Philadelphia, PA – June 7, 2004 – LAWFUEL – Pepper Hamilton LLP announced that Joseph A. Sullivan, an experienced litigator and pro bono attorney, has accepted an offer to join the firm as Special Counsel and Director of Pro Bono, a position newly created by the firm. He will start on June 28.
“Joe has an outstanding reputation in pro bono circles and is a terrific fit for our new position,” said Robert E. Heideck, Pepper’s executive partner. “As a firm, we have a great history of pro bono service, and we are very active in the community. In creating the new position, we were looking for an individual who could manage our firm-wide pro bono program, complement it by actively participating in pro bono engagements, expand its internal reach and effectiveness, and further develop it by attracting additional high-level pro bono opportunities for our lawyers. Joe will do all that, and more.”
Mr. Sullivan is counsel with Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis in Philadelphia, where he is an administrator of the firm’s Litigation Services Department and director of its pro bono program. He has a broad commercial litigation practice, and he supervises and coordinates all aspects of the delivery of pro bono legal services, including outreach to bar associations, public interest law firms, business entities and community organizations.
“I am extremely excited about joining Pepper,” said Mr. Sullivan. “While I value greatly the years I have spent at Schnader, this opportunity is just too good to pass up. I will be focusing my practice on pro bono matters – a passion of mine – and I will be building upon the outstanding pro bono work of Pepper lawyers.”
Mr. Sullivan is a committed community citizen. He serves on the boards of Community Legal Services, the Homeless Advocacy Project (of which he is past president) and Inn Dwelling (a community development organization for which he is board president and legal advisor), and he is active in a number of other organizations, including the Philadelphia Volunteers for the Indigent Program. He serves as counsel to the Board of Governors of the Philadelphia Bar Association, and he has served as an independent counsel to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and as a legal advisor to the Philadelphia School Reform Commission.
He is a past recipient of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Louis J. Goffman Award (the highest honor for pro bono service) and its Pro Bono Award for Philadelphia County.
Mr. Sullivan is a 1987 graduate of Columbia Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. After law school, he spent two years clerking for the Honorable Anna Diggs Taylor of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Mr. Sullivan received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University in 1980.
Pepper has a long tradition of serving the communities in which it has offices, and encourages each of its lawyers to provide pro bono legal services. For more than four decades, Pepper lawyers have accepted unpopular and challenging cases, participating in pro bono activities ranging from death penalty litigation to civil rights class actions to individual civil matters for indigents. The firm contributes thousands of hours of professional time each year to public interest matters.
Pepper Hamilton LLP is a multi-practice law firm with 400 lawyers in five states and the District of Columbia. The firm provides corporate, litigation and regulatory legal services to leading businesses, governmental entities, nonprofit organizations and individuals throughout the nation and the world. The firm was founded in 1890.
