Bar association chancellor-elect puts public education on agenda
By Chris Mondics, The Philadelphia Inquirer | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
It is a quality that he will need if he is to make progress on his goal of having the
Fedullo, whose wife, Shelli, is a lawyer and former schoolteacher, laid out his proposal Tuesday in his inaugural address before 500 city lawyers and judges at the bar association's annual meeting. He said he has since been deluged with e-mails and phone calls from people asking what they can do to help.
"I don't care what political stripe you are, educating children is important to everybody," Fedullo said in an interview later. "It would cure so many of the ills of our society if we did that."
Public schools in
Fedullo said he has no fixed ideas about how to solve the problem, but said that at the very least the
"I would like to see kids coming out [of school] with skills; I would like to see kids learning what it is like to interview for a job and having a reading level in compliance with their grade level," he said. They should know, he said, "that their teachers and staff care about them, and beyond that, that the business and legal community care."
School funding battles here and elsewhere can be nasty, with needy urban centers pitted politically against better-funded jurisdictions in the suburbs. The rhetoric can be harsh. But Fedullo seems to have no problem wearing his heart on his sleeve. During his bar association speech Tuesday, he halted midway, apparently overcome with emotion, as he recalled his late father. He teared up again briefly during an interview the following day.
"He is very connected to his emotions, not afraid to cry, and not afraid to take life and the people he comes in touch with on a very basic level," said his longtime friend and former law partner,
Savoth said that Fedullo, who ran unopposed for bar chancellor, engenders trust and that has helped him to bring together adversaries to find common ground.
"I can't count the number of times where people, both sides in the middle of disputes, have reached out to Bill to try and solve it," Savoth said.
The man who will begin a one-year term as bar chancellor on
The family moved to
But for a handful of criminal defense cases shortly after law school, Fedullo has spent much of his career suing insurance companies and doctors and others on behalf of clients who allege they were harmed.
He spent much of that time as a solo practitioner, but now is with the personal injury firm of
"We have to try and if we don't, knowing what the cost is, we are not fulfilling what we are supposed to do," he said.
Age: 64.
Of counsel with
Resides in
Graduated from
Quote: "The grinding poverty that some kids have to live through is devastating and it is not fair. And the only fairness we can bring about is through the school system to make sure that when they go to school they are getting a fair chance."
215-854-5957 @cmondics
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