Jay Hornack was first hired as an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law to teach The Law of Disability Discrimination, a course he taught from 2004 to 2020. He became the school’s first Director of the Human Resources Law Online Graduate Certificate Program in 2019 and has since taught two of the program’s courses.
Prior to his retirement from the practice of law in 2023, Mr. Hornack concentrated his private law practice on employee rights and benefits. Specifically, he represented employees in claims involving workers' compensation, Social Security disability benefits, unemployment compensation, employment discrimination, wrongful discharge, and pension benefits.
Mr. Hornack continues to be a member of the Allegheny County Bar Association (ACBA) and is currently a council member of the ACBA's Labor and Employment Committee. He is the past chair of both the ACBA’s Law and Disability Committee and Social Security Practitioners Committee. He was a member of the Legal Committee of Disability Rights Pennsylvania (DRP) and is a past Board member of DRP. Since 1994, he has also served as a hearing officer for the Pennsylvania Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR).
In 1983, Mr. Hornack was appointed Special Counsel by the Pittsburgh City Council to defend its plant closing notification ordinance. From 1986 to 2023, he served as the Solicitor for the Steel Valley Authority (SVA), a joint municipal authority funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry's Strategic Early Warning Network (SEWN) program that is dedicated to the retention of existing industries and the development of new industries throughout all of Pennsylvania.
From 1994 to 2026, Mr. Hornack was an adjunct professor of law at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.
- JD, Rutgers University
- BA, Miami University
