May
2016
Mark D. Shifton to Moderate Panel Discussion on New Jersey’s Constitutional History in Atlantic City
Mark D. Shifton will be moderating a panel discussion at the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Annual Meeting and Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey entitled The Constitutional Convention of 1947: From the Court of Errors and Appeals to Multicounty Litigation. The panel, which includes Judge Nelson Johnson, J.S.C. (the author of “Battleground New Jersey: Vanderbilt, Hague, and Their Fight For Justice” and “Boardwalk Empire”), retired New Jersey Appellate Division Judge William A. Dreier (author of New Jersey Products Liability and Toxic Tort Law), and Professor Robert F. Williams (Distinguished Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School, and a noted state constitutional scholar), will discuss the reforms enacted by New Jersey’s Constitutional Convention in 1947. The program will discuss how these reforms, which were led by Arthur Vanderbilt, New Jersey’s Chief Justice of the Supreme Court following the 1947 Convention, were designed to create a living, breathing court system equipped with the tools to adapt to changing times and legal issues, and how these reforms and Justice Vanderbilt’s philosophies continue to trickle-down into New Jersey courts into present day.