Jerome Simandle, a U.S. district judge in Camden for more than 25 years, died Friday at age 70.

Simandle served as a U.S. magistrate judge from 1983 to 1992, when he was appointed as a District Court judge by President George H.W. Bush. Simandle  was a district judge from 1992 until 2017, and was chief judge of the district from 2012 until 2017. He served as a senior judge from 2017 until his death.

Simandle was the second senior federal judge in New Jersey to die in July. Judge William Walls died at age 86 on July 11.

Born in Binghamton, New York, Simandle received a bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1971.  He also received a graduate diploma in social science from Stockholm University in 1975, and in 1976 he received his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

As an undergraduate, he worked for the Center for Study of Responsive Law, which was sponsored by Ralph Nader and later became known as Public Citizen. He studied aviation safety and regulation of airplane manufacturers and airlines. During his involvement with the Nader group, he became interested in the legal work being done and saw the good that could become of it, Simandle later recalled in a 2013 interview published in the newsletter of the New Jersey State Bar Association's Federal Practice and Procedure Section. He had no lawyers in his family, and had planned to attend graduate school for architecture and urban planning, but changed his mind and applied to law school, Simandle said.

After law school, Simandle served as a law clerk to Judge John Gerry of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey for two years. Later, he was an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey.

Gerry taught him “the importance of being a good person first and that everything else, including being a good lawyer or judge, will follow,” Simandle recalled in the Bar Association newsletter.

He was just 33 when he became a magistrate judge, and he was surprised when he was selected for the job, “much too young,” he recalled.

Simandle “was a fascinating guy to interview, so down to earth,” recalled Maureen Coghlan of Archer & Greiner in Haddonfield, author of the 2013 interview. “I think a lot of people would tell you that you have this erudite man who has this human way about him.”

“Chief Judge Simandle was not only a gifted and diligent jurist but also a person of uncommon kindness, dignity and humility,” said Kevin Marino of Marino, Tortorella & Boyle in Chatham, a trustee of the Association of the Federal Bar of the State of New Jersey. “He fully apprehended and unfailingly discharged his vast responsibilities as a U.S. district judge. His untimely death is a great loss to the court and the country.”

In court, Simandle “didn't have to bark at people to get them to respect him. People respected him because they knew he was going to give them a fair shot,” said Robert Ransom, also of Archer & Greiner, who clerked for Simandle in 2017 and 2018.

Simandle had a gift for resolving tough legal questions and resolving cases “in the most equitable way possible,” said Ransom. “For him, it all came down to some basic principles of doing what's right, making people whole, holding people accountable for their actions, just respecting the law.”