Passed both houses, signed by the governor:

• A9652/S6687. Bars New York judges from enforcing libel judgments secured by plaintiffs in foreign courts where freedom-of-speech protections are less stringent than in the United States. The new law is in response to the Court of Appeals’ ruling in Ehrenfeld v. Mahfouz, 9 NY3d 501 (2007), in which the state’s long-arm statute was found to not apply to a Saudi businessman who won a libel judgment against a New York author who linked him to terrorists.

• A6645/S3228. Allows two or more adjacent towns to elect one justice to preside over their town courts.

• A8858/S5966. Revokes wills upon the annulment or dissolution of marriages, unless wills specifically provide otherwise.

• A10522/S7528. Criminalizes use, possession or manufacture of plastic knuckles in the same way brass or metal knuckles are now penalized. Sponsors said plastic knuckles are as dangerous as metal ones, but can be taken through security checkpoints without setting off metal detectors.

Passed both houses, vetoed by the governor:

• A9641/S6906. Requires courts give prompt notification to domestic violence victims when orders of protection have been issued in their cases. Governor David Paterson cited flaws in the legislation, including the failure to subject orders of protection issued in Family Court to the requirement, for the veto.

Passed both houses, not yet sent to the governor:

• A7863/S5565. Gives state court officers status as police officers. Proponents say the change would provide court officers better training and more access to federal funding for equipment.

• A10869/S2382. Increases value of a “small” estate for purposes of expedited administration of estates from $20,000 to $30,000.

• A10471/S7273. Restores authority to state troopers to plea-bargain traffic tickets with motorists in court. Governors Pataki and Spitzer vetoed similar bills in 2005 and 2007, respectively.

• A9727/S6731. Allows state parole board to discharge from parole supervision offenders serving indeterminate sentences with a maximum of life if in the “best interest of society.” Boards had that discretion between 1930 and 1998 for offenders who had met conditions of their parole for at least three years.

• A9949/S4332. Requires registration with state sex offender registry those convicted of federal offenses of transportation of minors, coercion and enticement, and the use of interstate facilities to transmit information about a minor.

• A10817/S8143. Mandates that property owners be given 90-day notices of impending foreclosures, establishes crime of residential mortgage fraud and mandates that property owners be given the opportunity for court-administered pre-foreclosure conferences. The bill also gives property owners access to $25 million in state-funded legal assistance during the foreclosure process.

• A11707/S8665. Allows Family Courts to issue civil orders of protection against boyfriends, girlfriends and other non-family acquaintances of domestic violence victims.

• A11764/S8714. Establishes procedures for review of court and prison records to determine if terms of post-release supervision were pronounced properly, according to Court of Appeals’ rulings in Matter of Garner v. New York State Dept. of Correctional Services, 2008 N.Y. Slip Op 03947, and People v. Sparber, 2008 N.Y. Slip Op 3946. Also establishes time limits for the resentencing of defendants, if necessary.

• A11743/S8699. Explicitly prohibits attorneys in private practice from being enrolled in public pension funds if they are not government employees and increases from a misdemeanor to a Class E felony the punishment for improperly receiving pension credits or pension benefits of $1,000 or more

• A4425/S2978. Provides child protective services workers access to state criminal history databases to run background checks of people living in households involved in child abuse complaints.

• A11657/S8569. Requires courts to review databases containing orders of protection, warrants of arrest and sex offender registries before issuing orders of custody or visitation.

• A11541/S8610. Prohibits an insurance carrier from denying coverage solely due to filing late notice of claim by a policyholder, as long as the insurer is not “materially prejudiced” by the delay.

• A11715/S8661. Authorizes administrative board of the courts to establish statewide procedures for jury selection in civil trials. The measure superseded another bill (A8964) that would have set the new procedures legislatively, including a provision that guaranteed that jury selection last at least two court days before judges intervene to set time limits.

