New Jersey Organ and Tissue Sharing Network (NJ Sharing Network), the state's only federally certified organ procurement organization (OPO), needed a multifaceted public policy agenda to focus public attention on the need for organ donation. At the same time, the political and regulatory climate in New Jersey required sustained education to allow New Jersey to achieve state-of-the-art standards in scientific and medical practice. A complex legislative agenda needed to be crafted to change various statutes and regulations in order to support and facilitate increased donations.

Nine major pieces of legislation and a series of regulatory initiatives were pursued. Enactment of a Declaration of Death Act, for example, clearly defined the neurological criteria to declare brain death. Additional benchmark "donor friendly" legislation forced medical examiners to make decisions regarding transplantation of organs in a timely manner.

We were responsible for managing the legislative process that secured approval of legislation that provided for: requiring hospital notification of all deaths to the Sharing Network lead to a direct in donor referrals; donor designation on state driver’s licenses legal; a voluntary state individual income tax check-off to fund public education campaigns on organ donation; and, a special license plate bearing the slogan “Organ Donors Save Lives” was made available through the NJ Motor Vehicle Commission.

Most recently, Smith Pizzutillo brokered a four year log jam to with the Motor Vehicles Commission to establish a statewide organ donor registry that works in conjunction with the digital drivers license implementation.