Barbara is an experienced litigator who represents businesses and individuals in a wide range of matters, including commercial contract disputes, trade secret and non-competition covenant cases, false advertising claims, and securities litigation.  She has represented clients in the manufacturing, media, software, financial services and accounting industries in high-stakes litigation before state and federal courts and arbitration panels for more than a decade.  She is a Director of the firm and serves as Deputy Head of the firm's Litigation Group and Chair of the firm's Recruiting Committee.

In addition to her general litigation practice, Barbara has a broad range of experience counseling clients in document retention issues and publishing matters, including pre-publication review and public records access.  She also has defended newspapers and individuals in libel and invasion of privacy litigation.

Other Professional Experience

Prior to attending law school, Barbara worked as a journalist, writing about politics and government for a national group of newspapers.  Her journalism career included assignments as a statehouse bureau chief and Washington, D.C. correspondent, covering the United States Congress, White House and Pentagon beats. 

Barbara was named a Paul Miller Fellow of the Freedom Forum in Arlington, Virginia.

She was previously a member of the Advisory Board of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Journalism Department.

Select Recent Representative Cases

• In re Winstar Communications Securities Litig., (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York)
• Viad Corp v. C. Alan Cordial, et al, (U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania)
• Health Care Logistics v. Adonix Transcomm, (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio)
• Calgon Carbon Corp. v. Eubanks, (U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania)
• Dietrich Industries v. Dunlop, et al, (U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado)
• Uniontown Newspapers v. Lawrence Roberts, (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania)

Honors and Achievements

Barbara was selected as an instructor on electronic discovery issues for the National Business Institute in 2008.  She has previously been a presenter at seminars on trade secret protection, non-compete covenant drafting and enforcement and document retention and preservation policies.

She has published articles in the Cohen & Grigsby Review, including "New Federal Rules Increase the Importance of Implementing and Complying with Internal Electronic Data Retention Destruction Policies" and "Protections and Remedies under the Pennsylvania Trade Secrets Act."  She has been quoted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on public records issues.

Education

• J.D., University of Virginia School of Law, 1998
• Executive Editor, Journal of Law & Politics
• B.A., Journalism, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 1985

 Bar/Court Admissions

• Pennsylvania
• Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania
• United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• United States District Court for the District of Colorado