Top Morris-Sussex judge set to retire May 27

Thomas L. Weisenbeck fell in love with lawyering in 1968 when, as a first lieutenant in the Army, he was assigned to defend soldiers accused of disciplinary infractions or minor offenses during the Vietnam War.

Weisenbeck wasn’t even a lawyer but the protocol in 1968 was for the commanding general to assign a military officer to prosecute or defend special court martial cases involving enlisted men. He later took his LSATs -- the test that measures reading and verbal reasoning skills in assessing applicants to law schools -- in a Quonset hut in 100 degree heat in 1969 at a U.S. Naval base in Danang, Republic of South Vietnam.

“I had three cases assigned to me to defend in the Army. I lost each one but I was smitten. I thought ‘My God, I’ve never had this much responsibility in my life,’” Weisenbeck said.

More than 40 years after he earned his law degree from Rutgers-Camden School of Law, Weisenbeck is poised to start a new chapter of his life as he prepares to step down from a 10-year career as a well-respected Superior Court judge in the court vicinage that contains Morris and Sussex counties.

For the past four years, Weisenbeck has been the assignment judge -- the top person -- of the Morris-Sussex vicinage. After serving six years in the Family Division, including as its presiding judge, Weisenbeck was tapped by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner to be vicinage assignment judge in May 2011.

Weisenbeck, whose chambers is in Morristown, is set to retire May 27, the day before he turns 70, which the state Constitution has set as the mandatory age for retirement of judges.

“I never expected going to law school and in the first 25 years of my working as an attorney that I would ever be a judge. It’s been, literally, a gift from God. It’s been a blessing. I absolutely love what I do. I loved being a Family Court judge. I think all the work in the courthouse is important but my personal opinion is the Family Court does the most important work in the courthouse,” Weisenbeck said.

Mary Gibbons-Whipple, who became a judge in 2010 and was elevated last year to the Appellate Division of Superior Court, had worked with Weisenbeck several decades ago in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. At the courthouse in Morristown, Weisenbeck was her presiding judge in the Family Part.

The Morris County courthouse is where Weisenbeck started his legal career. Between September 1973 and September 1974, he was law clerk to then-Superior Court Chancery Division Judge Robert Muir Jr. He spent the decades between then and his judgeship in 2005 at private law firms and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“He was a trusted ally and mentor,” Gibbons-Whipple said. “He was always available to offer support and advice for a new judge. On the bench, Judge Weisenbeck always displayed patience and courtesy to lawyers and to litigants and always displayed graciousness to the people he worked with. He set a tone of professionalism, compassion and dedication in his role as assignment judge.”

Weisenbeck said he technically won’t be “retired.” He plans to be of counsel to the Florham Park-based law firm Bressler, Amery & Ross, where he was a partner from 1992 until 2005. His partnership at the firm included the opportunity to be attorney to the late pop superstar Whitney Houston when she lived in Mendham Township in the 1990s.

Weisenbeck appeared in Superior Court, Morristown, multiple times in the 1990s to seek protective orders barring overzealous fans, stalkers and even a man who claimed to be the father of Houston’s daughter, from contacting her. Weisenbeck said he even accompanied Houston, as her attorney, on a concert tour to South Africa.

Family law attorney Mark Wechsler of Denville said Weisenbeck always impressed him with his availability, courtesy and willingness to admit he didn’t know the answer. Wechsler said he once tried a domestic violence case before the judge and argued a legal precedent with which the judge was not familiar.

“It was a case he was unfamiliar with so he took a very short recess, went to his chambers, read and digested the case in a remarkably short period of time, came back out on the bench and made a ruling. I have never forgotten that because it demonstrated so many great qualities about him,” Wechsler said.

“He was not reticent about letting on that there was a case he was unfamiliar with, demonstrating his complete lack of ego. He took it upon himself to instantaneously research and digest the case and then astutely applied it to the facts and circumstances before him without missing a beat,” Wechsler said.

As assignment judge, Weisenbeck has had to juggle multiple tasks that include participation in courthouse security enhancements, judicial assignments, and employee discipline. He hears cases that include probate of wills, challenges to Open Public Records Act requests, appeals of municipal planning and zoning board decisions, and election disputes.

One of his higher-profile cases was a trial in 2011 in which Margaret Nordstrom challenged her defeat in the June 2011 GOP primary election for Morris County freeholder to then-newcomer William “Hank” Lyon. Weisenbeck heard testimony on allegations of voter fraud but ruled against Lyon, finding he failed to comply with the New Jersey Campaign Contributions and Expenditures Reporting Act.

Weisenbeck’s trial-level decision was reversed about five months later by the Appellate Division, which ordered a special GOP convention at which Lyon was chosen to fill the freeholder seat.

“No one ever likes being reversed,” Weisenbeck said. “The thing about election cases is the clock is ticking, a decision needs to be made as soon as possible because you have an election and you want as best you can to accommodate the clerk’s office. They have to get the ballots printed and circulated. I called it as I saw it, the Appellate Division disagreed.”

Superior Court Judge Stuart Minkowitz, presiding judge of the Criminal Division in Morris-Sussex, called Weisenbeck “incredibly intelligent, fair and patient.”

Some attorneys said that Weisenbeck is, simply, an approachable person who is quick to commend staff for good work and to admit he can’t run the vicinage without their help. He will break up his day to attend a funeral or wake for a relative of an employee. A visitor to his chambers once asked the judge when he anticipated finishing a written opinion on a case and he replied “Tuesday,” and then started playing the Moody Blues song “Tuesday Afternoon” on his iPod.

“As our Assignment Judge, he has been an inspirational leader, mentor and advocate for all the judges, judiciary staff and attorneys in the Morris-Sussex vicinage,” Minkowitz said. “As with his predecessors, he has fostered a standard of excellence that will long endure. Upon his retirement, I will dearly miss seeing him on a regular basis to discuss an issue or just shoot the breeze.”

During his assignment as vicinage leader, special programs have been started that include attorneys giving free, 30-minute consultations to litigants representing themselves in Family Court matters. The Court User Resource Center was launched as a venue for pro se litigants to educate themselves on the law. Weisenbeck said he was enthused when Judge Maritza Berdote Byrne proposed and organized internship programs in the courts for special needs students and adults.

Weisenbeck said he will remember as most poignant the cases he handled that involved parents seeking guardianship over special needs children when they became adults.

“The cases involving the young adults are for me the most touching because I’m a parent who is blessed with two healthy children. To see these parents come before the court to be named guardians, when no longer legally required to care for their children, is touching,” he said.

Weisenbeck said he hopes he leaves a legacy of fairness and patience.

“I strive for perfection,” he said. “I don’t achieve it but that’s the goal. To be fair and to be courteous because when people come into a courtroom it can be a very unnerving experience. I think it’s a judge’s responsibility to try to put people at ease.”

Staff Writer Peggy Wright: 973-267-1142; pwright@GannettNJ.com