Rieders to Become PaTLA President

From the Williamsport Sun-Gazette, July 7, 2001:

He's Taking Top Post - City Man To Become Law Group President

By Troy Sellers - Sun-Gazette Staff

One of the state's most prominent attorneys' groups will have a local face at the top after its convention culminates tonight in Hershey.

Clifford A. Rieders, a partner in the Williamsport law firm of Rieders, Travis, Humphrey, Harris, Waters and Waffenschmidt, is to be elected the new president of the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association.

 Rieders, who has served on that group's board of governors since 1982, said the honor is a validation of a career of hard work. His main goal, he said, is to make people understand the importance of law in society.

"I have a strong personal philosophy that the law should exist to do some good for people and that the law is what keeps our society balanced," Rieders told the Sun-Gazette in an interview earlier this week.      Rieders, who has been practicing law since the mid-1970s, will head one of the state's top lobbying organizations. According to the group's web site, the organization works to keep the courthouse doors open to "the little guy."

"They represent the only organization I'm aware of that supports and defends the right to trial by jury, the right to be heard in a court of law," Rieders said.

He added, "There are all kinds of people out there who have reasons to shut off legal access to the courts for one reason or another. People have all kinds of special interests."

 While its offices are there, Rieders disagrees that the association is "a Philadelphia organization."

"I don't know that it ever was, but it's certainly not today," he said.

How does a lawyer from "the outbacks of Pennsylvania," as he calls it, get to lead a powerful statewide organization? "I think I got recognition through the decency of some people who took notice of me and said, 'Well, the guy is obviously somebody who's interested in the law.'"

Several years ago, he said, a Philadelphia attorney suggested that it shouldn't be an obstacle that Rieders isn't from a large metropolitan area.

"You're a guy who really deserves to move up the chairs and be an officer," he was told.

In fact, he says, "I've had a passion for this all my life."

His central location, he hopes, will work to his advantage.

"I've made it an advantage being from here because I tend to be a mitigating force between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, which have vastly different (perspectives)," Rieders said. "I am friends with everybody."

Rieders equates the association's lobbying efforts to "legislative education."

"Good lobbying, honest lobbyists, bring information to legislators," he said.

In the past, Rieders has been more involved in the drafting and reviewing of legislation.

 He has been widely published in books, legal journals and newspapers and will continue that quest to educate the public.

"My agenda is to help people understand the role of the American trial lawyer and the importance it has to an orderly, civilized society," he said.

Rieders is expected to be introduced tonight by law partner John M. Humphrey.

What will make the evening special, he said, is the approval of his profession and being elevated to the highest position that a trial lawyer can achieve in the Commonwealth.

He also noted "the approval and respect that becoming president signifies and the extremely strong support I've enjoyed from my partners, my friends, my family."

The group's board members come from three regions across the state. That board then nominates and elects officers.

His term will last one year.

Rieders recalled U.S. Middle District Senior Judge Malcolm Muir, with whom he was a law clerk, and Lycoming County President Judge Clinton W. Smith, a former partner in his firm, as being "fabulous mentors."

He and his wife, the former Kim Paulhamus, are the parents of three children.