Honorable Robert C. Daniels

PHILADELPHIA

Our colleague and friend the Hon. Robert C. Daniels passed away on Monday, October 3, 2011 as the result of injuries suffered in a fall.

Firm Chairman John M. Elliott described Judge Daniels as "very compassionate about the underdogs of life. He vividly remembered growing up poor in the Logan and Feltonville sections of Philadelphia, being raised by his mother and aunt." The Firm honored Judge Daniels as a great lawyer, but a better person. "He was a very experienced and successful trial lawyer but he always wore his gifts lightly," Mr. Elliott said. "He was not a person who got too caught up with himself. He was the kind of person you always looked forward to being with."

Following Judge Daniels graduation from the Temple University School of Law in 1962, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Abraham L. Freedman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Judicial Circuit and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, before embarking upon a civil trial and appellate practice, handling major and catastrophic personal injury litigation in the fields of products liability, construction site accidents, medical and legal malpractice and domestic relations, as well as other "high profile" civil litigation.

Judge Daniels was a leader in the legal community for more than thirty years, during which time he has served as both Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association and as Chairman of its Board of Governors, President of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association and as a Member of the House of Delegates of both the American Bar Association and the Pennsylvania Bar Association.

Judge Daniels was appointed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and served as Chairman and as a Member of the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and is presently a member of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania’s Civil Rules Committee.

Judge Daniels was the 1983 recipient of the Torch of Learning Award of the American Friends of the Hebrew University, was inducted into the Centurion Society of Duke University of in 1984, was acknowledged as a member of the Centennial Society of the Temple University School of Law in 1995, and was admitted as a member of the Mount Nittany Society of The Pennsylvania State University in 2003 for his contributions as a member of the College of Liberal Arts' Grand Destiny Campaign.

Judge Daniels also served, as Governor Rendell’s Appointee, as a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania State University. He was also a Member of the Board of Visitors of the Temple University School of Law, the Board of the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University and the Board of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania.