On Wednesday, for the first time in the court's history, the Appellate Term, Second Department empaneled three women of color to hear oral arguments. Presiding Justice Michelle Weston and Justices Wavny Toussaint and Chereé A. Buggs sat for proceedings at the Appellate Division, Second Department's stately Brooklyn Heights courthouse. Weston used her opening remarks to recognize the significance of the panel and pay homage to the first all-female panel in 2021, when Justice Donna Golia joined the court. And she noted that the past year has been transformational for the appointment of jurists who break the traditional mold of who has been allowed to take the bench. "History is changing rapidly," Weston said in prepared remarks. "This year as we know the esteemed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. There was a sense of pride that a woman of color who looks like the Judges on this panel rose to the highest court in our country. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., we are not makers of history, we are made by history." The Appellate Term takes appeals from civil and criminal courts in New York City and surrounding suburban counties. Much of its caseload involves landlord-tenant disputes and first-party, no-fault benefit litigation, according to the New York State Bar Association.