Barbara Moses
How Judge Moses rules, drawn from 15 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Moses
Barbara Moses serves as a U.S. magistrate judge for the Southern District of New York. Before joining the bench, she was counsel at Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason & Anello and directed a civil litigation clinic at Seton Hall University School of Law. She earned degrees from Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School.
Judge Moses's practices and standing orders
Rules for cases before Judge Moses, as published on the court's website (checked October 8, 2026). Judges revise these often, so confirm the current version on the court's site before you file.
- Individual Practices ↗
- Instructions for Attorneys Bringing Electronic Devices to Court ↗
- Model Protective Order ↗
- Settlement Conference Attendance Form ↗
Key rules
Contacting chambers
Letters and letter-motions are limited to 2,000 words without advance permission.
“d. Word Limits; Courtesy Copies; Service. Absent advance permission from the Court, letters and letter-motions may not exceed 2000 words (approximately four pages) in length, exclusive of attachments, which should be kept to a minimum.”
Motions
A pre-motion conference is optional for non-discovery motions.
“d. Pre-Motion Conferences. For motions other than discovery motions, pre- motion conferences are not required, but may be requested by letter-motion where counsel believe that an informal conference with the Court may obviate the need for the motion or narrow the issues in dispute.”
Discovery
Before raising a discovery dispute, confer in real time; letters or email alone do not suffice.
“b. Discovery Motions. No discovery dispute will be heard unless the moving party (including a non-party seeking relief from a subpoena) has first conferred in good faith and in ‘real time’ (e.g., in person or by telephone) with the adverse party or parties, in an attempt to resolve the dispute. An exchange of letters or email alone does not satisfy this requirement. Counsel must respond promptly and in good faith to a request from another party to meet and confer in accordance with this”
Standing orders for every case in this court
Orders the court applies to all of its cases, whichever judge has them, as published on the court's website (checked October 8, 2026).
- Amended Standing Order on Highly Sensitive Documents ↗
- Second Amended Standing Order on Civil Case Opening ↗
- Amended Standing Order on Miscellaneous Civil Case Opening ↗
- Standing Order on Applications to File a Civil Case Under Seal ↗
- Standing Order on Emergency Relief and Section 2255 Filing Procedures ↗
- Notice on Immigration Custody Habeas Petitions and Emergency Relief ↗
How Judge Moses decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In Social Security review, Moses remanded when the administrative law judge relied on a non-examining expert without obtaining a functional assessment from a treating physician or otherwise filling a material evidentiary gap.
“This failure requires remand for further proceedings.”
On contract summary judgment, undisputed liability evidence supported judgment on liability, while unresolved payment and interest calculations required further proceedings on damages.
“plaintiff's motion for partial summary judgment is GRANTED as to liability on the Second and Fourth Claims for Relief, and those facts will be treated as established in the case. Summary judgment on the issue of damages is DENIED.”
On competing contract summary-judgment motions, Moses treated disputed evidence about who created the software as a fact question that prevented judgment on intellectual-property ownership.
“Here, the relevant evidence is susceptible of more than one reasonable inference, making summary judgment inappropriate.”
Procedural preferences
In wage-and-hour settlement review, Moses required fee support, narrowed releases, and removal of confidentiality terms that would prevent truthful discussion of the litigation.
“Remove any confidentiality provisions that would prevent plaintiffs from truthfully communicating facts concerning this litigation and its settlement”
In discovery, she enforced proportionality by compelling a targeted set of relevant billing records while refusing the broader subpoena the movants had themselves characterized as wasteful.
“The Court will compel CMS to produce the documents and data described in the narrower subpoena only.”
In expert-evidence review, she excluded damages analysis to the extent it depended on another expert’s excluded opinion.
“if one expert's opinion is excluded by the court”
In a publisher discovery dispute, Moses required concrete support for a claimed technical search burden and allowed a further application identifying costs and possible modifications.
“unable to explain those constraints to the Court's satisfaction.”
After repeated late production and objections to relevant discovery, Moses required the party and its counsel to pay reasonable fees incurred on the discovery letter motion.
“plaintiff and its counsel must pay the reasonable fees and expenses incurred by defendant in preparing and pursuing its April 8, 2026”
Cautions
She declined to disqualify wage-and-hour counsel where the alleged conflict was speculative and the defendants did not establish a basis to dismiss the amended complaint.
“The motion to disqualify plaintiffs' counsel and to dismiss the Amended Complaint (Dkt. No. 41) is DENIED.”
