John J.  Aman, Esq.

 

 

            John J. Aman has practiced law in Erie County, New York since 1978.  His practice has generally been limited to the family law field.  Early in his career he worked in various private firms and from 1988 to 1992 he was a staff attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services, where he worked exclusively on family law issues. 

 

            Mr. Aman was appointed  a Family Court Support Magistrate in 1993 and now holds the position of Deputy Chief Family Court Magistrate, spending one half of his time handling a support calendar in Erie County, and the other half addressing administration, policy and educational issues of New York’s Support Magistrates. 

 

            Mr. Aman is very active in the Erie County Bar Association, and is past chair of the Practice and Procedure in Family Court Committee, and a member of the Nominating Committee presently. Mr. Aman is also past President of the New York State Family Court Support Magistrates’ Association, past President of the Erie County Bar Foundation, a member of the Board of Directors of the Erie County Aid to Indigent Prisoners Society, Inc., and Vice-President of the St. Thomas More Guild. He has been a foster parent for the Department of Social Services and is active in various community activities.

 

            Mr. Aman has made numerous presentations at the local and State bar association level and has published various articles, including an article on the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act in the New York State Bar Association Journal.

 

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[Empire Justice logo]

 

Susan C. Antos

 

santos@empirejustice.org

 

            Susan has been a Staff Attorney in the Albany Office of the Empire Justice Center since 1989.  She provides advice, co-counseling and legal support and back-up on welfare issues, including day care and child support enforcement issues and the IV-D system, for 33 Legal Services Programs serving nearly 50 counties, as well as scores of community groups.  She chairs the upstate legal services welfare task force, conducts training on a wide variety of welfare issues, and serves as coordinator of the Legal Services Advisory Committees to the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.

 

            She is admitted to practice in New York State and the United States District Courts, Northern and Western Districts of New York, and the United States Court Of Appeals, Second Circuit and has litigated many cases involving the constitutional rights of low income families, particularly Doe v. Wing, which found the residency requirements for welfare benefits to be unconstitutional, Broniszewski v. Perales and Schwartz v. Dolan, which held that welfare recipients receiving support collection services have the right to adequate notice regarding the support collected on their behalf and a right to review the manner in which it is distributed.  She has also litigated cases that have successfully upheld the employment rights of welfare recipients who have participated in workfare programs.

 

            Ms. Antos developed and currently oversees the fair hearing bank, an on-line library of welfare fair hearings that are available free of charge at the web site of the Empire Justice Center, www.empirejustice.org.

 

            She has served the New York State Child Care Coordinating Council as Board Member and Vice-President for over 10 years, and chaired the New York State Bar Association, Social Services Committee, 1996-2000.       

 

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Hon.  Laura E.  Drager

 

                                                                       

            Judge Laura Drager was appointed to the New York City Criminal Court bench in 1987, and designated an Acting Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, Criminal Term, New York County in 1995.  Since 1999 she has presided over matrimonial actions in Supreme Court, New York County.

 

            Prior to her judicial appointment, she was the Chief of the Rackets Bureau in the Kings County District Attorney's office.  She also served as an Assistant District Attorney in the trial division and sex crimes unit of the New York County District Attorney's office.  After graduating from Columbia Law School she worked as an associate for the law firm Proskauer Rose LLP.

 

            Judge Drager chaired the New York City Criminal Court Committee on Domestic Violence created by the New York State Unified Court System from its inception in 1992 to 2002.  Among its many accomplishments, the Committee developed the brochure, Domestic Violence -- You Don't Have To Face It Alone.  This brochure, intended for victims of domestic violence, explains in simple language how a victim may get assistance from the courts.  Over 100,000 copies of the brochure have been distributed throughout the city.

 

            Judge Drager was the principal author of the article, The Paper Shield:  Orders of Protection in the New York City Criminal Court published at 48 The Record 891 (1993).  She has lectured on domestic violence issues to judges and doctors and at bar association programs and has testified before a State Senate Committee.

 

            Judge Drager is a member of the Matrimonial Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association and a Director of the New York Women’s Bar Association.  She is a member of the  Mental Health Professional Screening Committee for the First and Second Departments and serves as the Manhattan and Bronx Liaison to the New York State Parent Education Advisory Board.  Judge Drager is an adjunct professor at New York Law School where she teaches a course on Matrimonial Law.     

