Jim died Aug. 13, 2017, at the age of 51.

Jim spent his childhood in the Philadelphia suburbs enjoying his greatest passions: baseball and music. At Princeton he continued both, playing on the baseball team as a freshman and as the lead guitarist for the Tell-Tale Strings, a folk-rock band. He was an officer of Tiger Inn.

Jim earned a law degree from Villanova in 1990. He worked briefly at a large firm in San Diego before returning to the Philadelphia area as a trial attorney. Jim prosecuted cases as an assistant district attorney in the major-crimes unit of the Montgomery County Trials Division before joining his father and siblings in 1995 to found The Colleran Firm. Jim spent the next decades litigating complex personal-injury matters.

Jim loved the Phillies and listening to music, especially the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers. He collected guitars and motorcycles, spent weekends riding through the Pennsylvania countryside, and enjoyed his summer home in Brigantine, N.J.

The Class of 1987 extends its deepest sympathies to Jim’s children, James III and Cierra; his parents, James and Mary; his siblings, Frank, Terry, and Dave; and his many nieces and nephews.

Class Year: 
Undergraduate Class of 1987