Joy Watson is Principal Law Clerk to Justice Karen V. Murphy of the Nassau County Supreme Court.  Prior to her current position, she served as a Nassau County Assistant District Attorney for nearly twenty years under District Attorney Denis Dillon.  Her positions with D.A. Dillon most recently included Chief of the Sex Offense and Domestic Violence Bureau and Deputy Chief of the Major Offense Bureau where she was named Special Prosecutor in the high profile case of the People of the State of New York v. Elizabeth Grubman, a defendant convicted of felony leaving the scene of an accident and assault after running down more than a dozen people outside of an East End night club.  She served on the faculty of Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, California as a Teaching Fellow  before joining Dillon’s office.

Ms. Watson has lectured at the Nassau County Police Academy, the Nassau County Bar Association, Molloy College, Adelphi University, the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and the New York State Office of Court Administration’s CLE program on the Integrated Domestic Violence Court.   She has also given testimony before the New York State Senate and Assembly on proposed changes to New York State sex offender legislation. 

Her professional memberships include Past President and member of the Board of Directors of the American Academy for Professional Law Enforcement, the Nassau County Bar Association, the Nassau County Women’s Bar Association, Irish Americans in Government and the Courthouse Kiwanis. She also served on the County Executive’s Task Force on Family Violence. Ms. Watson’s awards include the 2005 Hon. Thomas E. Ryan, Jr. Memorial Award presented by the Court Officer’s Benevolent Association of Nassau County and the 2005  “Champion for Children” award by Parents for Megan’s Law.