Who We Are

Stephen J. Hyland, Esq.

Practice Areas:

• Estate Planning and Administration
• Trusts
• Same-sex Couples, Civil Unions and Domestic Partnership Law
• Parenting, including adoption
• Elder Law

Bar Admission:

• New Jersey
• Pennsylvania
• New York
• Texas (inactive)
• U.S. District Court, N.J

Education

• Pennsylvania State University
• South Texas College of Law
• Temple University Beasley School of Law

Stephen J. Hyland is an attorney with offices in Westmont and Pennington, New Jersey. He concentrates his practice on estate planning and administration, same-sex couples law, domestic partnership law, and elder law.

In addition to these areas of law, Mr. Hyland has significant experience in school law, intellectual property law, computer law, and Internet law, and has handled complex commercial litigation, involving copyright claims, trademark infringement, and computer software disputes. He served as General Counsel for a Houston, Texas, Internet company with over 100 employees, where he established and managed the legal department, and as a privacy law consultant conducted compliance assessments for several large corporations, including Travelocity and American Airlines.

The author of the book, New Jersey Domestic Partners: a Legal Guide, Mr. Hyland has also published numerous articles on estate planning and domestic partnership law, privacy law, computer law, and Internet law, and is a frequent speaker on legal issues. He is an active member of various community and professional organizations, including the GLBT Section, for which he is the legislative liaison, the Real Property, Trusts and Probate Section, and the Elder Law Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association.

In 2007, Mr. Hyland was appointed by Governor Jon Corzine to the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission, for which he is the Secretary. He was also appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court to serve a two-year term on the Family Practice Committee of the Administrative Office of the Courts. In December 2007, Mr. Hyland was honored with a Distinguished Legislative Services Award by the New Jersey State Bar Association Board of Trustees.

Legislation that Mr. Hyland has worked on and/or provided testimony to the Legislature includes the Domestic Partnership Act (P.L.2003 c.246), amendments to the Probate Code (P.L. 2005 c.331), amendments to the Guardianship Act (P.L. 2005 c.304), the Civil Union Bill (P.L. 2006 c.103), the Irreconcilable Differences Bill (P.L.2007 c.6), and amendments to the Wrongful Death Act (A1511).

Mr. Hyland graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a bachelor's of science degree in agriculture. Following a successful career as a software engineer and technology consultant, he embarked on a career in law, receiving his Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from South Texas College of Law in Houston, Texas. He is currently pursuing an LLM in taxation and estate planning at Temple University Beasley School of Law.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, Mr. Hyland was a software engineer for defense and government contracting firms, such as Science Applications International, Inc. and Barrios Technology. As a consultant and trainer, he provided design and development services to companies such as TRW, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Texaco and Shell. He has been involved with Internet-related technology (ARPANet) since 1983.

Born and raised in Camden County, New Jersey, Mr. Hyland returned to New Jersey in 2002 after many years living in Texas and California, and now resides in Cherry Hill. He and his husband, Richard Leopold, were married in 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia, on their 18th anniversary.