My name is Ryan Moriarty and alongside Darrell Felsenstein, we are the Statewide Coordinators for the New Jersey Supreme Court’s District Ethics and Fee Arbitration Committees, respectively.

As you may or may not know, the District Fee Arbitration Committees (DFACs) offer a low-cost alternative to litigation when disputes arise between an attorney and client as to the attorney’s fee. The DFACs conduct arbitration hearings and then make a binding arbitration determination regarding whether either the client or attorney is due payment.

The District Ethics Committees (DECs) investigate, prosecute, and preside over allegations of attorney misconduct. Volunteer attorney members have the opportunity to investigate the allegations, make charging determinations, present those cases before a hearing panel and argue them before the Disciplinary Review Board, the intermediate appellate body of the disciplinary system.  

Our statewide programs are staffed and primarily run by volunteer attorney and public members. They both provide invaluable opportunities for attorneys to give back to the legal community while ensuring the public is protected and the integrity in the profession remains high. Both programs offer exemptions from the Madden requirements, free CLEs as a function of rule, as well as many free CLE opportunities throughout the year. They also offer the opportunity for the volunteers to learn about different areas of the law and new and valuable attorney skills they may not otherwise have the opportunity. All for free.

We believe that the membership of your organization would be invaluable in both of these committees and hope that you will spread the word that we are seeking applications for our 2024 recruitment cycle. We have linked an application for your ease of use and distribution. Applications are due back by May 3, 2024 and can be sent to either of our attentions or oae.mbx@njcourts.gov.

We see this email as an introduction that we hope can be a beginning to an open line of communication between the Office of Attorney Ethics and your organization. Toward that end, if you would like us to speak about these opportunities at a meeting or CLE you have scheduled in the coming months, or otherwise discuss the opportunities, please do not hesitate to reach out, we’d be more than happy to do so.

If you have any questions or want to discuss further, I can be reached at ryan.moriarty@njcourts.gov or 609-403-7800 ext. 34125 and Darrell can be reached at darrell.felsenstein@njcourts.gov  609-403-7800 ext. 34135.