Valerie L. Snow, Esquire is a Staff Attorney at SeniorLAW Center, where she leads the “Access to Justice in Guardianship” project. She was selected as a 2020-2022 Independence Foundation Public Interest Law Fellow and as a 2022-2024 Borchard Foundation Center on Law & Aging Fellow, and is grateful to the Foundations for supporting her work at SeniorLAW Center.  In addition to policy advocacy and community education, the Access to Justice in Guardianship project provides legal advice through the statewide SeniorLAW Helpline (1-877-727-7529) and direct representation—including representation for older adults facing or under guardianship in the Philadelphia Orphans’ Court. Valerie also serves as a member of the First Judicial District’s Elder Justice Committee and as the Community Service Liaison for the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Probate and Trust Law Section. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and Haverford College.

Judge Murphy has been serving the Court of Common Pleas in Montgomery County since January 2010 and succeeded the Honorable Stanley R. Ott as Administrative Judge of the Orphans’ Court Division in January 2015. The Orphans’ Court Division approves adoptions and hears a wide variety of matters including terminations of parental rights, guardianships, will contests, trust and estate matters, and matters related to minor’s estates and non-profits. Judge Murphy is a member of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Advisory Council on Elder Justice in the Courts and serves as the chair of the Orphans’ Court Section of the Pennsylvania Conference of State Trial Judges. Judge Murphy graduated from Harvard College in 1984, magna cum laude and Harvard Law School in 1987, cum laude. Judge Murphy served as a law clerk to the Honorable George C. Pratt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, then served as a trial and appellate litigator in the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice, and then as in-house counsel to a national non-profit organization advocating for women’s rights. Judge Murphy practiced law at Morgan Lewis in Philadelphia and at Heckscher, Teillon, Terrill & Sager, in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. She is a frequent lecturer on topics including guardianships, access of justice for older adults, end of life decisions, Orphans’ Court practice and procedure, and the Pennsylvania Uniform Trusts Act.

Robert is a staff attorney at Disability Right Pennsylvania where he focuses on Guardianship reform and education on less restrictive alternatives to guardianship for people with disabilities. Robert earned his LL.M in Trial Advocacy from Temple University’s Beasley School of Law and his J.D. from Widener University School of Law in Delaware. Prior to working with DRP, Robert worked as an Assistant Public Defender for a local county where he became Chief of Diversionary and Re-Entry Programs, which included Mental Health Treatment Court and other specialty courts. His focus during his career has been to represent people with mental health and other disabilities in the legal system.