A. Kathleen Tomlinson, federal judge with ‘eager intellect’ and ‘kind heart’ dies
The law was another career for Alice Kathleen Tomlinson, but she quickly rose from being a Nassau Legal Aid lawyer to a private corporate partner and then to her role as a federal judge after attending law school at night while working on Long Island. University.
From 2006, she handled cases during her 15 years on the bench in New York’s eastern district that range widely, including criminal cases involving terrorism, corruption and corporate fraud, along with civil lawsuits. But it was attending naturalization ceremonies where U.S. Judge A. Kathleen Tomlinson swore immigrants in as U.S. citizens that colleagues said she valued the most.
In 2019, she presided at such a ceremony on Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, when 63 people became naturalized U.S. citizens on the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote a year later, after 36 states had ratified that.
“We have our own mini-UN here with all the gifts and talents that you have each brought to enrich the great substance of this place we call America,” Tomlinson said at the site where President Theodore Roosevelt once called home.
On Sunday, Tomlinson died at the age of 73 after a long battle with cancer. The Suffolk County resident had retained a full court load until then and only four days earlier he had also participated as a panelist in a virtual class of legal education from the Federal Bar Association.
“She was a remarkably strong human being. She lived for others, not for herself,” said Judge James Wicks of the U.S. District Court.
He was a friend of Tomlinson’s for three decades, including when they worked for the late U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt before they both became partners at Uniondale law firm Farrell Fritz, PC on the same day in 1998.
Tomlinson ran the company’s work and employment practices and led its pro-bono work, according to Farrell Fritz CEO Bob Creighton. He said that with an “eager intellect” and “kind heart”, “Tomlinson” conveyed “goodness” on and off the bench.
Born in Philadelphia and raised in South Jersey, Tomlinson was named after her mother Alice. But she shortened her first name to the first “A” and walked past Kathleen throughout her life, friends and colleagues said.
She grew up as one of six siblings before earning a bachelor’s degree at Rutgers University and then a master’s degree at LIU, where she later served as assistant dean before graduating from St. Louis University. John’s University School of Law in 1987.
Later in life, Tomlinson tore herself up in her role as “Aunt Cass” for many nieces and nephews in her family’s expanded Irish-American clan. She was their chef at Thanksgiving when she prepared meals that included individual apple pies for each guest, according to her best friend, Margaret Stolworthy.
She said one of Tomlinson’s other favorite pastimes was presiding over weddings of family and friends. But when she was not wearing her judge’s dress, Tomlinson served as Eucharistic minister in her church, “could moan” on a golf ball out on the greens and also “made a lousy rice pudding” at home in the kitchen, Stolworthy said.
During his professional career, Tomlinson created and produced regional conferences focusing on workplaces that included multicultural diversity, “glass ceiling” and violence issues, and also frequently lectured on employment issues, according to court officials.
U.S. District Court Judge Joanna Seybert described Tomlinson in a statement as a “highly respected lawyer” who was “straightforward,” but also “patient and kind.” She also said Tomlinson had a “tireless sense of civic duty” and was the first to volunteer for naturalization ceremonies, competitions on competition tracks and presentations by bar associations.
Tomlinson’s death “has created a void that is deeply felt,” one that “is impossible to imagine being filled,” Seybert added.
Tomlinson’s wake is Friday at Nolan Funeral Home, Inc. in Northport, followed by her funeral at. 10:30 Saturday in Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Centerport.
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