About Katherine J
Katherine J Bierwas began her legal journey after earning a J.D. from Seton Hall University in 1999, following a bachelor’s degree in sociology and criminal justice from William Paterson University. She entered practice in a period of steady professional movement, moving between courtroom roles and child welfare advocacy. Those early choices shaped the subjects she would work on throughout her career.
She started as a law clerk in 2002 to the Honorable Donald Reenstra in the New Jersey Superior Court, Criminal Division. That position put her inside the criminal justice system early on. The following year she served as an assistant prosecutor in the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. In 2004 she took a position as Deputy Lawyer General at the New Jersey Office of the Lawyer General. Each role added a different courtroom and agency perspective.
In 2008 Bierwas shifted toward child welfare and advocacy. She worked as a senior lawyer and child advocate for the New Jersey Office of the Child Advocate. That same year she served as executive director of Berkshire County Kids Place & Violence Prevention Center, Inc., an organization focused on services for children and families. Those postures — advocacy, agency leadership and legal representation — recurred in her later work.
In 2009 she opened a private practice under her name, operating as Katherine J Bierwas, Esq. That practice has handled matters emerging from her prior public-sector roles. She is admitted in both Massachusetts and New Jersey, and has pursued several professional certifications tied to family and child welfare work.
Her certifications include Child Welfare Care and Protection credentialing through the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel, conciliation certification from the Berkshire County Bar Association, and family law mediation training from Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education. These credentials reflect the mixture of courtroom experience and dispute-resolution skills she brings to family and child-related matters.
Bierwas’s career spans prosecution, government legal service and nonprofit leadership before private practice. That background gives her practical familiarity with criminal procedure, child advocacy systems and mediation processes. Colleagues and clients familiar with her work point to the continuity between her public roles and her private caseload.
She maintains a law office under her own name and continues to practice in both Massachusetts and New Jersey. Her current practice centers on child welfare, family law mediation and related matters.
