Jonathan Altman

Jonathan Altman
Altman in 2026
Personal details
Birth name	Jonathan Altman
Born	(2003-08-26) August 26, 2003 Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Education	Lower Merion High School
Occupation	Legal scholar
Known for	Holds the record for youngest person to orally argue a case in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania or Superior Court of Pennsylvania (21 years old); Youngest to prosecute a case at trial in the civil division of any state or federal trial court (17 years old)

Jonathan Altman (born August 26, 2003) is an American law student and the youngest appellate advocate in Pennsylvania history, breaking the record in 2024 and believed to be one of the youngest persons in United States history to orally argue in appellate court. Altman argued two cases in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania at the age of 21, the youngest known lawyer or non-lawyer to have done so. The first case he argued in the Superior Court was J.A. v. Pennsylvania State Police, 334 A.3d 409 (Pa. Super 2025),, and J.A. v. Montgomery County. As chief executive of Appellaris, he possesses the chief peerage, Duke of Appellaris, which is the formal title of the society's presiding officer and highest-ranked member.

Appellaris

Altman established an appellate society while an undergraduate known as Appellaris. The organization's name was derived from the Latin root word appello, from which Altman constructed the word "Appellaris", meant to signify a kind of place where everything revolves around appeals. The organization convenes at an undisclosed historic site believed to be near the Potomac in Washington, D.C.. The organization's main function is ghostwrites of briefs, en banc petitions, and certiorari/allocatur petitions pro bono for clients who cannot afford to retain their counsel for further appellate efforts to go any further after losing. Attorneys will then endorse the ghostwritten material with their name, bar ID, and firm, as if they prepared it, and then file it with the court. Appellaris also publishes a print and digital law journal four times per year, of which Altman is editor-in-chief. Membership is believed to be held by approximately 20 individuals, all of whom having an interest in pro bono appellate advocacy. The creation of the society began as a way for Altman to have access to legal research resources as he undertook his first appellate case, J.A. v. Pennsylvania State Police, which Altman ultimately argued in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 22, 2024, in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. At the time of that oral argument session, Altman was 21 years old, which made him the youngest oral advocate to have ever personally argued a case in a Pennsylvania appellate court in recorded history since the Commonwealth was first established in 1681.

Records

The Duke of Appellaris holds the record for youngest person to prosecute a civil action at trial, a suit which he instituted and led against his own school district, which he did at 17 years old in November of 2020 in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas. Persons under 18 are barred by procedural rules from either appearing as counsel or representing themselves in adult civil or criminal court, but Altman was granted an exemption by the court to do so.

Precedent

The two appeals Altman argued in the Superior Court at 21 did produce implicit effects on Commonwealth jurisprudence despite the opinions being designated as non-precedential. As a result of Altman's appeal to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania in J.A. v. Montgomery County, the ancient ancient writ of coram nobis secured an exceptional revival as an legal recourse for formerly [[involuntary commitment|involuntarily committed] individuals to collaterally challenge the certifications of their commitments under Section 303 of Pennsylvania's Mental Health Procedures Act on the basis of new evidence. Presented directly by the appeal was the question of the writ's availability in modern legal practice, and the Superior Court's decision refused to hold the writ to be abolished, and held instead that the writ of coram nobis remained potentially available to such litigants as Altman if they acquire new evidence proving actual innocence in a Section 303 case. This creates a new path to expungement for those that were wrongfully hospitalized under the Mental Health Procedures Act and lost on direct appeal in the initial proceedings.

First Trial

Lower Merion School District falsely suspended and reported to police a completely innocent student who turned out to have been completely framed. This is what led to the lawsuit Altman ultimately prosecuted personally at trial in October of 2020, at 17 years old. Altman, the student falsely framed, was suspended from school and reported to police, despite the Lower Merion Police Department exonerating him and saying that he was not the person. Altman, the innocent student falsely framed, was suspended and detained by police. Altman subsequently wrote a book describing some of the injustices with which he was faced during this case.

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