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The following is a list of our most recent events. Click on the links for more information or contact us at events@raynesmccarty.com
01/28/2009
Jim Mundy and Gerald McHugh Make "Report 100" List for Third Year in a Row
The Pennsylvania Report, a premier news source on Pennsylvania politics, for the third year in a row listed Jim Mundy and Gerald McHugh among the Top 100 Most Influential People in State Public Affairs....Details >>
12/01/2008
Pennsylvania Superior Court Rules in Favor of Raynes McCarty Client
Mother, who during her pregnancy, was misled by doctors as to the health of her baby, may hold the doctors responsible for the distress caused her by not being emotionally prepared for a child with severe disabilities....Details >>
11/12/2008
Martin Brigham selected as one of the World’s Leading Product Liability Lawyers.
Marty was nominated by a survey of other prominent attorneys to appear in the 2009 Guide to the World’s Leading Product Liability Lawyers....Details >>
10/29/2008
Raynes McCarty paralegal Donna M. Colarulo, R.P. serving on the Board of Advisors for Widener University’s paralegal training program.
As a member of the Board of Advisors Legal Education Program, Ms. Colarulo participates in panel discussions regarding decisions affecting the curriculum for Widener University’s paralegal training programs....Details >>
10/20/2008
Five Raynes McCarty lawyers recognized by Best Lawyers in America
Best Lawyers in America selected Marty Brigham, Roy DeCaro, Harold Goodman, Jerry McHugh and Stephen Raynes for inclusion in its 2009 edition....Details >>
10/20/2008
Jerry McHugh featured speaker at Pennsylvania Association for Justice Masters Series
Raynes McCarty lawyer Gerald A. McHugh, Jr. was the featured speaker at a PaAJ Masters Series continuing legal education program titled Perspectives on the Critical Components of a Trial....Details >>
10/20/2008
Tim Lawn featured speaker at Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association’s Luncheon Lecture Series
Raynes McCarty lawyer Timothy Lawn will speak at the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association’s November 3, 2008 continuing legal education program titled Proving Difficult Medical Malpractice Issues. ...Details >>
09/01/2008
Philadelphia jury awards Raynes McCarty client $950,000.00 for eye injuries caused by defective plastic flying disc.
After a two-day trial, a jury awarded the Raynes McCarty client $950,000.00 for a laceration to his eye caused by a shard of plastic that splintered from a broken flying disc....Details >>
09/01/2008
Philadelphia jury awards Raynes McCarty client $950,000.00 for eye injuries caused by defective plastic flying disc.
After a two-day trial, a jury awarded the Raynes McCarty client $950,000.00 for a laceration to his eye caused by a shard of plastic that splintered from a broken flying disc....Details >>
04/16/2008
Gerald McHugh and wife Maureen Tate were honored by Friends for Effective Education (FFEE) at the Tribute Medallion Award Dinner on April 16, 2008
The Award recognizes McHugh and Tate’s lifelong dedication to community service, while at the same time raising funds for the St. Francis de Sales Elementary School, in keeping with FFEE’s purpose of providing monetary support to schools that exhibit educational leadership....Details >>
03/31/2008
Regina M. Foley appointed to Philadelphia Bar Association Board of Governors.
Regina M. Foley was appointed to serve a one year term on the Board of Governors of the Philadelphia Bar Association by Chancellor Michael A. Pratt....Details >>
03/21/2008
Regina M. Foley spoke April 9, 2008 at Continuing Legal Education seminar.
Ms. Foley updated plaintiffs’ and defense attorneys alike on recent developments in products liability law at The Dispute Resolution Institute’s Personal Injury Potpourri....Details >>
03/20/2008
Jenimae Almquist named co-chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Advancing Civics Education (A.C.E.) program.
Raynes McCarty’s Jenimae Almquist and co-chair Barbara Potts, are leading members of the Bar Association in a program to provide supplemental civics education to Philadelphia area public school students starting in the Fall of 2008.
