Carolyn E. Demarest

Carolyn E. Demarest is a retired American judge who served in New York's state and local court systems for 33 years. This includes her role as justice of the trial level New York Supreme Court for Brooklyn, Kings County, where she served for 26 years, and was one of that court's original Commercial Division specialist business court judges.

Judicial service Demarest served for 26 years on the Supreme Court of Brooklyn, Kings County, from 1990 to 2016. She was originally appointed to the Supreme Court by Governor Mario Cuomo in 1990, and subsequently won election to a 14-year term beginning in 1991, and then re-election in 2005 for another term. Before serving as a Supreme Court justice, New York Mayor Edward I. Koch appointed Demarest as a judge on the Family Court of the City of New York, where she served from 1985 to 1989. In 1983 and in 1985, Koch had appointed Demarest as an interim judge to the Civil Court of the City of New York. In 2005, she was judge in a prominent case involving the bribery of witnesses in a murder trial.

Demarest was "one of two Justices designated to develop and preside over the Commercial Division in Kings County, which opened in December 2002."

Demarest issued over 500 legal opinions as a Commercial Division judge. Among many other areas of the law, she has written important opinions on issues relating to business divorce, where parties in a formal business relationship are ending their legal ties. In 2013, she oversaw high-profile litigation involving the State University of New York's effort to close the Long Island College Hospital.

Legal practice Demarest was an associate attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, & Flom from 1972 to 1973. She served in the New York City Appeals Division of the city's Law Department, as Assistant Chief Corporation Counsel from 1976 to 1983. She practiced appellate law as a solo practitioner from 1984 to 1985.

Judicial clerkship From 1973 to 1976, Demarest was a judicial law clerk to Judge Stanley Danzig of the Civil Court of the City of New York. from the Kings County Supreme Court; (2) the Metropolitan Black Bar Association's Jurist of the Year award; (3) the New York State Bar Association's Section of Federal and Commercial Litigation Award; and a Distinguished Service award from Brooklyn's Borough President Marty Markowitz. Founding member of the American College of Business Court Judges Member, New York State Bar Association Task Force on Continuing Legal Education Chair, New York State Bar's Municipal Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Quality of Life: Crime and Education Chair, New York State Bar's Committee on Education and Law Committee, Subcommittee: Integration and High Schools