Fabiana Pierre-Louis, 39, will also be the only Black judge currently seated on the state’s highest court
By Tracey Tully, New York Times
Fabiana Pierre-Louis, a daughter of Haitian immigrants, is on track to become the first Black woman to sit on New Jersey’s highest court, serving at a time when the state and the country remain deeply divided over racial and economic injustice.
Ms. Pierre-Louis, 39, will also be the only Black judge currently seated on the New Jersey Supreme Court and, as its youngest member, could serve for as many as three decades.
A former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Ms. Pierre-Louis was nominated by Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat, to the post in June, as protesters across the nation, outraged by the death of George Floyd while in police custody, were demanding criminal justice reform.
The State Senate’s Democrat-led Judiciary Committee confirmed Ms. Pierre-Louis’s nomination on Monday at a hearing where lawmakers noted the groundbreaking nature of her appointment, as well as her potential to shape the court’s decisions for the next 30 years.
“I am very proud to vote for a new generation, a new balance on the Supreme Court,” said Senator Loretta Weinberg, the majority leader. The Senate is expected to approve the committee’s recommendation on Thursday.
Ms. Pierre-Louis, who grew up in working-class Irvington, N.J., said in an interview soon after her nomination that she was aware her background would play a role in the way she approached cases.
“Having a perspective and understanding of what it is like to live in Irvington, or other places,” she added, “it just informs how you experience many things in life.”
Ms. Pierre-Louis, a partner at a private law firm who lives with her husband and their two young sons in Mount Laurel, N.J., spoke Creole before she learned English.
She moved as a child from Brooklyn to Irvington, a northern New Jersey township just west of Newark, where her family bought a house. Her father owned and drove a cab, she said, and her mother transported patients at a New York City hospital.
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