Oded Oren

New Yorkers rely on public data every day: to navigate transit, evaluate candidates for public office, and choose schools for their kids. But when it comes to the judges who decide cases that can shape their lives, that data has not existed in any usable public form.

Oded knows this gap firsthand. As a former public defender in the Bronx, he could walk into most courtrooms and brief his clients on a judge’s patterns and tendencies. Most New Yorkers never get that insider read. So Oded built Scrutinize, which collects, analyzes, and publishes New York’s public court data for anyone to use.

Scrutinize’s judicial profiles platform has reached over 150,000 users, including elected officials, members of judicial nominating commissions, advocates, and New Yorkers seeking to better understand their courts. The site covers more than 1,200 state judges whose rulings shape New Yorkers’ lives. With City Hall set to decide whether to reappoint more than 40 judges in the coming years and several seats opening on the state’s highest court, the choices being made now will define New York’s legal landscape for decades. Scrutinize’s data helps ensure those choices are made with evidence New Yorkers can see, weigh, and debate.