The Surrogate’s Court occupies a fancy old building in downtown Manhattan, with the swirling Italian marble and ornate flourishes of the Beaux Arts movement of a century ago.

Inside – along with dusty folders of city records that date as far back as the 1600s – is one of New York’s most lucrative, politically influenced, and, at times, scandal-prone courts.

Its domains are death and patronage – specifically, the long, arduous legal battles over wills trusts, and estates; battles that involve families of September 11 victims, celebrities such as Andy Warhol, and many thousands of ordinary Manhattan residents who die without wills.

The cases can drag on for decades, which prompts many critics to claim the court’s primary benefactor is the “T&E” industry: trusts-and-estates lawyers who can reap large fees from an estate over the years, and well-positioned attorneys who can win appointments from the court’s two surrogate judges.

Some political leaders, viewing the judges as long-term investments, use their networks of clubs and ground troops to get judicial candidates on the ballot, and – the thinking goes – in return expect friendly lawyers to get consideration for some of those appointments.

Elections are rare: Each judgeship is on the ballot only every 14 years.

In Manhattan, one of those years is 2005. In what could become one of the most hard-fought and little-watched political races this fall, two liberal minded attorneys, who live near each other at the Upper West Side, are expected to seek the seat being vacated by Judge Eve Preminger, who must leave the court because she has reached the statutory retirement age, 70. The other surrogate, Renee Roth, is not up for re-election.

While judicial candidates tend to avoid the mudslinging and melodrama that sometimes dominate campaigns, and they face some added ethical standards – for example, they’re not supposed to know their contributors’ names – many political insiders expect this year’s surrogate’s race to be as competitive, expensive, and sharp-elbowed as any.

Both likely candidates have Ivy League pedigree. Both have impressive, long resumes. Both have liberal political reputations.

One candidate said she has had her eye on the surrogate’s seat for a long time: Eve Markewich is a former Democratic district leader and a private attorney with more than a decade’s experience specializing in trusts and estates for a high-profile firm. She has no judicial experience.

The other prospective candidate, Kristin Booth Glen, is a former judge of the Civil Court and state Supreme Court, and current dean and professor of law at the City University of New York.

While Ms. Glen was serving on the bench and on various legal committees, Ms. Markewich was working her way up through the ranks of the firm Blank & Rome, and of the political clubs of the Upper West Side. She served as district leader for six years and allies herself with the Park River Independent Democrats. With degrees from Harvard and Columbia Law, Ms. Markewich said her campaign has been more than a year in the making and one of her reasons for running is that “like every other aspiring lawyer, I always wanted to be a judge.”

“I’ve walked around a lot of rooms introducing people to other people,” she said, “and then I finally said to myself,’ I think it’s time for me to introduce me.'”

As surrogate, Ms. Markewich said her goals would be to speed resolution of cases – some of her cases have spanned her entire career – and create incentives that would bring a more diverse staff of court attorneys and appointees to 31 Chambers St. To curb the number of patronage appointments, Ms. Markewich said, a judge needs a larger pool of qualified attorneys to choose from.

She does not like to use the word “reformer” when describing herself as a candidate. “It’s such a hackneyed term,” she said, and one with little campaign value.

Still, she sees a need for reform, and she said her posture would not be political.

Instead, she said, it will be based on a blend of her personable manner, specialized credentials, and self-confidence.

“I have never carried anyone else’s water,” she said.

Ms. Markewich already has a skeleton campaign team in place, including an acting campaign manager, Paul Greenfield, and a political consultant, Hank Sheinkopf. He said he expects to conduct Ms. Markewich’s press relations – though he said the only article that matters might be the endorsement from the New York Times.

Ms. Glen’s campaign is less fully formed. Only in recent months, according to Ms. Glen, did she consider entering the race, and she has not formally announced her candidacy.

She did, however, submit an application to the state bar’s screening panel for judicial candidates, which has found both candidates to be qualified, and she told colleagues last week that she would run for the post.

A graduate of Stanford and the Columbia Law School, Ms. Glen said in a brief interview that any comments on her motives for running, or her views on the court, would be premature.

One issue that may come up is age. Ms. Glen is 62, which means she would be unable to serve a full term. Ms. Markewich is 43.

Another issue is motive. As CUNY law school dean, Ms. Glen has administered a school that has attempted to raise its admission standards but continues to have a lower percentage of its students pass the bar exam than any other law school in the city.

While Ms. Glen has seen the failure rate decrease in recent years, critics have called for the closing of the law school and reinvestment of its budget elsewhere within CUNY. A letter she wrote to the staff at the law school, dated April 5, said Ms. Glen would take a leave of absence June 1 and step down December 31 to run for the surrogate bench.

In the letter, she said the job would allow her to continue to work on behalf of the developmentally disabled.

Efforts to reach Ms. Glen for additional comments were unsuccessful. Identifying herself as a friend of Ms. Glen’s, Jennifer Bluestein, a former campaign spokeswoman for the mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer, said Ms. Glen’s schedule as law dean made her too busy to do interviews.