Clockwise from top left, Bronx County Clerk Ischia Bravo, Queens County Clerk Audrey Pheffer, Richmond County Clerk Stephen Fiala, New York County Clerk Milton Tingling and Kings County Clerk Nancy Sunshine.
File photos
As 2025 winds down, the team at amNewYork law is looking back at the year’s biggest cases, what the city’s district attorneys got up to, how county clerks worked to keep things moving — and what to look out for next year.
Catch up on the latest from major cases that have captivated the boroughs (think: Luigi Mangione, the Alexander brothers) and get the lowdown on pressing legal matters affecting New Yorkers, like the right to counsel and Board of Correction minimum standards.
We look forward to keeping you up to date on the judiciary, and then some, in 2026!
Four years after New York City reached the highest number of shootings in several decades — a number that has since dropped sharply — New York City’s district attorneys continue to balance constituents’ calls for progressive reforms with mandates to fight violent crime.
In the waning days of Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, the New York City Law Department took a victory lap highlighting its work in the last year of Adams’ term — one that saw the mayor himself let off the hook on federal charges in a deal with the Trump administration.
Despite playing an essential role in our judicial system, New York City’s county clerks are mostly unfamiliar to New Yorkers. Without them, there are no jury trials or enforcement of supreme court verdicts, and yet they often operate in the shadows of the court system.
The starpower of his office, along with a stabilizing level of violent crime in the borough, allowed Bragg to draw a wide margin of electoral support for a first-term that was defined by a set of new progressive policies and a hard line on violent crime. His reelection motto: “safety and fairness.”
