Riske, Don W.

Harold Goodman’s very first case out of law school required him to argue his client’s First Amendment rights before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. A unanimous decision in his favor sparked a profound commitment to fight for those in need. He did just that with Philadelphia’s Community Legal Services for almost two decades, most of them as director of the Employment Law Project. In the early 1990s, a complex asbestos case for the Philadelphia School District brought Mr. Goodman into contact with Raynes McCarty, and he has been with the Firm ever since.

Throughout his career, Mr. Goodman has proved himself to be a formidable advocate, particularly in the arena of workers’ rights. On four occasions, he has been called upon to represent clients in cases before the United States Supreme Court. In individual and class action cases, Mr. Goodman has represented countless workers who have been discriminated against because of their gender, race, age, national origin, or disability. He also has defended whistleblowers and sued businesses that denied workers the pensions that they had been promised.

In addition to winning the four cases before the United States Supreme Court, Mr. Goodman has argued and won more than 10 cases in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and more than 30 cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

In one of his more far-reaching cases, Mr. Goodman represented black Pennsylvania state troopers who had been systematically discriminated against for decades. At the time he began his representation, only 40 of the 4100 state troopers were from minority groups. By the time the class action case was concluded, there were 620.

Mr. Goodman represented the family of Lillie Belle Allen, a black woman killed in 1969 by a white mob in York, PA.  When a recent death bed confession unearthed police involvement in the murder, Mr. Goodman overcame the normal two year time limit for the filing of a lawsuit and successfully prosecuted a civil rights claim against the City of York, achieving one of the largest recoveries in a reopened segregation- era murder case.

Mr. Goodman is listed in “Best Lawyers in America.” He was also voted by his peers as a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer for both 2004, 2005 and 2006. And among his speaking engagements, he was a speaker on the topic of “Litigating Retaliation Claims” at the 11th Annual Employment Law Institute seminar sponsored by the Pennsylvania Bar.