Biography of Justice Alan D. Scheinkman

JUSTICE ALAN D. SCHEINKMAN was elected a Justice of the Supreme Court, Ninth Judicial District in November, 2006.

Justice Scheinkman was born May 1, 1950 in Newark, New Jersey and was raised in New Rochelle, New York, where he graduated in 1968 from New Rochelle High School. He attended college at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., graduating in 1972. During college, he worked as a staff assistant to Representative Richard L. Ottinger and as a desk assistant at NBC News. Justice Scheinkman studied law at St. John’s University School of Law, Jamaica, New York, graduating in 1975, after serving as a Notes and Comments Editor of the Law Review and as research assistant to Professor David D. Siegel, a leading authority on New York civil practice.

Justice Scheinkman began his legal career as law clerk to Hon. Matthew J. Jasen, Senior Associate Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, our State’s highest Court. After his clerkship, he practiced law with major New York law firms until 1982, when he joined the full-time faculty at St. John’s Law School, teaching New York Practice, Family Law, Torts, and Professional Responsibility, among other subjects. In 1990, he returned to the full-time practice law, establishing his own firm in White Plains, New York. In January 1998, he was appointed and confirmed as Westchester County Attorney, serving as the attorney and legal advisor to the County Executive, Board of Legislators, and each department and officer of county government. He served as a Vice President of the County Attorneys Association of the State of New York. In 2001, he joined Epstein, Becker & Green, P.C. in New York County and in 2003, became the partner in charge of litigation for DelBello, Donnellan, Weingarten, Tartaglia, Wise & Wiederkehr, LLP.

In 1982, he was selected by West Publishing Company to write Practice Commentaries on New York’s Domestic Relations Law, materials which have been cited in hundreds of judicial decisions. For approximately 15 years, he was Reporter to the State Supreme Court Justices Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions – Civil, which is responsible for formulating standard jury instructions in civil cases and giving judges guidance on civil trial practice. He was one of the first non-judges to be selected to lecture at the Annual Judicial Seminars for full-time New York judges and continued his participation each year for 15 years. He has also lectured at programs for newly-elected and appointed judges, for Appellate Term justices, and for law assistants to judges. He is the author of a two-volume treatise on Domestic Relations Law and the directing editor of a 12 volumes of text and forms for McKinney’s. He served as Executive Director of the New York State Bar Association Task Force on Administrative Adjudication and as a member of Association's Committee on Appellate Courts.  He recently published the Second Edition of the New York State Bar Association's Practitioner’s Handbook on Practice in the Appellate Divisions and is presently working on the Third Edition of the Association's Handbook on Practice in the New York Court of Appeals. He continues to teach as an Adjunct Professor of Law at St. John’s University School of Law and also taught as an Adjunct Professor at Pace University School of Law and at Rutgers University School of Law, Newark.

In addition to being admitted to practice in New York State, he is also admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeal for the Second and District of Columbia Circuits, and the United States District Courts for the Southern, Eastern and Northern Districts of New York.