Defense attorney Michael Critchley Sr. is the latest notable New Jersey practitioner hired to help sort out why an adviser to Gov. Phil Murphy was allowed to keep his campaign job, and was later hired to a new job within the administration, despite sexual assault accusations against him.

Critchley of Critchley Kinum & DeNoia in Roseland, who has represented defendants in numerous high-profile matters, including one of the defendants in the Bridgegate criminal trial last year, will serve as counsel to the New Jersey Senate panel tasked with investigating issues connected to Albert J. Alvarez, who resigned as New Jersey Schools Development Authority chief of staff earlier this month amid accusations that he assaulted a woman while working on Murphy’s transition team in early 2017.