About Barbara
Barbara Ungar built a legal career that began in classrooms and moved steadily into courtrooms and counsel offices. She earned a B.A. in political science from Yeshiva University in 1981 and a J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 1983. Those early academic years set the stage for a practice rooted in public service and local government work.
Her first legal posts were in the New Jersey court system and private practice. In 1986 she served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Kenneth Stein, J.S.C., in Newark. The following year she worked as a law clerk at Kohler and Clinch in Hackensack. By 1988 she had joined the office of the Essex County Counsel as an assistant county counsel, handling municipal matters for a busy county government.
Ungar moved into state-level work at the Division of Criminal Justice in Trenton. In 1990 she became Deputy Lawyer General for the Civil Remedies and Forfeiture Bureau. Two years later she was named Deputy Lawyer General for the Labor Prosecutions Unit. Those roles put her on the prosecution side of complex statutory enforcement and labor-related matters, and gave her experience in civil remedies and asset forfeiture that many municipal and criminal defense lawyers encounter today.
In 1999 she opened her own practice in Edison, New Jersey, operating as the Law Office of Barbara Ungar. Running a solo practice required adapting courtroom skills to client management, billing, and the daily demands of small-firm life. She has also maintained admissions that extend beyond the state. Ungar is admitted to practice in New Jersey and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, allowing her to handle appeals where federal appellate review is required.
Her professional involvement includes long-standing participation in bar organizations. She served as chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Criminal Law Section and its Municipal Practice Section in 2014. Since 2019 she has held trustee positions in the Bar Association’s Women in the Profession Section and the Solo and Small Firm Section. She is a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and a member of the Middlesex County Bar Association since 2000.
Her background in county counsel work, state prosecutions, and private practice inform her approach to cases. She draws on decades of courtroom and advisory experience. Her current practice focuses on criminal defense, municipal law and civil remedies arising from enforcement actions.
