Erin Burke is emerging as one of Bergen County, New Jersey’s better known and more capable young matrimonial attorneys, a key associate at the newly organized firm of LaRocca Hornik Rosen Greenberg & Blaha. Cheerful, well organized and results-oriented, Burke has long worked with litigator Frank LaRocca (a member of Ten Leaders since 2004, and Burke’s brother-in-law); at three different firms, they have teamed on more than 250 cases over the last 12 years. In recent years, she has developed a litigation practice, retaining clients throughout Northwest Bergen, but particularly in the upscale towns of Ridgewood and Glen Rock, where she grew up and lives today. Now 40, Burke is currently working a modified week to accommodate a demanding home schedule of her two young children. She focused on matrimonial law even while in law school, and, she says, she has made it her life’s work. Says she: “Every case is a puzzle, and I enjoy working hard to put that puzzle together properly for our clients.” Burke grew up the third of four daughters, her parents both educators: Her father, Robert Burke, was a popular football coach at Glen Rock High School, and he taught for many years at Pascack Hills High School. Her mother, Sandra Burke, taught at St. Catharine’s School of The Academy of Our Lady. Glen Rock is “an idyllic family town, a great place to grow up.” As an undergraduate at The University of Connecticut, she majored in history and enrolled in pre-law classes, including an Introduction to Family Law that met at 8 a.m. her senior year; “I didn’t miss a class, and I was fascinated by all of it.” In law school, she worked as a paralegal for the Hackensack firm of Dunn, Pashman, Sporizilli, Swick & Finnerty, founded by renowned family law attorney Morris Pashman. “I knew I wanted to practice family law from the start – the field requires a combination of skills, of communication, analysis and advocacy, all of which I knew I was good at. She was also a law clerk for a White Plains firm, Farber, Segall and Pappalardo, where she became an associate after graduating from Pace. In 1998, she joined the firm of Finnerty & LaRocca, then in Paramus, where she first worked with LaRocca preparing all types of divorce litigation. Burke joined LaRocca on each move, including the creation of LaRocca & Associates, 2006. “We’ve been busy since the day we started, and even with the economic downturn it hasn’t really let up.” All along, Burke’s focus has been cases originating in Northwest Bergen County, where today she is well known. In the last year LaRocca founded a new firm with Monmouth County attorneys across a wide spectrum of disciplines – commercial litigation and bankruptcy, among others – and thus the firm has a strong presence in both counties. Today Burke continues to practice out of the firm’s Harristown Road office in Glen Rock. She and her husband, Davitt Kelly, a finance executive with The Blackstone Group, live four doors down from the Valley Road house where she grew up. They have two children, Katie and Ryan. Erin and Davitt are both are UConn alums and are “huge” UConn Husky basketball fans.