Donald Marritz

Donald Marritz is of counsel at CJP where he consults on cases both within the program and in the state at large, especially on unemployment and housing matters. He writes weekly summaries of relevant items in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, reports of recent appellate cases, and occasional amicus briefs in cases involving the state constitution.

His entire career has been spent in civil legal aid programs. He was previously a staff attorney with several legal aid programs, including MidPenn Legal Services and Regional Housing Legal Services, and was a staff attorney in the community law clinics at Penn State-Dickson Law School for several years. He is a member of the House of Delegates of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and was recently appointed as a hearing committee member of the state Disciplinary Board.

During his career, Marritz has handled a wide variety of civil legal matters, with concentrations in landlord-tenant, public benefits, manufactured housing, and state constitutional law.

He is the author of an article about the special laws provision of Article III, sec. 32, of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which Prof. Seth Kreimer of UPenn Law School called the “most valuable and thorough exploration of the historical sources regarding the pathologies that precipitated the 1874 [Pennsylvania] Constitution that I have found in the legal literature. . . “

Marritz is also the author of a chapter about the Article I, sec. 11, guarantee of open courts and remedies in “The Pennsylvania Constitution: A Treatise on Rights and Reme­dies.” He has also written materials for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute on legislative procedure provisions in the Pennsylvania Constitution, unemployment compensation issues, and manufactured housing (mobile home) communities.

He received special achievement awards from the Pennsylvania Bar Association in 1998 and 2002, and an Excellence Award from the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network in 2006.

He is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the University of Colorado Law School. He is also a Vietnam veteran.