...Details >>
02/08/2008
Jim Mundy and Gerald McHugh Make Pennsylvania Report 100
The Pennsylvania Report, a premier news source on Pennsylvania politics, for the second year in a row listed Jim Mundy and Gerald McHugh among the Top 100 Most Influential People in State Public Affairs....Details >>
01/29/2008
Jenimae Almquist serves on Philadelphia Bar Association panel on work-family balance.
Raynes McCarty attorney Jenimae Almquist spoke at the program titled “How to Have It All - The Career and the Family,” organized by the bar association’s Women in the Profession Committee.
...Details >>
01/24/2008
Roy DeCaro Speaks at Philadelphia Trial Lawyers
On January 24, 2008, Roy DeCaro spoke to fellow trial attorneys about the steps he took to help secure the $5,000,000.00 verdict his client received in a recent product liability trial. ...Details >>
11/28/2007
Jury Awards $2.9 Mil. for Death Stemming from Blood Clot
A Philadelphia jury awarded $2.9 million to the wife of a bariatric surgery patient who died from a blood clot that traveled to his lungs after his post-surgical leg blood clots allegedly went untreated for 10 days. The verdict was in the Legal Intelligencer’s list of the Top 50 Verdicts and Settlements of 2007....Details >>
11/06/2007
$5 Million Verdict Upheld in Phila. Infant Tylenol Case
A Philadelphia judge has upheld a $5 million verdict rendered over a 1-year-old’s death allegedly due to liver failure from an overdose of Infants’ Tylenol....Details >>
09/12/2007
Raynes McCarty Distinguished Lecture in Health Law scheduled for October 9, 2007
Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin, visiting professor of Law at the University of Chicago, will be the featured speaker at the Raynes McCarty Distinguished Lecture in Health Law which is jointly sponsored with Widener University School of Law.
...Details >>
09/10/2007
Best Lawyers ranks Raynes McCarty #1 In Philadelphia Personal Injury Litigation Firms
Best Lawyers in America is the oldest and most widely respected peer-review publication in the legal profession. It has announced its results for 2008, ranking Raynes McCarty as the Number 0ne personal injury litigation firm in Philadelphia, PA. Recognized for individual inclusion in Best Lawyers were: Marty Brigham, Roy DeCaro, Harold Goodman, Jerry McHugh and Stephen Raynes....Details >>
09/09/2007
Marty Brigham presenting at Visual Legal Advocacy Roundtable at Penn Law on October 19, 2007
Marty Brigham will be a featured speaker at the "Visual Legal Advocacy Roundtable" being held at Penn Law School. Marty will discuss his pioneering work on videotape settlement presentations....Details >>
05/04/2007
Federal Judge Lauds Firm’s Donation to Support Center for Child Advocates
Describing it as “an example of our Bar at its best”, United States District Court Judge, Stewart Dalzell commends Raynes McCarty’s $10,000.00 donation to the Support Center for Child Advocates....Details >>
05/01/2007
Marty Brigham honored in world-wide survey
The Legal Media Group ("LMG"), based in London, England, has just announced the selection of Raynes McCarty's Marty Brigham for inclusion in its "2007 Guide to the World's Leading Product Liability Lawyers." ...Details >>
03/15/2007
3rd Circuit Affirms $7.4 Mil. Verdict in Suit Against VA
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a $7.4 million verdict obtained by Raynes McCarty's Jerry McHugh and Regina Foley against the Department of Veterans Affairs stemming from its decision to expel a Delaware County man who suffered from “rage disorder” and just one day later murdered two of his children and two of their friends.
