New Jersey and Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers & Student Advocates
Strategy-first representation for high-stakes legal problems. Focused on solutions.
Ratliff Jackson LLP
Ratliff Jackson LLP is a trial firm. We represent people and businesses facing criminal charges, campus investigations, licensing complaints, regulatory enforcement, and civil lawsuits in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and across the country.
Most people who reach this page are somewhere in the first days of a problem that is already moving. Someone has been charged, served, investigated, suspended, or notified of a hearing, and the other side started before they did. What follows is how we work and where to go next depending on what you are facing.
Confidential case evaluation: (856) 209-3111 | intake@ratliffjackson.com
What Working With Us Looks Like
- You work with the attorneys handling your case. You will know who is on the file from the first meeting, and that does not change as the matter moves.
- We tell you what is actually at stake. Options, risk, timing, and cost, in language you can act on rather than legal vocabulary you have to decode.
- We prepare every file as though it will be tried. That preparation shapes what can be negotiated and what can be proven.
- We move at the speed the situation requires. A restraining order hearing tomorrow and a federal investigation running eighteen months need different things. We plan accordingly.
Where To Go Next
Funeral Home Litigation
Board investigations, licensing complaints, regulatory enforcement, and employment disputes involving funeral homes, and claims brought by families when remains or cremations are mishandled.
Funeral home litigationProfessional License Defense
A board complaint puts the license itself at issue, and the record built during the investigation is the record you argue from later.
License defenseCriminal Defense
Prosecutors are already preparing their version of events. We prepare yours, starting before charges are formalized where we can.
Criminal defenseEducation Law
Special education disputes, evaluations, due process hearings, disability accommodations, and school governance matters for families and educators.
Education lawTitle IX and Campus Discipline
In a Title IX proceeding you are not treated like someone accused. You are treated like someone who already did something wrong, in a forum without the protections of a courtroom.
Title IX defenseStudent Discipline Defense
Suspension, expulsion, academic integrity charges, and degree revocation, at the hearing stage and on appeal.
Student discipline defenseDomestic Violence and Restraining Orders
Protective orders, firearms restrictions, and custody consequences often land before any contested hearing takes place, and they are difficult to unwind afterward.
Restraining order defensePersonal Injury
Serious injury and wrongful death claims where liability, causation, or the value of the loss is genuinely contested.
Personal injuryCivil Litigation
Contract disputes, defamation, consumer fraud, premises and construction claims, and collections, on either side of the caption.
Civil litigationFamily Law
Custody, support, divorce, and abuse and neglect proceedings, including matters running parallel to a criminal case.
Family lawFederal Practice
Federal criminal defense, civil rights claims, civil asset forfeiture, agency appeals, and administrative law.
Federal practiceEmployment Law
Discrimination claims, disability benefits and insurance denials, ERISA litigation, and benefits disputes.
Employment lawCreators and Trademark
Trademark, licensing, and contract work for creators and small businesses building something worth protecting.
Creators and trademarkWhen the Other Side Is an Institution
Much of our work is against parties with standing procedures and repeat experience: prosecutors, university hearing panels, licensing boards, state agencies, municipalities, and insurers. These matters are rarely decided by a single argument. They are decided by what gets preserved in the record early, which is why the first two weeks usually matter more than they appear to.
See our full list of practice areas, or read recent articles on issues we handle.
If it has already started, so should you. Call (856) 209-3111 or email intake@ratliffjackson.com
What Should You Look For in a Criminal Defense Lawyer?
Start with the practical questions, because those are the ones that affect outcomes. Has this lawyer actually tried cases, or only resolved them? Will the person you meet today be the person standing next to you at the hearing? Does the lawyer know this court, this prosecutor’s office, and how fast this county moves?
Then there are the questions people do not think to ask until they are already in it.
Does the lawyer listen? Nobody calls a criminal defense lawyer with good news. You may not be at your best in that first conversation, and you may say things that come out wrong. That is expected, and we do not hold it against you.
Does the lawyer talk to your family? A criminal case is rarely just yours. Parents, spouses, and children are living it alongside you and they have their own questions. We spend real time on those conversations, because leaving your family in the dark makes a hard situation harder.
And does the lawyer take the case seriously when it gets difficult? Some cases have strong evidence on the other side. Some carry consequences outside the courtroom entirely: immigration status, a professional license, a job, custody. Those are the cases that need the most preparation, not the least.