Justices O. Peter Sherwood and Marcy Friedman, two longtime Manhattan Supreme Court Commercial Division judges, have announced that they will retire from the bench, potentially leaving their important Commercial Division roles handling Wall Street-based and other complex business litigation at a time when the state judiciary is facing a hiring freeze due to a dramatic $300 million budget cut.

At the same time, Justice Saliann Scarpulla recently moved from the Manhattan Commercial Division court to the Appellate Division, First Department court, thereby leaving another vacancy on a Manhattan Commercial Division that normally has eight justices who share a large and constantly added-to docket filled with high-value cases.