Stern & Cohen, P.C.

Focus and practice areas

Workers' compensation is the main practice at Stern & Cohen, P.C., a Philadelphia firm that represents injured workers throughout Pennsylvania. The site organizes this work by injury type and by industry, so a hurt employee can find the situation that fits their own. Named injuries include back injuries, slip and fall injuries, construction accidents, repetitive stress injuries, and occupational illness.

The firm also handles workers' compensation claims that arise from motor vehicle accidents on the job. Its practice pages add Social Security Disability matters and some personal injury cases, among them dog bites and medical malpractice. In my opinion the range makes sense for a firm whose clients are mostly employees hurt at work, because disability and injury claims often grow out of the same event.

The industries and injuries named

The injury list points at physical labor and repetitive strain, the kinds of harm common on construction sites and shop floors. Occupational illness covers conditions that build over time from exposure at work. Grouping the work this way lets an injured worker match a job accident to the type of claim it becomes.

How a workers' compensation claim usually works

Workers' compensation in Pennsylvania runs through a state system, separate from ordinary civil court. A worker files a claim after a job injury, and a workers' compensation judge hears the evidence and issues a decision. Medical records, wage records, and the worker's own testimony often decide the outcome.

Benefits in these cases can cover medical treatment and part of a worker's lost wages during recovery. Some claims settle by agreement, and others go to a hearing before the judge. The firm names this area as its main focus, so a client's matter would generally move through these stages.

When a decision gets appealed

If either side disagrees with the judge's decision, the case can go to the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board for review. Later appeals can reach the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. These stages turn on the record built at the first hearing, which is why the early medical and wage evidence carries so much weight.

The disability and injury work

Social Security Disability runs on a separate federal track from a state workers' compensation claim. An applicant files with the Social Security Administration, and a denial can move to a hearing before an administrative law judge. Medical evidence and a record of how a condition limits work again drive the result.

The personal injury matters the firm names, dog bites and medical malpractice, go through ordinary civil court. Each one turns on proving that someone else's conduct caused the harm. Keeping these beside workers' compensation gives an injured client one place to start when a single event raises more than one kind of claim.

The partners who founded the firm

David F. Stern is the President and a founding partner. He is a Philadelphia workers' compensation attorney who has represented injured workers across Pennsylvania for decades, and his practice centers on litigating and settling workers' compensation claims.

Taylor J. Cohen is the other founding partner. He teaches workers' compensation as an adjunct professor at Temple University's law school, and he was mentored earlier in his career by David Stern. Both founders are former Division One college athletes, a detail the firm repeats on its home and about pages.

The firm states that it has helped injured workers throughout Pennsylvania for more than 45 years, though it gives no specific founding year. That figure points to a long stated history inside a single field of law.

How the team is built

The site lists eleven attorneys. Alongside Stern and Cohen, the roster names Brian J. Betley, Katy E. Luchansky, Chloe C. Murray, Allen (A.J.) Dejewski, Connor M. O'Boyle, Cassidy R. Page, Tomas Sanchez, Tricia Hemphill, and Peter Classetti.

The firm presents these attorneys as one group working on injured-worker cases. For a firm built around workers' compensation, a roster of this size suggests the volume of claims runs through more hands than the two founders alone.

A team of this size also means a client's day-to-day contact may be an attorney other than a founding partner. That pattern is common at firms handling a steady stream of claims, where associates carry hearings and negotiations under partner review. The named roster gives a sense of the people who might work a file.

Where the firm works and who it refers to

The office is on the 26th floor of Two Commerce Square in Philadelphia, and the firm represents clients across Pennsylvania. For matters outside its core, it keeps a referral network with attorneys in other fields, including employment law, motor vehicle accidents, and family law.

That network also reaches workers' compensation claims in New Jersey, Delaware, and New York. As a reviewer, I read this as a practical way to connect clients with attorneys in other fields and nearby states. The firm's own focus holds on Pennsylvania workers' compensation, with Social Security Disability and select injury cases beside it.