New Jersey’s legal community will recognize peers from around the state this week during the Professional Lawyer of the Year Awards, to be held Thursday, Nov. 9, in Somerset.
The awards are sponsored by the New Jersey Commission on Professionalism in the Law, a cooperative effort of the New Jersey State Bar Association, the state and federal judiciary, and New Jersey’s three law schools. The initiative’s goal is to highlight the purpose that has historically made the practice of law a distinguished profession, and instill public respect for judges and the justice system.
The Daniel J. O’Hern Award will go to Edward B. Deutsch for lifetime achievements and commitment to the highest ideals of the profession. Deutsch is a managing partner at McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter in Morristown. “No one exemplifies the criteria for this award more than Ed,” said NJSBA President and Deutsch’s partner Robert Hille. “He has been a credit to this profession.”
Deutsch served on Gov. Chris Christie’s Red Tape Commission, chaired the Department of Banking and Insurance transition sub-committee, and served is a founder and former chair of the board of directors of Somerset Hills Bank. He has also won numerous awards, including the Thomas D. Sayles Jr. Humanitarian Award, presented by the American Conference on Diversity, and is a fellow with the American Bar Foundation, the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Society of Barristers.
The Charles J. Hollenbeck Award honors a lawyer who has served the legal profession with competence and dedication through employment by a governmental agency or nonprofit organization. This year’s award will go to John M. Fietkiewicz, currently a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey. Fietkiewicz was nominated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for his “extraordinary 32 years of service as a federal prosecutor and his service to the District of New Jersey federal court and bar in advancing the professionalism, ethics and efficiency of workings of the district.”
Fietkiewicz has held a variety of positions in the U.S. Attorney’s Office during his tenure. Since 2010, he has run the office’s Trial Supervision Program, which he created, and also developed and implemented the office’s training program. He has lectured and taught extensively for the Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute, the National Advocacy Institute, the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education, the Georgetown/ABA Federal Enforcement Institute, Fordham Law School and Rutgers Law School.
In addition, a special Lighthouse Award will be presented to William J. Kane for his work with the Lawyers Assistance Program. Kane, who directs the program, is on the faculty of the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, has a private practice specializing in health issues, has lectured at New York Law School and held adjunct professor positions at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Kean College and Montclair State University graduate school. Kane was among the nation’s first certified employee assistance professionals, has qualified as a certified alcoholism counselor and is a certified social worker. He is a recipient of the Justice William Brennan Award for Citizenship and Leadership and Person of the Year Award from the Council on Compulsive Gambling.
The ceremony will also include bar associations throughout the state recognizing their own members for professional excellence. The full list of honorees is below.
Seats are still available for Thursday’s event. For more information and to register, go to
http://bit.ly/NJLawyerAwards.
Read a list of all award recipients here:
http://tinyurl.com/ydcvcvlf