About Daniel E.
Daniel E. Cummins built a profession that started within the classroom and moved steadily into courtrooms and editorial pages. He completed his undergraduate work at Villanova University in 1986, majoring in English with a minor in records. He earned his J.D. from Pennsylvania State University - Dickinson School of Law in 1990 and later expanded his research through a study-overseas program on the University of London’s Faculty of Laws in 1993.
His early legal training covered a clerkship to President Judge Harold A. Thomson, Jr. on the Pike County Court of Common Pleas in Milford in 1995. That knowledge led to affiliate positions and early court work. He served as an affiliate at Bialkowski & Savitsky in 1997 and moved into partnership by 1999 at Foley, Cognetti, Comerford, Cimini & Cummins. Those years based him as a trial lawyer practicing in Pennsylvania courts.
Parallel to practice, Cummins developed a steady presence as a writer and instructor. He began contributing columns to The Pennsylvania Law Weekly within the mid-1990s, writing approximately civil legal proceedings topics. He later wrote an annual complement to the Pennsylvania Trial Advocacy Handbook posted in 2010 and released a weblog, TortTalk.com, in 2009. In 2001 he served as an accessory teacher in Penn State’s paralegal program, bringing classroom point of view again into practice.
Over time his professional affiliations multiplied. He holds memberships in the Pennsylvania Bar Association, Pike County Bar Association, Lackawanna Bar Association and Monroe County Bar Association. He joined the Pennsylvania Defense Institute in 2007 and served on its board until 2015. He has been involved with regional trial lawyer teams as an officer, including roles as secretary and treasurer within the Northeastern Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association between 2008 and 2014. He is likewise a member of the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance and, in advance, the Defense Research Institute.
In 2020 he became managing partner at Cummins Law. That position formalized years of trial work, editorial output and educational involvement into a tradition he leads nowadays. His work over three decades reflects a mixture of courtroom litigation, legal writing and expert management.
He is licensed to practice in Pennsylvania and presently manages his practice at Cummins Law, dealing with civil legal proceedings and defense matters.