...Details >>
02/16/2007
Top 100 Most Influential People in State Public Affairs
Two Raynes McCarty Attorneys Identified as Top 100 Most Influential People in State Public Affairs...Details >>
02/07/2007
$1,750,000.00 Civil Rights Settlement for Widow of Undercover Officer Killed by Fellow Policeman
On February 2, 2007, Judge Stewart Dalzell approved a settlement by the City of Reading in a civil rights law suit filed by Gerald McHugh on behalf of the widow of a Reading police officer. The undercover officer - Michael H. Wise, II - died on June 4, 2004, when he was struck by a bullet fired by a fellow member of the Reading police force. ...Details >>
01/08/2007
Roy DeCaro and Stephen Raynes selected to be among 500 Best Plaintiff Lawyers
Roy DeCaro and Stephen Raynes were named as being among the 500 Best Plaintiff Lawyers in the United States by the Publication "Lawdragon."...Details >>
12/01/2006
$5 million verdict for child who died from liver damage caused by Tylenol
Roy DeCaro was the lead trial attorney for the family of a one year old child who died from liver failure caused by Tylenol. Mr. DeCaro convinced the jury that the drug company provided misleading and inadequate warnings about the concentration and toxicity of Infants’ Tylenol. The jury awarded the family $5,000,000.00 for the loss of their child. Recently, the trial court rejected the drug company’s request to overturn the verdict. ...Details >>
10/17/2006
Martin Brigham Honored
Martin Brigham received a lifetime achievement award from the Philadelphia area Occupational Safety and Health Project...Details >>
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THE POWER OF THE INDIVIDUAL
A Bridge Back to Society
Through the Efforts of a Center City Lawyer and a Catholic Brother,
Hospitality House Offers Ex-Offenders the Chance to Escape the Cycle of Crime.
By Mary Hanssens
The distance from Washington Square to Norris Square is slight, but the two are worlds apart. The view from Washington Square in downtown Philadelphia is scenic and peaceful, as offices and apartments surround a historic site. The view from Norris Square in Kensington is often disturbing, as aging buildings surround a microcosm of the problems confronting American cities.
Spanning these two contrasts is a partnership forged by a Center City lawyer and a Catholic brother to combat the worst ills of city life—crime and addiction—with a residential program for ex-offenders called Hospitality House.
The work began ten years ago when Sister Peter Claver moved to a convent in Northeast Philadelphia. Although in her eighties, Sister Peter began a ministry to men in prison and quickly realized the need for services to reintegrate them into the community upon their release. She recruited people in the criminal justice system to help convert her ambitious ideal into reality.
One of the recruits was Philadelphia trial lawyer Gerald McHugh. In his professional life, McHugh is a protégé of legendary advocate S. Gerald Litvin, but before settling into Washington Square, McHugh had seen another side of life, having taught in the Philadelphia prisons and written a book on prison ministry.
Hospitality House first opened its doors on the third floor of an operating Catholic rectory in West Philadelphia. “It was like a Bing Crosby movie, with these two heroic advocates for the poor, Sister Peter and Father Jim Daly, the pastor, raising funds and rallying the parish to support a hard-nosed group of ex-convicts,” McHugh says. “Children in the parish school even raised money with a candy drive.”
Despite such inspirational support, the program was in danger of faltering for lack of a director to supervise its operation full time. “Good intentions do not make a program,” McHugh says. “No one was prepared for the complexity of the undertaking.”
Enter Joseph Dudek, a brother in the same religious order as Sister Peter, who had worked in the Hough Section of Cleveland, where the first urban riot of the 1960s erupted. The son of a Pittsburgh electrician, Brother Joe has a down-to-earth manner of relating to people and a hands-on approach to solving problems, which McHugh describes as a “blue-collar” ethic.
Brother Joe moved into the rectory and quickly concluded that it was not practical for housing ex-offenders, whose habits sometimes clashed with parish life.
“The last straw might have been the morning the mother superior from the convent notice a fire ladder hanging from one of our windows,” Dudek recalls. A quick check revealed that the ladder had been used to smuggle in a resident’s girlfriend, with the two “engaging in conduct a celibate religious was not intended to see.”
