News
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Newman Elected Member of American Law Institute
News Article
January 04, 1998
HARRISBURG January 5, 1998 - Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Sandra Schultz Newman has been elected a member of the prestigious American Law Institute (ALI). Madame Justice Newman, the first woman elected to Pennsylvania's high court, joins a membership limited to just three thousand distinguished judges, lawyers, and law faculty from across the United States and throughout the world. ALI members are elected on the basis of professional achievement and demonstrated interest in the improvement of law. Founded in 1923 "to promote the clarification and simplification of the law and its better adaptation of social needs, to secure the better administration of justice, and to encourage and carry on scholarly and scientific legal work," the Institute's original incorporators included United States Chief Justice William Howard Taft and his successor as Chief Justice, Charles Evans Hughes. Among its early leaders were Justice Benjamin Cardozo and Judge Learned Hand. The Institute also collaborates with the American Bar Association (ABA) in a program of continuing legal education ("ALI-ABA") to enhance the competence of the practicing bar through the publication of books, periodicals and audiovisual materials covering most practice areas and by offering courses of study nationwide. Elected to Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court in 1993 then to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1995, Justice Newman earlier served as a Montgomery County assistant district attorney and practiced law privately for 20 years. Justice Newman's numerous honors and leadership positions include past presidency of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Currently, she serves as chair of the Board of Consultors of Villanova University Law School and on the Advisory Boards of the University of Pennsylvania's Biddle Law Library and Drexel University's College of Business and Administration. Justice Newman has been recognized for her expertise by peers in the legal community on several occasions. In 1992 Justice Newman received the Drexel 100 Award, as one of Drexel University's 100 outstanding living alumni, and in 1993 she was named the third recipient - and first female graduate - to receive Villanova University Law School's Medallion of Achievement Award. In 1996 she received the Susan B. Anthony Award from the Women's Bar Association of Western Pennsylvania and was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania. Also in 1996, Justice Newman was the recipient of two honorary doctorates. The author of numerous articles in legal journals, Justice Newman is a contributor to the three volume work, "Alimony, Child Support and Counsel Fees," published by Matthew Bender & Company in 1988.