Renee White is a New Jersey State Bar Association member who is the supervising assistant prosecutor, Special Offenders Unit, in the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, where she oversees the Mental Health Diversion Program and Veterans Health Diversion Program. She is also a registered nurse who works at an urgent care center on weekends and is pursuing a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree in health care leadership, systems and policy at the Yale School of Nursing. White is the vice president of the Assistant Prosecutors Association of New Jersey and in 2020 served as the president of the Ocean County Bar Association. The following was edited for length and clarity.
Q. You work as an attorney and a nurse. Which came first?
I was an attorney first. I went to Widener University Delaware Law School and then I studied nursing at Ocean County College and went to Rutgers for my master’s in nursing. Now I’m getting my doctorate at Yale. I actually was supposed to go to medical school from law school. That was always the plan, but I got pregnant in law school, so I ended up taking a detour. I ended up having my first child a week before I graduated from law school. My second child was born my first year of nursing school and my third child was born my second year of nursing school. I had three kids in three years. The fourth would come later.
Q. One career is a lot to manage, let alone two simultaneously. How did you, or do you, manage?
I have a good husband (Ocean County Superior Court Judge Brian C. White) and I’ve always had a supportive boss (Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer and Assignment Judge Marlene Lynch Ford, former Ocean County prosecutor).
Q. How did you become interested in law and nursing?
I fell in love with U.S. history and the Constitution in 10th grade and it sort of forged my path. I went to Rutgers and majored in history and criminal justice. When I was an undergraduate at Rutgers, I worked as a tech on the oncology floor at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and I fell in love with medicine my first day on the job. In law school, I started working as a tech during the night shift at Nemours A.I. duPont Hospital for Children, drawing blood, helping to lift the kids, helping with minor procedures and transport. I started taking biology I and II, med school prerequisites, while I was in law school.
Q. Prosecutors in New Jersey were prohibited from having outside employment when you were hired in Ocean County in 2006, how did you work around that?
When I worked in insurance subrogation, personal injury and property damage earlier in my law career, I also worked at night in the emergency room at Community Medical Center in Toms River. I always did both at the same time. I had to resign [from the medical center] to take the job as the prosecutor. I was angry and heartbroken. Then I went back and did nursing for free. I donated my paycheck back to the hospital. I lobbied the Assistant Prosecutors Association to change the law and we did. It was important to do that.
Q. What was your experience like at the COVID field hospital?
It was awful for everyone. They were in isolation and I was trying to talk to their family members because there were no visitors allowed. It was heartbreaking. These were patients who were shunted down from the hospital who were not on ventilators. Still, we had to send a couple back to the hospital. But for the most part, they were on the mend. It was nice working with nurses from all over the state who just wanted to help.
Q. What has working in both law and nursing taught you about each one?
I think nursing helps me appreciate the law. And it’s nice to have law and order at a time of healthcare chaos. It’s nice to have the healthcare background, to help people make sense of what’s going on and also to infuse the importance of primary care and mental healthcare in law enforcement. I just want everybody to be as healthy as they can be. People in law enforcement, as well as nurses and doctors, they all put themselves last, that is the common thread. Sometimes members of law enforcement need a reminder, have you had your physical? Did you get your EKG this year?