Photo by Deborah J. Ackerman
By Dave Warner
Sara M. Brinski was sworn in Sunday as the new Little Falls City Court Judge while her mother, Denise, and her nieces and nephew stood by. The Honorable Mark R. Rose had just vacated the position, being sworn in as the new State Supreme Court Justice last Thursday morning, read the oath for the ceremony. His father, the Honorable Edward J. Rose, was also in attendance.
Brinski grew up in Herkimer, went to Sienna College, then went to law school at Syracuse, and graduated in 2013. She worked in Utica for a few years and then went to legal aid, working in their domestic violence program before coming to Little Falls in 2019.
“I’ve been working here, side by side with Mark Rose, for more than two years,” she said.
She had never thought of becoming a judge, but when she saw that he had won the Supreme Court position, she thought it might be interesting.
“He kind of put a bug in my ear about it, and he said, ‘you can do this.’ I’ve been out of law school for ten years, but you think of a judge as being much farther down the line,” Brinski stated.
She had spent a lot of time observing Rose in court, started thinking about it, and decided, “Yeah, I can do this.”
“We had the ceremony on Sunday, and my whole family was there, and it was really nice,” she said.
Mark Mahevic, Brinski’s boyfriend, did the ‘hear ye hear ye’ entrance to call her in. “It was nice because he used a gavel that was my fathers, who passed away in June. He had a gavel from when he was the Master of the Masons Lodge in Amsterdam. We found it in his house when we cleaned after he passed away.”
She grabbed it, thinking that she might display it in the house, but now she’s going to use it in court.
Brinski has to go to a judge’s school this week and next, and she’ll start when she gets back.
“I’m excited to start. It’s an area of law where I haven’t practiced a lot, so it’s interesting to try new things. Mark had said that trying things that are uncomfortable for you are things that make life interesting,” she stated.
Brinski said that she already knows the court staff, and they are amazing. “I’m excited just to try something new and have a little variety.”
