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Trenton, NJ – Attorney General Anne
Milgram today announced the appointment
of Shavar Jeffries, an associate professor
at Seton Hall University’s Law School,
to be her new counsel, a top advisory position
in the Office of the Attorney General.
Jeffries, 33, will advise Milgram on legal
issues and serve as a liaison in the Office
of the Attorney General to many of the divisions
within the Department of Law and Public
Safety. Jeffries succeeds Michael Shipp,
who was recently sworn in as a U.S. Magistrate
Judge for the District of New Jersey.
Jeffries
was president of the board of the Boys and
Girls Club of Newark and the TEAM Academy
Charter School in Newark. He is a member
of the board of Seton Hall Prep School.
“Shavar
Jeffries will be an important addition to
our staff in the Office of the Attorney
General, and will be responsible for lending
guidance and advice on a broad range of
issues and topics,” Milgram said.
“The position of counsel demands the
kind of expertise and experience that he
has gained in his career as an advocate
and teacher.’’
"I
am honored to have the opportunity to work
with Attorney General Milgram in leading
the department,’’ Jeffries said.
“I'm particularly excited to support
the Attorney General's work on issues of
crime prevention, civil rights, and juvenile
justice. These matters lie at the heart
of my life's work and at the center of the
service I hope to provide to the people
of New Jersey."
Jeffries,
who lives in Newark, received a B.A. in
history from Duke University in 1996 and
his J.D. in 1999 from Columbia Law School,
where, among a number of honors, he was
a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Paul Robeson
Scholar, and Managing Editor of the Columbia
Human Rights Law Review.
After
law school, Jeffries clerked for Judge Nathaniel
R. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals
for the Sixth Circuit in Ohio. Jeffries
then worked as an associate with the law
firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering,
where, among other matters, he defended
the University of Michigan in affirmative-action
litigation challenging its undergraduate
and law-school admissions policies.
In
the fall of 2001, Jeffries joined the law
firm of Gibbons, P.C., as a John J. Gibbons
Fellow in Public Interest and Constitutional
Litigation. As a Gibbons Fellow, Jeffries
engaged in a wide-range of issues, including
the representation of newspapers seeking
access to closed, post-9/11 immigration
hearings, and the NAACP in challenging the
State of New Jersey’s legislative
apportionment plan. The firm named Jeffries
Deputy Director of the Gibbons Fellowship
in 2003, and appointed him Of Counsel in
2004.
Jeffries
joined the Seton Hall Law School faculty
in the summer of 2004. He teaches a Civil
Litigation Clinic course, as well as criminal
law. Through the Civil Litigation Clinic,
Professor Jeffries and his students engaged
in public-interest litigation, focusing
primarily on seeking to empower urban parents
with greater control of their children’s
education.
In
addition to supervising the Civil Litigation
Clinic, Jeffries was a Co-Director of the
Law School’s Urban Revitalization
Project, which seeks to impact the quality
of life in urban communities through education
and housing reform. For his public-interest
law advocacy, Jeffries received numerous
awards, including recently being named a
“Rising Star” by New Jersey
Super Lawyers magazine and receiving the
Byrne Distinguished Public Servant Award.
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