Statewide matrimonial judge tells family attorneys to lower the heat in litigation

State Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Sunshine’s message to family attorneys at the New York State Bar Association was clear: You need to calm down in court — and stop emailing him multi-page letters asking him to intervene in your cases.

“I think it’s the tenor of our times,” Sunshine, the statewide coordinating matrimonial judge, told a room of more than 100 attorneys at a family law luncheon held at the State Bar’s annual meeting in Midtown Manhattan. “I need to urge everyone to take it down a tone.”

The Brooklyn-based judge said he frequently receives eight-to nine-page letters from attorneys asking him to intervene in their case or speak with the judge presiding over it. Not only is this improper — really, these should be filed as motions to review in appellate court, Sunshine said — it’s unethical.

“People want me to wave a magic wand and make their case better,” Sunshine said. “There is an ethical opinion from the court system’s Ethics Commission, which says that administrative or supervising judges cannot interfere with or speak to the assigned judge about the case, because we become a conduit for an ex-parte communication.”

Sunshine said the amount of time he and other judges spend trying to calm tense situations is “bordering on inappropriate.”

“I need to remind people that the lawyers are not married to each other and they’re not divorcing each other,” the judge said. “I urge you to please think about it before you push send. Think about it before you write a book-length letter to a judge telling the judge what they did wrong.”

Sunshine also used his speech to inform attorneys of a few updates coming to the family law field this year, including changing rules for forensic reports in each of the state’s four departments and increases to income caps for child support and maintenance payments starting in March.

“I think it’s going to take some time for everybody to adjust to this, so please read the rules,” Sunshine said.

He ended his address by touting a reduction in backlogged divorce proceedings and advocating for an amendment to a law that would allow alternate service by court order via email to simplify divorce filings across the state.

“That Paul Simon song says, ‘There are 50 ways to leave your lover,’” Sunshine said. “In New York, there are 62: one for each county …We are going to hopefully convince the Legislature to have a statutory amendment to allow alternate service by court order on an active email account that’s been used in the last 30 years.”