Overview
The New York State Unified Court System (UCS) is the judicial branch of New York and one of the largest court systems in the country. It is administered by the Office of Court Administration (OCA), with operations split between Albany and a headquarters presence in Lower Manhattan (25 Beaver Street). By the state's own published figures the system spans 300+ state courts plus roughly 1,300 town and village courts across 13 judicial districts and all 62 counties, with about 1,200 state-paid judges and roughly 15,500 non-judicial employees, hearing on the order of three million-plus cases a year.
For a Dell SLG seller the relevant fact is that UCS runs this on a large, centrally managed technology estate — statewide network, data centers, e-filing (NYSCEF), and case-management systems supported by OCA's Division of Technology — making it a distinct enterprise IT buyer alongside the executive-branch state agencies, not a sub-unit of them.
The system is independently budgeted: the Judiciary submits its own budget request to the Legislature each year rather than competing inside the Governor's executive agency lines.
- OCA (Office of Court Administration) is the central IT buying authority for UCS — CIO Christine Sisario sets technology priorities separately from executive-branch state agencies
- The Judiciary budgets independently, submitting its own request directly to the Legislature each year — a different funding gate than Division of the Budget/OGS-driven agencies
- NY OGS IT Umbrella contract (22802/COMeT) is the primary cooperative vehicle; confirm Dell's Lot coverage before pursuing a deal
- OCA/UCS's own procurement and Division of Financial Operations transact directly for judiciary-specific buys outside OGS — clarify how they prefer to contract
- Chief Administrative Judge Zayas and CIO Sisario are the top administrative and technology relationships; UCS budgets and buys separately from NYS ITS and DOH
Where Dell Can Play
- Confirm Dell's coverage and Lot scope on the NY OGS IT Umbrella contract (22802 / COMeT) and clarify how OCA/UCS procurement prefers to transact for judiciary-specific buys.
- Position client device, server and storage lifecycle/refresh against the consolidated OCA Division of Technology estate (~20,000 personnel, hundreds of sites) rather than court-by-court.
- Lead AI-infrastructure and governed-AI conversations tied to the Interim AI Policy — UCS wants approved, secure, auditable tooling, which favors private/on-prem and data-residency-controlled designs.
- Bring cyber-resilience, data-center modernization and backup/recovery messaging given the sensitivity of judicial case data; verify any specific incident publicly before referencing it.
- Map the relationship triangle — CIO Christine Sisario (technology), Chief Administrative Judge Zayas (administration), and OCA financial operations/procurement — and treat UCS as a distinct enterprise account from NY executive-branch agencies.
Budget & Fiscal
The Judiciary is funded as its own branch and submits an annual budget directly to the Legislature, signed by the Chief Judge and Chief Administrative Judge. The FY2027 request totals roughly $3.2 billion in state operating funds — an increase of close to $200 million (about 6.7%) over the prior year — and notably carries dedicated capital dollars for technology and public-safety infrastructure. IT spend is embedded in operating and capital rather than broken out as a single public line, so figures below frame the envelope, not a discrete tech budget.
- The Judiciary budgets independently of executive-branch agencies — the Chief Administrative Judge owns the request, which is a different buying center from the Division of the Budget / OGS-driven state agencies.
- Technology spending is largely folded into operating and capital totals; treat any single 'IT budget' number with caution and confirm against the published Judiciary budget document.
Initiatives & Priorities
The New York State Courts Electronic Filing system (NYSCEF) handles electronic filing across civil, criminal, family, surrogate's, appellate and other courts, with more than a million cases e-filed to date. A parallel modernization track is the Universal Case Management System (UCMS), live in Surrogate's Courts statewide and integrating with NYSCEF. Both depend on resilient compute, storage and integration infrastructure.
Digital Courts ModernizationIn October 2025 the UCS issued a first-of-its-kind Interim Policy on the Use of Artificial Intelligence, growing out of an advisory committee formed in 2024. It limits generative-AI use to UCS-approved tools and sets guardrails on fairness, accountability and security. An AI advisory committee has since issued an inaugural report — signaling demand for governed, on-prem/private AI tooling.
AI GovernanceAs a high-value judicial target holding sensitive case data, UCS continues to invest in cybersecurity and infrastructure resilience across its statewide network and data centers. Public reporting on any specific 2025 incident is limited; frame this as an ongoing resilience and modernization posture rather than a single named event, and confirm specifics before forecasting.
Cybersecurity ResilienceOCA's Division of Technology centrally supports network, data center, software development and end-user technology for ~20,000 court personnel across hundreds of locations — a consolidated enterprise estate that favors standardized refresh, lifecycle and managed-services plays over fragmented court-by-court buying.
