Want to Be a Judge in the Bronx? Better Pay These Firms.

Eleven of the 13 candidates who won the Democratic primary since 2021 hired at least one of the two firms, collectively paying them over $172,000. Five candidates sent the firms more than half of their total campaign funds.

The sought-after judgeship at the Bronx Civil Court carries a $214,000 annual salary and 10-year term. Civil court judges hear cases related to housing disputes and debts, and are often appointed to higher courts, including ones that hear criminal cases.

Why do winning Bronx Civil Court candidates routinely pay large sums to consultants close to Bronx Democratic Party leadership? New York Focus posed that question to Bailey, the consultants, and the nearly dozen winning Bronx Civil Court candidates who have retained those firms, many of whom are now judges.

None responded other than Bailey, who didn’t address the question in his comments.

“Our endorsements are based on a thorough and fair evaluation by a judicial screening panel composed of representatives from diverse bar associations and community organizations across the city. We also value input from our district leaders and members, ensuring a broad and inclusive perspective in our decision-making,” Bailey said in a text message.

Assemblymember Landon Dais, who has also paid significant sums to London House and Collado Consultants, defended the judicial candidates’ spending by highlighting the importance of supporting minority-owned businesses.

“Who should they hire instead, a white firm from Manhattan? Or a firm that’s at least local in the Bronx, that understands the Bronx?” he said.

It’s not clear that there’s much of an electoral need for candidates to spend large sums in the first place. The Democratic primary for Civil Court has been canceled in the Bronx each of the past three years because the number of candidates equaled the number of vacant positions. That meant that any Democrat who’d made the ballot was on their way to becoming a judge, without facing a competitive election.

London House was founded and is run by Jason Laidley, a longtime friend of Bailey. It has collected nearly $150,000 of the $172,000. Laidley previously served as Bailey’s campaign manager and chief of staff.

The New York City Bar Association, which independently evaluates judicial candidates, gave “not approved” ratings to two of the candidates who paid London House and later became judges, indicating a lack of “qualifications necessary for the performance of the duties of the position.” The Bronx Democratic Party’s own screening panel came to the opposite conclusion and determined those two candidates were “qualified.”

The judges’ campaign funds aren’t the only way that London House has been cashing in. New York Focus previously reported that hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions were missing from the Bronx Democratic Party’s campaign finance reports, which spurred a flurry of updates to correct the error. Those new reports revealed the degree to which the party’s money has flowed to London House.

Under Bailey’s leadership, the Bronx party has paid London House nearly $300,000 since 2021. It’s unclear what the money was used for. Despite New York Focus’s requests for an explanation, Bailey has said only that the payments were for “administrative and operational services” and voter outreach.

The other Bailey-connected firm, Collado Consultants & Company, collected $25,000 from civil court candidates. The company has no digital presence but is registered to the same address as Ariana Collado, the executive director of the Bronx Democratic Party and an employee of London House. Collado Consulting has worked exclusively with candidates in the Bronx, and has only been paid by one non-judicial candidate.

No other advisors to the winning civil court judicial campaigns have been paid even a tenth of what London House has made in recent years, and only one candidate who hired London House has lost.

“I’ve been on a tear for a long time about the civil court process, and I think that the natural result of it is nepotism,” said David Siffert, director of research at the NYU Center for Civil Justice, after New York Focus described this pattern to him.

“You can imagine being in the position of a candidate and saying, ‘I want this seat. What makes sense is to hire this firm that maximizes my chances.’”

New York Focus could not locate any record of the party or its leadership publicly announcing their civil court endorsements since Bailey became chair. Asked for a list of endorsees, Bailey didn’t answer.

On paper, judicial elections are open to anyone who wants to run. But party insiders say that across New York City, that’s not really how the system works.

Instead, Democratic party leaders pick favored candidates who then get the support of the party’s staff and infrastructure.

The Brooklyn and Queens Democratic Parties have received much attention for their control over judgeship nominations, and in Manhattan, a small roster of consultants offer the surest path to a nomination.

“In Manhattan, there are three or four consultants who are friends with the county leadership, and every candidate for judge pays one,” said Siffert.

Within New York City’s four heavily Democratic boroughs, the Democratic nomination all but ensures a victory come November, and there is an informal queue for would-be judges to get the party nod.

An example: Yadhira Gonzalez-Taylor ran for Bronx Civil Court in 2021, but did not hire London House. She lost the primary to Verena Powell, one of two winning candidates in the past four years to eschew both London House and Collado Consultants, and Jessica Flores, who sent London House 80 percent of her total spending.

But Gonzalez-Taylor won Bailey’s respect by defending the party’s candidate screening process on Facebook against another candidate who accused the party of rigging the interviews, according to Howard Graubard, Gonzalez-Taylor’s attorney in the 2021 campaign.

“Apparently, Jamaal [Bailey’s] response was, ‘I’m gonna beat that woman this year, but next year, I’m making her a judge,’” Graubard said.

Gonzalez-Taylor ran again in 2022, and was selected as the Democratic nominee. In March and April, she sent London House a total of $7,000 — nearly 40 percent of her total campaign spending.

London House’s Laidley is retained by both the Bronx Democratic Party and many of the candidates who seek to win the party’s endorsement.

At times, those dual roles have been at odds.

In May, a campaign fundraiser was held at party headquarters for two civil court candidates who had hired London House and won the support of the Bronx Democrats: Eliezer Rodriguez and Deidra Moore.

But the third civil court candidate the Bronx party supported in the primary, Dawn Guglielmo, was not mentioned on the event invitation.

Guglielmo had not retained London House as her campaign consultant, and the firm was one of the event’s two presenters. (The other was state Senator Nathalia Fernandez, a London House client.)

By the time of the May fundraiser, it was apparent this year’s three party-backed candidates would not face competition in the June Democratic primary. By law, the county board of elections’ deadline to certify the primary ballot was only a day later. The primary was canceled.

(Three more candidates were nominated this year after the primary, following Governor Kathy Hochul signing a law expanding the number of civil court judges. None of those three raised or spent any money for their campaigns.)

While they didn’t need to raise funds for a competitive primary campaign, the fundraiser did help Rodriguez and Moore pay the consulting fees.

To pay the party-affiliated consulting firms, it helps for judicial candidates to have some degree of independent wealth.

In eight instances since 2021, winning candidates retaining the firms have loaned or donated at least $5,000 to their own campaigns. Some gave substantially more: Flores loaned $37,500; Taisha Chambers, $20,000; and Michele Davila, nearly $16,000.

Carol Malcolm, who won election in 2023, loaned her campaign $15,000 in March 2023. She then spent more than $13,000 over the next two months on London House — for services related to a Democratic primary that was canceled due to a lack of competition.

After becoming the Democratic nominee in June 2023, Malcolm then spent more than $5,000 on Collado Consultants over the rest of that year, although in that November’s general election, there were only two candidates for two vacant Bronx Civil Court seats.

After becoming a civil court judge, Malcolm forgave the $15,000 loan she’d made to her campaign.