Helping people solve the problems they can’t on their own isManhattan Civil Supreme Court Administrative Justice Suzanne Adams’ favorite part of her job. It’s a job she takes very seriously, she said, and doing it well requires “bringing a human element” to the bench.

Adams said she brings that critical humanity to the judiciary by doing what she can to increase its diversity, educating herself and Manhattan’s judges on the city’s wide swath of cultures and letting everyday conversations she has with strangers on the subways and the youth she mentors inform the way she leads the court.

“It’s always important for judges to be listening and learning because our responsibility is so great,” Adams said. “When people come to you and ask you to apply the law to their problem, that is an awesome responsibility. I take it as a serious, serious responsibility to be the person who’s going to make a decision.”

Before rising to her current position overseeing Manhattan Civil Supreme Court as its administrative judge — a role she likened to that of a school principal — Adams served on the Manhattan Criminal Court bench and as a Manhattan Family Court judge before moving to the Manhattan Civil Supreme Court bench.

At the Supreme Court, she primarily heard cases related to the city’s transit system and the Adult Survivor Act, which temporarily removed the statute of limitations for sexual assault, allowing people to sue over abuse they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to.

“I saw how a good judge could change people’s lives,” said Adams, who was an attorney for about 20 years before being elected to the bench in 2017. “That’s what propelled me to the judiciary.”

The first time she saw what a good judge could do, she said, was when she was 14 years old and tagged along with her father, then Nassau County District JudgeThomas Adams, to watch him preside over his courtroom one night.

“I thought, ‘What a wonderful job, that he had the ability to help people solve problems they were unable to on their own,’” she said of watching her dad work.

As an attorney, Adams said it became incredibly clear to her the difference a good judge – one who listens, who’s kind, who shows up prepared – could make. She spent just under 15 years at insurance defense firmMorris Duffy Alonso & Faley, where she was a partner, before serving as a managing partner atMcManus Ateshoglou Adams Aiello & Apostolakos, a firm she helped found in 2015.

After a few years practicing law, Adams, a Hofstra Law School graduate, realized she eventually wanted to devote her life to being “the kind of judge you wanted to appear before.”

Source: LI Press