Terry D. Goldberg knows southeastern Pennsylvania like the back of his hand. As a graduate of both Northeast High School and Temple University, Goldberg has spent most of his life in the community.
“I have always considered the Philadelphia area my home,” says the Holland resident. “Not only am I a local attorney, I’m also a community member. Everyone in the Bucks County office is local.”
Specializing in personal injury, Goldberg gained a reputation throughout the state for success in matters including motor vehicle accidents; slip and/or trip and fall incidents; premises liability actions; defective product liability actions; Social Security and disability claims; liquor liability actions; medical malpractice; workers’ compensation; and insurance bad-faith matters.
“I have gotten large settlements and verdicts against negligent drivers, ‘big box’ stores, municipalities in police cases, doctors in medical malpractice and birth defect cases, dentists in dental malpractice cases … and workers’ compensation, Social Security and personal injury cases of all kinds,” he says.
In addition to being a top litigator and trial lawyer, Goldberg is an adept arbitrator, a role wherein he serves as a judge of sorts for binding alternative dispute resolutions.
Goldberg, who earned his J.D. from the University of Tennessee School of Law, started his career in 1983 with a position at A. Harold Datz. Goldberg’s drive and skill made him stand out quickly and, just two short years after starting with the firm, he became a partner. Then, after nearly 15 successful years as an integral member of the Datz and Goldberg team, he branched out on his own to found Terry D. Goldberg & Associates. He was also fortunate to bring on board “one of my major draft picks,” he says, in Julianna Burdo, who heads the firm’s medical malpractice department.
In January 2013, Goldberg decided to grow again. This time he joined forces with Charles J. Schleifer, who had been a friend of Goldberg’s for many years, as well as Richard T. Kupersmith and James C. Haggerty. Haggerty, who had been “the insurance industry’s go-to guy,” says Goldberg, provided the invaluable point of view of someone who’d worked for an industry that is so often an adversary of the firm’s clients. With their combined efforts, the attorneys formed the legal “dream team” of Haggerty, Goldberg, Schleifer & Kupersmith P.C.
Goldberg’s former employer even came on board with Haggerty, Goldberg, Schleifer & Kupersmith. Datz joined his former employee as an “of counsel” member of the firm.
Haggerty, Goldberg, Schleifer & Kupersmith, which currently boasts nearly 25 attorneys and 75 employees, is planning to widen its reach even further with an expansion of its Holland location. The site, currently 4,500 square feet, is set to become a spacious 7,500 square feet, with the number of attorneys in that office increasing by nearly 50 percent.
Among the numerous assets available to clients of a firm the size of Haggerty, Goldberg, Schleifer & Kupersmith are those relating to resources. In addition to serving Bucks County residents as the type of high-powered firm usually found only within the heart of a city such as Philadelphia, Haggerty, Goldberg, Schleifer & Kupersmith can also utilize the cutting-edge technology such groups strive to have at their disposal. For example, the firm’s attorneys have a vast network of experts in the field of accident scene reconstruction, which can lead to the production of invaluable visual aids in a courtroom or trial setting.
Another of the firm’s assets is linguistic; Haggerty, Goldberg, Schleifer & Kupersmith employs attorneys and staff members that can communicate fluently in a host of languages including Spanish, Russian, Italian and French.
As a member of the Philadelphia Bar Association, Bucks County Bar Association, Philadelphia Trial Lawyers, Pennsylvania Bar Associations, and the Pennsylvania Association for Justice, Goldberg maintains a busy schedule. Combined with his caseload, it is a wonder he has any free time at all; yet, Goldberg has always found time to accommodate his love of baseball.
Goldberg has been highly successful in sports, having represented the United States as starting shortstop for the Maccabi USA Fast-Pitch Softball Team in competition that has taken him to locales including the United States, Israel, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and Canada. He even rose to the rank of head coach for the Maccabiah Games in Israel in 2005 and 2009, as well as at the Pan Am Games in Argentina in 2007.
While it may not seem on the surface as if the legal and sports worlds share common ground, Goldberg says a number of skills he learned in his baseball career apply quite well to his occupation. He recalls writing a paper for a class at Temple wherein he was charged with the task of comparing law to an aspect of his life. He chose baseball and found the comparisons came quite naturally, equating jurors to spectators, judges to umpires, and his lifelong will to win as applicable to both of his passions.
“I like to win—I always have,” he says. “If I wasn’t best guy out there [on the baseball field], I can tell you, nobody worked harder, and I feel like I do that in my practice, too.”
Such commitment has carried over to the courtroom. Just as he would never go into a game unprepared, he would never step into a courtroom without having diligently prepared for a case.
“I spend nights, weekends, to make sure I’m the most prepared person in the courtroom,” he says. “I feel that proper preparation prevents poor performance.”
This mix of diligence, hard work and passion has thus served him well in all facets of his life. Most importantly, however, is Goldberg’s commitment to putting clients first.
“I have a passion to make sure my clients’ rights are protected,” he says. “I have hundreds of cases, but they only have one. I want to make sure every case is the most important to me at that time, because for every client, it is the most important case.”
For more information on the nine Haggerty, Goldberg, Schleifer & Kupersmith P.C. locations throughout southeastern Pennsylvania, call 215-354-9100, visit www.hgsklawyers.com, or e-mail Terry directly at TGoldberg@hgsklawyers.com.
Photograph by Allure West Studios
