FJD court administrative officer recognized as a 2013 'diverse attorney'

Rachel Gallegos, a court administrative officer in the First Judicial District of

Pennsylvania, which is Philadelphia’s court system, was recently selected as one of the named Diverse Attorneys of the Year for 2013, a program run by the Legal Intelligencer, a Philadelphia-based legal publication that boasts itself as the oldest law journal in America.

Gallegos, who has run the nationally renowned Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Program at the First Judicial District for the past five years, had also recently been selected as one of two Pegasus Scholars through the American Inns of Court, according to the Villanova University School of Law, which is where Gallegos obtained her law degree back in 2006.

In addition to her duties at the FJD, Gallegos is a member of Villanova’s alumni board and she sits on the board of the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia.

Gallegos is also a member of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Board of Governors, her biography states.

Gallegos was scheduled to be honored during a special luncheon and awards ceremony in Philadelphia on May 22.

Every two years, the Legal Intelligencer’s editorial staff chooses 24 minority attorneys from across the commonwealth who are recognized for their professional achievements.

According to a professional biography, Gallegos began her career with the First Judicial District as a law clerk for Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Annette M. Rizzo, who currently oversees the mortgage foreclosure diversion program at which Gallegos serves as a court administrative officer.

Gallegos began her position back in the spring of 2011.

Before working at the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, her professional resume shows, Gallegos served as a law clerk to Camden County, New Jersey Superior Court Judge John T. McNeill, III.

In the Garden State, Superior Courts, the state’s trial courts, are the equivalent of Pennsylvania’s Courts of Common Pleas.