Andra M. Laidacker joined Kline & Specter’s Appellate Department with perhaps the best experience for the position – seven and a half years working in the Pennsylvania judicial system, the last five as law clerk to former Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Recently, Laidacker was appointed by the state's highest court to a three-year-term on its Appellate Courts Procedural Rules Committee. The 12-member committee advises the Supreme Court on matters relating to the Pennsylvania Rules of Appellate Procedure and is responsible for making formal recommendations for refining and updating those rules. It regularly handles sensitive issues involving civil, criminal and Orphans’ Court practice. 

As a law clerk to Chief Justice Castille, Laidacker assisted in preparing judicial opinions and internal memoranda on issues of constitutional law, statutory construction, common law, administrative and procedural matters, and issues related to judicial reform and management of the judiciary. She even drafted an article on the history of the Pennsylvania judiciary.

Prior to working for Castille, who retired in January 2015, Laidacker was a law clerk for Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Jane C. Greenspan, for whom she drafted judicial opinions, allocatur reports and reviewed emergency petitions for relief. She worked the previous year as a law clerk to the Motions Court Program with the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.  Before working in the judicial system, Laidacker was a producer for a daily business program on the Fox News Channel in New York City.

She co-authored the first chapter of the recently released book The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania—Life and Law in the Commonwealth, 1684-2017, which was published by the Pennsylvania State University Press. Her chapter examines the election of judges in Pennsylvania.

Laidacker earned her law degree from Tulane University and did international coursework in arbitration and mediation at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. She was the recipient of a Tulane merit-based scholarship.

Laidacker attended Princeton University for her undergraduate studies, earning a bachelor’s degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Policy. While an undergraduate, she did international coursework at Oxford University.

Laidacker is licensed to practice in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and is a member of the University of Pennsylvania Inn of Court. She speaks fluent Romanian.