Bourne Ruthrauff’s practice focuses on litigation, in defense of product liability matters, commercial litigation and ethics matters.

Litigation

He defends manufacturers of a wide range of industrial, commercial and personal products in Pennsylvania and New Jersey (pro hac vice). In recent years, he has utilized binding arbitration as a cost effective means of resolving disputes. Ruthrauff has focused his practice in trial matters since 1967. Over those years, he has tried, and assisted at trials of, a wide range of matters, including antitrust class actions, complex commercial disputes, criminal charges, patent and trademark infringement, personal injury, product liability, shareholder actions and ethics disputes. In addition, he has successfully defended putative class actions alleging fraud, and matters involving alleged violation of consumer credit protections, resolving those matters before trial.

Ethics

His private ethics practice includes advice to individual attorneys, law firms, and corporate entities. He has litigated ethics matters in the Eastern and Middle Districts of Pennsylvania. He has served as an expert witness on ethics issues.

He has also served with the Philadelphia Bar Association Professional Guidance Committee providing confidential ethics advice to lawyers since 1974. From 2001-2003 he served as chair of that Committee. In 2004, he was also named to the Pennsylvania Bar Association Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee. He serves as Ethics Counsel for Bennett, Bricklin & Saltzburg, LLP.

He is active as a mediator and arbitrator, and serves as Judge Pro Tem in the Philadelphia Commerce Court and Philadelphia Common Pleas Court programs. He served as an arbitrator for the New York Stock Exchange from 2000-2007.

Ruthrauff graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1964 where he served as the Editor in Chief of the Daily Pennsylvanian. He then graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1967. In his senior year he won the finals of the Keedy Moot Court Competition.

He has lectured on trial evidence and attorney ethics and has presented a workshop on Hearsay at the Litigation Section of the American Bar Association.

He lives with his wife Carolyn Wyeth in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; he has two children and two grandchildren. His hobby is competing in triathlons.