Gumkowski, Joseph J.

Jack L. Gruenstein, as special counsel to Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Coleman & Goggin, leads the firm's white collar defense practice, and assists our health care, privacy and professional liability clients with responses to government audits, grand jury and regulatory investigations and prosecutions. Jack also can assist our clients in conducting internal investigations.

As a trial lawyer, Jack has handled more than 50 criminal and civil jury trials and a substantial number of such non-jury cases. He has represented many corporate employees and officers, and physicians in both state and federal courts. Many of the matters Jack has handled were complex. Among these was one on behalf of a client who was owed substantial fees by an insurance company that was placed into rehabilitation and was then liquidated by the Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner. After protracted litigation in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, the matter was resolved in favor of Jack’s client.

Jack attended Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, where in 1973 he earned his B.A., cum laude. He then went on to earn his J.D. from Temple University School of Law in 1976, also graduating cum laude. While in law school Jack was a member of the Temple Law Review. Following graduation from law school, Jack was a trial attorney for three years with the Bureau of Investigations and Enforcement of the Interstate Commerce Commission. During this period Jack brought various enforcement actions against individuals and companies involved in the surface transportation industry. Jack then worked for two years as an associate with a prominent civil and criminal litigation firm in Philadelphia, PA after which he established a successful civil and criminal practice that he operated as a sole practitioner for almost twenty years. Jack left solo practice to become a partner in the white collar criminal boutique firm of Vaira & Riley and after more than eight years left to join our firm.

Jack is currently a member of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee and its’ Philadelphia area Leadership Council, and is a member of the Pennsylvania Criminal Defense Lawyers. Jack has also been awarded an AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review Rating by LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell, which identifies the fact that a lawyer's peers rank him or her at the highest level of professional excellence. He has also been regcognized by his peers in the 2009 to 2012 edition of Best Lawyers in America®.

Significant Representative Matters

• United States v. Rooney - Successfully defended an AFSCME District Council Vice President accused of embezzlement from a union hospital in a multiple-defendant, six-week trial resulting in the only acquittal in the case.
  
  
• State v. Grossberg, a Delaware case involving the death of an infant.
  
  
• Bass v. County of Wayne, et. al. - In this malicious prosecution/civil rights case in Detroit, Michigan, was part of the trial team that obtained the then highest damages award to date awarded by a Michigan jury.
  
  
• Wright v. PHA – A jury verdict was obtained in a reverse-discrimination civil rights suit on behalf of an employee of the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
  
  
• Commonwealth v. Eric Grier – represented a defendant accused of first degree murder and conspiracy to murder and whose death sentence was reversed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court because of an improper instruction on accomplice liability for the crime of first degree murder. As a result of the reversal, the proper standard of accomplice liability for first degree murder was clarified.
  
  
• Successfully represented a physician during an investigation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and committees of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives, into the administering of prostate cancer radiation therapy at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center.
  
  
• Successfully represented a physician in a civil investigation by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the Food and Drug Administration into the off-label use of a drug manufactured and marketed by a major pharmaceutical house.
  
  
• Represented an orthopedic surgeon who was a witness in a criminal investigation conducted by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania into the use of synthetic bone cement alleged to have caused significant medical injuries to patients.
  
  
• Represented an orthopedic surgeon who was a witness in a criminal investigation conducted by the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey into the payment of kickbacks in return for the use of certain types of orthopedic appliances.