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School of Law-Newark
 
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John J. Farmer Jr.
Ronald K. Chen
Frank Askin
Charles I. Auffant
Paul Axel-Lute
Carlos A. Ball
Bernard W. Bell
Vera Bergelson
Cynthia Blum
Frances V. Bouchoux
Yvette Bravo-Weber
Esther Canty-Barnes
Laura Cohen
Jean-Marc Coicaud
Marjorie E. Crawford
Donna I. Dennis
Stuart L. Deutsch
Janet Donohue
Jon C. Dubin
Douglas S. Eakeley
Erica Eisinger
Wei Fang
Jack Feinstein
Nicky Fornarotto
Gary L. Francione
Sandy Freund
Karen Fromkes
Linda Garbaccio
Matteo Gatti
Steve C. Gold
Carlos González
Stuart P. Green
Alycia M. Guichard
Anjum Gupta
Adil Ahmad Haque
Taja-Nia Y. Henderson
Christina S. Ho
Robert C. Holmes
Alan Hyde
Jonathan M. Hyman
John P. Joergensen
John R. Kettle III
Suzanne A. Kim
Dennis Kim-Prieto
Jessica Kitson
Howard Latin
John Leubsdorf
Ji Li
Susan Lyons
Ava Majlesi
Randi Mandelbaum
Marie Melito
Saul Mendlovitz
Chrystin Ondersma
Brandon Paradise
Twila L. Perry
James Gray Pope
Hon. Deborah T. Poritz
Louis Raveson
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Fadi Shaheen
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David Dante Troutt
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  The School of Law - Newark 2010-2012 Faculty and Administration John J. Farmer Jr.  

John J. Farmer Jr.


Dean and professor of law 

John Farmer became dean of Rutgers School of Law-Newark in July 2009. He received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a member of
The Tax Lawyer and received first prize in the 1984 Lincoln and the Law Essay Contest. He received his B.A. from Georgetown University, with a major in English.

Dean Farmer began his career as a law clerk to Associate Justice Alan B. Handler of the New Jersey Supreme Court. He then worked for two years as a litigation associate at Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Perretti LLP before joining the Office of the U.S. Attorney in Newark, where he prosecuted crimes ranging from kidnapping and arms dealing to bank fraud. In 1993 he received the U.S. Attorney General's Special Achievement Award for Sustained Performance.

Dean Farmer joined the administration of New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman in 1994, serving as assistant counsel, deputy chief counsel, and then chief counsel. From 1999-2002 he was New Jersey attorney general. Among his noteworthy accomplishments, he argued school funding and criminal justice matters before the New Jersey Supreme Court and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals; moved forward with reform of the New Jersey State Police, from eliminating racial profiling to increasing diversity in recruitment and promotion; created the Office of Inspector General to investigate allegations of official impropriety and/or corruption; and served as the first chair of the New Jersey Domestic Preparedness Task Force, leading the coordination of the state's law enforcement and victim/witness response to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

From 2003-2004 Dean Farmer served as senior counsel and team leader for the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (commonly known as the 9/11 Commission). In that position he led the investigation of the country's preparedness for and response to the terrorist attacks and was a principal author of the commission's final report. His book, The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America's Defense on 9/11, a reconsideration of the government's 9/11 response in light of its response to Hurricane Katrina, was published by Riverhead/Penguin Press.

Dean Farmer has received the highest peer-reviewed rating from Martindale-Hubbell, and has been named a New Jersey Super Lawyer, one of New York Magazine's Best Lawyers in the New York area, and one of the Best Lawyers in America. He was a partner in the white-collar crime and internal investigations group at K&L Gates and in 2007 became a founding partner of the law firm Arseneault, Whipple, Farmer, Fassett and Azzarello, LLP. In addition to his law practice, in 2008 he served as senior adviser to General James Jones, Special Envoy for Middle East Regional Security, on development of the rule of law in the Palestinian Authority territory, and was invited by the U.S. Embassy in Armenia to assist that nation's legislative commission in investigating widespread violence and unrest following its elections.

Dean Farmer has been a frequent contributor to the Star-Ledger and the New York Times, with essays and opinion columns on legal and political issues, and has had articles published in the Rutgers Law Review, Seton Hall Law Review, and other journals. His article on the Patriot Act, "At Freedom's Edge," was part of a Star-Ledgerseries that was awarded the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award for outstanding legal reporting in 2006. Dean Farmer has also lectured extensively on post-9/11 safety and security issues, and spoken on panels at Harvard Law School, the University of Southern California, Williamette Law School, and Johns Hopkins University's Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

Dean Farmer is president of the board of trustees of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and a former member of the New Jersey Governor's Ethics Advisory Board.
 
For additional information, contact RU-info at 732-445-info (4636) or colonel.henry@rutgers.edu.
Comments and corrections to: Campus Information Services.

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