Richard H. Maurer, Attorney

Richard H. Maurer is a partner in the Litigation Department.  His diverse practice includes the defense of maritime torts, premises and products liability cases, class actions and insurance coverage matters.  Mr. Maurer has extensive trial and motion experience relating to defamation and First Amendment claims, an arena in which he has successfully defended a major university and its faculty members.

Mr. Maurer has represented general contractors in construction defect actions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Alabama.  In the field of class actions, he has defended manufacturers and insurers named as defendants in mass tort and consumer protection claims.  Mr. Maurer has also represented manufacturers of automobiles, forklifts, building materials and industrial packaging machinery in product liability cases.

For two years before entering private practice, Mr. Maurer was an assistant public defender, representing indigent criminal defendants at trial.  While in private practice, he has defended, pro bono, cases referred by the Pennsylvania Volunteers for the Indigent Program and by the Pennsylvania ACLU.  In June 2005, Mr. Maurer won a jury trial defense verdict for a Pennsylvania VIP client in a case involving serious allegations of aggravated assault and DUI.  Currently, Mr. Maurer devotes much of his pro bono activity to the appellate representation of persons sentenced to terms of incarceration by the Philadelphia Traffic Court.

Mr. Maurer earned a Master's performance degree in cello from The Juilliard School in 1989 and an undergraduate degree in cello from the Manhattan School of Music in 1987.  In 1988, he was the principal cellist of the Schleswig-Holstein Musikfestival Orchestra, under the direction of Sergiu Celibidache. Mr. Maurer received his J.D. in 1993 from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a member of the Criminal Justice Clinic.  Mr. Maurer is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, and to federal courts in each of those states.  Mr. Maurer has served as a panel member for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, and has also taught Criminal Procedure and Constitutional Rights at Albright College.