The Hon. Michael R. Milsap is a judge for the Family Court of the City of New York in Bronx County. He was appointed to the bench by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2015.
Milsap earned a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire in 1975. He then worked briefly as an unemployment claims examiner for the Mississippi Department of Labor before enrolling at Indiana University Maurer School of Law in 1976.
After completing a J.D. in 1979, Milsap began his legal career as an attorney for the Legal Services Organization of Indiana. He worked in that capacity until 1984, at which time he relocated to New York City to join a non-profit specializing in prisoners’ rights.
Milsap worked as a managing attorney for the New York City office of Prisoner’s Legal Services from 1984 to 1987. He then joined the New York City Child Welfare Administration, where he served as an assistant supervising attorney in the Office of Legal Affairs.
Four years later, Milsap moved to the New York State Unified Court System. He started as an attorney for the Second Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division. Then, in 1992, he transferred to the Family Court of the City of New York, where he briefly served as a court attorney.
Just prior to his appointment to the bench, Milsap was a support magistrate for the Family Court of the City of New York in Kings County from 1993 to 2015.
Milsap has taught as an adjunct professor at Bronx Community College.
His memberships have included the Metropolitan Black Bar Association, the Brooklyn Bar Association, and the Association of Gay and Lesbian Judges. He has also served on the Advisory Committee for the YES Mentoring Program of the Children’s Aid Society and the Board of Directors to the Bedford Stuyvesant Community Mental Health Center.
He was born and raised in Laurel, Mississippi, where he attended Oak Park Elementary and R.H. Watkins High School.