The program moved to a house in Germantown owned by a board member of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, and McHugh soon realized he would need to advise the program’s board of directors on subjects that, as a litigator, he knew nothing about – zoning, licensing, non-profit status, tax exemptions. He embarked on a mission of continuing legal education volunteered by former law school classmates. He also learned that a struggling new program didn’t always have the luxury of operating in strict compliance with code. “I would tell Joe how many residents we could take according to L&I, and he would tell me the most creative way of stretching the rules.”
The program survived the move away from its parish roots and started to evolve into something more sophisticated than a simple shelter. Dudek settled into his role as program director, and McHugh assumed chairmanship of the board of directors.
“We didn’t want to be just an address for the parole board,” Dudek says. “We wanted to create an environment where there was some chance, however, difficult it might be, for men to escape the cycle of crime.”
The program’s basic premise always has been to stress responsibility and self-reliance as its residents become reacclimated to life outside prison. Each resident is asked to sign a social contract and is expected to contribute a percentage of his income, whatever it might be, to program support. The residents’ needs are varied. Job skills among ex-offenders are scarce, and many lack a high school education. A vast majority also have drug and alcohol dependencies, requiring therapy and sometimes detoxification.
The variety of needs required a variety of responses, all of which required money. As a result, Dudek and McHugh were forced into the unwelcome role of fund-raisers. “Promoting the cause of ex-offenders does not have quite the same sentimental appeal as healing the sick and the lame,” Dudek says. Writing proposals, soliciting corporations and developing political contacts became the principal order of business. Volunteers filled the gaps when services could not be funded, and at times laid off staff members would continue to work without pay.
The greatest difficulty in attracting support always has been the misconception that programs for ex-offenders are soft on crime, a view Dudek rejects. “There is a false dichotomy in public thinking that one has to be either pro-enforcement or pro-rehabilitation, which is nonsense,” he says. “The two goals have to interrelate, or neither will be effective. That’s why we insist residents be responsible for their actions even as we work to support them.”
Ironically, while promoting rehabilitation through Hospitality House, McHugh was negotiating with the city to establish a police mini-station in his West Philadelphia neighborhood and participating in drug vigils to drive crack dealers off corners. “Don’t even try to tell someone who has been followed home by drug dealers he’s naive about crime,” McHugh says.
The program’s unsentimental approach is illustrated in its hiring of ex-offenders, including program graduates – on the theory that the hardest person for an addict or ex-convict to fool someone with a similar past. The approach has been successful, winning the attention of Sheriff John Green and earning the program a commendation from City Council.
In 1990, the program took its greatest gamble, taking over two large properties on Norris Square that had been centers for the homeless. Although the properties were fully licensed and zoned and provided ample space to operate, they also increased the program’s overhead. The financial survival of Hospitality House was in doubt.
To ease the strain, the program’s board of directors voted to contract with the Department of Corrections to help formally supervise inmates on parole. Until that time, Hospitality House had refused the entanglement of government contacts, fearful that the combination of red tape and legal responsibility for parolees might compromise its principles. Ideology yielded to necessity, however, and the program began accepting referrals of parole violators who face reincarceration but are sent instead to Hospitality House for one last chance.
Some parole officials were skeptical of the program’s seriousness, but over time the willingness of the staff to hold residents responsible for their conduct won over most of the doubters. Hospitality House is never at a loss for residents.
Most recently, Hospitality House earned certification as a drug and alcohol-treatment center through the efforts of an ex-offender staff member who completed the necessary training and set up a treatment protocol to meet state licensing requirements. Even that achievement was not without difficulty, though. Welfare officials in charge of reimbursements were uncomfortable at first with ex-offenders’ holding key staff positions, again leaving the program with greater commitments than it had resources.
For Hospitality House, surviving against the odds is hardly new. And so Brother Joe will continue to head downtown (only now to the Widener Building), or McHugh will head north after a day of depositions, to meet with other board members to find new paths to explore. After ten years, they simply refuse to believe there is any obstacle that can’t be overcome.
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