Appellate Practice Master Class – Fall 2023 Edition

Presenters

Hon. Greta A. Gooden Brown, J.A.D.

Superior Court of New Jesry

is an Appellate Division Judge in the Superior Court of New Jersey and sits in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She was first appointed to serve a seven-year term as a Superior Court Judge by then-Governor Jon Corzine. After serving in the Law Division for five years, in 2014 Judge Gooden Brown was named the Presiding Judge of the Family Part, Chancery Division, in the Passaic County Vicinage. She was elevated to the Appellate Division after being re-appointed by then-Governor Chris Christie and granted tenure by the full Senate in 2016.

In 2007, Judge Gooden Brown was elected to a three-year term as a Trustee of the New Jersey State Bar Association's Criminal Law Section and in 2008 was elected the 26th President of the Garden State Bar Association, one of the largest specialty bars in the State. She served as Chair of the Passaic Vicinage Advisory Committee on Minority Concerns and as Vice Chair of the Supreme Court Committee on Model Criminal Jury Charges. In 2001, Judge Gooden Brown was appointed by then-Acting Governor Donald DiFrancesco to serve as the second New Jersey Insurance Fraud Prosecutor, where she headed one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the State, administered an annual budget of approximately $30 million and oversaw a staff of approximately 300. Under her leadership, the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor in the Criminal Justice Division of the Attorney General's Office was recognized as a national and international leader in fighting insurance fraud. Prior to that she was a veteran prosecutor and served in several positions in the Attorney General’s Criminal Justice Division.

Judge Gooden Brown is a founding member of the Honorable Anne E. Thompson American Inn of Court. In 2007 she was the recipient of the renowned Thurgood Marshall Award for Excellence in the Profession, the Corporate and Government Leadership Award by the Caribbean Bar Association of New Jersey and the Professional Lawyer of the Year Award bestowed by the New Jersey Commission on Professionalism in the Law. She is also the recipient of the Association of Black Women Lawyers’ Excellence in Public Service Award as well as several other honors.

Judge Gooden Brown received her B.A. from Douglass College, Rutgers University, and her law degree from Rutgers Law School. She was a law clerk to the Honorable Stephen Skillman, JAD (Ret.) and the Honorable Judson Hamlin, J.S.C. (Ret).
(9/23)

Hon. Jack M. Sabatino, P.J.A.D.

Superior Court- App. Div.

temporarily assigned to the New Jersey Supreme Court, has been Deputy Presiding Judge for Administration, Appellate Division, and sat in Trenton, New Jersey. Prior to that he was a trial judge in Mercer County, where he presided over more than 100 civil jury trial and also sat in the Family Part. Prior to his appointment to the bench he was Associate Dean at Rutgers Law School in Camden, New Jersey, where he taught courses on evidence, civil procedure, alternative dispute resolution, professional responsibility, products liability and the New Jersey State Constitution.

A member of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, Judge Sabatino has been Chair of the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on Civil Practice and has served on numerous law-related committees, including the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Committees on Evidence and Judicial Education. A former New Jersey State Attorney General, he also served on the United States District Court’s Advisory Committee on the Implementation of the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990.

Judge Sabatino has lectured to judges and practitioners on topics including legal ethics, evidence and state constitutional law for ICLE, the Federal Judicial Center, the New Jersey Judicial College and other professional audiences. The author of a number of articles and more than two dozen judicial opinions, he was a member of the Editorial Board of the New Jersey Law Journal and has served Rutgers School of Law-Camden as an Adjunct Professor. He has also been a guest faculty member for the Winter Trial Advocacy Workshop at Harvard Law School.

Judge Sabatino received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Yale College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School. He served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable H. Curtis Meanor, United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, and thereafter as the first Law Clerk to the Honorable Marie L. Garibaldi, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey.
(9/23)

Hon. Patty Shwartz (3rd. Cir.)

US Courts of Appeals for the Third Circuit

is a Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and sits in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Following law school, Judge Shwartz was an associate at the law firm then known as Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz in Philadelphia, New Jersey. After her judicial clerkship she served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of New Jersey, where she investigated and prosecuted federal criminal cases and held several supervisory positions, including Criminal Chief and Executive Assistant United States Attorney. In 2003, she was appointed to serve as a United States Magistrate Judge for the United States District for the District of New Jersey, a position she held until her appointment to the Court of Appeals.

