Judge Vidya Pappachan ’07 didn’t take what many would consider to be a traditional path to law school or to a career in public service. At the age of four years old, her family moved to Massachusetts from India. When she first attended Hofstra Law, she imagined she would pursue a career in finance or corporate law, but her experiences while in law school, coupled with the encouragement of her mentors, led her to a career in public service. She recently ascended to the bench as a judge of the Civil Court and presides in Criminal Court in New York City. She remains passionate about public service and is dedicated to giving back through mentorship.
How Her Immigrant Background Led Her to Law School
In speaking about her childhood, Judge Pappachan noted that her immigrant background served as a strong influence. “My parents struggled and worked long hours, making sure their children had a sense of security financially and opportunities for education,” she says. “They wanted to break their children out of that pattern of struggle. They had a vision of job security for us.”
“I originally sought a career in finance and then thought I might go to law school to be a corporate lawyer.” She began as a part-time evening law student at Hofstra Law. “I worked during the day and took classes at night,” she says. She applied for a position at the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County as a part-time job and nothing more.
Deciding on a Public Service Career
It was at the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County that Judge Pappachan’s passion for public interest law was awakened. She worked as an assistant in the criminal defense practice, interviewing defendants before they appeared before a judge. She recalled that many of the individuals who were accused of crimes were young juveniles associated with the MS-13 gangs. “I would interview them, fill out a card with their information and hand it to the attorney just moments before they appeared before a judge” she said. “At the same time, I heard from crying mothers who often barely spoke English and appeared in court for their children trying to explain a desperate situation.”
Judge Pappachan became a full-time law student after her first year, but her experience at the Legal Aid Society was eye-opening. “The work I did there really spoke to me. I realized that there was a larger socioeconomic issue with indigent defendants that was much more complicated than just punishing someone for doing a bad thing. I felt more fulfilled doing the work I did there than I did at a job where I was sitting at a desk and typing numbers or reading contracts.”
Nevertheless, Judge Pappachan still thought she would ultimately seek a career in corporate law. She went to London for an international business certificate program, pursued an internship in the New York State Office of the Attorney General in their Investor Protection Bureau, and explored other areas of the law through clinical programs at Hofstra Law.
During the summer after her second year, Judge Pappachan took a trial advocacy course through the National Institute of Trial Advocacy (NITA). Her professor, Michael Coleman, was the head of New York County Defender Services at the time. “I hated public speaking, but he really encouraged me and pushed me out of my comfort zone,” she says. “He told me I had a presence in the courtroom, and he worked meticulously with me and every student in that class, helping us hone our trial skills by making us watch videos of ourselves conducting direct and cross examination, opening statements and closing statements.”
Coleman was one of Judge Pappachan’s earliest and most influential mentors. “He sat me down and talked to me about a career in public service, and he encouraged me to interview for public service positions,” she says. “‘Just interview,’ he told me. ‘You don’t have to commit to a whole career in public service, but just think about it.’ He told me that the first few years would be challenging financially, but that I would be making a real difference in people’s lives.”
But the decision to commit to a public service career over a corporate career wasn’t an easy one. “I struggled with reconciling what had been instilled in me — pursuing a career that would ensure financial and job security with the idea of having a career that meant something, where I could make a difference. I had to ask myself, ‘Do I want to wake up to a job that makes me feel fulfilled or a job that is just a paycheck?’ I finally took that leap of faith and committed to a public interest position. I had to explain my career choice to my parents, to let them know that success comes in different forms.”
From Public Defender to the Bench
After graduating in 2007, Judge Pappachan began her legal career working as a public defender in the Criminal Defense Practice at the Legal Aid Society in Kings County. “My practical experience was an incredible help in getting me that position,” she says, “because my resume reflected the fact that I was originally focused on a very different career. In my final interview, the head of the Legal Aid Society wanted to know how I would be able to manage to handle clients that had been charged with serious crimes. But I had worked as a paralegal and interacted with defendants and attorneys. I had been in the courtroom standing beside attorneys and learning how to operate in a courtroom. I had done clinical and pro bono work during law school as well and learned how to draft motions and briefs.”
“I got where I am by stumbling through life and exposing myself to experiences that ended up speaking to me.”
She worked at the Legal Aid Society for just under 10 years, transitioning from misdemeanors to handling mostly felony matters. “Because it was a public service position, I was thrown into the trenches right away,” she says. “You learn quickly in that environment. You’re not babied. You speak to colleagues and learn how to strategize. You learn the people skills required to interact with clients, adversaries, and the court.”
After leaving the Legal Aid Society, she became a court attorney in Manhattan Criminal Court as a personal appointee of Judge Josh Hanshaft, a former Kings County prosecutor. “We had a great relationship,” she says. “It was a good balance. You can get tunnel vision based on the perspective of your practice. But we were able to step outside of our previous careers, to analyze the nuances of the law, and to apply the law through a fair and impartial lens. It was a great combination, and though I am a judge who presides in a different borough, we constantly keep in touch.”
