U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson. Photo by Carmen Natale

The shortage of judges that plagues New Jersey's federal courts became even worse on the first day of Freda Wolfson's tenure as chief judge.

The retirement of the previous chief judge, Jose Linares, in mid-May brought the number of vacancies to six on the state's federal bench, out of 17 authorized judgeships. The number of judicial vacancies in New Jersey has grown because President Donald Trump has yet to make any District Court nominations for New Jersey during his two years in the White House.

“We're in a whole new place, a different place than we were in the past, with six vacancies. It's more than a third of our court,” Wolfson said.

Even worse, federal judiciary officials in Washington have determined that the proper number of district court judges for New Jersey is 20, but only 17 judgeships are funded, she said.

While she can't do anything to fill the vacancies on the federal bench, some measures are being undertaken to mitigate the shortage, Wolfson said. And the District Court judges, magistrates and retired judges serving on recall continue to adeptly manage their heavy caseloads, even bringing case files along in the summer when they head to the beach or the mountains, she said.

“Obviously, we're all trying to do the best we can to continue to move our cases and handle them in the best way possible. That's our focus—getting the work of the court done. At the same time, we're a place where we continue to do programs to involve the bar, work with the federal bar—brown-bag lunches, professionalism day,” Wolfson said.

Federal court filings in the state continue to grow rapidly, particularly in the areas of multidistrict litigation and patent disputes, Wolfson said. And criminal filings have seen an uptick since Craig Carpenito became U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey in 2018, she said. As a result, the caseload per judge continues to grow rapidly, she notes.

Even before Linares' retirement, the District of New Jersey was deemed by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts to be in a state of judicial emergency, with weighted filings of 903 cases per judgeship in 2018, the second highest in the nation, trailing only the Eastern District of Louisiana.

The state's shorthanded judicial district will get some relief from the creation of two additional magistrate judgeships, one in Trenton and another in Newark, she said. That initiative has been in the works for more than a year. The first new magistrate, Zahid Quraishi, formerly chairman of the white-collar defense practice and chief diversity officer at Riker Danzig, started his new post in early June. And on July 12, Edward Kiel, a litigator at Cole Schotz, will be sworn in, Wolfson said. She noted that magistrates handle nondispositive motions, discovery matters, settlement conferences and bail hearings in criminal cases.

“Also, lawyers can consent to magistrate jurisdiction for trial—maybe we'll see more of that,” she said.

Besides increasing the number of magistrates, the District of New Jersey may receive reinforcements  from other district courts in the Third Circuit where judges aren't in such short supply, Wolfson said. She has spoken to her counterpart in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania about getting help from judges in that district, and the details are being hammered out, she said.

Wolfson won't rule out turning away future multidistrict litigation cases, a category that accounts for a large chunk of the New Jersey caseload. The Judicial Panel for Multidistrict Litigation, which decides where drug litigation and other mass tort cases will be heard, frequently sends such cases to New Jersey. The state's District Court is currently host to thousands of mass tort cases, including suits claiming talcum powder from Johnson & Johnson contains cancer-causing asbestos particles, as well as other mass tort litigation concerning the drugs Benicar, Invocana, Plavix, Valsartan and proton pump inhibitor drugs.

“The MDL panel will call and ask if the district and the judge are agreeable to taking the case. In the future, we may consider whether it's appropriate to take on a new case if we're overload, but right now we have what we have. That may be something that we're going to consider in the future,” Wolfson said.

Wolfson graduated from Douglass College and Rutgers Law School, and worked for the now-defunct Clapp & Eisenberg and the firm now known as Lowenstein Sandler. She served as a U.S. magistrate judge from 1986 to 2002. That year, President George W. Bush nominated her to a seat on U.S. District Court.

Wolfson's best-known rulings include a 2013 decision upholding New Jersey's law banning so-called gay conversion therapy for minors. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed Wolfson's decision the following year.