The Purpose of "Delaware Valley Lawyer"

This website exists to help local residents find lawyers or law firms, to help local attorneys network and communicate, and to help area law students learn more about the local legal scene.

More features and content will be added periodically. So, come back once in a while to see what's available. Or, volunteer to help build the site and the legal community.

About the Delaware Valley and the Legal Community

Many people think of the Delaware Valley as the birthplace of our nation. The largest city in the region is Philadelphia. Philadelphia was, of course, the place where the founding fathers created the United States Constitution, launching America, as we know it. The city, and the region, was arguably the cultural, political, educational, and economic center of the nation for quite a while, in the early days of the new nation. As such, the region has a rich history of legal practice, with some of America's oldest and best law firms.

The term "Philadelphia lawyer" has taken on many meanings over time. Today, lawyers in the area take pride in a serious commitment to an ethical, dignified practice of law. The area boasts law firms with expertise in every imaginable field, and of every size, from the solo practitioner to enormous "big law" firms with global reach. The Delaware Valley is also home to several of the nation's top law schools, with students from around the country.

Of course, there is much more to the Delaware Valley than just Philadelphia. "The Delaware Valley" is a term widely used to refer to the metropolitan area centered on the city of Philadelphia in the United States. The term refers to the valley surrounding the Delaware River, which flows through the area, although the river extends more than 100 miles to the north of Philadelphia, beyond the Delaware Valley (see map, at right).

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget officially defines the region as the "Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area." The Delaware Valley is composed of several counties in southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey, one relatively populous county in northern Delaware and one relatively small county in northeastern Maryland. The area has a population of 5.83 million (as of the 2006 Census Bureau estimate). Philadelphia, being the region's major commercial, cultural, and industrial center, maintains a rather large sphere of influence that affects those counties that immediately surround it. The majority of the region's populace resides in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in the United States and is located towards the southern end of the BosWash megalopolis, the name given for a group of metropolitan areas in the northeastern United States, extending from Boston to Washington, D.C. Based on commuter flows, the OMB also defines a wider labor market region known as the Philadelphia–Camden–Vineland Combined Statistical Area (CSA). This wider region adds the metropolitan areas of Vineland and Reading and has a total population of 6.38 million. Philadelphia's media ranks #4, behind only New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, in Nielsen Media Market size rankings.

[The information in the three preceding paragraphs was adapted from a Wikipedia article, which may have changed since the time of this page's publication. The current version is available at Wikipedia.]

Local Law Schools

• University of Pennsylvania Law School (Philadelphia)
  Prestigious, nationally acclaimed, law school. Consistently ranked among the top five or ten law schools in the nation. Most J.D. graduates leave Philadelphia and head to New York or Boston.
• Temple University - James E. Beasley School of Law (Philadelphia)
  "The" Philadelphia law school. The source of more Philadephia lawyers than any other law school.
• Villanova University School of Law (Villanova, Pennsylvania)
  A respected law school, immediately outside Philadelphia. Founded in 1953, as part of the much older Villanova University.
• Rutgers School of Law - Camden (Camden, New Jersey)
  Highly regarded law school in Camden, New Jersey, just across the river from Philadelphia.
• Penn State University - Dickinson School of Law (Carlisle, Pennsylvania and State College, Pennsylvania)
  An historic, private law school, which was recently integrated with Penn State. Now also known as "Penn State Law." Located on two campuses: the original campus in Carlisle, near the state capitol of Harrisburg, and on the main Penn State campus, in State College, Pennsylvania.
• Widener University Law School (Wilmington, Delaware and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania)
  Located on two campuses, in two different states, including Delaware's only law school, in Wilmington, and a Pennsylvania campus in the state capitol city of Harrisburg.
• Drexel University - Earle Mack School of Law (Philadelphia)
  The newest law school in the region. Off to a good start, earning provisional certification in record time. The law school leverages the Drexel "co-op" concept to help students get into the workforce.

Local Legal Organizations

• Pennsylvania Bar Association
  Pennsylvania's state bar association.
• Philadelphia Bar Association
  City bar association.
• Benjamin Franklin American Inn of Court
  Organization for IP practitioners.
• Delaware State Bar Association
  Delaware's state bar association, with more than 4,000 members.
• New Jersey State Bar Association
  Based in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Local Legal News

Laws: Statutes and Ordinances in the Delaware Valley

• The Pennsylvania Code
• The Philadelphia Code
• The Delaware Code
• Delaware Corporation and Business Entity Codes
• New Jersey statutes