Mr. Silberblatt is a partner with the Pittsburgh law firm of Silberblatt Mermelstein, P.C. He received his B.A., cum laude, from Allegheny College in 1977 and his J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1980 where he served on the Law Review. He is Board Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy as a Civil Trial Advocate. Mr. Silberblatt concentrates his practice in civil litigation with a particular emphasis on lawyers’ professional liability matters. He recently completed his one-year term as the 128th President of the Pennsylvania Bar Association. He has served on the Boards of the Pennsylvania Bar Association, the Allegheny County Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Bar Foundation, and the Academy of Trial Lawyers of Allegheny County and he is a member of the PBA House of Delegates as well as the American Bar Association House of Delegates. He has served as Chair of both the Civil Litigation Section of the Allegheny County Bar Association and the Civil Litigation Section of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and he is the Immediate Past Chair of the PBA Lawyers Professional Liability Committee. He was recently appointed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to a seat on the Interbranch Commission for Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness. He previously served a six-year term on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education Board as well as a six-year term as a Hearing Committee Member for the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. He received PBA Special Achievement Awards in 2000 and in 2004, and he was awarded the PBA President’s Award in 2002, 2020, and 2023. A third generation Pennsylvania lawyer, he is the author of numerous legal articles that have appeared in The Barrister, The Pennsylvania Bar Association Quarterly, The Pennsylvania Law Weekly, The Pennsylvania Lawyer, The Pittsburgh Legal Journal, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Pennsylvania Family Lawyer, The Advocate, Law 360, and Trial. Mr. Silberblatt has lectured for the Allegheny County Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association, and Minnesota Lawyers Mutual Insurance Company. In addition to shepherding a Report and Recommendation condemning hate through the PBA Board of Governors and House of Delegates, he recently planned and moderated a Symposium on Hate for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute featuring several well-known speakers, including Justice David Wecht, Representative Dan Frankel, James Pasch from the ADL, Lauren Bairnsfather, and Laura Ellsworth, Esq. In the community, he is a Past President of Temple Sinai, a former member of the boards of the Jewish Association on Aging and the Rauh Jewish Archives, Secretary of the Forest Hills Planning Commission, and Vice-Chair of Squonk Opera.
The inaugural Eradicate Hate Summit was a truly impressive gathering of leaders dedicated to finding lasting and effective solutions to violent extremism. I was particularly moved by the prominence given to survivors and family members of victims of hate and violence throughout the event. Their stories and those of so many others must be at the center of what we do and why we do it.
