Kevin
Barber

Kevin Barber brings something rare to employment law: the discipline and unshakeable commitment of a military veteran, combined with decades of courtroom experience, fighting for workers who have been wronged.

Kevin was raised in New Jersey in a working-class family. From his grade school job as a paperboy, he learned firsthand the importance of hard work and dedication. Kevin’s path to greater opportunities and successes was paved by his service and experience in the United States Army. He attended the United States Military Academy, where he ran track and played football for the Army. He graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering. Following his graduation, he served in the United States Army with the Fourth Infantry Division, including a tour in Iraq with the First Calvary Division.

Following his honorable discharge, Kevin returned home and graduated from Seton Hall University School of Law. Kevin worked a construction job to help put himself through law school. Kevin practiced for several years at a large, corporate law firm where he was mentored by the best lawyers he ever worked with. He then partnered with a few West Point classmates to build a heavy civil construction company specializing in complex foundations and soil retention systems. After seven (7) years in that business, Kevin sold his shares to a large general contractor and returned to the practice of law, his true professional calling.

Over his twenty-five-year career, Kevin has represented employees across New Jersey and New York in cases involving sexual harassment, sexual assault, employment discrimination, retaliation, as well as wage and hour disputes. He is known as a fearless trial attorney who takes on the most powerful corporate and public figures in the prosecution of the rule of law. Kevin is also known for his personal involvement and the attention he gives to each of his clients and cases.

Kevin received numerous multi-million dollar jury trial verdicts and awards. Kevin was lead counsel in a disability discrimination case on behalf of a schoolteacher that resulted in a $15M jury verdict, which was featured as one of the top employment jury verdicts in the United States. Kevin has a string of million-dollar jury trial recoveries for cases involving: military discrimination and hostile work environment ($2.8M), age and reverse race discrimination ($2.9M), national origin discrimination ($2.7M) and military discrimination with disparate treatment ($1.7M).

Kevin also has significant jury verdicts in serious personal injury cases. Following an 8-week jury trial in an automobile rollover, defective tire blowout case, the jury awarded $2.0M for compensatory damages and $5.5M for punitive damages due to the dealership’s fraudulent and reckless conduct regarding safety inspections and work. Kevin was lead trial counsel in a $7.2M verdict on behalf of a doctor who sustained a serious arm injury in a slip and fall.

Kevin also negotiated numerous multi-million dollar settlements on behalf of his clients. He was co-counsel for a group of African-American New Jersey Transit police officers who experienced discrimination and retaliation. After years of hard-fought litigation, the case settled for $5.8M, including mandatory discrimination training for supervisory officers as well as the appointment of an Ombudsman for discrimination complaints. As a result of his work on that case, Kevin received the NAACP Hon. Constance Baker Motley Legal Redress Award as well as a special recognition from the United States Senate and House of Representatives.

Kevin was also co-counsel in a $4.65M gender pay discrimination settlement on behalf of the female tenured professors at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Following years-long litigation, the professors were able to construct an economic and statistical analysis demonstrating pay discrepancies.

Kevin represented the Rutgers-Newark University women’s basketball team in a precedent-setting lawsuit that broadly and favorably established race discrimination and retaliation standards under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. The case settled for $2.8M.