2023 DWI Institute

Presenters

Hon. Sheila Ellington

Hon. Harry D. Norton, Jr.

Hall Booth Smith, PC

is a Partner in Hall Booth Smith P.C. in Paramus, New Jersey, where his practice areas include insurance defense, litigation of personal injury protection and reimbursement claims, the defense of Title 59 defendants, the defense of uninsured and underinsured claims, and the investigation and prevention of insurance fraud on behalf of insurance carriers. In addition to his private practice, Judge Norton serves as a Municipal Court Judge in six municipalities and has served as Borough Attorney or Special Counsel to Saddle River, Ramsey and Ridgefield Park as well as the cities of Hackensack, Clifton and Paterson. He has served as an Arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association, the Superior Court of New Jersey and the United States District Court; is recognized as a Rule 1:40 Qualified Mediator; and is frequently appointed by the Court to mediate complex commercial disputes.

Admitted to practice in New Jersey and New York, and before the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court, Judge Norton has been a Trustee of the New Jersey Institute of Local Government Attorneys and has also served by appointment of the Supreme Court as a Volunteer III Investigator for the Office of Attorney Ethics. He has been a member of the Bergen and Passaic County Bar Associations, the Defense Research Institute and the New Jersey Defense Association; has served in several sections of the American Bar Association; and has been Co-Chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Automobile Litigation and No-Fault Committee. He is Past Chair of the District XI Ethics Committee.

Judge Norton has served on the Faculty of the National Business Institute and is the recipient of the Bergen County Bar Foundation’s Lawyer Achievement Award, among other honors. He has lectured at both the New Jersey State Bar Association Annual Meeting in Atlantic City and the Mid-Year Meeting in Rome, Italy, as a panelist on the program Hot Topics for Civil Litigators.

Judge Norton received his B.A. from Lafayette College and his J.D. from Seton Hall University Law School. He served as Law Secretary to the Honorable John L. Ard, J.A.D.
(9/23)

Hon. Lindal Scott-Foster, CJMC

Township of Irvington

James G. Beatty, Jr.

DWI Expert, JGB Investigations, Point Pleasant

operates J.G.B. Detective Agency in Keansburg, New Jersey, a full service investigative business agency handling both civil and criminal matter for law firms throughout the State of New Jersey and specializing in alcohol-related traffic offenses. As a consultant in these matters he has reviewed more than 1000 videotapes of suspected alcohol affected subjects and has testified as an expert on both the Breathalyzer and Psychophysical Testing in municipal courts in Burlington, Ocean, Mercer, Monmouth, Middlesex, Morris, Essex and Union Counties. His reports have been made a part of the record in more than one hundred other cases.

A Certified operator of the Alcotest 7110 breath-testing instrument, Mr. Beatty has served as Recording Secretary of the Board of Directors of the New Jersey Narcotic Enforcement Officers Association. A former member of the Keansburg, New Jersey, Police Department, he conducted investigations in motor vehicle accidents, drunk driving, narcotics and homicides. Mr. Beatty’s technical and professional training includes courses completed in Theory, Use and Operation of the Breathalyzer; Basic Drug Enforcement; Advanced Drug Enforcement; Criminal Investigation; and Photographing and Police Identification. He has also attended numerous national conferences and seminars.

Mr. Beatty attended Union Junior College and Northwestern State University, and is a graduate of the Monmouth County Police Academy. He received his A.S. in Criminal Justice from Brookdale Community College.
(9/23)

Steven W. Hernandez, Esq.

The Hernandez Law Firm, PC, Toms River

Certified as a Municipal Court Trial Attorney by the Supreme Court of New Jersey, is President of the Hernandez Law Firm, P.C. in Toms River, New Jersey, and concentrates his practice almost exclusively in DWI defense.

Admitted to practice in New Jersey and before the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and the United States Supreme Court, Mr. Hernandez has been a member of the National College of DUI Defense (NCDD) and the American, New Jersey State and Ocean County Bar Associations. He is Past Chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association Municipal Court Practice Section and has served as Co-Chair of the Municipal Court Practice Section of the Ocean County Bar Association. He is also Certified as a DUI attorney by the National College of DUI Defense.

Mr. Hernandez has lectured for ICLE and other organizations, and is the author of Inside the Minds: Negotiating a Plea Deal in DUI Cases (Aspatore Publishing, 2011) and the New Jersey DWI Book, the Law and Practice (Lawyers & Judges Publishing, 2016), among other publications. He has been qualified by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the International Association of Chiefs of Police as a Standardized Field Sobriety Test Instructor. He is also the only attorney in New Jersey to receive a Forensic Sobriety Assessment (FSA) Certificate and is a certified operator of the Alcotest 7110 breath-testing instrument.

Mr. Hernandez received his B.S. from Rutgers Business School and his J.D. from Rutgers University School of Law-Camden. He has received advanced training in drug-related DWI’s, especially those arrests involving a Drug Recognition Expert (DRE), has taken more than 100 hours of forensic chromatography courses and has passed the American Chemical Society Lawyer-Scientist examination.
(9/23)

John Menzel, Esq.

Law Offices of John Menzel, Asbury Park

is an attorney in private practice in Asbury Park, New Jersey. He has tried thousands of drunk driving cases and argued more than one hundred appeals before the New Jersey Superior Court’s Law and Appellate Divisions and the New Jersey Supreme Court. He was lead attorney in State v. Chun and State v. Foley, the seminal cases on the Alcotest 7110 MK-III-C in New Jersey.

Mr. Menzel is admitted to practice in New Jersey and New York, and before the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. He is Past Chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Municipal Court Practice Section. A sustaining member and former New Jersey State Delegate for the National College for DUI Defense (NCDD), he is Certified by the NCDD in DUI Defense Law. He is a member of the American Bar Association’s Criminal Practice Division, the Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys of New Jersey and the Monmouth and Ocean County Bar Associations.

Mr. Menzel has been an associate member of the New Jersey Association of Forensic Scientists and an adjunct instructor at Ocean County College. He has held seminars on New Jersey’s drunk driving laws, breath testing instrumentation and trial techniques. Throughout his career Mr. Menzel has received training from the National Association for DUI Defense and has attended training for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration DWI Detection and Standardized Field Sobriety Testing. He was named the 2015 Municipal Court Practitioner of the Year by the New Jersey State Bar Association and was the 2017 recipient of the National College for DUI Defense Mentoring Award.

Mr. Menzel received his B.F.A, summa cum laude, from the New York Institute of Technology and his J.D. from New York Law School.
(9/23)

Raymond S. Santiago, Esq.

Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office, Freehold

is the founder of Santiago and Associates, P.C. in Freehold, New Jersey, where he concentrates his practice in criminal law, immigration, civil litigation and personal injury matters.

Mr. Santiago is admitted to practice in New Jersey and New York, and before the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and the Eastern District of New York, and the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey and the Southern District of New York. He was formerly a County Prosecutor for the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office.

Mr. Santiago received his J.D. from the City University of New York School of Law at Queens College.
(9/23)