Arlin M. Adams Lecture

The family of Sigfried and Janet Weis and The 1994 Charles B. Degenstein Foundation, with support from the Annenberg Foundation, established the Arlin M. Adams Center for Law and Society in 2001 in honor of Adams. The Center presents the annual Arlin M. Adams Lecture, which brings legal scholars to campus to present on relevant legal topics.

About the Speakers

Susan Peikes Gantman

Pennsylvania Superior Court President Judge Emeritus Susan Peikes Gantman was elected to a 10-year term on the Court in November 2003, and she won retention in 2013. She was elected by her peers as president judge for a five-year term from 2014 to 2019. In 2020, she took senior status on the Court, and retired in December 2021.

Prior to her time on the bench, Gantman was solicitor for the Montgomery County Office of Children and Youth and Montgomery County Housing and Community Development and assistant district attorney for Montgomery County. She then worked for 10 years in private law practice before her time as partner with Sherr, Joffe & Zuckerman P.C. before joining Cozen O’Connor as senior member and co-chair of the family law section.

A member of the American, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County, Montgomery County and Philadelphia County Bar Associations, Gantman has served on several boards and received numerous awards and recognitions.

Gantman received a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from University of Pennsylvania prior to earning her Juris Doctor from Villanova University School of Law.

Anne E. Lazarus 

The first woman from Philadelphia to be elected to any statewide office, Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge Anne E. Lazarus was sworn into office in January 2010. In the following year, she was appointed to the Judicial Conduct Board and served as its chair.

Lazarus began her career as legal counsel to the Philadelphia Orphans’ Court. She practiced law in the estates department of Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll LLP in Philadelphia before being appointed to the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County. She was elected to a full term in 1991 and served on the Philadelphia bench until her election to the state’s Superior Court.

She was also a long-standing member of the ethics committee of the Pennsylvania Conference of State Trial Judges, serving as its chairperson from 2005 through 2009; and served as chairperson of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ad hoc committee on judicial canons of ethics from 2010 to 2012.

Lazarus is a member of the American, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations and has received numerous honors and awards. She enjoys teaching and has served as an adjunct professor at Widener University School of Law, Temple University Beasley School of Law, the National Institute of Trial Advocacy and the National Judicial College. She is also a frequent lecturer for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, speaking on judicial ethics.

Having received a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from State University of New York at Stony Brook, Lazarus went on to earn both her Juris Doctor and Master of Laws, or LLM, in Taxation from Temple University Beasley School of Law.

Melissa L. Norton

Chief Counsel to the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board Melissa L. Norton manages and supervises the administrative activities of the board’s office, its staff attorneys, investigators and support staff. Additionally, she directs investigations, makes recommendations to the board and, when necessary, prosecutes judges pertaining to allegations of judicial misconduct.

Before joining the Judicial Conduct Board in 2016, Norton served as an assistant district attorney in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, for 25 years, followed by several years as an assistant public defender in Northumberland and Lancaster counties. While a prosecutor, she served on the Pennsylvania Problem Solving Court Accreditation Board.

Norton earned her Bachelor of Science from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania and her Juris Doctor from Duquesne University School of Law. She received post-doctoral training in trial advocacy and legal writing from the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.

James P. Kleman Jr.

Senior Deputy Counsel James P. Kleman Jr. began his service with the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board in 2011 as assistant counsel. The board promoted him to deputy counsel in 2014, and then to senior deputy counsel in 2022. Prior to joining the board, he served as an assistant district attorney in Union County and as a law clerk for former Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge Zoran Popovich.

Kleman graduated magna cum laude from Susquehanna University with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. He received his Juris Doctor from the Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University and was admitted to the Bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania later that year.

Past speakers

• 2022–23: Christina Boyd, Women in the Federal Judiciary: Trends in Selection and Decisions
• 2022: Rebecca A. Reid, Indigenous Sovereignty and State Compliance to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
• 2021: Anna Gunderson, Captive Market
• 2020: Kaitlin M. Boyle, Reporting Rape on College Campuses: Interactional, Institutional Barriers and Solutions
• 2019: Lee Epstein, The Evolving U.S. Supreme Court
• 2018: Valerie Jenness and Julia Abbate, The Power, Promise and Peril of Law: A Discussion of Law on the Books and Law in Action as It Relates to Prison Rape
• 2017: Shoba Wadhia
• 2016: Paul Kaplan, He Never Had a Chance: Capital Defendants in Contexts of Racist Fear
• 2015: Robin D.G. Kelley, Crimes of Liberty: Race, War and the Unfinished Business of Abolition
• 2014: Robert Skitol, Trust Me? The Shifting Sands of U.S. Antitrust Policy, 1890-2014
• 2013: Richard Leo, False Confession and Wrongful Conviction: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions
• 2012: Timothy Sandefur, The Right to Earn a Living and Valerie Jenness, Agnes Goes to Prison: Transgender Prisoners in Prisons for Men and the Olympics of Gender Authenticity
• 2011: Charles Ogletree, Is America Post-Racial in the Age of Obama?
• 2010: Edward Schumacher-Matos and Angela Davis

The Honorable Arlin M. Adams

Arlin M. Adams was a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. His distinguished career included 17 years on the bench and decades of involvement in professional, charitable and educational organizations.

Adams began his career in private legal practice and, while continuing to practice law, he joined the faculty at University of Pennsylvania. Prior to his appointment as a federal judge, he served a term as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. After he retired as a federal judge, he went on to serve as counsel at one of Philadelphia’s largest law firms, Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis, for 25 years. He was also a past president of the American Judicature Society and the American Philosophical Society, and a member of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts.

A Philadelphia native, Adams earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Temple University and a law degree from University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of Penn Law Review. Determined to serve his country, Adams enlisted as a logistics officer with the U.S. Navy during World War II.

A long-time friend of Susquehanna University, Adams was a visiting Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Susquehanna in 1981 and received an honorary Doctor of Laws from the university in 1985.

The family of Sigfried and Janet Weis and The 1994 Charles B. Degenstein Foundation, with support from the Annenberg Foundation, established the Arlin M. Adams Center for Law and Society in 2001 in honor of Adams. The Center presents the annual Arlin M. Adams Lecture, which brings legal scholars to campus to present on relevant legal topics.