Four sitting Brooklyn judges are on track to win 14-year terms on New York's state Supreme Court after the borough's Democratic Party executive committee voted to nominate them at a convention on Aug. 6. Judicial delegates selected Hemalee Patel, Lola Waterman, Sherveal Mimes, and Betsey Jean-Jacques for the seats, and because Kings County is overwhelmingly Democratic, that nomination functions as the real decision point — the November general election is expected to be a formality.
Delegates Meet at Marine Park to Settle the Slate
The nominating convention drew roughly 250 attendees to Marine Park Golf Course, where 170 judicial delegates cast the votes that mattered, according to figures reported by the Brooklyn Democratic Party and covered by amNY. Party chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn said Kings County deserves justices with integrity and legal insight, per the same report. The four nominees are set to appear on the Nov. 3 general election ballot.
New York's convention system for Supreme Court nominations dates back to a 1921 change in the state's election law, which replaced direct primaries for these seats with party-run nominating conventions, amNY reported. The arrangement has survived legal challenges over the years, including a case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2008 unanimously upheld the constitutionality of New York's judicial convention system in New York State Board of Elections v. López Torres, according to the Fund for Modern Courts. That ruling overturned lower federal court decisions that had temporarily struck down the process.
Nine Candidates Competed Before the Slate Narrowed to Four
The path to Marine Park ran through a virtual candidate forum the Brooklyn Democratic Party held on July 29, where nine judicial hopefuls made their case for the borough's four open seats before the party executive committee endorsed the final slate. The 90-minute forum, described by the Brooklyn Eagle, gave delegates and community members a chance to evaluate candidates ahead of the convention. Josue Pierre, district leader of the 42nd Assembly District, said he values candidates who meet with and connect to their communities, and he noted that federal judicial appointments have limited residents' opportunity to vote for judges — making Kings County Democratic members' ability to vote for these seats notable, per amNY.
The nomination process itself includes candidate vetting and approval, meetings with district leaders, and review of qualifications before candidates are presented to the county committee body for a vote, according to amNY's reporting. Critics of the broader system have long argued that county delegate conventions act as an opaque rubber stamp for decisions made by party leaders, while Democratic officials counter that independent screening panels and public forums ensure rigorous vetting, as BKReader has reported. A legal clarity report cited by amNY notes that the convention system concentrates selection power in a relatively small deliberative body.
Four Paths Through Brooklyn's Civil Court Pipeline
All four nominees currently sit on the Kings County Civil Court bench, a common stepping stone toward the state's main trial court of general jurisdiction. Patel, who was born in India and raised in New York City, joined the Civil Court bench in 2025 after nearly 15 years in public judicial service as a Principal Law Clerk in Kings and New York counties and as a Court Attorney-Referee handling financial and matrimonial matters in Richmond County Supreme Court, according to Civic Juice. She earned her law degree from Brooklyn Law School and told amNY she was honored by the nomination.
Waterman took an unconventional route to the bench: born in Michigan to Nigerian immigrant parents and raised in part in Nigeria, she worked as a corporate marketing executive at Kraft Foods before pivoting to law, according to PoliticsNY. She completed undergraduate studies at Arizona State University, earned her Juris Doctor from New York Law School, and spent six years as a law clerk in Kings County Supreme Court before her 2023 election to Civil Court, where she has focused on estate planning, immigration, and elder law. Waterman thanked district leaders, judicial delegates, and alternate delegates, and she serves on the board of the Metropolitan Black Bar Association while also engaging with the Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Association of Black Women Attorneys, per amNY.
Mimes, who worked as a social worker before earning her Juris Doctor from the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at the University of Memphis, later served as a principal court attorney in New York before her 2022 election to the Civil Court bench, where she has now served for five years, per the Brooklyn Eagle. She said the nomination process requires delegates to listen to communities and assess candidates' qualifications and experience, and the Democratic Party has pointed to her reputation for fairness, efficiency, and judicial integrity.
Jean-Jacques Brings Matrimonial Bench Experience
Jean-Jacques, the daughter of a Haitian immigrant, has nearly two decades of legal experience and became a Civil Court judge in Kings County in 2024. She was assigned earlier this year to sit on the Kings County Supreme Court's matrimonial bench, presiding over family law cases while still serving her Civil Court term, according to Scrutinize. She also serves as president of the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Kings County and said she felt blessed and happy to receive the party's support, per amNY.
Kings County makes up New York's 2nd Judicial District, which allocates 52 Supreme Court justice positions to oversee trial court operations across Brooklyn, according to Ballotpedia. Supreme Court justices in New York serve 14-year terms, the longest of any elective judicial office in the state, even though the court functions as the trial-level venue rather than an appellate body. All four nominees expressed gratitude to party leadership and the executive committee following the vote, and they now head toward a November ballot where, in heavily Democratic Kings County, the convention's outcome is widely expected to determine who actually takes the bench.
