NEW JERSEY BORN AND RAISED

Greg was born at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, NJ on March 27, 1978.  His father, Tom, was a public school teacher in the Bridgewater-Raritan school district for over 40 years, where he also served as a coach and official for various youth sports.  Tom served multiple terms on the Branchburg Township Committee (including a term as Mayor) while Greg was young, and Greg’s first political campaigns were in support of his dad.  Thanks to his father’s service, Greg got to watch local government in action while growing up and saw the value of serving constituents and taking the lead on local issues.

 

Greg’s mother, Regina, also spent her career as a public employee, working as a probation supervisor, social worker, and high school teacher.  In addition to working full-time, Greg’s mom always made time for volunteer work in the community, including serving as President of the PTA while Greg and his sister Ellen were in school.

 

In his youth, Greg attended the Branchburg Township public schools before moving on to Somerville High School.  At Somerville, Greg was a top student, a varsity athlete (basketball and tennis), Editor-in-Chief of the high school newspaper, and President of the school’s Cultural Diversity Committee (where he worked closely with several students from Columbia H.S.).

 

Greg then attended Columbia College, where he majored in History, served two terms as President of the Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity, was part of the Steering Committee that founded Columbia Community Outreach (and later served as Co-Chair of that event), and a member of the Class Council.  Greg graduated cum laude in 2000 and was admitted to Columbia Law School.  At Columbia Law, Greg was a Senior Editor of the Columbia Law Review, a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and received the Whitney North Seymour Medal (awarded to the member of the graduating class most likely to become a distinguished trial advocate).

 

A CAREER OF ACTIVISM AND ACHIEVEMENT

After graduating from law school in 2003, Greg was admitted as an attorney to the New York and New Jersey bars and then began his legal career at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he played a significant role in several major litigations, including matters for IBM, Royal Dutch Shell, AOL-Time Warner, and Bristol Meyers Squibb.  

 

Following Cravath, Greg worked at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, where he represented clients in numerous landmark cases, including the BP Oil Spill litigation and lawsuits relating to the Bernard Madoff fraud.  Greg also played a leading role in Pillsbury’s pro bono representation of the City of New York in its successful, high profile civil lawsuit against numerous firearms dealers to halt illicit trafficking of weapons into New York City.

 

Since 2008, Greg has also served on a pro bono basis as the Legal Director of Four Directions, a leading Native American voter rights group.  In that role, he has successfully lobbied state and local officials in South Dakota for increased Native American access to the polls and defended voters’ rights to cast their ballot free from harassment and intimidation. In each election, Greg coordinates a large network of legal and non-legal volunteers in protecting Native American voting rights in polling places on nine Indian reservations throughout South Dakota.  As a direct result of this work, The National Law Journal recognized Pillsbury as one of the recipients of its 2008 Pro Bono Awards.  The work has also been profiled in various other national media, including National Public Radio, The Huffington Post, and Indian Country Today.

 

Greg now works for New York Life Insurance Company as Associate General Counsel in the Litigation Group of the Office of the General Counsel.  Each day, Greg helps the Company fulfill its mission to “Keep Good Going” by putting policyholders first and recognizing that the big picture and the bottom line are not always the same thing.  Outside the Company, Greg has used his insurance law expertise to develop a system that has helped many New Jersey families effected by autism obtain affordable and comprehensive health insurance coverage.    

 

In addition to his activism and professional accomplishments, Greg has worked on a number of political campaigns over the years (other than his father’s), including Bill Bradley for President, Tim Johnson for Senate, John Kerry for President, Tom Daschle for Senate, and Fernando Ferrer for NYC Mayor.

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