Voters will likely elect 25 justices to the state Supreme Court this November. But a month after a federal judge threw out a decades-old process for selecting nominees, no system is yet in place for nominating the candidates.

A federal judge, the state Senate, and the state’s chief judge have all made their recommendations. Still, seven months before parties nominate their candidates, both the federal court system and the Legislature are reviewing their options.

A U.S. District Court judge in Brooklyn, John Gleeson, ordered in January that primaries be used to put candidates on the ballot in place of the nominating conventions, which he found unconstitutional and controlled by party leaders. With an appeal pending, and a sudden interest in changing how the judicial nominating conventions are run, Judge Gleeson indicated yesterday that he will consider staying his own order.

If he grants such a request, judicial nominating conventions would likely nominate candidates for at least one more year, unless the Legislature acted quickly. If he doesn’t, lawyers will try to make the same request in a federal appeals court.

Lawyers brought up all possibilities during a hearing before Judge Gleeson yesterday, although they focused their attention on debating how many signatures a candidate would need to be placed on a primary ballot.

“The judges are particularly concerned about the time table for the 2006 elections,” the lead counsel for the city and state associations of New York Supreme Court Justices, Joseph Forstadt, said in court yesterday. “Particularly those who have been outside of the political limelight for 13 years. … None of the judges have anticipated running in primaries in 2006.”

The New York Supreme Court is a trial court. The highest court in New York is the state Court of Appeals.

Against the interests of the 14 Supreme Court justices up for re-election after 14-year terms, the lawyers for the plaintiffs placed the interests of the candidates vying for the 11 justice positions expected to be vacant. Judge Gleeson ruled in January that candidates other than the party’s favorite were effectively barred from the nomination process at the conventions. The case was brought by a surrogate judge previously unable to gain a nomination through the nominating conventions, Margarita Lopez Torres.

An attorney for Judge Lopez Torres, Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Jr., urged Judge Gleeson to act quickly to prevent “a leisurely appellate process” that may discourage the Legislature from writing a bill supporting the court’s original decision.

“The Legislature ought to have their feet held to the fire,” Mr. Schwarz said.

On Monday, the state Senate passed a bill to scrap the judicial nominating conventions in favor of direct primary elections. The drafter of the bill, Senator John DeFrancisco, said he was uncertain that it would become law in time to have an effect on the coming elections.

“I think there most likely will be a stay request and possibly granted so that the prior system will remain in effect,” Mr. DeFrancisco said. “That’s precisely why we moved the bill so quickly.”