Gregory Paw

Class of 1988 · Trenton, NJ

Director, New Jersey Divison of Criminal Justice

Greg graduated from the University of Illinois with a B.S. in journalism. While in law school he served on the editorial board of the William and Mary Law Review and worked on the student newspaper. An inspiring course on the power of the federal courts motivated him to become a federal litigator.

After graduation he clerked for U.S. District Judge Walter E. Hoffman in Norfolk, VA, before joining a Washington, DC, law firm. In 1995 he began serving in the U.S. Department of Justice where he prosecuted a wide array of cases including corruption, espionage, and money laundering, while working his way up to the senior leadership of one of the nation’s largest U.S. Attorneys Offices.

He took leave from that work between 2004 and 2005 to go to Iraq, where he supervised a team of U.S. lawyers who helped the Iraqi government prepare prosecutions against Saddam Hussein and his former high-ranking leadership. Traveling by military convoy and Blackhawk helicopter to interviews with victims of crimes against humanity and forensic exhumations of mass graves, he learned first-hand the enormous scope of bringing justice to a war-torn nation.

In 2006 he became the director of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice, where he oversees law enforcement across the state and supervises a staff of more than 1,000 people. Under Greg’s leadership, the Division seeks to find innovative ways to combat difficult issues such as public corruption and violent gangs in the country’s most densely populated state.

My time at William & Mary taught me to respect the awesome duty and responsibility of the citizen lawyer. The values honed at William & Mary, and during my judicial clerkship, guide me daily in making sensitive decisions while exercising the public’s power.