Alumna Tanya Freeman Honored as Family Lawyer of the Year

Caldwell, N.J., May 10, 2017– Caldwell University alumna Tanya Freeman, a partner at Weiner Law Group in Parsippany, New Jersey, was honored as Family Lawyer of the Year by the Hudson County Bar Association on April 18 at Liberty House.

Freeman, who has represented professional athletes, television personalities and other high-profile celebrities, fondly remembers her days studying political science at Caldwell. She returned to school as a mother with six children and as a full-time employee at Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey. “I really invented myself in my late 30s, and it started at Caldwell. It was so good for my kids to see that Mommy went back.” She still proudly hangs in her office the plaque she received for earning the highest grade point average in the Political Science Department.

Before entering the legal world, Freeman led audit teams for over a decade. She was licensed to practice law in New York and New Jersey in 2012 after graduating cum laude from Touro Law Center. In 2014, Gov. Chris Christie appointed Freeman to the board of directors of University Hospital in Newark, where she chairs the Governance, Ethics and Legal committee. The Thomson Reuters list of New Jersey Super Lawyers named her a “rising star” for two consecutive years. She was also elected to the board of trustees of the Hudson County Bar Association in 2016.

Freeman recalls how she was inspired to start studying at Caldwell. While working for Blue Cross Blue Shield, she was staffing a career fair booth in Caldwell’s cafeteria and decided to look into enrolling. She was 60 credits shy of her undergraduate degree. Soon she was attending classes and was on her way to gaining her bachelor’s degree. “I’m still friends with my Caldwell classmates,” she says.

As a divorce lawyer, she tells her clients her story so they know that that no matter what their age or state in life there is great hope and that they too can take the steps to reinvent themselves.