Judge Pappachan considered applying for a judicial position for some time before she took the leap. “My application for a judicial position sat on my desk for two years,” she says. “It is an enormous, daunting application. But the most intimidating part of it was the essays. I found the essay portion of the application to be very soul searching and think deeply about why I wanted to pursue a career on the bench and what inspired me. It makes you really think about why you want to do this.”
“Many people apply every year to become a judge, and plenty of people have the legal knowledge base to do it, but that particular aspect is just a small part of it. In the criminal courts of New York City, which are high volume courts, you have to deal with cases efficiently, yet thoroughly and effectively, to ensure that there is due process, and every party feels heard, even if I may be ruling against them. There are socioeconomic issues that are deeply entrenched within the community and compassion is an equally important part of the job.”
Judge Pappachan served as part of the Executive Board at the South Asian Bar Association of New York (SABANY) since 2020, and until recently, served as its president-elect. She currently also serves on the City Bar’s Council for Judicial Administration and is Chair to the Sub-Committee on Improving Racial Equity in New York State Courts. She cites her bar association work and community advocacy as serving an integral role in the values she brings to the bench.
The Role of Mentorship
Mentorship has played a big role in Judge Pappachan’s career. “I had mentors every step of my career and they pushed me to pursue a position as a judge. They helped guide me, reinforce my confidence, and overcome the feeling of ‘imposter syndrome.’ My mentors were there to give me reinforcement. ‘There’s a reason they think you’re going to be great at this job,’ they said.”
She has also served as a mentor herself. As a court attorney, she worked with interns and shaped their work so that they could have practical experience that would help them get a job. “I tried to push them out of their comfort zone,” she says. “I wanted them to be able to articulate legal issues in a coherent way. If they were not in court watching trials, I wanted them to draft opinions. I wanted them to be able to say, ‘I did the legal research and drafted this published opinion.’ I made sure they had something tangible to take from their internship experience.”
Judge Pappachan also launched a mentoring program at the South Asian Bar Association of New York (SABANY). She was inspired to do so through her own experience and wanted to help other immigrants and people of color. “Many of us in the South Asian community were told that our focus should be on studying and that being book smart would lead to success” she says. “The minority community doesn’t always advance the idea of building yourself as a person and learning to interact with others. But to be successful, you need to have both, and the reality is that people want to work with people that they like. I wanted to build a mentoring program that would allow for a network of support within our community that could help us achieve the pinnacles of our respective chosen career paths.”
She was determined to make that mentorship program successful and did so in close collaboration with then-president, Jayasri Ganapathy, who is also a Hofstra Law graduate. “I did a lot of research on what made mentorship programs work and what made them effectively fail. I found that the programs that were less successful were the programs where mentors and mentees were matched up, but they were then left to figure out what to do on their own,” she says. “I developed a program which includes monthly panel discussions on various topics that would hopefully be interesting to law students and younger attorneys. It gave structure to the program and kept participants actively involved, while allowing them to network outside of their one-on-one mentor-mentee pairing.”
New mentor-mentee relationships should be approached like friendships, according to Judge Pappachan. “I tell mentees not to be intimidated, to think about it as creating a friend. It isn’t a short-term relationship, even if the program itself is short-term. The relationship is long-term. The best mentors I have had are also my friends,” she says, and she has also developed many friendships from running the mentorship program. Judge Pappachan hopes that she has helped developed a framework for the program to allow it to continue to grow in the upcoming years. She has now stepped back from that role but continues to stay on as an informal advisor.
Approach to the Courtroom
Judge Pappachan was appointed to the bench in December 2021. She serves in the Criminal Court in Bronx County, New York City, which has an extremely high volume of cases. “When you are sitting in the courtroom and the cases are coming very fast, it would be easy for any judge to just push through the cases like an assembly line,” she says, “but I’ve tried to learn from the best judges and take a moment to remember that for those individuals, this court appearance is their one opportunity to be heard. That moment means everything to the players that are involved in that case.”
It is very important to Judge Pappachan that the people who appear in her courtroom are comfortable and understand the process. “A big part of being a judge is to protect the record, but I also want to make sure that the people who come before me understand what I am telling them,” she says. “I want them to respect the process, trust in the system and to feel that they are being judged by someone who is part of their community, not someone who is higher than them. I try to slow down and speak colloquially, so that everyone feels heard even if they are not happy with the result.”
She looks forward to a future within the court system. “There is an immense amount of opportunity to continue to effectuate justice and change where it may be needed,” she says. She would also like to continue her bar association work with the City Bar on improving racial equity, and to stay involved in similar initiatives in the court system. “Socioeconomic issues come into play not just in criminal court, but in other courts, such as family court and housing court as well. That’s where change in the process needs to occur. We need to ask how we can improve the court system; how can I use my voice as a judge to help bring confidence to the justice system within the community?”
Looking back, Judge Pappachan says, “I got where I am by stumbling through life and exposing myself to experiences that ended up speaking to me.” She encourages law students to get exposure to the real-life work that lawyers do. “My big takeaway, my best advice is that you shouldn’t limit yourself. Take those leaps of faith and explore different opportunities.”
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