Dennis Glazer.

ALBANY—A task force reconvened by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore to recommend changes to the state's constitution will be co-chaired by her husband.

Last week, DiFiore reconvened the panel after voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to hold a constitutional convention, which is presented to the electorate every 20 years. The task force was reconvened to examine changes to the state's “Byzantine” court system, DiFiore said.

The 15-member panel initially was created in July 2016 to determine whether holding a constitutional convention would be beneficial to the court. DiFiore's husband, Dennis Glazer, a retired Davis Polk & Wardwell partner, and Justice Alan Scheinkman, the administrative judge of the state's Ninth Judicial District, were named as co-chairs to the task force.

Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the state's court system defended Glazer's appointment as co-chair, saying he “brings nearly 40 years of experienced legal practice to the table, he is one of 14 members of a very distinguished and accomplished panel, who will decide on what reforms to recommend.”

“As a pro bono service, we are not aware any prohibitions that would preclude his participating,” Chalfen added.

Glazer, an adjunct professor at St. John's University School of Law, told the New York Law Journal Wednesday afternoon that he has “great respect and affection for the New York Constitution,” but would like to see “possible improvements.”

In an interview last year with the New York Law Journal when DiFiore initially convened the task force, Glazer said he's “reporting to her for 35 years as my wife, and I will not change that here.”

Glazer said then that he's been interested in the state constitution and that his wife recruited him for the panel. “She said to me, 'If you are so interested in it, I think you and Judge Scheinkman would make a good team,'” Glazer told the New York Law Journal last year.

The reconvened panel of judges, attorneys and academics will study legislative reforms in an effort to “reduce delays, make the courts more efficient, reduce costs to the litigants and improve the quality of justice,” Scheinkman told the New York Law Journal last week.