Vocational & Rehabilitation Experts in Pennsylvania

The Courts of Common Pleas are the trial courts of Pennsylvania, and they sit by judicial district: the Unified Judicial System's own pages organize them into sixty judicial districts across the Commonwealth's sixty-seven counties, most of them a single county and a few two counties together. The civil actions in which vocational and life care evidence is offered are heard in the Court of Common Pleas of the county where the matter is venued, and the system's page on how the courts operate places jury trials primarily in the Courts of Common Pleas. Either party may appeal a civil decision: the Superior Court of Pennsylvania and the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania are the two statewide intermediate appellate courts, an appeal from a final decision of a state agency, the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board among them, begins with a petition for review in the Commonwealth Court, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is the highest court in the Commonwealth.

For the venues on this site, Philadelphia County is the First Judicial District and Allegheny County, the county of Pittsburgh, is the Fifth Judicial District. The judicial district list places Lancaster County in the Second Judicial District, Northampton County (Bethlehem) in the Third, Erie County in the Sixth, Bucks County (Levittown) in the Seventh, Dauphin County (Harrisburg) in the Twelfth, Berks County (Reading) in the Twenty-third, Lehigh County (Allentown) in the Thirty-first and Lackawanna County (Scranton) in the Forty-fifth, and each of those counties has a Court of Common Pleas of its own. The Philadelphia Municipal Court hears the smaller civil claims in Philadelphia, and Magisterial District Courts hear them elsewhere in the state. Harrisburg is the state capital.

In the federal system the Eastern District of Pennsylvania lists the James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse in Philadelphia, the Edward N. Cahn U.S. Courthouse in Allentown, the Gateway Building in Reading and the Holmes Building in Easton; the Middle District of Pennsylvania lists the William J. Nealon Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Scranton, the Sylvia H. Rambo United States Courthouse in Harrisburg, the Herman T. Schneebeli Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Williamsport and the Max Rosenn U.S. Courthouse in Wilkes-Barre; and the Western District of Pennsylvania lists the Joseph F. Weis, Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Pittsburgh and the U.S. Courthouses in Erie and Johnstown. Workers' compensation claims are administered by the Bureau of Workers' Compensation, part of the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, and disputed claims are decided by workers' compensation judges of the Workers' Compensation Office of Adjudication, a division of the same department. By the Office's directory, its judges' offices for the venues on this site are in Philadelphia (Southeastern District), Pittsburgh and Erie (Western District), Harrisburg and Scranton (Central District), and Allentown, Reading and Lancaster (Eastern District). Appeals from a judge's decision go to the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board and then to the Commonwealth Court. The Pennsylvania Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR) is the state vocational rehabilitation agency.

Ten of this site's Pennsylvania city pages carry a wage and employment record for their own metropolitan area, each named as the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics series titles it: Philadelphia and Levittown report the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD area, Pittsburgh the Pittsburgh, PA area, Allentown and Bethlehem the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ area, Erie the Erie, PA area, Reading the Reading, PA area, Scranton the Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA area, Harrisburg the Harrisburg-Carlisle, PA area and Lancaster the Lancaster, PA area, while the pages of the remaining Pennsylvania cities report Pennsylvania's statewide figures. Wages come from that series and unemployment rates from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics series, both published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the analysis uses the data of the region where the claimant lives and works.

Plaintiff and defense counsel retain KWVRS for Pennsylvania matters, and each report is prepared to the disclosure requirements of the forum in which the matter is pending, whether a county's Court of Common Pleas, a federal district or a workers' compensation judge. KWVRS is headquartered in Hackensack, New Jersey, and maintains a Richmond, Virginia office. Attorneys confirm the governing rule for their case.