Passed one house:

• A8157/S4632. Corrects unconstitutional sentencing deficiencies in the capital punishment statute. (Passed Senate)

• S6414. Reestablishes death penalty only for the killing of police officers and other law enforcement personnel. (Passed Senate)

• A8691/S5256. Prohibits parties in medical malpractice actions from conducting ex parte interviews with non-party, treating physicians when preparing their cases. The measure is designed to undo the Court of Appeals ruling in Arons v. Jutkowitz, 9 NY3d 393 (2007), in which the Court found defense attorneys may ask judges to waive federal medical confidentiality rules to conduct the interviews. (Passed Assembly)

• A10616/S6900. Overhauls state court system’s 99-year-old protocols for how to continue functioning during a catastrophic man-made or natural disaster. (Passed Assembly)

• A11142/S6754. Authorizes 10 state Supreme Court justices in the new Thirteenth Judicial District, encompassing Staten Island, and increases from 49 to 52 the Supreme Court justices authorized for the Second Judicial District. (Passed Senate)

• A10814/S6899. Requires parties in divorce proceedings to attest to their understanding of how their health insurance benefits would be affected by a divorce decree. (Passed Assembly)

Passed neither house:

• A10615/S7587. Adds 39 Family Court judgeships around the state.

• A3950/S2067. Reauthorizes the use of cameras and recording devices in New York courts at the discretion of trial judges.

• A9087/S4311. Provides $6 million to establish a commission to oversee criminal legal services for the indigent on a statewide basis.

• A9974/5848. Allows for collection of DNA samples from “designated offenders” – suspects who have not yet been convicted of crimes.

• A4978/S2800. Prohibits recognition of same-sex marriages solemnized in other states or countries.

• S5994. Prohibits denial of a marriage license in New York to a same-sex couple.

(SOURCE: New York Senate and Assembly)

The Legislature did approve 13 bills proposed by the Office of Court Administration and an assortment of other measures affecting the law and the courts, including bills to reclassify the state’s 4,000 court officers as police officers and to restore the authority of state troopers to plea-bargain traffic tickets with motorists.

Most of the bills approved by the Legislature in its final flurry of work before concluding the regular session June 24 have yet to be sent to Mr. Paterson for approval or veto.

Ms. Weinstein said the bill she negotiated with the Senate in April to create 39 new Family Court judgeships by 2010 was one casualty of the fiscal uncertainty.

Though Mr. Paterson expressed support for relieving pressure on Family Courts, his failure to support the long-awaited creation of new judgeships was a “question of dollars,” Ms. Weinstein said. OCA estimates that each new Family Court judgeship costs the state about $1 million a year in salaries, benefits and office expenses.

Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau said she is concerned about additional burdens the Legislature placed on Family Courts this session, especially given the failure of the bill authorizing new judges.

Measures passed in 2008 would empower Family Courts to issue civil orders of protection against the non-family members of domestic violence victims and require courts to make background checks of the state sex offender registry and other criminal databases prior to issuing orders of custody.

“We were disappointed with not getting any new Family Court judges,” Judge Pfau said. “Family Court couldn’t be much busier.”

There are currently 127 Family Court judges in the state.

Court administrators are also concerned about the impact of a new mandate, contained in the Legislature’s response to the subprime mortgage crisis, that parties facing foreclosure be given pre-foreclosure settlement conferences in court, Judge Pfau said. Administrators will monitor the new procedures to see if they are onerous on the courts, she added.

Civil Legal Services

The shaky economy prompted one of the New York State Bar Association’s most urgent lobbying efforts in 2008 to prevent funding for civil legal services for the indigent from drying up, said Bernice K. Leber, the group’s president.

Mr. Spitzer had put a token amount, $1 million, into his 2008-09 state budget for such services in the belief that a surge in income in the Interest on Lawyer Account Fund would make up most or all of what had been a record $15.3 million in spending last year on civil legal services for the poor.

Instead, income in IOLA began to falter due to low interest rates and the turmoil in the real estate industry. Ms. Leber said lobbying by the bar association helped get the Legislature to allocate $7.3 million for civil legal services in the 2008-09 budget.

“It’s been a tough year all around economically,” said Ms. Leber , a partner at Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin & Kahn. “The state is losing 20 percent of its revenues on which it depends due to the financial services industry and the downturn in the housing market. It’s just a tough year.”

Ms. Leber said her group successfully helped to get Mr. Paterson to drop an effort begun under Mr. Spitzer to have IOLA’s executive director selected by the governor. Opponents had argued that the independence of the fund, made up of interest paid by banks on attorney escrow accounts, would have been compromised by the governor gaining appointment power.

Change in Tone

Mr. Paterson was widely credited with a change in tone at the Capitol beginning March 17, when he was sworn in as governor following Mr. Spitzer’s resignation for being involved with a prostitution ring. In particular, Mr. Paterson made peace with Mr. Spitzer’s nemesis, Senate Republican Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, and sought to reach accommodations with the Legislature rather than to criticize it, as was Mr. Spitzer’s style.

Before Mr. Spitzer’s political implosion, “nothing at all was happening because there were no discussions, let alone negotiations, between the Legislature and the governor’s office,” said Senator John A. DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse.

“I think that changed quite abruptly when Governor Paterson came into office and at least a few of these issues were resolved,” said Mr. DeFrancisco. “I think that many more of these would have been resolved if there had been a modicum of relations with the governor’s office under the previous governor. But there wasn’t. Everything was political and everything was a fight.”

Neither Mr. Spitzer nor Mr. Bruno lasted the 2008 legislative session, as it turned out. Mr. Bruno, 79, surprised his colleagues by announcing his retirement from the Senate and resigned as majority leader June 24. He is expected to quit the Senate before the November elections, possibly by the end of this month.

Senator Dean G. Skelos of Rockville Centre, an attorney, was elected by Senate Republicans to succeed Mr. Bruno as majority leader.

Mr. DeFrancisco said negotiations went down to the wire on several issues before the Legislature concluded its session, including possible medical malpractice reforms. He denied that Mr. Bruno’s abrupt departure or the extended tribute Mr. Bruno received in the Senate on the final night of the session derailed any last-minute deal making.

“I don’t really think Senator Bruno’s announcement, which shocked everybody, really had a bearing on not closing the issues because his team was still involved in the negotiations. We ran out of time because we had a very poor start,” said Mr. DeFrancisco, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman.

Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, D-Brooklyn, said Mr. Paterson was unlikely to have pursued an aggressive legislative agenda on legal issues or any other policy area given his sudden ascension as governor and the state’s economic condition.

“I honestly believe that Governor Paterson did not want to be very ambitious in his program,” said Mr. Lentol, the Codes Committee chairman in the Assembly. “I got the impression that he wanted to step back, to do what he thought was necessary this year, not to try to pass a very ambitious program but to learn the way the process works. He went very slowly and deliberately.”

Mr. Lentol said that among the bills Mr. Paterson was not inclined to champion in his first year was Mr. Lentol’s measure to begin creation of a statewide commission to provide criminal legal services to the indigent. The state system would replace the current county-based system.

“I didn’t think that this governor wanted to tackle that and we, meaning Assembly Democrats, really didn’t take him on over it,” Mr. Lentol said. “I suspect that he will be on the right side of this issue and we’ll be pushing it again next year.”

Assemblywoman Weinstein took a similar wait-till-next-year attitude toward her bill to create the 39 new Family Court slots. But she argued that tight budgets and sagging state revenues should not be used as an excuse for failing to establish new judgeships.

“The need for additional Family Court judges, I don’t believe, should be withheld pending a turnaround in the economy,” she said. “We can’t tell children they shouldn’t be abused because we don’t have enough Family Court judges or delay permanency hearings or say we can’t issue orders of protection because we don’t have enough Family Court judges.”

- Joel Stashenko can be reached at [email protected].