Pitt Law School Graduate and Adjunct Faculty Member Named to New Family Law Position

PITTSBURGH––Harry J. Gruener, partner in the Pittsburgh law firm of Goldberg, Gruener, Gentile, Horoho & Avalli, P.C., has been appointed to the newly created position of associate director of Family Law Curriculum Development in the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, effective Jan. 1, 2002. In announcing the appointment, Pitt law school Dean David J. Herring noted that Gruener will continue as a partner in the law firm, which concentrates its practice in the area of family law.

Gruener earned the Juris Doctor degree at Pitt and has been a law school adjunct faculty member for the past 25 years; recently, he has limited his teaching to family law courses.

In addition to teaching, Gruener will help develop courses stressing the practical application of family law, including trial practice, as well as the advanced writing and drafting of family law-related agreements, pleadings, and other documents. Gruener also will assist in exploring the integration of existing family law-related clinical and classroom courses into a comprehensive family law program. Upon graduation, students who successfully complete such a concentrated program will be prepared to work in private practice, the family court system, or the public sector in the broad field of family law.

Gruener is the immediate past president of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and is a past chair of the Family Law Section of both the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the Allegheny County Bar Association. He has lectured and written extensively in the field of family law and has been included among family law practitioners in the publication "The Best Lawyers in America." He also served on the Joint State Government Advisory Committee, drafting proposed amendments to the Pennsylvania Divorce Code.