Biography
Jill M. Zuccardy, Esq. has practiced family and matrimonial law for nearly 30 years. She has extensive trial and appellate experience in cases involving custody, visitation, child support, domestic violence, orders of protection, accusations of child abuse and neglect, and financial and property issues arising from the marital relationship. Jill also regularly represents clients who are involved in child protective services investigations and those who are challenging "indicated" reports before the New York State Office of Children and Family Services.
Jill has worked successfully in both the public and private sectors and has represented clients on both the highest and lowest ends of the income spectrum. Among other public service jobs, from 1999 through 2006, Jill worked at Sanctuary for Families Center for Battered Women’s Legal Services in New York City, first as legal-clinical coordinator and then as the Director of Sanctuary’s Child Protection Project. She also worked at the Women’s Prison Association, as the Program Director of the Incarcerated Mothers Law Project. While working with the law firm of Lansner & Kubitschek, Jill litigated federal civil rights lawsuits on behalf of children abused in foster care and families illegally separated based on accusations of abuse or neglect. Reported decisions on cases in which Jill provided representation can be found on her website https://jillzuccardy.com
Jill was trial and appellate co-counsel in Nicholson v. Williams, the landmark class action lawsuit in which a federal court found the City’s practice of removing children from battered mothers and prosecuting the mothers for child neglect to be unconstitutional, and the related state court case Nicholson v. Scoppetta, which changed the legal landscape for abuse and neglect cases in New York.
In 2012, Jill established her own law practice in New York City. In addition to her private practice, Jill serves on the appellate assigned counsel panel in the Second Department. Jill is a co-author of the two-volume legal treatise New York Law of Domestic Violence (3d Ed. Thomson Reuters), which is updated annually. She has conducted trainings and given presentations nationally and internationally on family law issues for advocates, legislators, judges, attorneys and social workers.
Jill is a 1987 magna cum laude graduate of the University of Connecticut, and a 1990 graduate of New York University School of Law. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her legal activism in protecting the rights of parents, women and children.