Billboard-Famous Main Line Lawyer May Get Probation in Center City Shooting Case

A billboard featuring Philadelphia lawyer Leonard Hill, who has been accused of shooting a man outside of a Center City cigar bar / Photograph by Jeff Fusco

Deserved or not, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner has developed a reputation for being soft on crime. Who can forget the guy whom Krasner softball’d with three-and-a-half years in jail after the defendant shot a Philly grocery store owner with an AK-47 during an attempted robbery? (The feds then swooped in. And a judge gave him 14 years in federal prison.) But a shooting case involving Philadelphia personal injury lawyer Leonard Hill seems to show Krasner displaying a whole new level of mercy.

In 2023, Hill, who lives in Bala Cynwyd, was at cigar lounge on Walnut Street in Center City. He was a regular there. According to court documents, a woman entered the cigar bar in an effort to get away from an intoxicated man she had been on a date with. She explained the situation to employees. A manager walked her to her car. Then, her date got into some sort of altercation with Hill outside the cigar bar. Police say that Hill drew a gun and fired a shot at the man. The man started to run away. And as he was running away with his back turned to Hill, the lawyer allegedly shot at the man again. Investigators say the bullet struck the man in the calf.

And then what does Leonard Hill do? Call 911? No. Police say he went to his car and changed his clothes. Then he returned to the area of the cigar lounge. After the man who was shot flagged down a nearby officer, police converged on the lounge. According to the affidavit of probable cause filed in the case, Hill never approached the responding officers to tell them he had been involved in a shooting. Police say he “fled the scene.”

Police investigated, interviewed witnesses, and reviewed surveillance footage. That all led them to Hill at his Bala Cynwyd home. Inside the home, officers confiscated the weapon Hill allegedly used in the shooting. It was a gun he owned legally among the “numerous” (as police put it) other guns he owns.

Krasner’s office charged Hill with aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime with intent, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence. A judge held Hill over for trial on all of those charges and released Hill on $100,000 bail.

But Krasner’s office has changed its tune on Hill’s case over time. As first reported by the Inquirer, prosecutors are now requesting that Hill enter Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD), basically the most cushy form of probation there is. It’s a pre-trial program that allows defendants to avoid a trial and having any conviction on their record. Basically, you behave yourself in the future for a specified period of time — in Hill’s case, that sounds like it would be two years — and the whole thing goes away. Even the record of your arrest gets expunged.

It turns out that the bar manager told investigators that he believed Hill fired at the man in self-defense. Hill’s lawyer has claimed that the man who was shot had brandished a knife. Notably, the affidavit of probable cause doesn’t mention anything about a knife.

Krasner told the Inquirer that the leniency he was displaying was “due to unique, highly unusual information about the case.” But he wouldn’t tell the Inquirer exactly what these “highly unusual” circumstances were.

Hill could learn his fate when he returns to court on February 19th, when the judge could sign off on the ARD program. Of course, the judge could also decline to allow ARD for a guy who allegedly fired a gun on a city street at a man who was running away from him. And if Hill were to be convicted at trial, he might have to kiss his law license goodbye.

But for now, if you’re injured in an accident or, say, a shooting, you know who to call.