Deputy Public Advocate Family
Career series with 4 positions across 2 levels
Deputy Public Advocate groups 4 related titles into a 2-level career ladder.
Entry is typically through Deputy Public Advocate 2, advancing through the ladder toward Deputy Public Advocate 1. Pay across the family spans $83,210 to $209,444, around the 99th percentile of all civil service job families by top pay. State payroll records show 7 people across the family's titles, most concentrated at Division of Rate Counsel.
Deputy Public Advocate commonly advances into Deputy Registrar of Vital Statistics/Keyboarding Clerk and Public Safety Telecommunicator/Clerk.
Positions in This Family
- DEPUTY PUBLIC ADVOCATE 2 (30735) $83,210 - $116,477/year
- DEPUTY PUBLIC ADVOCATE 1 (30736) $96,322 - $134,847/year
- DEPUTY PUBLIC ADVOCATE 1 (61444) $146,038 - $209,444/year
- DEPUTY PUBLIC ADVOCATE 2 (61445) $126,854 - $187,691/year
What the Deputy Public Advocate family covers
New Jersey classifies Deputy Public Advocate as a 2-level series holding 4 separate title codes. Every title in it is a state title, so the employer is a state department, commission or authority rather than a county or municipality.
Legal titles in New Jersey split into two groups that look similar and are not. Deputy attorneys general, public defenders and public advocates are unclassified: they are appointed, not examined, and their pay is negotiated inside a schedule rather than earned by stepping through it. Hearing officers, appeals examiners and paralegal support titles are ordinary classified positions filled the usual way. Both groups cluster in Law and Public Safety, the Office of Administrative Law and the agencies that run their own hearings, so the work is closer to administrative adjudication than to courtroom practice.
The ladder, ordered by pay
Sorted by pay instead of by title number, the Deputy Public Advocate family stacks up as follows. Note that the numbers in these titles do not run in pay order. In this family a lower number sits higher on the ladder, which is a New Jersey convention that catches people out when they read a title list top to bottom.
- Deputy Public Advocate 1 — $146,038 to $209,444 (5 years of experience)
- Deputy Public Advocate 2 — $126,854 to $187,691 (4 years of experience)
- Deputy Public Advocate 1 — $96,322 to $134,847 (frozen schedule) (5 years of experience)
- Deputy Public Advocate 2 — $83,210 to $116,477 (frozen schedule) (4 years of experience)
The distance from the bottom of Deputy Public Advocate 2 to the top of Deputy Public Advocate 1 is $126,234, an increase of about 152% over the entry minimum. 2 of the 4 titles in the family sit on a schedule whose rates are frozen, so the published figure there is the schedule of record rather than a guide to actual pay.
What each title does
The specifications themselves are the clearest guide to what separates these titles. Here is how each one opens.
- Deputy Public Advocate 2: Assists the Deputy Public Advocate I or other supervisory attorney in the performance of all professional duties necessary to the…
- Deputy Public Advocate 1: Under the jurisdiction of a Division Director in the Department of the Public Advocate, assists in the performance of all…
Getting in: the stated requirements
None of the specifications in this family names a degree requirement, which places these titles among the New Jersey positions open to applicants without formal higher education. Stated experience runs from 4 years at the lowest rung to 5 at the highest, which is the main thing separating one level from the next.
Every title here carries a license or certification requirement, so the credential matters more than the exam score. On how the jobs are filled: 2 are unclassified, which means appointment at the employer's discretion and salary set individually.
Who actually employs these titles
State payroll records show 7 people working under 2 of this family's titles, spread across 2 agencies. Division of Rate Counsel alone accounts for about 57% of them.
- Division of Rate Counsel — 4 employees
- Office of the Public Defender — 3 employees
Median actual pay varies across the family, from $170,000 for Deputy Public Advocate 2 up to $170,000 for Deputy Public Advocate 1. Those are medians of what people are really paid, not schedule minimums and maximums.
State payroll only, deduplicated by payroll title; local employers file separately, so a family with local codes looks smaller here than it is. How this is counted.
How the pay is set
The family is split across 2 salary schedules (M and M-Represented), so two titles that look adjacent can be paid from different tables with different step structures. Bargaining is handled by IBEW. Union contracts and rights are collected here.
Where these jobs exist
These are state titles, hired by New Jersey departments, commissions and boards through the Civil Service Commission's announcement and eligible list process rather than by an ordinary job posting. How state hiring works, and which agencies employ what.
Related titles elsewhere in the plan
Nearby in the plan, ranked by how distinctive the shared terms are rather than by how many words happen to match.
- Assistant Public Advocate ($117,078 to $163,912, state jurisdiction)
- Assistant Deputy Public Advocate 3 ($79,844 to $117,228, state jurisdiction) — in the Assistant Deputy Public Advocate family
- Advocate Victim Witness Program (local jurisdiction)
- Inmate Advocate Penal Institution (local jurisdiction)
- Advocate Trainee, Victim-Witness Program (local jurisdiction)
- Advocate Trainee, Victim-Witness Program (local jurisdiction)
Common questions about Deputy Public Advocate jobs
How many Deputy Public Advocate titles are there in New Jersey civil service?
The Deputy Public Advocate family holds 4 title codes arranged across 2 levels. Each code is a separate classification with its own published specification, requirements and salary treatment.
What does a Deputy Public Advocate earn in New Jersey?
Published salary data for this family runs from $83,210 at the bottom of Deputy Public Advocate 2 to $209,444 at the top of Deputy Public Advocate 1. Those are schedule figures. Where the title appears on the state payroll, actual median pay is listed on the page above.
Do you need to take an exam to become a Deputy Public Advocate?
Mostly no. 2 of the 4 titles here are unclassified, so appointment is at the employer's discretion rather than from an eligible list, and salary is set individually rather than by a published step. That also makes cross-agency salary comparison less reliable for these titles.
What qualifications does a Deputy Public Advocate need?
No degree requirement is parsed from the specifications in this family, which puts these titles among the New Jersey civil service jobs reachable without formal higher education. Experience of 4 to 5 years is named where a requirement is stated. 4 of the titles require a license or certification.
Which agencies employ Deputy Public Advocate staff?
State payroll records show 7 people in this family across 2 agencies, with Division of Rate Counsel the largest at 4. Local government employers are not covered by that extract.
Is Deputy Public Advocate 1 higher or lower than Deputy Public Advocate 3?
In this family the lower number is the more senior title. New Jersey's level numbering does not run in pay order, and reading the titles by number alone will give you the ladder upside down. The list above is sorted by what each title actually pays.