A retiring Bergen County, N.J., judge turned heads this month by issuing a ruling in a case in which the plaintiffs counsel is the firm he planned to join.
Neither Gerald Escala nor his new employer, Herten, Burstein, Sheridan, Cevasco, Bottinelli, Litt & Harz, will say when the job offer was made. But Escala announced on Feb. 3 that he would join the Hackensack, N.J., firm -- just two days after signing a judgment in a case in which partner Thomas Herten was the plaintiffs lawyer.
Escala, 70, who retired last Friday after 15 years on the bench, denies there was a conflict of interest, despite Rule of Professional Conduct 1.12(c)'s edict that a lawyer "shall not negotiate for employment with any person who is involved as a party or as an attorney for a party in a matter in which the lawyer is participating personally and substantially as a judge or other adjudicative officer, arbitrator, mediator or other third-party neutral."
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