After more than a decade’s experience at three of Philadelphia’s most-respected law firms, Adam C. Bonin formed his new practice in January 2012.
Adam extensively represents clients in campaign finance, election law, pay-to-play, and lobbying compliance matters and has been a leader in efforts on behalf of the rights of online speakers. In 2005-06, he led the fight and achieved a major victory before the Federal Election Commission on behalf of major political bloggers, securing significant new rights for speakers on the Internet to engage in online political speech and advocacy. He has been successful on both sides of ballot access battles, successfully representing candidates for office in defending their right to appear on the ballot as well as removing others from the ballot whose signatures had been procured fraudulently or unlawfully.
His practice today focuses on the representation of a variety of elected officials and candidates for office, as well as corporate, labor, and other politically active entities on federal, state and municipal campaign finance, election law and regulatory compliance matters, including pay-to-play law and the regulation of lobbying activities.
The Associated Press, Politico.com, NPR, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Reuters, the Comcast Network, NBC10 Philadelphia and other media outlets regularly call upon Adam to comment on election law and political issues, and he writes regularly on these issues as a featured writer for the front page of DailyKos, America’s largest online political community. He regularly speaks at conferences and other major public events on these matters, including most recently gatherings hosted by the Brennan Center for Justice, the Campaign for America’s Future, the National LGBT Bar Association, and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Adam’s prior work also includes the representation of major insurance companies in a multibillion-dollar subrogation recovery lawsuit against the individuals, entities and nations involved in financing Al-Qaeda, seeking to hold them accountable for the September 11 tragedy. He has also represented clients in both federal and state jurisdictions in matters involving commercial litigation, products liability, antitrust, municipal finance, and first amendment litigation. He has also devoted a substantial percentage of his professional time to state and federal appellate practice.
Adam earned his bachelor of arts degree, magna cum laude, from Amherst College in 1994. He earned his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1997, where he served as comment editor of The University of Chicago Legal Forum and as an editor of The Law School Phoenix. While in law school, Adam was a student attorney at the Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, and studied election law under then-Professor Barack Obama.
Adam is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Netroots Nation, which hosts an annual conference and regional events on the intersection between the online and political worlds. He also serves on the board of directors of Society Hill Synagogue and the Jewish Social Policy Action Network. He remains active with the Philadelphia Lawyers’ Chapter of the American Constitution Society, which he previously chaired, which seeks to promote rights and liberties, genuine equality, access to justice, democracy and the rule of law through a variety of events. Adam also serves on the board of advisors for The Green Bag, a legal journal, for its legal writing project. His professional honors include being named a 2006 Lawyer on the Fast Track by American Lawyer Media
He is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania, and before the Supreme Court of the United States.
