ATTORNEYS. the TOP. in PENNSYLVANIA. The First State s top attorneys. PLUS Rising Stars The state s outstanding young lawyers

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1 superlawyers.com the TOP ATTORNEYS in PENNSYLVANIA PLUS Rising Stars The state s outstanding young lawyers INCLUDING DELAWARE SUPER LAWYERS The First State s top attorneys Personal injury attorney Mark Tanner

2 If It Can Be Tried In Front of a Jury, Mark Tanner Can Do It At 39, medical malpractice attorney Mark Tanner became one of the youngest fellows in the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. He was just getting started by CAROLINE TIGER photography by LUIGI CIUFFETELLI Spinal surgery is complex but this case is simple, Mark Tanner tells the jury at the opening of a medical malpractice case one Monday in late January. Four years ago, Earl Williams lay face down on an operating table. Tanner waves toward his client, a stout 53-year-old man whose ramrod-straight stiffness demonstrates his physical discomfort after the flubbed procedure. Tanner s tone remains straightforward. The doctor learned of his devastating mistake, he says, and didn t tell anybody. Simply put, Tanner tells the jury, this case is about character, integrity and truth-telling. This trial, one of the latest in Tanner s remarkable career at 39 he was one of the youngest lawyers ever invited to become a fellow of the International Academy of Trial Attorneys in 2006 reminds him why he went to plaintiff s work after graduating from Temple University s school of law. If you break something that s someone else s, it s your obligation to fix it, plain and simple, he says. It s just a sense of trying to level the playing field, trying to make things fair again. This is the stuff we try and teach our kids. In 2005, he represented a doctor in a claim against an insurance company. It included the same principles that guide any trial: Who s right? Who s wrong? Who s telling the truth, and who s not? he says. The doctor was on the line for $2.5 million after his insurer wouldn t cover damages sought by a patient whose skin cancer wasn t diagnosed. The physician assigned his rights to the patient to pursue a bad faith claim against the insurer and Tanner served as lead lawyer at trial. It was just complete disregard for the principles that are behind insurance, he says. You know, you pay money, you pay a premium, put yourself in our hands. All those concepts of trust that you hear about in commercials were thrown out the window. The federal jury ended up returning an award of $7.9 million, which included $6.25 million in punitive damages. It was the largest bad faith insurance jury verdict ever in Pennsylvania. The bad faith case reveals another reason why plaintiff s work appeals to Tanner: new challenges. That s what convinced the Holy Cross English major to move from literature his passion was the Victorian era, particularly Dickens to law. He enrolled at Temple and considered a career as a prosecutor. A program offered by the Philadelphia district attorney s office for secondyear law students allowed him to sample that line of work. While he found aspects of the process, such as questioning witnesses and crafting arguments, thrilling, the uniformity of the work, mostly drug possession cases, frustrated him. I wasn t really making anyone s life better, he says. There were deeper socioeconomic issues that individual cases aren t going to resolve. So he moved over to Thompson & Associates and worked for Sally Thompson, a trial attorney who specialized in medical malpractice. It was a good fit. You see people whose lives have been devastated, turned upside down for reasons they don t understand, that no one s explained to them, he says, leaning forward, his face reddening. And when you start looking into it, you realize it never should have happened. The decision becomes: Do you do nothing and have that person and their family become dependent on the state, or do you try and hold the wrongdoer accountable? Tanner worked with Thompson until 1993 and then went to Ominsky, Welsh & Steinberg. In 1998, Alan Feldman recruited

3 him to Feldman Shepherd. Feldman knew of him because he and Tanner both handled pieces of the massive orthopedic bone screw litigation. While at Ominsky, Tanner managed discovery on behalf of plaintiffs at the state and federal levels and argued certain legal issues in front of combined hearings. The more I ran into Mark in court the more impressed I was, Feldman remembers. He had a poise and a maturity that was remarkable. He s extremely well-spoken, thoughtful, insightful. He was persuasive without being overbearing. Feldman went back to the firm and told his partners, I ve just been with the most talented young lawyer I ve ever known. Today, Tanner is in high demand. He gets 20 to 30 calls a week, and can only accept a small percentage. He has such a wide range of interests, says Feldman. It s a matter of, can it be tried in front of a jury? If so, he can do it. He s also deft at detail-oriented, behind-the-scenes work, evidenced by his pro bono commitment to the Support Center for Child Advocates. In one case, he walked four siblings through the process of being removed from their home, placed in foster care, and now, hopefully, adoption. These are hard cases because the level of complexity can be overwhelming you need someone who s on top of every detail, says Frank Cervone, the center s executive director. Mark s MARK TANNER Partner at Feldman Shepherd Named to Pennsylvania Super Lawyers from 2004 through 2010 Named to Top 10 Pennsylvania Super Lawyers 2010 dedication extends to a tremendous amount of out-of-court advocacy. Tanner decompresses from all this work by regularly taking diving trips with his family, to places like Honduras, the Cayman Islands and the Florida Keys. (He helped his daughter get diving certification when she was 11 and his father when he was 67.) Look on his office windowsill and you ll find photos of them having fun in these faraway places. You ll also find photos of families from less happy times. His clients. He has one from the kids of a mother who died from cancer after her health clinic failed to diagnose a growing tumor in her foot. Tanner keeps these photos together for a reason. When something like this happens, he says, pointing to the photo of the children, you know all the work is worth it. My kids know it s worth it. They re rooting for me and proud when [a case] is over. Reprinted from the June 2010 issue of Pennsylvania Super Lawyers magazine Super Lawyers, a Thomson Reuters business. All rights reserved.

