Only in New Jersey would an Attorney General facing an ethics investigation by an indepedent prosecutor and calls for resignation and even impeachment hire a lobbying firm to handle her personal public relations. The Record reported this weekend that Zulima Farber has hired the highly-respected Mickey Faigen of Issues Management to advise her on how to handle the media. Issues Management is owned by Lowenstein Sandler, the Roseland law firm where Farber was a partner before her appointment as Attorney General. The firm’s website says that Issues Management “has repeatedly been ranked New Jersey’s number one lawyer-lobbying firm.” Among the clients for whom Issues Management lobbies state government is the St. Barnabas Health Care System, which recently agreed to pay a $265 million settlement on federal charges that it defrauded Medicare. As a result of that settlement, nine smaller New Jersey hospitals have filed a lawsuit against St. Barnabas. From the Issues Management website: “Issues Management leverages the knowledge and experience of our senior staff in regulation, legislation and crisis communication to generate distinct, high impact strategies. We execute them with intensity. Wherever public and private concerns intersect, we know the landscape; we know the players; we think beyond the familiar.”