Private Practice

10:01 tonight Channel 6 Sam (Taye Diggs, right) is torn between his personal feelings and his professional obligations when the man responsible for killing Dell and endangering Maya arrives at Oceanside Wellness with a heart problem.

The unflappable and methodical prosecutor who twice convicted Ira Einhorn of murder and put the hippie fugitive away for life has left the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office for private practice. Joel Rosen, who worked in the office for 22 years and once headed the elite Major Trials Unit, began work this week as a personal injury lawyer for the Center City firm Kessler Cohen & Roth. The firm handles plaintiffs' litigation in product liability and medical malpractice. "It's a group of great lawyers - very bright attorneys - and they have great cases," Rosen said yesterday.

The quality of justice seems strained in Chester County. As the workload for the county's Common Pleas Court judges has grown - by 40 percent in four years - retirements and promotions have thinned the ranks. And now, the remaining judges, who say they are buckling under the weight of the job, are questioning whether their $81,000 salaries are worth the added work. "The morale is very bad," said President Judge Lawrence Wood yesterday. "My own morale is as low as the others.

If ever there was a testament to how the status of dogs and cats has climbed in recent years, it is Red Bank Veterinary Hospital. Red Bank, which bills itself as the country's largest private veterinary hospital, encompasses 58,000 square feet in an office park in Tinton Falls, N.J. - about the area of a football field, including the end zones. Its circular waiting room, adorned in the center by a huge, cylindrical tank filled with tropical fish, is ringed by rooms for specialties such as cardiology, dentistry and dermatology.

Before the year is out, two of Montgomery County's top prosecutors will leave the District Attorney's Office for the world of private practice. First Assistant District Attorney Timothy Woodward, an aggressive prosecutor known for his street smarts, will go to work for lawyer Frank P. Murphy of Norristown in January to focus on personal injury and medical malpractice. And the captain of the sex-crimes unit, Assistant District Attorney Mary Fittipaldi, known for her tenacious style, will begin practicing family law in the Norristown office of Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen starting Sept.

The nominee to be the chief federal prosecutor in Philadelphia and Southeastern Pennsylvania, Zane D. Memeger, specialized in providing legal advice to companies facing government investigations during his four years in private practice. As a partner in the Philadelphia head office of the international law firm Morgan Lewis L.L.P., his "typical clients are medium-size to large corporations seeking legal advice as to government investigation matters," Memeger told the Senate Judiciary Committee in written answers to a questionnaire.

The prosecutor who sent Jerry Sandusky to jail is leaving the Attorney General's Office to enter private practice. Joe McGettigan will join the McAndrews Law Offices in Berwyn, working mainly in cases involving crime victims in organizational settings such as youth or religious groups, and in suits involving the abuse or bullying of children, the disabled, or the elderly, the firm announced Monday. Sandusky was convicted in June of molesting 10 boys on or near the Pennsylvania State University campus, where he was an assistant football coach.

When his career was still in its formative stages, Wallace Bentley Hussong had a choice between Freud and football. He opted for the couch, and practiced psychoanalysis in Camden County for nearly a half-century. Dr. Hussong, 93, of Merchantville, died Tuesday, Feb. 19, at his home, having never taken the road measured in yard lines. But from high school through college, the semipro Camden Zuni Indians, and an Eagles practice squad, he was a triple threat - quarterback, receiver, and kicker.

Attorney John J. Rufe, who has been a prosecutor and a defense lawyer, says he hopes his experience will help him in his new challenge, serving as a Bucks County judge. Rufe, 49, of Perkasie, was nominated Wednesday by Gov. Casey to a vacancy on the county bench. His appointment faces confirmation by the state Senate. He served as a part-time assistant district attorney from 1968 to 1971 and has experience in private practice in criminal and domestic relations law. "I would hope that I come to any of these issues with a balance to see both sides from my own background and career," he said Thursday.

As at most large law firms, lawyers come and go at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia. Yet from 2005 until recently, big budget cuts and the loss of several veteran prosecutors had exacerbated normal attrition. Fewer prosecutors meant fewer indictments. Mostly, that meant certain economic crimes were not pursued, U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan said. "You had to start to raise the thresholds on cases, raise the minimum dollar amounts" of fraud or theft before a case is brought, he said.

WITH YESTERDAY'S snoozefest primary election behind us, the next race to watch out for is the fall contest between District Attorney Seth Williams and Republican challenger Daniel "Danny" Alvarez. Both Williams and Alvarez were unopposed yesterday. Alvarez, 35, who worked as a prosecutor for eight years in the D.A.'s gun unit and the child support enforcement unit, is now in private practice. He spent most of yesterday introducing himself to voters. Williams, 46, who is seeking a second term, said he has not focused on the general election yet, but is "looking forward to serving another four years.

Jim Mees, 57, an Emmy-winning set decorator who helped bring alien worlds to life in the long-running Star Trek TV series, died Friday, March 29, at his home in Selinsgrove, Pa., said his partner, Michael Smyth. He had pancreatic cancer. Mr. Mees, who worked on more than a dozen TV shows in his 30-year career, spent 14 years on Star Trek sets, from The Next Generation to Star Trek: Enterprise. A five-time nominee, Mr. Mees shared an Emmy with production designer Richard D. James for art direction of a 1990 episode in which he gave viewers the first glimpse of the Klingon home world, decorating the warrior race's High Council chambers and sinister-looking First City.

The prosecutor who sent Jerry Sandusky to jail is leaving the Attorney General's Office to enter private practice. Joe McGettigan will join the McAndrews Law Offices in Berwyn, working mainly in cases involving crime victims in organizational settings such as youth or religious groups, and in suits involving the abuse or bullying of children, the disabled, or the elderly, the firm announced Monday. Sandusky was convicted in June of molesting 10 boys on or near the Pennsylvania State University campus, where he was an assistant football coach.

When his career was still in its formative stages, Wallace Bentley Hussong had a choice between Freud and football. He opted for the couch, and practiced psychoanalysis in Camden County for nearly a half-century. Dr. Hussong, 93, of Merchantville, died Tuesday, Feb. 19, at his home, having never taken the road measured in yard lines. But from high school through college, the semipro Camden Zuni Indians, and an Eagles practice squad, he was a triple threat - quarterback, receiver, and kicker.

EVEN BEFORE Christine Wiggins, founder of Imhotep Institute Charter School, took her first group of students to Africa in 2000, she knew that Dr. Samuel Quartey deserved admiration. But a royal greeting party wasn't on the itinerary. Quartey, who organized the trip, helped Wiggins develop Imhotep in 1998 as one of the country's first charter high schools with an Afrocentric focus. He also was one of the first black surgeons to open a private practice in Philadelphia, and he would later become involved with most of the powerhouse African-American institutions in the city.

STATE SEN. Anthony Hardy Williams stopped just short this week of endorsing U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz if she challenges Gov. Corbett next year. After all, Schwartz isn't even a declared candidate yet. "I told her she could use my name in a fond and affectionate way," Williams told us. One person probably not using his name that way this week: state Treasurer Rob McCord . McCord is the other heavyweight in the state's Democratic camp considering ways to deny Corbett a second term.

Never can say goodbye. I always get so sentimental watching the grand finales of TV series. Maybe because they use everything but grappling hooks to tug on your heartstrings. This week, we bid a dewy adieu to so many shows there are still tear stains on my Superman Snuggie. On Private Practice , we got not one but two weddings. Ah, Addison, happy at last. And just about every other possible couple on the show pledged their undying love. This was the Noah's Ark of romantic finales.

JoAn Gewirtz, 84, of Bala Cynwyd, a retired adolescent and family therapist, died Thursday, Jan. 10, in a traffic accident in Ardmore. The former JoAn Luban was a passenger in a Toyota Corolla traveling east on West Wynnewood Road when it collided with a westbound Toyota Camry, police said. Mrs. Gewirtz was pronounced dead on arrival at Lankenau Hospital, police said. The two drivers were treated for minor injuries at other area hospitals. Wynnewood Road was cordoned off between Lancaster Avenue and Argyle Road for four hours as Lower Merion police investigated.

Madlyn and Leonard Abramson Center for Jewish Life , a nonprofit provider of services to seniors, elected the following trustees to its board: John Birnhak , owner of Weight Watchers of Philadelphia Inc., Fort Washington. Nina S. Goldfarb , president of the auxiliary of the Abramson Center. Neal S. Grabell , an attorney at Saul Ewing L.L.P. in Wayne and a visiting professor at Haverford College. Fran Michelle Levin , executive vice president at Northeast Building Products Corp., Philadelphia.

A suburban Philadelphia doctor who provided hospice care for the terminally ill was charged with taking kickbacks for referring dying Medicare and Medicaid patients from his private practice to the health care company where he worked part-time, the U.S. Attorney's office announced Thursday. Yevgeniy "Eugene" Goldman, 54, of Huntingdon Valley, had a private practice in Philadelphia but also worked as a part-time medical director for Home Care Hospice, Inc. in Northeast Philadelphia.