A Former Judge. A Father-Son Trial Firm. Fifty Years of New Jersey Practice.
Fifty years on trial across North New Jersey.
Avery & Avery, Esqs. is a Ridgefield-based New Jersey trial firm with a practice that spans six North Jersey counties — Bergen, Hudson, Essex, Passaic, Morris, and Sussex — and five decades of trial, appellate, and federal-court work. We are not a regional marketing firm with a roster of contract attorneys. We are a small, working partnership built in Ridgefield — 559 Bergen Boulevard, 2nd Floor — a short walk from the borough’s municipal court where Robert W. Avery served as Prosecutor and then presided as Judge for fifteen years before returning to private practice with his partner John S. Avery.
This page tells you who we are, what we believe, and why a fifty-year multi-county New Jersey practice is, in our view, the right shape for our clients’ matters.
Who We Are
Avery & Avery is a two-attorney trial partnership built on a generalist North NJ practice. Robert W. Avery, Esq. founded the firm and continues to lead its trial work after fifty years of New Jersey practice. John S. Avery, Esq. (admitted NJ Bar 2012) leads the firm’s criminal defense and constitutional-rights practice, with deep emphasis on search-and-seizure, refusal-counseling, and police-accountability matters.
The firm’s positioning — “A former judge, a father-son trial firm, and fifty years of New Jersey practice” — is not slogan-craft. It reflects the actual structure of the practice: a senior trial lawyer with a published Third Circuit precedent and a fifteen-year judicial record, working alongside a younger trial lawyer focused on the constitutional trial work that intersects every modern criminal docket. The legacy phrase “A Tradition of Advocacy and Success” remains part of the firm’s documented history, but it is not the public-facing positioning today.
The two attorneys handle every matter that comes through the door. There is no paralegal-led document-mill arm, no junior-associate first appearance where a partner shows up only to argue, and no “intake specialist” between you and a lawyer at the consultation. When you call (201) 943-2445, the attorney who picks up is the attorney who will work your file.
A North New Jersey Practice — Founded in Ridgefield, Working Across Six Counties
Our office sits at 559 Bergen Boulevard, 2nd Floor, Ridgefield, NJ 07657, a short walk from the 604 Broad Avenue municipal building that houses Ridgefield Borough Hall, the Police Department, and the Ridgefield Municipal Court. The geography is not an accident — but the firm’s docket has never been confined to a single municipality.
Robert W. Avery served as Borough Prosecutor for the Borough of Ridgefield, then as Judge of the Ridgefield Municipal Court for fifteen years (1986-2000). After his judicial service he was elected to the Ridgefield Borough Council and served as Council President. He was twice the Bergen County Republican Association’s nominee for county-wide office — for Bergen County Freeholder (2014) and Bergen County Surrogate (2016). There is no attorney in our competitor roster with a comparable continuous record of Bergen County civic service.
The firm’s center of gravity for Superior Court work is the Bergen County Justice Center at 10 Main Street, Hackensack — the home of Bergen Vicinage 2 (Superior Court Law and Chancery Divisions, the Surrogate, Special Civil Part Landlord-Tenant, and the Criminal Division). For Hudson County matters we appear at the William J. Brennan Court House at 583 Newark Avenue, Jersey City. For Essex County indictable work we appear in Newark.
We serve all of Bergen County’s seventy municipalities and have an active docket in Hudson, Essex, Passaic, Morris, and Sussex counties. We do not claim to serve every NJ county. Our practice is geographically focused because effective trial practice is geographically focused.
How Avery & Avery Works
The Avery & Avery client experience is shaped by three working principles.
One — the partner you meet is the partner who tries your case. Many NJ firms run a “rainmaker partner / line associate” model. We do not. Robert and John handle every matter from intake to disposition, including every court appearance. If your matter goes to trial, the lawyer at counsel table is the lawyer who answered your first phone call.
Two — substantive consultation, no sales pitch. The first consultation is free. It is also a substantive lawyer-to-prospective-client conversation: we will read your complaint or accident report, walk through likely exposure, name the statutes or rules that govern, and tell you whether your matter is one we should take. If we are not the right firm, we will tell you who in North NJ is — Robert’s fifty-year network is one of the firm’s most underused assets.
Three — fee transparency at engagement. Criminal, DWI, traffic, and most family-law matters work on flat or hybrid fee structures we quote at consultation. Personal-injury work is contingency. Estate planning runs on flat document fees. There are no surprise hourly bills, no aggressive collection tactics for written-down balances, and no engagement letter language that contradicts what we said at consultation. See our full fee structure →.
What Sets Us Apart
Three things distinguish Avery & Avery from the working majority of NJ trial firms our prospective clients are weighing us against.
Fifty years of NJ trial practice. Robert W. Avery has been admitted to the New Jersey Bar since 1976 — a span that covers the entire modern era of NJ DWI law, the development of the Alcotest 7110, the Anti-Eviction Act, the Code of Criminal Justice (Title 2C, codified 1979), and the modern Family Part. There are very few attorneys at any roster firm with comparable continuity.
Fifteen years on the municipal bench. Robert’s judicial tenure at the Ridgefield Municipal Court (1986-2000) is published, verifiable public record. Few NJ trial attorneys have spent fifteen years reading the same complaints, presiding over the same statutes, and listening to the same arguments now being deployed on a client’s behalf. The perspective is structural — and it is the single most distinctive credibility anchor at the firm.
Federal-precedent appellate ownership. Delvoye v. Lee, 329 F.3d 330 (3d Cir. 2003), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 967 (2003), was Robert W. Avery’s matter. The Third Circuit’s affirmance is binding precedent in NJ federal cases on the “habitual residence” question that controls Hague Convention returns. That kind of intellectual ownership of a federal precedent is unusual on a North NJ trial firm’s homepage. We mention it because it indicates the depth of preparation we bring to the routine matters that make up most of our docket.
Visit Our Ridgefield Office
Avery & Avery, Esqs. 559 Bergen Boulevard 2nd Floor Ridgefield, NJ 07657 (201) 943-2445
Our office is a short walk from the Ridgefield Police Department, the Ridgefield Municipal Court, and Borough Hall — all in the same 604 Broad Avenue municipal complex. Bergen Boulevard (CR 501) runs a block east; the I-95 / NJ Turnpike Exit 70 ramps are about a mile north. From the GW Bridge we are roughly six miles south on Route 1/9.
For a free first consultation, call (201) 943-2445 — Robert or John will pick up — or submit your matter through the consultation form.
A former judge, a father-son trial firm, and fifty years of New Jersey practice — that has been our promise across North New Jersey since 1976. We would be glad to extend it to you.