Larry Bendesky said that when he graduated from Penn State in 1984, he had “no idea what he wanted to do with [his] life.”
Not long after he got his degree, he was sitting on the beach in Ocean City, Maryland, with his friends when he received a call from his mother. She was calling to let him know that he had received a letter from the only law school he applied to: Widener University.
“She said, ‘You got a letter from that law school.’ I said, ‘Open it.’ She said, ‘You got in. Do you want to go?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I’m kind of having fun,’” he recalled. “She said maybe the most important words that anybody’s ever said to me in my life: ‘I’ll pay for the first year.’ And so I went, and frankly, I’ve fallen in love with being a lawyer.”
On Sept. 18, Bendesky became just the 44th recipient of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association’s Justice Michael A. Musmanno Award, given annually to one attorney who “best exemplifies the same high integrity, scholarship, imagination, courage, and concern for human rights as exhibited by the late justice,” who served on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, presided at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, and was a veteran of both world wars, according to the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association’s website.
Bendesky is a trial lawyer and co-founder and managing shareholder of Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky, a Philadelphia firm. He has served as president of the PTLA and is currently a member of the board of the Pennsylvania Association for Justice and a delegate of the American Association for Justice.
The event on Sept. 18 was, according to Bendesky, one of the best nights of his life. Guests included Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Lt. Gov. Austin Davis.
For Bendesky, the reason that law has been such a successful industry for him is that he thoroughly enjoys the work.
“I like helping people. I like the collaboration within our firm. I like mentoring younger people. I like the energy within the office. I like making a difference in clients’ lives — so it’s been a richly rewarding career for me,” he said.
Bendesky isn’t just an attorney; he is a trial lawyer. As if the legal world didn’t provide enough stressors and high stakes, Bendesky works in a courtroom on behalf of clients, making quick decisions in front of a judge and a team of legal opponents. For Bendesky, his time as a law clerk led him to believe this was the right avenue for him.
“I thought it fit my personality. I like to ask questions, I like to cross-examine and I like to make speeches. As a trial lawyer, it’s not just performance. There is so much to it that tests your abilities and your strategic decision making,” he said. “You have to decide what witnesses to call, what witnesses not to call, what motions to file. You have to strategize in the discovery of the case. You have to connect with people. There are so many facets to it that I thought fit with me and would allow me to grow as a lawyer in my life, and that’s exactly what’s happened.”
Bendesky hasn’t just enjoyed his work; he’s been incredibly successful at it, too. He worked on a team that handled claims for some of the people injured in a garage collapse in Atlantic City. That case ended with what was at the time the largest result in a construction accident case in American history. It was largely the focus of more than two years of Bendesky’s career.
Being a part of the trial lawyers community in Philadelphia has come with lots of camaraderie, but there’s another subset that has yielded even more support: Jewish trial lawyers.
“We as trial lawyers help our individual clients, and in many cases, make safety changes within our society,” Bendesky said. “It was trial lawyers that made the automotive giants put airbags and seatbelts in their cars. Trial lawyers have helped to establish greater safety on construction sites and within hospitals. And I think it is Jewish tradition to try to help individuals and help the community, and what we do is dovetails with that. So I think a lot of very talented and very smart Jewish lawyers have gravitated towards being trial lawyers.”
Firm co-founder Robert Mongeluzzi, who won the same award in 2019, said that he has been honored to work alongside Bendesky.
“Larry is without question the lawyer’s lawyer, the advocate’s advocate. I’m deeply thankful for our long partnership … Mr. Bendesky’s passion for the protection of the rule of law is unwavering. He works to preserve the right to a jury trial and access to justice, fights on the front lines against tort reform, and engages with government officials to ensure new laws and regulations do not strip legal protections from the injured and victimized,” Mongeluzzi said.
Looking back to that day at the beach as a young man, Bendesky is very glad he made the decision he did. What turned into a legendary career “started remarkably inauspiciously,” he said.
As he looks forward, he will continue to be a proud Jew, a proud lawyer and a proud Jewish lawyer, too.
“I find comfort and connection with Jewish people and the Jewish lawyers in our Philadelphia community,” he said.