The Shapiro Lecture featuring Harold Goodman (’69)

The title, to students at least, may seem a bit counterintuitive, no?  Getting a job, not to mention the right one, the long hours, the lack of opportunities, the pecking order, the lack of client contact, the stress, the student debt.

But there is much joy in being a lawyer, in learning the craft, beginning to master it, devising strategies, empathizing with clients, understanding their needs and the long journey, with many fault lines, in trying to achieve them.

For one lawyer, Harold Goodman (’69) that kind of joy has come from a civil rights practice focused primarily on the rights of racial minorities, women, older workers and disabled persons.  His discussion includes the benefits he has derived from his practice with an emphasis on several of his high and not so high profile cases.

Harold Goodman graduated from the Law School in 1969.  Less than a year later he argued his first case before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, a First Amendment prior restraint case on behalf of a low-income consumer advocacy group.  A unanimous decision in his client’s favor sparked a career-defining commitment to fight for victims of injustice.  During his two decades of employment with Philadelphia’s Community Legal Services (“CLS”), Mr. Goodman was lead or co-lead trial and appellate counsel in a number of landmark cases, including:

• The race discrimination class action lawsuit and one-year trial that opened up heavy equipment jobs for minority operating engineers and resulted in the payment of multi-millions of dollars for past discrimination to members of the plaintiff class;
• The race discrimination class action lawsuit that spanned 25 years and led to the integration of the Pennsylvania State Police at all levels of the department and the payment of millions of dollars in wages and benefits to members of the plaintiff class;
• The class action lawsuit that successfully challenged the Pennsylvania law that allowed insurance companies and self-insured employers to terminate the workers compensation payments and benefits of injured employees without notice or an opportunity to be heard – with the result that millions of dollars were paid to those workers to compensate them for their losses;
• The consumer class action lawsuits that held that Pennsylvania’s confession of judgment and replevin with bond laws that allowed finance and mortgage companies to ex  parte  foreclose on the homes or take consumers’ household goods violated the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause; and
• Individual lawsuits on behalf of employees who were unlawfully denied jobs and unemployment benefits to which they were entitled.

In 1988 Mr. Goodman joined the Raynes firm.  His first assignment was to represent the Philadelphia School District in its asbestos property damage lawsuit against the manufacturers whose products had contaminated Philadelphia’s public schools. As lead counsel, he and his team recovered more than $25 million for the School District and made schools safer for its students.  Over the years, he not only continued his representation of racial minorities, women, victims of sexual abuse, disabled employees, older workers and individuals whose rights to FMLA and other employee benefits were unlawfully denied, he also has represented doctors, lawyers, business executives and media professionals whose employment and other civil rights were violated.  Among his many successes were:  Swierkiewicz v. Sorema, N.A., 534 U.S. 506 (2002), a unanimous decision by the United States Supreme Court that made it easier for civil rights plaintiffs to plead their cases;  the Lillie Belle Allen case, brought by the family of a young mother killed by a racist mob in York, Pennsylvania and which resulted in a $2 million payment to her heirs; the payment of $4 million to a surgeon who was terminated from his job;  the payment of several million dollars to a female television newscaster whose rights to equal employment opportunity were denied;  the recovery of $20 million for one of the worst victims of sexual abuse by Jerry Sandusky;  and settlements in state-created danger cases for victims of police misconduct.

Throughout his career, Mr. Goodman has been a formidable advocate in both the trial and appellate courts.  On four occasions, he has briefed and/or argued cases before the United States Supreme Court.  In addition, he has argued and won  more than ten cases in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and more than thirty cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America© and has been selected by his peers as a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer.

In his spare time, Mr. Goodman is an active member in his Center City community where he works with local non-profits and has coached youth sports for nearly three-decades.  Hailing from Massachusetts, Mr. Goodman continues rooting for Boston sports teams, spending time with his children, cooking, gardening, listening to music and exercising along the Schuylkill River Trail.