17th Judicial District Honors First Female President Judge With Portrait Unveiling

Lori R. Hackenberg, who built her legal career across two counties before becoming the first woman to serve as president judge of the 17th Judicial District, had her painted portrait unveiled at the Lewisburg courthouse on March 27. Her five sisters were in the room alongside court colleagues, local attorneys, and community members who witnessed the district mark a first in its recorded judicial history.

The portrait now takes its place in the courthouse's standing collection, joining the faces of Hackenberg's predecessors on the bench. Hers is the first in that collection to depict a woman serving as president judge.

Hackenberg was sworn in as a Court of Common Pleas judge on December 31, 2021, having won that year's election with 10,042 votes to attorney Brian L. Kerstetter's 7,173. She has since ascended to the district's top administrative post, a role that carries responsibility for managing case dockets across both counties, including criminal, civil, juvenile, and family court assignments spanning Snyder and Union counties.

In remarks at the ceremony, Hackenberg acknowledged her parents' years of support and the sacrifices that made her career possible, describing the portrait as a reflection of their legacy as much as her own achievement. She also spoke to the weight of the court's daily work: for many people who walk through the courthouse doors in Lewisburg or Middleburg, the experience ranks among the most difficult and significant of their lives, and each deserves fairness and dignity.

That perspective was shaped by a career that touched nearly every corner of the region's legal landscape. Before joining the Common Pleas bench, Hackenberg spent a decade as Magisterial District Judge in Middleburg beginning in 2012, practiced law at the New Berlin firm of Yount & Hackenberg, and taught legal environment and business law as an adjunct instructor at Susquehanna University. Earlier, she clerked for a judge in Northumberland County, co-chaired the Northumberland County Corrections Committee, served as a court-appointed Master, and worked in the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office Bureau of Consumer Protection.

The 17th Judicial District is a two-county, two-judge court. Judge Michael Piecuch serves alongside Hackenberg, with chambers at the Union County Courthouse on South Second Street in Lewisburg; Hackenberg maintains chambers at the Snyder County Courthouse in Middleburg.

Louise O. Knight, who joined the district bench in 1998, was the first woman to serve as a county judge in the 17th Judicial District. Hackenberg, the second woman to reach that level, is the first to hold the president judge title. As that office shapes how every resident navigating custody hearings, protection-from-abuse petitions, DUI proceedings, and criminal trials encounters the court system, the person occupying it carries a practical weight that the portrait on the courthouse wall now permanently reflects.