JAMES STEADMAN
CLASS OF 1968
Fifty years ago, Jim was a senior at Rice Avenue Union High where he was involved in Band and Chorus, was on the Debate team, Student Council and in the Future Teachers club. He was also a foreign exchange student to Germany during the summer between his junior and senior years. After graduation in 1968, he attended Grove City College and graduated in 1972 with a BA in Political Science. Then it was on to Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where he earned his Juris Doctor in 1975. After a year with the Small Business Administration in Harrisburg, Jim returned to Girard in 1976 and opened his own office on Main Street, where he is still in practice.
Jim is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and also before the United States Supreme Court. He has been active in a number of community activities including the Erie Philharmonic and the Rice Avenue Community Public Library. He served Girard Borough as a Councilman. He is the former President of the Erie County Historical Society. He was one of the founders of Penn Attorneys Title Insurance Co. where he served on the board from the founding of the company in 1980 until it was taken over by First American Title Insurance Company in 2005.
Jim was the president of the Erie County Bar Association in 1991 and served as the Chairman of the Solo and Small Firm Section of the Pennsylvania Bar Association. He has been a lecturer for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute and the Pennsylvania Bar Association around the state, as well as for the Erie County Bar Association. He has been certified as an Elder Law Attorney by the National Elder Law Foundation since 2005.
Jim continues to enjoy music, especially choral singing. He has been fortunate to tour with choirs all over the Eastern US and in Austria, Germany and France, especially in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. For years he sang in the Erie Philharmonic Chorus and several other local groups. He is a member of the choir at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Erie and has sung with them in Cleveland, Buffalo and at the National Cathedral in Washington. This summer the choir will be singing in cathedrals in England. He serves as Chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of NWPA.Â
He also enjoys photography, is a member of the Erie Photo Club, and was a founding member of the Photographic Arts Society of NWPA. His interest in photography has taken him to several national parks, Cuba, Morocco, Turkey and Russia. His photography has been exhibited at a number of galleries in the Erie area. Jim makes his home in Girard with Alison to whom he will been married 45 years this June. He and Alison have three daughters, all married with children, and enjoy spending their free time at Presque Isle or Chautauqua, preferably with the kids and grandchildren.
