as David mentioned judicial nominees were top of the agenda today at the State House part of an effort to make a dent in the long list of judicial vacancies the state's been experiencing since the pandemic but as Ted Goldberg reports today's progress doesn't put an end to all the disruptions caused by a lack of judges on the bench being a judge would be the Pinnacle of my legal career I'm humbled to be here just just to be here is humbling as the legislative session winds down to a close the Senate Judiciary Committee approved nine new Superior Court judges and one renomination each person spoke before their approval and explained what it would mean to them to serve on New Jersey Superior Court I attended seatan Hall law school at night while working full-time as a New Jersey state probation officer and a New Jersey state parole officer I truly love being a superior court judge and I would be deeply honored and privileged uh to have this opportunity to continue my Judicial Service uh to the people of New Jersey and to the people of Mercer County I'm excited about the challenges and the chance to learn so many new things as well as transitioning from an advocate to a neutral although I undoubtedly have much to learn I would approach this important position with the core values that I have always practiced hard work energy open-mindedness the superior court is still pretty short-handed with 47 vacancies as a result civil and matrimonial trials including in divorce cases are on hold in four counties we've made progress and there's still work to do and that's what we're going to get to and immediately in the next session continuing to bring through vetted individuals to ensure that our Judiciary Begins the full compliment of judges in needs Senator Troy Singleton like other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have defended New Jersey's arduous process of vetting judges and approving them rather than having them be elected as everyone here knows we have a rigorous vetting process here for judges and for a very good reason having spoken with so many accomplished attorneys and leaders along the way including the governor 's office the governor's judicial advisory panel the county and state JPS and several senators all of whom I thank for their critical role here I assured them I would do right by our state that takes time frankly and I think that's the largest measure of it we want to make sure that we've done our due diligence to ensure that the people who are going to be serving on the bench represent the best of New Jersey these candidates sailed through confirmation without much push back the hard work being done in the months leading up to today these are the types of candidates that we want to see becoming members of the Superior Court having a fully functioning Judiciary is critical to make sure that people get the justice that they're seeking as well as the Justice they deserve um so I'm excited about the prospects of what we've done today over frankly over the course of the last month getting a fully functioning Judiciary setup is just one of the priorities for the State's new batch of legislators as they meet for the first time later this week in Trenton I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight NJ Spotlight News