New Jersey Federal Civil Procedure

Elizabeth J. Sher is a partner with Day Pitney LLP in Parsippany and serves as the firm’s General Counsel. Ms. Sher practices in the area of complex commercial litigation, including state and federal trial and appellate matters. She currently serves as the President of the Association of the Federal Bar of New Jersey, as a member of the Lawyer’s Advisory Committee to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, as a board member of the Historical Society of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, and is a past chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Federal Practice and Procedure Section. She received her B.A. from Brandeis University summa cum laude, and her J.D. from New York University School of Law cum laude. She clerked on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals for the Honorable Leonard I. Garth.

Robert E. Bartkus is Of Counsel to Anselmi & Carvelli, LLP in Florham Park and New York City, where he has concentrated in commercial litigation and now devotes his practice to mediation and arbitration. He graduated in 1968 with honors in economics from Swarthmore College and in 1976 from Stanford Law School, where he was co-articles editor on the Stanford Law Review and a post-graduate teaching assistant. A contributor to the New Jersey Law Journal on federal procedural and arbitration issues, Mr. Bartkus is a member of its editorial board. He also has been a frequent author and lecturer on federal procedure and arbitration, and an arbitrator and mediator for the U.S. District Court and with the American Arbitration Association and other fora. Mr. Bartkus is a past chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Federal Practice and Procedure Section and the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Ethics and Fee Arbitration (Chair) committees in Morris County. He was a vice president of the Historical Society of the U.S. District Court and is a Master in the John Lifland Intellectual Property Inn of Court, as well as the Justice Marie L. Garibaldi American Inn of Court for ADR for which he received the Richard K. Jeydel Award in 2020.

In 2016, he was elected as a Fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators, and is a member of the Silicon Valley Arbitration and Mediation Center, the New York International Arbitration Center, the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals, and faculty in the Stanford Law School Trial Advocacy Course (2017-2019). With the Hon. William A. Dreier, P.J.A.D. (Ret.), he is a co-author of New Jersey Arbitration Handbook (N.J.L.J. 2016-2022); he is a co-author of Interim Measures in the United States in Aid of Arbitration (Juris 2021). He served as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy from 1968 to 1972.

Kerri E. Chewning is a partner with Archer & Greiner, P.C. in Haddonfield where she serves on the electronic discovery strategies committee and the hiring committee. Ms. Chewning practices in the area of complex commercial litigation in the federal and state courts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania and before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Her practice focuses on complex business and intellectual property litigation and the defense of class actions. Ms. Chewning also litigates the defense of civil rights claims, as well as white collar criminal defense and companion civil litigation matters. She is the Immediate Past President of the Association of the Federal Bar of New Jersey. Ms. Chewning also serves as a member of the Lawyers Advisory Committee for the District of New Jersey and is a past Chair of the Federal Practice and Procedure Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association. From 2000 to 2002, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Garrett E. Brown, Jr., U.S.D.J. (ret.). She received her B.S. from Rutgers College and her J.D. from Rutgers School of Law-Camden.