Betsy is a Supreme Court Justice elected to the Kings County Supreme Court bench in 1997; she has the distinction of being the first Latina woman to serve in this capacity. After graduating from Cornell with her bachelor’s degree from the College of Arts and Sciences, she studied at the New York University School of Law receiving her J.D. in 1982. Justice Barros has dedicated her entire legal and judicial career to public service.

After representing indigent clients as a public defender for six years as a staff member of the Legal Aid Society, in Brooklyn, Betsy prosecuted corruption in the criminal justice system as a Special State Prosecutor. She later prosecuted bias-related crimes and supervised staff attorneys in the Kings County District Attorney’s Office as Chief of their Civil Rights Bureau and as Chief of a felony trial bureau.

After her election to the Civil Court bench in 1995, Betsy served in New York County Criminal Court where she presided over criminal cases until she was elected to the Supreme Court. Over the past eleven years, she has presided over criminal, matrimonial and most recently, guardianship matters. Serving in the Criminal Term of the Supreme Court in Brooklyn for six years, Betsy primarily dedicated herself to diverting addicted youth and adult predicate offenders, facing long term prison sentences, into alternative to incarceration programs. She placed and closely monitored, hundreds of felony offenders into programs such as TASC (a pioneer drug treatment alternative to incarceration program which has served as a model in criminal courts nationwide), successfully transitioning rehabilitated offenders back into the community.

In her capacity as a guardianship judge, Betsy handles cases involving at-risk incapacitated individuals, many of whom are indigent senior citizens, in need of court intervention and protection due to either physical abuse and/or financial exploitation.

Justice Barros is a member of the Brooklyn Bar Assoc iation, the Puerto Rican Bar Association, the New York State Guardianship Advisory Committee, the Association of Judges of Hispanic Heritage, the New York State Women’s Bar Association, the King’s County Supreme Court’s Gender Fairness Committee, the Cervantes Society, and Committee Chair: Employee of the Year Selection Committee, Kings County Supreme Court.

The daughter of Chilean immigrants, Betsy was born and raised in Brooklyn, where she still resides with her husband Ron.

At the time of our 35th reunion, Betsy has just been elevated by Governor Andrew Cuomo to Associate Justice in the Appelate Division of the Kings County Supreme Court (Second Department of the State of New York).

At the time of our 40th reunion, Betsy continues to serve as Associate Justice of the Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department of the State of New York, having been appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2014. She has the distinction of being the first Latina woman to serve in this capacity.