Freda Linsenbaum Wolfson (born May 20, 1954) is the Chief United States district judge of the

United States District Court for the District of New Jersey The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (in case citations, D.N.J.) is a federal court in the Third Circuit (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act, which are appealed to the ...

Early life and education

Born in Vineland, New Jersey,Freda L. Wolfson
''New Jersey Law Journal''. Accessed February 6, 2014. Wolfson graduated from

Douglass College Douglass Residential College, is an undergraduate, non degree granting higher education program of Rutgers University-New Brunswick for women. It succeeded the liberal arts degree-granting Douglass College after it was merged with the other und ...

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

degree in 1976 and later from

Rutgers Law School Rutgers Law School is the law school of Rutgers University, with classrooms in Newark and Camden, New Jersey. It is the largest public law school and the 10th largest law school, overall, in the United States. Each class in the three-year J.D. pr ...

in Newark with a Juris Doctor in 1979. A daughter of

Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ...

s, she credited the experiences of her parents as leading her to pursue a career in law.Hon. Freda L. Wolfson ’79, Commencement Speaker

Rutgers School of Law–Newark Rutgers Law School is the law school of Rutgers University, with classrooms in Newark and Camden, New Jersey. It is the largest public law school and the 10th largest law school, overall, in the United States. Each class in the three-year J.D. pr ...

. Accessed February 6, 2014. "Freda Wolfson wanted to be part of the United States legal system for as long as she can remember. A first-generation American, daughter of Holocaust survivors, she inherited a respect for the law and our system of justice born of her family’s harrowing years in war-torn Europe."

Legal career

Following law school graduation, Wolfson worked in private practice in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

from 1979 – 1986 at the firms Lowenstein, Sandler, Kohl, Fisher & Boylan and Clapp & Eisenberg.

Federal judicial career

Wolfson began her federal judicial career as a

United States magistrate judge In United States federal courts, magistrate judges are judges appointed to assist U.S. district court judges in the performance of their duties. Magistrate judges generally oversee first appearances of criminal defendants, set bail, and conduc ...

of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Wolfson was appointed to an eight-year term in 1986 and was re-appointed again in 1994 before serving another full eight-year term before her nomination as a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

in 2002. Wolfson was nominated to the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey by President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

on August 1, 2002, to a seat vacated by Nicholas H. Politan. Wolfson was confirmed by the Senate on November 14, 2002, on a Senate vote and received her commission on December 4, 2002. She became Chief Judge on May 16, 2019, after the retirement of

Jose L. Linares Jose L. Linares (born November 30, 1953) is a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, and the former Chief Judge of that same Court from 2017 to 2019. In May 2019, he resigned as Ch ...

Notable cases

* ''

Hornstine v. Township of Moorestown ''Hornstine v. Moorestown'', 263 F. Supp. 2d 887 (D.N.J. 2003), was a 2003 case in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey that considered whether grades received by a student with a disability for classes where accommod ...

'' (2003) * Edison divorce torture plot (2015)

Achievements

Wolfson has been honored as an American Bar Foundation Fellow and has received a New Jersey State Bar Association Young Lawyer Division's Professional Achievement Award. In 2002 she accepted the Outstanding Alumnus Award from the Alumni Association of the Rutgers School of Law, Newark. Recently, Judge Wolfson received the 2008 Women's Initiative & Leaders in Law Platinum Award from the New Jersey Women Lawyers Association.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolfson, Freda Linsenbaum 1954 births Living people 21st-century American judges 21st-century American women judges Judges of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey People from Vineland, New Jersey Rutgers School of Law–Newark alumni Rutgers University alumni United States district court judges appointed by George W. Bush United States magistrate judges