New Jersey Life Fellow Saul A. Wolfe
June 3, 2008, Fellows in the news, The National Judicial College
RENO, NV - The National Judicial College (NJC) is pleased to announce that Saul A. Wolfe, Esq., founding member of Skoloff & Wolfe, P.C., has become chair of the Board of Trustees of the NJC and the Honorable Frederic B. Rodgers was elected to chair-elect. The new positions were official at the June 6, 2008, board meeting in Reno.
“Leading the board of The National Judicial College is an honor in that it gives one the opportunity to make a profound mark on the direction of judicial education in our nation,” expressed Wolfe. “I am looking forward to the challenge of leading the board in its endeavors in maintaining the NJC’s role in providing excellence in judicial education nationwide.”
Wolfe is the former president of the New Jersey State Bar Association, the New Jersey State Bar Foundation, Harvard Law School Association of New Jersey and Brandeis University Alumni Association. He was a member of the American Bar Association Board of Governors from 2000 to 2003, during which time he served on the Executive Committee and as chair of the Operations and Communication Committee. He served as New Jersey State Delegate from 1993 to 2000 and in the House of Delegates from 1989 to the present time. Wolfe is a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a former trustee of the New Jersey Institute of Continuing Legal Education and instructor for more than 35 years. He was also the recipient of the New Jersey State Bar Foundation’s Medal of Honor for service to the justice system.
Judge Rodgers will become chair in June of 2009. He was appointed a judge in Colorado’s First Judicial District by the Governor in 1986. He is presently assigned to the Gilpin County and district courts in Black Hawk, Colo. He previously served as probate judge for Jefferson County in Golden, Colo., from 2005 to 2007.
“Teaching judges from around the country has been a terrific supplement to my work on the bench – a refreshing change of pace,” Rodgers said. “Since appointment to the board of trustees, I have a heightened respect for the contribution of our volunteer faculty to the mission of The National Judicial College. It is an honor to be asked to chair this hard-working board.”
Judge Rodgers, who first attended NJC courses in the early 1980s, served on the College’s Faculty Council. A faculty member since 1990, he will be the first NJC Faculty Council chair to be elected as chair of the Board of Trustees. Judge Rodgers, now in his fifth decade as a judge, first took the bench in 1969 as one of the first U.S. Army military judges in Viet Nam. He is a member of the Board of Governors and past-senior vice president of the Colorado Bar Association, an 11-year member of the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates and past-chair of the ABA Judicial Division. He is a Colorado State Chair and Life Fellow for the American Bar Foundation. Judge Rodgers provided judicial training and law drafting assistance to the Viet Nam Supreme People's Court and Ministry of Justice from 2002 to 2004.
The National Judicial College is celebrating 45 years of excellence in judicial education in 2008. An architecturally advanced design, magnificent stone columns and majestic skylight greet visitors in the lobby of The National Judicial College’s two-story building which houses technology-enhanced classrooms, state-of-the-art seminar rooms, distance education facilities, a newly upgraded computer lab and a model courtroom that showcases advanced technology for more efficient courtrooms. Located on the historic 255-acre University of Nevada, Reno, campus, The National Judicial College is the nation’s top judicial training institution. Each year, courses are held onsite, across the nation and around the world.
The NJC offers an average of 95 courses annually with more than 3,000 judges enrolling from all 50 states, U.S. territories and more than 150 countries. Since it opened in 1963, the NJC has awarded more than 82,000 professional judicial education certificates. In 1986, the NJC and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges assisted the University of Nevada, Reno, in developing one of the nation’s first advanced degree programs for trial judges - the Master of Judicial Studies program. In 2001, the UNR Board of Regents approved a Ph.D. program. Both programs provide a formal academic setting in which trial judges can integrate technical and academic studies to attain an intellectual understanding of the American judiciary.
The NJC is home to the National Tribal Judicial Center and an International Program. The College’s curricula include a Seminar Series, made up of courses that provide judges the opportunity to study diverse and interesting topics at historically and culturally rich locations across the United States. There is also a wide selection of Web-based courses to choose from, enabling participants to explore a variety of subject areas online.
The National Judicial College has an appointed 18-member Board of Trustees and it became a Nevada not-for-profit (501)(c)(3) educational corporation on January 1, 1978. Please visit the NJC website at www.judges.org for NJC news, ways to give to the NJC, course information and more. Or, call (800) 25-JUDGE for more information.
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