Deacon Patrick R. Brannigan has announced the appointment of Nancy M. Mahony, Esq. as the director of Social Concerns for the New Jersey Catholic Conference.
Mahony will serve as the liaison between the NJCC and federal, state and local agencies. She also will work closely with Catholic Charities and other Catholic, secular and ecumenical organizations in support of the church’s social justice mission.
Deacon Brannigan said Mahony’s experience as an attorney in state government and her experience as a teacher in Catholic schools will be most helpful to the conference’s work with diocesan, governmental and other agencies.
Mahony is a Eucharistic minister and a member of the RCIA team at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in West Trenton. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Holy Family College, Pa., and a master’s in education from Boston College.
She taught social studies at Catholic schools in Massachusetts and New Jersey for four years. After that, she taught Western Civilization as an adjunct professor at Rutgers University, the University of Massachusetts, and Camden County College. She was also an instructor of English composition at Emerson College.
Mahony graduated from Widener School of Law in 1985 and soon after began working as a Deputy Attorney General in the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. In that role she analyzed various legislative proposals, prepared Attorney General Opinions, and represented various state agencies, including the Division on Civil Rights, the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, the Racing Commission, the Economic Development Authority, and the Cemetery Board. She also served in a mentoring program assisting new deputies in their appellate brief writing.
From 1999 to 2011, Mahony worked in the Administrative Office of the Courts, conducting disciplinary and union grievance hearings, advising Judiciary managers on employment matters, representing the Judiciary in public hearings, and drafting EEO/AA rulings on behalf of the Administrative Director of the Courts. She taught Administrative Law as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University Law School and was a panel member at the N.J. Institute for Continuing Legal Education on Alcoholic Beverage Law.