How do judges of the New York Court of Appeals reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

New York Court of Appeals / Joined 2013 / Served to 2017

Sheila Abdus-Salaam

Judge, New York Court of Appeals

Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, who joined the court in 2013. She previously served on the New York Appellate Division. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1952–2017
Tenure: 2013–2017 · 4 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2009	New York Appellate Division	–	–
2013	New York Court of Appeals	–	–

Education

Barnard College
Columbia University in the City of New York
Barnard College

Judicial Record

In our data, Abdus-Salaam authored 34 published opinions for the court (2014–2017), plus 9 dissents and 6 concurrences. Most cited: Maria De Lourdes Torres v. Police Officer Jones (488 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. 49 of these were attributed to Abdus-Salaam 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
2016	Maria De Lourdes Torres v. Police Officer Jones†	26 N.Y.3d 742	488
2016	Doctor Fred L. Pasternack v. Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings†	27 N.Y.3d 817	485
2017	The People v. Michael Pena†	28 N.Y.3d 727	430
2016	Wally G., an Infant,by His Mother and Natural Guardian, Yoselin T. v. New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (Metropolitan Hospital)· Dissent†	27 N.Y.3d 672	307
2015	Wolfgang Doerr v. Daniel Goldsmith / Cheryl Dobinski v. George O. Lockhart· Concurrence†	25 N.Y.3d 1114	287
2017	Carol Artibee v. Home Place Corporation· Dissent†	28 N.Y.3d 739	259
2016	Millennium Holdings, LLC v. The Glidden Company†	27 N.Y.3d 406	257
2016	The People v. Christian Williams†	27 N.Y.3d 212	252
2015	The Matter of Walter E. Carver v. State of New York· Dissent†	26 N.Y.3d 272	251
2015	Viviane Etienne Medical Care v. Country-Wide Ins.†	25 N.Y.3d 498	245
2016	The People v. Charles Smith The People v. Tyrell Ingram , The People v.Isma McGhee†	27 N.Y.3d 652	203
2015	The People v. Nugene Ambers†	26 N.Y.3d 313	134
2015	In the Matter of Veronica P. v. Radcliff A.†	24 N.Y.3d 668	122
2016	Stacy S. Killon v. Robert A. Parrotta†	28 N.Y.3d 101	100
2015	The Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board v. Leon Snow v. The Estate of Clark Flesher· Dissent†	26 N.Y.3d 466	91

Showing the 15 most-cited of 49 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 Court of Appeals reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court was Sheila Abdus-Salaam on?: Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a Judge of the New York Court of Appeals.

Sources

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

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