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David M. Jordan, prolific author, historian, and longtime lawyer, has died at 91

David M. Jordan, 91, formerly of Jenkintown, prolific author, eclectic historian, retired lawyer, former president of the Jenkintown Borough Council, veteran, and lifelong baseball fan, died Saturday, Jan. 24, of sepsis at Bryn Mawr Hospital.

Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Jordan grew up in Wyncote, Abington, and Huntingdon Valley in Montgomery County. He played high school baseball, graduated from William Penn Charter School, and earned his law degree at what is now the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey School of Law.

He was fanatical about the old Philadelphia Athletics baseball team that moved to Kansas City in 1954 and later, a bit reluctantly, followed the Phillies. He attended the Phillies’ last home game at long-gone Connie Mack Stadium in 1970, their first and last home games at long-gone Veterans Stadium in 1971 and 2003, and their first home game at Citizens Bank Park in 2004.

He shared his fascination with baseball by writing books about the Athletics and Phillies, iconic stadiums around the country, and star players Pete Rose and Hal Newhouser. Newhouser even credited Mr. Jordan’s 1990 book, A Tiger in His Time: Hal Newhouser and the Burden of Wartime Ball, with helping him get elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992.

Writing “seemed to come naturally,” Mr. Jordan told the Princeton University Alumni Weekly in 2017. “I enjoy the creative part, to put my thoughts down on paper on a subject I have picked out for particular reasons.”

He wrote The Athletics of Philadelphia in 1999, and a reviewer for the Baseball Almanac said: “Jordan’s account is full of fascinating insights and interesting stories that make this fine franchise and those associated with it come alive.” He was interested in politics as well and built on his 1956 senior thesis research at Princeton by writing Roscoe Conkling of New York: Voice in the Senate in 1971.

The 477-page book was considered for a Pulitzer Prize, and a reviewer for the journal Pennsylvania History called it “readable and well-balanced” in a review. He said Mr. Jordan’s “treatment of Conkling is judicious, avoiding the pitfalls of hero worship or cynicism.”

He also wrote history books about Civil War generals Winfield Scott Hancock and Gouverneur K. Warren, former Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett, and the 1944 presidential election. In 1989, a book reviewer for The Inquirer called Mr. Jordan’s Winfield Scott Hancock: A Soldier’s Life “a complete life of Montgomery County’s greatest son, and it, too, is superb.”

Mr. Jordan, shown here at General Winfield Scott Hancock’s tomb in Montgomery County, did deep research on his book subjects.

“These people are sort of lost in history,” Mr. Jordan told The Inquirer in 2000. “But with people who are fairly well known, it’s hard to find something new to say about them.”

Mr. Jordan earned his law degree at Penn in 1959 and specialized in trust, estate, and municipal issues for 40 years in Philadelphia and later as a partner at Wisler Pearlstine in Montgomery County. He said in 2000 that he usually worked on his books every night after work from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. and on weekends. “I don’t watch much television,” he said.

He traveled to New York, Missouri, California, and elsewhere to visit historical sites and research his subjects. He was a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and president of the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society for 12 years in the 2000s.

He lectured often about baseball at symposiums and conventions, and was featured in The Inquirer and on podcasts. “He had a passion for knowledge,” his daughter Diana said. “He was a consumer of information.”

This 1990 book by Mr. Jordan was said to have helped Hal Newhouser get into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992.

Mr. Jordan became active in Democratic politics after college in the 1960s and served as president of the Jenkintown Borough Council, Democratic state committeeman, and state platform committeeman. As Montgomery County Democratic chair in the 1970s, he told The Inquirer that he disliked gerrymandering and favored giving county executives extensive staff appointment powers.

He enlisted in the Army after law school. “He was absolutely the most congenial person,” his daughter Diana said. “He was kind and caring.”

David Malcolm Jordan was born Jan. 5, 1935. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history at Princeton, was secretary and president of the Class of 1956, and returned to the campus often for reunions and other events.

He married Barbara James in 1960, and they had daughters Diana, Laura, and Sarah, and lived in Jenkintown. His wife died in 2006. He married Jean Missimer Liddell in 2007, and they lived in Wayne and Haverford.

His daughter Diana said Mr. Jordan “never stopped. He was passionate about everything.”

Mr. Jordan enjoyed college basketball games at Penn’s Palestra, especially if Princeton was in town. He went to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York often and collected baseball cards and stamps. He was an avid reader and on the board at the Jenkintown Library.

“I guess I just had a lot of available energy to practice law, write books, and help run Jenkintown,” he told the Princeton Alumni Weekly. “It didn’t seem so hard at the time, though looking back makes me wonder.”

His daughter Diana said: “He never stopped. He was passionate about everything.”

In addition to his wife and daughters, Mr. Jordan is survived by three grandchildren, a sister, and other relatives. A brother died earlier.

This 1971 book by Mr. Jordan was based on his interest in politics and history.

A private celebration of his life is to be held later.

Donations in his name may be made to the Jenkintown Library, 460 York Rd., Jenkintown, Pa., 19046.

February 12, 2026
Sandra Schultz Newman, the first woman elected to the Pa. Supreme Court, has died at 87

Sandra Schultz Newman, 87, of Gladwyne, Montgomery County, the first woman elected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the first female assistant district attorney in Montgomery County, the first woman named to the board of directors of the old Royal Bank of Pennsylvania, longtime private practice attorney, role model, mentor, and colorful “Philadelphia icon,” died Monday, Feb. 2. Her family did not disclose the cause of her death.

Reared in South Philadelphia and Wynnefield, and a graduate of Drexel, Temple, and Villanova Universities, Justice Newman, a Republican, was elected to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania in November 1993 and to the state Supreme Court in 1995. She won a second 10-year term on the Supreme Court in 2005 but, having to step down in just two years due to a mandatory retirement age, left at the end of 2006.

