Rate My Professor Gerald Lebovits

Adjunct Professor of Law Gerald Lebovits, a State Supreme Court justice in Manhattan, has been a New York City judge since 2001. He has served as president of the New York State Association of Acting Supreme Court Justices, the Association of Civil Court Judges, and the Association of Housing Court Judges. In addition to teaching at Columbia Law School since 2010, Professor Lebovits has taught at Fordham University School of Law since 2011, where the students elected him Adjunct Teacher of the Year for 2015-2016, and in the New York University School of Law Graduate Lawyering Program since 2012, where he was given a Most Beloved Professor award in 2025. He was an adjunct at St. John’s University School of Law from 2007 to 2012, where he was elected Adjunct Professor of the Year and received the Dean’s Teaching Award. He was also an adjunct and the Moot Court Faculty Advisor at New York Law School from 1989 to 2007 and 2013 to 2016, where he received the Order of Barristers Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award for Moot Court, the Otto L. Walter Distinguished Writing Award, and was elected Adjunct Professor of the Year. Justice Lebovits was a staff attorney with The New York City Legal Aid Society, Criminal Defense Division, and a principal court attorney in Supreme Court, Criminal Term, both in Manhattan. He has authored or co-authored eight books, including the Small Claims Manual: A Guide to Small Claims Litigation in the New York State Courts (7th ed. 2025); New York Objections (24th ed. 2025); New York Residential Landlord-Tenant Law and Procedure (16th ed. 2024-25); The Legal Writer: The Last Word (2023); The Legal Writer: Writing It Right (2016); Drafting New York Civil-Litigation Documents (2015); and Advanced Judicial Opinion Writing (7th ed. 2004). He has also published six book chapters and more than 350 articles on civil practice, criminal law and procedure, evidence, ethics, law and psychiatry, family law, landlord-tenant law, judicial wellness, legal writing, and trial and appellate advocacy. Lebovits received an LL.M. in criminal justice from New York University School of Law in 1986; an M.C.L. from Tulane University School of Law in 1980; an LL.L. (J.D. equivalent) from the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section in 1979 (Ordre du mérite, 2025); and a B.A. from Carleton University in 1976. He teaches the Legal Practice Workshop I & II for JDs and the New York State Supreme Court Judicial Externship Seminar for LLMs.