William E. Staehle
Counsel
WILLIAM E. STAEHLE is a graduate of Cornell University, College of Arts and Sciences. Following graduation, he served three years as an officer with the U.S. Army, including two years as a lieutenant with the 82nd Airborne Division and a one-year tour of duty as a Captain and Company Commander in the Republic of South Vietnam. Following his active duty, he resigned from the Army to attend Seton Hall Law School where he earned his law degree.
Mr. Staehle began his legal career as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the Office of the U.S. Attorney in Newark, New Jersey, earning a Special Achievement Award from the Department of Justice for his advocacy. He left during a transition period to start a private law firm with three other AUSA's. After eight years, two of his partners ascended to the Bench, and desiring to concentrate on personal injury defense litigation, he joined the Staff Counsel Office for Aetna Insurance as its Managing Attorney. Through several mergers and consolidations, Mr. Staehle remained the Managing Attorney for nearly 34 years until he retired from Travelers Insurance in 2019.
He has conducted more than 50 jury trials to verdict and 35 bench trials, and argued more than 25 State and Federal appeals, including Kimmelman v. Morrison before the U.S. Supreme Court, a case in which he won a 9-0 decision against the Attorney General of the State of New Jersey. While at Travelers, he was on the team that created its Claim Legal Trial Advocacy School, serving as its Director, an Executive Committee member, judge, mentor, and presenter of trial techniques until his retirement. Mr. Staehle was appointed by the New Jersey Superior Court as a personal injury arbitrator, serving for ten years, and since 1987 he has been certified continuously by the New Jersey Supreme Court as a Civil Trial Attorney.
Beginning in 1996, Mr. Staehle served on the New Jersey Supreme Court Board on Attorney Certification, becoming Chair of its Civil Committee (2003-2008), and the Chair of the Board (2008-2012). He has served on the New Jersey State Bar Association's Certified Attorneys Section (Chair, 1992-1994) and was also a charter member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Board on Continuing Legal Education, established in 2010, for which he succeeded Justice Rivera-Soto as Chair and served in that capacity for eleven years from 2011 through 2021. In 2010, he was appointed by the Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Oversight Committee to a 4-year term as an outside ethics investigator for the Office of Attorney Ethics, working with the District XIII Ethics Committee, and in 2014, he was reappointed to a second 4-year term on that Committee. The Supreme Court appointed Mr. Staehle to its Special Committee on Attorney Ethics and Admissions in 2013 to study ethics rule changes proposed by the American Bar Association. He has gone on to represent attorney respondents in ethics matters.
For 22 years (1982-2004), Mr. Staehle was an invited guest lecturer at the University of Medicine and Dentistry where he lectured on the topic of "Legal Aspects of Advanced Trauma Life Support." In 2014, he was awarded the Travelers Joseph S. Stabnick Claim Legal Award for Career Achievement, and in 2016, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for Professional Excellence by the New Jersey Law Journal. Continuing to enjoy the practice of law, Mr. Staehle joined Leary Bride as a trial lawyer in 2019. He remains a career-long member of the New Jersey State Bar Association.