Robert C. Daniels, 'lawyer of the people', dies at 73

BACK IN 1974, a little boy almost drowned in a city-run swimming pool in South Philadelphia. At age 5, he was brain-damaged and a quadriplegic. His father was missing and his mother was dying of cancer.

Along came Robert C. Daniels to save the day. He filed a negligence suit against the city, won a $1.8 million settlement and got the boy into a home.

It was a case Bob Daniels was so proud of, he called himself a "lawyer of the people."

And that was the role that Bob adhered to during more than 40 years of legal practice, in which he specialized in personal-injury cases, winning settlements for the victims of catastrophic accidents.

It was that kind of accident that claimed his life Saturday, when he fell during a party in Montgomery County and suffered brain damage. He was 73 and lived in Villanova.

"He had a sense of injustice," said John Elliott, chairman of the law firm of Elliott Greenleaf, with which Bob was associated for the last three years. "He was a champion of the underdog."

Robert C. Daniels, who served from 2006 to 2008 as a state Superior Court judge after an appointment by then-Gov. Ed Rendell to fill a vacancy, was a former chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, chairman of its board of governors and president of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association.

He also served on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Disciplinary Board since 1979, serving for a time as chairman. He recently was named by the state Supreme Court as chairman of the court's civil procedural-rules committee.

Upon becoming chancellor of the bar association in 1982, he said: "I have always been a people's lawyer." Of the bar association itself, he said: "Our business is the people's business," and he undertook to bring nonlawyers onto bar committees.

"Philadelphia has lost one of its warmest, most congenial, most revered members of the bench and bar," said Bar Association Chancellor Rudolph Garcia. "Bob was truly beloved among his many friends and associates throughout the profession. As chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, he was instrumental in the creation of the Pennsylvania Lawyers Fund for Client Security, which promotes public confidence in the legal system and the administration of justice in Pennsylvania.

"An open, demonstrative man with a keen intellect, he had an eduring devotion to the law and a willingness to help all. He will be greatly missed."

"He was a great guy," said John Elliott. "He was very brilliant, but he never forgot where he came from, his working-class roots. He was a great lawyer of the people and for the people.

"He was also a terrific mentor to young lawyers, using his experience to show them how to win cases."

Bob was born in Miami but raised in Philadelphia by his mother, Ada, a switchboard operator, and an aunt who was a registered nurse.

He graduated from Penn State in 1956, and graduated first in his class from the Temple School of Law in 1962. He was associated with a number of Philadelphia law firms and operated his own firm for a time.

In 1983, he received the Torch of Learning Award of the American Friends of Hebrew University, among a number of honors he was accorded.

He is survived by his wife, the former Diana Crimi; a daughter, Samantha; two sons, Sean and Christopher, and two grandchildren.

Services: Noon today at Har Zion Temple, 1500 Hagys Ford Road, Penn Valley.