[ News Article ]
Progress Made on Chancellor Dalton's Goals
By Amaris Elliott-Engel
December 27, 2007
The Legal Intelligencer
Philadelphia Bar Association Chancellor Jane Leslie Dalton had three goals for her leadership during 2007: promoting judicial independence, tackling Philadelphia's business climate and diversifying the bar's membership.
Dalton is pleased on two of those three goals: judicial independence and diversifying the bar's membership. She was a vociferous opponent of the PACleanSweep political action committee and other reform groups' calls to reject all judges up for retention on Nov. 6. The retention campaign was a lion's whimper, not a lion's roar, on Election Day. On the diversity front, the bar association adopted a new call to action on the retention and promotion of women attorneys, and section chairs began to seek younger lawyers to participate in the sections, Dalton said in an interview in November.
Dalton saw some success on her business goals, including the bar's sponsorship of a program, in conjunction with some of the city's minority chambers of commerce, on legal issues affecting small-business owners, establishing an exchange program between the Philadelphia Bar Association and the Israel Bar Association, and meeting with other countries' consuls.
But her goal of lobbying City Council to reform Philadelphia's tax scheme, including the adoption of recommendations from the Philadelphia Tax Reform Commission, and to decrease the amount law firms pay in the business privilege tax on professional service entities flopped because "Mayor Street was not interested in tax reform," Dalton said.
Dalton is not the first chancellor who has wanted to see the repeal of the business privilege tax, and incoming Chancellor A. Michael Pratt has reiterated repeal of the business privilege tax as one of his goals for 2008.
Judicial Independence
Dalton, Duane Morris' first female partner, has been an ardent advocate of judges, including serving as one of the attorneys for the group of common pleas judges from across the state that convinced the state Supreme Court to reinstate the judicial salary increases in Stilp v. Commonwealth.
During her address in 2006 about her year of leadership of the bar, she vowed to defend judges because the judiciary, "the most vulnerable branch of our government," couldn't speak out on their own behalf.
Some of Dalton's efforts to push for judicial independence were uncontroversial, such as the ads sponsored by the bar association's political action committee to alert voters about the ratings of judicial candidates by the association's judicial commission.
But two of Dalton's efforts to address issues of judicial independence created some conflict.
In April, Dalton sought the passage of a resolution "supporting the profession's respect for the judiciary." The resolution also urged every Pennsylvania attorney to refrain from making "unjustified and unsubstantiated comments that reflect upon the integrity of the judiciary."
The resolution stemmed in part from comments Duquesne University law professor Bruce Ledewitz gave during a February hearing of the Senate state government committee, during which he called the high court's 2006 pay-raise decision a "judicial swindle," The Legal previously reported. During an interview after the hearing quoted in the Beaver County Times, he said the justices were even more corrupt than the General Assembly.
Then in late March, during a hearing in Harrisburg, Ledewitz told a state Senate committee investigating judicial compensation that Justice Ronald D. Castille — author of the court's 2006 decision in Stilp v. Commonwealth — had threatened to bring disciplinary charges against him in a letter to Duquesne professor Kenneth E. Gormley.
Dalton told the Board of Governors that Ledewitz had gotten all the press and no one had called him out on his conduct. But the Board of Governors was reluctant to adopt Dalton's proposed resolution out of concern that it would be chilling to criticism of the judiciary. Dalton withdrew the resolution voluntarily, and the board agreed that Dalton had the authority as chancellor to defend unwarranted attacks on the judiciary on behalf of the bar association.
In October, Dalton's exercise of her authority drew heat when she issued a statement decrying a ruling by a Philadelphia municipal court judge in a rape case.
Dalton said Municipal Court Judge Teresa Carr Deni's ruling in a rape case that brought charges against a man who allegedly raped a prostitute at gunpoint down from rape to "theft of services" was a "miscarriage of justice."
At least one member of the board, Assistant Treasurer Jeffrey M. Lindy, said Dalton's comments undermined the bar's efforts to support and promote judicial independence.
"Her comments have perhaps undone what the bar association has struggled to do for decades," Lindy said of the bar's efforts to uphold judicial independence in an interview with The Legal.
