Marguerite M. Schaffer, Esq., is President of Schaffer Shain Jalloh PC, a law firm located in Bernardsville, New Jersey. She specializes in commercial litigation; land use; real estate and banking law. Commissioner Schaffer currently serves as Chair of the Somerset County Democratic Committee, Vice Chair of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, and was elected as a Delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 2008, 2012 and 2016.
In 1975, Commissioner Schaffer received her law degree, cum laude, from Seton Hall University, and was Editor of its Legislative Journal. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Dayton in 1970. Commissioner Schaffer holds a Teacher’s Certification in Secondary English from the State of New Jersey. She earned a NITA diploma in the Art of Trial Skills in 2015.
Commissioner Schaffer served as an Adjunct Professor at Seton Hall Law School (1981–1983) and Fairleigh Dickinson University (1985–1986). She was the Assistant Counsel and Municipal Prosecutor, City of East Orange, NJ (1978–1979); Counsel and Secretary to the Board of Adjustment, City of East Orange, NJ (1982–1986); Counsel to and Member of the Board of Directors of Mountain Ridge State Bank (1982–1990); Counsel to the Planning Board, City of East Orange, NJ (1982–1986); Borough Attorney for Bradley Beach, NJ (2019-2020); Township Attorney to Monroe Township, Middlesex, NJ (2019); and Assistant Township Attorney to Monroe Township, Middlesex County, NJ (2020). She is currently Borough Counsel to Lake Como and Atlantic Highlands, and Special Counsel to South Brunswick and Roselle.
Commissioner Schaffer is a past President of Executive Women of New Jersey (EWNJ), the State’s premier organization for Professional Women, from 1998–2002. She served on the Advisory Committee of the Institute for Women’s Leadership at Rutgers University. She was a member of the Board of Directors of the New Jersey State Bar Association, Banking Law Section, from 1985 to 1995. She served as its first female Chair from 1990–1991and has been Director Emeritus from 1996 to the present.
Her professional memberships include Committee on the Judiciary Budget and the Supreme Court Ethics Committees of Essex and Morris Districts. She was also a founding member and secretary of the Essex County Women Lawyers Association.
Commissioner Schaffer was honored as a “Woman of Distinction” by the Somerset Hills Girls Scouts and named to Business News New Jersey’s Top 500 Leaders List. In 2006, she received the Eleanor Roosevelt Distinguished Service Award from the Somerset County Federation of Democratic Women. Commissioner Schaffer was honored in 2010 at the Executive Women of New Jersey Salute to the Policy Makers Dinner. In 2013, the Somerset County Commission on the Status of Women awarded her the Woman of Achievement in Government Award. Commissioner Schaffer in 2015 received the Barbara Boggs Sigmund Award from the New Jersey Women’s Political Caucus. She has been named a Super Lawyer by New Jersey Monthly Magazine since 2014.