“I love the court. I love my colleagues. The collegiality was great, and I’m going to miss that,” Justice Newman told The Inquirer. “But I just felt like I wanted to move on.”

During her 10-year tenure, Justice Newman was chair of the Supreme Court’s Judicial Council Committee on Judicial Safety and Preparedness and the court’s liaison to Common Pleas Court and Municipal Court in Philadelphia. She ruled on hundreds of issues and wrote opinions about all kinds of landmark cases, from environmental protections to school funding to clergy privilege to the Gary Heidnik and John E. du Pont murder cases.

She had worked in criminal and family law and handled many divorce and custody cases as a private attorney in the 1980s, and was praised later by court observers for her attention to Philadelphia Family Court matters. Lynn Marks, of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, told the Daily News in 2005: “She’s been a wonderful justice, and she’s made herself accessible to the public interest community.”

In 2025, her colleagues on the Supreme Court named their Philadelphia courtroom after her. “She was a remarkable jurist, public servant, and trailblazer for women, whose work and impact will leave a legacy beyond the bench,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Debra Todd said in a tribute.

News outlets across the state covered Justice Newman’s election to the Supreme Court as she campaigned in 1995, and she easily collected more votes in the Nov. 7 election than any of the other three candidates, all men. She told the Daily Item in Sunbury, Pa., in September ’95: “I don’t think anyone should be elected solely on their gender. But I don’t think anybody should not be elected because of it, either.”

Justice Newman touted her collegiality and feminine life experience during the 1995 campaign and told The Inquirer she wanted to be a “role model for everyone in Pennsylvania.” She told the Press Enterprise in Bloomsburg, Pa.: “I think I can bring a sensitivity and understanding on many issues, such as criminal issues like rape. I have a deep sense for the need of a safe society.”

Justice Newman speaks in 2025 during the ceremony in which the Supreme Court named its Philadelphia courtroom after her.

After her election, Inquirer staff writer Robert Zausnersaid: “Wealthy yet down-to-earth, Newman talked often during the campaign about her grandchildren and insisted that people ‘call me Sandy’ once she was outside her courtroom.”

Former Gov. Tom Ridge called Justice Newman a “pioneering legal giant” and said she “inspired generations of legal professionals across the Commonwealth.” Ezra Wohlgelernter, chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, noted her “pathbreaking career” and “valuable service to our city and to the Commonwealth” in a tribute.

Either “the first” or “the only” in many of her professional pursuits, Justice Newman was called a “Philadelphia icon,” “a force of nature,” and a “beautiful and radiant star” in online tributes. She flirted with running for political office several times and was colorfully profiled in Philadelphia Magazine in 1988. In that story, writer Lisa DePaulo called her “part woman/part tigress.”

She famously endorsed a controversial cosmetic product on TV in 2006 and attended many galas and charity auctions, and her name appeared in the society and opinion pages nearly as often as the news section. In a 1983 feature, Inquirer writer Mary Walton described Justice Newman as “beautiful … with tousled auburn hair and a slender figure that she liked to cloak in expensive designer clothes.”

Justice Newman was the only woman on the state Supreme Court in 2002.

A friend said online she was “irrepressible in an Auntie Mame sort of way.” Another said: “The world has become a little quieter.”

Justice Newman served as the first female assistant district attorney in Montgomery County from 1972 to 1974 and was an in-demand, high-profile partner at Astor, Weiss & Newman from 1974 to 1993. She returned to private practice in 2006 and handled mostly alternative dispute resolution cases until recently.

She told the Press Enterprise in 1995 that colleagues in the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office had adorned her desk with a green plant on her first day in 1972. “It was marijuana from the evidence room,” she said.

She wrote papers and book chapters about trial practice, death penalty statutes, and the electoral system in Pennsylvania. She spoke about all kinds of legal topics at seminars, conferences, and other events.

This photo of Justice Newman, her husband, Julius, and grandson Shane was taken for The Inquirer after she won on Election Day in 1995.

She cofounded what is now the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law in 2006, was a trustee for Drexel’s College of Medicine, and received dozens of service and achievement awards from Drexel, Villanova, the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations, the Women’s Bar Association of Western Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Association for Justice, and other groups.

She was the president of boards, chair of many committees, and active with the National Association of Women Justices, the Juvenile Law Center, the American Law Institute, and other organizations. She taught law classes at the Delaware Law School of Widener University in 1984 and ’85, and at Villanova from 1986 to 1993.

She earned a bachelor’s degree at Drexel in 1959 and a master’s degree in hearing science at Temple in 1969. In 1972, she was one of a handful of women to get a law degree at what is now Villanova’s Charles Widger School of Law. Later, she received four honorary doctorate degrees and was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvaniaby then-Gov. Ridge in 1996.

Outside the courtroom, Justice Newman volunteered for charities and legal associations. She was part of a group that tried unsuccessfully to buy the Eagles from then-owner Leonard Tose in 1983, and she was criticized in the early 2000s for her financial involvement in a bungled long-running effort to fund a new Family Court Building in Philadelphia.

Justice Newman chats with philanthropists and business leaders Raymond G. Perelman (middle) and Joseph Neubauer at the gala opening of the new Barnes Museum in 2018.

“Justice Newman filled every room she entered with her strength, energy, and exuberance for life and for the law,” Supreme Court Justice P. Kevin Brobson said in a tribute. “She lived with intention and spent her entire career focused on creating and expanding opportunities for future generations of legal professionals, especially women.”

