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 1978 / Served to 2007

Joseph P. Sullivan

Justice, New York Appellate Division

Joseph P. Sullivan was a Justice of the New York Appellate Division, who joined the court in 1978. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1931 · age 95
Tenure: 1978–2007 · 29 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1978	New York Appellate Division	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Sullivan authored 217 published opinions for the court (1978–2007), plus 29 dissents and 8 concurrences. Most cited: In re Rodney J. (270 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. 254 of these were attributed to Sullivan 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
1985	In re Rodney J.†	108 A.D.2d 307	270
2004	People v. Kelly†	11 A.D.3d 133	248
2003	Excel Graphics Technologies, Inc. v. CFG/AGSCB 75 Ninth Avenue†	1 A.D.3d 65	204
1985	Gertler v. Goodgold†	107 A.D.2d 481	129
1982	Valentine v. City of New York†	86 A.D.2d 381	89
1984	Mortensen v. Memorial Hospital†	105 A.D.2d 151	87
2007	Buckley v. Columbia Grammar & Preparatory†	44 A.D.3d 263	82
1984	Maritime Fish Products, Inc. v. World-Wide Fish Products, Inc.†	100 A.D.2d 81	80
1983	Cale Development Co. v. Conciliation & Appeals Board†	94 A.D.2d 229	71
2007	Awards.com v. Kinko's, Inc.†	42 A.D.3d 178	69
2005	Shah v. Wilco Systems, Inc.†	27 A.D.3d 169	60
2004	Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. v. ICICI Bank Ltd.†	9 A.D.3d 171	56
2003	Heller v. Louis Provenzano, Inc.†	303 A.D.2d 20	55
1984	Freeze Right Refrigeration & Air Conditioning Services, Inc. v. City of New York†	101 A.D.2d 175	55
1985	Powers Mercantile Corp. v. Feinberg†	109 A.D.2d 117	54

Showing the 15 most-cited of 254 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 Joseph P. Sullivan on?: Joseph P. Sullivan was a 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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29 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).