This page serves as a summary of Regina’s professional and personal biography. For further details please go to the Career and Childhood pages.

Professional

As a partner at Barrack, Rodos & Bacine, an internationally recognized and highly ranked securities litigation firm, she has secured the pensions of government employees including, police, fire, teachers and Taft-Hartley union employees when they lose money due to corporate fraud. She was a member of the team that successfully litigated such high profile corporate fraud cases against WorldCom and Merrill Lynch and brought billions of dollars back to the pensions of union workers and government employees. She is also on the team representing all investors globally in the corporate fraud class action matter against AIG. She lectures on the impact of corporate fraud internationally.

Prior to joining BR&B Regina served as Deputy General Counsel to the New York City Employees’ Retirement System where she counseled the executive leadership, members and beneficiaries on public pension related matters.  By way of Regina’s experience serving as an adjunct professor of public administration at Baruch College and her years of advising candidates on matters of public policy, she provides commentary on politics, public policy and corporate fraud on national, state and local media outlets such as CNBC, Fox News Channel, Newsday, etc.

While attending law school in the evenings, she served as Director of Legislative Affairs for the NYC Comptroller where she successfully secured the passage of ten laws that saved taxpayers money and generated revenue. She proudly worked as an advocate for disabled veterans for four years where her efforts were focused on the passage and implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, a national civil rights law for people with disabilities including veterans with disabilities.

She is admitted to practice law in the State of New York, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the US District Court Southern and Eastern District’s of New York.

Personal

Regina is a board member of You Gotta Believe, the older foster children adoption agency. Every year at least 40,000 foster children age out of care at ages 18 or 21 to no one but themselves, thus exposing them to the perils of homelessness, incarceration or worse. Her advocacy for YGB rises from Regina’s own experience in the Suffolk County, New York foster care system, where she also aged out parentless. While growing up in Suffolk County with her four siblings, she was evicted from every home her family ever lived in and also lived in numerous foster homes, homeless shelters and on the streets. Despite the odds she began college at SUNY Stony Brook at 17 and later transferred to SUNY New Paltz and graduated college at age 21. Then at age 25 she began attending Seton Hall University School of Law and graduated by the age of 29.  Less than 2% of the US foster care population actually get a college degree and no statistics are kept for those who obtain advanced degrees, so Regina knows how fortunate she is to have beat the odds and credits the hardworking and committed public servants who ensured not only her survival, but her ability to thrive.

Regina is also a pioneer in family law, as the plaintiff In Re Parentage Regina M. Calcaterra, she brought the first case of its kind in the United States that allowed an adult child to determine their true parentage via DNA.  While Regina’s case was pending and thereafter, eight states adopted a child’s right to seek their biological parentage regardless of age, the other forty-two still have not. Thus, Regina’s case of first impression serves as guidance to jurisdictions that do not expressly permit an adult child to obtain DNA from their putative parents.

Regina, an aunt of fifteen nieces and nephews, lives in New Suffolk, NY, on the North Fork of Long Island with her two cocker spaniels, Maggie & Oscar, and her cat, Milo.