Message from President Justin T. Loughry
June 2007Welcome to the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers-New Jersey and its website.
The ACDL of New Jersey strives to develop and support the criminal defense bar in the struggle to protect the rights of persons accused of criminal offenses.
Our organization includes defense attorneys from every county and from all areas of criminal defense work. We are lawyers from solo practices and small firms, from some of the largest and most respected firms in the region, and from public defender offices across the state. Our contexts, clients and causes vary widely, but we stand together on common ground: our devotion to the constitutional rights of every member of the community, and a commitment to equal justice under law, regardless of race, ethnicity, social class or economic circumstance.
In this organization we like to think that we help one another to become better lawyers. But for the men and women who founded this organization and shaped its mission, self-improvement was never enough. Thus, twenty-two years into our collective life, we have a record of broader accomplishment. Our Amicus Committee brings our voice regularly before the New Jersey Supreme Court on issues of wide import. Our Lawyer’s Assistance Committee rallies to the aid of criminal defense lawyers who are under attack or threat of sanction in the course of representation of their clients. Our continuing legal education efforts probe the cutting edge issues.
This year we are determined to reach out into the counties, north and south, to tackle issues of vital interest to the criminal defense community, to encourage public interest efforts and to document and challenge unfairness to lawyers and defendants whenever we can.
Historically, the ACDL members have confronted the most compelling issues, successfully challenging racial profiling, fighting to save preemptory challenges, battling the death penalty, and fighting intrusions upon the attorney-client privilege. We will continue to immerse ourselves in what a great jurist called “the agonies of our time”.
If you are a member of the ACDL, thank you for your commitment and energy.
If you practice criminal defense and are not a member, then join the men and women of the ACDL NJ who stand together for the rights of the accused, and ultimately, for the rights of us all.
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