Jack B. Kirsten

Hon. Jack B. Kirsten, 81, a retired Superior Court Judge of Essex County, died Nov. 7, 2012. He was born in Newark.

Judge Kirsten was recognized as one of New Jersey’s leading attorneys in public utility law. He was appointed Public Utility Rate Counsel by the New Jersey Attorney General from 1970 to 1974 and served as Special Counsel to the Virgin Islands Public Services Commission. 

Judge Kirsten had been a co-adjunct professor at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Business and lectured extensively in rate making and public utility regulation at programs of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. He was a partner in the law firm Kirsten Friedman and Cherin for 20 years. He became of counsel to Jersey Central Power and Light; during that time he was one of the lead attorneys for the Three Mile Island Accident. He also represented New Jersey Bell and Public Service Electric and Gas.

A graduate of the class of 1949 of Weequahic High School, Newark, he received his BS from New York University in 1953 and his LLB from Harvard Law School in 1956.

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He was a member of the Essex County, New Jersey State, Federal Energy, American, and Federal bar associations; the American Judicature Society; and the American Arbitration Association’s National Panel of Arbitrators. He was chair of the section on Administration Law of the New Jersey Bar Association from 1967-69 and a member of the Essex County Bar Association Judiciary Committee from 1970 to 1973.  He was appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court to the Essex County Ethics Committee from 1974 to 1977.

In 1992 Gov. James Florio appointed him to the Superior Court of Essex County.  He sat on the bench from 1992 to 2001, handling many complex cases.

He is survived by his wife, Marcia (Yecies); two daughters, Amy Cohen and Abbe Schiffman; six grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.

Services were held with arrangements by Bernheim-Apter-Kreitzman Suburban Funeral Chapel, Livingston. Memorial contributions may be made to the Ruth Gottscho Kidney Foundation, 515 Warwick Ave., Teaneck, NJ 07666.