Judge Shwartz has served on several court committees and has been Chair of the Third Circuit Judicial Council’s Magistrate Judge Committee and Vice Chair of the Third Circuit Judicial Council’s Facilities and Security Committee. She has also been a member of the Board of Directors of the Historical Society of the United States District Court for the District of Jersey, the Advisory Board for the Association of the Federal Bar, and the Executive Committee of the John C. Lifland American Inn of Court. Judge Shwartz has been elected as a Fellow of the American Bar Association and formerly, as a Magistrate Judge, she served as the Third Circuit’s representative to the Board of Directors of the Federal Magistrate Judge’s Association. She is also an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School and lecturer at Rutgers School of Law-Newark.

Judge Shwartz received her B.A.. with highest honors, from Rutgers College and her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was a member of the Law Review. She clerked for the late Honorable Harold A. Ackerman, United States District Judge for the District of New Jersey.
(9/23)

Bruce D. Greenberg, Esq.

Blogger, New Jersey Appellate Law Blog
Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador, LLC, Newark

is a Member of Lite DePalma Greenberg Afanador, LLC in the firm’s Newark, New Jersey, office. He handles consumer, antitrust and securities class actions, generally for plaintiffs, in state and federal courts. He has also served as an expert witness regarding class counsel’s attorneys’ fees.

Admitted to practice in New Jersey 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, Mr. Greenberg is Past Co-Chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Class Actions Committee and a past Chair of the NJSBA Appellate Practice Committee. He was appointed to the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on Character in 1991, is a founding member and Past Chair of the New Jersey Law Firm Group and is a member of the NJSBA Land Use Law Section.

Mr. Greenberg is the author of the “Supreme Court Review” chapter of every edition of ICLE’s New Jersey Appellate Practice Handbook since 1999 as well as the New Jersey appellate law blog (www.appellatelaw-nj.com), which was cited in the briefs of both parties in Carrera v. Bayer. Mr. Greenberg is the co-author of the chapter on class action litigation in New Jersey Federal Civil Procedure (New Jersey Law Journal Books) and the author of an article about objectors to class action settlements which appeared in the St. John’s Law Review. He has also lectured on appellate practice for ICLE, the New Jersey State Bar Association and county bar associations, and has moderated the Appellate Bench-Bar Conference of the New Jersey State Bar Association.

Mr. Greenberg received his B.A., cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Writing and Research Editor of the Columbia Journal of Law & Social Problems. He clerked for Justice Daniel J. O’Hern of the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
(9/23)

Lawrence S. Lustberg, Esq.

Gibbons PC, Newark

co-chairs the White Collar & Investigations Group of Gibbons P.C. in Newark, New Jersey, and is a long-time Director of the firm’s John J. Gibbons Fellowship in Public Interest & Constitutional Law, which litigates historic, cutting-edge civil rights and civil liberties cases. He is a recognized authority in constitutional and criminal law and procedure, and is responsible for many seminal federal and state court decisions in a broad range of cases.

Mr. Lustberg is admitted to practice in New Jersey and New York, and before the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey; the Southern, Eastern and Northern Districts of New York; The District of Connecticut; the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan; the Western District of Oklahoma; the Central District of Illinois; and the District of Colorado; the United States Court of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits; and the United States Supreme Court. A Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the American College of Trial Lawyers, and a Lifetime Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, he is Past President of both the Association of the Federal Bar of New Jersey and the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey. Mr. Lustberg is also former Co-Chair of the Criminal Litigation Committee of the American Bar Association and has served on, and chaired, numerous court and government committees, and non-profit and philanthropic boards of directors. He has been Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Fund for New Jersey and a member of the New Jersey State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, for which he chaired a Subcommittee on Immigration.

Mr. Lustberg has been a member of the faculties of Seton Hall, Rutgers and New York University Law Schools, and his articles have appeared in the New Jersey Law Journal and other publications. The recipient of the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey’s highest honor, the Honorable Lawrence A. Whipple Memorial Award, he is the recipient of numerous other awards and accolades, including the Award of Excellence from the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the Roger N. Baldwin Civil Liberties Award from the ACLU of New Jersey, the Debevoise-Eakely Award and Board Service Award from Legal Services of New Jersey, the Equality Hall of Fame Award from Garden State Equality and the Partners in Hope Award from Partners for Women and Justice. In 2013 the New Jersey Law Journal named him “Lawyer of the Year” in large part for his work to legalize same-sex marriage in New Jersey.

Mr. Lustberg received his B.A, magna cum laude, from Harvard College, and was the recipient of the International Graduate School Fellowship at the University of Stockholm. He received his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School and clerked for the Honorable H. Lee Sarokin, United States District Judge.
(9/23)