HON. PAULA A. ROSCIOLI ’90 RECEIVES HON. SYLVIA H. RAMBO AWARD, AND MADELYN R. SNYDER ’22 RECEIVES RECENT ALUMNI AWARD AT CEREMONY TO BE HELD AT DICKINSON LAW
March 2024 — Penn State Dickinson Law’s Women’s Law Caucus (WLC) recognized two alumnae with awards during a ceremony and reception in Lewis Katz Hall on March 19. Hon. Paula A. Roscioli (class of 1990), a judge on the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County (PA), received the Hon. Sylvia H. Rambo Award. Madelyn R. Snyder (class of 2022), term law clerk to Susan E. Schwab, United States Magistrate Judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, received the Recent Graduate Award. Remarks by Hon. Sylvia H. Rambo (class of 1962) will be shared by video during the March 19 ceremony.
Honorable Sylvia H. Rambo Award
The Hon. Sylvia H. Rambo Award was introduced in 1993 by the Women’s Law Caucus to honor its first recipient, Sylvia H. Rambo, a 1962 graduate of the Law School and the first woman to serve as chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Each year, the WLC honors a legal professional who has had a distinguished career and who, by example, has made the professional success of other women more likely.
Hon. Paula A. Roscioli was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County, November 8, 2005, and was sworn into office on January 6, 2006. She currently serves as the administrative judge of Domestic Relations and the supervising judge of the Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Program. Judge Roscioli was previously the administrative judge of Criminal Court and served as the presiding judge for the Northampton County Grand Jury empaneled from 2010 through 2012. Judge Roscioli presides over civil, criminal, family law and other matters that come before the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County.
Prior to her installation, Judge Roscioli was in private practice with her father, Gene F. Roscioli, Esquire. In addition to her private practice, she was a prosecutor for the Northampton County District Attorney’s Office from 1992 until 2005. While on the District Attorney’s staff, she served as the chief prosecutor of violent crimes and first deputy district attorney. Judge Roscioli graduated from Lafayette College in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in government and law and received her juris doctor from Penn State Dickinson Law in 1990, where she received the Abel Law Award for trial advocacy upon her graduation.
Throughout her legal career, Judge Roscioli has been active in numerous associations. She was a member of the Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Association, Drug and Alcohol Commission, Criminal Justice Curriculum Committee at Northampton County Community College, Creative Kids Club Board of Directors, Sons of Italy, Moravian Academy Board of Trustees, Moravian Academy Alumni Board, American Inns of Court, Council of Lafayette Women, and as chair of the Northeast Advisory Council for Lafayette College she served as an associate trustee on the Lafayette College Board of Trustees. Judge Roscioli is a member of the Northampton County Bar Association and was elected to serve on its Board of Governors in 2003. Judge Roscioli volunteers her time to serve as a presenter at various Continuing Legal Education programs and regularly serves as a mentor to college and high school students interested in the law by offering internships and shadowing opportunities.
Recent Graduate Award
Created in 2020 by the WLC, the Recent Graduate Award recognizes a graduate of Dickinson Law within the last 10 years who was exceptionally dedicated to the Law School while a student or is exceptionally dedicated to their current work, a pioneer in their respective field, or someone who completed an extraordinary event while a law student, and who promotes encouragement of women in the legal field.
Madelyn R. “Maddy” Snyder currently serves as term law clerk to Hon. Susan E. Schwab, United States Magistrate Judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, in Harrisburg, PA. A 2022 graduate of Penn State Dickinson Law, Maddy is concluding a two-year term as president of the Dickinson Law Alumni Society of the Penn State Alumni Association (PSAA). As president, she also represents Dickinson Law as a member of PSAA’s Alumni Council, through which she has served on the Audit and Risk Committee and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee. Maddy also serves on the Board of Directors of Project SHARE in Carlisle, a relationship that began with the Leading Law Students program at the Law School.
While a law student, Maddy was a member of Dickinson Law’s American Constitutional Society, Animal Legal Defense Fund, and The Dickinson Law Review. As the Law Review’s executive symposium editor in 2022, she planned and executed a hybrid symposium entitled “Qualifying Qualified Immunity: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.” Maddy was also a research assistant to a professor.
Maddy was active in her community during law school through internships. Most notably, she was a Certified Legal Intern for the Children's Advocacy Clinic, completed a semester in practice with the Federal Public Defender’s Office, and participated in the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network’s Martin Luther King Jr. Summer Internship Program in 2021, through which she interned for the Community Justice Project, a non-profit, public interest law firm. A list of past Rambo Award and Recent Graduate Award recipients is available online.