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e-mail:
aminuskin@nakblaw.com
Arthur Minuskin joined Nowell Amoroso Klein Bierman following twenty-five years of outstanding service as a trial court judge. Prior to his distinguished career on the bench, Judge Minuskin practiced law for twenty-eight years while engaging energetically in political, community and charitable affairs. His practice with the firm is focused on complex commercial litigation, arbitration and mediation. His lengthy and diverse experience as a judge provides an invaluable benefit to the
firm's litigation and dispute resolution practice.
Throughout his professional life, Judge Minuskin has demonstrated and expected from others, high standards of performance in practice and dedication to justice. A perfectionist by nature, he earned a reputation as a tough but fair judge, who was able to manage and resolve unusually complex cases gracefully and with the universal respect of those who appeared before him.
Judge Minuskin decided a substantial number of significant cases and legal issues. An unusually high number of his opinions were accepted for publication because of the thoroughness and eloquence of his analyses of cutting-edge legal questions in both civil and criminal arenas. Many of those decisions received mass media attention because of the boldness and judicial foresight of the views and positions he articulated and implemented. Occasionally his decisions risked popular criticism because his thinking was ahead of the times. Refusing to be influenced by what might be more popular, Judge Minuskin was well known for immaculate impartiality and for deciding matters strictly on law, common sense and compassion for the people affected. Early in his judicial tenure, Judge Minuskin ordered that as a last resort a woman in the advanced stages of terminal cancer be permitted to be treated with laetrile, a then experimental drug that had been denied her. Shortly thereafter, the New Jersey Legislature passed a bill approving laetrile treatment for desperate cancer patients. Judge Minuskin decided a celebrated, controversial divorce matter involving complex federal constitutional questions. Reasoning that the terms of a Jewish marriage contract created binding civil legal obligations between marriage partners, he ruled that the husband could not use the first amendment to prevent his ex-wife from remarrying. Several of Judge Minuskin's more recent opinions evidenced the superior quality of his jurisprudential thinking. Twice in 2002, Judge
Minuskin's final year on the bench, decisions he made that were reversed by the Appellate Division of the Superior Court were reinstated by the New Jersey Supreme Court.
Prior to his appointment to the bench in 1988, Judge Minuskin was in private practice, first in Paterson and then Fair Lawn, for twenty-eight years. While maintaining a thriving and expansive general practice, he served the Borough of Fair Lawn in three part-time capacities from 1953 to 1961. He was Assistant Borough Attorney from 1953 to 1955; Borough Attorney from 1955 to 1958; and Borough Magistrate from 1958 to 1961. Relentlessly eager to serve the public in some capacity, Judge Minuskin was a Commissioner of the Bergen County Board of Taxation from 1967 until 1977, serving as its president from 1975 to 1976.
Judge Minuskin also served on the board of directors of numerous civic and business organizations including the Fair Lawn Mental Health Center, the Fair Lawn Jewish Community Center, the Lawyers Division of the United Jewish Appeal (as Chair in 1965), the Preakness Hills Country Club, and the Interchange State Bank. He was president of the Fair Lawn Kiwanis Club and maintained membership in local posts of both the American Legion and the Jewish War Veterans. He also participated in numerous charitable efforts on behalf of various organizations including the Fair Lawn-East Paterson Charities Fund, Barnert Memorial Hospital Center, United Jewish Appeal, and Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Judge Minuskin is a member of the American, New Jersey, Bergen County and Passaic County Bar Associations. He has received awards from the Bergen County Bar Associations, Detective Crime Clinic of New Jersey and New York, Fair Lawn Jewish Center, Interchange State Bank and Bergen County Prosecutors.
After several years of wartime service in the United States Air Force, Judge Minuskin attended Harvard College and in 1948 received his law degree from Harvard Law School where he remains active in alumni affairs.
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