Judge Lisa Friederwitzer, who was recently appointed to Family Court in the Bronx, was forced to testify when she was 11 in a landmark child custody case about which of her parents she wanted to live with. The experience, she said, helped influence her decision to go to law school and pursue family law. Credit– Jonah Markowitz for The New York Times
Lisa Friederwitzer’s first experience in a courtroom was in 1979. She was 11 and it was brutal.
“I was under terrible mental stress,” she recalled about having to testify in front of her parents who were divorcing and vying for custody. “I didn’t know whether what I would say would be good or bad for my parents.”
She is now Judge Friederwitzer, 49, newly appointed to New York Family Court and assigned to the Bronx, an accomplishment she links back to that seminal experience of taking the stand in a Long Island courtroom.
For the legal world, her testimony helped shape a case known as Friederwitzer v Friederwitzer, a 1982 landmark decision by the New York State Court of Appeals that made headlines.
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