Adjunct Professor, International Human Rights Clinic
Kirsten Scheurer Branigan
Rutgers Law School
S.I. Newhouse Center for Law and Justice
123 Washington Street
Newark, NJ 07102
  • Biography
Biography

Kirsten Scheurer Branigan is the Managing Partner of KSBranigan Law P.C., a woman-owned employment, compliance, and alternative dispute resolution law firm located in Montclair, New Jersey. She is an experienced employment lawyer, AAA arbitrator, mediator, trainer, and investigator, having exclusively practiced employment law for 25+ years. 

Ms. Branigan focuses her current practice areas on harassment, discrimination, and bias prevention and remediation through training, policies, climate assessments, investigations, equal pay audits, and counseling, along with dispute resolution through mediation and arbitration. She helps organizations foster safe, bias-free, respectful, and culturally competent environments, and build diverse and inclusive cultures where equality, mindfulness, and well-being are prioritized.

Ms. Branigan provides bias prevention consulting and training support for all entities, with a special emphasis on law firms, schools, and academic institutions. She assists law firms with diversity programs and women’s initiatives designed to help advance and retain women in the legal profession.  She also currently serves as a Title IX External Advisor for Princeton University’s Title IX/Sexual Misconduct Grievance Program and conducts Title IX investigations.

Ms. Branigan is a recognized leader in the legal profession and a passionate advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the legal profession.  In 2023, she joined the Rutgers Law School faculty to assist Distinguished Professor Penny Venetis in launching a first-of-its-kind study through the International Human Rights Clinic that will broadly focus on solutions to the challenges faced by women in the New Jersey legal profession in a broad range of sectors.

Following an impromptu conversation with Marilyn Askin about the possible disbanding of the New Jersey Women Lawyers Association (NJWLA), Ms. Branigan led a revitalization of NJWLA, served as the NWJLA President from 2006-2008 and continues to sit on its Board. She has received several recognitions for her women’s leadership work, including the Alice Paul Equality Award and the NJWLA Presidential award created in her name that is given out annually at its Women’s Initiative and Leaders in the Law Gala.  She previously served two terms on the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on Women in the Courts.

Ms. Branigan is committed to mental health and substance use awareness in the legal profession, removing stigmas and creating safe spaces to seek treatment and discuss these topics. In 2021, she was appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court to serve on the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Lawyers Assistance Program.

Ms. Branigan is a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and is active on the Workplace Investigation Committees of both the ABA and NJSBA Labor and Employment Sections.  She writes and speaks regularly on employment law, investigations, equal pay audits, gender equality, and women’s leadership topics. She attended Rutgers University and graduated from Rutgers Law School as a proud alumna of the Minority Student Program.  In 1995, she was admitted to practice law in New Jersey and before the United States District Court in the District of New Jersey. In 2019, she was admitted to the United States Supreme Court.