Eakin, who lives in Elizabethtown with his wife, Heidi, a lawyer who assisted in his defense, started his career in the Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office in Carlisle after graduating from Dickinson Law School in 1975.

He was elected district attorney in 1984. Ten years later, he ran for Superior Court, one of the state’s mid-level appellate courts, and won. He had made it plain to colleagues over the years that he planned to run for an appellate-level seat and personally argued appeals cases from his office to prepare for that day.

“He is a very down-to-earth, no-frills kind of guy,” said former Supreme Court Justice William Lamb, who sat on the bench with Eakin in 2003 and 2004 and now practices law in West Chester.

How could a jurist viewed generally by the legal community as fair and competent become wrapped up in an email string that has brought disrepute not only on Eakin, but also the court?

“My own sense of this, knowing Michael the way I do, is that he was just sort of asleep at the switch and didn’t think about the ramifications of what he was doing in today’s world,” Lamb said. “My own rule is never send an email that you would be embarrassed to show to your mother. We are very careful in our law office about that because once it is out there, it is out there.”
Read more at: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20160316_Justice_Eakin_s_playful_side_may_have_led_to_his_downfall.html#ThrjFggmIHaeWTf5.99

Written by: Chris Mondics, Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer