Posting of Bonds for New York City Cases

At Palumbo & Associates, PC, our law firm literally does everything for you, including going to court on your behalf. However, New York State has two traffic court systems. One is an administrative tribunal which is in the cities of New York (including the boroughs and counties of Manhattan, Bronx, Kings, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Richmond County), as well as the cities of Rochester and Buffalo. Then there is the rest of the state, whereby your speeding ticket or moving violation case will be heard by a city court judge, or a local justice court judge.

An administrative tribunal is different from a court of law because it is a court of an administrative agency of the state of New York. In the case of a speeding ticket or other traffic infraction, the court is that of the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, ad that is the agency that issues driver’s licenses and consequently has authority to take action against your license should you be found in violation of a traffic law. If you receive a ticket in NYC, Buffalo, or Rochester, your speeding ticket moving violation will not be heard by an elected judge but by an administrative law judge whom only has certain powers.

The NYS DMV runs its court under certain policies, the most problematic policy being that they court does not allow plea bargains. Consequently, all cases go to trial. Because of this our goal is to adjourn the case as long as possible to keep you clean as long as possible so if you are convicted we still avoid the insurance surcharge and you carry the points for a much briefer period of time. We also like to adjourn cases because on some dates where we could take your case to trial we may be in front of a judge that we do not want to put your case before.

While our office has a good amount of control of the calendar, we de do not have total control. There comes occasions when we ask for an adjournment of your case and it is denied. In those cases, what we then do is not answer the calendar call. In essence, it makes it seem as though we were never there. However when this happens you case is taken “off calendar.”

When we do this our next step is that we have 30 days to post a $40.00 bond to reinstate your case to the calendar. In addition, the court sends you a notice indicating that no one appeared for your case. This is a standard form letter that always gets sent to the motorist. Rest assured we did appear in court, but we did not allow the court to force your hand.

In these instances, our office lays out the $40.00 bond on your behalf. The bond is always posted in the motorist’s name, so at the end of the case it is either returned to the motorist or applied to a fine. Consequently, after we post the bond we provide our clients with:

• Proof of bond posting
• Proof of new date
• Invoice for bond reimbursement

• Our office represents our clients to get all of them the most value and the best outcome. In the NYC, Rochester, and Buffalo Traffic Courts, refusing to answer calendar calls and posting bonds is just a tool in our tool box to reach your goal.