Joshua Battaglia '18

Choose to

strut your stuff.

Joshua Battaglia

Hometown: Point Pleasant, N.J.
Class Year: 2018
Major: Political Science with a concentration in Pre-Law


 

JB

 

Four years ago, Joshua Battaglia was strutting his stuff in the Mummer's parade and dreaming about law school. Now, he's an attorney helping troubled families navigate the law. Read on to learn more about him and his journey after choosing Stockton. 

 

Joshua Battaglia (2018)

Joshua in 2018, taking a selfie in front of a temple

Why did you choose Stockton?

I chose Stockton University because it was a close-knit community that was both local and affordable. The atmosphere of the campus was "homey," and all of the professors I met really cared about their students and their education. It also appeared that Stockton was a university "on the rise." Stockton is growing and offering new opportunities to students everyday. I was pleased that Stockton had both a Political Science with Pre-Law concentration major, as well as a Music minor and offered me the chance to participate in many music opportunities.

What kinds of opportunities have you gained within your academic program?

I had the opportunity to intern with the 3rd Legislative District (Senator Sweeney, Assembly Deputy Speaker John J. Burzichelli and Assemblyman Adam Taliaferro) this past summer where I learned a lot about the legislative process. I am also a member of the Stockton Model UN Travel Team and had the opportunity to attend Model UN Conferences in Kobe, Japan, New York City and Washington, D.C.

What does your typical day-to-day look like?

After Stockton, I went to law school at Rutgers University-Camden for three years. I graduated from there last summer and took the bar exam. I passed and got barred as an attorney to practice in the state of New Jersey. Then, for the past year since last August, I have been a law clerk for a family law judge in Cumberland County. That will end this August and I’ll be starting a full-time associate attorney position. It will most likely still be in family law, which I’ve learned to enjoy. It’s not the happiest field due to familial or spousal drama or trauma, but I’m overall there to help families at the end of the day.

Did you expect it to be like how it is now when you first graduated?

No, not really. My first year and a half of law school were all in-person and then COVID-19 hit. My entire second year and a half, as well as my graduation, was then 100% virtual. At the beginning of my work term, there was a hybrid model. When I first graduated, I thought it would be all in-person and I looked forward to the courtroom kind of stuff but, obviously, COVID changed the world. It’s been kind of crazy having to be this first-generation graduate dealing with unique situations like having court cases through Zoom. This is an experience that I never would have imagined happening when I first graduated from Stockton or even when I got to law school.

My cat helped, you know, having them sit on Zoom meetings and take up the whole screen. In all seriousness though, it was very difficult, especially having to do law school, challenging coursework, and even a remote bar exam. Many law school classmates and I were all in the same boat, so we were all able to kind of vent and talk to each other about what was going on. And now, a lot of us are law clerks or have gone into other law divisions, so we all keep in contact. That whole brotherhood and sisterhood really helped; being able to know that I wasn’t alone in having to go through that challenge and that there was always someone else to go to or lean on for advice helped me a lot."
Joshua Battaglia, '18, on how he overcame the COVID-19 pandemic.

What is your next goal? Where do you see yourself in five years?

I’m hoping that with those five years of experience and skills under my belt, I’ll be a confident, full-time practicing attorney ready to help people get through difficult times. I want to be able to help people more, especially families since family law tends to be difficult to navigate for those families. I just want to be someone that people who are having family or spousal issues can go to and expect that they’re going to get the proper legal help that they need.

Hopefully, by that point, COVID-19 will be officially over, and we can go back to more in-person court proceedings. It helps to have that face-to-face interaction, especially in the legal system, with people seeing their attorneys and judges. I’m hoping that’s where we’ll be.

What advice would you give students who are interested in getting into family law?

I would say to reach out to others in the field; law, in general, can be difficult, but this division adds familial drama and emotional strain on top of that. It’s good to have people who are in this field that you can talk to, share their experiences, and see how they navigate those tough emotions and work. It helps to be able to reach out and say “Hey, I have this really traumatic case with this family, how would you handle it? Can we talk this out?” When you get thrown into this, there are a lot of complex emotions to deal with. When you know someone who may have had experiences with those emotions already, has personal experience dealing with domestic violence, or are able to really empathize with the family, you can bounce ideas off each other. Getting that community together and network connections is crucial to better navigate the field once you’re in it.