Patricia A. Barasch
Attorney
A staunch advocate for employee rights on both the state and national level, Patricia Barasch has helped to build Schall & Barasch into one of the preeminent plaintiffs’ employment-rights law firms in New Jersey. Throughout her nearly 30-year career, she has represented employees in cases involving all types of unfair and illegal employment practices, including claims involving race, sex, age, and disability discrimination, sexual harassment, reasonable accommodation, the Family Medical Leave Act, wrongful termination, breach of contract, retaliation and non-compete agreements.
Ms. Barasch has won a number of trial victories against some of the largest corporations in the State of New Jersey, including PSEG, Raytheon, Harrah’s Casino Hotel, and, most recently, Whole Foods Markets. Along with partner Richard Schall, she served as the attorney for the plaintiff in the landmark case Maw v. Advanced Clinical Communications, Inc. (ultimately decided by the New Jersey Supreme Court), challenging an employer’s right to fire an employee simply because she refused to sign an overbroad non-compete agreement. Also, along with partner Richard Schall, Ms. Barasch successfully tried the case of Seiden v. Marina Associates, the very first case in the State of New Jersey, to clearly address the proper legal framework for analyzing reasonable accommodation/disability discrimination cases.
From June 2010 to June 2013, Ms. Barasch was honored to serve as President of the National Employment Lawyers Association, the largest organization of plaintiffs’ employment lawyers in the United States, with over 3,000 attorney members. In addition, since 2014, she has served on the Executive Board of the Employee Rights Advocacy Institute for Law & Policy and previously served as the President of the Institute from February 2014 until November 2018.
In 2006, South Jersey Magazine chose Ms. Barasch as one of the region’s top ten women business leaders. According to the magazine and women’s organizations that nominated her, Patricia "personifies diligence, success, diversity of talent and philanthropic spirit that characterizes an outstanding business leader.”
In 2012, along with her partner Richard Schall, Ms. Barasch prepared and edited the “Library of New Jersey Employment Forms,” a treatise on employment law that was then published by the New Jersey Law Journal.
Having completed extensive training in the cutting-edge trial methods taught at the Keenan Trial Institute, Ms. Barasch is now a “master graduate” of that Institute, having earned that status in 2023.
She is a 1993 graduate of the Cornell University School of Law and a 1987 graduate of Wesleyan University. Prior to beginning law school, she worked as a Research Assistant at Harvard University, where she actively participated in the successful union organizing drive on behalf of approximately 3,500 clerical and technical workers across Harvard University.
Patricia Barasch lives in Southern New Jersey with her husband and two children.
Memberships
- New Jersey Bar Association
- Pennsylvania Bar Association
- State of New Jersey Roster of Mediators for Civil, General Equity and Probate Cases
- National Employment Lawyers Association
- National Employment Lawyers Association/ New Jersey
Educations
- JD, Cornell University School of Law, 1993
- BA, Wesleyan University, 1987
Service
- President, National Employment Lawyers Association, 2010 – 2013.
- First Vice-President, National Employment Lawyers Association, 2006 – 2010.
- Executive Board Member, National Employment Lawyers Association, 2004 – 2013.
- The Employee Rights Advocacy Institute for Law & Policy, 2014 – present.
- New Jersey Office of Attorney Ethics Fee Arbitration Committee, 2005 – 2008.
Bar & Court Admissions
- US Supreme Court, 2002
- US Supreme Court, 2002
- US District Court- Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1998
- US Court of Appeals- Third Circuit, 1994
- US District Court – New Jersey, 1993
- Courts of the State of New Jersey, 1993
- Courts of the State of Pennsylvania, 1993