Attorney Profiles

Thomas C. DeLorenzo has been with the firm since 1974, when he started as a law clerk. He is currently a senior shareholder, a member of the firm's Board of Directors, and Chair of the firm's Employment Practice Group. He concentrates his practice on employment law, toxic torts, environmental litigation, and municipal liability.

Tom has handled hundreds of toxic tort personal injury actions involving various claims of lung or neurological damage. He has also handled hundreds of employment cases alleging discrimination in violation of federal and/or state statutes.

He has represented the major manufacturer of asbestos products and one of the major manufacturers of beryllium-containing products. He has handled numerous multi-party cases, including many class actions and many multi-plaintiff individual actions in the toxic tort field.

Tom has taken 56 cases to verdict, and another 16 were settled after the trial started. He received 50 defense verdicts, and 70 cases ended in a verdict or settlement significantly below the settlement demands.

In the employment practices liability field, Tom has handled a full range of employment law cases in the federal and state courts and before the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, and the federal EEOC. These cases include claims alleging discrimination due to age, sex, disability, religion, race, and national origin and also include related tort claims such as defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, wrongful termination, etc. He has also handled union grievance arbitrations and breach of employment contract cases.

Tom is a past Editor of the Labor Report, a publication of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce and Industry which updates members on current developments in employment law.

In the public entity liability area, Tom has represented municipalities, governmental authorities, school districts, colleges, police departments, individual police officers, county prisons, and others. He has defended public entities in cases arising out of police pursuits, claims of excessive force, allegations of civil rights violations, allegations of inequitable sewer rates, claims of misrepresentation in contract negotiations with public authority contractors, claims of negligent design/maintenance of traffic controls and/or roadways, and many others. He is also experienced in representing public entities in the full range of employment law matters mentioned above.

In the environmental and toxic tort fields, Tom has had many years of experience in defending a variety of both environmental and toxic tort cases. In 1975, he became involved in handling asbestos litigation for Johns-Manville. He soon became one of the lead counsel in the Philadelphia area asbestos litigation and participated in the early development of strategies and techniques for the handling of complex, multi-party toxic tort litigation. Tom has also handled many other types of toxic tort cases, including cases involving alleged exposure to pesticides, welding fumes, beryllium, TCE, gasoline, adhesives, epoxies, various dusts, lubricants, and other hazardous materials. In addition, in the course of his toxic tort work, Tom has successfully handled both national and regional class action cases. In addition, he has handled numerous environmental cases, including matters arising from Superfund landfill clean-ups, groundwater contamination, leaking underground storage tanks, private party cost recovery actions, drinking water contamination, and others.

He is the past Chair of the Environmental Litigation and Regulation Subcommittee of the Defense Research Institute's Environmental Law Committee and is a past Co-Chair of the Environmental Law and Toxic Tort Committee of the Pennsylvania Defense Institute.

He has authored a number of articles in professional periodicals on environmental and toxic tort litigation issues.

At the request of various clients, Tom has organized and/or given presentations at various CLE/CE seminars and training sessions for attorneys and claims representatives. In addition, he has been a repeat guest lecturer in a graduate level course dealing with the social responsibility of management.

Mr. DeLorenzo was selected by his peers to be included in "The Best Lawyers in America, 2010."  Tom was named as one of the Top 100 Philadelphia Lawyers in the Philadelphia Magazine Super Lawyer Section in 2006. He has also been named as a Super Lawyer in the area of Employment Defense Litigation in the years 2005 to present.

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