4 2010 Pennsylvania Super Lawyers list Alan M. Feldman Top 10 Pennsylvania and Top 100 Pennsylvania & Philadelphia Mark W. Tanner Top 10 Pennsylvania and Top 100 Pennsylvania & Philadelphia John M. Dodig Top 100 Pennsylvania & Top 100 Philadelphia Daniel S. Weinstock Top 100 Pennsylvania & Top 100 Philadelphia Carol N. Shepherd Top 100 Pennsylvania & Top 50 Women Roberta D. Pichini Top 100 Pennsylvania & Top 50 Women Ezra Wohlgelernter Jason A. Daria Peter M. Newman Thomas More Marrone Daniel J. Mann Carolyn M. Chopko 2010 Pennsylvania Rising Stars list Evan Y. Liu, M.D., J.D. Edward S. Goldis

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6 a Great Way to Find Great Attorneys If you need a lawyer, Super Lawyers, a Thomson Reuters Service, is a handy resource. We ve designed Super Lawyers to provide you with information that will help you begin your search for legal counsel or check on a lawyer who s been recommended to you. In creating Super Lawyers (and Rising Stars, our listing of top attorneys who are 40 years old and younger or who have been in practice 10 years or less), we perform the type of due diligence that a highly motivated and informed consumer would undertake if he or she had an abundance of time, energy and resources the very things that are in short supply in most people s lives. Super Lawyers does the footwork for you, and presents you with a list of outstanding lawyers in more than 60 areas of practice. First, we ask lawyers across the state to name the top attorneys they ve personally observed in action. We also perform our own research to find outstanding attorneys who may have been overlooked by their peers. Once we have our candidate pool assembled, we assess the background, credentials and experience of each lawyer. Specifically, we look at 12 indicators of peer recognition and professional achievement things like experience, verdicts and settlements, transactions, clients, honors and awards. The lawyers are then evaluated by a blue ribbon panel of peers within their primary area of practice. Before final selections are made, we divide the lawyers by firm size and choose the top lawyers from each group until we have a list that represents 5 percent of the lawyers in the state (Rising Stars lists are limited to 2.5 percent). This ensures that you have options from all types of law firms large, medium and small. Finally, we check the discipline record of each lawyer prior to publication. For a more detailed description of the selection process, visit superlawyers.com. So how do you use Super Lawyers? We list the lawyers by practice area. Find the practice area that pertains to your particular legal needs. Lawyers listed in red have purchased profiles that are located on the indicated page. The profiles provide you with useful information about a lawyer s background, experience and credentials. You can also search Super Lawyers online by practice area and location at superlawyers.com. This section can be a great resource for you, but remember: Super Lawyers is a tool to help you search for a lawyer, but it is not a substitute for doing your own homework. Do not rely exclusively on this, or any other list in selecting counsel. If your lawyer is not listed, don t take this as a sign of mediocrity. Only a small percentage of the lawyers in the state are selected for inclusion on our lists. That being the case, many excellent attorneys are not named. Super Lawyers is simply one indicator of peer recognition and professional achievement. A final word: You may wonder whether lawyers pay to be included. The simple and unequivocal answer is no. Lawyers do not and cannot pay to be included, and advertising has no bearing on selection to the list (in fact, ads are not sold until after final selections are made). We hope you find Super Lawyers helpful. If you have any suggestions on how we might make this section or our Web site more useful, or if you want to recommend a lawyer for inclusion, contact Cindy Larson, Research Development Director, at clarson@superlawyers.com. Note: The list was finalized as of April 14, Any updates to the list (for example, status changes or disqualifying events) will be reflected on superlawyers.com. Pictured on the Super Lawyers cover: Mark Tanner talks to juries about three things character, integrity and truthtelling. For Tanner, those values are often at the heart of his medical malpractice cases. At 39, the partner with Feldman Shepherd became one of the youngest lawyers in the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. Years later, he s in high demand among people injured at the hands of another. He balances his busy practice with pro bono work on behalf of children at the Support Center for Child Advocates Inc. He is one of the many exceptional lawyers listed in this Super Lawyers special advertising section. PHOTO BY LUIGI CIUFFETELLI Read more about this attorney and others at superlawyers.com/pennsylvania/articles.html Disclaimer: The information presented in Super Lawyers magazine is not legal advice, nor is Super Lawyers a legal referral service. We strive to maintain a high degree of accuracy in the information provided, but make no claim, promise or guarantee about the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of the information contained in this magazine or linked to superlawyers.com and its associated sites. The hiring of an attorney is an important decision that should not be solely based upon advertising or the listings in this magazine. No representation is made that the quality of the legal services performed by the attorneys listed in this magazine will be greater than that of other licensed attorneys. Super Lawyers is an independent magazine publisher that has developed its own selection methodology. Super Lawyers is not affiliated with any state or regulatory body, and its listings do not certify or designate an attorney as a specialist. State required disclaimers can be found on the respective state pages on superlawyers.com Super Lawyers, a Thomson Reuters business. All rights reserved. Pennsylvania Super Lawyers Top 10 Law Schools The law schools that produced the most lawyers on this year s list LAW SCHOOL GRADUATES PERCENT OF TOTAL Temple University Beasley School of Law % Villanova University School of Law % University of Pennsylvania Law School % University of Pittsburgh School of Law % Duquesne University School of Law 165 7% Penn State University s Dickinson School of Law 120 5% Widener University School of Law 95 4% Harvard Law School 82 4% Georgetown University Law Center 53 2% The George Washington University Law School 38 2%