This evening I am doing something that I rarely do. I am not heading directly home from work. Rather, I am spending a bit of time at the Pines Manor in Edison, New Jersey at the Middlesex County Bar Association's Retirement Dinner honoring the extraordinary Presiding Judge of the Civil Division, Judge Jamie Happas, P.J.Cv., who retired from the bench earlier this year.
As a lawyer who has practiced in and around Middlesex County for the entirety of my twenty-seven year career, I had the pleasure of appearing before Judge Happas more times than I can actually or accurately recount. Although I know she shall have no memory of it, I first made her acquaintance before she ascended to the bench. When I was a baby lawyer back in the day, doing plaintiff's personal injury work - and some municipal court defense work - at a small firm in Plainfield, I not only had a couple of cases in which she represented either the defendant or one of the defendants but I had several municipal court matters in which my ne'er-do-well of the week committed his transgression within the geographical boundaries of Piscataway Township, the court in which she was the Municipal Prosecutor.
Judge Happas has always been - and shall always be - a lawyer who is a credit to our profession. More than that, she is a human being who is a credit to our species. It is my pleasure and privilege tonight to lend my admittedly off-key voice to the chorus of voices thanking her for all she has done and wishing her well on all that she shall do.
-AK
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