In New Jersey’s Bergen County, where a quarter of all trial court judgeships are vacant, litigators have come to view the situation with frustration, stoicism and praise for the job the remaining judges are doing.

Bergen County, with nearly 1 million residents, is the state’s most populous county. It has 38 authorized judgeships, after the three Appellate Division judges from Bergen are subtracted from the gross allotment count of 41.