As a Scranton Preparatory School student, 18-year-old Brian McDonnell traveled to Mexico City for one of the most eye-opening and influential experiences of his life. As a participant in a service program called Los Hermanos (“The Brothers”), he spent a month living and working in an orphanage for boys. Attorney McDonnell’s Jesuit education at Prep, and his experience with Los Hermanos in
Attorney McDonnell graduated from Scranton Prep in
As a part-time job throughout college, Attorney McDonnell worked in collaboration with a child psychologist in the Bethlehem and Easton area, tutoring and teaching studying skills to high school students with learning disabilities.
Following Lehigh, he received a full scholarship to The Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law. While at Dickinson, Attorney McDonnell was a member of the Penn State Law Review. As a law student, he interned at the Governor’s Policy Office in Harrisburg, was a summer law clerk for Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Sr. of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, and was a Summer Associate at Hourigan, Kluger & Quinn. He also had the opportunity to study abroad via Penn State at the University of Florence School of Law.
Attorney McDonnell graduated from Dickinson in May 2006 and passed the Pennsylvania Bar Examination in July 2006 on his first attempt. After graduating from law school, he chose to return home to Northeastern Pennsylvania and serve the community where he was raised. He began working for HKQ as an associate in August 2006 and has remained there ever since. He is now a principal on the firm’s Personal Injury Team. His practice concentrates on personal injury, auto accidents and medical malpractice cases. Since becoming a lawyer, he has worked exclusively on behalf of accident victims and their families.
Attorney McDonnell is admitted to practice in the courts throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as well as the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association, Pennsylvania Association for Justice, the Wilkes-Barre Law and Library Association and its Young Lawyers’ Division, and the Northeastern Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association.
In his spare time, Attorney McDonnell has volunteered with the Scranton Council of Literacy Advance (SCOLA)/United Neighborhood Centers as a certified English as a Second Language (ESL) and adult literacy tutor. He and his wife have two daughters and reside in Clarks Summit.
LEGAL EXPERIENCE
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS & RECOGNITIONS
EDUCATION