Marc Garfinkle - Legal Ethics Attorney
Marc Garfinkle is a former trial lawyer whose Morristown practice is now limited to legal ethics and discipline, bar admission and judicial misconduct. Marc represents attorneys before the District Ethics Committees, the Committee on Character, the Disciplinary Review Board, the Committee on Advertising, the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct and the NJ Supreme Court. A solo, he is a former NJ Attorney Ethics Investigator and Vice-chair and Chair of the NJ Supreme Court District (VB) Attorney Ethics Committee. Marc also is the Public Defender in the Township of Livingston and an Adjunct Professor of Persuasion and Advocacy at Seton Hall Law School. Marc has an "AV" rating from Martindale-Hubbell.
In addition to his practice, Marc is a popular speaker at live legal education programs from coast to coast. He presents ethics programs and he trains attorneys in oral persuasion and advocacy, as well. Recent audiences include the state bar associations of Ohio, Missouri, Oregon, Alaska and South Carolina, the ICE Trial Attorney Division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Association of Federal Defense Attorneys, the Inn of Transactional Counsel and law firms across the state. Marc was a featured speaker at the prestigious Seton Hall Law Review Ethics Symposium in 2014 and at the 2015 Professionalism Day program in Essex County. Marc has also produced on-line and live CLE for such providers as Lawline.com, West’s LegalEdCenter.com, Lorman, Clear Law Institute, Solo Practice University, Thomson-Reuters, NJ-ICLE, Rocket Matter and several county bar associations.
A 1978 graduate of Hastings College of the Law (U.Calif.), he hung out a shingle in San Francisco the day after he was admitted to the California bar. In 1982, he moved back to his native New Jersey where he went solo again. This inspired him to write the popular, “$olo Contendere: How to Go Directly from Law School into the Practice of Law without Getting a Job, 3d. ed.” (©2010, 2016, Solo Contendere Press, all rights reserved), which has been endorsed by many state bars for their newly admitted lawyers. Marc has also written the “Hip-Pocket Guide” series of short books for improving skills such as courtroom advocacy, police testimony and speaking in public.
Marc enjoys family activities, traveling, reading field guides, hiking, camping, gardening and fishing. Oh, and eating.