John Michael Elliott

1941 - 2021

John Michael Elliott, beloved husband, brother, father, grandfather, litigator and historian, passed suddenly on March 12, 2021. He was 79 years old. Born in Girardville, PA in the heart of Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region on July 8, 1941, he was a proud son of Schuylkill County, where his grandfather and great grandfather, an Irish immigrant, worked in the mines. Mr. Elliott, an attorney, founded his own law firm, Elliott Greenleaf, with offices in Blue Bell, Harrisburg, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Wilmington, DE. John was the son of the late John T. and Claire Elliott. He was an Eagle Scout. Following parochial school in Girardville and Harrisburg, John graduated from Harrisburg Catholic High School (now Bishop McDevitt High School) and attended St. Vincent College in Latrobe, PA. At St. Vincent, John was a four-year starter on the varsity baseball team and captained its 1963 West Penn Conference Championship Team. To the end, John would recount friends, games, situations and plays in detail from his time at St. Vincent. He graduated magna cum laude, received the Gold Metal for academic excellence and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. John is a member of the St. Vincent’s Athletic Hall of Fame. He maintained a strong affinity for St. Vincent’s and its values throughout his life and served on its Board of Trustees for many years. He received an Honorary Degree in Laws from St. Vincent College in 1985. John attended Georgetown University Law Center and upon his graduation in 1966, he was awarded the American Jurisprudence award for highest academic average in Constitutional Law and Jurisprudence. He was also honored as a Williston Research Fellow. After graduation, he joined the Dilworth Paxson law firm and co-chaired its litigation department. In 1986, John started his own law firm, which is currently known as Elliott Greenleaf, P.C. John successfully represented a variety of major corporate and municipal clients including Fortune 500 companies, family businesses and individuals. In 1979, he won a posthumous pardon from Pennsylvania Governor Shapp for Jack Kehoe, who was hung in 1878 as one of the Molly Maguires. John’s dedication to Jack Kehoe’s cause reflected his enduring belief in the rights of workers and his desire to vindicate the name of the great grandfather of his grade school classmate in Girardville and life-long friend, Joseph Wayne. His many legal victories included securing relief against Inside Edition for its intrusive reporting on the family of then U.S. Healthcare owner Leonard Abramson and securing what was then the largest age discrimination verdict ever awarded out of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Known as a fierce litigator who appeared successfully in complex commercial cases in trial and appellate courts throughout Pennsylvania and around the country, his legal career was simultaneously committed to public service. He was a former Chairman of the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. He was appointed by the United States Secretary of State to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Conferences on the Human Dimension in Paris and on Democratic Institutions in Oslo. He also served as a member of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, as a Commissioner on the Delaware River Port Authority and on the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board. He was a Presidential appointee to the White House Coal Advisory Commission. He was a leader on several boards and committees of the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations, and a frequent faculty member and lecturer for the American Law Institute, the American, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations, the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute. He was honored in 2015 as the Legal Intelligencer Attorney of the Year. For more than twenty years, John was devoted to the successful development efforts on behalf of St. Patrick’s College in Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland. In recognition of his contributions to Maynooth College, Cardinal Cahal B. Daly of Ireland dedicated the Salamanca Archives at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Ireland, in his honor in 1995. In 2001 Cardinal Desmond Connell conferred upon him the Gold Medal of St. Patrick. John had an incredible love for and understanding of history. He was an avid reader and would vividly describe battles and provide historical context over a broad range of subjects that included the World Wars, the Civil War, the wars for Irish independence and the Napoleonic era. He was a member and supporter of the National World War II museum in New Orleans, LA. As successful as he was as an attorney and businessperson, John’s greatest joy was his family. He never missed his children’s or grandchildren’s athletic events and could always be found roaming the sidelines at a football, baseball, basketball, field hockey, soccer or lacrosse games with his camera. His game pictures were freely distributed to his family, their teammates and even opposing competitors. John was a former member of the Philadelphia Racquet Club and the Union League. He was also a member of the Philadelphia Aviation Country Club, the Philadelphia Cricket Club, the Ocean Reef Club and the Ancient Order of Hibernians – Jack Kehoe Division. John especially enjoyed spending time with family and friends in the Sans Souci area of the Georgian Bay in Ontario, Canada. A devoted husband, John is survived by his wife Eileen and children John P. (“Jack”) Elliott (Mary Jo), Heather Elliott Hoover (Timothy), Kirwan B. Elliott (Sara), Kyle M. Elliott (Laura) and Thomas Hanusey. He was pre-deceased by his stepdaughter Elizabeth Hanusey. John is also survived by his brother, Thomas J. Elliott (Helen), his sister Margaret Mary Elliott and by his first wife, Jane Dalton Holly and her husband Tom. John’s true love and source of joy was his fourteen grandchildren who were featured annually with his action shots on his Christmas card. His oversized two-sided card contained sports pictures of each grandchild and portraits of each of his children’s families and all the family pets. Typical of his selflessness, he never appeared on his card. A Funeral Mass will be celebrated at Epiphany of Our Lord Church, 3050 Walton Road, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462 on Friday, March 19, 2021 at 11:30 a.m. A reception line will be held before the mass from 9:30 AM until 11:15 AM at the Church. Interment will be in Annunciation B.V.M. Church Cemetery, 29 Cemetery Road, Shenandoah, PA at 3:30 PM. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in his memory to St. Vincent College, 300 Frasier Purchase Road, Latrobe, PA 15650 - www.stvincent.edu.