“The good fortune, privilege and the honor of being a family court judge is making decisions that have a day-to-day, immediate and long-term impact on people’s lives. You could not ask for, I think, a better job. I sometimes don’t want to even call it a job,” Shim said.
Addressing the group of young law-curious students ranging from high school age to second-year law students who have been working in the courts this summer, Shim emphasized that his path to the judiciary was not clear-cut, and that he would have been drawn to family court much earlier — but was totally unfamiliar with it at the beginning of his career.
When Shim graduated from Albany Law School, he was mono-focused on becoming a corporate litigator and spent years handling complex commercial cases. He cut his teeth on a case representing a company over a $450 million in asset disclosure against the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, where he was working a back-breaking six-to-seven days a week. He went on to join a firm in Nassau County representing Fortune 500 companies for a number of years.
While the quick pace, competition, and pay of commercial law was alluring, Shim described himself growing deeply dissatisfied with its impact. He had something resembling an epiphany when he found himself spending months suing a paint manufacturer because the paint had peeled in a warehouse and caused food in storage to spoil.
“It occurred to me what I was doing there that I was not literally watching paint dry, but I was actually sitting there suing for millions of dollars worth of paint,” Shim said. “It really was a turning point in my life. I was saying, ‘What am I doing with my life, right?’”
Court interns attend lunch and learn program.Photo by Max Parrott 
Family Court Judge Jonathan ShimPhoto by Max Parrott
He then founded his own practice as a solo practitioner, specializing in family and matrimonial law, but he also found that area of law emotionally exhausting because it was heavily driven by money and spousal acrimony. That’s when he found out about 18B panels — attorneys representing litigants and children who can’t afford them — and realized Family Court was his true calling due to its direct, meaningful impact on people’s lives.
After first being appointed to the bench in 2018, he has been serving on the family court since 2021. Shim’s current area of focus is custody, visitation, and family offenses.
“You have mothers and fathers and for the most part… needing to have a neglect case filed against [one party,]” Shim said. “They could have a level of domestic violence between them, family dysfunction, acrimony and hatred between the parents, but that is something that I can have a direct impact on.”
Shim said that to help people in his position, he’s equally focused on non-legal resolutions as legal ones, whether that means referring parents to certain programs and services, suggesting a mediation process, or providing insight about how to make better choices about being better parents.
The judge said that he expends all the energy he can to find a sociological solution to custody and visitation issues. If he can’t convince them willingly to find such a resolution, then Shim said, he turns to the law.
“I spend almost all my time practically, practically preaching from the bench about the choice that the parents should and could make to make their lives easier and certainly happier and for the sake of their child,” Shim said.
Shim said he wasn’t particularly drawn to this specialty in family court, but he always knew that he would feel very comfortable because it parallels his experience as a matrimonial lawyer.
Asked for his advice for aspiring family court lawyers, Shim told the interns to closely observe how senior attorneys treat judges and clients. He encouraged the law students to treat their opponents respectfully, noting it’s in the interest the fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of one’s client to model good behavior for your clients.
To prevent litigants from letting their emotions run away with them, he maintains a formal courtroom decorum.
“That is for the family’s sake,” he said. “If they’re so angry that they’re fighting and yelling at each other, they keep on interrupting each other, you’re not going to get anything constructive.”
Court interns pose with Family Court Judge Jonathan Shim , center.Photo by Max Parrott