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28 Rutgers L. Rev. 209 (1974-1975)
Justice Nathan L. Jacobs - Tributes from His Colleagues

handle is hein.journals/rutlr28 and id is 219 raw text is: JUSTICE NATHAN L. JACOBS-TRIBUTES FROM HIS COLLEAGUES I freely confess my bias for Justice Nathan L. Jacobs, my warm friend of over 40 years. He has honored our state and our profession by devoting his life and great abilities to the realization in New Jersey of open courts dispensing equal justice. He enlisted me in that cause in 1946 when he and I joined seven other lawyers to form the editorial board of the New Jersey Law Journal. The Journal played a signifi- cant part in helping organize support for constitutional reform. I was the Journal's spokesman before the Committee of the Constitutional Convention where Justice Jacobs led the fight that produced the court system that is the nation's model. He accepted appointment to the bench in 1948 from conviction that one who fought to create the new system should help make it work. He influenced me to follow his example and, I expect, probably four other board members to do the same-Justice John J. Francis, Judge Alfred C. Clapp, Judge G. Dixon Speakman, and Judge Joseph Harrison. Indeed, several who followed us over the years on the Journal Board also joined the bench-among them, Chief Justice Richard J. Hughes, Chief Justice Joseph Wein- traub, Judge Milton B. Conford, Judge Leon S. Milmed, Judge Harry Nadell, Judge Vincent P. Biunno, and Judge John F. Lynch. While still a practitioner, I served on the committee, which Justice Jacobs chaired, that wrote the rules governing the prerogative writs. The law of prerogative writs before the adoption of those rules pro- duced shocking injustices. A practitioner might find he had pursued a will-o'-the-wisp when he sought certiorari with the approval of the former supreme court only to be told by the same court months later, too late for any relief, -that he should have sought quo warranto. Many able practitioners had the nightmarish experience of trying to explain to a client with a meritorious legal and factual case that justice had not been denied. Justice Jacobs' new rules eliminated that possibility for injustice for good. He and I took our seats on the supreme court on the same day, March 13, 1952. He was sworn first, and was therefore my senior. We sat in the end seats on the bench and were at times referred to- not always to flatter us-as the Harvard ends. During the four years before I left to come to Washington, Justice Jacobs and I enjoyed a relationship I still greatly prize. We did not often differ on the results of cases. I do recall, however, that he protested on occasion that opin-

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