The Pennsylvania Legal Blog

When I was in law school, Wolf Block (whose name was longer then) was the law firm to join if you wanted to be in a big firm. My parents even mentioned that to me a few times, although big firm life was not my style. And the firm’s history is well-chronicled. That’s why it’s […]

  Our office represented the claimant, John Amodei, in Philadelphia Gas Works v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Amodei), No. 350 C.D. 2008 (Pa.Cmwlth., February 4, 2009), in which the Commonwealth Court ruled that, when an employer seeks an offset from workers’ compensation benefits for pension benefits paid to a claimant, the offset must be calculated […]

With the Super Bowl just moments away, it seems fitting that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court “punted” rather than decide an issue of importance to all attorneys who handle medical malpractice cases in the state. On January 28, 2009, just a few days before the big game, the Court issued its long-awaited decision in Gbur v. […]

I have authored a newsletter primarily summarizing Pennsylvania appellate court decisions for over two decades. Every once in a while I include cases from other states. The January 2009 newsletter includes a Georgia Supreme Court case. Why? The Georgia case, Moreland v. Austin, is important because it is one of the few cases addressing HIPAA ( […]

As if it were “new” or “news,” an Associated Press report in the January 2, 2009 Philadelphia Inquirer discussed the “huge backlog of [Social Security disability] cases.”  Unfortunately, this isn’t news, it’s “olds.” For years, the Social Security system has been plagued with delays, and the backlog ebbs and flows with the economy and with […]

As the end of 2008 approaches, I harken back to prior years, when Justices were leaving the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (generally as the result of mandatory retirement). In each of those years, the Court would issue a flurry of decisions, presumably so that the departing Justice’s vote would “count.” Oddly, many of these December 31st […]

As 2008 comes to a close, I have mixed thoughts about the state of the profession. In many ways, practicing law has become a greater challenge — with issues of civility and professionalism making the difference. When I began practicing, lawyers were still under the illusion that law was a profession, not a business. Clearly, […]

Welcome to the Pennsylvania Law Blog, a service of the Havertown Law Offices of Daniel J. Siegel. The Pennsylvania Law Blog is designed to spur debate about issues confronting Pennsylvania legal practitioners, including case law, trends in the law, new or revised rules, ethics and professionalism. Please feel free to join in the discussion (no […]