The Hon. Ellen N. Biben is an Acting Justice of the New York County Supreme Court, Criminal Term in the First Judicial District of New York. She was designated to the Supreme Court by the Hon. A. Gail Prudenti, former Chief Administrative Judge of the State of New York in 2015. She was serving as a judge of the New York State Court of Claims at the time of her designation to the Supreme Court, a position she was appointed to by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2015. Justice Biben was appointed to serve as Administrative Judge of the New York County Supreme Court, Criminal term by the Hon. Lawrence K. Marks, Chief Administrative Judge in January 2017.
She received her B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1983. She went on to earn her J.D. from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law in 1992.
Biben began her legal career as a clerk for the Hon. Alan H. Nevas with the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. After completing her clerkship, she entered private practice where she worked as a litigation associate at Sullivan and Cromwell.
Biben left the private arena to join the New York County District Attorney’s Office, where she would work as an assistant district attorney for ten years. For half of that time, she served as the deputy chief of the D.A.’s Rackets Bureau, tasked with targeting organized crime, money laundering, tax evasion, and corruption cases.
In 2007, Biben left the D.A.’s office to work as a special deputy attorney general with the New York State Attorney General’s Office where she was assigned to the Public Integrity Bureau. In her role in the Public Integrity Bureau, Biben supervised various high-profile public fraud and corruption investigations. She remained in that position until 2010. In 2011, she would be named the Inspector General for New York and would hold that position until the following year when she then became the executive director of the newly formed New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics. The commission was formed in 2011 in an effort to overhaul the States ethics laws. She held the position of executive director until 2013.
She has also taught Ethics in Government as an adjunct professor of law at the New York University School of Law.
Justice Biben grew up near the upper west side of Manhattan. Her parents are both accomplished New York physicians and her two older sisters are also both physicians.