With Sheldon Silver no longer at the helm of the state Assembly, criminal justice and court advocates say they're anxious about how new leadership in the chamber will affect the judiciary, civil and criminal legal services providers and other areas of the legal system.

The observers also wondered whether the possible election of the first non-attorney as speaker since the Watergate era would lessen the general sensitivity they say the Assembly has shown to the defense bar and to legal services providers under Silver and the four attorney-legislators who have held the speakership before him.

Silver, 70, said he would not interfere with the selection but would not resign his Assembly seat from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He was named in a five-count complaint of trading on his Assembly office by accepting millions of dollars in fees from two law firms for which he did no bona fide legal work (NYLJ, Jan. 23).