Sandra Schultz Newman, first woman elected to the Pa. Supreme Court, has died at 87

Sandra Schultz Newman, 87, of Gladwyne, Montgomery County, the first woman elected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the first female assistant district attorney in Montgomery County, the first woman named to the board of directors of the old Royal Bank of Pennsylvania, longtime private practice attorney, role model, mentor, and colorful “Philadelphia icon,” died Monday, Feb. 2. Her family did not disclose the cause of her death.

Reared in South Philadelphia and Wynnewood, and a graduate of Drexel, Temple, and Villanova Universities, Justice Newman, a Republican, was elected to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania in November 1993 and to the state Supreme Court in 1995. She won a second 10-year term on the Supreme Court in 2005 but, having to step down in just two years due to a mandatory retirement age, left at the end of 2006.

“I love the court. I love my colleagues. The collegiality was great, and I’m going to miss that,” Justice Newman told The Inquirer. “But I just felt like I wanted to move on.”

During her 10-year tenure, Justice Newman was chair of the Supreme Court’s Judicial Council Committee on Judicial Safety and Preparedness and the court’s liaison to the Court of Common Pleas and Municipal Court in Philadelphia. She ruled on hundreds of issues and wrote opinions about all kinds of landmark cases, from environmental protections to school funding to clergy privilege to the Gary Heidnik and John E. du Pont murder cases.

She had worked in criminal and family law, and handled many divorce and custody cases as a private attorney in the 1980s, and was praised later by court observers for her attention to Philadelphia Family Court matters. Lynn Marks, of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, told the Daily News in 2005: “She’s been a wonderful justice, and she’s made herself accessible to the public interest community.”

In 2025, her colleagues on the Supreme Court named their Philadelphia courtroom after her. “She was a remarkable jurist, public servant, and trailblazer for women, whose work and impact will leave a legacy beyond the bench,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Debra Todd said in a tribute.

News outlets across the state covered Justice Newman’s election to the Supreme Court as she campaigned in 1995, and she easily collected more votes in the Nov. 7 election than any of the other three candidates, all men. She told the Daily Item in Sunbury, Pa., in September ‘95: “I don’t think anyone should be elected solely on their gender. But I don’t think anybody should not be elected because of it, either.”

Justice Newman touted her collegiality and feminine life experience during the 1995 campaign and told The Inquirer she wanted to be a “role model for everyone in Pennsylvania.” She told the Press Enterprise in Bloomsburg, Pa.: “I think I can bring a sensitivity and understanding on many issues, such as criminal issues like rape. I have a deep sense for the need of a safe society.”

After her election, Inquirer staff writer Robert Zausner said: “Wealthy yet down-to-earth, Newman talked often during the campaign about her grandchildren and insisted that people ‘call me Sandy’ once she was outside her courtroom.”

Former Gov. Tom Ridge called Justice Newman a “pioneering legal giant” and said she “inspired generations of legal professionals across the Commonwealth.” Ezra Wohlgelernter, chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, noted her “pathbreaking career” and “valuable service to our city and to the Commonwealth” in a tribute.

Either “the first” or “the only” in many of her professional pursuits, Justice Newman was called a “Philadelphia icon,” “a force of nature,” and a “beautiful and radiant star” in online tributes. She flirted with running for political office several times and was colorfully profiled in Philadelphia Magazine in 1988. In that story, writer Lisa DePaulo called her “part woman/part tigress.”

She famously endorsed a controversial cosmetic product on TV in 2006, attended many galas and charity auctions, and her name appeared in the society and opinion pages nearly as often as the news section. In a 1983 feature, Inquirer writer Mary Walton described Justice Newman as “beautiful … with tousled auburn hair and a slender figure that she liked to cloak in expensive designer clothes.”

A friend said online she was “irrepressible in an Auntie Mame sort of way.” Another said: “The world has become a little quieter.”

Justice Newman served as the first female assistant district attorney in Montgomery County from 1972 to 1974 and was an in-demand, high-profile partner at Astor, Weiss & Newman from 1974 to 1993. She returned to private practice in 2006 and handled mostly alternative dispute resolution cases until recently.

She told the Press Enterprise in 1995 that colleagues in the Montgomery County DA’s office adorned her desk with a green plant on her first day in 1972. “It was marijuana from the evidence room,” she said.

She wrote papers and book chapters about trial practice, death penalty statutes, and the electoral system in Pennsylvania. She spoke about all kinds of legal topics at seminars, conferences, and other events.

She cofounded what is now the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law in 2006, was a trustee for Drexel’s College of Medicine, and received dozens of service and achievement awards from Drexel, Villanova, the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations, the Women’s Bar Association of Western Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Association for Justice, and other groups.

She was the president of boards, chair of many committees, and active with the National Association of Women Justices, the Juvenile Law Center, the American Law Institute, and other organizations. She taught law classes at the Delaware Law School of Widener University in 1984 and ’85, and at Villanova from 1986 to 1993.

She earned a bachelor’s degree at Drexel in 1959 and a master’s degree in hearing science at Temple in 1969. In 1972, she was one of a handful of women to get a law degree at what is now Villanova’s Charles Widger School of Law. Later, she received four honorary doctorate degrees and was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania by then-Gov Ridge in 1996.

Outside the courtroom, Justice Newman volunteered for charities and legal associations. She was part of a group that tried unsuccessfully to buy the Eagles from then-owner Leonard Tose in 1983, and she was criticized in the early 2000s for her financial involvement in a bungled long-running effort to fund a new Family Court Building in Philadelphia.

“Justice Newman filled every room she entered with her strength, energy, and exuberance for life and for the law,” Supreme Court Justice P. Kevin Brobson said in a tribute. “She lived with intention and spent her entire career focused on creating and expanding opportunities for future generations of legal professionals, especially women.”

Sandra Schultz was born Nov. 4, 1938. She married cosmetic surgeon Julius Newman in 1959, and they had two sons, Jonathan and David. They lived in Wynnefield, Penn Valley, and Gladwyne.

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Her husband and son David died earlier. She married fellow lawyer Martin Weinberg in 2007, and their union was annulled 11 months later.

Justice Schultz was a longtime fashionista. She reveled in shopping trips to New York, and DePaulo reported in 1988 that her closet in Gladwyne was 800 square feet. She was also funny, generous, and kind, friends said.

She funded several college scholarships, collected art, owned racehorses, cooked memorable matzo balls, enjoyed giving gifts, and tried to have dinner every night with her family. Sometimes, DePaulo reported, in the 1970s, she took her young sons to her law school classes at Villanova.

In 2003, she was asked by Richard G. Freeman, editor-in-chief of the Philadelphia Lawyer, to describe her judicial decision-making process. She said: “There are beliefs that you have to put aside. One of the wonderful things about being on our court is that you can make new law where your beliefs fit into the law.”

In addition to her son Jonathan, Justice Newman is survived by four grandchildren, her brother Mark, and other relatives. A grandson died earlier.

Services are private.

Donations in her name may be made to the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, 733 Third Ave., Suite 510, New York, N.Y. 10017.