Hon. Ellen Gesmer has presided over matrimonial
cases since October 2006, first in the Bronx Supreme Court and,
since 2009, in New York Supreme Court. She was elected a Judge
of the Civil Court of the City of New York in November 2003, and a
Justice of the Supreme Court in November 2011. From 2004 to
2006, she sat in Civil Court, in Kings and New York Counties, and
then in Criminal Court. Judge Gesmer lectures frequently to
judges, lawyers, law students and community groups. She serves
on the Matrimonial Practice Committee and is active in the
Interdisciplinary Forum on Family Law and Mental
Health. From 1987 until 2003, she was a partner in
Gulielmetti & Gesmer, P.C., where she specialized in
matrimonial and family law cases. She began her career as a
law clerk to the Hon. Joseph L. Tauro on the District Court in
Massachusetts. She worked for six years at Bedford‑Stuyvesant
Community Legal Services, taught in the Child Advocacy Program at
the University of Michigan Law School, and was an associate at
Teitelbaum & Hiller, P.C. She received a BA summa cum
laude from Harvard College in 1972 and a JD from Yale Law School in
1976.