By Marc Zucker
Partner, Weir Greenblatt Pierce LLP and Chancellor-Elect
Andrew Hamilton, a famous lawyer and infamous slave-owner, may have been responsible for the moniker “Philadelphia lawyer,” but his story is not the end of the Philadelphia story. In truth, we all are heirs to a much richer and more diverse legacy.
The remarkable accomplishments of so many Philadelphia lawyers have solidified our bar’s fine reputation. Our history includes such trailblazers as Sadie T.M. Alexander, prominent activist and Philadelphia’s first Black female attorney. Juanita Kidd Stout likewise broke new ground as the first Black woman to serve as a justice of any state’s highest court. Judge Louis Pollak, a brilliant jurist, served as law school dean at both Penn and Yale, and collaborated with Thurgood Marshall in formulating strategy in the Brown v. Board of Education appeals, prior to a distinguished career on the federal bench.
Edwin Rome’s successful effort to exonerate death row inmate Aaron “Treetop” Turner remains an inspiration to this day. William Marutani, a survivor of a Japanese internment camp, argued the case of Loving v. Virginia and later became a Philadelphia judge. Francis Biddle served as a Third Circuit judge and as a U.S. judge in the Nuremberg war crimes trials after World War II. Herbert Millen was the first Black judge appointed to a Pennsylvania bench and the 13th black judge in the United States.
Bernard Segal was the first Jewish chancellor of this bar association, and the first Jewish president of the ABA. Andre Dennis was this association’s first Black chancellor. Andrew Chirls, a commercial litigator and counsel to the $3.55 billion AHP (Fen Phen) Settlement Trust, was the first gay man to hold that office. Deborah Willig, a tenacious labor attorney, was this association’s first female chancellor.
A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. was highly respected both as an author and Third Circuit judge, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. William T. Coleman likewise received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, having litigated civil rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, chairing the NAACP Legal Defense Fund for two decades and serving as the second Black person in history to sit in the U.S. Cabinet. Norma Shapiro was the first female appointed judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Robert N.C. Nix Jr. served as the first black Supreme Court justice (and later chief justice) of Pennsylvania. David Berger, Harold Kohn, Sherrie Savett, Herbert Newberg, Nicholas Chimicles and so many other local attorneys advanced the development of class action law from its infancy, turning it into a powerhouse procedural tool.
Peter Liacouras led a commission that exposed racial discrimination in the Pennsylvania Bar admission process. Jerome Shestack served as president of the International League for Human Rights and as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Alan Davis and J. Clayton Undercofler were star litigators, labor negotiators and models of civility. Richardson Dilworth was a prominent attorney, mayor and founder of the Dilworth Paxson law firm. Herbert Kolsby created Temple’s trial advocacy program and brought attention to the dangers of DES and Dalkon Shields. S. Gerald Litvin likewise created the Academy of Advocacy in the course of a stellar career as a trial attorney. Thomas Gilhool, together with colleagues at the Public Interest Law Center, litigated the PARC v. Commonwealth case, which recognized the right to education for children with disabilities.
More recently, Judge L. Felipe Restrepo was elevated to the Third Circuit bench, the first Latino judge to serve in that role. Judge Nelson Diaz served as the youngest judge elected to the Court of Common Pleas, the first Latino judge in Pennsylvania history and as general counsel to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Judge Nitza Quinones Alejandro was the first Latina judge in Pennsylvania. Diana Cortes became our city’s first Latina city solicitor, succeeding Marcel Pratt, Philadelphia’s youngest attorney to hold that position.
Mark Aronchick and other Philadelphia attorneys successfully established the right to marry regardless of one’s gender identity and fought to preserve the right to have one’s vote counted in the 2016 Presidential election. Steve Harvey and Eric Rothschild spearheaded the representation of plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case, challenging the teaching of “intelligent design” as violative of the Establishment Clause. Tom Wilkinson and others represented the plaintiffs in Lozano v. City of Hazleton, challenging an anti-immigration ordinance. Judge Annette Rizzo created the Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Program, which served as a national model at a time of crisis. Robert Schwartz, Marsha Levick and attorneys from the Juvenile Law Center helped to uncover the “kids for cash” scandal in Luzerne County, and sought compensation for the children victimized by that scandal. Robert Swift has litigated multiple cases involving Holocaust assets and actions against the Marcos family. Roberta Liebenberg has a national reputation as a star antitrust litigator and an advocate for gender equity.
The stature of Philadelphia lawyers is indeed close to my heart, as I think of those who inspired me to pursue excellence and seek justice. Those include Judge Arlin M. Adams, my great-uncle of blessed memory, a nationally-renowned jurist and highly-respect Schnader attorney, trustee, independent counsel and mediator. They also include my former partner, the late Theodore Mann (who played a significant role in several Supreme Court cases, including Abington v. Schempp, Braunfeld v. Brown and Sloan v. Lemon), my cousin Stephen Feldman (who was responsible for landmark decisions such as Hamil v. Bashline and for having authored a preeminent treatise on Pennsylvania trial practice) and my current partner, Walter Weir Jr., a brilliant commercial litigator.
There must be something about Philadelphia’s status as a medium-sized city in the shadow of New York and Washington, which centers us and makes us strive to shine. The attorneys in my newly-merged law firm certainly share the best traits of Philadelphia lawyers. Their collegiality, intelligence, integrity, ethics, sophistication, good humor, energy and commitment to excellence are noteworthy. The respect and cooperation between the bench and bar in Philadelphia – whether in state or federal court – have allowed us to advance the cause of justice in ways that other jurisdictions fail. I’ve come to regard my colleagues in the Philadelphia Bar Association in particular as strong advocates of the highest ideals of our profession, from access to justice and criminal justice reform to mentorship and diversity, equity and inclusion. The bar association offers us a platform to find common ground, define our goals and advance them for the betterment of all. While we all recognize the increasing pressures imposed by clients, carriers, adversaries and the courts, and while efforts to reform our system of justice are often slow and fraught with obstacles, I have no doubt that we can achieve great progress when we are at our best, working together to improve ourselves, our courts and our community in meaningful ways.
To all those who accuse me of omitting other noteworthy Philadelphia lawyers, I plead guilty as charged. There are so many luminaries in our association’s history – many of them largely unsung – that to select out these few arguably does a disservice to all of those not mentioned. As I approach my tenure as the 96th chancellor of this amazing bar association, I look forward to highlighting the accomplishments of so many Philadelphia lawyers who have elevated the stature of this bar association so admirably. Please reach out to me – whether in a letter to the editor or an email to me – to identify those not mentioned here. It is truly humbling to inherit such a valuable legacy.
