The Lawyers of Pond Lehocky Show is sponsored by Tony Schuler of Pinnacle Medical Plus
POND LEHOCKY GIORDANO opened its doors in July 2010 with five Pennsylvania workers’ compensation attorneys, one Social Security disability attorney and only 22 total staff members. Today, they are one of the largest workers’ compensation, Social Security disability and Long-term disability firms in the country, recovering billions of dollars for their clients and earning dozens of national awards for their legal representation and holistic client care.
However, Pond Lehocky Giordano’s true origin story started over 30 years earlier when Sam Pond and Jerry Lehocky were adversaries in the workers’ compensation arena. Immediately, they formed a mutual respect and admiration of each other’s zealous advocacy for their clients. Rather than continue to battle each other in the courtroom, they decided to join forces at a prior law firm, representing injured workers’ and ultimately transforming Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation forever. Some years later, Tom Giordano joined that firm and with their encouragement and support, began to grow and lead their Social Security Disability practice.
SAM POND grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia. Sam’s intellectual and inspirational parents instilled in him the American Dream, and the belief that an intellectually curious person of principles and ambition would never encounter an unachievable goal.
Sam was an all-state soccer player in his youth. His time on the soccer field, along with guidance from his parents and his work experiences, provided important lessons about people and life that he leans on every day as the managing partner of Pond Lehocky Giordano.
For example, Sam learned about the strength of a team and how a group of people united by the desire to accomplish something was unstoppable. He learned about the importance of team members having each other’s backs, and the importance of shared sacrifices and sacrificing for your fellow team members. He also learned that honesty, respect, and manners can get you far in life, yet they always seem to be in short supply.
Sam also saw early in life how workers suffer when they don’t report injuries they sustained on the job, and how employers try to outmaneuver their loyal employees every step of the way.
His mother worked in North Philadelphia at a sweatshop where she suffered a work injury, but the employer did not have insurance.
Sam’s father was severely burned by steam while working at the Philadelphia Gas Works. He never left his union, but the Philadelphia Gas Works was so behind on paying his medical bills that it sent him to Drexel University for an engineering degree. Nevertheless, Sam’s dad died a union member.
On his deathbed, Sam’s dad designated his union pension to Sam since Sam’s mom had predeceased him. Despite 35 years of excellent service, the Philadelphia Gas Works commissioner denied Sam’s dad’s pension. Sam took on his father’s legal case—it was the first case Sam ever worked on—during his first year of law school. Sam won the case and established legal precedent that, to this day, still stands.
From 1976 through 1985, Sam worked almost every Friday and Saturday night, and sometimes on weeknights, at the Philadelphia Inquirer on the presses. This union job allowed him to pay his undergraduate tuition at Drexel University, from which he graduated in 1981 with a finance degree.
In his senior year at Drexel, Sam had the realization that the rule of law made everything go. Never shying away from being where the action is, Sam used the money he earned from his job at the Philadelphia Inquirer to put himself through law school, graduating from what is now the Temple University Beasley School of Law in 1984. He has served as an adjunct professor at Temple Law and is one of a small number of law school graduates to have been inducted into Temple University’s Gallery of Success.
After graduation, Sam defended companies in workers’ compensation cases. But just like his future Pond Lehocky Giordano co-founding partners Jerry Lehocky and Tom Giordano, it only took Sam a few months before he realized he can better serve society by being an attorney who brings workers’ compensation cases on behalf of injured workers instead of being an attorney who defends them on behalf of corporations. CLICK THE LINK TO READ MORE
DYLAN POND is an attorney at Pond Lehocky Giordano and serves as its Chief Revenue Officer.
Dylan is an avid traveler. We’re talking “100 countries visited with maybe a few dozen more visited by the time you read this” avid.
He’s such an avid traveler that he was ranked as the second-most-traveled American between the ages of 20 and 29, according to Most Traveled People and NomadMania.
But he’s not one of those travelers that touches down in a country, spends a few hours there, and then heads off to another one once he’s checked that country off his list.
Not Dylan. He’s more of a “live like a local” type.
He wants to feel what it’s like to live in a particular country. He wants to step into the shoes of its citizens and see the world through their eyes. He wants to see the bigger picture of what’s going on in the world beyond his neighborhood, state, and country.
Dylan brings this same curiosity and appreciation for the big picture to both of his roles at Pond Lehocky Giordano.
As an attorney at the firm, Dylan provides holistic legal counsel to his clients that takes into account the bigger picture.
He’s not interested in merely getting a “good” legal result for a client; he’s interested in getting the best overall result for a client given their circumstances and wishes. Oftentimes, the best result for a client means helping them receive additional medical treatment, or other services, so they can regain their physical, mental, and emotional health.
Dylan also helps manage the Pond Lehocky Giordano Referral Network, which is made up of thousands of trusted attorneys and doctors across the United States and the world. The firm’s attorneys and staff refer their clients to network members when they are in need of additional assistance with health issues, or legal issues beyond the areas of law that the firm’s attorneys practice themselves.
As the firm’s Chief Revenue Officer, a unique position for a law firm of any size and of any type, Dylan is again focused on the big picture.
He works with Pond Lehocky Giordano’s founding partners and executive team to strategize about, vet, and fund investments he believes will be profitable for the firm so that it can reinvest profits back into its operations to continue its mission of helping everyone in the world who has been injured or is disabled.