The Appellate Division, Second Department reached a historical milestone on Sept. 9, seating its first all-African American panel of judges to hear oral arguments.

Associate Justice Valerie Brathwaite Nelson, who has served on the midlevel appeals court since April 2016, presided over the four-justice panel, which included Justice Cheryl Chambers, who in February 2008 became the second female African American justice on the Brooklyn-based court.