The Asian American Judges Association of New York (AAJANY) hosted its annual gala dinner at HK Hall in Midtown Manhattan this week, honoring several notable members of Queens’ courts.
It was a night celebrating how quickly association members and the AAPI community have gained representation in recent years. Still, the night also served as an acknowledgment that there’s more work to be done to reach true Asian American representation on the state’s bench.
According to data from the Unified Court System’s (UCS) Judicial Demographics Report, an annual survey conducted since 2020 categorizing the demographics of New York judges, around 5% of respondents self-identified as Asian in 2024; in New York City, just under 11%…