Brian Lipman, Director for the Division of Rate Counsel

Brian O. Lipman serves as the Director for the Division of Rate Counsel, a position he has held since November 8, 2021. The Division of Rate Counsel represents the interests of consumers for regulated electric, natural gas, water/sewer, telecommunications, cable TV service, and insurance (residential, small business, commercial and industrial customers).

Rate Counsel's mission is to make sure that all classes of utility consumers receive safe, adequate and proper utility service at affordable rates that are just and nondiscriminatory. Rate Counsel is a member of several state utility policy making groups and also represents consumers in setting energy and telecommunications policy that will affect the provision of services into the future. The New Jersey Legislature charged Rate Counsel with being "devoted to the maximum extent possible to ensuring adequate representation of the interest of those consumers whose interest would otherwise be inadequately represented in matters within the jurisdiction of the Division of Rate Counsel." The Division's website is http://www.state.nj.us/rpa/

Before becoming Director, Mr. Lipman served as the Division of Rate Counsel’s Litigation Manager for eight years.  He has been an officer in the NJ Bar Association’s Public Utility Law Section for the past three years. He is also a member of the executive committee of the Consumer Advocates of PJM States (PJM is the electric grid manager for the Mid-Atlantic region). Prior to joining the Division, Mr. Lipman was a Deputy Attorney General in the Division of Law. He last served as the Assistant Section Chief for the Public Utilities Section, which advises and represents the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) in all forums, including the Office of Administrative Law and Superior Court. Mr. Lipman was involved in a variety of federal energy matters before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the U.S. District Court. Mr. Lipman also advised the BPU on matters pending before it. While a Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Lipman also worked in the Affirmative Litigation and Civil Rights Sections. In the Affirmative Litigation Section, Mr. Lipman worked on mortgage fraud matters as well as other cases for a number of administrative agencies, including the Election Law Enforcement Commission. In the Civil Rights Section, Mr. Lipman served as legal counsel to the Division on Civil Rights and prosecuted cases on behalf of the Division. Mr. Lipman served from 2007 to 2010 on the Supreme Court District V-A Ethics Committee. He was adjunct professor at Seton Hall Law School teaching Legal Research and Writing from 2009 to 2010.

Before joining the Division of Law in 2003, Mr. Lipman represented private employers in employment litigation matters as an associate with the firm of Carpenter Bebbett & Morrissey from 2001 to 2003, and as an associate with the firm Genova, Burns & Vernoia from 1997 to 2001. Mr. Lipman also represented federal employees in employment litigation as an associate at the firm of Schnieder, Frieberger & Kastner in 1997 and clerked at the Monmouth County (N.J.) Prosecutor’s Office. Mr. Lipman graduated with honors from Rutgers University School of Law-Camden in 1995, winning the Arthur T. Vanderbilt award for Legal History. He graduated from American University with a B.S. in political science in 1992. He was a pupil in the Sidney Rietman Inns of Court in 2000-01.

Mr. Lipman has spent most of his life in New Jersey, where he resides with his wife and three children. He is active in his local Boy Scout troop and currently serves as the troop’s committee chair.