Claudia L. Marchese will be re-entering private practice as a Partner with Rainone Coughlin Minchello, LLC after a notable engagement with the State of New Jersey serving as the Executive Director of the Catastrophic Illness in Children Relief Fund Commission. Ms. Marchese will be practicing in the firm’s litigation department.

Prior to her appointment as Executive Director of the Catastrophic Illness in Children Relief Fund in January 2011, Ms. Marchese served as Counsel to Governor Chris Christie for the first year of his administration. She acted as liaison to State legislators, cabinet officers, departments, partisan staff and stakeholders. Ms. Marchese also advised the Governor and Chief Counsel in legislative, regulatory and policy matters concerning all issues related to public health, hospitals, aging, children and families, human services and agriculture.

Before entering public service, Ms. Marchese had an extensive career in the private practice of law for 18 years. She handled all aspects of a variety of insurance defense litigation including civil rights defense of municipalities and law enforcement; insurance fraud, environmental and mass tort insurance coverage, workers compensation and personal injury cases. Early in her career Ms. Marchese, also served as an assistant prosecutor in Somerset County.

Ms. Marchese is active in community service. She served on the board of Trustees for the Mid –Jersey Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society from 1995 to 2006. She continues to serve as a volunteer site coordinator for the annual MS Walk. She is a founding member of the Hampton Borough Community Education Foundation. She has led the Education Foundation as its President since 2005.