Sandra Schultz was born Nov. 4, 1938. She graduated from Overbook High School and married cosmetic surgeon Julius Newman in 1959. They had sons Jonathan and David, and lived in Wynnefield, Penn Valley, and Gladwyne.

Survivors give advice about mourning their loved ones, as told to The Inquirer’s obit writer

Her husband and son David died earlier. She married fellow lawyer Martin Weinberg in 2007, and their union was annulled 11 months later.

Justice Schultz was a longtime fashionista. She reveled in shopping trips to New York, and DePaulo reported in 1988 that her closet in Gladwyne was 800 square feet. She was also funny, generous, and kind, friends said.

Justice Newman dances with her grandson on Election Day in 1995. This photo appeared in the Daily News.

She funded several college scholarships, collected art, owned racehorses, cooked memorable matzo balls, enjoyed giving gifts, and tried to have dinner every night with her family. Sometimes, DePaulo reported, in the 1970s, she took her young sons to her law school classes at Villanova.

“Despite how busy she was, her family was always her priority,” said her brother, Mark. “She was also a true bipartisan who fought for equal rights and preserving our democratic institutions.”

In 2003, she was asked by Richard G. Freeman, editor in chief of the Philadelphia Lawyer, to describe her judicial decision-making process. She said: “There are beliefs that you have to put aside. One of the wonderful things about being on our court is that you can make new law where your beliefs fit into the law.”

In addition to her son Jonathan and brother, Justice Newman is survived by four grandchildren and other relatives. A grandson died earlier.

This photo of Justice Newman appeared in The Inquirer in 1983.

Services are private.

Donations in her name may be made to the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, 733 Third Ave., Suite 510, New York, N.Y. 10017.

Correction: One of the communities that Justice Schultz grew up in has been corrected.

February 6, 2026
Montco lawyer suspended for 3 years for misleading clients about settlements that didn’t exist

A Montgomery County attorney specializing in personal injury claims against large corporations has been suspended for three years following allegations that he misled at least 16 clients on settlement offers that did not exist.

Brian McCormick was a former partner at Ross Feller Casey, a Philadelphia-based personal injury firm. The conduct that led to his suspension revolves around misleading statements to clients he represented in two types of cases.

The first set of clients are those who alleged that using agricultural giant Monsanto‘s weed killer, Roundup, caused their cancer. These cases can be lucrative, as Philadelphia juries returned verdicts against Monsanto for millions, and even billions, of dollars.

Due to the large number of Roundup lawsuits, a federal court appointed a special master who developed a formula to calculate settlement amounts. At least nine of McCormick’s clients rejected the formula-proposed settlement and the attorney claimed he was attempting to obtain, or had obtained, higher offers, according to the suspension order issued last month by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Board.

McCormick went as far as to ask some clients to sign releases to obtain the nonexistent settlements. As his clients waited for their expected checks, according to the order, the attorney reassured them via emails, text messages, and voice messages between 2023 and January 2025 that the delays were part of the settlement process.

“[McCormick] did not settle any of the Roundup cases on behalf of the nine clients who rejected the formula determined settlement amount,” the order says.

Clients suing Monsanto weren’t the only ones McCormick misled. The attorney followed a similar pattern with at least seven clients who sued manufacturers of Risperdal, an antipsychotic drug that thousands of men said led them to develop excessive breast tissue, according to the disciplinary board.

McCormick promised settlement to his Risperdal clients, the order said, and at one time even gave a client a specific date on which he should pick up his check “knowing that no settlement check existed.”

Neither McCormick or the attorney who represented him during the disciplinary proceedings responded to a request for comment.

Ross Feller Casey terminated McCormick in January 2025 after finding that he had clients sign settlement agreements even though no settlements were reached.

“The firm’s owners terminated Mr. McCormick’s employment on the very same day they learned of his conduct, and they immediately took steps to ensure that the interests of all affected clients were protected,” said Mario Cattabiani, a spokesperson for Ross Feller Casey.

McCormick admitted to the misconduct and consented to the three-year suspension, the order says. The board noted that he “accepts full responsibility for his misconduct and is remorseful.”

February 3, 2026
Carl W. Schneider, longtime celebrated attorney and former SEC adviser, has died at 93

Carl W. Schneider, 93, of Philadelphia, retired longtime attorney at the old Wolf, Block, Schorr, & Solis-Cohen law firm, former special adviser to the Securities and Exchange Commission, visiting associate professor at what is now the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, writer, poet, mentor, and volunteer, died Thursday, Dec. 18, of pneumonia at Pennsylvania Hospital.

Mr. Schneider was an expert on corporate, business, and securities law, and he spent 42 years, from 1958 to his retirement in 2000, at Wolf, Block, Schorr, & Solis-Cohen in Philadelphia. He was adept at handling initial public offerings and analyzing stock exchange machinations, and he became partner in 1965 and chaired the corporate department for years.

Although he did not plan to specialize in securities law after graduating from Penn’s law school in 1956, Mr. Schneider told the American Bar Association in 1999: “I found this type of work to be challenging, gratifying, stimulating, and educational.”

He spent most of 1964 on leave from the law firm as a special adviser to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporation Finance in Washington. His recommendations to SEC officials regarding its public-offering process, disclosure system, civil liability rules, and arbitration procedure, many of which were ahead of their time, eventually led to modernization and reforms in the administration of federal securities laws. “I was cast in the role of the constructive critic,” he said in 1999.

He chaired committees for the Philadelphia and American Bar Associations and was active in leadership roles with the American Law Institute and other groups. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Harold H. Burton and Judge Herbert F. Goodrich of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for two years after graduating from law school.

He also taught classes as a visiting associate professor at Penn’s law school and lectured extensively elsewhere on the continuing legal education circuit. “I am aware of two personality traits that have shaped my career,” he said in 1999, “a need to fix things and a love of teaching.”

