Judge Dolores K. Sloviter of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit retired in 2016, leaving behind a remarkable legacy. As a member of the bench for nearly 40 years, Sloviter’s contribution to the Third Circuit’s jurisprudence bridges the expanse of the court’s jurisdiction. Any ranking would be difficult. At the top of any list, however, would be her contribution to antitrust law.

Fresh out of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Dolores Korman (as she was then known) joined Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish and Green in 1956, where she cut her teeth under the tutelage of antitrust legend Harold Kohn, the pioneering architect of the modern antitrust class action. In the 1960s, she and Kohn represented class action plaintiffs in the electrical equipment cases, which involved price fixing claims against General Electric, Westinghouse and a dozen more manufacturers of electrical equipment. In those cases alone, the firm represented over 1,000 clients—states, cities, even foreign entities—all without the assistance of a federal multidistrict litigation statute. At trial, the jury returned a $29 million verdict, and the case prompted the development of new and urgently needed federal rules for managing complex litigation.