Good morning, everyone.

In a different time, we would be together in a grand auditorium near the ocean boardwalk in Atlantic City.

Instead, these remarks were pre-recorded from an office, like other programs during the convention.

That’s not how we would have chosen to hold this year’s conference, but as COVID-19 infections decline, and social distancing restrictions loosen, there’s reason to be optimistic about gathering in person next year. Recent guidance from the CDC provides even more reason for optimism.

For today, I’m grateful for the opportunity to speak to you at a crucial time for our system of justice.

Let me first thank outgoing president Kim Yonta, who has been a forceful advocate for lawyers throughout the State during a year of unprecedented challenges.

And I’d like to extend congratulations and best wishes to Domenick Carmagnola, our newly installed president. We look forward to working with Domenick, the executive board, and members of the bar as we continue to respond together to new challenges from the effects of the pandemic.

Make no mistake, the past year presented challenges unlike any we have experienced in the modern-day history of the court system.

When COVID-19 first affected New Jersey early last year, we faced some difficult choices. First and foremost, we decided the courts had to continue to serve the public, not just for emergencies but for all manner of events. To accomplish that, we transitioned from in-person proceedings to remote operations in a matter of days. That monumental task involved the rapid expansion of our infrastructure and also required focused, prompt training for judges and staff, as well as many attorneys.
 
Since then, we expanded from 21 virtual courtrooms to nearly 400. And from the start of the pandemic, with more than 90 percent of Judiciary employees working remotely much of the time, our state courts have held more than 185,000 remote events that involved more than 2.5 million participants.

Civil judges have conducted motion arguments, settlement and case management conferences, and bench trials in General Equity and Probate. Mediation and arbitration hearings have also continued.

Criminal judges have overseen first appearances, detention hearings, non-testimonial motions, and conferences, among other events.

Family judges have heard arguments on motions and conducted case management conferences, status conferences, juvenile detention reviews, and straightforward trials in matrimonial and non-dissolution, as well as some bench trials.

Within the walls of the courthouse, court staff continued to handle child support payments and domestic violence orders, along with many other matters.

Those are just a few examples. Together, they show how New Jersey’s courts -- throughout the pandemic -- have continued to serve as a place where citizens can resolve disputes, where families and victims in crisis can seek help, and where the State and defendants can seek justice.

None of that would have happened without the cooperation of the legal community -- without members of the bench and the bar working together to master new skills and adapt to new approaches in order to ensure continued access to the justice system.
County courthouses are now equipped with new technology rooms, a dedicated space with webcam computers and other forms of technology and support, to provide the public a place to request domestic violence orders, prevent illegal lockouts, and participate in emergency and scheduled court matters.
To eliminate the need for attorneys and self-represented litigants to travel to the courthouse to submit documents for important matters, we launched JEDS, the Judiciary Electronic Document Submission system, so that court filings could easily be processed online.

Throughout the pandemic, we resolved to keep the justice system moving through a virtual grand jury process that included citizens from all walks of life, regardless of their level of sophistication with technology. To accomplish that, we bought thousands of tablets with broadband capacity, along with other needed equipment, and delivered them to the homes of potential jurors who needed the equipment to participate.

Many new approaches were created and refined in collaboration with the Bar Association and others, who participated in wide-ranging listening sessions with the Judiciary’s administrative director, Judge Glenn Grant. The sessions helped identify areas in need of further improvement and additional resources needed to improve court operations. As always, Judge Grant and his leadership team masterfully followed through.

In the end, those efforts not only helped us navigate the pandemic but also marked improvements that will continue to serve court users well into the future.

That’s the good news.

On the flip side, the pandemic has presented a number of serious challenges. Each one, on its own, can develop into a crisis if we do not respond swiftly, creatively, with determination, and with adequate resources.

Chief among them are:

• The substantial number of criminal defendants who have been detained in county jails for extended periods and await a real trial date;
• The growing number of aging, pending cases that cannot be resolved until courts can safely support more in-person activity;
• And the overwhelming number of potential evictions in landlord- tenant matters that await the expiration of the Governor’s moratorium.

