Joseph L. Buckley is a member of the Firm’s Management Committee and Chair of the Litigation Department. He has over 35 years of first chair trial experience in a wide variety of complex cases in federal and state courts in New Jersey and New York. He is certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Civil Trial Attorney.
As Chair of the Firm’s Litigation Department, Mr. Buckley accepted the Benchmark Litigation award for “New Jersey Firm of the Year” for nine consecutive years (2025-2017) and, in 2023, 2020, 2019 and 2016 accepted the award for “General Litigation Department of the Year – Midsize” from the New Jersey Law Journal. In 2021, Mr. Buckley was included on the New Jersey Super Lawyers “Top 100” list published by Thomson Reuters. See Award Methodology. No aspect of this advertisement has been approved by the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
Mr. Buckley serves as leader of the Firm’s Banking Litigation Group. He has handled many large litigations for nationally prominent banks, overseeing the process from inception to trial and appeal. He has served as lead counsel to major national banks and their subsidiaries in the defense of putative class action lawsuits venued in state and federal courts in New Jersey and elsewhere, relating to subjects as diverse as equipment leasing, credit insurance, information security, credit cards, ATM fees and an alleged conspiracy to fix interest rates. He has successfully defended large national banks in lawsuits in which tens of millions of dollars in damages were at issue, and has also assisted banks in the recovery in excess of $100 million from borrowers and others.
In addition, for more than 30 years, Mr. Buckley has represented data and analytics firms and other computer technology companies, real estate companies, medical device manufacturers, insurance companies, non-bank financial services companies and subsidiaries of European automobile manufacturers.
In 2015, Mr. Buckley represented the State of New Jersey in a large, commercial litigation and eventual settlement of a dispute with Hammerman & Gainer, Inc. (HGI), the principal contractor involved in recovery efforts in the aftermath of Super Storm Sandy. The settlement amounted to approximately a third of HGI’s demand.
After 25 days of trial in the Superior Court of Morris County, Mr. Buckley obtained a multi-million dollar verdict for lost profits on behalf of a client in a dispute between partners of an investment advisory firm. That verdict was affirmed on appeal. Since that trial, Mr. Buckley has assisted the same client in litigation against the same adversary in New Jersey, New York, Delaware and Florida in obtaining awards and recoveries well in excess of $25 million.