Employment Law and VA Attorney
Marcus J. Colicelli has prosecuted cases, defended them, and decided them. Over fifteen years he has litigated employment and civil matters, prosecuted a complex international terrorism case at Guantánamo Bay, defended Soldiers facing court-martial and separation, and sat as an Acting Veterans Law Judge. He is admitted in New Jersey and New York, with Maryland pending, and holds a TS/SCI clearance.
He built his practice in employment and civil litigation at Caruso Smith Edell Picini P.C., representing educational and law enforcement unions in administrative hearings and pension appeals and handling EEOC, restrictive covenant, and FDCPA matters, alongside a mass tort defense docket. At the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, he defended federal agencies including HHS and the Department of Defense under the APA, FOIA, and the Privacy Act. He began his career clerking in the Superior Court of New Jersey.
Since 2015, Marcus has served as Counsel to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, drafting roughly 620 decisions under Title 38. As an Acting Veterans Law Judge, he decided over 110 appeals and presided over formal hearings — he has read these briefs from the bench, and he knows what persuades the person deciding them.
A Major in the Army Reserve, Marcus is Senior Defense Counsel with the 154th Legal Operations Detachment, supervising four trial defense counsel and a docket exceeding 60 cases. He was competitively selected to prosecute with the Office of Military Commissions, where he authored 22 classified and unclassified motions and argued successfully against a motion to dismiss at Guantánamo. With Trial Defense Services, he assisted over 190 clients and won retention for four field grade officers at Boards of Inquiry. He holds a J.D. from Florida Coastal School of Law and a B.S. from Clemson.