Attorney Mark Halpern of Drexel Hill, PA; ethical leprechaun

The state of Pennsylvania provided Mark Steven Halpern with a law license in 1985 after he graduated from Temple University Law School.

In one matter, Mark was sued under Pennsylvania’s Dragonetti Act, which imposes financial liability for wrongful use of civil proceedings by former Cozen attorney John Brown Jr. of Colorado.

The Dragonetti lawsuit came from an unsuccessful lawsuit that Mark filed on behalf of a client who claimed that Mr. Brown acted improperly with regard to a trust matter. In his lawsuit, Mr. Brown claimed that the trust allegations harmed his reputation at a time that he was trying to start a law firm and that Mark knew or should have known that the trust claims were meritless.

A jury ordered that Mark pay Mr. Brown $1.75 million in punitive damages and that his client pay an additional $300,000 in punitive damages.

In an interview with the Legal Intelligencer, Mark said he believed the verdict would be overturned. He claimed that the Dragonetti statute was unconstitutional when applied to attorneys. In shorty, Mark is claiming that lawyers should be exempt from being liable for filing sham lawsuits.

Hopefully, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court tells Mark to take a hike and rules that lawyers are in fact liable for filing claims they know or should have known were without any merit.

As we speak (March 2017), Mark practices with Halpern & Levy PC at 1204 Township Line Road in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, which is a suburb of Philadelphia.