Fabiana Pierre-Louis Confirmed to NJ Supreme Court

By Anthony Birritteri, Editor-in-Chief On Aug 27, 2020

The New Jersey Senate unanimously confirmed Fabiana Pierre-Louis as the next Associate Justice to serve on New Jersey’s Supreme Court this afternoon. She becomes the first Black woman to serve on the state’s highest court.

According to Gov. Phil Murphy, “Fabiana is an exceptionally talented attorney. … I am honored to have put her name forward, and to see someone with a different set of life experiences and perspectives on our Supreme Court, a judicial body where New Jerseyans from all walks of life turn for justice. I also thank Senate President Sweeney and Chairman Scutari for their support and conducting a thorough, fair, and open confirmation process.”

Pierre-Louis assumes the seat of Associate Justice Walter Timpone, who will reach the mandatory retirement age of 70 in November. She also assumes the seat of former Justice John Wallace, the state’s second African-American justice for whom Pierre-Louis clerked for after she graduated from Rutgers Law School in Camden.

Raised in Irvington, Pierre-Louis received her bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University-New Brunswick. She then proceeded to graduate from Rutgers Law School-Camden with high honors.

She is currently a partner in the Cherry Hill office of Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, where she is part of the White Collar and Government Investigations practice group. She worked at the same firm as an associate in her first three years out of law school, until 2010.

Afterwards, she served in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey for nine years, working in each of the District’s three offices, in Newark, Trenton and Camden.

In 2016, she was appointed Attorney-in-Charge of the Trenton office, the first woman of color to ever hold that position. Then in 2018, she was appointed Attorney-in-Charge of the Camden office, again the first woman of color to hold that position.

In addition to overseeing the work of the attorneys in Trenton and Camden, Pierre-Louis investigated and prosecuted her own cases, including those dealing with public corruption, defense contracting fraud and national security, narcotics offenses, child sexual exploitation, and allegations of racial bias by law enforcement.

In Trenton, she played a central role in the creation of the Trenton Reentry Court, which provides additional assistance to recently released federal offenders to further aid their reentry into society.

The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Pierre-Louis, who is fluent in Haitian Creole, said her parents “came from Haiti with not much more than the clothes on their backs and the American dream in their hearts. They have achieved that dream beyond measures because my life is certainly not representative of the traditional trajectory of someone who would one day be nominated to sit on the Supreme Court of New Jersey. … Standing here today, I know I have truly lived and continue to live the American dream my parents were in search of.”

Among her many affiliations, Pierre-Louis is a board member of the Rutgers Law School-Camden Alumni Association and a trustee with the Association of the Federal Bar of New Jersey. She is a prior board member of the Haitian American Lawyers Association of New Jersey, and a member of the Garden State Bar Association, and the Association of Black Women Lawyers of New Jersey, among others.

To access more business news, visit NJB News Now.

Related Articles: