Sharon McCloskey is a writer and attorney in the greater New York City area. Her work has appeared in New Jersey Monthly, The American Lawyer, CBS MoneyWatch, Duke Law Magazine, and several newspapers and media outlets across North Carolina. Find and read her writing at sharonmccloskey.com and https://ncnewsline.com/author/sharon-mccloskey.Formerly the Courts Law and Democracy reporter for NC Policy Watch -- a progressive public policy think tank and special project of the NC Justice Center -- she covered the state and federal judicial systems in North Carolina, reporting and writing about legal decisions of import to North Carolina residents and highlighting the role courts play in their lives.Prior to joining NC Policy Watch, Sharon was a staff writer for North Carolina Lawyers Weekly. In 2010, she earned her MS from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she was a Carnegie Knight Foundation News 21 Fellow.Before working in North Carolina, Sharon practiced law in New York and New Jersey, where she specialized in commercial and consumer litigation and served as a court-appointed mediator in state and federal courts and as a panel arbitrator for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). A former Deputy Attorney General for the State of New Jersey, she has been admitted to practice law in the state and federal courts of NY and NJ as well as in the United States Supreme Court. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Duke University and Seton Hall Law School.