McGrath, Melissa M.

Ms. Zuckerman has been selected by her peers since 2007 as a “Super Lawyer” in the area of Employment Litigation: Plaintiff.  She is currently one of only 25 lawyers in the State of New Jersey to have earned this designation.

Ms. Zuckerman was born in Orange, New Jersey in 1959. She spent her first two years of college at Colorado College, before graduating from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with a Bachelor of Arts in English. In 1986, she received her Juris Doctor from the University of California at Davis School of Law, where she served as Executive Editor of the school's Law Review and published an article, "Second Parent Adoption for Lesbian-Parented Families". She is admitted to practice law in all state courts in New Jersey and in the federal courts for the District of New Jersey, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U. S. Supreme Court.

From 1986 until 1990, Ms. Zuckerman served as a Deputy Attorney General in the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety, providing advice to the Departments of Health and Labor. In 1991, she entered private practice, joining a prominent Princeton firm first as an associate and then as partner. While there, she represented that firm's clients in varied litigations, including claims against employers for sexual harassment, discrimination, and wrongful termination.

In 1997, Ms. Zuckerman co-founded Zuckerman & Fisher with the aim of providing representation to wronged employees, representation which such employees might find difficult or uncomfortable to obtain from larger firms providing legal services to large and small corporations and employers. With the firm, she has handled virtually all aspects of employment and discrimination law, including drafting of employment agreements, review of severance packages, negotiation of separation from employment, and trial and appeal of employment litigations. In one landmark employment litigation, Ms. Zuckerman argued successfully before the New Jersey Supreme Court that in certain circumstances an employer's workers compensation insurance policy  should be available to satisfy a monetary judgment of discrimination against the employer. Her argument has had the widely-felt impact of making a financial resource available to employees discriminated against by employers, a resource without which an employer might be unable to provide compensation for its wrong to the employee.

Ms. Zuckerman's association with the legal profession has extended well beyond representation of firm clients. For three years, at the request of the Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, she served as co-chair of that court's Task Force on Gay and Lesbian Concerns. She has lectured and commented frequently on issues and aspects of employment law. She served as Vice President and President of the New Jersey chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association, the country’s only professional organization exclusively devoted to the representation of employees in cases involving wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment and retaliation. And, she is a member of the American, New Jersey, and Mercer County Bar Associations.