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Mitchel Ostrer

Mitchel Eric Ostrer

Adjunct Professor of Law

Mitchel E. Ostrer served as a judge on the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court, the State’s intermediate appellate court, from 2011 until his retirement in 2021. He completed his service as a presiding judge.  

Appointed to the Superior Court in 2003, he served as a trial judge in the Civil, Family and Criminal Parts before his elevation to the appellate court. He wrote over 900 appellate and trial court opinions, including over ninety reported opinions. He previously served as vice-chair of the Supreme Court Committee on the Rules of Evidence, and as a member of the Supreme Court Committee on Criminal Practice.  In September 2023, he was temporarily recalled to part-time judicial service on the trial court.

Before joining the bench, he held positions in the public and private sectors. He was Policy Counselor to Governor James E. McGreevey. Between 1992 and 2001, he concentrated in commercial litigation as of counsel to what is now known as Sills Cummis & Gross in Newark, New Jersey. He was Legislative Director and held other staff positions for United States Senator Frank R. Lautenberg in Washington, D.C. between 1982 and 1991. Before that, he served as an assistant counsel to Governor Brendan T. Byrne. He began his legal career as a law clerk to New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Sidney M. Schreiber.

Judge Ostrer received a BA, with honors in philosophy, from Hamilton College; an M.P.A. from Princeton University; and a JD from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.