How do judges of the New York Appellate Division reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

New York Appellate Division / Joined 2016 / Served to 2020

Ellen Frances Gesmer

Associate Justice, New York Appellate Division

Ellen Frances Gesmer was an Associate Justice of the New York Appellate Division (18 judges, selected by gubernatorial appointment), who joined the court in 2016. She previously served on the The Criminal Court of the City of New York, New York, New York Supreme Court, Bronx County, New York Supreme Court, New York County and New York Supreme Court. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1950 · age 76
Tenure: 2016–2020 · 4 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2006	The Criminal Court of the City of New York, New York	–	–
2006	New York Supreme Court, Bronx County	–	–
2009	New York Supreme Court, New York County	–	–
2009	New York Supreme Court	–	–
2011	New York Supreme Court, New York County	–	–
2012	New York Supreme Court, New York County	–	–
2016	New York Appellate Division	–	–
2021	New York Supreme Court, New York County	–	–
2021	New York Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Harvard University	summa cum laude	1971
Yale University		1976

Judicial Record

In our data, Gesmer authored 13 published opinions for the court (2016–2026), plus 13 dissents. Most cited: Bank of America, National Ass'n v. Brannon (53 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 15 of these were attributed to Gesmer by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2017	Bank of America, National Ass'n v. Brannon· Dissent†	2017 NY Slip Op 7578	53
2017	Emigrant Bank v. Rosabianca· Dissent†	2017 NY Slip Op 8716	26
2017	Matter of Ruth Joanna O.O. (Melissa O.)· Dissent†	2017 NY Slip Op 1524	21
2017	Keller-Goldman v. Goldman· Dissent†	2017 NY Slip Op 2723	16
2017	Dixon v. 105 West 75th Street LLC· Dissent†	2017 NY Slip Op 2504	14
2017	Trust for the Benefit of Goldstein v. Lipetz· Dissent†	2017 NY Slip Op 4070	12
2017	Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos v. New York City Police Department· Dissent†	2017 NY Slip Op 4408	11
2017	Matter of Lisa T. v. King E.T.· Dissent†	2017 NY Slip Op 1487	8
2017	Matter of Friends of P.S. 163, Inc. v. Jewish Home Lifecare, Manhattan· Dissent†	2017 NY Slip Op 383	6
2016	People v. Wiggins· Dissent†	143 A.D.3d 451	6
2016	Matter of Rossakis v. New York State Bd. of Parole†	2016 NY Slip Op 7415	5
2017	People v. Hill· Dissent†	2017 NY Slip Op 4236	3
2017	People v. Kahson B.· Dissent†	2017 NY Slip Op 1265	3
2026	Matter of Natalie P. v. Steven L.R.	2026 NY Slip Op 02458	1
2023	People v. Woody	2023 NY Slip Op 01263	1

Showing the 15 most-cited of 26 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the New York Appellate Division reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court was Ellen Frances Gesmer on?: Ellen Frances Gesmer was an Associate Justice of the New York Appellate Division.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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4 years on the New York Appellate Division. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).