Harold I. Goodman, Civil Rights Attorney in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Harold Goodman’s very first case out of law school led him to represent a consumer advocacy group’s First Amendment rights before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. A unanimous decision in his favor sparked a profound commitment to fight for victims of injustice. During his two decades of work with Philadelphia’s Community Legal Services, Mr. Goodman was lead trial and appellate attorney in countless landmark cases, including:

The race discrimination class action lawsuit that opened up heavy equipment jobs for minority operating engineers and resulted in the payment of multi-millions of dollars for past discrimination to members of the plaintiff class;

The race discrimination class action lawsuit that led to the integration of the Pennsylvania State Police at all levels of the force and the payment of millions of dollars in wages and benefits to members of the plaintiff class;

The class action lawsuit that successfully challenged the Pennsylvania law that allowed insurance companies and self-insured employers to terminate the workers’ compensation payments and benefits of injured employees without notice or an opportunity to be heard – with the result that millions of dollars were paid to those workers to compensate them for their losses; and

Lawsuits by individual employees who were illegally fired from their jobs or denied unemployment insurance benefits to which they were entitled, the results of which led to significant monetary payments to those employees for the violation of their rights.

Mr. Goodman joined our firm in 1988. His first assignment was to represent the Philadelphia School District in its asbestos property damage lawsuit against the manufacturers whose products had contaminated Philadelphia’s public schools. As lead counsel, he and his team recovered more than $20 million for the School District. Over the years, he not only continued his representation of racial minorities, women, victims of sexual abuse, disabled employees, older workers and individuals whose rights to FMLA and other employee benefits were unlawfully denied, he also has represented doctors, lawyers, business executives and media professionals whose employment rights were violated. Among his many successes were: Swierkiewicz v. Sorema, N.A., 534 U.S. 506 (2002), a unanimous decision by the United States Supreme Court that made it easier for civil rights plaintiffs to plead their cases; the Lillie Belle Allen case, brought by the family of a young mother killed by a racist mob in York, Pennsylvania and which resulted in a $2 million payment to her heirs; the payment of $4 million to a surgeon who was terminated from his job; and the payment of several million dollars to a television newscaster whose rights to equal employment opportunity were denied.

Throughout his career, Mr. Goodman has been a formidable advocate in both the trial and appellate courts. On four occasions, he has argued and won cases before the United States Supreme Court. In addition, he has argued and won more than ten cases in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and more than thirty cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America© and has been selected to the Pennsylvania Super Lawyers list by his peers.

In his spare time, Mr. Goodman is an active leader in his Center City community where he has coached youth sports for nearly three decades. Hailing from Massachusetts, Mr. Goodman enjoys rooting for Boston sports teams, spending time with his children, cooking, gardening and exercising along the Schuylkill River Trail.