Menendez, Booker Applaud Nomination of Attorney Christine P. O’Hearn to U.S. District Court of NJ

O’Hearn would bring nearly three decades of experience as a civil litigator, champion for women in the workplace to federal bench

Biden makes third nomination to NJ federal court in a month to address the state’s longstanding ‘judicial emergency’

JERSEY CITY, N.J. – U.S. Senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, (both D-NJ) today applauded President Biden’s nomination of Christine P. O’Hearn to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.  Her nomination was announced this morning by the White House as part of a new group of judicial nominees.

“Christine O’Hearn is a highly successful and regarded trial attorney with the intellect, thoughtfulness and temperament needed to be a brilliant federal judge, and I am proud to have recommended her for appointment to the U.S District Court of New Jersey,” Sen. Menendez said.  “Ms. O’Hearn has spent much of her career advocating for women in the workplace and defending the rights of workers against employee discrimination, harassment and a hostile work environment.  She is well-versed in labor and employment law, is smart, thorough, and detail oriented, and I believe she will serve the people of New Jersey well through her administration of fair and impartial justice.  I applaud President Biden for nominating Ms. O’Hearn and for working with Senator Booker and me to expeditiously fill longstanding vacancies on our federal court.”

“Christine O’Hearn is a talented, experienced, and distinguished litigator who will serve honorably as a federal judge,” said Sen. Booker.  “Throughout her career, Ms. O’Hearn has demonstrated a deep commitment to justice and an appreciation for the impact that our courts have on the people of our state.  I look forward to her hearing before the Judiciary Committee and her confirmation by the full Senate.”

Christine P. O’Hearn is currently a partner at Brown & Connery, LLP in Westmont, N.J. where she practices in labor, employment and complex civil litigation.  With over 28 years’ experience as a trial attorney successfully arguing cases in New Jersey and Pennsylvania Federal and State Courts in defense and on behalf of individual employees as plaintiffs in claims against their employers, she has built a reputation as a highly-regarded advocate for women in the workplace.  O’Hearn was twice named one of the “Top 40 Attorneys Under 40” in New Jersey by the New Jersey Law Journal (2002, 2004) and was featured in the New Jersey Law Journal’s “Woman and Minorities in the Profession” (2003).  She was appointed in 2020 to the U.S. Magistrate Judge Selection Committee and has served on various distinguished boards, including the New Jersey State Committee of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and the New Jersey Supreme Court District IV Ethics Committee.  O’Hearn previously served as an adjunct professor at Rutgers University School of Law in Camden, has published numerous articles and legal writings with a focus on employment discrimination, and has been admitted into the New Jersey and Pennsylvania bar, United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, United States Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Court, and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.  She graduated cum laude from Temple University School of Law and earned a B.A. in criminal justice from the University of Delaware.

O’Hearn’s nomination is President Biden’s third in less than a month for New Jersey’s district court.  On March 30, President Biden nominated Bergen County Counsel and former Newark Municipal Court Judge Julien X. Neals and Magistrate Judge Zahid N. Quraishi.  If confirmed, Quraishi would become the country’s first Muslim American federal judge.  A confirmation hearing for both nominees was held Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

New Jersey’s six district court vacancies are second only to California’s and have been declared a “judicial emergency.”  Six years of Republican obstructionism both in the Senate and White House have allowed those vacancies to go unfilled and the judicial emergency to fester.