NEWS AMERICAS, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. Aug. 27, 2020: A Caribbean American lawyer has become a New Jersey history maker.
Fabiana Pierre-Louis, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, today became the first Black woman to sit on the New Jersey Supreme Court after the Democrat-led state Senate voted 39-0 to confirm her Thursday. Pierre-Louis, 39, is also its youngest member. She called the nomination the “honor of a lifetime.”
A former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Pierre-Louis was nominated by Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat, to the post in June. She will replace Justice Walter F. Timpone, who will reach the mandatory retirement age of 70 later this year.
The State Senate’s Democrat-led Judiciary Committee confirmed her nomination on Monday at a hearing where lawmakers noted the ground-breaking nature of her appointment.
Pierre-Louis was born in Brooklyn, NY and grew up in working-class Irvington, N.J. Her father owned and drove a cab and her mother transported patients at a New York City hospital. She is a graduate of Rutgers Law School in Camden, N.J. and is currently a partner at a private law firm.
Pierre-Louis lives with her husband and their two young sons in Mount Laurel, N.J.
