Thomas G. Wolpert, Partner

Prior to becoming a lawyer, I was a writer, and this blog gives me the chance to unlimber my writer’s block on all sorts of topics. My current reading interests are French symbolist poetry (Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarme and throw in Sylvia Plath and Rilke); theology (always, and always interested in Romans and Revelation), and recently Julian of Norwich; philosophers like Kant and Wittgenstein and Hegel; extended chats with ChatGPT on all sorts of obscure topics (nothing is too obscure for ChatGPT, what a fabulous addition to mankind’s tool set); and the political writings like the Pacificus-Helvidius debates of 1793-1794 (surprisingly relevant and timely), John Locke and the Federalist Papers.

My political leanings tend to be irregularly conservative, sporadically independent, and always interested in connecting the past with the present. In an alternate universe I would be a moderate Republican, but I read the 1st Chapter of the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans too closely and literally to ever be included in anything liberal or progressive. I think Trump Derangement Syndrome is asinine and childish (it has been so for ten years now), and I would think so even when I have mixed views about his policies or his language. I trade regularly in stock options, so I have a well-developed interest in financial publications like Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal. When the financial world goes into a tizzy over the latest thing Donald Trump said, I am a buyer of call options on the S & P 500 (think the end-of-the-economic-world hysteria over tariffs).

Feel free to email me at Thomas@WSM.law. If you have a legal matter in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, please feel free to call 610-792-3304. My business address is 527 Main Street, Royersford PA 19468. My home address is 1204 Clearbrook Road, West Chester PA 19380.

Practice Areas: Business Law; Estate Administration (and ever-growing part of our practice); Wills and Trusts; Real Estate and Construction law; Employment Law and discrimination (as of the writing of this update to my bio, we have three cases active with the EEOC), and a large and broadly-defined general practice (but no divorce, immigration or patent law).

Bar Admissions: 1993, Pennsylvania and New Jersey

Law School: Widener University, J.D., summa cum laude, Valedictorian, 1993 (I gave the speech!)

College: Villanova University, B.A., 1981

Academic Accomplishments: Order of Barristers; Moot Court Honor Society. Winner: 1992 Fred G. DiBona Moot Court Competition; 1993 International Association of Defense Counsel Legal Writing Competition. Recipient: 12 American Jurisprudence Awards; Book Award for Judicial Process (awarded by Justice Quillen); Anthony J. Santoro Scholarship; Dean’s Award. Captain, Minnesota Civil Rights Moot Court competition team. Author: “Product Liability and Software Implicated in Personal Injury,” Defense Counsel Journal, Oct. 1993.

Born: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 19, 1951 (Fishtown, if you must know; my father was born in Roxborough in 1920; my mother was born in Minneapolis, MN)

I began my interest in the law as a pro se litigant in 1990, in a dispute over the provisions of my father’s will. My scholastic career was very successful, and after graduating from Widener University School of Law as Valedictorian in 1993, winner of a national writing competition, captain of a moot court competition team and winner of the DiBona Moot Court competition, I began as an associate in the commercial real estate department of one of Pennsylvania’s large law firms. (This was not a match made in heaven and they fired me in 1995 – not for poor work, rather for reasons of financial management and cash-flow analysis originating in Pittsburgh; the lawyers in my office defended me, but my head was chopped off anyway – one more casualty of the ‘billable-and-collectible hour’ requirement).

With no small fear and trembling, I opened my own practice in West Chester in 1995 and expanded my areas of practice over the years to include business law, employment law, estates (estate administration and estate planning), construction law, etc. I reside and maintain a home office for meeting clients in West Chester. In 2002 I moved the main office location to Royersford, PA, where I have now accumulated two partners in our law firm of four attorneys and two paralegals.

I married Erma in 1984, in Bear, Delaware. We have four children, three are married and one single living in Manhattan. We have four grandchildren, ages two to five. I am a graduate of North Penn High School, class of 1969. (For those interested, my lottery draft number was 155 and the draft board never did call me during the Vietnam War, even though through neglect I let my student 2-S draft deferment lapse). I am active in the community and has been a Vice President and Director on the West Chester Area School Board (1999-2003). I have been on Chester County School Authority, appointed by the Board of the West Chester Area School Board, 2001 to present, most of the last twenty-some years as Chair. I am active with the Spring-Ford Rotary and a past president and Paul Harris donor. I am on the Board of Open Door Ministry in Royersford and on the prayer team called Prayerworks at Church. I enjoy walking in Valley Forge Park, traveling, golfing, and fishing.