Maria A. Feeley is a partner in the Litigation and Dispute Resolution Department of Pepper Hamilton LLP, resident in the Philadelphia office. Ms. Feeley serves on the firm’s Hiring and Diversity Committees.
Ms. Feeley focuses her practice on complex business and commercial disputes, products liability, franchise, insurance and bad faith litigation.
Ms. Feeley represents individuals and corporations in matters involving breach of contract claims, business disputes and business torts. Her product liability practice focuses on advising and representing domestic and international manufacturers, distributors and retailers in lawsuits throughout the United States. Her insurance practice focuses on representing corporate clients and insurance companies in complex insurance disputes and bad faith lawsuits, and she has served as national counsel for insurance companies, managing their litigation and outside counsel throughout the United States. She is experienced in resolving matters through negotiation, mediation, arbitration and litigation.
Ms. Feeley is an arbitrator for the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, and an adjunct professor at Rosemont College, where she teaches business law. She is a regular speaker before industry and bar association groups.
Ms. Feeley is a leader in a number of professional and community organizations. In 2007, she was elected to a three-year term on the Board of Governors of the 13,000-member Philadelphia Bar Association and in 2007 and 2008 served as co-chair of its Women in the Profession Committee, in 2009 served as co-chair of its Annual Bench-Bar Conference, and in 2011 served as chair of its Justice Brennan Jr. Distinguished Award Committee. She currently serves as the association’s liaison to the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession. Ms. Feeley chaired the First Women in the Profession Summit of the Philadelphia Bar Association and the Subcommittee which drafted the Best Practices for the Retention and Promotion of Women Attorneys. Ms. Feeley is the founding member of the Women in the Profession Public Service Task Force. She co-chaired the Planning Committee for the 2010 American Bar Association Women In Law Leadership Academy and is a member of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession. Ms. Feeley is a member of the American Bar Association Advisory Panel and, as such, is periodically asked to provide opinions about the direction of the ABA and issues facing the legal profession. Ms. Feeley also serves on the Executive Board of the Stewards’ Alliance, an organization dedicated to supporting the special needs schools of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the YWI Advisory Board of Women’s Way, the county’s oldest and largest women’s funding federation.
Ms. Feeley has received numerous legal and professional awards. In 2011, the Profiles in Diversity Journal honored her in its 10th Annual WomenWorthWatching® issue. In 2009, the Philadelphia Business Journal named her one of “40 Under 40,” recognizing her as one of Philadelphia’s leading professionals under the age of 40, who are “proven performers in their respective industries.” In 2008, The Legal Intelligencer and Pennsylvania Law Weekly named Ms. Feeley one of Pennsylvania’s 25 Women of the Year. Also in 2008, the Philadelphia Bar Association presented Ms. Feeley with the F. Sean Peretta Award, given annually to a member of the legal community who exhibits exceptional community service. American Lawyer Media named her as one of Pennsylvania’s “Lawyers on the Fast Track” in 2006. In 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011, the publisher of the Pennsylvania edition of Super Lawyers Magazine recognized Ms. Feeley as a Rising Star, an honor given to the top 2.5 percent of attorneys in the Commonwealth who are 40 years old or younger.
Ms. Feeley provides pro bono legal services through the Philadelphia Volunteers for the Indigent Program (VIP). Through the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations, she has served in the Attorney Mentoring Program, the Temple LEAP Program, the Legal Hotline Program, the Lawyer-for-a-Day Program and Law Week, and she has served as a judge in the National Moot Court Competition. Ms. Feeley has coached in the Philadelphia Reads Program and participated in the Philadelphia Department of Education Career Day. Through the Homeless Advocacy Project, she assisted displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Before joining Pepper in January 2004, Ms. Feeley was an associate in the Commercial Litigation and Property Departments of White and Williams LLP, where she worked extensively on complex commercial litigation matters, insurance coverage and bad faith lawsuits, products liability and construction defect cases, and real estate errors and omissions cases.
Ms. Feeley received her B.A., cum laude, in mathematics and history in 1993 from Rosemont College, where she received a four-year full-tuition academic scholarship and was inducted into the Delta Epsilon Sigma National Honor Society. She received her J.D. in 1997 from Washington and Lee University School of Law, where she served as a case note author and senior articles editor of the Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice, formerly known as the Race and Ethnic Ancestry Law Digest. In law school, she was appointed to the National Moot Court Team and was a National Moot Court quarterfinalist and a John W. Davis Moot Court semifinalist.
Ms. Feeley is a member of the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland bars. She also is admitted to appear before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the Middle District of Pennsylvania and the District of Maryland and New Jersey. She is a member of the American, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Philadelphia Bar Associations, the Barristers’ Association of Philadelphia, the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Pennsylvania, and the Lawyers’ Club of Philadelphia.
