Now in her professional prime, Hillary Moonay has established herself as one of Bucks County’s – indeed, one of the Philadelphia region’s - leading divorce lawyers. It’s been a notable career path for the 50-year-old Long Island native; she joined the Philadelphia firm of Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel right out of law school, left the firm after 10 solid years in its Center City office, and returned a decade later, after cultivating a strong reputation as a divorce litigator in Philadelphia’s northern suburbs. By then the mother of three, she re-joined Obermayer as a partner, and, thanks to her record in Bucks County, spearheaded the launch of the firm’s office in Doylestown. Today she is co-chair of Obermayer’s 32-lawyer family law department, which spans three states. Moreover, she is incoming chair of the Family Law Section of the Pennsylvania Bar. Like many first-rate lawyers, Moonay is hardly a self-promoter (“They teach you a lot of things in law school, but how to market yourself is not one of them”); her ascent has been based on years of exceptional if somewhat under-the-radar accomplishments for clients. In fact, her style is all substance – steady, focused, thorough, unflappable – which has allowed her to lead by personal example. In many respects she is part of a new generation of family lawyers – many of them women – who’ve taken the theatrics out of the specialty. “There’s not much value in lengthy posturing nowadays – my clients are intelligent and they want me to chart a course to a solid resolution.”

Moonay (“It’s pronounced, as our family likes to say, what a cow says followed by what a horse says”) grew up in Huntington, NY, on Long Island’s North Shore, the daughter of “very community-involved parents” who served on the local school board. Her father, too, has been a longtime transactional lawyer practicing in Manhattan. She was a volleyball player at Huntington High School, and, after considering smaller colleges, went on to The University of Maryland, where “I wanted to be a student first, and be part of the spirit, all the rah-rah of a big school.” Early on she eyed studying politics and government (“After a couple of classes I realized it wasn’t for me”) and shifted to criminal justice and psychology. Always a diligent student, and a natural leader (she served as president of her sorority) she set her sights on law school. She was admitted to University of Michigan, and started law school there only 10 days after graduation ceremonies at Maryland. “I really immersed myself in Ann Arbor from the day I got there,” but adds she’d always planned to return east. She focused on family law, participating in a child advocacy clinic in northern Michigan, and graduated in two and a half years. She joined Obermayer as a summer associate while still in law school, and joined first its commercial litigation practice, only later joining the matrimonial group when a full-time spot opened up. Her early mentors – Robert Whitelaw and Anne Verber, among others – encouraged litigation work from the start. “I was very fortunate to get early courtroom and appellate writing experience.” But when she and her husband moved to Yardley, PA, and with young children, Moonay faced down the familiar career stresses of a long commute and family commitments. “Everyone at Obermayer was great to me – but at the time we had no Bucks County office.” Thus she joined, in 2005, a boutique matrimonial-law firm based in Doylestown, and spent more than nine years there.

At that point she was recruited to launch an office for a firm based in Chester County, 30 miles south of Doylestown. All along her stature kept rising: “Referrals in a small community come from everywhere, from the babysitter you once hired to a high school teacher. ” Then, in 2018, fast-growing Obermayer called again, offering her a partnership and a chance to finally open a Bucks County office; today there are 10 lawyers based in that office, and Moonay remains its senior lawyer. Post-Covid, Moonay says the firm’s areas of expertise – including mediation services – have grown, both virtually and face-to-face. Outside of the office Moonay, who previously coached her daughter’s soccer team, coaches a group of young people, of all ages, with autism, a “very rewarding weekend activity for everyone involved.” Moonay and her husband, also an attorney who is an in-house counsel for a major brokerage, still live in Yardley; their oldest son recently graduated from the University of Maryland, and a daughter attends Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa.