Mamdani taps Brennan Center's Douglas Keith to run the panel that vets NYC's Criminal and Family Court judges

Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday named Douglas Keith, a longtime court reform researcher at the Brennan Center for Justice, as executive director and senior legal officer of the Mayor's Advisory Committee on the Judiciary, the Mayor's Office announced. The committee screens candidates for the judgeships the mayor fills: Criminal Court and Family Court judges, plus interim Civil Court judges. It then recommends nominees to the mayor.

Keith has been deputy director of the Brennan Center's Judiciary Program since 2015, where he led research and advocacy on judicial selection, judicial elections, ethics and court independence. He is also a co-founding editor of State Court Report, the center's publication on state courts. He holds a law degree from NYU and a bachelor's degree from Duke, according to the release.

Why the job matters

The executive director is the committee's counsel and gatekeeper on ethics. Under the committee's first publicly available code of conduct, members must disclose any actual or perceived conflict with a candidate to the executive director, who has "sole discretion" to decide whether the member must step aside from the evaluation and vote. The panel has 19 members, attorneys and former judges, amNewYork reported. The code also says:

• members may not contribute to or raise money for judicial campaigns while serving;
• members are not eligible for the judgeships the committee screens for during their term and for two years after;
• the chair may not appear as counsel in Criminal Court or Family Court;
• offers of favors from candidates or their advocates must be reported to the executive director.

"I am looking forward to facilitating a process that ensures the judiciary has the independence it needs to do its vital work, that ensures the city's courts reflect the diverse public that they serve, and that is worthy of the public trust," Keith said in the release.

The City Bar is back in the process

The administration also signed a new agreement restoring the New York City Bar Association's independent review of judicial candidates, a step the previous administration had ended, the Mayor's Office said. Under the agreement, which formalizes the bar's role for the first time, the City Bar's Judiciary Committee will independently evaluate candidates referred by the mayor's committee and provide ratings. Stuart Slotnick, who chairs that committee, said the first tranche of candidates has already been reviewed.

The committee is chaired by attorney Ali Najmi, whom Mamdani appointed on his second day in office along with an executive order directing the committee to reach a broader cross-section of lawyers, including public defenders and attorneys for parents and children in Family Court. The order also requires the committee to publish demographic data on applicants and create a searchable public database of upcoming appointments. Keith will work under Ramzi Kassem, the mayor's chief counsel. Mamdani has made three new judicial appointments so far, Cary Fischer, Natalie Barros and Andrés Casas, plus nine reappointments, the release said. Chief Administrative Judge Joseph Zayas welcomed Keith's appointment, according to the release.