Ex-judge's new role - Spanish instructor at Rutgers Law

When Roberto Alcazar fled Cuba at 14 and arrived in New Jersey almost 50 years ago, not knowing a word of English, the last thing he envisioned was that one day he would be teaching Spanish to English speakers.

Yet that is exactly how the retired Superior Court judge spends his Monday and Wednesday afternoons at Rutgers Law School in Camden, where Alcazar recently started teaching Spanish to law students.

"I have the benefit of my own phenomenon of understanding how I learned English," said Alcazar, 64, who hopes his personal struggle learning English will help him teach Spanish to a new generation of lawyers.

When Alcazar and his parents settled in Elizabeth in 1968, the Cuban exile worked tirelessly to learn English while in high school. His efforts enabled him to pursue undergraduate and law degrees at Rutgers-Camden. Alcazar went on to work for 14 years in the state Attorney General's Office before being appointed in 1999 as a Superior Court judge in Union County, serving there in the family and civil divisions.

Now, Alcazar, who retired in 2013, is paying it forward by teaching Spanish at his alma mater, the place where he himself grappled with learning English decades before.

"The vocabulary is geared to the sort of lingo that is used in situations like landlord-tenant cases or an immigration clinic," he said.

It isn't the first time he has taught the language to law students, he did that even when he was a student at Rutgers Law. "The dean was willing to give me a chance," he said.

"As you have a larger population of only Spanish-speaking individuals in the U.S., you would want to have enough resources to assist them," said Alcazar, who noted the increasing demand for lawyers who speak more than one language.

At 56.6 million, the Hispanic population in the United States is the nation's largest ethnic or racial minority, according to the Census Bureau. The Hispanic population is projected to more than double to 119 million, or 28.6 percent of the nation's population, by 2060.

As the state with the seventh largest Hispanic population - 1.7 million - New Jersey is no exception to the growing demand for lawyers proficient in Spanish.

"I have seen a great need for bilingual lawyers because of the multicultural community in South Jersey," said Joanne Gottesman, director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at Rutgers Law School.

Gottesman pointed out that while there is an explicit demand for bilingual lawyers in immigration matters, other legal areas, such as family law, also need Spanish-speaking lawyers.

Yiota Kotokis, a law and business student taking Alcazar's class this semester, noted that Spanish is a useful skill for lawyers to help immigrants report crimes or accidents and solve landlord-tenant issues.

"It's not just immigration. Obviously immigration is an issue, but people in the community have other issues that they might be more comfortable expressing in Spanish," said Kotokis, 44, who is considering practicing law in her hometown of Naples, Fla., after graduation.

For Alcazar, the long commute twice a week from Elizabeth to Camden is worth it. Teaching the Spanish course is his way of serving immigrants like himself and giving back to the country that he says has given him so much.

"We should do whatever we can to ensure that this country continues to offer opportunities to everyone," Alcazar said. "It's a country that does not ask you where you came from, but is only concerned with where you're going."

856-779-3882 lferresadurni@philly.com @luisferre