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APA Judge a Shoo-in For NY Supreme Court
By Heather Harlan
Special to AsianWeek
When voters in Chinatown and other parts of lower Manhattan head to the polls this coming Election Day, the odds are pretty good they will make history. On the ballot will be Judge Doris Ling-Cohan, who — if the four parties who nominated her have their way — stands poised to become the first Asian Pacific American woman justice on the Supreme Court of New York State.

Running unopposed, Ling-Cohan, a Democrat, is also the nominee of the Republican, Liberal and Working Family parties.

Ling-Cohan’s campaign for the state’s top bench is the latest leg in a long journey through the world of New York’s legal system that began when she was just 12 years old. Her mother, an immigrant seamstress from Canton, had been assaulted in Brooklyn, and her young American-born daughter was accompanying her on a confusing trip to a hearing in criminal court.

“All we knew was that we were told to be there on a certain day,” Ling-Cohan recalls. “But no one told us where to go, when to come back. There were no translators. When it was over, we had no idea what had happened. That shaped me. It made me realize how important it is to have legal information.”

Since then she has dedicated a good portion of her career as a lawyer and a judge to helping immigrants and the disadvantaged navigate the complexities of the courts.

After growing up in Chinatown with her mother and father, a laundryman from Guangzhou, Ling-Cohan headed off across the East River to Brooklyn College, where as a student in the turbulent early ’70s, she decided she wanted to “change the world.” On campus, she became active in New York Public Interest Group (NYPIRG) and after graduation attended NYU law school on a full scholarship. As a law student she worked at a legal services program that helped women who were victims of domestic violence.

“Because I could speak Chinese, I often went along to assist if the victim was Chinese,” she says. The work made her aware of the particular problems facing Asian domestic violence victims.

“We had a client who had no place to go,” she recalls. “But most of the shelters were not used to dealing with Asian American clients. There was the issue of language, different foods. It’s very difficult for someone who is already battered to leave and go into a whole unknown and deal with a different cultural situation. It highlighted the need for a center for Asian women.”

A few years later, Ling-Cohan was one of the women who founded the New York Asian Women’s Center, the city’s only non-profit center dedicated to helping Asian victims of domestic abuse.

Upon graduation, she got her first job as an attorney with Legal Services in Bedford-Stuyvessant, Brooklyn, and then worked with a Legal Services project helping mentally-challenged clients. Later, she joined the New York State Attorney General’s consumer fraud protection unit, where her connections in the Chinese community helped her bring scams against immigrants to the attention of fraud investigators. She remembers one case in 1986 where con artists promised immigrants quick access to free public housing if they sent a fee to a P.O. box number. Her office was interested in launching an investigation, but there was some concern among her colleagues that it would be a difficult case to prosecute.

“There was a stereotype that Asians wouldn’t testify,” she said.

When Ling-Cohen started working on the case, searching for potential victims with the help of the local Chinese-language media, even she thought she would be lucky to find even a handful willing to come forward. But, she quickly discovered the opposite was true.

“We had people lined up down the halls waiting to testify at the grand jury hearing,” she recalls. “It shattered the myth that Asians don’t complain.”

A few years later, Ling-Cohan was appointed as a judge to the New York Housing Court. In 1995, she was elected from Chinatown to the New York Civil Court. It marked the first time an APA in New York City had been elected for a public office other than school board. As a judge she has made demystifying the court system for immigrants and others a priority. In the past several years, she has co-authored three books, including one on how to represent oneself in court, and one giving advice to seniors about how to use the court system. She has conducted numerous workshops and outreach forums on law awareness and domestic violence for the APA community.

“I always try to focus on community outreach and education,” she says. “I think that for the Asian community, a lot of times legal information is not channeled to you.”

In her everyday activities on the bench, she says she always strives to maintain an awareness of the special needs of immigrants who appear before her.

“The background of being Chinese and the child of immigrants sensitized me to the need to do something as simple as writing down on a piece of paper their next court date to make sure they understand it,” she says. “Or I stop and explain things for them so that they understand what the next step is. Being in court is scary — even for those who were born in this country.”

If she is elected, Ling-Cohan will become one of two APA justices on the Supreme Court. The other is Randall Eng, who represents Queens. She will represent Judicial District 2, which includes the neighborhoods of Chinatown, the East Village and SoHo.

This race is especially significant since there is only one other elected APA outside the Supreme Court in New York City — City Councilman John Liu of Queens. For Ling-Cohan, reaching the Supreme Court represents a new challenge for herself and a new milestone for New York’s APAs.

“It’s an opportunity to make history for the community,” says Ling-Cohan. “Anytime you are able to shatter a glass ceiling, it’s important.”