University of St. Thomas

J.D., Rutgers University
Graduate Diploma, Nineteenth Century Literature, Université de Paris IV (Sorbonne)
B.A., Augustana College

Valerie Munson grew up in rural Illinois.  While attending law school in the evening at Rutgers School of Law in Camden, New Jersey, she worked full time as a law clerk in the litigation department of Morgan Lewis & Bockius, doing legal research and writing. She also published a translation of the Constitutional Charter of the Republic of Chad from French to English, Constitutions of the Countries of the World, Oceana Publications, 1979, and The Case Concerning U.S. Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran, Cal. Western Internat’l L.J. 11 (1982) 543-568.  Ms. Munson served as articles editor of the Rutgers Law Journal, organizing and editing its first symposium issue in the spring of 1982 on the subject of International Terrorism.  Rutgers Law Journal 13:3.

She practiced law in Philadelphia for twenty-five years, with Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, Miller Marvin Dunham & Doering (subsequently Miller Dunham Doering & Munson) and with the Philadelphia office of Pittsburgh-based Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellot. Mrs. Munson specialized in matters of complex civil litigation, including securities fraud, antitrust, insurance coverage, telecommunications and constitutional law matters. She represented clients in trial and appellate cases in state, federal and international tribunals, and Protestant ecclesial tribunals. In the later years of her practice, she focused exclusively on the field of Religion & Law, establishing and chairing a department of Religion & Law at Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellot.  Representative personal clients of Ms. Munson’s included Merv Griffin and his holding company (securities fraud), Lloyd’s of London (insurance coverage), Pew Charitable Trusts, the Presbytery of Philadelphia, individual churches, and individual members of the Protestant and Jewish clergy.  Her pro bono representations focused on court-appointed advocacy on behalf of abused and neglected children and the prosecution of clergy sexual misconduct in ecclesial tribunals.

In 2003-2004, Ms. Munson took a six-month sabbatical from her practice of law to accept an invitation to be a resident fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton where she researched and wrote on the subject of Christian ethics and the resolution of church property disputes. 

Representative Presentations and Publications:  “Hot Topics for Religious Organizations” Pennsylvania Bar Institute 2007; “Sharing the Gospel in the Workplace – Legal Boundaries”, Billy Graham Work Life Ministry Conference, Pittsburgh, PA 2006,  “Church Property and God’s Economy”, www.layman.org (posted 2005),  “Q&A on Legal Issues Involved in FBO-Government Partnerships”, www.fastennetwork.org (posted 2003); “The Law of the Land:  The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000”, Your Church, November/December 2002.