The Honorable Elizabeth A. Garry was appointed as the 16th Presiding Justice of the Third Department on January 1, 2018; she had been appointed to the Third Department effective March 19, 2009. She was first elected to serve as Supreme Court Justice for the Sixth Judicial District in 2006, and was reelected in 2020. She had previously been twice elected and served as Town Justice in the Town of New Berlin, from 2002 through 2006.
Presiding Justice Garry graduated from Alfred University and Albany Law School, with honors. She began her legal career as Confidential Law Clerk to the Honorable Irad S. Ingraham, Justice of the Supreme Court, from 1990 to 1994. She was thereafter engaged in private practice in Central New York for roughly a dozen years before taking the bench full time.
Presiding Justice Garry is a past Co-Chair and current Commissioner of the Richard C. Failla LGBTQ Commission of the New York Courts. She is a founding member of the Del-Chen-O Chapter of the Women's Bar Association of the State of New York, a member of the Board of the International Association of LGBTQ+ Judges and has previously served as a regional delegate and Treasurer of the Association of Justices of Supreme Court of New York. She has served on various other boards, community organizations and professional associations throughout her career, and, most recently, commenced service as a Trustee of Albany Law School, in 2022.