William T. Hangley, a founder and Chair Emeritus of the firm, is one of America’s most highly decorated trial lawyers and counselors. His practice involves representations of both plaintiffs and defendants.
He has tried (not just litigated) First Amendment, antitrust, patent, estates, real estate, franchise, construction, employment, unfair competition, securities, civil rights, attorney malpractice, capital punishment, and general contract and business tort cases.
Benchmark Litigation names Bill one of the top 100 lawyers in the United States; Best Lawyers has named him Lawyer of the Year for “Bet the Company” litigation. Chambers USA has never left him off its list of leaders in Litigation. He has several times been a top-three vote getter in the annual Pennsylvania Super Lawyers rankings, and was recently on the cover of its annual magazine. A longtime Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, he has served as the College’s Regent for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. He recently completed a six-year tour as a member of the United States Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules (by appointment of Chief Justice John Roberts), and is currently the Liaison of the ABA Section of Litigation to the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. He has been a member and then Chair of the Pennsylvania IOLTA Board (by appointment of Pennsylvania Chief Justice Ronald Castille), and served as Chair of the Third Circuit Lawyers Advisory Committee (by appointment of Third Circuit Chief Judge Anthony Scirica). He has been Co-Chair of the ABA Section of Litigation’s Federal Practice Task Force and a member of the Task Force on Discovery and Civil Justice, a joint project of the American College and the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, which works to address the increasing inefficiency and expense of the civil justice system and the disappearance of the civil jury trial.
During the 1990s, Bill presided over jury trials as a Judge Pro Tem of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, helping the Court address its then-critical case backlog. He currently serves as a Special Discovery Master for district judges in two ongoing complex civil litigations.