William H. Mergner Jr., a co-managing partner at Leary, Bride, Mergner & Bongiovanni, is now the president of the New Jersey State Bar Association, where he plans to apply his solution-oriented mindset to help address the state’s backlog of cases while balancing the well-being of attorneys and judges in the Garden State.

At the NJSBA annual meeting in Atlantic City in May, Mergner was sworn in by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner. Mergner, a trial lawyer in Cedar Knolls who has tried more than 200 jury cases to verdict in state and federal court, was introduced by outgoing NJSBA President Timothy F. McGoughran, who told the crowd, “Folks, it is time to buckle up for Bill.”