Photo: Shutterstock

Elected and Appointed

Priscilla Jimenez of Kline & Specter was sworn in as a commissioner to the Governor's Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs, where she will be working with the administration to serve the needs and concerns of the Latino population of Pennsylvania.

She was recently the president of the Hispanic Bar Association of Pennsylvania.

Jimenez's practice at Kline & Specter currently consists of medical malpractice, catastrophic injury and mass torts.

*****

Michele R. Punturi, a shareholder in the Philadelphia office of Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin, was named director of the workers' compensation department and was elected to the firm's board of directors, effective Jan. 1.

In this role, she will manage more than 40 attorneys in 11 offices of the firm.

She succeeds Niki T. Ingram, who remains at the firm and will continue to practice workers' compensation law and manage community relations and diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Punturi joined Marshall Dennehey in 1988 and was promoted to shareholder in 1998.

She defends third-party administrators, insurance carriers and self-insureds from an array of industries in workers' compensation litigation.

She argues cases in front of the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board and takes cases to the Commonwealth Court.

Active in the professional community, Punturi is a frequent speaker on workers' compensation topics for the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance and the Philadelphia Bar Association.

Punturi graduated from the Widener University School of Law.

She is active in the community, donating her time to charitable organizations including Northern Children's Services and the American Cancer Society.

*****

Lamb McErlane attorney Steve E. Jarmon was named solicitor to the newly elected Chester County Prothonotary Debbie Bookman.

The Chester County prothonotary, located in West Chester, is the elected civil clerk of the Court of Common Pleas and is responsible for recording all civil procedures before the court.

At Lamb McErlane Jarmon is a partner with a focus on criminal and civil matters.

Jarmon serves as a member of the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyer's Probation and Parole Reform Task Force.

He is active in the community, having served as campaign chairman for the newly elected Chester County District Attorney Deb Ryan.

He is also a committeeperson for the Phoenixville Democratic Committee, serves on the Phoenixville Human Relations Commission and sits on the board of directors for St. Augustine Academy.

Events

The LGBT rights committee of the Philadelphia Bar Association in partnership with the Community College of Philadelphia is slated to host a free clinic open to the public for members of the Philadelphia-area community seeking a legal name change due to a recent gender transition.

The event is set to be held at 1 p.m. Feb. 1, and clients of the clinic are required to register by noon Thursday.

The clinic will be staffed by volunteer attorney members of the Philadelphia Bar Association and will offer pro bono, culturally competent legal services to those transgender, nonbinary and gender nonconforming individuals seeking a legal name change.

Prior to the clinic, the LGBT rights committee will be hosting a continuing legal education training for members of the Philadelphia legal community, "Legal Name Change in Philadelphia:

Serving Low-Income Members of the Transgender, Non-Binary, and Gender Nonconforming Community," from 10 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

The training will focus on equipping local attorneys on how to provide pro-bono representation to low-income Philadelphia residents seeking a legal name change relating to gender identity.

The CLE training is free only to those attorneys who commit to volunteering for the free legal name change clinic and will also take place at the Community College of Philadelphia's Center for Business and Industry.

Attorneys wishing to participate in the CLE training can register online.