A plaintiff asserting assigned claims could be required to obtain documents from its assignors when it had the practical ability to obtain them and affirmatively relied on the assigned rights.
“For the reasons that follow, the application is GRANTED to the extent described below.”
In summary-judgment briefing, she criticized objections to undisputed factual statements that obscured the issues and increased the work required of counsel and the court.
“Objections of this nature, which obfuscate rather than illuminate, serve only to increase the workload of opposing counsel and this Court, and are therefore improper.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“I cannot approve the Settlement without some modification of the release provisions.”
“plaintiff-relators' motion to compel is GRANTED with respect to their narrower February 28, 2016 subpoena to CMS ... The motion is DENIED with respect to any other subpoenas to CMS.”
“For the reasons that follow, the application is GRANTED to the extent described below.”
“The motion to disqualify plaintiffs' counsel and to dismiss the Amended Complaint (Dkt. No. 41) is DENIED.”
“plaintiff's motion for partial summary judgment is GRANTED as to liability on the Second and Fourth Claims for Relief ... Summary judgment on the issue of damages is DENIED.”
“I respectfully recommend that the Moving Defendants' motion to dismiss the Amended Complaint as to them pursuant to Rule 12(b)(5) be GRANTED.”
“plaintiff's motion is GRANTED”
“the Commissioner's motion is DENIED”
Contextual settlement-enforcement order: Moses declined to retain jurisdiction over an ambiguous private ADA settlement that the court had not brokered, while allowing the parties additional time to dismiss or reopen.
Contextual multi-issue discovery order addressing privilege, confidentiality designations, revenue records, and work-product disputes in a False Claims Act case; excluded because the bundled applications do not map cleanly to a single motion outcome.
“Pine River's motion (Dkt. 347) be GRANTED IN PART.”
“Two Harbors' motion for summary judgment (Dkt. 338) should be DENIED.”
“plaintiffs' motion (Dkt. 340) is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.”
“Defendant's motion (Dkt. 353) is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.”
“plaintiffs' August 20, 2025 omnibus discovery motion (Dkts. 185 and 186) is GRANTED in part,”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
The targeted sample contains three wage-and-hour cases and two Social Security appeals, all terminated after consent jurisdiction or exact assignment to Moses.
Pending matters in the official report
Reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts under the Civil Justice Reform Act, as of March 31, 2026.
| Motions pending more than six months | 2 |
| Bench trials submitted more than six months | 1 |
| Bankruptcy appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Social Security appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Civil cases pending more than three years | 2 |
| Report | Motions over six months | Cases over three years |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2026 | 2 | 2 |
| Sep 2025 | 1 | 2 |
| Mar 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Sep 2024 | 3 | 2 |
| Mar 2024 | 0 | 2 |
| Sep 2023 | 1 | 1 |
| Mar 2023 | 1 | 1 |
| Sep 2022 | 0 | 1 |
| Mar 2022 | 1 | 1 |
| Sep 2021 | 0 | 1 |
| Mar 2021 | 2 | 0 |
| Sep 2020 | 5 | 0 |
A snapshot on that date: matters listed may since have been decided or reassigned. A motion referred to a magistrate judge is counted for both judges. Motions in multidistrict litigation, section 2255 cases and Social Security appeals are not counted, and a very large three-year count is generally a multidistrict docket. Source: Appendix A of the report (PDF); about the report.
How long civil cases take in this court
For the whole of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, not for Judge Moses: median time from filing to disposition of the civil cases the court closed in the 12 months ending September 30, 2025, as reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
| Cases | Median time | |
|---|---|---|
| All civil cases closed | 9,565 | 5.6 months |
| Closed with no court action | 1,749 | 3.5 months |
| Closed before pretrial | 6,416 | 5.1 months |
| Closed during or after pretrial | 1,313 | 14.1 months |
| Closed during trial | 87 | 51.7 months |
| 12 months ending | Cases closed | Median time |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 9,565 | 5.6 months |
| Sep 2024 | 10,695 | 6.4 months |
| Sep 2023 | 10,316 | 5.6 months |
| Sep 2022 | 11,818 | 6.1 months |
| Sep 2021 | 10,662 | 5.7 months |
| Sep 2020 | 10,118 | 6.6 months |
| Sep 2019 | 11,357 | 6.6 months |
The table leaves out prisoner petitions, land condemnations, deportation reviews, recovery of overpayments and enforcement of judgments, and reports no median for fewer than 10 cases. A district that closed a large multidistrict litigation in the period shows very large counts and long medians for that year. Source: Table C-5, U.S. District Courts (spreadsheet).
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