Articles

Profile of the Family Court Judge Barbara Salinitro

by Michael Goldsmith

Judge Barbara Salinitro brings to the Queens County Family Court a career’s worth relevant experience. She will also have the distinction of being the first, and only judge in our county to preside over the new Family Treatment Court.

Judge Salinitro grew up on Long Island, and graduated from Plainview/Old Bethpage High School in 1976. The future Judge received her undergraduate degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1980.

“One of the great things about U.P. was that we could take classes at any of the other schools,” recalled Judge Salinitro. “In the spring of my junior year, I took a property law course at the Law School. I found that I liked the class very much and did well. I decided at that point that I wanted to go to Law School. This was much to the relief of my father, who didn’t know what kind of career I would have with a degree in history,” added the Judge with a smile.

Judge Salinitro graduated from Boston University School of Law in 1983. She was admitted to the New York and Massachusetts bars in 1984. In 1985, she was admitted to practice law in the Southern and Eastern Federal District Courts of New York, as well as in the State of Pennsylvania.

After her admission to the Bar, Judge Salinitro, who always wanted to do criminal work, began her legal career with the New York City Law Department of the Corporation Counsel, Family Court Division. She was assigned to the Brooklyn Family Court to prosecuted juvenile delinquent cases.

In October 1986, she explored other areas of the law, and engaged in Civil Litigation at the Commercial Litigation Division of the Corporation Counsel.

In March, 1987, Judge Salinitro became associated with a firm in the private sector engaging in commercial litigation. However, she soon realized that she missed public service practice in Family Court. In November 1987, she was back at the New York City Law Department and promoted to Bronx County Family Court Deputy Borough Chief. In 1994, Judge Salinitro became the Bronx Borough Chief, when her boss, Clark Richardson, became a Family Court Judge.

Judge Richardson, who later went on to become the Supervising Judge of the Bronx County Family Court, encouraged his former deputy to apply for the bench. In 1996, Judge Salinitro did just that, and, in December, 1996, she ascended to the bench. The new judge was assigned to the Brooklyn Family Court. In July, 1998, she was transferred to Queens County, where she currently sits.

Family Court work handles some of the most serious cases in the judicial system. “As a judge and as a prosecutor,” said Judge Salinitro, “if I can go home at night feeling that I did good for one family or child in the midst of all the sadness we see daily, I believe I did a good job. When I was a Borough Chief, I would tell my prosecutors they could be proud of their job if at the end of the day they made the community a little better.”

“The volume in Family Court is staggering,” said Judge Salinitro. “I sometimes remind the agency lawyers that the product we deal with is children and although they would have hundreds of cases pending, they must be mindful and act in their best interests at all times possible.” “In Family Court, a judge must balance his or her role, which is not only to protect the children, but also do justice and observe the due process of respondents,” continued the Judge. “We have to make sure that the agencies don’t exceed the scope of their authority and that their decisions are consistent with due process.”

Although the daily challenge are daunting, Judge Salinitro finds the rewards in Family Court are great, particularly “When you successfully reunite a family, or a child is placed a safe loving home and adopted, or when the respondents that appear before you countless times finally “get it” and are on the road to recovery.”

“Family Court Judges have become specialized”, said Judge Salinitro. “In 1998, all the judges became specialists. Primarily, I do only Child Protective Cases (Abuse and Neglect Cases). This seems to be the way of the future, and is statistically successful, although it can be difficult on a day to day basis as we don’t have the diversified cases that we all enjoyed,” added the Judge.

Consistent with the trend towards specialization, Judge Salinitro will have the distinction of presiding over the brand new Family Treatment Court. “The Family Treatment Court (FTC) first began in New York County and Suffolk County several years ago on a trial basis,” said Judge Salinitro. “The goal is to slowly initiate the program throughout the State. Queens is next, and the Court is scheduled to commence operation in October, 2001.”

“The philosophy of the FTC”, continued Judge Salinitro, “is to take people whose primary problem is substance abuse and work with them in an aggressive service oriented way from their first day in Court to get them treatment. The goal of the FTC is to rehabilitate the parent and to provide a permanent home for the child in an expeditious way. Hopefully, the end result will be the reunification of the child and parent. Statistics from Manhattan show the program is very successful. For example, the average stay in foster care is three years. For FTC cases in Manhattan, the average length of foster care is one year. The FTC provides job training as well as individual, peer and drug counseling. These programs are not as aggressively pursued in the traditional Administration of Child Services.

The FTC will have a judge (Salinitro) and a treatment staff dedicated to the part. In addition, ACS, Legal Aid and 18(b) will dedicate to the new court one or two lawyers on their staff. It is a team approach, and therefore, will be less adversarial. By being placed in the program, the respondent parents waive the 1028 Hearing and must make an admission within one week openly admit a substance abuse problem. This admission will eliminate the vast majority of the court work, leaving the real work to be done in the service context. The role of the judge will be to monitor the treatment and progress of the respondent. In the beginning, the respondent will come to court weekly and will receive regular drug tests. The judge’s ultimate role will be to find a permanent place for the child, whether it be reuniting with the parents or permanent foster care.

Judge Salinitro will continue to hear her regular cases, as well as preside over the new FTC. Judge Salinitro, while a prosecutor with the Corporation Counsel, met her husband, a Legal Aid Attorney, when they were adversaries in the same case. When asked who has the family bragging rights, Judge Salinitro said “I won the case, but my husband thinks that I shouldn’t have because the police officer lied.” When Judge Salinitro was interviewed by Mayor Giuliani, prior to her ascension to the bench, the formal prosecutor smiled at her and said “how does it feel to be married to a Legal Aid Attorney?”.

Judge Salinitro’s interests are travel, reading and music. She plays the piano and her musical tastes range to “everything”.