Ronald J. Riccio
Site Administrator

Ronald J. Riccio was born and raised in Jersey City, N.J. He received his B.A. degree cum laude from Seton Hall University in 1968 and Juris Doctorate degree from Seton Hall University School of Law in 1971, where he was a member of the school’s first public Law Review. Following a judicial clerkship with The Honorable Lawrence A. Whipple, United States District Court judge, he began a 16-year career in private practice as a litigator, during which time he successfully represented plaintiffs and defendants in a number of major trial and appellate matters.

He returned to his alma mater in 1988 when he was appointed Dean of Seton Hall University School of Law. He successfully served as Dean for 11 years and as a Professor of Law for nearly 30 years. He has taught Constitutional Law, Comparative Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure, Business Associations and Introduction to Lawyering. He was voted Professor of the Year five times by the student body and is a past recipient of the Andrea Catania Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching.

Dean Emeritus Riccio has practiced law for nearly 50 years in New Jersey and New York State courts as well as before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second and Third Circuits and in the United States Supreme Court. He has served as a litigator, mediator and arbitrator in a wide range of contexts, including appeals, class actions, constitutional matters, franchise disputes, environmental matters, tort claims, securities cases, business break-ups and employment disputes. He has also served as a court-appointed Discovery Master, court-appointed Settlement Master, and other court appointments.

In 1999, Dean Emeritus Riccio was appointed by Federal Judge Neal McCurn as Settlement Master in connection with a claim by the Oneida Indian Nation to more than 270,000 acres in Central New York. The Oneida claim was based on a 1985 Supreme Court decision holding that state and local governments might have illegally acquired land from the Oneidas more than 200 years ago. The dispute was ultimately settled.

In 2000, Dean Emeritus Riccio was appointed by New Jersey Superior Court Judge Clarkson Fisher as Settlement Mediator in connection with a dispute involving teacher salaries and teacher contributions to health insurance premiums. After more than 100 teachers from the Middletown schools had been jailed for disobeying a court order, the matter was referred to Dean Emeritus Riccio. He successfully mediated a settlement.

In 2009 the City Council of Jersey City selected Dean Emeritus Riccio to provide a written report designed to improve the City’s development and redevelopment practices. The focus of the report was the promotion of integrity, efficiency, transparency, uniformity and fairness in Jersey City’s development and redevelopment processes. Dean Emeritus Riccio is a founding member and former Chairman of the New Jersey Commission on Professionalism, a former member of the New Jersey Domestic Security Preparedness Task Force and is the immediate past Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Monmouth Medical Center. He is a Lifetime Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

Since January 2016, Dean Emeritus Riccio has served as the independent, court-appointed site administrator for PPG’s chromium cleanups in Hudson County in accordance with a judicial consent order entered in 2009 by the Superior Court of New Jersey. In addition, he is the court-appointed mediator for matters arising from the process outlined in the order in which the City of Jersey City, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and PPG address the cleanup sites.

Dean Emeritus Riccio has received numerous awards, including the New Jersey State Bar Foundation Medal of Honor; the Essex County Bar Foundation Person of the Year; Top 100 New Jersey Business People by New Jersey Business News; Ann Klein Advocate Award for the Disabled; B’nai Birth Humanitarian Award of Excellence; Saint Thomas More Medal of Honor; ACLU of New Jersey Roger N. Baldwin Civil Liberties Award; and the Columbian Foundation’s Achievement and Humanitarian Award. He has also been listed in Super Lawyers® (2005-2018), a Thomson Reuters business, in the areas of General Litigation, Appellate, and Alternative Dispute Resolution. Dean Emeritus Riccio has also been listed in Best Lawyers® (2008-2018), a Woodward/White, Inc. business and partners with U.S. News & World Report, in the area of Appellate Practice and was also named as Newark's 2015 Appellate Practice Lawyer of the Year (No aspect of the advertisement has been approved by the Supreme Court). He is the Seton Hall Law School’s 2016 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year. In 2016, he was chosen as Attorney of the Year by the New Jersey Law Journal.