Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, like other governors before him, has formed a seven-member Judicial Advisory Panel to advise him on future judicial nominations.

The panel is to be chaired by former Chief Justice James Zazzali and includes former Chief Justice Deborah Poritz; former Justices Stewart Pollock, Virginia Long and John Wallace Jr.; retired Bergen County Assignment Judge Peter Doyne; and John Keefe Jr., the incoming president of the New Jersey State Bar Association.

Murphy announced the panel on Tuesday through Executive Order 16, which provides that the members of the panel will serve at the pleasure of the governor, and offer guidance on potential judicial nominees.

“I am honored to select a panel of respected and experienced former judges and attorneys that will ensure that the Judiciary is comprised of the highest caliber and most qualified attorneys,”  Murphy said in a statement.

Zazzali—of counsel to Newark firms Gibbons and Zazzali, Fagella, Nowak, Kleinbaum and Friedman—was attorney general under Democratic Gov. Brendan Byrne from 1981 to 1982. Republican Gov. Christine Todd Whitman nominated him to be an associate justice in 2000, a position he held until 2006, when Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine nominated him to become chief justice. Zazzali held that position until he reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 2007.

Poritz, now of counsel with the Princeton office of Drinker Biddle, was attorney general under Whitman from 1994 until 1996, when Whitman tapped her to become chief justice. She held that position until her retirement in 2006.

Pollock, of counsel with Morristown's Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Perretti, was counsel to Gov. Brendan Byrne from 1978 to 1979. He served on the Supreme Court from 1979 until his retirement in 2003.

Long, now counsel with the Princeton office of Fox Rothschild, served as a justice from 1999 until her retirement in 2012.

Wallace, now of counsel with Brown & Connery in Westmont, was an associate justice from 2003 until 2010, when Republican Gov. Chris Christie, in a stated desire to reshape the court, declined to nominate the Democrat for tenure.

Doyne, now the chairman of the alternative dispute resolution and corporate investigation departments at Ferro, LaBella & Zucker in Hackensack, served on the Superior Court bench for 22 years before becoming Bergen County's assignment judge.

Keefe is the founding partner of the Keefe Law Firm in Red Bank, and focuses his practice on personal injury work, mass tort and complex litigation. He is to become bar president later this year.

The move comes a little over a week since Murphy and the state bar executed the Hughes Compact, under which New Jersey governors have historically agreed to withhold nominations of judges, justices and prosecutors until the organization's Judicial and Prosecutorial Appointments Committee deems them qualified. Unlike the revised version implemented under Christie, the latest version of the compact brings county bar associations back into the fold. It also changes JPAC's makeup, with an apparent aim to increase geographic as well as racial and ethnic diversity.