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Dorothy Chin Brandt ’74 (1946–2025)
Chin Brandt earned her J.D. from BLS in 1974 and went on to become the first Asian American woman judge in New York State and the first elected Asian American public official in the state. Elected to the New York City Civil Court in 1987, she later served on the New York City Criminal Court and was appointed Acting Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, Queens County Criminal Term, in 2001, a position she held until her retirement in 2017. Across three decades of public service, Chin Brandt worked to confront racism and sexism within the legal system and to open doors for those who followed. She was a founder of the Franklin H. Williams Judicial Commission, the nation’s first court-based body dedicated to racial and ethnic fairness in the courts and helped establish the Chinese Lawyers Association. Honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Organization of Chinese Americans in 2019, she continued mentoring young lawyers and advocating for diversity after leaving the bench.
Keywords
New York State Supreme Court, Asian American Judges, Female Judges, New York City Civil Court, Criminal Court, Queens County, Civil Rights