Our biennial Diverse Attorneys of the Year honors give us an opportunity to focus on some of the Garden State's most prominent attorneys. Some of these 14 honorees have been well known in the community for a number of years. Others are ascendant attorneys whose names promise to become familiar ones before long. All have strived for and demonstrated excellence in the legal profession and beyond.

Occasionally we are asked why Diverse Attorneys of the Year honors, as well as biennial counterpart Women Attorneys of the Year, are not included as a category in the New Jersey Legal Awards. The answer remains that we believe having a separate run of awards in these categories highlights the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion to the legal profession. We've been heartened to see how, especially in recent years, our New Jersey Legal Awards nominees and honorees have become more diverse overall. Still, we continue to believe that Diverse Attorneys of the Year and Women Attorneys of the Year warrant their own moment in the spotlight—as does the issue of DEI in law.