Pennsylvania Criminal Trial Practice

Judge Daniel J. Anders has served on the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia since 2007. He was nominated by Governor Edward Rendell and unanimously confirmed by the Pennsylvania State Senate. On November 3, 2009, Judge Anders was elected to a full ten-year term. On November 5, 2019, he was retained for another ten-year term.

Judge Anders currently serves as the Administrative Judge of the Trial Division of the First Judicial District, which service was by appointment of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In that position, Judge Anders leads a team of more than 60 judges who are assigned to the Criminal and Civil divisions and are responsible for managing and disposing of all criminal and civil actions filed in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County. As Administrative Judge, Judge Anders is also responsible for the operations and management of the Jury Commission, criminal pretrial services, adult probation and parole, mental health court, criminal listings and the office of judicial records. Judge Anders previously served as the Supervising Judge of the Civil Division where he led nearly 30 trial judges assigned to the Civil Division who hear all civil cases including mass torts, major jury, arbitration appeals, non-jury and equity matters, mortgage foreclosure, tax matters, and statutory appeals. He previously served as a Judicial Team Leader in the Civil Division, where he was responsible for the case management and disposition of nearly 8,000 civil jury cases from initiation of the civil action all the way through trial and post-trial motions. Judge Anders previously served in the Criminal Division, where he conducted hundreds of jury and bench trials on major felony cases including attempted murder and rape cases, and in the Family Court Division, where he heard cases involving at-risk children who were abused or neglected. Judge Anders routinely lectures to Judges, lawyers, and law students on the law and evidence, including at the Pennsylvania Conference of State Trial Judges and the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Bench-Bar conference. For six years, Judge Anders served as one of two judges on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania’s Civil Procedural Rules Committee. Since 2015, he has served as the General Editor of the leading evidence treatise in Pennsylvania, Ohlbaum on the Pennsylvania Rules of Evidence. For the last several years, Judge Anders has served as the General Editor of the Pennsylvania Civil Pre-Trial and Trial Practice Guides and Pennsylvania Civil Discovery.

Prior to his judicial service, Judge Anders practiced at Pepper Hamilton LLP, where he represented clients in business-to-business litigation to help resolve disputes in a fair and equitable manner. As an attorney, his outstanding legal and community work won him high praise from his peers in the legal and business communities, including being named as a “Lawyer on the Fast Track” by the Philadelphia Legal Intelligencer and one of the Philadelphia Business Journal’s “Forty Under 40,” a list of young professionals on the move in Philadelphia. He also received the Michael Greenberg Award for Lifetime Achievement from GALLOP (Gay and Lesbian Lawyers of Philadelphia) and was recognized by Equality Advocates as its Pro Bono Attorney of the Year.

As a lawyer, Judge Anders provided free legal services to many worthy community organizations and needy individuals. The Pennsylvania Bar Association recognized Judge Anders’ significant pro bono work with its Pro Bono Service Award. The recognition was well-deserved considering he contributed an average of more than 300 pro bono hours each year. As a lawyer, Judge Anders served as general counsel to the Elton John AIDS Foundation and also successfully defended an amendment to the City of Allentown’s anti-discrimination ordinance, which added sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes. From 2017 to 2020, Judge Anders was the president of the International Association of LGBTQ+ Judges, which has nearly 500 judicial members from across the world.

Judge Anders is the first openly LGBT person nominated by a Governor and confirmed by the State Senate as a judge in Pennsylvania, and the first openly gay man to run for public office in the City of Philadelphia. He graduated cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh’s law school in 1998 where he served as an editor of the school’s Law Review. He received his undergraduate degree in political science from Lehigh University in 1990. In his spare time, Judge Anders enjoys running along the Schuylkill River and is an amateur photographer.

Bobby Ochoa, III is an Assistant General Counsel at the Department of Justice in the Office of Justice Programs* in the Office of the General Counsel. The Office of Justice Programs awards billions of dollars annually to enhance the nation’s criminal and juvenile justice systems, support victims of crime, and improve the nation’s capacity to prevent and reduce crime.

Before joining the Department of Justice, he served as an Attorney Advisor with the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent federal agency charged with convening expert representatives from the public and private sectors to promote efficiency, participation, and fairness in the promulgation of federal regulations and in the administration of federal programs.

Previously, Bobby served as a law clerk to the Honorable Alice Beck Dubow of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania and the Honorable Daniel J. Anders of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia. Bobby also previously practiced law as an appellate litigator in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

Since 2015, he has served as the Associate Editor of the leading evidence treatise in Pennsylvania, Ohlbaum on the Pennsylvania Rules of Evidence. Bobby is also the Associate Editor of three legal practice guides published by LexisNexis: Pennsylvania Civil Pre-Trial Practice, Pennsylvania Civil Trial Practice, and Pennsylvania Civil Discovery. Bobby also serves as co-author of two LexisNexis treatises: Pennsylvania Criminal Trial and Pennsylvania Criminal Pre-Trial.

Bobby has participated in several community and legal organizations since joining the bar, including the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia as an At- Large Member of the Board of Directors, the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Appellate Courts Committee, the University of Pennsylvania Law School American Inn of Court, the Philadelphia Criminal Law American Inn of Court, the Support Center for Child Advocates, and Justice at Work (formerly known as Friends of Farmworkers). He is admitted in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Bobby earned his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and his B.S., summa cum laude, from Arizona State University, where he graduated as valedictorian