Karla Moskowitz

Karla Moskowitz is a retired Associate Justice of the New York Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, First Judicial Department.

Early life and education

She is a 1963 cum laude graduate of Alfred University and a 1966 graduate of Columbia Law School.

Legal career

Prior to joining the bench, she worked with the State Attorney General’s office, New York City Human Resources Administration, an arbitrator for the Small Claims Division of the Civil Court, an attorney in private practice and as an Administrative Law Judge for the New York State Department of Health. She subsequently served on the New York City Civil Court from 1982 to 1987. She was a New York Supreme Court Justice, from 1987 to 2008 and sat on the Commercial Division, New York’s business court, from 2001 until her appointment to the Appellate Division in January 2008. She was originally appointed as an acting Supreme Court justice in 1987, then elected as a justice to the Supreme Court in 1991, and re-elected in 2005. Moskowitz was designated as a Justice for the Appellate Division, First Judicial Department in 2008 by Governor Eliot Spitzer. She retired from the Appellate Division in 2017.
In 2018, she was appointed a Special Master of the First Department’s pre-argument mediation program.
She now serves as an arbitrator and mediator with NAM.

Awards

Among other awards, in 2003, she received the Edith I. Spivack Award from the New York County Lawyers' Association's Women's Rights Committee; the Abigail Allen award from Alfred University ; the Joan L. Ellenbogen Founder’s Award of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York ; and the Women of Valor Award of the Women’s Medical Association of New York City. In 2008, she has received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws from Alfred University.

Positions

Moskowitz served as president of the New York State Association of Women Judges. She also served as president of the National Association of Women Judges. She was a founder and co-president of Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert, and remains on its board of directors. She is a charter member of the American College of Business Court Judges. From 2003 to 2005, she co-chaired the Summary Jury Trials Committee of the Jury Trial Project of the New York State Courts. She has been an executive committee member of the Commercial and Federal Litigation Section of the New York State Bar Association, and chaired its appellate committee. She has been an executive committee member of the NYSBA's Trial Lawyers and co-chaired its dispute resolution committee.