Patricia V. Pierce

Partner

Patricia V. Pierce represents individuals and groups of workers who have suffered employment discrimination and workplace harassment in individual and class action employment lawsuits, as well as employee benefits cases in state and federal courts in New Jersey, California, Delaware, Maryland, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania.

Pat’s practice includes multi-party wage and hour matters and Consumer Fraud litigation. Ms. Pierce frequently advises executives in negotiating employment contracts and in managing sensitive trade secret and restrictive covenant/non-compete issues.

In addition to building ongoing relationships with individual and corporate clients, Ms. Pierce has been retained by colleagues to conduct independent in-house investigations of claims of discrimination, corporate malfeasance, and fraud.  Law firms and insurance companies have engaged Ms. Pierce to provide expert advice and testimony on claims of attorney malpractice and employment/EEO best practices, and she has served as a neutral mediator.

Throughout her career spanning nearly 50 years, Pat has tried hundreds of matters to verdict, including jury and bench trials, and has successfully handled every kind of employment litigation matter including age, gender, hostile work environment, race, national origin, and religious discrimination matters as well as claims brought by whistleblowers under state and federal laws.

Ms. Pierce is a frequent author and lecturer for the ABA-ALI Continuing Legal Education Program, the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, and the National Employment Lawyers Association. Ms. Pierce was a Visiting Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law in the mid-1990s where she founded an Employment Law Clinic and taught evidence. In Philadelphia, Ms. Pierce has served as an Adjunct Professor at Temple’s Beasley School of Law where she taught law students in Temple’s Introduction to Trial Advocacy and Advanced Trial Advocacy programs, as well as practitioners in Temple’s renowned LLM Trial Advocacy program. Ms. Pierce also taught Employment Law Practice and Procedure at Rutger’s School of Law and has taught trial advocacy for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, which named her as a Distinguished Faculty Member.

Ms. Pierce earned her bachelor’s degree from Rutgers in 1973 with High Honors and Distinction in Political Science, and a juris doctor from Rutgers School of Law in 1976 with High Honors, where she was a Rutgers Community Scholar.

Ms. Pierce has been admitted as a Fellow of the prestigious American Bar Association’s College of Labor & Employment attorneys. Ms. Pierce was honored by Rutgers School of Law-Camden’s Black Law Students Association with the Champions for Social Justice and Equality Award. Ms. Pierce has been listed each year among the Best Lawyers of America since 1995. In 2013 and 2023 Best Lawyers named Ms. Pierce its “Attorney of the Year” in the practice area of Employment-Individuals. Ms. Pierce has consistently been named a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer since 2004 and has repeatedly been named one of Pennsylvania’s Top 50 Women Lawyers. She has also earned the preeminent AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell for both her legal ability and ethical standards.