Beatrix W. Shear, Esq.

Of Counsel

Having become a member of the New Jersey Bar in 1988, Beatrix has 25 years of experience in the New Jersey legal system. She was a general litigation associate at Riker Danzig Scherer Hyland and Perretti for the first six years of her career, and her primary focus from 1995 forward has been handling cases involving the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS), now known as the Division of Child Protection and Permanency (DCP&P). She has extensive familiarity with the workings of DYFS/DCP&P and the child welfare court system. Over the course of her career, Beatrix has handled all aspects of family law cases, including advising clients, preparing briefs and memoranda, conducting depositions, and representing clients at trial and on appeal.

Among other types of cases, Beatrix has had a successful track record representing defendant parents at trial in child abuse/neglect actions and termination of parental rights actions brought against them by DYFS/DCP&P. She directed the Legal Services of New Jersey Family Representation Project, a group comprised of six attorneys who defended parents in DYFS actions, and she has worked on child welfare policy, written articles for Legal Services' Looking Out publication, and conducted training seminars on child welfare law.

Prior to joining the team at Moskowitz Law Group, Beatrix served as a Deputy Public Defender and the Director of Appellate Programs in the Office of Parental Representation at the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender. In that position, she oversaw a staff of four attorneys, supervising the handling of hundreds of appeals every year on behalf of defendant parents in child abuse/neglect and termination of parental rights cases. She has written briefs for and argued many appeals, including appeals that have resulted in published Appellate Division decisions and matters before the New Jersey Supreme Court. In 2007, she authored an article, "Incarcerated Parents and the New Jersey Child Welfare System," published in Rutgers-Newark's Women's Rights Law Reporter, and she has been an Adjunct Professor of Appellate Advocacy at Seton Hall Law School and an instructor for the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education.