Frank M. Crivelli is a partner in the law firm of Crivelli, Barbati & DeRose, L.L.C. His primary practice revolves around the representation of public employee labor unions in various capacities to include contract negotiation, unfair labor practice litigation, contract grievance arbitration, and other diverse issues that are litigated before state and federal trial courts, appellate courts, and administrative tribunals throughout the State of New Jersey.

Frank M. Crivelli has attained certification as a Civil Trial Attorney by the Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey. To qualify for certification, an attorney must be at least a five-year member of the NJ Bar and have completed numerous continuing legal education courses in the three years prior to filing an application for certification. In addition, the attorney must show a substantial involvement in the preparation of litigated matters and demonstrate primary responsibility for a large number of trials completed before New Jersey courts. Less than two percent of the attorneys in New Jersey have been certified as trial attorneys by the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Prior to becoming a shareholder of Crivelli, Barbati & DeRose, L.L.C., Mr. Crivelli was a Shareholder with Pellettieri Rabstein & Altman, The Law Offices of Frank M. Crivelli, L.L.C., and Arpaia & Crivelli, L.L.C. However, his legal career began with the United States Marine Corps as a Judge Advocate stationed at Camp Pendleton, California. As a Judge Advocate, Mr. Crivelli was selected as the lead military defense counsel in a nationally publicized wrongful death case that has since shaped United States domestic policy on the use of military personnel on America’s international borders for drug interdiction purposes. While serving on active duty, Mr. Crivelli was also charged with the responsibility of assisting the development and implementation of the Department of Defense and Department of the Navy’s policy on sexual harassment. Mr. Crivelli educated Marines, Sailors, and Department of Defense Personnel on the implementation of the policy and was often called upon to formally investigate serious charges of sexual harassment and defend high-ranking Marines criminally charged with unlawful acts of sexual harassment. Mr. Crivelli is still a member of the Marine Corps Reserve where he holds the rank of Major. His last billet was serving as an appellate criminal defense counsel in Washington, D.C.

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Mr. Crivelli is admitted to practice law in the Federal and State Courts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Georgia, as well as the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. He is a member of the American, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia and the Mercer County Bar Associations. He is the founder of The New Jersey Public Safety Officers Law Blog, a free electronic legal publication designed to keep New Jersey public safety officers up to date and informed about legal issues that affect their profession. Mr. Crivelli and Donald Barbati presently serve as counsel to over twenty private and public labor unions throughout the State of New Jersey.

Mr. Crivelli is a graduate of Washington College (B.A. 1991), the City University of New York School of Law (J.D. 1994), the United States Naval Justice School (1995), and the Harvard Law School Program on Contract Negotiation.

 

Originally from Hamilton Township, New Jersey, Donald C. Barbati is admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Prior to forming Crivelli, Barbati & DeRose, L.L.C., Mr. Barbati was an attorney with Pellettieri, Rabstein & Altman.  Additionally, Mr. Barbati served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Linda R. Feinberg, Assignment Judge of the Superior Court, Law Division, Mercer County. During his clerkship, Mr. Barbati handled numerous complex and novel substantive and procedural issues arising from complaints in lieu of prerogative writs, orders to show cause, and motion practice. These include appeals from decisions by planning and zoning boards and local governing bodies, bidding challenges under the Local Public Contract Law, Open Public Records Act requests, the taking of private property under the eminent domain statute, and election law disputes. In addition to his regular responsibilities, Mr. Barbati, as a certified mediator, mediated many small claims disputes in the Special Civil Part.

Mr. Barbati received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history, magna cum laude, from Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Upon graduating, Mr. Barbati attended Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Delaware. During law school, Mr. Barbati interned for the Honorable Joseph E. Irenas, Senior United States District Court Judge for the District of New Jersey in Camden, New Jersey, assisting on various constitutional, employment, and Third Circuit Court of Appeals litigation, including civil rights, social security, and immigration cases. In addition, Mr. Barbati was employed by the Law Offices of Frank M. Crivelli, L.L.C., wherein he prepared numerous legal memoranda for filing in various New Jersey state and federal courts. In 2007, he received his Juris Doctorate, magna cum laude, graduating in the top five percent of his class.

At Crivelli, Barbati & DeRose, L.L.C., Mr. Barbati will focus his practice primarily in labor and employment law and matters of general litigation. He is currently a member of the American and Mercer County Bar Associations.

 

Mr. DeRose has tried and/or participated in the trying of several civil jury trials, administrative bench trials, and bench trials in the family court. He also served as lead counsel on In re Lumber Company, 2014, where he successfully validated the wrongfully-deposed board of directors for a multi-million lumber company placing his clients back in control of the corporation. Mr. DeRose has also obtained favorable outcomes for his clients in a number of divorce/ family law cases, municipal court cases, and landlord tenant matters.

Before joining the firm in August of 2015, Mr. DeRose was an associate counsel at a civil litigation and family law firm out of Trenton, New Jersey, where he focused his practice around those two areas of the law since September of 2013. Before his tenure at that firm, Mr. DeRose served as a law clerk in the Superior Court of New Jersey for the Honorable F. Patrick McManimon, Mercer County Vicinage, from September of 2012 to August of 2013. There, he mediated well-over one-hundred cases, primarily related to commercial and residential landlord/ tenant disputes, contract/ business litigation, and a plethora of other civil matters. He also assisted Judge McManimon in conducting a significant number of settlement conferences where they settled many civil cases pending in the Mercer County Law Division. Mr. DeRose also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Douglass H. Hurd, the presiding Civil Judge in Mercer County, and for the Honorable Anthony M. Massi, also of the Civil Division. The primary focus of his assignment with Judge Hurd and Judge Massi involved analyzing and summarizing opposing arguments and drafting judicial opinions in labor and employment lawsuits, personal injury cases, medical malpractice cases, and business and contract disputes.

Prior to his clerkship with the Superior Court of New Jersey, Mr. DeRose served his law school externship for the Hon. G. Patrick Hillary, a family division Judge for Kent County Circuit Court in Michigan. During this time, he mediated custody and divorce cases and and various issues pertaining to family law. Mr. DeRose also completed a legal internship with the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office where argued municipal court appeals, conducted bail and sentencing hearings, and presided over grand jury indictements.

Mr. DeRose earned his Juris Doctorate in 2012 after graduating from the Western Michigan University-Thomas M. Cooley School of Law. In 2007, he earned his Bachelor of the Arts in Criminal Justice and Public Administration from Kean University where he was a member of the Kean University baseball team and vice president of the Alpha Phi Sigma chapter of the National Criminal Justice Honor Society.

Mr. DeRose is admitted to the New Jersey State Bar, the United States Federal Court for the District of New Jersey, and is a member of the Mercer County Bar Association.