Morgan Bonekovic
This story is part of a series on the members of the Brookfield Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame Class of 2025.
No matter what she does in her professional life, mention Morgan Bonekovic in Brookfield and basketball or athletics is likely the first thing to come to mind. After all, it’s her name on the wall in the high school gym for having scored the second most points in Brookfield High history.
Now a family law attorney dedicated to assuring fairness and justice in the legal system, Bonekovic still plays sports. She played volleyball “pretty seriously” for a couple of years, joining a league that traveled around the country.
“I’ve slowed down a lot in the past couple years,” she said, but her slowing down is different from many people’s.
“I have picked up pickleball,” she said. “I play pickleball once or twice a week, and I’m also in a soccer league, right now, so I definitely still incorporate sports whenever I can.”
“I am not sure I am in basketball condition right now,” she said.
The 2008 – and third generation – Brookfield High grad got dual bachelor’s degrees in criminology and philosophy with a minor in ethics at Slippery Rock University, then attended the University of Pittsburgh Law School, graduating in 2016. Bonekovic said she initially thought she would become a criminal lawyer.
“I took criminal law my first year of law school and it’s a little daunting, the risks associated for the people that you represent,” she said. “I knew I wanted to practice in an area where I would have a direct impact on people. I wanted to have a relationship with people. I didn’t want clients that are corporations. I took a family law class my second year of law school and it clicked.”
As a family law attorney, she handles issues such as divorce, adoption, custody, protection from abuse and support.
“It really had a personal place in my heart,” she said of family law. “I’m adopted. It’s really wonderful for me to do adoptions and help families like that. That’s absolutely the best part of my job. Divorce and custody, nobody really wins, nobody’s happy. Everybody’s happy at an adoption.”
As a lawyer, “Every day is a new day,” Bonekovic said. “There’s always a new issue, a new client. I’m always learning something new, whether I’m reading or there is a class I have to take. I like that. I think it keeps it interesting.”
Outside of work – but connected to it – Bonekovic works with organizations that try to make the legal system accessible and that advocate for underrepresented communities.
“I am a member of a couple different bar associations and also the Pennsylvania Commission on Fairness and Justice,” she said. “In all of the groups and committees I’m involved in, most of them are focused on making sure that the law is equitable for diverse communities,” such as women, Blacks and the LGBTQ+ community.
“We focus on ensuring the laws that are drafted, the decisions that are coming down from the different courts, if they are not benefiting these communities or if they are attacking these communities, we do our best to try and counteract that and discuss the ways we can make a difference in the legal community and then, also, in addition to that, a lot of education not only for practicing attorneys but for the general public, just to make sure that they’re knowledgeable about the law and what their rights are,” Bonekovic said.
Bonekovic is the second person – after Kaitlyn Lang, who was inducted into the Distinguished Alumni Hall in 2022 – to be inducted into the Brookfield Warrior Hall of Fame for her athletic accomplishments and the Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame for her professional achievements and community service work.
