With energy, drive and focus, Barbara Ulrichsen has been one of New Jersey's leading matrimonial attorneys for more than three decades. Many of her cases have contributed to case law, in a state that's long been on the forefront of important national trends. What's more, since launching her own firm in 2006, with Wendy Rosen and Derek Freed, Ulrichsen has reinforced her reputation as a superb lawyer, skilled mediator and effective advocate for her clients. "As I tell my clients, they are the product, and I'm their advertiser. It's my job to put their interests in full view." It's been a remarkable journey for the 63-year-old Monmouth county native, whose parents, both Danish immigrants, operated a boat-building business in Keyport, N.J. When Ulrichsen was 12, her mother up and left with her: "We lived a pretty nomadic life. I went to four high schools in four years." Much of that time the teen-age Ulrichsen lived and worked on large horse farms, where she developed a lifelong affection for horses. (Today she and her husband of 35 years live on a 60-acre horse farm that includes a number of race horses and show jumpers in which she competes.) She was a "socially conscious kid of the '60s," she says, and law school was an extension of that; she first practiced public-interest law in Philadelphia, and gained valuable courtroom experience early. In the early 70s she was offered a position with a Princeton firm where she began handling divorce cases: "That's when I really learned the trade - they just delegated more and more to me." By 1986, Ulrichsen had built a successful matrimonial practice. Many of her firm's cases - one in particular, which addresses post-judgment alimony issues - contributed to case law in the 90s.

In 2000, Ulrichsen joined Fox Rothschild for several years, until she formed Ulrichsen Rosen & Freed LLC, where she is as busy as she has ever been. She and her husband have two grown sons. They live in Ringoes, New Jersey.