As you know, we can’t realistically hope to confront all of those challenges at once without a full complement of judges.

We appreciate the Bar Association’s strong advocacy to help stress the urgent need to fill judicial vacancies. Vetting, nominating, and confirming new judges takes time and attention, and the pandemic has made that process more difficult. But we cannot allow ourselves to grow comfortable with vacancies that soar to crisis levels and then drop to a level that is smaller by comparison, yet is still unsustainable.

In the best of times, a court system operating without 50 or more judges cannot expect to administer justice efficiently. And these are not the best of times.

At one point this year, we reached a record-high 75 judicial vacancies. That amounts to nearly 20 percent of the trial court bench.

Today, there are 67 vacancies. Some have remained unfilled for one, two, three or more years. Altogether, we’ve lost more than 90 years of judge time on the bench from those 67 vacant positions.

Some level of fluctuation in vacancies is natural, but sustained high levels of unfilled judgeships come with a price.
Think of the challenge this way. We will soon approach the day when it will be safe enough to resume large numbers of in-person proceedings.
What will the court system address first?
 
Immediately before the pandemic, there were fewer than 2000 active criminal cases post-indictment pending for more than 1 year; today there are 3 times as many. Among them are many defendants detained in county jails awaiting trial. A system of justice must prioritize cases where an individual’s liberty is at stake.

Despite recent improvements, there are more older active juvenile delinquency and domestic violence cases today than before the pandemic. And no justice system can divert resources away from daily emergencies in those areas.

There are more than 50,000 pending landlord/tenant cases, more than four times the level before the pandemic. When the Governor’s moratorium on evictions is lifted, we expect an additional nearly 200,000 eviction complaints will be filed. That impending crisis will likewise command the court system’s attention.

What do those essential priorities mean for civil cases -- which also have a profound effect on countless litigants seeking justice? From a practical standpoint, if vacancies remain at unusually high levels, we can expect significant delays even when in-person trials resume at full strength.
That is an unfortunate consequence of having nearly 1 in 5 trial court positions remain vacant.
We very much appreciate the recent group of appointments earlier this year. Those new judges are already hard at work. We respectfully urge our colleagues in the Executive and Legislative branches to continue to work to reduce vacancies to a manageable level so that the justice system can respond to the very real needs of the public.

As trends related to COVID-19 continue to improve, we expect to conduct more in-person events with proper safety precautions, including jury trials.
 
All lawyers understand the importance of real trial dates. Last Fall, when we briefly resumed civil and criminal jury trials, we held only about a dozen trials. Not surprisingly, though, simply summoning parties to appear for actual trial dates led to more than 300 resolutions.

With that in mind, the Court last week announced the gradual resumption of criminal jury trials beginning June 15, with jury selection to be done largely remotely. Most civil jury trials will continue to be conducted virtually or in a hybrid fashion, but Assignment Judges can authorize in-person trials subject to space constraints. We will also gradually begin to resume in-person grand jury proceedings next month.

Looking further ahead, we expect that court operations will look rather different than before the pandemic.
Certain events will return to an in-person format as soon as practicable. Case management conferences, certain municipal court proceedings, and other events will move forward in a remote format, or a combination of virtual and in-person options. Because of space limits, at least some civil trials will likely need to continue in a virtual format.

There are many to thank for adapting to these and other changes during the past fifteen months. Judges, staff, and attorneys alike have worked tirelessly -- and cooperatively -- to enable our system of justice to function under trying circumstances.

And members of the bar have stepped forward in yet other ways. Practitioners offered pro bono assistance to individuals and small businesses affected by COVID-19. Law firms dedicated thousands of pro bono hours to people hit hard by COVID while wrestling with housing, civil rights, immigration, and other issues.
 
In these stressful times, volunteer efforts by the legal community have been as crucial as ever, and you responded admirably to genuine needs. In doing so, you lived up to the noblest traditions of the practice of law.

As always, thank you to the State Bar for hosting this annual convention. We appreciate the ongoing dialogue between the bench and the bar as we strive to confront the challenges ahead and work toward a stronger system of justice in our state. And let’s plan to meet in Atlantic City a year from now.

Thank you all very much -- and be well.