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 1956 / Served to 1966

Francis L. Valente

Justice, New York Appellate Division

Francis L. Valente was a Justice of the New York Appellate Division, who joined the court in 1956. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1906–1966
Tenure: 1956–1966 · 10 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1956	New York Appellate Division	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Valente authored 66 published opinions for the court (1956–1965), plus 66 dissents and 5 concurrences. Most cited: Rios v. Donovan (130 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. 136 of these were attributed to Valente 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
1964	Rios v. Donovan†	21 A.D.2d 409	130
1962	I. H. P. Corp. v. 210 Central Park South Corp.	16 A.D.2d 461	40
1957	In re the Arbitration between Cross & Brown Co. & Nelson†	4 A.D.2d 501	33
1965	Fallone v. Misericordia Hospital†	23 A.D.2d 222	26
1964	Sheets v. Sheets†	22 A.D.2d 176	25
1958	Graceland Corp. v. Consolidated Laundries Corp.· Dissent†	7 A.D.2d 89	25
1965	Schwartz v. Schwartz†	23 A.D.2d 204	22
1962	In re the Arbitration between Cross Properties, Inc. & Gimbel Bros.· Dissent†	15 A.D.2d 913	22
1960	In re the Arbitration between Milliken Woolens, Inc. & Weber Knit Sportswear, Inc.†	11 A.D.2d 166	22
1964	Coffey v. Orbachs, Inc.†	22 A.D.2d 317	21
1963	People ex rel. Van Der Beek v. McCloskey†	18 A.D.2d 205	20
1961	Lesron Junior, Inc. v. Feinberg· Dissent†	13 A.D.2d 90	20
1964	Lane v. Mercury Record Corp.†	21 A.D.2d 602	18
1964	Dorsey Products Corp. v. United States Rubber Co.· Dissent†	21 A.D.2d 866	18
1960	Zaulich v. Thompkins Square Holding Co.†	10 A.D.2d 492	18

Showing the 15 most-cited of 137 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 Francis L. Valente on?: Francis L. Valente was a Justice of the New York Appellate Division.

Sources

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

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10 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).