Maria Feeley was appointed to the State Ethics Commission on April 2, 2014 by the Honorable Tom Corbett, Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Ms. Feeley currently serves as chair of the Board of Trustees of Rosemont College, where she has also taught business law. She also serves as vice president, general counsel and secretary of the University of Hartford, and previously served as the chief officer of the Division of Legal Affairs for Florida A&M University, overseeing the Office of General Counsel, the Office of Risk Management, and the Office of Equal Opportunity Programs and Title IX. She also serves an arbitrator for the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, and is often appointed to chair civil arbitration panels.
Ms. Feeley previously was a partner in the Litigation and Dispute Resolution Department of Pepper Hamilton LLP, resident in the Philadelphia office, handling complex litigation matters throughout the United States in both state and federal courts. Ms. Feeley also served as chair of the firm’s Women’s Initiative, vice chair of the firm’s Diversity Committee, and a member of the firm’s Hiring and Contributions Committees.
Ms. Feeley also served as a senior consultant for Freeh Group International Solutions LLC, a global risk management company former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh founded and Pepper acquired. While a Freeh Group consultant, she served as senior legal advisor on secondment to the Deepwater Horizon Economic Claims Center in New Orleans, LA, in connection with the largest court-supervised settlement program in U.S. history following the BP oil spill.
Throughout her career, Ms. Feeley has remained active in the bar and the community. She has served on numerous Boards and Commissions including the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Commission on Judicial Selection and Retention and the Board of Governors of the 13,000-member Philadelphia Bar Association where she served as chair of its Justice Brennan Jr. Distinguished Award Committee. Ms. Feeley chaired the First Women in the Profession Summit of the Philadelphia Bar Association, was appointed to the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Sandra Day O’Connor Award Selection Committee from 2007-2010, the Association’s Diversity Award Selection Committee in 2008-2009, and the Association’s Diversity Task Force in 2008.
Ms. Feeley has served as the Philadelphia liaison to the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession since her appointment in 2008. She also co-chaired the Planning Committee for the 2010 American Bar Association Women In Law Leadership Academy.
Ms. Feeley has served as a Zone 1 Delegate to the Pennsylvania Bar Association House of Delegates and member of the Executive Council of the association’s Commission on Women in the Profession. She has chaired its Promotion of Women Committee, and co-chaired its Annual Report Card Committee from 2012-2013, its Quality of Life Committee from 2011-2012, and its Membership Committee from 2009-2011.
Ms. Feeley served on the Executive Board of the Stewards’ Alliance, an organization dedicated to supporting the special needs schools of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and served as chair of the board in 2010. In 2011, she was appointed to the Archbishop’s Cabinet of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and since 2011, she has served on the Strategic Planning Committee for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Catholic Social Services, one of the largest private non-profit providers of social services in Southeastern Pennsylvania, benefiting more than 165,000 individuals annually. She was also selected to be a member of the Archdiocesan Professionals’ Society.
Ms. Feeley has provided pro bono legal services through the Philadelphia Volunteers for the Indigent Program (VIP) and Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (PVLA).
She also served on the YWI Advisory Board of Women’s Way, the county’s oldest and largest women’s funding federation, from 2006-2011.
Ms. Feeley has received numerous legal and professional awards including, being honored in 2016 by Philly Biz as a “Top Business Attorney,” being honored in the Profiles in Diversity Journal 10th Annual WomenWorthWatching® issue, and being named by the Philadelphia Business Journal as 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. 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. She has repeatedly been listed in the Pennsylvania edition of Super Lawyers Magazine as a Rising Star, an honor given to the top 2.5 percent of attorneys in the state who are 40 years old or younger.
Ms. Feeley received her Juris Doctorate (J.D.) in 1997 from Washington and Lee University School of Law, where she is one of 24 elected members of the Law Council. While there, she served as a case note author and senior articles editor of the Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice f/k/a the Race and Ethnic Ancestry Law Digest. Ms. Feeley received her B.A., cum laude, in mathematics and history in from Rosemont College.