He spent the 1978-79 school year as head of Penn’s Center for Study of Financial Institutions and said in 1999 that he would have taught full time had he not enjoyed his legal work so much. “I was a practitioner,” he said, “and I tried to give my classes useful training to do what most practitioners do.”

Mr. Schneider wrote, cowrote, and edited dozens of scholarly articles, books, and pamphlets, including the celebrated Pennsylvania Corporate Practice and Forms manual in 1997. He also penned poetry, and used this stanza to open a chapter about boilerplate clauses in the Pennsylvania Corporate Practice and Forms manual:

Mr. Schneider and his wife, Mary Ellen, were inseparable for 68 years.

“The ending stuff gets little thought/Like notice, gender, choice of laws/If badly done you may get caught/With a provision full of flaws.”

He volunteered with what is now Jewish Family Service, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, Abramson Senior Care, and Congregation Rodeph Shalom. He mentored countless other lawyers and students, and agreed in 1972 to a request by The Inquirer’s Teen-Age Action Line to be interviewed in his office for a high school student’s research project.

“He was often described as brilliant, humble, a dry wit, and a great listener,” his family said in a tribute. “He gave everyone he spoke to the same time, attention, and respect.”

He was quoted often in The Inquirer and lectured about legal matters at conferences and panels. He earned several service and achievement awards and said in 1999: “I suppose I am one of those compulsives who cannot see something in the world important to him that is broken without feeling the need to repair it.”

Mr. Schneider and his wife, Mary Ellen, married in 1957.

Carl William Schneider was born April 27, 1932, in the Wynnefield section of Philadelphia. His family later moved to Elkins Park, Montgomery County, and he graduated from Cheltenham High School in 1949.

He knew he wanted to be a lawyer, like his father and grandfather, when he was young and said in a 2014 video interview at Penn that school was his favorite place. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Cornell University in 1953 and served on the law review at Penn.

He met Mary Ellen Baylinson through a mutual friend, and they married in 1957. They had sons Eric, Mark, and Adam and a daughter, Cara, and lived for years in Elkins Park. He and his wife moved to Center City in 2005.

Mr. Schneider enjoyed reading, bird-watching, photography, swimming, tennis, and springtime strolls through Rittenhouse Square. His favorite song was “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers.

Mr. Schneider drove his family across the country in a motorhome he nicknamed Herman.

He collected old-fashioned scales, spent quality time with family and friends on Long Beach Island, N.J., and drove cross-country on a family road trip in a motorhome he nicknamed Herman. He ran unsuccessfully for commissioner in Melrose Park in the 1960s.

He made sure to be home every night for dinner and drew smiley faces inside the capital C when he signed his name. “He never judged, never overreacted,” his daughter said.

Survivors give advice about mourning their loved ones, as told to The Inquirer’s obit writer

His son Adam said: “He was a gentle man but forthright and direct.” His son Mark said: “He had a moral code on how to live a life and never deviated from it.”

His son Eric said: “He left the world a better place.”

Mr. Schneider (center) and his family spent many Thanksgivings together.

In addition to his wife and children, Mr. Schneider is survived by three grandchildren; a sister, Julie; and other relatives.

Services were held Monday, Dec. 22.

Donations in his name may be made to Congregation Rodeph Shalom, 615 N. Broad St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19123.

Mr. Schneider was interested in civic and community issues as well as legal affairs.

February 3, 2026
Lawyers take on shuttered Philly law firm over unpaid bonuses

The management of shuttered Philadelphia law firm Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis has just settled with a group of partners who sued over unpaid retirement funds but continues to face separate allegations that the firm failed to properly pay some lawyers in its last year open.

In a class action over allegedly mismanaged retirement funds, the former firm’s top leaders agreed to a settlement last year of $675,000, which was approved Thursday in federal court in Philadelphia. Lawyer Jo Bennett, who left Schnader Harrison in early 2023, filed the suit on behalf of several dozen former colleagues.

It’s hard for anyone to sue their former employer, said R. Joseph Barton, one of Bennett’s lawyers. “It’s also hard for an active, practicing attorney to sue her former colleagues.”

U.S. District Judge John Milton Younge said Thursday that he had expected the case might be held up because the law firm, as a business, had closed. He asked the lawyers, “Where did the fund come from?” in reference to the settlement money. Barton said some likely came from insurance, and some may have come from individual shareholders of the former firm.

During Thursday’s hearing, lawyers for Schnader Harrison said they would not oppose any of the conditions Bennett’s lawyers asked for.

Before that settlement’s final approval, several former partners of the firm asked the judge to ensure the agreement wouldn’t stop their other lawsuit against the shuttered firm, filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas in April. That suit alleges that the firm withheld their bonuses during its final year in business, violating their employment contracts. The six lawyers suing the firm each allege that they missed out on between $40,000 and $200,000 of compensation.

Leslie Corwin of law firm Duane Morris, who is handling Schnader Harrison’s dissolution, said “Schnader disputes the claims” in the Philadelphia suit. “It’s part of the windup process, which is still ongoing.”

Corwin declined to comment on Bennett’s settlement and did not represent Schnader Harrison in that case. He noted that the shuttered firm is currently in the process of paying its secured creditor, WSFS Bank.

The six former Schnader Harrison lawyers suing in Philadelphia court were based in other cities — four in New York, one in Pittsburgh, and one in San Francisco. As in the retirement funds case, these lawyers did not have an ownership stake in the firm.

Each of the lawyers was entitled to additional compensation each year beyond their base salary, the lawsuit says, but the year Schnader Harrison closed, the firm failed to pay those bonuses. The six lawyers allege that was a violation of their employment contracts.

