As a federal bill to protect judges and their families from having personal information published on the internet and to make brokers of such information accountable gains traction, the New Jersey judge, whose late son the legislation is named after, remains hopeful it will be taken up by Congress in the new year.

“I was elated to hear the news by the [New Jersey] Attorney General yesterday that this letter was coming out,” Judge Esther Salas of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey said in a phone interview with the Law Journal on Tuesday. “It was such a pleasant surprise to hear that the attorneys general were able to come together in a bipartisan way to make this pitch and plea to those in power to pass it expeditiously.