Overlapping Roles, Undisclosed Conflicts, and the Small Group That Runs Wayne County’s Justice System

A review of the period from July 2019 through 2025

Wayne County, Pennsylvania has 51,000 residents and roughly 40 practicing attorneys. Its Court of Common Pleas — the court that handles every felony, every serious civil dispute, every custody fight, every juvenile matter, every termination of parental rights — has two judges. Only two. If your case reaches this court, it goes to one of them. There is no third option, no reassignment, no rotation. The DA’s office that prosecutes before this court has five people. The entire criminal justice apparatus could fit in a conference room.

This investigation examines overlapping professional relationships at the center of that system between July 2019 — when Brendan Ellis was appointed ADA while maintaining a private law practice — and the end of 2025, when Jessica Ellis took the bench as a Magisterial District Judge and the arrangement she left behind remained active. It examines the two judges who comprise Wayne County’s entire Court of Common Pleas, the married couple who served as prosecutors and private attorneys simultaneously, the firm that connects them all, and the absence of any documented disclosure, screening, or recusal across nearly seven years.

Every claim is sourced to publicly available documents. Part 2 will expand further.

The Players

Brendan Ellis has been an ADA since July 2019. He also runs Ellis Law Group at 1018 Church Street, Honesdale — taking private clients in custody, estates, civil litigation, dependency, expungement, juvenile law, and judgment execution. Before becoming ADA, he was Assistant Public Defender (2016). In 2017, he helped form Wayne County’s first Drug Treatment Court alongside President Judge Edwards. He serves as Guardian ad litem in child abuse and custody cases. He has never left 1018 Church Street.

Jessica Ellis is Brendan’s wife and was his only law partner. She was appointed ADA in April 2022. According to her 2025 campaign materials, she simultaneously served as solicitor for Wayne County Human Services — legal counsel for the agency that investigates child abuse, files dependency petitions, and initiates TPR proceedings. She was also Vice President of the Wayne County Bar Association. She won election as Magisterial District Judge in May 2025 and is now the Honorable Jessica Ellis, MDJ District 22-3-02.

President Judge Janine Edwards built the DA’s office both Ellises worked in — serving as DA from 2011 to 2017 before becoming President Judge. She came up through family law as Master of Divorce and Custody, hearing the exact types of cases Ellis Law Group brings before her bench. From 2017 to 2021, she was the county’s only judge. In 2017, she and Brendan Ellis co-built Wayne County’s first Drug Treatment Court — a collaborative program where judge and prosecutors work together on treatment plans and sanctions for individual defendants. She handles the criminal docket and hears the firm’s private civil and family matters. She was past President of the Bar Association.

Judge Matthew Meagher co-founded and ran the firm the Ellises now operate. He brought Brendan on in 2013 as an associate at what was then Meagher Ellis Law. Meagher also served as ADA, township solicitor, and chairman of the county arbitration panel. He won his judgeship in 2021, running unopposed.

The Firm and Judge Meagher

Ellis Law Group Inc. is Pennsylvania corporate entity #562680, originally filed as Meagher Law, Inc. in 2005. Same address: 1018 Church Street. Same phone: 570-253-5229. The entity was renamed, not dissolved. Brendan is the sole listed officer. Jessica — despite being named as a partner on the firm’s website — does not appear on the corporate filing. Neither does Meagher. No buyout agreement, divestiture document, or public statement confirming Meagher has no continuing financial interest has surfaced. Pennsylvania doesn’t require corporations to disclose shareholders. The public record doesn’t tell you who actually owns this firm.

The firm continues to trade on Meagher’s name nearly five years after he took the bench and became prohibited from practicing law under Judicial Conduct Rule 3.10. Copyright footer: “© Meagher Ellis Law | All Rights Reserved.”

About page: “Meagher Ellis Law has successfully handled a variety of cases.” Phone link HTML: “Phone Meagher Ellis Law.” The website is set to noindex, nofollow — telling search engines not to show it. Every law firm in America wants to be found on Google; this is the one that told Google not to look.

Every page claims “Serving Wayne County and all of NEPA for 20 years” — Brendan was licensed in 2012. The 20 years mentioned belongs to a sitting judge. Avvo.com still lists “Meagher Law Inc.” at 1018 Church Street as an active firm.

