Murphy taps NJ’s first openly gay attorney general to replace Grewal – NJBIZ
First Assistant Attorney General Andrew Bruck will be the state’s first openly gay attorney general, Gov. Phil Murphy said on June 30, after Gurbir Grewal announced he would step down from the post to join the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this summer.
Bruck will serve in the role for the remainder of Grewal’s original four-year term, which ends this January when Murphy finishes his own four-year term as governor.
Murphy is vying for reelection this November.
Gov. Phil Murphy announced Andrew Bruck will replace Gurbir Grewal as New Jersey’s Attorney General on June 30, 2021. – NJ OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
“This being the last day of Pride Month, I should also note that Andrew will become the first Attorney General in New Jersey history to come from our LGBTQ community,” Murphy said during his regular COVID-19 press briefing.
As the state’s top law enforcement officer, Bruck would head the 7,700-person Department of Law and Public Safety, which oversees the New Jersey State Police, consumer affairs and civil rights divisions, and regulates wide swathes of different industries across the state.
Bruck previously spent five years in the U.S. Justice Department, including as the assistant U.S Attorney for New Jersey. He graduated from Stanford Law School in 2008, according to his LinkedIn profile.
After a year as a clerk for New Jersey Chief Justice Stuart Rabner
at the New Jersey Supreme Court, he went on to spend nearly three years in the private sector as a litigation associate at the New York City office for the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.
Bruck said in a statement that he shared Grewal’s and his department’s “commitment to protecting public safety, building public trust, and ensuring the rights of all New Jerseyans.”