Wrestling with Stress and Ethical Challenges

Presenters

Hon. Julio L. Mendez, A.J.S.C. (Ret.)

Stockton University, Vineland

is Senior Contributing Analyst for the Hughes Center, Stockton College, in Galloway Township, New Jersey. In 2022 he retired as Assignment Judge for Atlantic and Cape May Counties (Vicinage 1), where he oversaw the efficient operation of the courts in those counties and sat in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The State’s first Hispanic Assignment Judge, Judge Mendez was first assigned to the Vicinage 15 Criminal Division for 2 years, then spent 7 years in the Family Division and in 2005 was assigned as the Family Part’s Presiding Judge for the Cumberland/Gloucester/Salem vicinage. He was appointed Assignment Judge effective November 1, 2011.

Judge Mendez is Past Chair of the New Jersey Municipal Court Regionalization Subcommittee of the Supreme Court Municipal Court Working Group and Past Chair of the Supreme Court Committee on Municipal Court Operations, Fines, and Fees. Having served as Chair of the Drug Court Working Group, he has been a member of the New Jersey Judiciary Judicial Council, the Judiciary’s Management and Operations Committee, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the Board of the National Association for Presiding Judges and Court Executive Officers (NAPCO). Judge Mendez has been Chair of the Children in Court Committee of the Conference of Family Presiding Judges and a member of the Supreme Court Family Practice Committee and a number of other state-wide conferences and committees. He has also been an instructor at the Judicial College.

Judge Mendez received his B.A. from Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) and his J.D. from Rutgers School of Law-Camden.
(8/23)

Debra A. Allen, Esq.

Deputy Attorney General, Division of Law, Trenton

is a Deputy Attorney General, Department of Law and Public Safety, State of New Jersey, in Trenton, New Jersey. With a focus in regulatory enforcement, public records, housing, employment and election litigation, she serves as General Counsel to the New Jersey Government Records Council and as Lead Counsel to the Middlesex, Somerset and Union County Boards of Elections.

Ms. Allen received her J.D., with honors, from Temple University’s James E. Beasley School of Law.
(8/23)

Catherine Finnerty, Esq.

Goldman & Beslow, LLC, East Orange

is an associate with Goldman & Beslow, LLC with offices in East Orange, Newark, Paterson and Jersey City, New Jersey. She devotes a substantial portion of her practice to bankruptcy and debtor-creditor negotiations and handles all issues pertaining to Chapter 7, Chapter 13, foreclosure defense and mediation, debt collection defense, debtor-creditor negotiations and consumer representation. In addition to bankruptcy and debtor-creditor law, Ms. Finnerty has experience in real estate matters, simple Wills, powers of attorney, living wills, and municipal court matters involving traffic tickets, disorderly persons offenses, and violations of municipal ordinances. She also represents clients in residential real estate transactions, and has experience helping property owners who desire to sell their property via short sale, are at risk of foreclosure, or who cannot make their mortgage payments.

Admitted to practice law in New Jersey and New York, and before the United States District Court for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, Ms. Finnerty has been a member of the American and New York State Bar Associations and the New Jersey Women Lawyers Association. She has been a member of the NJSBA Bankruptcy Law and Women in the Profession Sections, and is Secretary of the Solo and Small Firm Section. Ms. Finnerty is a member of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys and the American Bankruptcy Institute. She has also volunteered with South Jersey Legal Services, Legal Services of New Jersey and the Volunteer Lawyers for Justice, and represents clients throughout their entire bankruptcy cases.

Ms. Finnerty received her undergraduate degree, cum laude, from Barnard College, Columbia University, where she was the recipient of the New York Building Industry Scholarship and the Eugene Raskin Prizer for Spanish. She received her J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she was a member of the Law Review and the recipient of the American Jurisprudence Award in Torts.
(8/23)

Leonard V. Jones, Esq.

Co-Chair, Diversity Committee
Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC, Newark

is a civil litigation attorney and associate with Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney P.C. in Newark, New Jersey, and New York City, where he focuses his practice in complex civil and employment litigation, including representing individual, business and public entity clients in state and federal courts. He has also served as an Assistant Prosecutor with the Union County Prosecutor's Office, prosecuting cases involving narcotics, violent crimes and economic crimes.

Admitted to practice in New Jersey and New York, and before the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Mr. Jones was appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court to a four-year term as a Member of the District XII Fee Arbitration Committee and is a member of the New Jersey State, Garden State and Union County Bar Associations. He is a member of several sections and committees of the New Jersey State Bar Association, including the Diversity Committee, Minorities in the Profession Section, Civil Trial Bar Section and Federal Practice and Procedure Section, as well as the Young Lawyers Division. He is also a member of the Union County Bar Association Diversity, Inclusion & the Elimination of Bias Committee and the Program Committee of the Sidney Reitman American Inn of Court.

Mr. Jones received his B.A., magna cum laude, from Seton Hall University, his Masters in Public Administration from Seton Hal University and his J.D. from Rutgers University School of Law, where he was the recipient of the Eagleton Institute of Politics Governor’s Executive Fellowship. He clerked for the Honorable James P. Wilson, J.S.C., Superior Court of New Jersey, Family Division, Union Vicinage.
(8/23)