Arthur T. Vanderbilt

Arthur T. Vanderbilt (July 7, 1888 – June 16, 1957) was Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1948 to 1957. He also was a noted attorney, legal educator and nationally known proponent of court modernization.

He was born in Newark, New Jersey. Vanderbilt was the first Chief Justice under the revamped New Jersey court system established by the Constitution of 1947, in which the Supreme Court replaced the old Court of Errors and Appeals as the highest court.

Vanderbilt attended Newark (now Barringer) High School where he was class president and edited the newspaper and was a member of two fraternal groups, The Ramblers (later Omega Gamma Delta) and Lambda Tau. Following high school he took off a year to work on the railroad to earn money for college.

He attended Wesleyan University where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, president of the student body and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. A sidelight of his Wesleyan career was the inauguration of President William A. Shanklin. He was one of the inauguration speakers along with U. S. President William Howard Taft and then startled Taft by showing up later as a waiter at the inaugural dinner. He then attended Columbia University School of Law.

Many of Vanderbilt's ideas for court reform had been incorporated into the new judicial article of the New Jersey Constitution. One of the those innovations was the designation of the Chief Justice as the administrative head of all courts in the state, replacing the previous system of almost completely autonomous courts. As Chief Justice, he created the first state Administrative Office of the Courts in the nation. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Vanderbilt, 68, Dead. Jersey Chief Justice. Arthur Vanderbilt, Chief Justice Of New Jersey, Is Dead at 68 Held Annual Conferences Counsel to Norman Thomas Headed American Bar Group. |url= |quote=Summit, New Jersey, June 16, 1957. Chief Justice Arthur T. Vanderbilt of the New Jersey Supreme Court died at 1:20 this morning in Overlook Hospital here. |publisher=New York Times |date=June 16, 1957 |accessdate=2007-07-21 ]

Vanderbilt was President of the American Bar Association in 1937-1938. He also served for many years as Dean of New York University Law School, currently housed in a building that bears his name. Vanderbilt was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1936, 1940 and 1944. On two separate occasions he declined to be considered for nominations to the U. S. Supreme Court. He authored two books, "The Challenge of Legal Reform" and "The Doctrine of the Separation of Powers and ItsPresent-Day Significance."

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