As seen in The Spirit (West Side) and Our Town (East Side) Aug. 14, 2008.

The candidates:
Manhattan Surrogate’s Court is where estates and contested wills are settled and adoption decisions are made.

The court’s two judges are each elected to serve 14-year terms, but they must resign at the end of the calendar year in which they turn 70, as Judge Renee Roth will in December.

With no Republican running, the winner of a three-way Democratic primary, on Sept. 9, will join Judge Kristin Booth Glenn, who was elected in 2005, on the bench.

Nora Anderson was a clerk in Surrogate’s Clerk for many years. John Reddy, Jr., is counsel to the Public Administrator and Judge Milton Tingling has served as a judge in criminal, civil and supreme courts.

Though all three candidates have been endorsed by organizations and individuals across Manhattan Island, the county Democratic committee is backing Tingling.

John Reddy, Jr.:

Surrogate’s Court cases that capture public attention usually involve large estates once owned by wealthy individuals. But, John Reddy, Jr., counsel to the Manhattan Public Administrator, knows that the court serves New Yorkers from all walks of life, and battle there are not just about money.

“It’s about all kinds of things,” he said, including appointments of guardians of children and ill individuals, as well as estates.

Reddy is a newcomer to political campaigns but he is familiar with the struggles and issues that New Yorkers face when a loved one dies. He considered running in the 2005 election to replace Judge Eve Preminger. He decided against running due to injury and illness within his family.

Born into a family of workers and craftsmen, Reddy naturally drifted towards construction. He switched gears as an undergraduate at Fordham University and decided to become a lawyer, instead, earning tuition for New York Law School by working as a vendor at Shea Stadium and in a Queens steel mill.

During the campaign, Reddy has not stopped working as counsel to the Manhattan Public Administrator, which handles estates for people who die without a will or with vaguely worded documentation. He said that his experience there makes him the top choice in the Surrogate’s race. When he was first hired 13 years ago, Reddy was charged with closing more than 2,000 cases that had been open for at least four years. He finished up all but 40 within three years, he said, and he hopes to repeat that record with other open cases at the Surrogate’s Court.

Following the Sept. 11 attacks, Reddy taught attorneys about probate law, which covers will verification and, if there is no will, how property distribution and tax payment should be handled. He has participated in will and estate workshops for minority lawyers, and educated potential guardians about their duties.

Guardianship is one area that Reddy would like to change, if elected to the court. Judges have often appointed friends to certain cases, which is not fair to those who do not have ties to a judge, Reddy argues. He proposes having potential guardians apply with the court and be selected through lottery.

It’s up to the Surrogate judges to push for important changes like these, he said, because if they do not speak up, no one else will.

“It’s a process,” he said, “and it needs to move forward.”