taught at many law schools. Class action
suits based on Title VII of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 were springing up all over
the country and legal interpretations
were coming at a fast pace. Teaching
employment discrimination allowed
Munsch to immerse herself in the new
law’s nuances, so that when she left the
position to return to Reed Smith almost
three years later, eager to practice law
again, she was more familiar with the Title
VII-related statutes than the firm’s veteran
labor lawyers. “I didn’t leave Reed Smith as
a labor lawyer, but I went back knowing I
wanted to be an employment lawyer. It was
a new area of the law where I felt I could be
a great contributor.”
Teaching also boosted her self-
confidence. “I had more resistance from
the student body in my civil procedure
class than I ever experienced practicing law
in a big law firm,” she says. “In fact, after
class the women would warn me about
the tricks that the men were going to play
on me. The men felt cheated because
they had to take a class taught by a young
woman.” But the well-prepared, tenacious
Munsch won over her once-skeptical
male students. At the end of the year she
received a Golden Apple Award.
In addition to her long workdays, Munsch
has a decades-long record of nonprofit
community service, including serving on
the board for the Children’s Hospital of
Pittsburgh and two stints on the University
of Pittsburgh’s board of trustees. She’s also
been supportive of women’s basketball,
having established the Martha Hartle
Munsch Endowed Women’s Basketball
Scholarship. When Agnus Berenato first
stepped into the office after becoming
Pitt’s women’s head coach in 2003, she
dialed up Munsch, wanting to meet the
person who supported the women’s team.
They’ve been good friends ever since, and
Munsch travels with the team once a year
on an away game. “Agnus makes it a point
to include me in the huddle,” she says. “It’s
my favorite weekend of the year.”
In 1977, Munsch logged another
career “first”: She was the first woman
appointed to the board of AAA East
Central Inc. Richard Hamilton, chairman
of the board of AAA East Central and its
former president and CEO for 20 years,
says, “We never got involved in any
lawsuits, and I would submit to you that
that’s because of Martha’s prowess.”
Munsch’s greatest legacy may be
the way she inspires and motivates the
people who cross her path. “Some people
are successful in one dimension of their
life. Martha strikes me as someone who
has achieved the enviable goal of being
successful in all phases of her life,” says
Reed’s Ryan. “In every phase, from A to Z,
she excels.”
But success doesn’t come easy. “I’m not
a seat-of-your-pants person. I prepare,
prepare, prepare. I still sometimes wake up
having a nightmare that I’m sitting in my
eighth grade algebra class, and where the
teacher is giving a test that I didn’t know
about,” she says, laughing. “My motto has
always been to outwork the other guy.”
MCCANN SCHAIBLE & WALL, LLC
Brian Wall†
Robert
McCann*
Wayne
Schaible**
Representing Plaintiffs in significant personal injury matters
and other civil litigation throughout the tri-state area.
Learn more about us at www.mswattorneys.com
*Chosen to Super Lawyers® 2007-2011 **Chosen to Super Lawyers 2004-2011
†Chosen to Super Lawyers 2007-2011, Top 100 List in Philly 2009 & 2011, Top 100 List in PA 2009
