News, meanwhile, runs a scathing editorial against Plummer. "Her supervisor said she doesn't have a letter to sign. This is what we think of your letter Christine," said Barron as he ripped the document to shreds during a press conference. He also accused Quinn of having "blatant disrespect for black people."