The Honorable Virginia A. Long, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey, will deliver the 24th Annual Chief Justice Joseph Weintraub Lecture on Tuesday, April 18, at Rutgers School of Law–Newark. The lecture will begin at 6 pm. Justice Long will present “The Purple Thread: Social Justice as a Recurring Theme in the Decisions of the Poritz Court.” Chief Justice Deborah Poritz will step down from the Court later this year when she reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70.

Justice Long was nominated to the Supreme Court by Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and was sworn in as an Associate Justice in September 1999. At the time of her nomination, she was serving as a presiding judge of the Appellate Division of the Superior Court.

Justice Long has served as a deputy attorney general; a litigation associate at Pitney, Hardin, Kipp and Szuch; director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs; and Commissioner of the former New Jersey Department of Banking. In 1978 she was appointed to the Superior Court, where she presided over civil, criminal, and family law cases. She served from 1983 to 1984 as general equity judge for the Mercer, Somerset, and Hunterdon vicinage and was elevated to the Appellate Division in 1984.

A 1966 graduate of the law school, Justice Long was captain of the Appellate Moot Court team and winner of the competition prizes for Best Oralist and Best Brief.