Justice Evelyn Frazee retiring

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Note: Friends and colleagues will gather at noon on Friday, June 14, in Courtroom 404 in the Hall of Justice to celebrate Frazee’s retirement.

State Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Frazee is retiring after a 39-year law career, including 27 years on the bench.

“I enjoy what I’m doing. It’s great work, but you realize you’ve got more years behind you than you’ve got ahead of you, so at some point you’ve got to stop and enjoy them,” said Frazee, 67.

That feeling hit home in April when Frazee and her husband, Perinton Town Justice Thomas Klonick, were on the way home after opening their summer house.

“I realized I was only going to have one week there this summer,” Frazee recalled. “I just felt like I was jamming everything in, even time with friends and family. Now I can just enjoy doing things and being with people on a more leisurely basis.”

Frazee is not planning to leave the law entirely. She’s considering moving into mediation and arbitration.

Frazee’s term in office would have run through the end of 2020; now there will be an election to fill her seat in November.

Frazee was born and raised in Castleton-on-Hudson, a small town south of Albany in Rensselaer County. She studied English and history at SUNY Oneonta and worked as a teacher for a few years in Illinois before moving to New Jersey, where she received her law degree at Rutgers Law School.

Frazee came to Rochester for her first job as an attorney at a small law firm. After a couple years in private practice, Frazee served as law clerk for state Supreme Court Andrew Siracuse from 1980 to 1992.

She was elected to state Supreme Court in 1992 and again in 2006.

“She is, in my opinion, the epitome of what a judge should be and stands for,” said retired state Supreme Court Justice Francis C. Affronti.

He called Frazee “probably one of the most qualified and capable members of the judiciary that I’ve had the pleasure to associate with.”

Attorney Janice Iati said Frazee often would take the time to call attorneys to discuss an upcoming case “which makes us aware that she really wants to do the right thing.”

“Judge Frazee is acutely aware of how important it is to remain tempered and remain engaged and remain the judge that we all want to get when we file our request for judicial intervention,” Iati said. “We all have always hoped that it would be her.”

Attorney Bradley Kammholz said Frazee is “a true gift to our community.”

“Her temperament on the bench, her way of getting folks to a resolution, her fairness, her compassion — in all of the projects that she has been involved in she has contributed so much to, not just our legal community, but our entire community over the last 30 years. She’s really going to be missed as a judge in our community,” he said.

Frazee is on the Monroe County Bar Association’s health and well-being task force that works to handle crises that pop up with lawyers in our community.

“She’s been a really nice steady hand to help us with those issues,” Kammholz said. “She has great ideas and she’s been a real contributor to that.”

Attorney Charles Inclima said Frazee’s dedication to the community has gone beyond her service on the bench. One of her most notable achievements is her work as co-founder of A.C.T. for the Children more than 20 years ago.

A.C.T. is a class for divorcing and separating parents “to make them more aware of the impact that their conflict has on their children and to try to teach them ways they can reduce the negative impact,” Frazee said.

“She has devoted herself to not only the bench but also to public service,” Inclima said. “She’s going to be a major loss to the bench and to the community. There’s no question about that.”

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