February Newsletter

Shareholder Helen Casale spoke with The Philadelphia Inquirer about the questions about parenthood raised in Glover v. Junior, a case where divorcing spouses disputed parentage of a child conceived through IVF. In December 2023, the Pennsylvania Superior Court agreed with Junior that she was indeed a legal parent to their child.

Helen discussed how this ruling will impact how courts consider and decide parentage, especially as the family unit continues to change. Helen, along with associate Kyle Victor , submitted an amicus brief on behalf of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) in the case. Read the full article here.

More and more divorce and support matters involve trusts. Whether a trust is considered to be an asset in a divorce or income in a child or spousal support action depends on multiple factors.

Family Law shareholder Jerry Shoemaker discusses the importance of understanding the various types of trusts which may be encountered in a divorce or support matter in his latest blog post. Read more.

This year, in celebration of Hangley Aronchick's 30th anniversary, we launched two social media campaigns, 30 Years of Impact and 30 Acts of Kindness.

30 Years of Impact

We started our 30 Years of Impact series, an ongoing reflection on meaningful cases for our firm and the greater community, by highlighting the Luzerne County Juvenile Litigation. The case is often referred to as the "kids for cash" scandal.

In February 2009, Hangley Aronchick, working with the Juvenile Law Center, took on the representation of a class of more than 2,400 juveniles who were victims of one of the worst judicial scandals in American history. In brief, two Luzerne County, Pennsylvania judges – a juvenile court judge and the county’s President Judge – took millions of dollars in kickbacks from the owners and builders of two private juvenile detention facilities who stood to profit from maximizing the occupancy rate of the facilities. In return, the judges made sure that the County contracted to use the facilities.

Hangley Aronchick attorneys litigated federal class action civil rights and RICO claims on behalf of their clients to recover the damages they suffered. After years of hard-fought litigation, we negotiated settlements with defendants that totaled more than $20 million. Learn more about the settlement here.

30 Acts of Kindness

In addition to 30 years of service to our clients, we celebrate 30 years of giving back to the community. We are committed to supporting causes that are important to us, through pro bono work, volunteerism, and board service. Throughout 2024, we will highlight the various ways attorneys at Hangley Aronchick have given back.

We started our 30 Acts of Kindness series by reflecting on our work with the Support Center for Child Advocates , a nonprofit organization that serves children who have experienced abuse or neglect by securing social services, finding alternative homes, and helping them testify in court. Hangley Aronchick has raised money for the organization through its annual 5K event and annual gala, and its attorneys have represented a number of children fleeing abusive homes, helping them to get permanent legal custody with other parents.

In Our Community

This February, in recognition of Black History Month, we highlighted a few of the many Black individuals who have made significant contributions to the legal profession.

Thurgood Marshall: After graduating from Howard University School of Law in 1933, Marshall began working in the legal profession under the mentorship of Charles Hamilton Houston at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. Marshall's most famous case was Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, a landmark case that ruled the "separate but equal" doctrine unconstitutional. In 1965, Marshall became the first Black person appointed to the post of U.S. Solicitor General. Two years later, he became the first Black person appointed to the United States Supreme Court, where he served until 1991.

Jane Bolin: Bolin was one of only two Black freshmen at Wellesley College in the 1920s. After graduating as a top student and Wellesley Scholar in 1928, she attended Yale Law School where she became the first Black woman to earn her law degree from the institution. She was also the first Black woman to join the New York City Bar Association . In 1939, Bolin was sworn into New York City's family court, where she fought against racial discrimination in the justice system for four decades. Today, we remember her for her groundbreaking legacy as the first Black female judge in the United States.

Jonathan Jasper Wright: In 1865, Wright became the first Black person admitted to practice law in the state of Pennsylvania. The trailblazing jurist later served as an Associate Justice on the South Carolina Supreme Court from 1870 to 1877, during the Reconstruction Era, before he was forced to resign. Wright would be the only Black justice to be on a high court for nearly another century.

Christina Swarns: After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania's law school, Christina Swarns returned to her hometown of New York City to become a public defender. She went on to serve as the litigation director for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. There, she represented Duane Buck, a Black man who was sentenced to death in Texas based on explicitly racist evidence. When Buck v. Davis was brought before the Supreme Court in 2016, Swarns served as Buck's lead counsel. This made her the only Black woman to argue in the 2016 Supreme Court term and one of only a handful of Black women to have ever argued at our nation's highest court. Now, as the Executive Director of the Innocence Project , the pioneer litigator helps champion the use of DNA testing to free wrongfully convicted individuals.