Paul George Feinman
''New York Times'' (December 1, 2013). (January 26, 1960 – March 31, 2021) was an American attorney who served as an associate judge of the

New York Court of Appeals The New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the Unified Court System of the State of New York. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge and six Associate Judges who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by t ...

, New York's

highest court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

, from June 2017 to March 2021. Feinman spent 20 years as a state judge prior to his elevation to the Court of Appeals, first as a justice of the

New York Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial-level court of general jurisdiction in the New York State Unified Court System. (Its Appellate Division is also the highest intermediate appellate court.) It is vested with unlimited civ ...

(the trial-level court of

general jurisdiction {{Globalize, article, USA, 2name=the United States, date=December 2010 A court of general jurisdiction is a court with authority to hear cases of all kinds – criminal, civil, family, probate, and so forth. United States All federal courts ar ...

in the

New York State Unified Court System The Judiciary of New York (officially the New York State Unified Court System) is the judicial branch of the Government of New York, comprising all the courts of the State of New York (excluding extrajudicial administrative courts). The Court of ...

), and the

New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division The Appellate Divisions of the Supreme Court of the State of New York are the intermediate appellate courts in New York State. There are four Appellate Divisions, one in each of the state's four Judicial Departments (e.g., the full title of the ...

(the intermediate

appellate court A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of ...

s in

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...

). He was the first openly gay judge on the appeals court. At the time of his confirmation by State Senate in 2017, he said, "Certainly my entire career has been about promoting equal access and equal justice for all and I hope I add to the diversity of perspectives that the court considers."

Early life and education

Feinman was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in

Merrick, New York Merrick is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, on the South Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. , the population was 20,130. Geography According to the United States Census Bure ...

and attended John F. Kennedy High School. His father was a small business owner in New York City, his mother a bookkeeper and later a Nassau County Department of Social Services employee. Feinman earned an undergraduate degree in French literature from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1981. He attended the University of Minnesota Law School on a full scholarship.

Legal career

Feinman began his legal career as a

public defender A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Hungary and Singapore, ...

with the Legal Aid Society, working in Nassau County and then in New York City; at the time, the courts had a crowded criminal docket due to the

crack epidemic The crack epidemic was a surge of crack cocaine use in major cities across the United States throughout the entirety of the 1980s and the early 1990s. This resulted in a number of social consequences, such as increasing crime and violence in Ameri ...

. Feinman then served as

law clerk A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person, generally someone who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial clerks often play significant ...

to Justice

Angela Mazzarelli Angela Mazzarelli is an associate justice of the New York Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, First Judicial Department. Early life and education She attended the primary and secondary schools of the Southboro, Massachusetts Public School ...

for seven and a half years, from 1989 to 1996, first when Mazzarelli was on the state trial court bench and then when she was on the state Appellate Division. Feinman became involved in the L.G.B.T. Bar Association and in Democratic politics in the

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

neighborhoods of Chelsea and the West Village.

Judicial career

In 1996, he won an election to the New York City Civil Court bench, and at times was an acting

justice. In 2007, Feinman was elected to the Supreme Court; in 2012, Governor

Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( ; ; born December 6, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position that his father, Mario Cuo ...

elevated him to the

, First Department. Feinman was a member of the Supreme Court Justices Association of the State of New York, serving first as its first vice president and then as its president.Paul G. Feinman (’85) Confirmed to Serve on New York’s Highest Court
University of Minnesota Law School (June 22, 2017). Feinman also served as treasurer of the Citywide Association of Supreme Court Justices in New York, and was president of the International Association of LGBT Judges from 2008 to 2011. In June 2017, Cuomo nominated Feinman to the New York Court of Appeals, the state's

, to the seat left vacant by the death of

Sheila Abdus-Salaam Sheila Abdus-Salaam (; March 14, 1952 – April 12, 2017) was an American lawyer and judge. In 2013, after having served on the New York City Civil Court, the New York Supreme Court, and the Appellate Division, Abdus-Salaam was nominated t ...

. He was unanimously confirmed by the New York Senate the same month. Feinman was the first openly

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

person to serve on New York's highest court. Feinman was regarded as having a "thoughtful and methodical" judicial approach. Judge

David Saxe David Saxe (born August 29, 1969) is a Las Vegas Valley, Las Vegas-born Theatrical producer, show producer and theater owner. He is the owner of both the V Theater and the Saxe Theater. Early life and education Saxe was born on August 29, 196 ...

, who served alongside Feinman on the Appellate Division bench, considers Feinman "a moderate with progressive instincts."

Personal life

Feinman married web publisher Jay Robert Ostergaard in 2013. The couple lived on

Roosevelt Island Roosevelt Island is an island in New York City's East River, within the borough of Manhattan. It lies between Manhattan Island to the west, and the borough of Queens, on Long Island, to the east. Running from the equivalent of East 46th to 85 ...

. Feinman was a Francophile and fan of the

New York Mets The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major league ...

Health and death

Feinman was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2015. He abruptly retired from the Court of Appeals on March 23, 2021, due to health concerns. On March 31, 2021, he died from leukemia at a hospital in Manhattan at the age of 61.

References