Justice Wan is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and has lived in Brooklyn for the last 22 years. On May 25, 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Justice Wan to the Appellate Division, Second Department. Justice Wan is the first Asian American woman to be appointed to the Appellate Division in New York State. In November 2021, Justice Wan also became the first Asian American to be elected to the Supreme Court in Brooklyn. Justice Wan was originally appointed to the bench by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in 2012, and served in both Bronx County Family Court and Kings County Family Court hearing cases involving child abuse and neglect, custody, visitation, family offenses and juvenile delinquency. Justice Wan was appointed to the New York State Court of Claims by Governor Andrew Cuomo on June 20, 2018. Justice Wan was designated to preside over an Integrated Guardianship and Landlord/Tenant Part in New York County Supreme Court, where she heard cases involving tenants who were the subject of both Article 81 guardianship and eviction proceedings. From January 2020 until her appointment to the Appellate Division, Justice Wan sat in Kings County Supreme Court, where she presided over jury and non-jury trials, Mental Hygiene Law Article 9 hospital proceedings, and handled motions on a wide variety of civil matters.
Prior to taking the bench, Justice Wan was a Court Attorney-Referee in Kings County Surrogate's Court where she handled adoption, guardianship, and trusts and estates matters. In this capacity, Justice Wan conducted pre-trial and settlement conferences with attorneys and self-represented litigants and presided over guardianship hearings involving developmentally disabled adults and kinship hearings to determine who inherits an estate. Justice Wan also served for nine years as a trial attorney at the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) in the Family Court Legal Services Division, where she tried and supervised hundreds of abuse and neglect trials.
Justice Wan served as the President of the Asian American Judges Association of New York for three years and currently serves on the Board as the Immediate Past President. Justice Wan currently co-chairs the statewide Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics for the NYS Unified Court System. Justice Wan previously served as an Adjunct Professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law where she taught Lawyering and Legal Writing to first year law students. Justice Wan formerly chaired the Family Court and Family Law Committee at the City Bar, served on the City Bar’s Nominating Committee, and served as the chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Justice Wan also serves as a board member for the Brooklyn Women's Bar Association, a NYCLA Delegate for the New York State Bar Association House of Delegates, and is a member of the Brooklyn Bar Association Diversity Committee.
Justice Wan previously served on the board of the New York State Family Court Judges Association and was the past Vice President and Secretary of the New York City Family Court Judges Association. Justice Wan also served on the Unified Court System’s Advisory Committee on Court Interpreting and the Appellate Division Second Department Mental Health Professional Certification Committee, a committee charged with assessing the qualifications of potential court appointed mental health experts. Justice Wan is the former co-chair of the Government and Public Sector Committee for the Asian American Bar Association of New York. Justice Wan regularly participates in various “Meet the Judges” and mentorship events in the community and has presented on career panels at various NYC schools. Justice Wan earned her undergraduate degree from Binghamton University and her law degree from Albany Law School, where she served on the Albany Law Review.
June 2022