Background
Poritz was born in Brooklyn, New York and graduated from James Madison High School in 1954 and Brooklyn College in 1958.
Poritz was born in Brooklyn, New York and graduated from James Madison High School in 1954 and Brooklyn College in 1958.
Brooklyn College of the City University of New York (Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, 1958) Phi Beta Kappa. University of Pennsylvania (Juris Doctor, 1977). Former Chief Counsel to the New Jersey Governor, 1989 Assistant Attorney General and Director of the Division of Law, New Jersey Department of Health and Safety, 1986-1989.
Deputy Attorney General in Charge of Appeals, New Jersey Division of Law, 1980-1986.
Assistant Chief, Environmental Protection Section, Division of Law, New Jersey Department of Health and Safety, 1981-1982. Deputy Attorney General, Environmental Protection Section, Division of Law, New Jersey Department of Health and Safety, 1977-1981.
Member, Supreme Court Committee on Environmental Litigation (New Jersey), since 1989.Member, Civil Practice Committee of the Supreme Court (New Jersey), since 1986. Member, Women Executives in Government.
She was the Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1996 to 2006, and was the Attorney General of New Jersey from 1994 to 1996, in both cases becoming the first woman to serve in that position. She became a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in English and American Literature at Columbia University. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1977, Poritz became a Deputy Attorney General in the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety.
In 1981, she was named as the Assistant Chief of the Environmental Protection Section.
She later served as Deputy Attorney General in Charge of Appeals, Chief of the Banking, Insurance and Public Securities Section, and later as Director of the Division of Law, and finally she was named the Chief Counsel to Governor of New Jersey Thomas Kean. From 1990 to 1994, Poritz was a partner in the Princeton law firm of Jamieson, Moore, Peskin & Spicer.
Poritz was the first woman to serve as Attorney General of New Jersey. She was nominated to the position by Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman in January 1994.
As Attorney General, she oversaw the divisions of Law, Criminal Justice, Gaming Enforcement, Motor Vehicles, Consumer Affairs, Civil Rights and the New Jersey State Police.
She served as attorney general until she took office as chief justice. Poritz was nominated to be Chief Justice by Governor Whitman on June 20, 1996, and was confirmed on June 27, 1996. She was sworn in as the first female Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court on July 10, 1996.
Poritz served until October 25, 2006, when she retired, one day prior to her seventieth birthday.
As of December 2008, Poritz is of counsel to the Princeton office of Drinker, Biddle & Reath. In 2011, Poritz joined the Rutgers School of Law in Newark and in Camden as a resident professor
New Jersey State and American Bar Associations.