CAPTAIN GREYBEARD

Should greying judges be allowed to get even greyer on the bench? The New York Law Journal reports that lengthening judges' mandatory retirement age will be on the agenda tomorrow when the New York State Bar Association's House of Delegates holds its quarterly meeting in Albany. The Task Force on Mandatory Retirement of Judges -- chaired by former state chief administrative judge E. Leo Milonas -- has already recommended that all state judges be allowed to serve until 76 with the certification now given to qualified Supreme Court justices over 70, the current retirement age. The task force recommends that Court of Appeals judges be allowed to serve until 76 without any certification. "Society has made a judgment in every other field that we are not going to permit this arbitrary putting-out-to-pasture of people because of age," said Mark H Alcott, president of the state bar. "The legal profession should be at the cutting edge of fairness, of fair employment practices."

 YOU'RE FIRED! (AND I WILL TELL EVERYONE WHY)

Also from The Law Journal, the New York Court of Appeals ruled 4-2 yesterday that a brokerage can't be sued for defamation for explaining the reasons of a broker's firing on a form it files with the industry's self-regulatory arm. Regarding Weiner v. Weintraub, the state's highest court found that statements made by an employer on a so-called U-5 form are subject to "absolute priviledge." The case was filed by former MetLife Inc.  employee Chaskie Rosenberg, who accused his former employer of defamation and acting with malicious intent in describing the circumstances of his April 2003 dismissal.

BLUE RIBBON, BLACK MARK 

More shenanigans on the Brooklyn bench came to light in the recent trial of Judge Gerald Garson. But do the long-awaited recommendations from a panel charged with finding ways to improve the borough's judicial selection process offer hope for the future, or more empty promises ? As reported in The Kings Courier, the Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel -- a seven-member board created by Kings County Democratic Chairman Vito Lopez, and co-chaired by Assemblymember Joseph Lentol and St. Francis College president Dr. Frank Macchiarola -- came up with 10 ideas for improving the Brooklyn bench, to be voted on at the next meeting of  the Kings County Democratic Party’s Executive Committee, in early May. Among the stopgap solutions: emboldening screening committees to determine which judicial candidates are the most qualified, as opposed to well qualified; and whittling down the number of qualified prospects to just five candidates per judicial slot. The group's mission statement promises "a renewed policy of transparency in the process of nominating candidates for judicial office together with his pledge that only the most qualified members of the Bar should ascent to the Bench.”