Years ago, former UConn School of Law Dean Hugh Macgill said something at an event that planted a seed in Sheridan Moore\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018Think about it. What has the law school education afforded you? Wouldn\u2019t you want to do the same to benefit someone else?\u2019\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n
Moore \u201978 thought back over her successful legal career, first as a lawyer and then as a\u00a0 Connecticut Superior Court judge. She knew none of it would have been possible without the financial aid she received that allowed her to go to law school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to help students who found themselves in the same situation that I was in. So, I thought \u2018Well, if I can do this, I\u2019ll do it,\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Moore set up a scholarship in honor of her brother, Tyrone Moore, who had recently died at age 44. She knew that naming the scholarship after her brother would provide some measure of comfort to her grieving mother.<\/p>\n
Since then, the Tyrone Moore Endowed Scholarship Fund has supported five students and counting, providing a scholarship for each of their first two years of law school.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe knowledge that I am doing what I can to help somebody along with their education is exactly what I wanted to accomplish,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve met with a couple of the recipients through the years and their feeling is pretty much the same one that I had: but for this help, I probably wouldn\u2019t be in law school.\u201d<\/p>\n
UConn Law Dean Eboni S. Nelson said Moore\u2019s scholarship is making an impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re so grateful that Judge Moore chose to honor her brother\u2019s memory by helping students at UConn Law pursue their dreams,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cBecause of her generosity, recipients of the Tyrone Moore Endowed Scholarship will have access to an affordable, transformative legal education for generations to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moore, who recently turned 70, is still working in the field. After 20 years as a superior court judge and five as a senior judge, she now works part-time as a Judge Trial Referee (JTR), a designation that allows judges aged 70 or older to hear certain cases.<\/p>\n
Over the course of her career, she\u2019s worked in the criminal, civil, housing, family, and juvenile courts throughout much of Connecticut. She\u2019s still at it because she loves the work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess you could say I\u2019m sort of a people person, so I like the interaction with the people,\u201d she said. \u201cIn the juvenile court, you really felt like you were affecting lives. You may influence lives in other disciplines as well, but you felt it more in the juvenile court.\u201d<\/p>\n
After graduating from law school in 1978, she started her career as a lawyer with Connecticut Legal Services then moved to the Connecticut Public Defender\u2019s Office for several years. After that, she opened her own office in Naugatuck, Connecticut where she handled all kinds of cases for 12 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was working as a private attorney and thought I was going to do that for the rest of my life. Then a couple of judges both said to me \u2018You should apply to be a judge. We could use people like you on the bench.\u2019 It was a real shock to me because I didn\u2019t know you applied to become a judge.\u201d<\/p>\n
When then-Gov. John Rowland selected her for the role, she became one of the first Black woman judges in Connecticut.<\/p>\n
Moore, who lives in Beacon Falls, Connecticut, and spends her winters in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, is still close with her classmates from law school and never misses a reunion. She attributes this in part to the law school\u2019s former location in a small building on the now-closed West Hartford campus. Everyone took classes together and got to know each other well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt it was great because it made for a great camaraderie between the people there because you couldn\u2019t avoid anybody. They were all there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Judge Sheridan Moore named a scholarship for her brother, supporting students in their first two years at UConn Law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":177,"featured_media":201291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1857],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2418],"class_list":["post-201289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-31 18:44:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/177"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201289"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201328,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201289\/revisions\/201328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/201291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201289"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=201289"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=201289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}