John M. Elliott Receives The Legal Intelligencer’s 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award
Firm News
On May 20, 2015 John M. Elliott, Elliott Greenleaf’s Chairman and CEO, was awarded The Legal Intelligencer’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Other 2015 Awardees included former Governor Tom Ridge, former Chief Justice Ronald Castille, and United States District Judge John E. Jones.
This Award, from Pennsylvania’s largest legal publication, recognizes leaders who have helped shape Pennsylvania law, and who have collectively moved the legal profession forward in Pennsylvania, helped foster the legal education of younger attorneys, and stood as examples of some of the best virtues of Pennsylvania attorneys.
John M. Elliott has over forty-five years of trial and appellate experience in complex commercial litigations, including healthcare, insurance, constitutional issues affecting business and government, civil rights, antitrust, corporate, banking, professional liability, mass tort actions, employment, and class actions. Various publications including the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Magazine, The Legal Intelligencer and Counselor Magazine have recognized him as one of Pennsylvania‘s leading trial lawyers. A statewide poll of judges and lawyers repeatedly ranked him as one of Pennsylvania‘s top 100 lawyers. The Legal Intelligencer described him as a “legal titan” and one of the “region’s most powerful litigators whose courtroom styles are legendary”.
A native of Pennsylvania’s anthracite region, Mr. Elliott’s diverse public service includes as a Commissioner of the Delaware River Port Authority representing Auditor General Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania; as Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chairman of the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, supervising the ethics of Pennsylvania’s attorneys; an appointee by the Secretary of State of the United States of America to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Conference on the Human Dimension (Paris) and Conference on Democratic Institutions (Oslo). He was awarded an LL.D by St. Vincent College in 1985. In 1995, Cardinal Cahal B. Daly of Ireland dedicated the Salamanca Archives at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Ireland, in Mr. Elliott’s honor, and in 2001 Cardinal Desmond Connell of Dublin conferred upon him the Gold Medal of St. Patrick.
Mr. Elliott also served as a member of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, as a member of the Environmental Quality Board of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was the Chairman of the Philadelphia Bar Association Environmental Quality Committee and served as the Chairman of the Urban Committee, Citizens Advisory Council, Department of Environmental Resources, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was a member of the Philadelphia Coal Rail Task Force, of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science Advisory Committee, and was a Presidential Appointee of the White House Coal Advisory Commission.
Mr. Elliott also served on numerous Boards and Committees, including the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s House of Delegates; Board of Directors: Pennsylvania Law Institute; Mann Music Center, and the Walnut Street Theatre. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of St. Vincent College, and served on the College’s Council of Advisors of the School of Humanities and Fine Arts.
Mr. Elliott has served as a faculty member and lecturer for: the American Law Institute, American, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations, the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute. He is the author of numerous publications including for the American, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations, the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association, the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, the Congress of the United States, and various professional and academic journals. Mr. Elliott graduated from Saint Vincent College (’63) with highest departmental honors in economics, and was a four-year varsity baseball letterman and captain of the 1963 West Penn Conference championship baseball team. He is a member of St. Vincent’s Athletic Hall of Fame. Mr. Elliott graduated from Georgetown University Law Center (’66) with highest honors in Constitutional Law, Conflicts of Law and Legal Ethics. He is admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court; the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; the United States District Courts for the Eastern, Western and Middle Districts of Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and the Supreme, Superior and Commonwealth Courts of Pennsylvania.
