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Part
Two: Robin Kelly Sheares
Robin Kelly Sheares is currently the principal Law Clerk for
Supreme Court Justice Deborah Dowling. She was born in Harlem
and raised in Brooklyn. She has seventeen years of egal experience
in housing, civil and criminal law and she is planning to
take it to the next level beginning on September 14th when
she steps into the primary for Civil Court Judge of the 2nd
Municipal Court District Brooklyn N.Y.
Growing up in Brooklyn can be a struggle, if you are from
Brooklyn than you know what I mean. “My younger days
were my better days, when you go through them you think it’s
the worse. I grew up with seven brothers and sisters it was
four boys and four girls altogether along with both parents.
It was very hard, very difficult; I always wondered why my
parents had so many children, but when my parents passed,
I realized all we had was each other. High school was part
of my best days, I met the most wonderful people in the world,
that was over twenty-five years ago and we are still friends.
So I love those days, when I was going through it I didn’t
even know if I would make it through.” Sheares graduated
from Public School 309, Junior High School 57, Brooklyn Technical
High School, Ithaca College and St. Johns University Law School.
Ms. Sheares had no intentions of becoming a judge or even
entering the legal field, she always wanted to be a school
teacher in elementary school or just in the public school
system. “When I reached my junior year in college, everything
turned around for me. I started seeing bad things in the paper
about the students fighting the teachers and the parents fighting
the teachers, so I decided that wasn’t for me. I always
knew that my second choice was to be an attorney.”
So why does she want to become a judge you might ask. “I
want to become a judge because I definitely possess the capability,
integrity and the temperament that you want when you are selecting
a judge, but the deep-rooted reason why I started thinking
about becoming a judge was when I was eight-years old I went
go to court with my mother because we had a landlord tenant
dispute and just the way that my mom was treated I really
didn’t like it. I thought , “the judge is mean.”
When I thought about it, that was my deep-rooted reason for
wanting to become a judge.”
If you have been in Brooklyn lately, you may have met Ms.
Sheares by now, she has been out campaigning for a few months
now. If you have, you might see that her Motto is “More
Than A CUT ABOVE THE REST”-uniquely qualified to be
a Civil Court Judge, and you, like I might wonder what makes
her so uniquely qualified. “I am uniquely qualified
because I possess the in court and out of court qualities
needed to be a judge. I would know how to work in the courtroom,
I would know the law applicable to that court and more importantly
I know how to deal with people a side from knowing the law,
knowing how to treat people is important. Even at eight-years
old, I realized that if you work with your staff and if you
treat the people that come in the way you want to be treated
then things would work better. The Civil Court is the People’s
court and I am a people’s person and I know how to work
with people." She is indeed a people’s person,
she is well-known in the community and a member of various
groups around the city. Her community involvements include
being a member of the Wayside Baptist Church, Metropolitan
Black Bar Association, Brooklyn Women’s Bar Association,
Brooklyn Bar Association, Noel Pointer Foundation, Hancock
Street Block Association, Brownstoners of Bedford-Stuyvesant,
Inc, and the New York Road Runners Club, just to name a few.
Sheares continues to show why she is More Than A Cut Above
The Rest but her credentials hold that same message. She has
seventeen years of legal experience in housing, civil and
criminal courts. She has also served as an Arbitrator in the
small claims part of the Civil Court of the City of New York
and is a former Administrative Law Judge.
If the people of the County of Kings are to elect Robin Kelly
Sheares as Civil Court judge they will be placing a heavy
load on her shoulders. These include but are not limited to
the following: the jurisdictional limitation of the Civil
Court itself is cases of $25,000 or less, personal injury
cases (slips and falls), landlord-tenant (residential/commercial)
disagreements, contract disputes-credit card companies that
sue or even school loan companies that sue. In addition to
that small claims court which are cases that are $5,000 or
less.
As mentioned before Ms. Sheares has worked closely with Justice
Dowling for a long time and Justice Dowling has been her mentor.
Ms. Sheares believes that that is part of the reason why she
makes such a great candidate for judge. “Justice Dowling
and I have been together for a while. When she first started
in landlord-tenant court I had just started working as a court
attorney in landlord tenant court a few months earlier. So
I’ve known her almost all of my career. As a court attorney
in landlord-tenant court every six months you switched judges
so I got to work with her for six months. When she got elected
to the Civil Court I went to work with her. That’s how
we started working, then when she was elected to the Supreme
Court, I went to work with her and we’ve been together
ever since. She’s a great mentor. That’s another
reason why I’m uniquely qualified, because I’ve
work with several other judges so I know the pros and the
cons, I know what to do and what not to do. I’ve been
with conservative judges and I’ve been with liberal
judges.”
Becoming a judge is not an overnight process; no one just
decides on their own that they would make a great judge and
go for it, it’s a long process and Ms. Sheares has fulfilled
most of that process. She has made the ballot by getting more
than the requisite number of signatures on her petition. “I
campaigned, walked the neighborhood, shook the people’s
hands, got to know more of the people-I already knew the people
and the neighborhood because I grew up in it and I’ve
never left. I had to meet with a committee of attorneys, everyone
has to do it, the one I want through was Vanguard Independent
Democrat Association and I was found to be “highly qualified.”
Each committee of attorneys has to give a rating. The ratings
include not qualified, qualified and highly qualified. Ms.
Sheares was rated as highly qualified. “I feel very
confident about that, that’s why I say I’m more
than a cut above the rest, because if you are just a cut above
you’re just making it but they said I was more than
a cut above.”
Ms. Sheares’ has an opponent in the upcoming primary,
her opponent has run twice already but lost both times so
she does have name recognition. “I’m up against
that, but I’m still very confident.”
The primary is Tuesday September 14th. A lot of people always
think “I am coming out in November,” but you have
to come out in September; if you come in November it might
already be too late.
“Vote for Robin Kelly Sheares, Robin as in Batman, Kelly
as in the color green and Sheares as in Pink and Sheers except
spelled differently, because I am more than a cut above the
rest.”
I do not endorse any candidate in the upcoming election, I
am just bringing the candidates forward to tell their side.
-Kevin Benoit
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