Private Practice

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.

Callers for violinist Robert Portney are greeted by a crisp Boston telephone voice answering "psychiatry. " The response may be more than apt, Portney concedes with a laugh, for who else in his right mind would try to manage simultaneous careers in music and in medicine? Portney is doing just that. At Massachusetts General Hospital, he is Dr. Robert Portney, 34, chief of the emergency room and consultant in psychiatry, a Harvard University faculty member, director of an addiction unit and part of the clinic for musical medicine at Harvard.

Thirty-five lawyers are running for 11 vacancies and five newly created positions on the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Each elected judge will serve a term of 10 years, at an annual salary of $80,000. Three candidates are sitting judges, appointed by Gov. Casey and approved by the state Senate. They are seeking their own terms, to begin Jan. 2. They are Arnold L. New, 42, Paul P. Panepinto, 41, and Allan L. Tereshko, 46. Another three - former federal prosecutor Gary S. Glazer, 41, defense attorney James Murray Lynn, 43, and estates lawyer Anne E. Lazarus, 38 - recently were appointed by Casey to fill unexpired vacancies on the court.

Anthony E. Napoli, 67, of Cherry Hill, a well-known surgical podiatrist in Philadelphia, died of diabetes complications Thursday, June 10, at Virtua Marlton. Dr. Napoli's career happened by chance. In 1963, his fiancee, Roberta Vellozzi, had foot surgery, and her doctors told her that podiatry was a growing field. She mentioned it to her future husband, who immediately started looking into it. The couple married in 1964, and a few months later Dr. Napoli left his job at an insurance agency to study at the Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine in Cleveland.

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.

As a state Supreme Court justice desperate to find a way to build a new Family Court building in Center City, Sandra Schultz Newman hired real estate lawyer Jeffrey B. Rotwitt to make the project happen. Two years later, as Rotwitt's firm was closing in on a $3.9 million payday, Newman - by then a lawyer in private practice - tried to make sure some of the Family Court fees went to her son, a former lawyer in Rotwitt's firm. The former justice sent an e-mail to Rotwitt in March 2008 saying her son Jonathan, who introduced her to Rotwitt, should get credit for scoring the deal for the firm, Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel.

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.

John C. Alden, 47, who served from 1979 to 1982 as a state representative from the 167th Legislative District in Delaware County, died of cancer on June 6 at his home in San Diego. Mr. Alden was born in Darby and lived in Wayne and Radnor for more than 30 years. He attended St. Katharine of Siena Elementary School and High School in Wayne, graduated from Villanova University in 1965 and received his law degree from Villanova in 1969. He opened a law office on North Wayne Avenue in Wayne in 1970 and later moved to Louella Court, also in Wayne.

Pennsylvania voters will elect two judges to 10-year terms on Commonwealth Court this November. The Inquirer urges the election of Republican Robert L. Byer and Democrat Doris A. Smith. Mr. Byer, 35, a lawyer in private practice in Pittsburgh, was the only one of the four candidates to receive the Pennsylvania Bar Association's highest rating of "exceptionally well qualified. " He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh, did graduate study in English literature at Oxford University and then received a law degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

Former Camden County First Assistant Prosecutor Dennis G. Wixted, driven by a desire to maintain pension benefits and serve the public, will return to the public sector Saturday, when he is sworn in as prosecutor for Pine Hill. Wixted, a lawyer in the Camden law firm of Sufrin & Zucker since September, promised to bring with him a respect for people and a nonpartisan, no-nonsense way of handling the court system. He will replace Nicholas Panarella Jr., who served one year as the borough's prosecutor and will continue in private practice in Gloucester Township.