The Section on Business Law shall take as its province the development and practical working of the law of this Commonwealth and of the United States, relating to banks and banking, to other business and nonprofit corporations, partnerships and associations, to the law relating to mercantile and commercial transactions, including the fields of bankruptcy, insolvency and receiverships and of business regulation law.

PBA Bylaws, Article VI, Section 630

Chair’s Welcome

Welcome to the Pennsylvania Bar Association Business Law Section (BLS). The BLS is one of the most active sections of the Pennsylvania Bar Association, with approximately 720 members from across the Commonwealth. Our diverse membership includes lawyers in solo practice, law firms (large, midsize and small), in-house, and government, practicing in a variety of areas, all of which involve some aspect of business law.

The primary work of the BLS consists of committees and task forces that strive to improve the practice of business law in Pennsylvania through educational, legislative, and networking initiatives. Among our committees and task forces are:

• Title 15/Business Associations Committee – a longstanding committee that focuses on improving and modernizing Pennsylvania’s association and entity laws
• Article 12 Task Force, which recently successfully proposed and advocated for the adoption of Article 12 of the Uniform Commercial Code relating to digital currencies
• Committee for Small and Closely Held Businesses – which provides frequent, topical seminars and CLEs for legal advisors to smaller and closely held businesses
• Task Force on the Modernization of the Pennsylvania Insolvency Law
• Commerce Court Task Force – formed to focus on efforts to develop special tribunals and expertise for disputes between business owners and other business-law issues, as well as bench-bar cross educational exchanges.
• Third Party Legal Opinion Task Force – helping PA practitioners keep pace with national developments in 3rd party legal opinion practice.

While many of these committees and task forces have existed for years, the BLS encourages “DIY” and ad hoc efforts on issues of interest to our membership. Many of our committees and task forces came together out of a handful of like-minded members who saw a need that they wanted to help fill. The BLS is also a prolific producer of state legislation affecting business law matters. Over the last 20 years, the BLS has lead drafting of a number of key pieces of business-related legislation (keep scrolling to see a selection).

I invite and encourage you to join the BLS and get involved in a project that interests you. We welcome your thoughts and suggestions on how our Section might be even more helpful to you and, most importantly, we welcome your participation. Thank you for your consideration.

Kelly M. Neal, chair