Legal News

Top Vote-Getters in Phila. Primary Get Judicial Nominations

By Brian Harris

By Amaris Elliott-Engel
Of the Legal Staff

Gov. Edward G. Rendell has nominated two judicial candidates running for the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas to fill vacancies on the same court.

Robert P. Coleman, an associate with Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney, and Donna M. Woelpper, who is sitting as a juvenile court master in Philadelphia family court, were nominated by Rendell.

The top performers in the May 19 Democratic primary were Coleman; Angeles Roca, who is already sitting on the court filling out a judicial vacancy; Diane Thompson, who ran without the endorsement of the city Democrats; and Woelpper. There were 22 candidates in the primary.

Robert J. Coleman -- chairman emeritus of Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin, Coleman's father and who was fielding Coleman's call this week because Coleman's wife is ill -- said it is traditional for the candidate who comes in first in the Democratic primary to get a judicial appointment if one becomes available before the fall election.

While a Republican candidate has not been elected to the bench in decades, Coleman will definitely be elected in the fall because Coleman also will be on the Republican ticket, Robert J. Coleman said.

Robert J. Coleman said he was always too busy when he was chairman of the Marshall Dennehey firm to ever consider running for a judge and his son is far more altruistic than he is.

Robert J. Coleman, who managed his son's campaign, said his son came in first in the primary because of the hard work he put into campaigning and because "he is a very, very good trial lawyer and the legal establishment felt it would be nice to have a trial judge who has been there and done that ... I think there will be a lot of empathy on his part toward the lawyers, having labored in the vineyard so long himself."

Woelpper did not respond to a request for comment on her nomination.

Common Pleas President Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe said -- if Coleman and Woelpper are confirmed -- that she doesn't know what division to which the nominees would be assigned since the court does not yet have a budget in place for this fiscal year.

"I will find it a little ironic if these judges are confirmed at a time when the state legislature is apparently chopping the state court budget line items for judge?s salaries and staffs," Dembe said.

Both Rendell's and the state Senate's budget proposals involve cuts for the state judiciary. Despite a July 1 deadline, Pennsylvania still does not yet have a budget in place for this fiscal year.

Rendell also renominated Johnny J. Butler to fill another vacancy on the Commonwealth Court

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on August 14, 2009 (boomark / email).