Suing former colleagues

The retirement funds settlement is expected to be split among 76 people after the class’ lawyers are paid one-third of the settlement as their fee. The amount paid to each class member is based on how much their retirement fund should have grown during the time in question, Bennett’s lawyers said, with a minimum payout of $25.

Bennett is also set to receive a $10,000 service award from the settlement fund for bringing the case on behalf of her colleagues.

“It takes quite a bit of nerve to sue your former colleagues,” Adam Garner, one of Bennett’s lawyers, said during Thursday’s hearing. “It takes chutzpah to do what Ms. Bennett did.”

Bennett had alleged that Schnader’s equity partners — the lawyers who shared ownership of the firm — did not put employees’ retirement contributions into its 401(k) plan as promptly as it should have. Instead, Bennett alleged, the firm “commingled the employee contributions” with the firm’s other assets and used them “for their own purposes, including funding Schnader’s operations and funding the distributions made to the firm’s equity partners.”

The firm’s equity partners did not put in their own money to help the firm pay its bills, she alleged, as it faced lawsuits over missed rent on its offices in Philadelphia and San Francisco. The firm announced its plans to dissolve in August 2023.

January 22, 2026
Daniel Segal, longtime Philadelphia attorney and community activist, has died at 79

Daniel Segal, 79, of Philadelphia, cofounder and shareholder of the Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller law firm, adjunct law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, former cochair of the Philadelphia Soviet Jewry Council, onetime board president at the Juvenile Law Center, mentor, and “mischievous mensch,” died Thursday, Jan. 8, of stomach cancer at his home.

Born and reared in Washington, Mr. Segal moved to Philadelphia in 1976 to teach at what is now Penn Carey Law School. He went into private law practice in 1979, became cochair of a litigation department in 1993, and joined with colleagues in 1994 to establish Hangley Aronchick Segal & Pudlin.

For more than 40 years, until his recent retirement, Mr. Segal handled all kinds of cases for all kinds of clients, including The Inquirer. He was an expert in juvenile law, defamation, the First Amendment, professional ethics, education, civil rights, and other legal issues.

He was president of the board at the Juvenile Law Center and worked pro bono for years, beginning in 2009, to help represent more than 2,400 juvenile victims and win millions of dollars in settlements in what is known as the Luzerne County “kids-for-cash” case. In that case, two judges were convicted of taking kickbacks for illegally sending juveniles to two private for-profit detention facilities.

“This is one of the worst judicial scandals in history,” Mr. Segal told The Inquirer in 2009. “The people you’re stepping on are the true, true little guys.”

Mr. Segal was honored in 2010 by the Philadelphia Bar Foundation.

Among his other notable cases are a 1985 workplace racial discrimination dispute, a 1990 libel case against The Inquirer, and a 2000 trial about the city taxing outdoor advertisers. “Dan Segal was a living testament to professional excellence,” said Mark Aronchick, his law partner and longtime friend.

Law partner and friend John Summers said: “He was a great teacher and mentor.” Marsha Levick, cofounder of the Juvenile Law Center, said: “He was a brilliant, steady partner who made us smarter and kept us laughing.”

Mr. Segal clerked for Chief Judge David Bazelon in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1974 and for Supreme Court Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1975. He was active with the Philadelphia Bar Association, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, and the Penn Law School American Inn of Court.

He wrote articles for legal journals and letters to the editor of The Inquirer and Daily News. He spoke at panels and conferences, earned honors from legal organizations and trade publications, and was named the Thomas A. O’Boyle adjunct professor of law at Penn in 1992.

This story and photo features Mr. Segal (left) and appeared in The Inquirer in 1984.

The son of a rabbi, Mr. Segal was cochair of the Soviet Jewry Council in the 1980s, and he organized rallies and marches for social justice and human rights. He traveled to Israel often and to the old Soviet Union several times to secretly support Jews not permitted by government officials to immigrate to Israel.

“We are persuaded that the Soviet Jews are pawns in the Soviet-American relationship,” he told The Inquirer in 1985.

He served as president of the board of directors at what is now Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy and held leadership roles with the Jewish Community Relations Council, the New Israel Fund, Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger, and other organizations.

Colleagues at the New Israel Fund praised his “characteristic kindness” and “gentle and sparkling humor” in an online tribute. They said: “He was everyone’s favorite board member.”

Mr. Segal and his wife, Sheila, married in 1968.

Mr. Segal enjoyed pranks and funny jokes, even at work, and neighbors called him Silly Dan. His son Josh said: “His warmth, humor, and humility meant that he could connect with just about anyone.” A friend said he was a “mischievous mensch.”

He earned his law degree in 1973 and was executive editor of the Law Review at Harvard University Law School. He earned a bachelor’s degree in politics and economics at Yale University in 1968 and a master’s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics in 1969.

He taught elementary school for a year in Washington and spent another year in Europe before moving to Philadelphia. “He taught us just how important it is to stand up for what is right,” his son Eli said, “and to do so not only with conviction but with humility and kindness, and without a thought of getting personal credit.”

Daniel Segal was born July 4, 1946. He started dating Sheila Feinstein in ninth grade, and they married after college in 1968. They had sons Josh and Eli, and lived in Center City and Lower Merion before moving to Fairmount in 2018.

Mr. Segal’s sons said: “Our dad showed us that relationships are the heart of a life well-lived by nurturing lifelong friendships.”

Mr. Segal loved chocolate and ice cream. He recovered from a traumatic brain injury 20 years ago, and he and his wife traveled to Iceland, Peru, Vietnam, Europe, Japan, and elsewhere.

