PENNSYLVANIA RECORD

A former Pennsylvania Superior Court judge who once serviced as the chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association has died, according to local media reports.

Robert C. Daniels, 73, died Oct. 3 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he had been taken for the treatment of head injuries after falling at a friend’s house over the weekend, according to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

His obituary says Daniels was a lawyer with four-plus decades of experience, who was appointed by former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell to the state’s Superior Court in 2007. Daniels had been appointed to serve an unexpired term on the appellate court.

After serving a year on the Superior Court, Daniels joined the Philadelphia law firm of Elliot Greenleaf.

Firm chairman John M. Elliot told the Legal Intelligencer newspaper on Wednesday that Daniels, who worked on appellate litigation, personal injury cases and alternative dispute resolution, was not only a qualified attorney but an exceptional human being.

“He was a very experienced and successful trial lawyer but he always wore his gifts lightly,” Elliot told the paper. “He was not a person who got too caught up with himself. He was the kind of person you always looked forward to being with.”

Daniels served as chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association in the early 1980s, his obituary states. While there, he was instrumental in the creation of the Pennsylvania Lawyers Fund for Client Security, which promotes public confidence in the legal system.

In a statement, current Philadelphia Bar Association Chancellor Rudolph Garcia said the local legal world has lost one of its “warmest, most congenial, most revered members of the bench and bar.

“A leader in the legal community for more than 30 years, Bob was truly beloved among his many friends and associates throughout the profession,” Garcia said in his statement. “An open, demonstrative man with a keen intellect, he had an enduring devotion to the law and a willingness to help all. He will be greatly missed.”

In the mid to late 1970s, his obituary states, Daniels served as president of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association. He was also a former chairman of the Disciplinary Board of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and a member of the high court’s Civil Rules Committee.

Daniels was a Philadelphia native who earned his law degree from Temple University School of Law.

“Bob was very generous to charities and to the schools he attended and his children attended,” Bob Rovner, a former Pennsylvania state senator and longtime friend, told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Daniels is survived by a wife, two sons, a daughter and two grandchildren, his obituary states.

A funeral was scheduled for Wednesday Oct. 5 in Penn Valley, Pa. followed by burial.