Dalton countered that judicial independence is about the rule of law and a judge's ability to follow that rule of law no matter how unpopular. Dalton said that after reading the transcript in the case it was clear to her that Deni was ruling based on personal beliefs and not the rule of law.
"Judge Deni's belief that because the victim had originally intended to have sex for money and decided not to because she didn't get paid posits that a woman cannot change her mind about having sex or withdraw her consent to do so, regardless of the circumstances," Dalton said in her statement. "We cannot imagine any circumstances more violent or coercive than having sex with four men at gunpoint."
According to reports in the Philadelphia Daily News, the victim allegedly made arrangements through a Web site to meet the defendant for sex, and she was to be paid $150 for one hour. When she arrived, she allegedly agreed to have sex with a friend of the defendant for an additional $100. The friend showed up with no money, a gun was pulled and more men arrived, according to the report.
Deni told the Daily News a case like this "minimizes true rape cases."
Other bar issues
The bar made headway on its goal — first stated in March 2005 by then bar-chancellor Andrew Chirls — that the city's dominant Democratic Party not endorse judicial candidates in the spring that were not on the recommended list of the association's Commission on Judicial Selection and Retention. In 2007, no judicial candidates were endorsed by the Democrats that also didn't have a bar association recommendation, Dalton said. In contrast, in 2005, the party selected a candidate that had not been recommended by the bar commission. But, then, of the eight candidates endorsed by Democrats for 2005's judicial seats, only four won in the primary.
Dalton said earlier this year those kinds of election results showed that more than the party nod was needed to win a seat on the bench.
While the Democratic leaders may have gotten with the bar's program, that didn't mean the voters did. Two jurists, Philadelphia Municipal Court Judges Georganne V. Daher and Deborah S. Griffin, deemed not recommended for retention in the Nov. 6 general election, were retained. Daher was retained by 68.2 percent of the vote, and Deni was retained by 65.9 percent of the vote. Law firms were slower to commit during the second year of the Raising the Bar fundraising campaign, benefiting public interest law groups.
In mid-October, 87 firms had made the commitment to contribute at least $300 per each of their attorneys toward public interest law firms, while 118 firms had signed up by mid-October 2006. By early December, 110 firms had joined. In 2006, 133 firms signed up.
Alan Feldman, of Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner & Weinstock, who started the campaign during his 2006 chancellorship and was one of campaign 2007's co-chairmen, expressed disappointment earlier this year that there wasn't significantly more growth in the campaign, but he was pleased that so many firms returned for the second year.
Pratt called this fall for a dramatic expansion in the campaign. The incoming chancellor said that firms should increase their legal services giving by 10 percent in each of the next three years.
Issues of Diversity
Issues of diversity were another big theme for the bar association in 2007.
The Minorities in the Profession Committee discussed how plaintiffs firms must cast a wider net in their search for candidates for attorney openings in order to hire more minority attorneys. A chancellor's forum was held in April with speakers from corporations on best business practices for diversity. And in September, the bar association followed up its 1998 "Statement of Goals of Philadelphia Law Firms and Legal Departments for the Retention and Promotion of Women" by adopting a "Call to Action" and "Best Practices for the Retention and Promotion of Women Attorneys."
In an era in which women have entered law school and lower-level associate ranks at law firms and corporate legal departments at an equivalent rate to men, the returns on that gender representation have not shown up at the leadership, partner or general counsel levels.
On average, 44.96 percent of law firm associates are women, 25.93 percent of non-equity partners are women, 15.64 percent of equity partners are women and 27.94 percent of "of counsel" attorneys are women, according to the first-ever national survey by the National Association of Women Lawyers.
The best practices has an updated focus on more active policies, such as providing leadership training to women attorneys, including gender diversity in firm business plans, formalizing mentoring programs, and ensuring that gender-neutral policies start with management's leadership and permeate down to the entry level.
Fifty-three firms are signatories to the statement of goals that called for full and equal participation of women, the retention of women and the promotion of women. The bar association hopes to have at least that many firms become signatories to 2007's push for full and equal participation of women.
This article originally appeared in The Legal Intelligencer and is republished here with permission from law.com.