An attorney representing the state’s Association of Supreme Court Justices said he will appeal a recent court ruling that orders political parties to use primary elections to nominate their candidates for the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Albany are considering how to respond to the ruling, which calls for the Legislature to adopt a new method for candidates’ names to be put on the November ballot.

The lead counsel for the Association of New York State Supreme Court Justices in the recent case, Joseph Forstadt, expressed concern that the court order will force justices to have to campaign heavily for re-election at the end of each 14-year term.

Currently, Supreme Court justices are elected by popular vote in general elections after they receive their party’s nomination at conventions attended by party delegates. At these nominating conventions, sitting judges are almost guaranteed their party’s endorsement, while local party bosses shut out challengers from any chance of being nominated, according to the court ruling.

It is a decades-old system that Mr. Forstadt said he hopes will remain in place.

In a 77-page ruling issued on January 27, U.S. District Judge John Gleeson of Brooklyn outlined how “the New York system is designed to freeze the political status quo, in which party leaders, rather than voters, select the Justices of the Supreme Court.”

“We’re working on an appeal,” Mr. Forstadt said, adding that he intends to file the paperwork by mid-February.

“A primary election presents very serious concerns,” Mr. Forstadt said. He said it would cause justices to have to “go out and raise vast amounts of money, whereas sitting judges almost universally receive the endorsement of all the parties. There is virtually no election race effort.This changes the whole landscape for them.”

Judge Gleeson’s ruling may affect as many as 25 races across the state this year, Mr. Forstadt said.

At least one Albany lawmaker said he shares Mr. Forstadt’s concern that the court order will encourage Supreme Court justices to have to devote significant resources to being elected, at the expense of their judicial duties.

“Some folks are dancing in the street because they think a more ennobled and sophisticated judiciary is going to emerge from this ruling by some operation of natural law,” Assemblyman Ryan Karben, who represents part of Rockland County, said. “That is just not the case.”

Mr. Karben predicted that justices would be forced to run large campaigns because they would no longer be shielded by nominating conventions from competition within their own parties.

“There have been allegations that judgeships are for sale,” Mr. Karben said. “This will really mean that judgeships are up for sale. … The harder it is to run,the greater is the advantage that goes to people with lots of money and existing name recognition.”

Despite his concerns, Mr. Karben said he expects that party primaries will become the standard method by which Supreme Court justices are nominated.

“I believe there will be a codification of the ruling,” Mr. Karben said. “Given that court order, I think the most likely outcome will be primary elections.”

Such a move would bring the nomination process for Supreme Court justices in line with the nomination process for lesser judgeships throughout the state.

Mr. Karben said that discussion among legislators about the recent ruling has so far been limited to “cloakroom conversations.” He anticipated that a legislative solution would be reached before the close of the session in June.

While Messrs. Karben and Forstadt are gloomy in their outlooks for the effects of court order, others see change as being long overdue.

“This was not a matter of a few bad apples, but of a system that is fundamentally rigged,” the lead counsel in the federal case, Jeremy Creelan, said, referring to the system of judicial nominating committees.

Mr. Creelan points to the use of primaries across the state and elsewhere as evidence that party primaries do not necessarily lead to qualified judges being turned out of office.

“The truth is that every other elective office in New York State is elected through primaries,” Mr. Creelan said. “Every other state that has partisan elections for judges uses primaries. This is not reinventing the wheel. This is a very accepted procedure. We do not anticipate any problems.”