“We are very proud of our colleagues. These awards underscore how the firm’s excellence is deep and enduring.”
Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller proudly announces that two of its shareholders have been recognized for excellence by The Legal Intelligencer. Firm Chair Mark Aronchick will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes noteworthy individuals who have helped to shape the law in Pennsylvania, and Bonnie M. Hoffman has been named a 2016 Lawyer on the Fast Track, an award that honors the best attorneys under 40 years old in Pennsylvania.
“We are very proud of our colleagues. These awards underscore how the firm’s excellence is deep and enduring,” said Ronald P. Schiller, Vice Chair of Hangley Aronchick.
Aronchick, whose national clients routinely call upon him to handle business and governmental disputes of the highest stakes, has spent his career working just as tirelessly for justice for all people, in both public service and private practice. A past Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association and past President of the Pennsylvania Bar Foundation, he also holds the distinction of being the youngest City Solicitor in the history of Philadelphia. Aronchick’s tenure as City Solicitor was marked by a range of progressive civil rights initiatives, including a variety of reforms in the police department and the children and youth division of the human services department, as well as the habilitation of citizens formerly housed at Pennhurst and the development of new public housing initiatives such as Whitman Park. In addition, during his term in the 1980s and with his approval, City Council added sexual orientation to the list of protected classes to the city’s Human Relations Ordinance.
In recent years, he led the Hangley Aronchick team on Whitewood v. Wolf, resulting in the invalidation of Pennsylvania’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples; chaired Lower Merion Township’s first Human Relations Commission; was the primary drafter of a model anti-discrimination ordinance that has been replicated throughout the state; continued his over two-decades run as a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers; taught constitutional law at one of the China’s most prestigious law schools; and continued to serve as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
At the top of the list of his professional accomplishments, Aronchick puts being a founding member of Hangley Aronchick and serving as a mentor to countless attorneys and other professionals who themselves have gone on to shape the law and society, both at the firm and beyond.
Hoffman is an outstanding, highly sought after commercial litigator. With a deep and diverse commercial litigation background as her base, she has developed a unique and increasing educational law practice representing schools and educational institutions. She also routinely handles sophisticated insurance and bad faith disputes and professional malpractice claims, among other matters. Already a leader within the firm, Hoffman chairs the Associate Development Committee and serves as the firm’s liaison between our paralegal staff and the Board. Before becoming a shareholder, her peers chose her to serve as the Associate Observer to the Board of Directors.
Pennsylvania Super Lawyers has recognized Hoffman as a “Rising Star” every year since 2013 and she is a Core Class member of the respected Leadership Philadelphia, Inc. program. She also serves as the Third Circuit Regional Reporter for the Education Law Association, where she is responsible for reviewing the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decisions that involve K-12 education issues, and then summarizing those decisions for the ELA’s monthly publication, School Law Reporter.
“Bonnie embodies the best of the legal profession, and it has been a pleasure to watch her strive and succeed in her career over the last nine years,” said David B. Pudlin, President of Hangley Aronchick. “She is truly deserving of this honor.”