Infrastructure ConsolidationProcurement
UCS buys through its own OCA/UCS procurement function and can also leverage New York State's centralized contracts run by the Office of General Services (OGS). Two things to confirm first: that Dell's coverage on the relevant OGS centralized IT contracts is active and correctly scoped, and how OCA's own procurement office prefers to transact for judiciary-specific needs.
| Vehicle / gate | What it means for Dell |
|---|---|
| OCA / UCS procurement | The court system runs its own contracting and finance operations (OCA Division of Financial Operations / procurement) for judiciary-specific buys — the direct path for court-owned programs. |
| NY OGS centralized contracts | OGS manages ~1,500 statewide term contracts; its IT Umbrella manufacturer-based award (Contract 22802, managed via the COMeT eProcurement tool) covers hardware, software, cloud and implementation across Lots — a primary cooperative route for IT. |
| Authorized-user / RFQ model | Under the OGS IT model, authorized users (which can include the Judiciary) procure competitively at the transaction level via RFQs across Lots — clarify Dell's Lot coverage before pursuing a specific deal. |
Spend Signals
GovSpend · as of Aug 10, 2026Dell vs. competitors (spend, payee)
Expiring contracts (re-compete)
| Contract | Vendor | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| Firewall cloud services | Eplus Technology | Aug 27, 2026 |
| Telecommunication connectivity services | Spectrum Northeast LLC | Sep 16, 2026 |
| Purchase of Extreme Networks | International Data Link | Oct 5, 2026 |
| Purchase of 500 Dell Pro Slim desktops | Dell Marketing LP | Nov 24, 2026 |
| Cisco IP Phone maintenance | Core Bts | Nov 29, 2026 |
| Renewal of Semperis Active Directory software and support | Insight Public Sector Inc | Dec 19, 2026 |
| Check Point solution maintenance | Atlantic Data Security | Dec 30, 2026 |
Open bids / RFPs
| Solicitation | Due |
|---|---|
| Comprehensive Item Banking Software Solution New York State Unified Court System Office of Court Administration | Aug 14, 2026 |
| Robotic Book Scanning System, Fourth Appellate Department, Law Library (Request for Proposals) New York State Unified Court System Office of Court Administration | Sep 1, 2026 |
- Vendor figures are payee (who was paid) totals — GovSpend does not populate LineItem-level product text, manufacturer, or category fields for NY State agency records, so a product-level Dell/brand footprint and IT-commodity category breakdown could not be derived for this account.
- New York State's fiscal year runs April–March; the window here is PO-issued 2022-04-01 through 2025-03-31 (3-yr · FY2023–2025) — this differs from the Jul–Jun window used for the NYC accounts in this hub.
- GovSpend's canonical record for this account is "New York State Unified Court System Office of Court Administration" (agencyId 39195) — the parent "New York State Unified Court System" record (agencyId 39149) carries no spending/contract/bid data, so all figures here are sourced against the OCA record, which is the entity that actually transacts.
- The Dell Marketing LP payee total is dominated by a small number of very large POs coded only as "Information Technology Service" / "Business function specific software" (e.g., a single ~$10M PO in Jan 2025) — these are large enterprise software/services buys resold through Dell, not confirmed hardware; treat the figure as a floor on the Dell relationship, not a hardware count.
- 2026-08-10: applied a two-week runway floor to expiringContracts — removed 1 entry with endDate before 2026-08-24 (Carahsoft Technology Corp OutSystems enterprise edition subscription, endDate 2026-08-14) since a contract expiring within days offers no realistic re-compete window, and replaced it with 1 IT-relevant contract sourced from GovSpend with endDate in the 2026-08-24–2027-02-28 window, restoring the panel to 7 entries.
Power Structure
| Decision-maker | Why they matter |
|---|---|
| Hon. Rowan D. Wilson Chief Judge of the State of New York | Head of the Judiciary and the Court of Appeals; sets institutional direction and co-signs the Judiciary budget. Has publicly framed AI use as needing to be 'thoughtful, careful, and principled.' |
| Hon. Joseph A. Zayas Chief Administrative Judge | Runs day-to-day administration of the courts through OCA; formed the AI advisory committee, announced the Interim AI Policy, and drove the June 2026 Part 161 AI rule and the May 2026 website relaunch. The top administrative/operational relationship. (Re-verified current, June 2026.) |
| Hon. Norman St. George First Deputy Chief Administrative Judge | Zayas's top deputy on court administration; co-announced the reimagined nycourts.gov platform in May 2026. A key operational sponsor for modernization initiatives. |
| Christine Sisario Chief Information Officer / Director, OCA Division of Technology & Court Research | Sets statewide technology priorities; oversees ~350 IT staff supporting network, cybersecurity, data centers, software development and end-user tech for ~20,000 court personnel. The central technology decision-maker. (Re-verified current, June 2026.) |
| Office of Court Administration (OCA) Central administrative arm | Houses technology, financial operations and procurement for the whole system — the institutional buying center, distinct from executive-branch state agencies. |
News & Signals
Sources
- NY Courts — Homepage / Unified Court System
- NY Courts — NYSCEF (e-filing)
- NY Courts — Interim AI Policy (Oct 2025)
- NY Courts — Advisory Committee on AI inaugural report (PR26_02)
- NYSBA — New Part 161 rule on attorney use of AI (eff. June 1, 2026)
- NY Courts — Reimagined UCS website press release (PR26_08, May 4 2026)
- Queens Eagle — New York's courts unveil new website (May 2026)
- NDI — NYS Unified Court System courtroom modernization (10,000 endpoints / 375 courtrooms)
- News10 — Enacted 2026-2027 New York State budget (57 days overdue)
- NY Courts — FY2027 Judiciary Budget
- Queens Eagle — Courts unveil $3.2B budget ask
- NYS Executive Budget — Judiciary appropriations (FY2027)
- NY Courts — CIO Christine Sisario profile
- NY OGS — Centralized Contracts (IT Umbrella / COMeT)
- GovTech — New York will ban smart glasses from all courthouses (effective July 20, 2026)