Bernard W. Smalley, Sr.

For more than 35 years, Mr. Smalley has devoted his legal career to advocating on behalf of victims of corporate or professional negligence. He has secured for his clients scores of seven-figure recoveries through his combination of intellect, perceptiveness and warmth.

As a young man, Mr. Smalley cut hair in his father’s West Philadelphia barber shop where he met William H. Hastie, the first African American to become Chief Judge of a Federal Court of Appeals in the United States. It was then that Chief Judge Hastie planted the seed, along with Ronald Davenport, later Dean of Duquesne Law School, Pat Swygert later of Temple Law School and President of Howard University and Judge Harvey N. Schmidt, to launch a career of serving his community by being an attorney.

Later, as a Deputy Court Administrator in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, Bernie was privileged to work for and be influenced by Judge Stanley M. Greenberg. It was while working for Judge Greenberg that Bernie saw for the first time the work of a true trial lawyer fighting for his client, Arthur G. Raynes.

A well-recognized and accomplished trial attorney, Mr. Smalley is a Fellow of the prestigious International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the American College of Trial Lawyers. He has been selected as a Philadelphia “Super Lawyer” every year since 2004. He frequently lectures on trial techniques before national, state and local trial lawyer and bar associations.

Mr. Smalley served as president of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association and received its Justice Musmanno Award. Mr. Smalley has received also the President’s Award from The Barristers’ Association of Philadelphia, the Soaring Eagle Award from the Minority Caucus of the American Association of Justice (formerly ATLA) and the Pursuit of Justice Award from the American Bar Association, as well as the 2008 Justice Thurgood Marshall Award of Excellence.

He is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Associations’ House of Delegates, National Bar Association and the Barristers’ Association. Smalley sat as Chair of Hearing Committee 1.14 for the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board and was a standing member of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Evidence Committee.  In 2014, Smalley received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Philadelphia Legal Intelligencer.

He was elected by the Judges of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas to the Board of Directors of City Trusts. He is currently Vice President of the Board and serves as the Chair of the Girard College Committee. He also serves on the Board for the Ellis Trust and the Chairman’s Council of the Mann Center for the Performing Arts.

Smalley received his bachelor’s degree from Temple University in 1971 and his law degree from Widener University School of Law in 1980. He and his wife, Jacquelyn, live in West Philadelphia where they both grew up.

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**The Best Lawyers in America® 2010. Copyright 2009 by Woodward/White, Inc., Aiken, SC