Hon. Margaret Anne Pui Yee Chan and Hon. Melissa A. Crane have been assigned to the Commercial Division of Supreme Court, New York County.

Judge Chan’s assignment to the Commercial Division follows an eight-year stint as an Acting Supreme Court Justice in the Civil Term for New York County, beginning in 2013.  Prior to her designation to the Supreme Court, Judge Chan had served as a Civil Court Judge in New York County, where she began her judicial career in 2007.

Judge Chan began her career as a Senior Court Attorney with the Appellate Division, Second Department in 1994.  Before joining the bench, Judge Chan practiced litigation at Gim & Chan, P.C. and Chan, Lee & Cheung, PLLC, before starting her own practice in 2002.  For the past four years, Judge Chan has been an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School teaching legal writing for the school’s LLM program.  She received her J.D. degree from Touro Law Center where she served on the law review.

Judge Crane served as a Judge on the New York City Civil Court from 2012 to late 2020 and was designated an Acting Supreme Court Justice in 2013.  On November 3, 2020, she was elected as a Justice of the Supreme Court, New York County.  Prior to joining the bench, Judge Crane was the Principal Court Attorney to Hon. Karla Moskowitz when she served both as a Justice of the Appellate Division, First Department and as a Commercial Division Justice. She was in private practice as a commercial litigator before joining the court system, first at the firm of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP.

Judge Crane has served on the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar’s Commercial and Federal Litigation Section and Chaired its Appellate Practice Committee.  Judge Crane earned her J.D. degree from Cornell Law School.  Her father, Hon. Stephen G. Crane, was one of the early Commercial Division judges and he served as Administrative Judge for Supreme Court, New York County and went on to serve as Justice on the Appellate Division, Second Department.

No announcement has been made as to which calendars will be assigned to these new judges, but Hon. Marcy Friedman retired from the Commercial Division at the end of 2020, and Hon. O. Peter Sherwood has stated his intention to leave the bench in the second quarter of 2021.

Judges Chan and Crane bring extensive experience in commercial litigation as well as diversity of background to the busy dockets of the Commercial Division.