Jack Trubenbach may be the most important person at the Appellate Division whom few people know about. For exactly 36 years, beginning on September 1, 1979, he has been with the Appellate Division Clerk’s Office. For 28 of those years, until today, he has been the Appellate Division’s Chief Counsel. Today, however, Jack Trubenbach retires.
During his tenure, Jack has worked under seven Presiding Judges for Administration and seven Clerks of the Appellate Division. Now that’s longevity. But Jack is not merely to be celebrated for stick-to-itiveness. New Jersey’s Appellate Division is the largest undivided state intermediate appellate court in the United States, and it has been consistently ranked at or near the top of state intermediate appellate courts. Jack has been intimately involved with the development and implementation of many of the policies, procedures, and programs within the Appellate Division. The court’s excellent reputation nationwide is due in no small part to Jack’s ongoing and creative efforts.
Jack has frequently shared his expertise with others, lecturing and writing about Appellate Division practice and procedure in many venues. Perhaps foremost among that work has been Jack’s role as the major domo behind ICLE’s Appellate Practice Handbook. [Disclosure: I have since 1998 been the author of the chapter of that book titled “Supreme Court Review”]. Jack has coordinated the various chapters and has prepared many if not all of the forms that the book contains. Yet his name appears in the book merely as one among the many contributors, with no hint that he is the engine that makes that book go.
Jack Trubenbach and I have served on the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Appellate Practice Committee together since the 1990’s. We have been on panels about appellate practice together, including at the NJSBA Annual Meeting and at the Union County Bar Association. He is the type of man of whom there are fewer and fewer: knowledgeable, practical, gentlemanly, and retiring (meaning “modest”). As of today, he is retired. Jack will be sorely missed.