Appellate Advocacy & Post-Trial Practice

Marshall Dennehey announced today that John J. Hare, chair of Marshall Dennehey’s Appellate Advocacy & Post-Trial Practice Group and a member of the firm’s Board of Directors, has been elected to the firm’s Executive Committee, effective January 1, 2026. Hare’s election took place at the firm’s annual shareholder meeting on December 9. He joins firm President & CEO, G. Mark Thompson, and Matthew S. Schorr, Director of the firm’s Casualty Department, on the committee, succeeding retiring firm leader Craig S. Hudson, who will continue with the firm in an Emeritus role.   

“John will be a tremendous addition to the firm’s Executive Committee,” said Thompson. “He’s the lawyer great lawyers call for advice, the lawyer judges perk up and listen to when he stands to speak, and whose judgment clients trust when millions are on the line. His intellect is matched only by his inexhaustible willingness to help others. He transcends practice groups, makes everyone around him better and never takes the credit. So many of our lawyers have benefited personally over the years from his guidance and support, whether preparing for trial, at trial, needing to preserve a win or reverse a loss. John is, quite simply, the best of Marshall Dennehey’s culture personified.”   

Hare joined Marshall Dennehey in 1999 and has led the firm’s Appellate Advocacy & Post-Trial Practice Group since 2003. Over the course of his career he has litigated more than 500 appeals in state and federal appellate courts. As litigation counsel, he has represented individuals, insurers, and corporations in some of the highest-profile litigation in recent Pennsylvania history, including dozens of cases with verdicts and settlements in excess of $10 million.

Among his numerous professional activities, Hare serves by appointment of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania as co-chair of its Historical Commission and as a member of the Pennsylvania Commission on Judicial Independence. He additionally spent six years on the Supreme Court’s Civil Procedure Rules Committee, the last two as chair, and has co-authored and edited two books on the Pennsylvania appellate courts. He is an active member of the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations, and has served on the Board of Governors for the Bar Association for the Third Federal Circuit. He is recognized for excellence in appellate law by Chambers USA and the Legal 500, and is a two-time winner of the Philadelphia Business Journal’s “Best of the Bar Award.” 

Hare is a graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania and received his J.D. from the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University. He additionally holds an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and completed coursework for his Ph.D. at Princeton University. He is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania (1994), as well as before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Third and Fourth Circuits, and the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern, Middle, and Western Districts of Pennsylvania.