Albert W. Sheppard Jr.

Albert William Sheppard Jr. was a United States judge in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania’s First Judicial District. He played significant roles in reducing that court’s case backlog, and in establishing its business court, the Commerce Case Management Program, on which he served for its first 11 years.

Judicial service
In 1983, Sheppard was elected to a ten-year term in the Court of Common Pleas. He was successful in ten-year retention elections in 1993 and 2003. He took senior status at age 70, and handled a full case load until his death at age 74.

Sheppard served in the court's Family Division in the 1980s, and was its emergency judge in December 2006.

In 1989, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court appointed Sheppard “to chair a committee tasked with reviewing the operations of the Philadelphia court system and recommended innovative reforms that eliminated lengthy backlogs and improved the civil trial division so much that the National Center for State Courts has called it ‘one of the finest and most successful urban trial courts in the country[.]’” As reported by the Committee of Seventy, Sheppard headed a group of 16 judges that issued a report recommending, among other things, administrative reorganizing, monitoring judicial productivity, and innovations in case management procedures and techniques, such as case tracking.

In 1999, the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Supervising Judge John Herron issued an order creating a specialized business court docket, the Commerce Case Management Program (Commerce Court). Sheppard was part of the group of judges and lawyers developing this new business court program. On January 1, 2000, Sheppard became one of the original two judges assigned to handle Commerce Court cases, and remained a Commerce Court judge until his death in September 2011.

He wrote the Commerce Court's first legal opinion on March 7, 2000, and issued over 250 Commerce Court opinions during his tenure, making him the Commerce Court's most prolific opinion writer. He was succeeded on the Commerce Court by Patricia A. McInerney.

Sheppard participated in the first meeting of the American College of Business Court Judges in 2005.

In 2017, Sheppard's daughter, M. Susan Sheppard, was appointed a judge in the Superior Court of New Jersey for Atlantic and Cape May Counties.

Legal practice
After graduating law school in 1968, Sheppard practiced law at private law firms, including Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis, until his election to the court in 1983.

Naval service
Sheppard served in the United States Navy for four years, and was an operations officer. In October 1962, he was stationed on the destroyer USS Furse, which was part of the naval blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Education
In 1960, Sheppard earned a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University, and, after his Navy service, attended Temple University Law School, graduating first in his class in 1968.

Awards and recognition
Sheppard graduated summa cum laude from Temple University's Law School in 1968. In 1990, he received the Golden Crowbar Award from the Pennsylvania Conference of State Trial Judges for his work as chair of a committee tasked with making recommendations to make the courts more efficient. In 2008, Sheppard received the Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Distinguished Jurist Award from the Philadelphia Bar Association, given to judges who adhere “to the highest ideals of judicial service” and who have “made a significant, positive impact on the quality or administration of justice in Philadelphia….” Shortly after his death in 2011, the Philadelphia Bar Association's Board of Governors adopted a resolution recognizing “the character, leadership and achievements of the Honorable Albert W. Sheppard, Jr., an eminent Philadelphia jurist, colleague and friend….”

In 2013, the Philadelphia Bar Foundation established The Honorable Albert W. Sheppard Scholarship Fund, in coordination with the Philadelphia Bar Association Business Law Section's Business Litigation Committee. This Fund provides a scholarship supporting a law student's year-long Commerce Court clerkship. Sheppard's alma mater, Temple University Beasley School of Law, later partnered with the Philadelphia Bar Foundation in supporting the fund, also known as the Albert W. Sheppard Fellowship Program.