Edward Barocas marked the conclusion of a rich and influential legal career last year when he retired as legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union's New Jersey chapter after 17 years in that role. But for Barocas, 2018 was about more than just looking back over prior work.

He was involved in two cases raising important questions of constitutional law that made their way to the New Jersey Supreme Court: One as direct counsel to litigants challenging government grants to religious educational institutions, and another as amicus in a case concerning government grants to Morris County churches for rehabilitation.

The cases obviously had practical consequences but also were important because they drew attention to nuanced differences between the the New Jersey and U.S. constitutions, Barocas said in an interview.

Barocas argued the case concerning the yeshiva and seminary, ACLU-NJ v. Hendricks, challenging more than $11 million in grants to an orthodox Jewish rabbinical school and a Presbyterian seminary.

He said the court was “very receptive” and “understood the uniqueness” of the New Jersey Constitution. But the court remanded the case to the secretary of education to conduct hearings for further fact-finding, and so that case did not garner a watershed ruling on the law of the matter (unlike the Morris County case, where the court ruled that county grants to active churches for facility rehabilitation violated the state Constitution's Religious Aid Clause and didn't run afoul of the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution).

Having Hendricks remanded represented a step back for the ACLU-NJ, as the organization had prevailed on the merits at the Appellate Division in 2017, but a remand still is a form of “victory” in itself because it allows another opportunity to seek discovery that couldn't be obtained previously, Barocas said.

It certainly was not Barocas' first foray into New Jersey Supreme Court jurisprudence. He estimated that he has argued at the court more than a dozen times and “supervised the writing and edited the writing for scores of briefs” before the high court, he said.

“I felt a part of well more than just the ones I argued,” Barocas said. “I also enjoyed giving opportunities to our younger lawyers.”

The latter point is a mark on Barocas' career seemingly as great as or greater than any single case he has handled: His accomplishment in building up, recruiting for and developing the careers of those involved in the ACLU-NJ's legal practice. The group went from two staff attorneys and the occasional fellow in 2001, when Barocas started, to eight full-time attorneys and fellows currently, he said.

“We have hired the absolute best,” and the ACLU-NJ has become “a constant fixture” at New Jersey's high court, arguing there more often than any entity other than the state government itself, he said.

The development of the ACLU-NJ's New Jersey Supreme Court practice under Barocas' watch seems fitting, as he had a key moment earlier in his career before the court. In 1996, Barocas, then with the Public Advocate's Office, was arguing a due process point of Megan's Law in Matter of Registrant G.B. Justice Marie Garibaldi asked what the state Constitution required in the case, and Barocas, he recalled, felt “a great swell of joy that at that moment, my role as a constitutional lawyer could help clarify the law itself.”

“Clarify” is perhaps putting it too lightly. Barocas has tackled vital issues from same-sex marriage to public records access. Even before joining the organization, Barocas did work of great significance at the Office of the Public Defender, including Megan's Law cases such as Matter of Registrant G.B., and advocated for the mentally ill at the Division of Mental Health Advocacy.

The government grants cases appear a fitting capstone because they raise serious constitutional questions and require reconciliation of seemingly competing principles.

The grants at issue in Hendricks and the Morris County case “would have been a different situation if it was a building without an active ministry,” but the facilities in questions were not merely historical—but also actively religious—facilities, he said, noting that Morris County government had awarded grants to churches for years before this case arose.

Barocas said he's been asked before whether it was difficult to take a position adverse to religious institutions.

“I have no intellectual problem ensuring that our proper constitutional values and protections are enforced,” he said.

He has “no particular antipathy toward religion,” he pointed out, noting that he is the son of a yeshiva principal, and remains active in a religious summer camp operated by his family.

“In fact, we”—at the ACLU-NJ, that is—”take just as many cases protecting freedom of religion as we do against government endorsement of religion,” Barocas said.