Karen S. Burstein (born July 20, 1942) is an American Democratic Party politician, attorney, civil servant, and former judge from the State of New York.
[3] A 1964 graduate of Bryn Mawr College, Burstein also was the first white full-time student at Fisk University.
Burstein taught in newly integrated Tennessee high schools and protested the Vietnam War.
[3] Burstein's sister, Ellen, was a television news reporter who died at the age of 59 after suffering from multiple sclerosis.
[3][8] Burstein resigned her Family Court judgeship in 1994 to seek the Democratic nomination for New York Attorney General.
A week before the election, Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari opined that Burstein would not be qualified to serve as Attorney General because she is a lesbian.