Richard A. DiLiberto, Jr., Chairman of the Delaware Commission on Italian Heritage and Culture has been selected to receive the American Bar Association Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section’s ("TIPS") Edmund S. Muskie Pro Bono Service Award.

This award recognizes an ABA member who exhibits the qualities attributed to the late Senator Muskie, who was secretary of state under President Jimmy Carter, and later a distinguished leader of TIPS, and his dedication to justice for all citizens, and public service. 

The award will be presented on May 9, during the TIPS 10th Annual Section Conference in Washington, D.C.  The annual conference brings together plaintiffs’, defense, corporate and in-house counsel to discuss issues confronting the legal profession and advance the civil justice system. U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor will address the delegation.

Mr. DiLiberto is a litigation partner in the Wilmington, Delaware law firm of Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP where he has been co-chairman of the government relations committee, chairman of the paralegal committee, the personal injury litigation section, and the continuing legal education committee.  Before joining the law firm in 1987, he was law clerk to Judge Vincent Bifferato of the Del. Superior Court.  He regularly represents families whose loved ones have been injured or killed by another’s negligence. Much of his work has been on behalf of abused children.

DiLiberto served in the Del. State House of Representatives from 1992-2002, where he was a member of the Joint Finance, Judiciary, Public Safety, Corrections, Education, Health & Human Development, Substance Abuse and House Rules Committees. He was appointed to the Commission on Del. Courts 2000, the Del. Courts Planning Committee, the Supreme Court Task Force on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts, and the Del. Healthcare Commission’s Diabetes Task Force. 

DiLiberto is a trustee of UNICO Foundation, a charitable arm of the nation’s largest Italian-American service organization, which provides grants for cancer research and prevention, food banks, homeless shelters, mental health, Cooley’s anemia treatment, and university Italian studies. In 2023, UNICO awarded him its national Philip Mazzei Americanism Award, named for the Italian patriot who befriended Thomas Jefferson and first proposed the great phrase “All men are created equal” anchored in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He received the Del. State Bar Association’s Daniel L. Herrmann Professional Conduct Award in 2015, Christopher Columbus Monument Committee’s “Man of the Year” Award in 2017; DSBA’s Distinguished Legislative Service Award, and Widener Univ. School of Law’s Outstanding Alumni Service Award in 1999, the Bloomsburg Univ. Young Alumnus of the Year Award in 2002, and the H. James Conaway, Jr. Pro Bono Award in 2010.

DiLiberto is a past president of the Delaware Trial Lawyers Assn. He is also an adjunct faculty member for Delaware Law School’s Intensive Trial Advocacy Program. DiLiberto earned his J.D. (cum laude) from Delaware Law School, Widener University, where he served on the law review and was editor-in-chief of the Del. Law Forum; and his B.S. in Education (cum laude) from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. Rick, and his wife, Faith, reside in Newark, Del. They have three daughters, lawyers Amanda J. Buckworth, Esq., and Ashley B. DiLiberto, Esq.; and Aria M. DiLiberto, a teacher.