Charity Hyde has extensive experience successfully defending Fortune 500 and other corporate clients in a variety of areas including aviation, premises liability, insurance fraud investigation, motor vehicle liability, product liability, and environmental and toxic tort litigation. Charity has a long history of leading multi-attorney teams in the representation of airlines, airports, financial institutions, retailers, restaurants, food manufacturers, municipalities, and large manufacturing clients in complex, high-exposure, and multi-district litigation. Her extensive defense litigation expertise spanning over two decades includes arbitrations and mediations, as well as trying bench and jury trials successfully to verdict. Charity also served as national coordinating counsel for a large, international manufacturing company for over a decade. Charity’s favorite part of litigation is the client relationships she builds and maintains throughout her career. Prior to joining Perez Morris, Charity was an equity partner at a large Philadelphia-based defense litigation firm.

Charity is an active champion of diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and within her community. She is an active member of the Defense Research Institute’s (DRI) Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee, as well as the DRI Diversity for Success Seminar and Corporate Expo Planning Committee. She serves as the Marketing Chair for both. Charity also serves as a mentor for the DRI Diverse Rainmaker Mentoring Program in which ten attorneys with no more than ten years of civil litigation experience are selected for the program. Each mentee is paired with a corporate counsel mentor, as well as a DRI Diversity & Inclusion senior committee member mentor. Charity is also an active member of the National Retail and Restaurant Defense Association’s (NRRDA) Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, as well the National African American Insurance Association (NAAIA), the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms (NAMWOLF) – where she serves on the Insurance PAC Committee, the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL), the International Aviation Women’s Association (IAWA), the Association of Professional Insurance Women (APIW), and the Women in Insurance Global Network.

Charity believes that community service is an important part of a lawyer’s life and is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation (ABF). The ABF Fellows serve as stewards of the American Bar Foundation, a nonprofit research organization with a mission to serve the legal profession and the public, through empirical research, publications, and programs that advance justice and the understanding of law. The Fellows comprise a global honorary society of lawyers, judges, law faculty, and legal scholars who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in the profession and service to society. Membership requires nomination and vetting, and is limited to one percent of the lawyers admitted to practice in the United States and its territories and to a limited number of lawyers in international jurisdictions.

Outside of work, Charity enjoys traveling with her husband Matthew, spending time with their rescue dogs and cats, as well as at their second home in Anguilla, BWI.

Admissions

Pennsylvania

United States District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1998

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1998

New Jersey

United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, 1998

District of Columbia

District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 1998

Memberships & Affiliations

• American Bar Association (ABA), Member
• Association of Professional Insurance Women (APIW), Member
• Defense Research Institute (DRI), Member
• The Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel (FDCC), Member
• International Association of Claims Professionals (IACP), Adjunct Member
• International Aviation Womens Association (IAWA), Member
• Loss Executives Association (LEA), Associate Member
• National African American Insurance Association (NAAIA), Member
• National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms (NAMWOLF), Member
• National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL), Member
• National Retail and Restaurant Association (NRRDA), Member
• Risk Insurance Management Society (RIMS), Member
• Women in Insurance Global Network, Member

Presentations

• Racial Profiling and Racial Discrimination in Places of Public Accommodation, National Retail and Restaurant Defense Association Annual Conference, March 2023
• Considerations for Business Owners Seeking Recovery of Losses after Civil Unrest and Covid, National Retail and Restaurant Defense Association Annual Conference, March 2022
• Security Issues and Premises Liability: Be alert! Accidents hurt., Sedgwick and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Charlotte, NC, 2020
• Phishing & Social Engineering | Artificial Intelligence Forensics | Autonomous Vehicles | Controlling Legal Costs | Social Media Risks | Ethics | Interacting with Government, Northeast Corporate Counsel Forum, Co-Chair, New York City, 2018
• Avoiding and Defending Bad Faith – Best Claims and Litigation Strategies, Xchanging, London, 2014
• Malfunction Theory in Product Liability Law, America’s Claims Event (ACE) Conference, June 2014
• Technological, Cost Effective Advances in Defending Premises Liability Claims, National Retail and Restaurant Defense Association Annual Conference, 2012

Publications

• How Claims of Non-Performance of a Contract Seek to Circumvent Montreal Convention Preemption, Co-Authored with Michael Aceto, Perez Morris Aviation Law Tracker, 2021
• Walking the Tightrope: Waiver of Airline Defenses Under Montreal Convention Can Prove Costly, Despite Recoveries in “Bump” Cases, Co-Authored with Michael Aceto, Esquire, National Retail and Restaurant Association Recent News, January 2021

Awards & Recognition

• Fellow of the American Bar Foundation
• Phi Delta Phi, International Legal Fraternity, Member
• Delaware Journal of Corporate Law
• Widener University School of Law, Dean’s Honor List

Board Positions & Community Service

• DRI Diversity Corporate Expo, Vice Chair
• DRI Diversity & Inclusion Steering Committee, Member
• DRI Diversity & Inclusion Steering Committee, Marketing Chair
• DRI Diversity for Success Seminar & Corporate Expo Planning Committee, Member
• DRI Diversity for Success Seminar & Corporate Expo Committee, Marketing Chair
• DRI Diverse Rainmaker Mentoring Program, Mentor
• FDCC, Vice Chair of the Aviation Section
• Fellows of the American Bar Foundation (ABF), Fellow
• IAWA Seminar Planning Committee, Member
• NAMWOLF Insurance Practice Area Committee (IPAC), Member
• NRRDA Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, Member
• NRRDA Scholarship Committee, Member