BROADER BENCH
State Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-St. Albans) wants to ensure that women and minorities are fairly represented in the state judiciary. The ranking Democrat on the state Judiciary Committee, Smith called for the creation of a “blueprint for judicial diversity” — prompted by the appointment of Eugene Piggott, who is white, to replace George Bundy Smith, who is black, to the Court of Appeals. The appointment means that the state’s highest court has no African Americans and just one Hispanic member, which Smith, in a Daily News story, callsed another example of Pataki’s “dismal record” on judicial diversity. “If you want the people of the state to have confidence in their justice system, they should be able to at least see individuals of their ethnic background on the bench,” Smith said. “It would give them a certain comfort level.”

COURTHOUSE HEIST
A burglary in the chambers of the top criminal judge in Bronx Supreme Court is setting off a swell of chattering that a felon assigned to sweep the floors in the courthouse pulled off the heist. Judge John Collins’s laptop was stolen from his locked sixth-floor chambers at 851 Grand Concourse in late September — and unnamed sources tell the Post that investigators think one of the convicts in the Center for Employment Opportunities’ Neighborhood Work Program took it — although there’s admittedly “no link.” The story states the obvious: the suspicion is “raising concerns about whether the city should rehabilitate felons in sensitive areas of the building.” Ron Younkins, chief of operations for the state Office of Court Administration, said there shouldn’t be a rush to judgment about whodunit. “I think it's a knee-jerk reaction that it's a person with a criminal background. I don't think it's appropriate.”

FIRST MONDAY AND LAST THURSDAY
The Supreme Court’s second term with Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., at the helm begins today. In a front-page opener in The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse notes the court in the first term under Roberts essentially agreed not to decide much. She predicts that the new term will be different since the cases the court has promised to decide require more definitive rulings in terms of “substance and style.” Among the questions before the court are the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, whether public schools can take race into account in “balancing” their populations, and the appeal of a $79.5 million award for punitive damages against cigarette maker Philip Morris that was upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court…Postscript: Before the term began today, the Supreme Court’s newest member found time to talk about the importance of judicial independence in Nassau County. Justice Samuel Alito, Jr., spoke last Thursday at the Mineola headquarters of the Nassau County Bar Association.

A LOT OF SMOKE
The Daily News has a backgrounder on the light cigarette suit in Brooklyn federal court before Judge Jack Weinstein. The story notes that although D.C. federal Judge Gladys Kessler ordered tobacco companies to stop labeling cigarettes as light or low-tar in a ruling in August, she was prevented from imposing substantial damage penalties. Also quoted is Mark Gottlieb, director of the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University (one of the birthplaces of tobacco litigation as we know it) saying the Brooklyn action marks the largest class action suit ever certified in the U.S.

ADS HOC
Broad ethics rules on attorney advertising slated to go into effect in January are generating a lot of talk back, John Caher reports in the New York Law Journal today. The 90-day comment period for the state rules ended Sept. 15, but was extended two months because lawyers had so much to say . . . now that’s surprising.

AIDING LEGAL AID
Peter V.Z. Cobb is stepping down as the Legal Aid Society’s top financial officer, for which he was paid $200,000 a year. Before he came on board in 2005, the position had been volunteer. The former Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Harrison partner says he did what he set out to accomplish: get the organization back on firm financial footing after it narrowly avoided bankruptcy.