Rensselaer judge censured for flaunting job to help niece's boyfriend

Rensselaer City Court Judge Kathleen Robichaud was disciplined by the state's Commission on Judicial Conduct for invoking her judicial status while representing her niece's boyfriend in seven courts in three counties

 by Robert Gavin

JamesBrey, Contributor / Getty Images

ALBANY – The state’s watchdog panel for the judiciary has disciplined a longtime Rensselaer City Court judge for invoking her judicial status while representing her niece's boyfriend in seven courts in three counties.

Judge Kathleen Robichaud, who emailed local courts and a Family Court magistrate in her own county using her judicial account that contained the word “judge” in the title, received a censure — the second-most severe of the three punishments meted out by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Robichaud, an attorney since 1990 who has been on the bench since Jan. 1, 1996, is a part-time judge in the city of 9,200 residents across the Hudson River from Albany. She violated ethical rules for judges that prohibit them from using their judicial titles to advance their private interests or the interests of others.

In a stipulation, Robichaud, 60, and the commission agreed that between March 2019 and April 2021, Robichaud used an email address on court filings and legal correspondence in Rensselaer, Albany and Rockland counties that identified her as a judge. 

The cases involved Robichaud's legal representation of her niece's boyfriend in an effort to clear his driver's license for suspensions he received due to traffic tickets he faced in the local courts of Sand Lake, as well as Bethlehem, Watervliet, Guilderland, Knox and Stony Point in Rockland County — as well as a child custody matter in Rensselaer County Family Court.

In the Sand Lake case, both sides agreed, Robichaud crossed out the words “notary public” and identified herself as “City Court Judge.”

The commission said she used her judicial email address to communicate with the support magistrate handling the Family Court case, as well as the opposing attorney, in the matter in her own county.

"By using her judicial title in this way, respondent violated the rules and lent the prestige of her office to benefit her client," the commission's determination said.

Robichaud told the commission that since 2014, she had assisted three clients free of charge and no longer practices law, while remaining a member of the New York State Bar Association. She said she would create a new email address that did not mention her judicial post, the agreement said.

The commission's administrator, Robert Tembeckjian, recommended Robichaud be censured, as opposed to a less-severe public admonition, because she was previously disciplined by the commission in 2007. That time, Robichaud was disciplined for delays in her rendering of judgments and decisions on motions and cases and in her reporting of it to the administrative judge. 

“Part-time judges who practice law must scrupulously avoid even the appearance of asserting their judicial title for the benefit of private clients," Tembeckjian said in a statement. "Using an email address as an attorney – that announces you are also a judge – crosses an ethical line and undermines the integrity of the judiciary.”

Robichaud's term ends at the end of 2025.

Robichaud represented herself. The commission's case was handled by its deputy administrator, Cathleen Cenci, senior attorney Kathleen Klein and investigator Laura Misjak.

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Rensselaer judge censured for flaunting job to help niece's boyfriend