Thirty-seven days after Meagher was sworn in on December 28, 2021, the February 4, 2022 issue of the Wayne County Legal Journal — the official publication of his own court — listed him as a practicing attorney: “Matthew Meagher, Esq., Meagher Ellis Law, Inc., 1018 Church Street.” Practice areas. Working email. Listed alongside Brendan at the same firm. Eighty days on the bench — March 18, 2022 — the listing was identical. A sitting judge published as “Esquire” in his own court’s record.

This investigation has not confirmed that the Ellises appeared before Meagher in specific cases. In a two-judge court, either they do or some arrangement prevents it — but no such arrangement has been documented. Whether or not they appear before him directly, the firm’s public identity is inseparable from a sitting judge.

The Marriage and the Office

Brendan and Jessica are not separate practices. Same firm, same office, same phone, same marriage. Under Rule 1.10, confidential information held by one firm member is presumed accessible to all — in both directions. What they learn as ADAs informs private work. What they learn from private clients is accessible to two prosecutors.

They were two of five prosecutors. In a five-person office, there are no information silos. If one Ellis recuses, the case goes to one of three remaining ADAs in the same hallway. The name comes off the file. Nothing else changes. Strategy is discussed in rooms, overheard through walls, raised in meetings where all five are present.

The office is only half the problem. They go home to the same house. “How was your day?” happens in every marriage. No ethics wall covers a marriage. No screening memorandum follows you home.

In Philadelphia — 300 ADAs, dozens of judges — this could be managed. This is Wayne County. 51,000 people. 40 attorneys. Two judges. The buffer doesn’t exist.

There’s a deeper question the numbers raise. A prosecutor’s duty under Pennsylvania law is not to win cases. It is to seek truth and justice. That obligation requires independent judgment — the willingness to question the strength of a case, flag problems with evidence, recommend against charges when the facts don’t support them. When Jessica works behind the scenes building her husband’s criminal cases, is she functioning as an independent prosecutor exercising that duty? Or is she functioning as a spouse, backing her partner’s work? The marital instinct to support and validate is human. It is also fundamentally incompatible with the prosecutorial obligation to be an independent check on the state’s own power.

If Jessica is helping Brendan build his cases and Brendan is helping Jessica build hers, the DA’s office doesn’t really have two separate prosecutors in those seats. It has one unit — a married couple operating as a team, privately and professionally, with shared incentives and shared loyalty. The county pays for five independent prosecutors. The question is whether it has them.

The Generational Pattern

This didn’t begin with the Ellises. Wayne County’s legal establishment has followed the same cycle for 20 years: an attorney practices privately, accumulates government roles, ascends to the bench, and leaves behind someone who inherits the practice — then appears before the newly minted judge.

Raymond Hamill was Meagher’s law partner. In 2007, he became President Judge — the only judge in the county.

Janine Edwards became DA in 2011, President Judge in 2017, succeeding Hamill. Again the only judge until 2021.

Matthew Meagher won the second judgeship in 2021. Brendan inherited the firm.

Brendan Ellis continues the dual arrangement. Jessica Ellis replicated it and now sits on the bench herself.

Every generation: private practice, government role, bench. Every generation: the next person keeps appearing before the last.

Edwards and the Ellises

Edwards sees the Ellis name on the criminal docket as prosecutors and on the civil docket as private attorneys. Same week. Same courthouse. She and Brendan didn’t just share a courtroom — they co-built the Drug Treatment Court together, then he started prosecuting before her.

No recusal order by Edwards in any Ellis matter has been identified. She hears their cases. Both of them. And even if she did step aside, the only alternative is Meagher — the firm’s co-founder. There is nowhere for an Ellis case to go in Wayne County that doesn’t land before a judge with ties to the firm.

“It’s a Little Unique”

“A lot of people don’t know this, that you can do both — but it’s allowable under Pennsylvania state law,” Jessica told the River Reporter. She called herself “uniquely qualified.” The conflicts documented in this investigation were, in her framing, her résumé.

Pennsylvania law does permit part-time prosecutors to practice privately. But the statute comes with Rules 1.7, 1.10, and 1.11 — screening, disclosure, consent, and recusal in every case. Whether a dual arrangement is “allowable” depends on whether those obligations can be met. The question isn’t whether the statute permits it. It’s whether the ethics rules can be fulfilled in Wayne County. The documented record, presented in Part 2, suggests they weren’t.

Part 2 of this investigation presents the documented evidence: court calendars, the website, the commissioners’ rebuke, what has not been found, and the legal exposure Wayne County now faces.

Read Part 2: Ellis Law Group: A Pocono Review Investigative Report

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