Securing permission to appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is not easy. The court grants fewer than 10% of the petitions presented to it. Where the odds are so long, parties hoping to secure an appeal to the court must write allocatur petitions (or petitions for allowance of appeal) that rise above the crop.

Obermayer’s appellate attorneys have done just that several times over the past two years. In August 2022, for example, the court granted allowance of appeal in a matter involving the applicability of quasi-judicial immunity to court-appointed guardians ad litem. One year later, in March 2023, the court granted allowance of appeal in a family law matter involving the child support obligations of third parties who seek physical, but not legal, custody. Most recently, in June 2024, the court granted allowance of appeal in a case involving a municipality’s desire to sell its wastewater system to a private company for health and safety reasons.