Nicole Bayly poses with her family after announcing her candidacy. Photo provided by Nicole Bayly
BY JENNIFER CROWLEY
Since announcing her candidacy for Monroe County Family Court Justice back in February of this year, Wheatland Town Justice and resident Nicole Bayly has been on the campaign trail nonstop. Her car, only three years old, has 140,000 miles on it. Most of the mileage has been put on the past seven months, the result of nonstop event appearances to meet with potential constituents, community groups, and at-risk youth advocates.
On top of a grueling campaign schedule, the 44 year-old mother works as the confidential law clerk for Monroe County Family Court Judge James E. Walsh, Jr. She has focused her professional legal career on the practice of family law, the result of her personal life which has been marked by a great sense of altruism.
“I became a foster parent nearly 20 years ago. My son Kevin was the first child to come into my care at two days’ old. He’s now a freshman in college. At the time I knew very little about infants – I got the call to pick him up, want to the store, bought a car seat, and I never looked back,” said Bayly, one of two candidates running on the Republican ticket. She added that while Kevin was her first, since then more than 80 other foster children have spent time at her home.
“For me, family court is very personal. That is why I am in this race 150%. It is critical that our judges not only have experience on the bench, but also understand the very unique population they will be serving and the challenges that come along with at-risk youth and their families – addiction, mental illness, prison, financial stress – the list seems to never stop,” she added.
Bayly herself exudes non-stop energy. From working downtown each day to hearing cases in Wheatland Town Court several nights a month, to cheering on her son’s soccer team and later visiting with her five adult children (and two grandchildren), Bayly is in constant motion. To hear her explain how she found her way to family court, it becomes clear that she is ambitious with the fortitude to back it up.
“My career originally started in the field of academics. When Kevin was born I was working in international admissions at U of R, my alma mater. Over the years our family started to grow with a number of longer-term placements. This exposure to the foster care system in New York is what inspired me to go back to school and study law, so that I could do more to help at a macro level,” explained Bayly. She enrolled at the University of Buffalo in 2003 and in the first year she made a daily commute to Buffalo from her home, then near Charlotte Beach. It wasn’t far into her second year when she became pregnant with her youngest child, Terry, now an eighth-grader. She peresevered and earned her law degree in 2006. She was admitted to the Bar in 2007.
When asked what piqued her interest in the foster care system back in 1999, the answer was a bit unexpected: a Google search. “I was reviewing an admission packet from a student in China and needed more information. As I was searching for it, I happened upon the web site for CAP (Children Awaiting Parents). I started looking at the photos and reading the stories of these kids and just thought, I bet I can help here.”
And that drive to help is what led Bayly to this year’s family court judicial race. “In late 2017 I had a few people approach me with the idea of running. As I thought about it, I realized that if my passion is really to help at-risk youth, then where better to apply my education, professional experience and lessons from 20 years of fostering children?”
What’s most apparent as Bayly starts to share some of her experiences as a foster parent is the tremendous empathy she has for the trauma kids experience when being left in a foster care. Having helped so many children, there isn’t much she hasn’t seen or isn’t sure how to handle (one reason she trained foster parents for many years). “Once in the middle of the night a sheriff’s car stopped with two teenage brothers in need of emergency foster care. They had two younger sisters in the car, quite young, and the boys refused to leave the girls – they had been given a different temporary assignment. I could see their fear and knew that separating the four wasn’t going to be acceptable to them. I spoke to the sheriff and we worked it out that all four would stay with me.”
So based on Bayly’s seasoned experience with the family court system, where does she see the greatest area of need? “Obviously a focus on timeliness is imperative. We need to process cases as quickly as possible, still with the best intentions for the child in mind, but we don’t want anyone languishing. Beyond that I feel strongly about helping parents in crisis to build their support systems. These are often lacking – there aren’t grandparents involved or an aunt that lives nearby or a brother that has the means to help with a child. So how can we get these parents connected in with services and agencies that can function as a somewhat natural extension of the family unit?”
Despite a non-stop schedule, Bayly has kept her home “open” and in compliance with regulatory standards for foster care settings. She’s very open to the idea of remaining active as a foster parent. This fact isn’t surprising given how much she recalls and knows about the dozens of kids she fostered over the years. “Well, I’ve never changed my phone number,” she said with a smile.
As the race heats up over the next two weeks, Bayly will continue campaigning, talking to voters about her background her unique experiences as a foster parent, lawyer, and judge. Bayly’s name will appear on the November 6th ballot four times for the Republican Party, Independent Party, Conservative Party, and Reform Party.
