University Professor
John Farmer was dean of Rutgers School of Law-Newark from July 2009 until April 2013 when he took a leave of absence to serve as university senior vice president and general counsel. He returned to the law faculty effective July 1, 2014 as university professor and continues to hold an administrative post as special counsel to the president.
Dean Farmer 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. He 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 L.L.P. 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 & Azzarello, L.L.P. 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-Ledger series 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.
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