Sozi Pedro Tulante

Sozi Pedro Tulante is the City Solicitor for the City of Philadelphia. He was appointed by Mayor Jim Kenney and confirmed by City Council in February 2016. As City Solicitor, he is Philadelphia's chief legal officer. In that role, he manages the nearly 200 lawyers and 300 total staff in the Philadelphia Law Department and, along with the Department’s lawyers, represents the City in all lawsuits, advises the Mayor, City Council, and all departments, agencies, and commissions of the City. Before joining the City, he spent five years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the US Attorney's Office in Philadelphia, where he represented the government in criminal investigations and prosecutions. Prior to entering government service, he was a partner at Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller, concentrating in general commercial litigation. He began his legal career as an associate at Goodwin Procter in Boston and then clerked for the late Honorable Reginald C. Lindsay of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2001, and received his A.B. in 1997, cum laude, from Harvard College, where he was recognized with a John Harvard Scholarship. He is a proud graduate of Philadelphia’s public schools and attended Mary McLeod elementary school, Russell Conwell Middle School, and Northeast High School. Sozi has received multiple awards. He has been named one of Pennsylvania’s “Diversity Attorneys of the Year” by The Legal Intelligencer; one of the Philadelphia area’s “101 Next Generation Connectors,” by LEADERSHIP Philadelphia; and "40 Under 40” by The Philadelphia Business Journal. Sozi was born in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) and came to Philadelphia as a political refugee in 1983 with his family and learned English in Philadelphia public schools. He has written about his experience growing up as a refugee in North Philadelphia in The Philadelphia Inquirer and in the This I Believe Program on NPR.