About the Lycoming Law Association

The mission of the Lycoming Law Association is to promote the practice of law using the highest ethical standards and to advance the public image of our profession. We accomplish this by communicating within our profession and throughout our community, providing continuing legal education, encouraging collegiality among attorneys and the court, providing pro bono legal assistance, and through community involvement.

Our History

On December 1, 1869, a group of prominent Lycoming County attorneys, recognizing the need to maintain a "well-selected law library convenient and accessible to all the members", and to promote among the members "kind and social relations, professional courtesy and urbanity," and to assist its members "in acquiring legal knowledge and correct practice," petitioned the county court to incorporate the Lycoming Law Association.  The petition was granted on January 25, 1870, by Judge Gamble. The first president of the Association was Robert Fleming.

In 1949, the Lycoming Reporter was established by the Executive Committee of the Association, with Malcolm Muir as its first editor, and in 1951, the Charter was amended to reflect the establishment of "a legal journal," and the publication of the Lycoming Reporter, the official legal periodical of Lycoming County, became an important function of the Association.

In 2004 the membership, in recognition of the increasing complexity of the organization's management, approved the employment of an Executive Director. Currently, the Lycoming Law Association serves over 200 lawyers.

Read More

• Historical texts
  • Historical Sketches of the Bench and Bar of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania 1795-1960; 1989 reprint, with online updates. Originally edited by Marshall R. Anspach. Comprehensive history of the Bench & Bar of Lycoming County, including biographies of deceased and living judges and of deceased members, recounting of the founding of the Lycoming County courts and the various court houses, and much more. 
  • History of Lycoming County Bench and Bar from History of Lycoming County Pennsylvania, edited by John F. Meginness; 1892.
  • Biographies of prominent Lycoming County Attorneys, extracted from Genealogical and Personal History of Lycoming County, edited by John W. Jordan; 1906. Attorneys noted: John Artley Beeber, Emerson Collins, Walter C. Gilmore, Anthony R. Jackson, James Barber Krause, Henry Clay McCormick, George B. M. Metzger, Cyrus LaRue Munson, and Clarence E. Sprout
  • Louise Larzelere Chatham: The first woman lawyer in Lycoming County, by Mary Sieminski, 2016.
• Historical Documents
  
  • Charter of Incorporation. On December 1, 1869, a group of prominent Lycoming County attorneys, recognizing the need to maintain a "well-selected law library convenient and accessible to all the members", and to promote among the members "kind and social relations, professional courtesy and urbanity," and to assist its members "in acquiring legal knowledge and correct practice," petitioned the county court to incorporate the Lycoming Law Association. The petition was granted on January 25, 1870 by Judge Gamble.  Read the original document, as recorded in Deed Book 62, page 73.
  • Amended Charter. The original charter was amended by decree entered December 26, 1951, by Judge D. M. Larrabee, which is recorded in the Charter Book 4, pages 373-75. 
  • Lycoming Law Association By-Laws online
• Officers and Membership Data
  • Lycoming Law Association Presidents from 1870 to the present. The first president of the Lycoming Law Association was Robert Fleming, in 1870. Former LLA president Robert C. Wise, who served in 1969, is the current member who served longest ago.
  • Resolutions memorializing the lives of departed members.