Fabiana Pierre-Louis at a Rutgers University Alumni Awards event where she won a Rutgers Spirit Award.

The Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Fabiana Pierre-Louis, a former federal prosecutor and partner at Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads in Cherry Hill who is poised to become the first African American woman and only third Black justice to serve on the New Jersey Supreme Court, has been scheduled for Aug. 24.

The hearing date was announced in a joint statement on Monday by Senate President Steve Sweeney, D-Gloucester, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, in a release.

"This is a nomination that will make history for a Court with the ultimate legal responsibility for cases and issues that can have a real-life impact on generations of New Jersey residents," Sweeney said in the statement.

"Pierre-Louis is an American story of success who will bring a perspective gained by her personal and legal experiences to the state's highest court. The decisions by the court can help provide equal opportunities to others with diverse backgrounds."

Pierre-Louis' nomination by Gov. Phil Murphy is to fill the seat being vacated by Associate Justice Walter Timpone, who is serving the final year of his tenure before turning the mandatory retirement age of 70 for New Jersey judges on Nov. 10.

If Pierre-Louise wins full Senate confirmation, she could be Murphy's only pick on the Supreme Court unless the Democratic governor wins reelection to another four-year term next year.

A recent profile of Pierre-Louis in the the Law Journal revealed she first caught the eye of the Murphy administration's inner circle in early February and has been quietly vetted for months leading to the governor's announcement of her nomination on June 5.

Pierre-Louis' story is one of someone with humble roots who by sheer hard work, talent and determination is on the verge of joining one of the most esteemed state supreme courts in the country. She has received the endorsement of several bar associations, lawmakers, and the governor's Judicial Advisory Panel, composed of former Supreme Court Chief Justices James Zazzali and Deborah Poritz; retired Justices John Wallace, Virginia Long and Stewart Pollock; retired Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne; and former president of the New Jersey State Bar Association John Keefe.

The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Pierre-Louis' father was a New York City cabdriver and her mother a patient transport aide at a hospital. "My life is not the traditional trajectory of someone who would someday be nominated to the Supreme Court," said Pierre-Louis in a soft-spoken manner at her brief nomination acceptance speech on June 5, as she thanked Murphy and her family for their support.

She is a first-generation American who was the first of her family to attend law school, graduating from Rutgers Law School-Camden with honors.

"Pierre-Louis has impressive legal credentials," Scutari said in the same release. "She could be serving on the Court for more than 30 years with the responsibility of passing judgement on significant cases with lasting impact. We will continue to perform our due diligence leading up to and during the confirmation hearing."

The Judiciary Committee's hearing will be held in the State House Annex on Aug. 24 before the 11-member committee.

Only six "yes" votes, a majority, are needed for Pierre-Louis to win committee confirmation.

From there, nominees are typically considered by the 40-member Senate in the upper chamber's next scheduled voting session. That would be on Aug. 27.

Speculation among political observers and those close to the judiciary nomination process say that the aim is likely to have Pierre-Louis confirmed by summer's end so she could join the state's highest court by Sept. 1, the beginning of the Supreme Court's new calendar year, which stretches to the end of August. Oral arguments before the Court typically start the second week of September.

Pierre-Louis would join Chief Justice Stuart Rabner and Associate Justices Jaynee LaVecchia, Barry Albin, Anne Patterson, Faustino Fernandez-Vina and Lee Solomon.

And at age 39, Pierre-Louis would be the youngest member of the Supreme Court if confirmed.

Murphy has said she fits what he envisions as the ideal for a Supreme Court justice: independent-minded, diverse and fair.

The governor said his Supreme Court nominee will have the potential to shape legal opinion for decades to come—at least 30 years.

Murphy has made racial justice and criminal justice reform priorities in his first term, which have been amplified by recent mass protests nationally over George Floyd, a Black man who died while in police custody on Memorial Day in Minneapolis.