BARBARA B. COMERFORD, ESQ.

For the last twenty-three years, Ms. Comerford has concentrated her law practice in the area of Disability law, with an emphasis on ERISA and individual long term disability insurance, Social Security Disability and State Government Disability Pensions.  She spent many years litigating personal injury and other civil cases before narrowing her concentration to disability law. Ms. Comerford is the founding Chair and remains Co-Chair of the Social Security Committee for the Bergen County Bar Association where she also serves as Co-Chair of the Continuing Legal Education Committee. She has served on numerous Bergen County Bar committees including Judicial Selection, and Professionalism in the Law; and was named as a delegate to the New Jersey Bar Association, and remains a member of the NJ Bar Association Civil Trial Section.


She is a sustaining member of the National Organization of Social Security Claimant's Representatives and has been a sustaining member of the American Association for Justice. She has also been a member of the New Jersey Trial Lawyers Association. She is a member of the American Bar Association, the New Jersey Bar Association, the Bergen and Passaic County Bar Associations, the Garden State Bar Association and Women Lawyers in Bergen County.


She has lectured extensively and written papers on the topics of ERISA and individual long term disability insurance, and social security disability law over her career for the American Bar Association, the New Jersey Bar Association, the Bergen County Bar Association, the (National) American Trial Lawyers Association, the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives, the American Association of Law Schools, Fordham University Law School Legal Services Clinic, the New York Bar Association Continuing Legal Education at Pace Law School, The Bergen County Medical Society, as well as numerous disability organizations in New Jersey and elsewhere around the country.


Ms. Comerford has sat on a number of Boards including the Northeast New Jersey Legal Services Board; the American (later, the International) Association of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (an international medical research board); the CFIDS Association of America (for which she also served as Secretary); the New Jersey Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Association (for which she received the 2004 NJCFS Achievement Award; and she will again be honored in the Spring of 2008 at the "Evening with the Stars" CFS/ME Awareness Gala).

Ms. Comerford also co-authored a Physician Manual and wrote the chapter on "Proving Disability"; the manual was written to educate physicians on recognizing and diagnosing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and was published by the New Jersey Academy of Medicine and the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey and was distributed to physicians throughout New Jersey and the U.S. It remains the only such Physician Manual ever published in the United States on CFS.


Ms. Comerford has also sat on the Boards of the Lewis Sanks King Justice Fund (for which she also served as Treasurer); the Community Health Law Project (for which she received the 2004 Ann Klein Advocacy Award) and as a member of the Women's Auxiliary Board of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Ms. Comerford also sits on the Board of the Roy White Foundation which distributes scholarships to inner city students. Since its inception in 2003, she has also served as a member of the Women Against MS (WAMS) Committee for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Greater North Jersey Chapter. In 2008 she was asked and agreed to serve as Chair of that Committee. She has volunteered with that Chapter since 1992 and was awarded the "Extra Mile" Volunteer Award for her efforts. Ms. Comerford has also served as an attorney advisor for the Bergen County Division of Disability Services with respect to the issue of County compliance with the American with Disabilities Act. She also served for several years as a Court Appointed Arbitrator in Bergen County hearing contract, personal injury, and automobile accident cases. 

She has received other Volunteer Awards including the Community Service Award by St. Rocco's Church in Newark, New Jersey for organizing an Annual Food and Toy Drive since 1998.

She has also written a novel, a murder mystery based in Bergen County, and is in the process of writing her second. She is the proud mother of Caroline Comerford, an honors student at Montclair University. She and Caroline reside in Ridgewood, New Jersey.