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| Robert M. Hanna |
Robert M. Hanna, head of the Division of Law at the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety, will replace Lee Solomon as president of the NJ Board of Public Utilities if and when the New Jersey Senate approves Solomon’s appointment to the bench.
“I am being nominated to go to the superior court. It’s where I came
from, in Camden County,” Solomon said. “At some point I had to make a
decision of whether to go back.”
Solomon said the timing of the move is dependent on the state senate. “I’m not leaving until I’m confirmed. It’s in their hands,” Solomon said.
Hanna, 51, of Madison, was appointed to that post last year.
Previously, he was a director in the Newark-based law firm of Gibbons P.C., where he began working in 2006. He has also worked for 16 years as
an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey.
Solomon said Hanna would be very capable continuing his work at the
BPU, which includes a spat with federal and regional power regulators
over a state program.
“It will continue to go gangbusters,” Solomon said. “I don’t know if
you know Bob Hanna but he’s a very smart lawyer, very tough guy. His
agenda is what ours is and what the governor’s was.
Hanna joined the
Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s
Office for the District of New Jersey
in May 1990. There he handled a wide array
of affirmative and defensive civil matters,
including appeals, on behalf of the federal
government. His affirmative civil matters
included, among others, a successful civil
RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organizations) action to rid Local 54
of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant
Employees Union in Atlantic City of organized
crime influence.
Hanna’s defensive
civil matters included defending the U.S.
Attorney, federal judges and other federal
officials in civil rights actions, handling
significant Freedom of Information Act
litigation and opposing the municipality
of Secaucus’s attempt to halt major federal
rail transportation project.
In 1997 Hanna joined the
Frauds Division at the U.S. Attorney’s
Office, and later served in a variety
of roles, including as Chief of the Securities
and Health Care Fraud Unit and Criminal
Health Care Fraud Coordinator. Among his
many white-collar criminal cases, Hanna
was lead prosecutor in the prosecutions
of the University of Medicine and Dentistry
of New Jersey (UMDNJ) and major pharmaceutical
concern Bristol-Myers Squibb.
As a federal
prosecutor, Hanna also tried complex,
lengthy securities and health care fraud
criminal cases. He joined the Gibbons
firm in May 2006. In private practice,
he represented clients in a wide variety
of complex white-collar criminal matters,
civil matters and attorney ethics matters.
He also has served as a court-appointed
receiver.
Hanna graduated from Manhattan College
in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science in
Business Administration degree. After
working for a year at a national public
accounting firm, he attended Fordham University
School of Law School in New York, serving
on the Fordham Law Review staff and graduating
in 1984 with a Juris Doctor degree.
Following
law school, he was a litigation associate
at the Cahill Gordon & Reindel law
firm in New York, working on a broad range
of commercial litigation matters. He is
admitted to the practice of law in New
Jersey and New York. Born in Teaneck and
raised in New City, Hanna has lived in
Madison for 20 years.
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