It was a banner year for the New York City Bar Association's legislative priorities, aided in part by Democratic control of the state Legislature for the first time in nearly a decade, but an ambitious agenda of outstanding issues remain for attorneys involved with the organization.

Among those is a bill that would allow women to act as paid surrogates for those who physically can't have children, which comes with a myriad of legal issues, and the evergreen topic of reforming the state's convoluted trial court system.

Both of those issues will have to wait until next year's legislative session, which begins in January. But looking back at the last six months, the City Bar was able to check a lot of boxes that have been on their list of priorities for some time now.

“We're just so thrilled that many of the long-standing bills we've been supporting for years and years came to fruition,” said NYC Bar Association president Roger Juan Maldonado.

The City Bar started this year's legislative session advocating for a series of bills that, fortunate for them, also had support among Democrats. After last year's elections, Democrats gained a solid majority in both houses of the state Legislature for the first time since 2009. 

Lawmakers immediately started passing legislation that had stalled among their Republican counterparts in recent years. Many of those bills lined up with the legislative priorities of the NYC Bar.

“People are now listening to us and looking to work with us in ways that had been less true before,” Maldonado said. “That change in circumstances led to greater receptivity at both the legislative and executive level.”

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Big Accomplishments

Reform of the state's voting laws, for example, was among the top priorities of the organization at the beginning of the year. Maldonado pegged it at the top of their list in a previous interview with the New York Law Journal previewing their planned advocacy efforts for the year. 

They didn't have to wait long. Two weeks into this year's legislative session, Democrats approved a series of voting reforms, including early voting and consolidating the state's primary elections from two separate events to one day in June.

In the three months that followed, lawmakers passed several of the other legislative priorities the NYC Bar had outlined at the start of the year.

The Legislature approved a bill that enshrined and expanded abortion protections provided by Roe v. Wade into state law, so they would remain in New York if a future U.S. Supreme Court reversed the landmark decision. They also outlawed discrimination against individuals based on their gender expression.

Both of those changes were rooted more in civil practice than the state's criminal procedure law, though the Legislature approved a handful of changes in the latter area that were also priorities of the NYC Bar.

This year's state budget included major changes to the state's laws concerning criminal discovery, the right to a speedy trial, and cash bail. Lawmakers moved, for the first time, to eliminate cash bail in New York for most lower level charges, while keeping the option for more serious crimes.

“We were thrilled with the criminal justice reforms, bail reform in particular, the fact that we're moving away from cash bail in low-level cases,” Maldonado said.

A lesser-known bill was also approved that will allow judges to avoid a mistrial in some cases by providing more flexibility over jury deliberations. The legislation would allow jury deliberations to be suspended until the close of business on the second day after a recess, rather than only 24 hours later. Defendants could also consent to a longer suspension if there's good cause.

“The judge, rather than declaring a mistrial, can take other measures, which we think is excellent in terms of judicial efficiency and fairness,” Maldonado said.

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Looking Forward

There's already a long list of legislative priorities teed up for the NYC Bar for the coming legislative session, like reforms to the state's laws on class action lawsuits, gestational surrogacy and trial court reform.

The first among those issues may be the least-discussed among those outside the legal industry, but Maldonado said it's been a crucial issue for them for quite some time. 

“When New York first enacted its class action legislation, it was at the forefront of designing class actions,” Maldonado said. “What's happened is that we've done nothing to change the law and many states and the federal system have passed us by.”

The changes they're seeking are modest compared to other reforms. They support aligning notice requirements for class actions with what's required at the federal level and providing more guidance over the appointment of class counsel. They're also seeking more flexibility over the state's current 60-day cap for moving to certify a class.

That's one of a handful of reforms the New York City Bar has supported for more than a decade. Also on that list is a major overhaul of the state's trial court system, which has been discussed among the legal community and state court officials since the 1990s. 

Chief Judge Janet DiFiore turned a spotlighted on the issue in her State of the Judiciary Address this year, calling on the Legislature to enact a law that would consolidate the state's trial courts into two tiers, rather than the 11 entities that make up that level now. Those include the state Supreme Court, the Court of Claims, and several others.

But the idea has failed to gain steam among state lawmakers, who would have to enact the change legislatively. State Sen. Brad Hoylman, D-Manhattan, and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, D-Bronx, both chair the judiciary committees in their respective chambers and support the idea, but their colleagues have been harder to convince. 

Maldonado said the rest of the Legislature likely won't take the issue seriously until they realize how it could benefit their constituents, who may find the state's current system more complicated than it needs to be.

“The goal is to have litigants, not just litigators, have a much more fluid and predictable process of having their claims resolved in the court system,” Maldonado said. “So, if the legislators understand this is something that will help their constituents, as opposed to just the lawyers bringing claims, I think that would be an important piece.”

They'll also be advocating again next year for the legalization of gestational surrogacy, which failed when Democrats in the Assembly balked at some of its features. Some argued there weren't enough protections in the proposed bill for women who act as surrogates. Others were worried it was a slippery slope for the commercialization of female bodies.

Maldonado said they had the same discussion internally at the NYC Bar, but ultimately agreed to back the legislation because of the various legal protections included in the bill. Each surrogate is required to have an attorney throughout the process, for example. That lawyer would be paid for by the intended parents, but chosen by the surrogate.

“It's a societal problem that can not be resolved without having some amount of give by one side or another,” Maldonado said. “Our goal is to make the process subject to both legislation and regulation in ways that best protect all the stakeholders”

That's a position that was also taken by the New York State Bar Association and the Women's Bar Association, according to Elizabeth Kocienda, director of advocacy at the City Bar.

“There's a level of consensus, at least among the Bar groups, that the scheme that they've laid out in the legislation is strong and provides a lot of really important protections to both sides,” Kocienda said.

They'll likely have more legislative priorities by the end of the year, Maldonado said. They rely on the various committees within the NYC Bar to develop their advocacy efforts, and the groups aren't expected to convene to discuss any changes until later this year.

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