When he served 17 years on the state Supreme Court, former Justice Gary Stein was especially drawn to cases with the potential to alter public policy and have an impact. He said some of these significant cases raised issues that were “close to my heart.”

Pashman Stein Walder Hayden in Hackensack, the firm founded by his son, where Stein landed after his court career ended, found it fitting that Stein’s name be attached to the firm’s new center aimed at providing lawyers and advocacy groups throughout the state, such as the ACLU of New Jersey, the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, among others, resources to argue the biggest cases of the day.