Bryan Neft, Esq., a candidate for Commonwealth Court, has been an attorney in private practice for 33 years, “specializing in complex commercial litigation and product liability litigation,” and has been the Allegheny Bar Association’s president.  In that capacity and as a member of the Allegheny Bar Association’s Board of Governors, he “championed issues affecting women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ members of the legal profession. That led to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court appointing [him] as a member, and later as chair, of its charitable arm, the IOLTA [Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts] Board.” When he was on the IOLTA board, it instituted a loan repayment assistance program for attorneys who work for legal aid programs, allowing for greater levels of legal aid assistance and more diverse legal aid staff. He has also been heavily involved in a program helping place first-year law students from underrepresented groups in jobs as another way to diversify the legal profession.

In Neft’s People’s Open Wards interview, he stressed the importance of the Commonwealth Court in essential areas as varied as organized labor and the environment, but also voting rights.  He commented, “I’m running on a platform of protecting individual rights, whether it’s the right to vote, the right to a decent education, the right to a livable environment, the right to organize, the right to marry whom you choose, the right to reproductive health choices.  If the Dobbs decision from the United States Supreme Court means anything, many of these issues are going to be coming back to the states, and the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania is going to be front and center in dealing with many of these issues.”  As someone who has practiced before the Commonwealth Court, he says he is “ready to go from day one.”  

Neft has been recommended by the PA Bar Association and has received endorsements from a number of state representatives, the Lancaster County Democratic Committee, the Great Lakes Building and Construction Trades Council, and the Steel City Stonewall Democrats, among others.