Joni Kletter Joni Kletter

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday was set to name Joni Kletter, a former labor lawyer and head of the Mayor's Office of Appointments, to serve as commissioner and chief judge of the city's Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings.

In her dual role, Kletter will lead an office of 300 full-time and 300 part-time employees, while also managing a bench of 12 administrative law judges assigned to hear a wide range of disciplinary disputes, as well as licensing and real estate issues referred by city agencies.

She is set to succeed Fidel Del Valle, who retired from the post in August 2019. Tynia Richard, a deputy commissioner and general counsel who has been with OATH since 2003, had been serving in an acting capacity.

"Joni is a one-of-a-kind public servant who has helped build a team of leaders who are dedicated to our key mission: making this city fairer for all. Now, I am thrilled to welcome her as Commissioner and Chief Administrative Law Judge of OATH, where she will continue her good work by ensuring our administrative courts are just and fair, and all New Yorkers are heard," de Blasio said in a statement.

As OATH commissioner and city's top administrative judge, Kletter will oversee a central and independent court that adjudicates summonses issued by 25 different city enforcement agencies for alleged violations of law or city rules.

Prior to serving as the director appointments, Kletter served as first deputy director and counsel in the Mayor's Office for City Legislative Affairs, where she aided in negotiating city legislation and helped agencies, including OATH, prepare for City Council hearings.

A graduate of Yale University and Cardozo School of Law, Kletter clerked for U.S. District Judge Robert M. Levy of the Eastern District of New York, and later worked for 8 1/2 years as a labor and employment attorney with Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, where she represented unions and often appeared in front of OATH judges.

Kletter said in an interview that, like her predecessor, she plans to personally oversee cases, in part to gain a better understanding of the types of issues administrative law judges encounter on a regular basis.

"To get the full idea of what they're doing, you have to be taking cases yourself," she said.

Kletter also said she hopes to build on the success of OATH's Center for Creative Conflict Resolution, which serves as a resource for the city government, its agencies, employees and unions. Kletter said she hopes expand the mediation unit to include re-zoning disputes and to work with the city Law Department in an effort to avoid the added time an expense of taking cases to trial.

"I'd like to look at how we can expand the mediation unit to serve the public more generally," Kletter said.

"When you put the time in at the beginning … you end up saving yourself so much time at the end because you avoid a trial."

Kletter said she hoped spend her first 30 days assessing the office, meeting with senior staff and "getting to know people," a goal that could be complicated as officials continue to combat the spread of COVID-19, the disease associated with the novel coronavirus.

Already, she said, a number of OATH hearings were taking place remotely, and cases were being adjourned without penalty. The agency is also granting all requests to reschedule summonses, regardless of any previous case delays.

In recent years, OATH has emphasized the use of remote hearings, conducting more than 20,000 "one-click" online hearings in 2019 and 5,500 by phone, according to statistics provided by the agency.

"This is a situation that's changing hour by hour," Kletter said. "All of us are still figuring out what our work situations are looking like."

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