How did Jonathan Lippman vault from what the Village Voice calls “a series of back-office management posts” to become the nominee for chief judge in New York State? The Voice says that the fact that Lippman is a childhood friend of New York House Speaker Sheldon Silver has a lot to do with it. The Voice traced Lippman’s path to the top. He would succeed Judith Kaye, who was subject to mandatory retirement.
The Voice says that Gov. David Paterson could have decided not to choose anyone from a screening panel’s list of nominees, which would have left Carmen Ciparick, a Hispanic who has been on the Court of Appeals for 15 years, as acting chief judge, a position the other five judges voted to give her when Kaye retired in January.