Judges Wanted: Trial Experience Not Necessary

There are some very fine individuals and lawyers in New Jersey who want to be judges, but who are not "connected."  (Insert your own Orwellian doublespeak at your will.)  Now a news item came to my attention which indicates that in New Jersey, having no trial experience is not a barrier to becoming a judge!

Thanks to PolitickerNJ.com for breaking this (link here); more thanks to State Senator Loretta Weinberg for having the fortitude to question Esther Suarez's credentials to be a judge.   (A fine lawyer she may be, but a judge should at least have some experience appearing before other judges before wearing the black robes, no?)

Being that this is New Jersey, the rules may be different.  "No prior experience" is not necessarily a disqualification.   Chris Christie had no prior criminal experience and apparently limited civil litigation experience, but that didn't stop President Bush from appointing him as United States attorney in 2002.

What does the New Jersey State Bar Association think about this?