On May 1, 2017, Judge A. Gail Prudenti was appointed Dean of the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, where she also serves, as of September 1, 2015, as the Executive Director of the Center for Children, Families and the Law. Previously, Judge Prudenti also served as Interim Dean of Hofstra Law from January 1, 2017 until she was appointed as Dean.
Prior to her current position at Hofstra, Judge Prudenti distinguished herself as a well- respected jurist and hands-on administrator throughout a judicial career that lasted more than two decades. Most recently, she served as the Chief Administrative Judge of the courts of New York State, having been appointed by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman on December 1, 2011. As Chief Administrative Judge, she supervised the administration and operation of the statewide court system, with a budget of over $2.7 billion, 3,600 state and locally paid Judges and 15,000 non- judicial employees in over 350 court facilities. In addition, she served as a member of the Oversight Board for Judiciary Civil Legal Services in New York, which grants annual awards totaling $85 million to legal service providers to the indigent throughout the state.
Prior to her appointment as Chief Administrative Judge, she served as the Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department in New York State, the first woman to hold that position, having been appointed thereto, in February 2002, by then-Governor George E. Pataki. Before that, she was the first woman from Suffolk County to serve as an Associate Justice of the Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department. Prior to ascending to the Appellate Division, Judge Prudenti was the Administrative Judge for the Tenth Judicial District (Suffolk County) for almost three years. At the time of her appointment as a District Administrative Judge, in February of 1999, Judge Prudenti was also the Surrogate of Suffolk County and was the first and only Surrogate in New York to hold the position of a District Administrative Judge.
In August 2011, then-Presiding Justice Prudenti was designated to serve as a Judge of the Court of Appeals for the hearing and determination of the appeal and any related motions in the case of Matter of World Trade Center Bombing Litigation.
Judge Prudenti’s judicial career began in 1991 when she was elected to the New York State Supreme Court where she served until 1995, at which time she began her term as the first woman elected Surrogate of Suffolk County. In 1996, during her tenure as Surrogate, Judge Prudenti was also designated as an Acting Supreme Court Justice and received the additional responsibilities of presiding over a dedicated Guardianship Part. After six years as the Surrogate, Judge Prudenti was reelected to the Supreme Court bench.
She earned her law degree from the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, which also awarded her an honorary Doctorate of Laws in 2004 and an honorary appointment as Professor in the School of Law. Judge Prudenti also received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Hofstra Law School in 2016. She graduated from Marymount College of Fordham University with honors. Her first position was in the Suffolk County Surrogate’s Court where she was a Clerk and then a Law Assistant. For two years following her service in the Surrogate’s Court, she served as an Assistant District Attorney for Suffolk County. Over the next decade, she was a private practitioner specializing in trusts and estates and was special counsel to the New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association’s Widows and Orphans Fund. She has had extensive litigation experience in all the Surrogate’s Courts in the metropolitan area.
Her legal writings are extensive. Hundreds of Judge Prudenti’s decisions have been published and she has contributed articles to many publications, such as The New York Law Journal, Newsday, The Suffolk Lawyer and The Jurist. She has also published handbooks for guardians ad litem and has written extensively on guardianship proceedings. As Executive Director of the CCFL, Justice Prudenti is a monthly columnist in the Long Island Business News.
Additionally, in February 2016, Judge Prudenti was appointed by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore as Chair of the New York State Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children. Judge Prudenti has been a frequent lecturer throughout Suffolk County, Long Island, and the State, appearing at seminars and other functions sponsored by the Suffolk Academy of Law, the New York State Bar Association, the New York State Surrogate’s Association, the Office of Court Administration, the University of the State of New York at Stony Brook, Touro Law Center, the Diocese of Rockville Centre, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, to name a few.
The judge was a member of the Advisory Panel of Judges of the New York State Lawyer Assistance Trust Program, a member of the Council of Chief Judges of the National Center for State Courts, a former chairperson of the Office of Court Administration’s Mental Health Curriculum Committee for Trial Judges, co-chair of the Chief Judge’s Task Force on Delay in the Courts, a member of the Chief Judge’s Commission on Public Access to Court Records, a former member of the Chief Administrative Judge’s Judicial Legislative Group and a member of the OCA’s Gender Bias and Anti-Discrimination Panel. In addition, the judge is a member of the Judicial Section of the American Bar Association, the former Presiding Member of the Judicial Section of the New York State Bar Association, a member of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and the New York State Women’s Bar Association, a former co-chair of the Surrogate’s Court Committee of the Suffolk County Bar Association, a member of the Suffolk County Women’s Bar Association, which she helped found, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Suffolk County Columbian Lawyers Association.
Judge Prudenti is an accomplished administrator and an experienced supervisor of large- scale court operations, including one of the largest statewide court systems in the United States, as well as one of the busiest appellate courts in the nation. As Presiding Justice, she served on the Judiciary’s primary decision-making body, the Administrative Board of the Courts, which provides direction and establishes statewide policies and practices for New York State’s Unified Court System. In her various leadership roles, the judge has developed innovative programs and instituted many initiatives to enhance the administration of justice and promote the public’s trust and confidence in the courts.
The judge lives with her husband and fellow lawyer and former Suffolk County Attorney, Robert J. Cimino, in the Village of Bellport, Long Island, New York.