Bonnie M. Hoffman is a highly sought after litigator with a deep and diverse commercial litigation background. She has had first-chair and second-chair responsibilities in litigations for several different clients, with a bench trial and two major arbitrations in the past year alone. She has worked on cutting edge cases during her tenure at the firm, including a landmark family law case involving the equitable distribution of frozen embryos following a couple’s divorce. She is known to colleagues and clients as a deliberate and thoughtful litigator.
Bonnie has a strong practice representing clients in the educational space and also routinely handles sophisticated insurance and bad faith disputes and professional malpractice claims, among others.
In the education space, she has represented school districts, independent schools, and charter schools, as well as parents and students, in education-related matters. Bonnie is well versed in education statutes and regulations including the Pennsylvania Public School Code, federal and state “Right to Know” acts, Pennsylvania’s “Sunshine Act,” the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Title IX, and is able to advise public, private, non-profit, and for-profit schools and other educational entities on how those laws and others impact them.
With respect to insurance coverage disputes, Bonnie has represented insurers in sophisticated coverage matters and bad faith litigation and counseling across many coverages, including professional liability, directors and officers liability, errors and omissions, general liability, and theft and crime coverage.
Bonnie contributes her skills within the firm as well, holding several important leadership positions. She is a member of the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Strategic Planning Committee, and formerly chaired the Marketing and Business Development Committee and the Associate Development Committee. She also serves as a mentor to numerous associates and paralegals. Before becoming a shareholder, she was chosen by her peers to serve as the Associate Observer to the Board of Directors and she currently serves as the firm’s liaison between our paralegal staff and the Board.
Bonnie graduated magna cum laude from Villanova University School of Law in 2005. While at Villanova, she was a member of the Moot Court Board and served on the Executive Board Committee. She received her M.A. in Political Science from Lehigh University. Bonnie also graduated from Lehigh University with a B.A. and high honors in Political Science.
Representative Education Matters
- Defending a school district in a class action lawsuit regarding its special education ESY services.
- Representing a school district in connection with a charter school’s attempt to appeal the district’s denial of its charter school application.
- Defending a private preschool against charges of unlawful discrimination in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, stemming from a complaint by parents that the school discriminated against a student based on the student’s disability when the school disenrolled the student.
- Representing a cyber charter school in a dispute with the Pennsylvania Department of Education regarding the school’s charter.
- Drafting and revising a charter school’s student-parent handbook, including all federal and state required policies.
- Representing schools in connection with student disciplinary matters and hearings.
- Representing schools in special education due process matters and hearings.
Representative Insurance Matters
- Obtained a summary judgment decision for Liberty Insurance Underwriters Inc. in the Connecticut Superior Court in Hartford. The court held that the stipulated judgment’s award constituted restitution, and, in a matter of first impression in Connecticut, found that restitution is uninsurable under Connecticut law. The court also held in the alternative that the policy exclusion applied, and it dismissed the plaintiffs’ bad faith claim.
- Represented two insurers against a large managed care company in which a federal district court granted summary judgment to insurers dismissing a $350 million claim.
- Defending an insurer in coverage and bad faith litigation over the insurer’s denial of coverage under a Crime Coverage policy for losses allegedly incurred as the result of alleged thefts and funds-transfer fraud allegedly perpetrated by the Officers and Directors of the company over a period of many years and which totaled nearly $20 million; obtained summary judgment on insured’s bad faith claim.
- Representing an insurer in coverage and bad faith litigation over the insurer’s refusal to fund settlement of an action brought by a bankruptcy trustee in which the trustee alleged that the insured improperly orchestrated a leveraged buyout and dividend recapitalization which caused the acquired company to take on $710 million in debt, and ultimately causing it to go bankrupt.