 

                                                Selected prior programs:

 

            Speaker, CLE Course, Representing Survivors of Domestic Violence in Matrimonial Cases, Sanctuary for Families and Association of the Bar of the City of New York, May 11, 2002

 

            Panelist, Effective Cross-Examination of the Mental Health Expert in Custody Cases: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, April 8, 2003

           

            Speaker, Forum, Unreported Cash in Matrimonial Cases: Confronting Tax, Criminal and Ethical Ramifications, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, March 12, 2002

           

            Speaker, Forum, Law Guardians in Matrimonial Cases, New York County Lawyers’ Association, April 11, 2001

 

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GEORGE E. REED, JR., ESQ.

222 Mamaroneck Avenue

White Plains, N.Y.  10605

(914) 946-5000

 

 

Website:           www.delinquency.org

 

Practice:           Family law, appeals, general practice

 

Firms:               Sole practice and partnership, White Plains, 1986-present

                        (Reed & Neale, 1991-97)

                        Associate, N.Y.C. (litigation and general practice):

                        Putney, Twombly, Hall & Hirson, 1984-86

                        Moore Berson Lifflander & Mewhinney, 1979-84

                        Wachtel Manheim & Grouf, 1978-79

 

Education:        Indiana University (Bloomington), J.D./M.B.A., 1978

                        Syracuse University (1st year law school) 1974-75

                        University of Michigan, graduate study in geography, 1971-72

                        Swarthmore College, B.A. 1971

 

Articles:            “A Protocol for Juvenile Delinquency”, N.Y.L.J., April 26, 1994

                        “Trends in the Case Law of Termination of Parental Rights”,

                            Jan. 8, 2004 (http://www.delinquency.org/courseessay.htm)

 

Cases:              In re Benjamin L., 92 N.Y.2d 660 (1999) (pre-petition delay)

                        In re Neftali D., 85 N.Y.2d 631 (1995) (sufficiency of petition)

                        Appellate Division (various)

 

Languages:       French, Spanish, Swedish (reading knowledge)

 

Home:              Westchester County, N.Y.  Married (Joanne, social worker);

                        3 children (ages 20-23).


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Hon. Judith M. Reichler

 

 

            Judge Reichler is a Town Justice in New Paltz, New York, and consultant to attorneys on family legal issues.  She was executive director of the New York State Commission on Child Support during a time when major changes were being made in that area, and was one of the drafters of the Child Support Standards Act.  For six years, she was a child support magistrate in New York City Family Court.

 

            Before that, Judge Reichler provided legal services to indigent persons with family legal problems, including child support, custody, housing, and domestic violence.  She has been managing attorney for Legal Services of the Hudson Valley and a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society in the Bronx and for the National Center on Women and Family Law.

 

            A graduate of William Smith College and New York Law School, Judge Reichler writes and lectures widely, including training for judges and attorneys who participate in the integrated domestic violence courts.   She has written two books on child support (one for attorneys and one for pro se litigants), and is an editorial board member for the four-volume legal treatise, New York Civil Practice: Matrimonial Actions (Matthew Bender/LexisNexis), and author or co-author of over 30 book chapters, articles, and booklets.

 

            Among many activities, Judge Reichler is a member of Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye’s Family Violence Task Force, and participates in its annual seminars for judges throughout the state.    

 

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Paula Roberts, Esq.

 

Paula Roberts is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). Her current work focuses on policies for establishing and disestablishing paternity, improving medical child support, child support guidelines and their impact on low-income and incarcerated obligors, and the intersection of welfare and child support policies with initiatives to promote marriage in the low-income community.

Ms. Roberts began her career in private practice in Newark, New Jersey, and then moved to the Law Reform Unit of Essex-Newark Legal Services where she focused on housing and child care issues. After moving to Washington in 1976, she worked for several years at the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) where she litigated child nutrition issues and headed FRAC's efforts around welfare reform. After a two-year stint at the Legal Services Corporation's Research Institute, she joined the CLASP staff in 1982 as a senior staff attorney. At CLASP, Ms. Roberts has worked on welfare reform, block grant, minimum wage, and child care concerns. However, her primary focus is on child support enforcement as an anti-poverty strategy. She is the author of more than 10 books and 40 law review articles on various aspects of paternity establishment and child support policy from the perspective of low income parents. She has served as an advisor to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) in developing the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA) and the Uniform Parentage Act (UPA 2002). Roberts was also a member of the Congressionally-mandated Medical Child Support Working Group and the Medical Child Support Indicator Working Group.

For her work on behalf of low income children, she has received the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement’s (OCSE) Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Child Support Enforcement Association’s (NCSEA) Community Service Award, and two Golden Heart Awards from the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support (ACES). She has also been honored by the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic of the University of Chicago and the Eastern Regional Child Support Enforcement Association (ERICSA).

She is a graduate of Smith College and Fordham University Law School, which awarded her the Louis J. Lefkowitz Public Service Alumna Award in 1997.

 

 

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