Three Eastburn and Gray Attorneys Selected for Inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America ©2017
Marc D. Jonas, Esq., John A. VanLuvanee, Esq. and Michael J. Savona, Esq. were selected by their peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® 2017 edition.
Mr. Jonas was named The Best Lawyers in America® 2017 Lawyer of the Year for Land Use and Zoning Law in the Philadelphia area. Only a single lawyer in each practice area and community is honored with a “Lawyer of the Year” award. Since 2012, Mr. Jonas has been honored in two fields — Land Use and Zoning Law as well as Litigation in Land Use and Zoning. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he has established a reputation as one of the preeminent land use attorneys in Pennsylvania with extensive experience in real estate, land use/zoning, and municipal law, representing individuals, businesses, and municipalities. Mr. Jonas serves as Solicitor to Kennett Square Borough and as Solicitor to the Zoning Hearing Boards of Towamencin, Upper Merion, and Lower Salford Townships. Following his service in the United States Air Force Reserve, Mr. Jonas began his legal career as law clerk to President Judge James S. Bowman of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. He is a previous board chairman of the Montgomery County Planning Commission.
Since 2007, Mr. VanLuvanee has been consistently selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America©. He was named The Best Lawyers in America® 2014 Land Use and Zoning Law “Lawyer of the Year” in the Philadelphia area. As one of Pennsylvania’s premier land use attorneys, he handles zoning, subdivision and land development matters, as well as real estate transactional matters, for both developers and property owners. During his career, he has been involved in many significant, precedent-setting land use cases decided by the Commonwealth Court and Pennsylvania Supreme Court. For more than 30 years, he has served as counsel to the Home Builders Association of Bucks/Montgomery Counties. He is an active member of the Legal Action Task Force and Judicial Task Force of the Pennsylvania Builders Association and the Legal Action Network for Development Strategies (LANDS) sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders. He is a graduate of Kalamazoo College and the University of Michigan Law School.
Mr. Savona is a Shareholder at Eastburn and Gray where he is a member of the Land Use and Zoning, Litigation, Municipal Law, and Real Estate practice groups. He frequently publishes articles and lectures on local government, land use and zoning law. For 20 years he has served as solicitor to numerous municipalities and government agencies across the State of Pennsylvania and in 2013 was appointed General Counsel to the Pennsylvania Tax Collectors’ Association. In addition, he serves as the Editor of the firm’s municipal and land use and zoning blog, www.pazoninglawyers.com. He is a graduate of California University of Pennsylvania and the American University, Washington College of Law. This is the first year that Mr. Savona has been included in this ranking system and he is the firm’s first attorney to be recognized in the area of Municipal Law.
The Land Use and Zoning practice group at Eastburn and Gray provides assistance in all aspects of real estate, land use, and municipal law including zoning matters, subdivision/development, and land sales and acquisitions throughout Pennsylvania. Our attorneys regularly appear before planning commissions, municipal governing bodies and zoning hearing boards in Pennsylvania. We also represent clients before the Environmental Hearing Board and other Pennsylvania administrative agencies.
Since it was first published in 1983, Best Lawyers® has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Best Lawyers lists are compiled based on an exhaustive peer-review evaluation. Over 79,000 leading attorneys globally are eligible to vote, and we have received more than 12 million votes to date on the legal abilities of other lawyers based on their specific practice areas around the world. For the 2016 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America©, 6.7 million votes were analyzed, which resulted in more than 55,000 leading lawyers being included in the new edition. Lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed; therefore inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.”