He doted on his family and friends, and he and his wife rented vacation places every summer to bring his sons and their families together. “Neither of us were surprised that our dad always made our kids feel so loved,” his son Eli said. “Because that was just how he made us feel.”

Survivors give advice about mourning their loved ones, as told to The Inquirer’s obit writer

In addition to his wife and sons, Mr. Segal is survived by six grandchildren, a sister, a brother, and other relatives.

Services were held Sunday, Jan. 11.

Donations in his name may be made to the New Israel Fund, 1320 19th St. N.W., Suite 1400, Washington, D.C. 20036; and Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger, Box 6095, Albert Lea, Minn. 56007.

Mr. Segal’s sons said: “He was always there for us and made clear that he always would be for as long as he could.”

January 20, 2026
A bank’s ‘racist and overzealous’ fraud investigator ruined a Pa. car dealership, lawsuit says

Tianna Williams didn’t finish high school after becoming a mom at 16. As a teen dropout, she began flipping cars to make money, and by her late 20s, her car sales acumen led her to open a dealership in Lehigh Valley that grossed over $1 million in annual sales.

An opportunity to get a line of credit with one of the nation’s largest banks turned Williams’ dream into a nightmare, she said, which led the 30-year-old to file a lawsuit.

M&T Bank opened a fraud investigation into Williams in spring 2023, says the suit filed in Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia in March. The bank inappropriately informed her financial partners that her business could be illegitimate, the complaint says. The bank froze her account, her partners cut ties, and her checks bounced. Williams’ growing businesses crashed.

The investigation found no fraud, M&T lawyers said in a September hearing. But Williams says the damage was done.

The complaint says the Black entrepreneur was a victim of the bank’s “racist and overzealous fraud investigator” who tormented the business owner for weeks. The investigator told Williams “you people” have ways of making fraudulent behavior seem legitimate, the suit says.

Despite eventually finding no fraud, the investigator shared an email with a colleague, signed with a smiley-face emoji, saying “doing my best to not let her win on my watch.”

“She killed my self-esteem,” Williams said of the investigator. “I lost all financial security.”

The phenomenon of Black people being treated with suspicion by financial institutions has been dubbed “banking while Black” and has a history going back at least to the 1930s, when red lines on maps labeled majority-Black neighborhoods as unworthy of mortgages. More subtle variations of the practice have continued into the 21st century, resulting in settlement agreements for millions of dollars.

Black customers have also reported tellers refusing to cash their checks, and banks calling police in disbelief that deposits made by Black people were legitimate. Studies further found that banks are more likely to scrutinize, and less likely to offer assistance to, Black small-business owners compared with their white counterparts.

The Philadelphia area is not immune to the phenomenon. Black Philadelphians are less likely to have a bank account than their white neighbors, according to a report from the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia. And multiple banks entered settlements over offering worse interest rates and ratcheting up closing costs for Black mortgage seekers.

‘Somebody really has it out for you’

Williams’ rags-to-riches story began in 2012, when she became pregnant at the age of 16. Her mother had recently been diagnosed with cervical cancer, and the family barely scraped by. After dropping out of high school before completing 10th grade, Williams learned how to flip cars from auctions with the help of a mentor she met through Facebook.

Her first car: a 2002 Lincoln that as a 17-year-old she sold the next day for a $700 profit.

The young hustler with a knack for sales got her auction license a couple of years later. She kept selling cars on Craigslist and through other social media connections. In 2018, she began working at an auto dealership. She learned the trade and became especially good at working with people who had low credit scores.

Williams’ cut from each sale at the dealership was a fraction of the overall profit, so she decided to go it alone. She bought a lot in Easton in 2020 and set to work. The cars she sold became newer and more expensive.

Tianna Williams next to the sign of her car dealership in Easton.

To sell cars for more than a couple of thousand dollars, Williams needed to offer financing options. She got her banking license and contracted with lenders. Her business was booming and she was planning to open a second location.

That’s when Shazard Mohammed from M&T reached out, the complaint says. He offered Williams a line of credit that would allow her to take her business to the next level, and she transferred her accounts to the bank.

Within days, Williams’ lenders contacted her to say they could no longer offer her financing because she was being investigated by M&T for fraud. Nearly overnight, she was without a business while owing about $200,000 in business and tax debts.

“M&T BANK basically told me that they suspected you of fraud,” one business partner told Williams in a text message, according to the complaint. “If that’s not true, then somebody really has it out for you.”

Records fight

The bank is now fighting in court to keep documents related to the investigation secret, despite an attorney representing M&T saying in a September hearing that “there was no finding of fraud,” according to a transcript.

M&T said in that hearing that Williams was investigated because of “red flags,” such as misspellings on checks that were immediately withdrawn as cash, and that the investigation lasted only seven days.

Common Pleas Court Judge Paula Patrick sanctioned the bank’s lawyers in October for their failure to produce documents and ordered them to pay nearly $8,000 in attorneys’ fees. The judge also found that most records should not be sealed. M&T is appealing the ruling.

Dean Malik, the attorney representing Williams, frames the case as a fight of David vs. Goliath. By issuing sanctions, he said, the judge reminded large entities that in court the playing field is leveled.

“The judge is sending a message that it doesn’t matter if you are a billion-dollar bank and have two law firms representing you with five lawyers, you are still bound by the orders of the court,“ Malik said.

Williams now cleans houses with her mother to support her family financially. She said her self-esteem has been shattered, and she hasn’t set foot inside a bank out of fear since her business closed in 2023.

“There is nothing else I know how to do,” Williams said. “All I know is cars.”

December 30, 2025
Philly lawyer accused of falsifying medical records calls Uber’s suit a ‘tactic’ to scare attorneys

The Philly-area personal injury lawyer accused by Uber of working in concert with a group of medical professionals to falsify medical records told a federal judge that the lawsuit was part of a “business tactic” by the rideshare giant to scare attorneys away from representing crash victims.

Marc Simon, of Simon & Simon, asked the judge on Friday to toss out Uber’s complaint.

“If you are a lawyer who dares to sue Uber or its drivers (or a doctor who agrees to treat the victims of the Uber drivers’ negligence), Uber will destroy your career — call you a fraud, accuse you of criminal racketeering, seek ‘eight figures’ in damages, and demand the surrender of your law license,” Simon’s filing said.

Uber accuses a Philly-area law firm of using bogus medical reports in dozens of crash cases

Uber filed similar lawsuits against personal injury law firms in New York, California, and Florida in which the rideshare company alleges that attorneys conspired with medical professionals to fraudulently inflate medical costs in an effort to get higher settlements or verdicts.

“Their strategy is simple: use their unlimited resources to intimidate injured victims and bully their lawyers into silence,” Simon said. ”It won’t work.”

Uber sued Simon & Simon in September, accusing the firm and its founder of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, saying the law was enacted “to address precisely this type of fraudulent pattern.”

The scheme, as alleged in Uber’s lawsuit, involved the firm providing instructions on the treatments clients should get at a New Jersey pain physician’s clinic and having clients often receive more than 20 chiropractic visits.

It culminated in expert reports written by a private-practice orthopedic surgeon who performed nearly 1,300 exams for Simon & Simon clients in the past three years, and the firm paid him about $1.5 million, according to the complaint.

The providers documented a need for extensive treatments that often contrasted with police reports where officers on the scene noted no injuries, the suit says.

The goal of the reports was to inflate cost-of-care projections, which Simon & Simon used in settlement negotiations to turn “low value claims into million-dollar-plus” requests, according to the complaint.

Simon was an obvious target for Uber in Philadelphia, the attorney’s filing says. He was viewed as an “easy hit” because of two recent instances in which federal judges sanctioned him.

The sanctions were related to firm procedures and jurisdictional issues, and neither order “even slightly resembles” the “outrageous fraud and criminal conspiracy” alleged by Uber, Simon said in his motion to dismiss.

One of the judges who sanctioned Simon noted in a blistering memo that the firm’s expert reports had “little relationship to real world medical care” and that when the same expert in every case projects “monumental future costs” it “becomes difficult to read the reports in question as credibly addressing actual patient needs.”

He was killed in a car crash on Kelly Drive while riding in an Uber. Now, his family is taking the ride-share giant to court.

The attorney says Uber failed to show that it was injured by any alleged misrepresentation. As evidence of the conspiracy, Uber says Simon dropped the rideshare giant as a defendant from dozens of lawsuits in which the pain physician was the key expert once they asked question.

“For this reason, Uber did not plead (and could not have pled) that it paid any verdicts or settlement in such cases,” the Simon’s filing says.

The medical professionals also filed motions to dismiss the case.

A spokesperson for Uber said in a statement that the motions to toss out the lawsuit offer “no real response to the detailed and credible allegations of fraudulent conduct.”

“We are confident in the merits of our case and look forward to seeing the defendants in court,” the statement said.

December 15, 2025
David E. Loder, longtime attorney, multifaceted board member, and education advocate, has died at 71

David E. Loder, 71, of Flourtown, longtime attorney at Duane Morris LLP, multifaceted trustee and board member, education advocate, mentor, and volunteer, died Thursday, Oct. 23, of complications from lymphoma and scleroderma at his home.

A graduate of Germantown Friends School and what is now the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School, Mr. Loder spent 43 years, from 1982 to his retirement in 2024, as an associate, partner, and chair of the health law group at the Duane Morris law firm. He became partner in 1989 and helped the health law practice gain national recognition for its success.

Mr. Loder and his team represented the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation, and other medical providers in all kinds of consequential litigation. In 2006, he helped local hospitals win a multimillion-dollar settlement with an insurance company. In 2010, he supervised a case that successfully revived a state abatement program that alleviated medical malpractice costs for physicians and hospitals.

In a tribute, former colleagues at the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation praised “his ability to see both the legal complexities and the human dimensions of every situation.”

Mr. Loder stands with Blanka Zizka , the Wilma Theater’s artistic director, at an event in 2018.

He was adept in vendor contract law, board governance, policy development, and human relations issues. He took special interest in doctor-patient relations and told the Daily News in 2016: “While it is critical that the healthcare provider convey necessary and accurate information to patients concerning their health condition, it is also important to remain sensitive to the patient’s interest and willingness to hear such information.”

Matthew A. Taylor, chair and chief executive officer at Duane Morris, said in a tribute: “He was one of the nation’s most respected healthcare lawyers.”

Mr. Loder also represented the Philadelphia Zoo, homeowners fighting increased property assessments, participants in gestational-carrier programs, and other clients. “He was a shrewd judge of character,” said his son Kyle. “He was thoughtful and strategic. He became a confidant and adviser to many of his clients.”

John Soroko, chair emeritus at Duane Morris, said in a tribute: “Dave had a unique ability to turn friends into clients. But, even more importantly, to turn clients into friends.”

This photo of Mr. Loder (right) representing the Philadelphia Zoo appeared in The Inquirer in 1989.

Away from the law firm, Mr. Loder was chair of the board for the Wilma Theater and served on boards at Germantown Friends, the old University of the Sciences, the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, and other groups. He was a trustee at the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation and the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation, and represented the Lindback regularly at its annual distinguished educators awards ceremony.

“There’s a firm belief in the importance of excellence in education in the public schools,” he told The Inquirer at the 2016 Lindback ceremony. In 2017, he said: “All of us need to recognize that the Philadelphia public schools are serving an incredibly important function.” In 2018, he said: “People need to know that there are some exceptional educators in Philadelphia public schools.”

He mentored many other lawyers and volunteered to help students in need. In online tributes, friends noted his “kind advice,” “voice of reason and compassion,” and “sense of humor, keen intellect, love of sports, and limitless knowledge on so many topics.”

In 1998, he was featured in an Inquirer story about the challenges parents face when dealing with young children stuck inside during the cold winter months. He said: “I find that if you can get the kids down by 6 p.m. and have a glass of wine in front of the fireplace, it gets you through.”

Mr. Loder enjoyed sports and the outdoors.

His family said in a tribute: “He took life seriously but never too seriously, and his warmth, humor, guidance, and generosity will be remembered.”

David Edwin Loder was born April 22, 1954, in Yalesville, Conn. His father, noted theologian Theodore Loder, moved the family to West Mount Airy when Mr. Loder was a boy, and he graduated from Germantown Friends in 1972.

He starred in football, basketball, and baseball in high school, and went on to play basketball and earn a bachelor’s degree in political science at Wesleyan University in Connecticut in 1977. He worked briefly after college as a high school history teacher, served an independent study fellowship in Poland, earned his law degree at Penn in 1981, and studied international law at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

He married Nadya Shmavonian, and they had sons Marek and Kyle, and a daughter, Julya, and lived in Philadelphia and Flourtown. After a divorce, he married Jennifer Ventresca and welcomed her children into the family.

Mr. Loder liked hiking in New York’s Adirondack Mountains and relaxing at his getaway home on Long Beach Island.

Mr. Loder enjoyed tennis, squash, and golf at the Philadelphia Cricket Club. He liked hiking in New York’s Adirondack Mountains and relaxing at his getaway home on Long Beach Island, N.J.

He doted on his family and Labrador, and played cards every month for years with an eclectic group of old friends.

Survivors give advice about mourning their loved ones, as told to The Inquirer’s obit writer

“David embodied the values of faith, service, and integrity,” his family said. His son Kyle said: “He was magnetic, gracious, thoughtful, and curious. He was easy to talk to.”

In addition to his wife, children, and former wife, Mr. Loder is survived by a granddaughter, a sister, two brothers, and other relatives.

Mr. Loder “was magnetic, gracious, thoughtful and curious,” his son Kyle said.

A memorial service and celebration of his life were held earlier.

Donations in his name may be made to the Penn Medicine Scleroderma Center, Attn: Amanda Hills, 3535 Market St., Suite 750, Philadelphia, Pa. 19104.

December 4, 2025
A Philadelphia jury reached $35 million verdict against Main Line Health and Penn Medicine for cancer misdiagnosis

A Philadelphia jury reached $35 million verdict last week against Main Line Health and the University of Pennsylvania Health System for a cancer misdiagnosis that led a then-45-year old Philadelphia resident to undergo a total hysterectomy in 2021.

Main Line discovered later that the biopsy slides used to make the diagnosis in February 2021 were contaminated. The cancer diagnosis was due an error that involved a second person’s DNA, not that of the plaintiff, Iris Spencer, who did not have cancer.

Main Line settled with Spencer in 2022 for an undisclosed amount, so it won’t have to pay its share of the verdict.

The jury found Penn and its physician, Janos Tanyi, a gynecological oncologist, liable for $12.25 million, or 35%, of the total awarded in damages for her unnecessary hysterectomy. The lawsuit said Spencer suffers from “surgically-induced menopause.”

The lawsuit against Penn and Tanyi said the physician did not do enough to resolve a conflict between biopsy results at Main Line and those at Penn, where Spencer sought a second opinion.

A Penn biopsy did not find cancer. Other tests were also negative, but Spencer did not know about those results.

“The verdict affirms the central importance of the patient and the doctor’s obligation to inform the patient of all of the test results, of all of her options, and that she shouldn’t be dismissed because she’s a patient and not a doctor,” Spencer’s lawyer, Glenn A. Ellis, said Monday.

The $35 million verdict is Philadelphia’s largest this year for medical malpractice, according to data from the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

Medical malpractice costs have been rising throughout healthcare. A factor in Pennsylvania is a 2023 rule change that allowed more flexibility in where cases can be filed.

In 2023, a Philadelphia jury issued a state record $183 million verdict against the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in a birth injury case.

A laboratory mistake

Spencer’s troubles started in February 2021 at Main Line’s Lankenau Medical Center where her biopsy found that she had cancer in the lining of her uterus despite the lack of symptoms.

For a second opinion, Spencer saw Tanyi at Penn a few days later. A repeat biopsy came back negative, according to Spencer’s complaint that was filed in early 2023. Tanyi also performed other tests, all of which came back negative, but he did not share that information with Spencer, the complaint says.

After Tanyi performed the complete hysterectomy on March 8, 2021, Penn’s pathology laboratory found no cancer in the tissues that had been removed from Spencer’s body.

That’s when Spencer, who has since moved to Georgia, went back to Lankenau seeking an explanation. Seven months later, Main Line informed her that she never had cancer.

Main Line and Spencer subsequently “reached an amicable full and final settlement to resolve and discharge all potential claims for care involving the health system,” Main Line said in a statement. Main Line did not participate in the trial.

Penn said in a statement: “We are disappointed by the jury’s verdict in this case that was unmoored to the evidence presented at trial on negligence and damages. Our physician reasonably relied on the pathology performed at a hospital outside our system that revealed a very aggressive cancer.”

Penn said it plans to appeal the verdict, which could increase by more than $2 million if the court approves a motion for delay damages that Ellis filed Saturday.

November 24, 2025