By Daniel Wiessner

ALBANY, N.Y., Dec 1 (Reuters) - The New York State Commission on Judicial Nomination has nominated seven people, including three Appellate Division justices, to fill the Court of Appeals seat being vacated by retiring Judge Carmen Ciparick.

The nominees, announced Saturday, are Appellate Division, First Department Justices Sheila Abdus-Salaam and Rolando Acosta; Fourth Department Justice Eugene Fahey; Kathy Chin of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft; David Schulz of Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz; CUNY School of Law Professor Jenny Rivera; and Margarita Rosa, the executive director of Grand Street Settlement.

Ciparick, who has reached the mandatory retirement age of 70, will step down at the end of December after 19 years on the Court of Appeals. She is the court's first Hispanic judge.

Governor Andrew Cuomo must select her replacement between Jan. 1 and Jan. 15.

A record 75 people applied for Ciparick's seat, former Chief Judge Judith Kaye, the chair of the commission, wrote in a letter to Cuomo on Saturday. The panel interviewed 36 candidates over four days in November, she said.

Over the last ten vacancies, dating to 1997, no more than 47 people had applied, according to the commission. The record for the number of female applicants more than tripled, from 11 in 2003 to 35 this year, and the number of minority applicants more than doubled, from a high of 11 in 2006 to 24.

The six candidates who are not chosen by Cuomo will be considered for the vacancy left by the death of Judge Theodore Jones, who died of an apparent h e art attack on Nov. 6.

Abdus-Salaam, 60, was appointed to the First Department in 2009, after sitting in Manhattan Supreme Court for 15 years. She was previously an attorney with East Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation, the New York City Law Department and the city's Office of Labor Services. If selected, she would be the first black woman appointed to the court, and its fifth black judge.

Acosta, 56, was appointed to the First Department in 2008. He was a Manhattan Supreme Court justice from 2004 to 2007, and sat in New York City Civil Court from 1998 to 2001. He would be the high court's second Hispanic judge, if chosen for the spot.

Kathy Chin, 59, has been a partner in litigation at Cadwalader since 1990. She would be the first Asian-American judge in the history of the Court of Appeals.

Fahey, 61, was appointed to the Fourth Department in 2006. He previously had sat in Erie County Supreme Court and Buffalo City Court, and was a member of Buffalo's Common Council for more than a decade.

Rivera, 51, joined the faculty of CUNY School of Law in 1997, and is the founder and director of the school's Center on Latino and Latina Rights and Equality. She was an administrative law judge for the state Division of Human Rights, and served as a special deputy attorney general for civil rights under Cuomo, when he was attorney general. She also clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor from 1993 to 1994, when Sotomayor was a judge in the Southern District of New York.

Margarita Rosa, 59, has been the executive director of Grand Street Settlement since 1995. The non-profit provides a range of services to low-income people and immigrants. After spending five years in private practice, Rosa in 1985 joined the state Division of Human Rights, where she served as commissioner from 1990 to 1995.

Like Acosta, Rivera and Rosa would, if chosen, become the second Hispanic judge in the high court's history.

Schulz, 60, is a founding partner of Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz, which was formed in 2003, and also worked at now defunct Rogers & Wells, and Clifford Chance. He is an adjunct professor at Yale Law School and Columbia Law School, and a frequent author and lecturer on topics related to the press and the First Amendment.

The commission will hold an informational meeting regarding the Jones vacancy at the New York City Bar Association on Dec. 5.

(A prior version of this story incorrectly reported the year Levine Sullivan Koch and Schulz was founded. It was formed in 2003).

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