PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY
OF
SHARON H. MOORE

PRIMARY AREAS OF PRACTICE

Ms. Moore specializes in the area of civil rights and employment law and the representation of public entities. She represents private clients, municipalities, school boards and other public entities in litigation matters in both the State and Federal Court Systems. Ms. Moore has acted as defense counsel for Scottsdale Insurance Company, Selective Insurance Company, General Star Indemnity Company and various Joint Insurance Funds. She also represents the Borough of Peapack and Gladstone as municipal attorney, the Frankford Board of Education as board attorney, the New Jersey PTA and the Hackettstown & High Bridge Rescue Squads and has served as special counsel for a number of municipalities and Boards of Education, primarily in the area of police liability, discrimination and the IDEA (special education). Ms. Moore focuses on civil rights cases in both federal and state courts which allege violations of 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, the ADA, Title VII, the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and related statutes. She has extensive appellate experience before both the New Jersey Appellate Division and the New Jersey Supreme Court and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and has defended appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, Ms. Moore handles a wide variety of complex insurance matters including professional malpractice, general liability and insurance coverage matters, particularly disputes between carriers. She also handles general litigation matters including estate and trust litigation.

REPRESENTATIVE EXPERIENCE

Ms. Moore has defended municipal liability cases involving complicated issues of state and federal law imposed on a myriad of different factual scenarios. Defense counsel must have a detailed knowledge of the federal and state laws which regulate local government and its officials, the immunities which protect public entity defendants and the remedies available to successful Plaintiffs. Often settlement in these cases requires more than an evaluation of the potential monetary loss. Ms. Moore defended the County of Sussex in connection with consolidated actions filed by more than fifteen inmates alleging intolerable conditions at the County Jail. Through mediation, Ms. Moore was able to resolve all of the open cases by assisting the insured to come up with a long range plan which included video cameras in the jail, instituting a prisoner's advocate program, and re-vamping procedures for prisoner complaints and staff training as an integral part of the settlement. She won a jury verdict in favor of a Board of Education and Superintendent in a case involving the strip searching of a student who had been accused of stealing from other girls. In another matter, she successfully defended a School District and a Coach in a case which received National attention.

She has successfully defended a number of public entities in cases involving regulatory takings of property, including one case which went to both the New Jersey Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. Ms. Moore was successful in having a jury verdict of over two million dollars reversed on appeal with an order dismissing the Plaintiff's case with prejudice. Over the past several years she has been focusing more on employment and other discrimination cases in both the public entity and the private sector. These cases range from sexual harassment to race and handicap discrimination.

Ms. Moore also advises parents concerning Special Education matters. Ms. Moore was asked by Selective Insurance Company of America to train its claims examiners on discrimination claims following the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision in Schmidt v. Smith, 155 N. J. 44 (1998), which extended coverage for employment emotional distress claims to standard workers compensation policies. She has also provided loss control training to police and municipal employees, businesses, doctor's groups, school personnel and insurance agents.

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

Ms. Moore attended the University of Chicago and the University of Hawaii and received a Bachelor's degree from the University of Hawaii in 1971 and a Master's degree in 1974. Ms. Moore received her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1981 and was a member and Note Editor for the Hastings International and Comparative Law Review. Ms. Moore was admitted to the bar of the State of California in 1981 and to the New Jersey bar in 1982. Ms. Moore joined Gebhardt and Kiefer as an associate in 1983. She has been a partner in the firm since 1991.

PROFESSIONAL AND COMMUNITY AFFILIATIONS

Ms. Moore is a member of the New Jersey State Bar Association, the Hunterdon County Bar Association and the New Jersey Defense Lawyers Association. She has served as a member and as chairman of the Vicinage Thirteen Ethics Committee. She is a member of the North Hunterdon Rotary Club and served as its president in 1994 - 95 and is currently on the Board of Directors for the United Way of Hunterdon County.