Assistant Attorney General Margaret A. Cotoia is the Director of the New Jersey Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute, which provides continuing legal education programs that meet the practice needs of New Jersey government lawyers. Margaret maintains overall responsibility for over 150 programs a year, recruiting instructors and developing curriculum for the AGAI’s lecture programs, supervising litigation skills training for new deputy attorneys general and assistant prosecutors and ensuring that the Institute maintains New Jersey and Pennsylvania CLE accreditation. Prior to joining the Advocacy Institute, Margaret was the first statutory Ethics Training Officer for the New Jersey State Ethics Commission (SEC). She designed, conducted and administered comprehensive ethics training programs for over 75 State agencies, authorities, boards, commissions and universities, provided ethics advice and counsel to State employees and officials and trained and supported a statewide network of ethics liaison officers. Before working for the SEC, Margaret was a mediator and staff attorney at the New Jersey Public Employment Relations Commission. She mediated public sector contract impasses, complex unfair labor practice and representation cases and contested transfer determinations. Margaret holds a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C and a J.D. from the Penn State University Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.nnsylvania.