The New Jersey state Senate today confirmed Jennifer C. Critchley and Amy K. DePaul as Superior Court judges in Essex County. The state Assembly gave its approval of the Verona residents on Monday.
Critchley is a partner with Roseland-based Connell Foley, LLP. She is an experienced commercial litigator who works with companies, particularly emerging businesses, as an outside general counsel, advising them on a range of legal issues from contracts to intellectual property disputes.
In addition to her corporate work, Critchley chairs Connell Foley’s Pro Bono Committee and is part of its group of lawyers who help parents with special education law. She is a volunteer at Lawyers for Justice and a member of the District of New Jersey Pro Bono Panel.
DePaul has been the trial court administrator for Essex Vicinage, as the Essex County court district is known, since 2013, managing court operations for the state’s largest court with some 50 judges, 850 staff and over 100,000 annual court filings.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Villanova University and a law degree from Seton Hall University School of Law. Upon graduation, DePaul clerked for the Honorable Patricia K. Costello, presiding judge of the Superior Court’s Family Division. DePaul then became an associate at Chasan Leyner & Lamparello in Secaucus. She returned to the Essex Vicinage in 2006 as an assistant civil division manager. She was appointed director of Newark Municipal Court in 2009 and Essex family division manager in 2011.
Four other Essex County women were also named to judgeships: Angela Gunter Foster, first assistant corporation counsel for the City of Newark; Karina D. Fuentes, a federal public defender; Jodi L. Rosenberg, a lawyer in private practice who has served as deputy mayor in Millburn; and Cynthia Santomauro, a member of Cooke & Santomauro, P.C., and a former councilwoman for North Caldwell
