Kevin R. Gardner has been representing clients in the federal and state courts for more than thirty years in a variety of matters, including complex corporate, commercial, construction and environmental litigation, class actions, product liability claims, employment restrictive covenant disputes, and trade secret litigation. Mr. Gardner has substantial experience handling crisis management issues for clients and coordinates the firm’s Emergency Response Team. 

Mr. Gardner has served as lead counsel for clients in connection with catastrophic losses and mass litigation, notably the Port Elizabeth Warehouse Fire, the Texas Eastern Pipeline Explosion, and the Seton Hall University dormitory fire. He has also represented clients, and served as court-appointed liaison counsel, in mass product liability and environmental mass tort/MDL litigation.  

Qualified as a mediator pursuant to Rule 1:40, Mr. Gardner has served as the mediator in more than 400 private and court-ordered mediations. He has also served as an arbitrator by court appointment in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and as a fee arbitrator by designation of the New Jersey Supreme Court.

For 23 years Mr. Gardner has been an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University School of Law, teaching “Civil Litigation in the Federal and State Courts of New Jersey.” In 2011, Mr. Gardner joined the adjunct facility of Rutgers University Law School, where he teaches “Crisis Management: The Legal Aspects of Crisis Planning, Response and Recovery.” Mr. Gardner has also served as a lecturer at New York University’s Graduate School of Business on the mediation of employment and commercial disputes. He is also a faculty member of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and a frequent lecturer on civil practice issues and other subjects for the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education, Defense Research Institute, The Rutgers Institute for Professional Education, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute and other organizations.

By appointment of the New Jersey Supreme Court, Mr. Gardner has served six terms as a member of the Supreme Court’s Civil Practice Committee.  Since 2002, Mr. Gardner has been selected by his peers to be listed in The Best Lawyers in America (Commercial Litigation). He has also been elected by his peers to be a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America.

While attending Seton Hall University School of Law, Mr. Gardner served as Managing Editor of the Law Review. Upon graduation, he served as Law Clerk to Hon. Robert L. Clifford, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey. Mr. Gardner joined Connell Foley LLP in 1980.