Biography
Chief Justice Debra Todd is the first woman to hold the position of Chief Justice of Pennsylvania in the 342 year history of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Prior to her election to the bench, she was an accomplished trial lawyer for U.S. Steel and later maintained a private law practice with an emphasis on complex civil litigation. The focus of her practice was in commercial litigation, breach of contract, product liability, personal injury, wrongful death, employment discharge and discrimination, as well as environmental litigation concerning significant claims for environmental clean-up costs. During this time she was admitted to practice before the state and federal courts in Pennsylvania as well as the federal Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.
In 2000, following her statewide election, Justice Todd commenced a ten-year term on the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. Her term was not completed when, after 8 years, she was prodigiously elected to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the highest appellate court in Pennsylvania, in November 2007. She took her office in January 2008 as only the second woman elected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in its long history. In 2017 she was overwhelmingly retained for her seat on the Supreme Court with 71% of the statewide vote; the 1,120,990 votes she received was the highest number of votes of any candidate for any office in Pennsylvania in 2017.
Chief Justice Todd is also well known as a trailblazer in her support of the state’s Veterans Treatment Courts and the Council on Elder Justice in the Court. She chaired the Commonwealth’s Elder Justice Task Force, created in 2013, and under her guidance the task force developed and recommended numerous policies to provide greater access to justice and protections for older Pennsylvanians including provisions to address elder abuse and financial exploitation. Under her tutelage, the task force eventually submitted to the three branches of Pennsylvania government the Elder Law Task Force’s Report and Recommendations in November 2014.
Additional information is available about Chief Justice Debra Todd on the website of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.