Secured a critical appellate victory before the New Jersey Supreme Court on behalf of the widow of a New Jersey public school teacher whose request to modify her husband’s retirement application after his death from cancer was denied by the Teachers’ Pension and Annuity Fund. At stake in this case were thousands of dollars in monthly benefits that would be denied to our client and her children due to her husband having selected the “early retirement” option on his application before passing away only two months short of the 25 years required for “early retirement” eligibility. In its ruling in our client’s favor, the New Jersey Supreme Court agreed that neither membership nor approval of a retirement application was required to permit an employee or his or her surviving spouse to seek modification of a retirement selection, so long as he or she was able to demonstrate good cause, reasonable grounds, and diligence. Thus, the court held that our client was entitled to a remand for the opportunity to demonstrate these three elements in support of her modification request.