About Natalie Pompilio
Natalie Pompilio is an award-winning freelance writer based in Philadelphia. Formerly a staff writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia Daily News and The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, Natalie was on the ground in Iraq in 2003 and in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. She’s collaborated on four Philadelphia-centric books: More Philadelphia Murals and The Stories They Tell (with Jane Golden and Robin Rice); Philadelphia A to Z (with photographer Jennifer Zdon); Walking Philadelphia: 30 Walking Tours Featuring Art, History, Architecture, and Little Known Gems (with photographer Tricia Pompilio) and This Used to Be Philadelphia (with photographer Tricia Pompilio. She holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, and she’s a rabid New York Yankees fan.
Articles written by Natalie Pompilio
Catching Up With the Coluccis
Darin and Dino on brotherhood, making clients happy, and who Mom liked bestDino and Darin Colucci agree on a lot—including which of them their late mother preferred. “He was my mother’s favorite,” Darin says. “Everybody knew it was true. You just had to move on and accept it.” Dino interjects: “He’s leaving out that I worked awful hard for a long time to be mom’s favorite. I put the time in. I put the effort in.” Growing up, the Colucci brothers shared a room, played football—Dino at offensive guard, Darin at quarterback—and built the …
'We Need to Tell Other Stories'
Lisa E. Davis’ decades-long battle for inclusion in entertainment and lawSome people don’t see much of a connection between entertainment law and racial justice, but Lisa E. Davis knows otherwise. “The greatest opportunity and source of wealth for African Americans prior to the civil rights movement was in the field of entertainment,” says Davis, a partner at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz. “It was the one place they were allowed to collect wealth—though not as much as the people controlling the large companies that distributed our intellectual …
Changing the Narrative
There’s nothing Sherry Fox loves more than being underestimatedIt’s not often a lawyer mentions her work in surrogacy and reproductive law in the same breath as she does her work defending police officers after arrests go wrong. The two might seem incongruous to some, Sherry Fox acknowledges, but for her, the blend sings of balance. “I get a raised eyebrow, but the common thread is that they are both people-focused,” she says. Lawyers who specialize in other types of law, like business or real estate, “rarely work with the people who will be …
Uncommon Conviction
Karol Corbin Walker’s faith-forward approach to life and the law began at homeTwice a day, Karol Corbin Walker hits pause on her business, commercial and employment litigation work to connect with people, and it has nothing to do with the deeply isolating pandemic. It’s a long-practiced, reflective pause, a daily routine each morning and evening of sharing spiritual messages, devotionals, prayers, affirmations and such with the 100 or so people across her various social groups. “You never know what another person is going through,” Walker says. That’s why she …
Objects of Obsession
From prized bottles of wine to vintage wheels, Allie Petrova advises on high-value collectionsAs children, Allie Petrova and her brother would gather around when their father added another stamp or coin to his collections. She knew skin oils could oxidize coins, and she learned about the fragility of stamps, recalling how her father would say, “Hold your breath for a moment” when he placed one in an album. “I know the special care that goes into collecting,” says Petrova, who was particularly taken with one of her father’s ancient Thracian coins. “It was fun to hear the …
The Next Gen Levels Up
Six millennials on ageism, navigating two recessions, the debt burden and the rewards of a legal careerThe law is one of the few professions that prizes age—maybe to a fault. “Clients want somebody with experience and the prerequisite number of gray hairs to prove it,” says Rama Taib-Lopez. “But after they get to know me and hear the same thing from the partners, they quickly realize they shouldn’t have to pay an extra $200 an hour to get the same advice.” Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic is the second recession many millennial lawyers have had to navigate. “When I was looking …
Ms. Maydanich's Neighborhood
The business lit lawyer owes much to Owings MillsZhanna Maydanich got her first clients in elementary school: her parents. The family had immigrated to the U.S. from the Soviet Union when Maydanich was 6. She quickly picked up English, making her the family’s business broker. “My parents would bring me to places to speak for them,” Maydanich says. “Or if the telephone bill would come and they’d have questions, I’d get on the phone with the company and do business on their behalf.” That desire to help guided her to her …
Advocate Butterfly
Outside the office, Madelaine Lane’s high notes come on the opera stageTurns out there are quite a few similarities between taking the stage to perform a duet from Mozart’s Don Giovanni and offering a vigorous criminal defense in a courtroom. “It’s really about how you communicate effectively and tell your story in a way that resonates,” says criminal defense attorney and soprano Madelaine Lane. “You want to look confident, even if inside you have stage fright.” The singer, seeking to captivate an audience, must master a centuries-old work and present …
Shop Talk
For Bernard W. Smalley, it all started in his father’s West Philadelphia barber shopPerched on the shoeshine stand, a young Bernard W. Smalley watched as his father cut the hair and dispersed wisdom to some of Philadelphia’s greatest legal minds: William H. Hastie, the first African American to serve as chief judge of a U.S. Federal Court of Appeals; Ronald Davenport, who would become dean of Duquesne University School of Law; H. Patrick Swygert, future president of Howard University. Smalley grew up in that West Philadelphia barber shop, greeting these men with a firm …
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