It doesn\u2019t matter to him how significant a case is in terms of public interest, though, Lebovits says: They\u2019re all equally important.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cases,\u201d Lebovits said. \u201cMany are big, and many are small, and all are important. I have cases under $5,000, but I also have cases in the billions, and every, every case is critical.\u201d<\/p>\n
His self-professed love for the city\u2019s small claims court, which helps people \u2013 who are typically representing themselves \u2013 work out every day disputes, like when a neighbor believes someone has stolen something of theirs or an airline\u2019s lost someone\u2019s bag, perhaps most clearly depicts that.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmall claims was always my favorite assignment, and it will always be my favorite assignment,\u201d Lebovits said. \u201cIn small claims, you\u2019re hearing cases in which people got themselves into a situation, and they couldn\u2019t resolve it on their own, so they wind up in court. I\u2019s a special thing when you can resolve it to everyone\u2019s satisfaction by settling, making everyone happy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have the opportunity to be the judge before whom you always wanted to appear: Neutral, fair, someone who listens to you and will make a decision one way or another. It\u2019ll resolve your problem,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
Even prior to putting on the judicial robes, Lebovits spent years as a pro bono arbitrator in small claims court. That position is not a judge, but in many ways, serves the same function as one: In it, Lebovits would help mediate, settle and make rulings on daily disputes. He still pours time into the small claims community, continuing to write books on the law and occasionally adjudicate cases in the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got involved in small claims, it consumed me then, and it continues to consume me now,\u201d Lebovits said. \u201cYou\u2019re talking about doing justice for hundreds of thousands of people who might never have seen a judge before, and might never see a judge again. \u201cYou\u2019re the face of justice for all these people who have these disputes that are very important to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Image_20260820_164659_186.jpeg\" "\\"\u2018It\u2019s")
Lebovits sits in his chamber\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Lebovits was first appointed to the bench in 2001, where he served as a Housing Court judge until 2010. He was then elected to the New York Civil Court bench in 2011, and though he presided over a New York Criminal Court from 2011-2012, he\u2019s been dealing primarily with civil matters since. He\u2019s primarily sat on Manhattan benches, he said, though he\u2019s heard cases in Staten Island and the Bronx and handled criminal arraignments in other boroughs as well.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like going all around the world,\u201d the justice said of serving across the city.\n<\/p>\n
Now an elected New York Supreme Court justice, he primarily deals with business, tax, personal injury, celebrity disputes and court corruption cases. Though he spent roughly the first two decades of his career in criminal courtrooms, Lebovits said he finds working on the civil side of things now incredibly rewarding.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a limited number of issues in criminal law. It seems very expansive, but compared to civil, it\u2019s a drop in the water,\u201d Lebovits said. \u201cThere\u2019s so much more to it. It\u2019s much more complicated, much more difficult, and I\u2019m very happy to hear these important civil justice cases. It\u2019s a more vast area where you could make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear his passion for the judiciary is strong \u2013 the way the state\u2019s public pension system is set up, he\u2019s essentially losing money by continuing to work at his age instead of retiring, he said. However, his role as a teacher, mentor and author of legal volumes might hold an even dearer place in his heart.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important for everyone to have a good teacher and a good mentor, someone who cares,\u201d said Lebovits, who\u2019s taught law at Columbia, St. John\u2019s, New York University, Fordham and New York Law School. \u201cTeaching is among the most important things to me, and I hope to be that mentor for a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, despite being a septuagenarian, he\u2019s not shying away from embracing new technology: Alongside authoring thick volumes on landlord-tenant law, small claims litigation and trial practices (many of which now boast editions in the double digits and fill multiple shelves in his office library), he\u2019s also publishing papers on the use of artificial intelligence in the law.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s writing books and research articles and teaching others, Lebovits says, that has taught him the most.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to teach,\u201d the justice said. \u201cI learn a lot from teaching. I think that people who listen to lectures learn maybe at the 10% level, but if you have to teach the subject, you learn at the 90% level. The courses that I teach, in many ways, match what I do in court as a judge, so the more I teach, the better a judge I can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
He takes his role as a mentor seriously, staying in touch with \u2013 and in some cases, employing \u2013 his students, many of whom he\u2019s become close friends with. His wife, fellow judge Margaret Chan, who works as an associate justice of the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, even serves as a godmother to one of his students\u2019 children.<\/p>\n
Giving back to the profession like this also allows him to leave a legacy and have a lasting impact on the court system, he said, something he finds critically important.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of my students wind up teaching themselves, or working for the court system as law clerks and in other positions,\u201d Lebovits said. \u201cWhat I have taught them will be passed along to so many other people. If you teach somebody who becomes a law clerk or who becomes a judge, then your teachings magnify, and then you have, hopefully, a good legacy: your ideas are passed along to others.\u201d<\/p>\n
His students clearly enjoy receiving his ideas: He\u2019s been elected Adjunct Teacher of the Year at Fordham University School of Law, selected to receive the \u201cMost Beloved Professor\u201d award by students at NYU Law School and elected Adjunct Professor of the Year at New York Law School and St. John\u2019s University School of Law, where he also received the Dean\u2019s Teaching Award.<\/p>\n
Those awards are proudly on display in his office, alongside a variety of memorabilia, keepsakes and gifts he\u2019s received from former students and interns, including a Funko Pop action figure of himself, crocheted flowers, group photos and a small statue of Chan, whom he said he considers when he has to make a difficult decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As he looks back on his long career \u2013 and forward to his remaining few years on the bench \u2013 spending his life in service of the law is something Lebovits said he\u2019s eternally grateful for.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what else I would have done had I not become a lawyer,\u201d Lebovits said. \u201cI would be unemployed. I wouldn\u2019t know what to do with my life.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits has spent over four decades of his life in the courtroom. Even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2710,75,9,11,10,2973],"class_list":["post-326676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-law","tag-manhattan","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}