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Justice Stuart Rabner was nominated to serve on the Supreme Court by Gov. Jon S. Corzine and confirmed by the Senate on June 21, 2007.  He was renominated for tenure by Gov. Chris Christie and reconfirmed in 2014.  Chief Justice Rabner previously served as the State Attorney General and as Chief Counsel to Governor Corzine.

He clerked for the Hon. Dickinson R. Debevoise, United States District Judge, after law school, and then joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark.  From 1986 through 2005, he held various positions in the office including First Assistant U.S. Attorney, Chief of the Criminal Division, and Chief of the Terrorism Unit.  He graduated summa cum laude from the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1982 and cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1985.

Over the past decade, Andrew Bruck (’05) has served in several of the most senior legal roles in state and federal government. Until earlier this month, he served as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he advised the Attorney General and other senior leaders on the department’s most sensitive and complex criminal matters. Before joining the Biden Administration, he served as the Acting Attorney General of New Jersey, the first openly LGBTQ+ person to serve as the state’s chief law enforcement officer. Earlier in his career, he worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey, and a law clerk to the Hon. Stuart Rabner ’82, Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his husband and two children.

Angela Cai is the Executive Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the New Jersey Attorney General, where she holds the third-ranking position in the office and manages civil matters on behalf of the state. Previously, she served as Deputy Solicitor General since 2021 and litigated a wide variety of complex cases on behalf of the State at all levels of state and federal courts. Prior to joining the Office, she was an associate in private practice. She clerked for Judge Michael A. Chagares of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Cai received her J.D. from Yale Law School and A.B. from Princeton University, where she majored in SPIA with certificates in Environmental Studies and American Studies.

Joe E. Krakora (’76) is the newly appointed Faculty Fellow for SPIA in NJ. Mr. Krakora comes to Princeton after serving as the Public Defender for the State of New Jersey from 2011 to 2024. In that position, he oversaw an agency of approximately 620 attorneys and 1200 total employees. Under his leadership, the office built a reputation as one of the best Public Defender offices in the country. He recruited talented attorneys from around the country, expanded the office’s training programs, and upgraded the agency’s technology and facilities. He became an influential stakeholder in New Jersey’s justice system on many policy issues, having spearheaded the pretrial release reform that eliminated cash bail, advocated for sentencing reform on New Jersey’s Sentencing Commission, and directed the filing of three successful Orders to Show Cause in the NJ Supreme Court for release of jail and prison inmates during the pandemic.

Mr. Krakora’s career as a public defender began in 1986 and spanned thirty four years. He started as both a staff attorney and manager in the Essex Region where he developed a reputation as one of the top criminal trial attorneys in New Jersey, specializing in homicide cases including capital cases. He was profiled in four front page NJ Law Journal articles after acquittals in high profile cases. Mr. Krakora served as the agency’s Assistant Public Defender and Director of Capital and Special Litigation from 2002-2010. In that capacity, he served on the Death Penalty Study Commission as a strong advocate leading to its abolition in December 2007. He also spent five years in private practice and served as the Law Clerk to the Hon. Lloyd F. McMahon, U.S.D.J for the Southern District of New York. He majored in History at Princeton and holds his law degree from the Cornell University Law School.

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