Veteran East Williston jurist Joseph Sperber was recently elected president of the Nassau County Magistrates Association.
Sperber, a 37-year resident of East Williston, is currently serving his second term as village justice for the Village of East Williston. He was previously vice president of the Nassau County Magistrates Association.
“I’m very happy to do it. We’ll see if there are knotty problems that come up,” he said of his election to the one-year term.
Sperber said his primary duties as president of the Nassau County Magistrates Association is to arrange for continuing legal education courses for judges in the organization and to oversee its board meetings.
“Every year as judges we have to take six hours of continuing legal education,” Sperber said.
Sperber has been a member of the association since becoming acting village justice in 2004. He served as director, secretary and treasurer of the organization between 2007 and 2012.
Sperber was appointed as acting village justice by former East Williston Mayor Nancy Zolezzi under Village Justice Alan Reardon before retiring as counsel for Davis Polk & Wardwell in 2008. He worked at that New York City law firm, specializing in corporate real estate law for 27 years.
He said his prime source of satisfaction as a jurist has been “various problems I’ve faced and solved and people I’ve met and enjoyed working with.”
He worked as an attorney for J.C. Penney over a decade preceding that. He began his 40-year career as an attorney with the law firm of Amend & Amend.
He won election as village justice in an uncontested election in 2008. In an unusual race in 2012, he won re-election over Emil Samuels, acting village justice in the village.
Sperber earned his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1967. He served a two-year term as chairman of the Georgetown University National Law Alumni Board.
He also served on the St. Aidan Church Finance Committee for 25 years and also served on the St, Aidan School Board.
He is a member of the New York State Village Magistrate Bar Association.
