Attorney & Staff Profiles

MIKE HEALEY | JOSEPH S. (“JAY”) HORNACK

GLEN S. DOWNEY | JULES LOBEL | ERICA CAPPABIANCO

Glen S. Downey 

Glen Downey is an associate with the firm of Healey & Hornack, P.C. Prior to entering graduate school in his early twenties, Mr. Downey worked a variety of jobs including cook, waiter, busboy, customer service representative, retail clerk, and bartender.  After graduate school, Mr. Downey taught English and creative writing at the University of Texas-El Paso and Elon University in North Carolina.  Having experienced both the best and the worst sides of the "American Dream," Mr. Downey entered law school determined to fight for worker rights and civil rights.

Glen Downey graduated cum laude from Duquesne University School of Law .  He is also 1990 graduate of Kansas State University, where he was a four year Dean's Scholar and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and a minor in History.  In 1993, Mr. Downey graduated from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale with an M.A. in Creative Writing.  While at SIU, Mr. Downey earned the English Department prestigious annual award for excellence in graduate research.  

Mr. Downey is a member of the American Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Bar Association, the Allegheny County Bar Association, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Police Accountability Project, the American Civil Liberties Union and the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee.  Mr. Downey is also a member of the American Civil Liberties Union's Legal Committee—Western Pennsylvania Chapter.

In 2010, Mr. Downey was presented, along with Vic Walczak, Mike Healey, Jules Lobel, Sara Rose and others, with the Thomas Merton Center’s New Person Award, recognizing his work as part of the G20 legal team that worked to secure the rights of all citizens to have their voices heard during the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh.

Mr. Downey is a frequent guest lecturer on labor law and civil rights issues.

A lover of live music and a voracious reader, Mr. Downey always has two or three books going at once.  He is currently reading:

   

Education:

• J.D., cum laude, Duquesne University School of Law
  • ABA Award of Excellence in Labor Law
  • CALI Awards: Civil Rights Litigation; Labor Law; Public Sector Labor Law; First Amendment
• M.A., Creative Writing, Southern Illinois University - Carbondale
  • Alan M. Cohen Award for outstanding graduate research, 1992; Associated Writing Programs Poetry Prize – "Lo Siento"
• B.A., English, Kansas State University
  • Dean's Scholar

Bar/Court Admissions:

• Pennsylvania
• United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania
• United States Court of Appeals--3rd Circuit

Practice Areas:

• Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Litigation
• Union-side Labor Law
• Criminal Defense
• Individual Employment Law
• Unemployment Compensation

FIRM NEWS:

• Since November 2010 Jay Hornack has written a weekly column called “Panic Street Lawyer” for Ipso Facto, the online legal blog for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  The column can be found here. 

• Mike Healey was named to the Board of Directors of Action United.

• Mike Healey was named to the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Pennsylvania.

• Jules Lobel was named President of the Board of Directors of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

• AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka appointed Mike Healey to the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee Board of Directors  in May of 2010.

• The PA labor History Society presented Mike Healey with its Mother Jones Award at its annual dinner on September 9, 2010, for his work on behalf of working people but particularly on behalf of the United Mine Workers.

• In 2010, Jay Hornack was appointed to be on the initial Board of Directors for StartUptown, a nonprofit corporation created to function as an urban incubator for technology and social innovation in the Hill/Uptown area of Pittsburgh.

• On September 23, 2010, Glen Downey co-hosted a panel discussion at the National Lawyer’s Guild Conference in New Orleans with attorney David Milton of Boston.  The topic of the discussion was “Strategies and Risk Assessment in Documenting Police Abuse: Video and Audio Taping Police Misconduct.”

OUR FIRM IN THE NEWS:

• Pitt OKs Settlement in Lawsuit Over Arrest: The University of Pittsburgh will pay $48,500 in damages because one of its police officers arrested Elijah David Matheny, 29, of the Hill District for recording the incident. Read More.

• Rainelli Case Transferred: A false reports criminal case against a nephew of Blair County District Attorney Richard A. Consiglio has been transferred to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office. Read More.

• Judge to Decide if DA has a Conflict: A Blair County judge must decide if it is a conflict of interest for Blair County District Attorney Richard A. Consiglio's office to prosecute criminal charges against one of his nephews. Read More.

• Woman who threw bike during G-20 accepts probation: A Mount Washington woman accused of throwing her bicycle at a police officer during the G-20 Summit entered an Allegheny County court program this morning that will allow all the charges against her to be dismissed provided she successfully completes a nine-month period of probation. Read More.

• Probation given to 1 in G-20 protest: A Mt. Washington woman who gained Internet notoriety because of video footage that appeared to show her throwing a bike at a police officer during the G-20 summit demonstrations will spend nine months on probation, an Allegheny County judge ordered Friday. Read More.

• Global Village of the Damned: It's hard to remember now, but in the weeks leading up to last September's G-20 summit, officials warned that as many as 10,000 protesters might descend on Pittsburgh. Any number of them, breathless media accounts fretted, might come with feces to fling at police, or worse. Read More.

• ACLU Sues City Of Pittsburgh Over G-20 Mass Arrests: The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a federal lawsuit today on behalf of 25 people who were swept up in a mass arrest of demonstrators, observers, and passersby in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh hours after the G-20 Summit ended on September 25, 2009. Read More.

• City sued over G-20 arrests: The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a federal suit against the city of Pittsburgh, Police Chief Nate Harper and more than 15 other police officers for allegedly violating the First Amendment rights of 25 people arrested on the final day of last year's G-20 summit. Read More.

• ACLU Sues Pittsburgh Over G-20 Police Conduct: The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania has filed a lawsuit alleging police wrongly arrested and mistreated people during peaceful demonstrations at the G-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh last year. Read More.

• Chartiers Valley board OKs Whitfield settlement: A divided Chartiers Valley school board has approved a $205,000 settlement agreement with former assistant superintendent Tammy Whitfield, who is now superintendent of the Blairsville-Saltsburg School District in Indiana County.  Read More.

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