Plainsboro Township, NJ

Gerald D. Siegel

I was born and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey where I graduated from Victor Mravlag School 21, Hamilton Junior High School and Thomas Jefferson High School in 1971. I loved baseball, Mickey Mantle, the Yankees and I played in the Elizabethport Little League. In my junior year of high school, a friend showed me a catalogue from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. I fell in love with the images of the campus primarily because it looked “like college is supposed to.” So, in the fall of 1971, at age 17, a year after the Beatles broke up and with Rod Stewarts’ “Maggie May” on the 8 track tape deck, I went off to Athens, Ohio into an eye opening world that I had never before experienced. At OU, I studied Political Science and took some interesting courses from some great professors. I met new people and learned about the Midwest and about the poor in Appalachia. My Ohio University experiences helped build my philosophy and values about justice and fairness for the vulnerable and less fortunate. I give a lot of credit to Professors Roger Schaefer, Sung Ho Kim, Ron Hunt, Jim Tilling, Dean McWilliams and Edgar Whan. After graduation from OU, I moved to New England and went to law school in the sleepy little village of South Royalton, Vermont at Vermont Law School. I was a member of the third graduating class in 1978. We began classes in July of 1975. The first case that we studied, as a class, assigned by Professor Gene Shreve, was a product liability case called Bertha Chisky vs. Drake’s Cake’s. For a new school, we had very bright professors, drawn for the most part from the Ivy Leagues law schools. Most were only a few years older than us and they challenged us. I give credit to our late Dean, Tom Debevoise, who brought in these young professors and built a strong foundation on which VLS flourishes today. The senior professor who he signed as a “free agent” was Ralph Bischoff, age 72, who had to retire from NYU Law School due to his age. NYU’s loss was VLS’ gain as he brought a lot of experience and credibility to the school. Other fine professors were David Firestone, Peter Teachout and Stephen Dycus, and Ken Kreiling who are still teaching at VLS. Law school was hard, but it gave me a model for problem solving and taught me how “to think like a lawyer.” I am very grateful for the wonderful education I received at Vermont Law School. After graduation, I moved to Central New Jersey, took the bar exam and became licensed in the New Jersey State Courts and the New Jersey Federal Courts on December 6, 1978. I started my career doing insurance defense work, that is, defending cases brought by accident victims and I got a lot of trial experience in those years. I also learned how insurance companies and defense attorneys attack and evaluate the claims of injured people. I did mostly defense work for the first half of my career and then decided that I wanted to carry over what I learned to help people who were hurt due to the fault of others. The professional accomplishment which I value the most is my Certification by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Civil Trial Lawyer. I suppose it is validation for my hard work, trial experience and recognition by our New Jersey Supreme Court, for which I have so much respect. I obtained it in order to demonstrate to my clients that I had the commitment to obtain a credential which they could value and to give them a competitive advantage in the handling of their case. I am also member of the Middlesex County Bar Association and the New Jersey Association for Justice. I also served on the Middlesex County District Ethics Committee and I currently serve on the Civil Lawyers Committee in Middlesex County. I am also an approved by the Superior Court to arbitrate personal injury cases in Middlesex and Mercer Counties. I have been retained by other attorneys in the personal injury field to mediate personal injury cases. On the community side of things, I served as a Judge in the Vermont Law School Moot Court Competition, the Middlesex county Mock Trial Program and the Princeton University Mock Trial Competition. My biggest accomplishment in life is my family. I am married and have three accomplished children. I live in Plainsboro and I have coached more than 35 seasons of recreational soccer, basketball and baseball for my kids and other children in the community. I enjoy the challenge of helping people navigate the medical and legal process of a personal injury case. I enjoy working with medical professionals and using the medical evidence to prove an injury.

Seymour E. Siegel

My father, Sy was a great dad and role model. He was a highly skilled attorney and, in his prime, he was one of the most well regarded trial lawyers in the state. He was a tough but ethical adversary. He was born in the Bronx during the Great Depression. As a teenager, to earn money to help my immigrant grandparents pay the bills, he played the trumpet in various dance bands and spent his summers playing in the resorts of the Catskill Mountains. He graduated from Evander Childs High School in the Bronx and from The College of the City of New York where he studied Economics. He served in the US Army during World War Two, in the European Theatre of Operations from 1942 to 1945, where he received two Purple Hearts. After the war, while working a full time job, he earned his law degree from Rutgers Law School in 1950. He was admitted to the New Jersey Bar in 1952 and was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court in 1958. My father tried over 1,000 civil cases. He and my mother, Elaine instilled within me the values which I hold fast to today: family, honesty and hard work.

David A. Siegel

I have been working at Siegel & Siegel, PC since I was fifteen years old. I started working during the summer as a file clerk, then as a law clerk during law school and as a licensed attorney since November, 2010. I was born in Trenton at Helene Fuld Medical Center. I went to Wicoff Elementary School, Upper Elementary School, West Windsor-Plainsboro Middle School (Community) and graduated in 1999 from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School (South). I played soccer and basketball during my high school years. To gain a new experience, I wanted to go away to school and was fortunate to be able to attend and graduate from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. I majored in Journalism at IU’s Ernie Pyle School of Journalism and minored in Business at the Kelly School of Business. I received a broad based education and was able to take courses in everything from Photography to Brazilian Ju Jitsu. For law school, I chose to attend Roger Williams University School of Law in Bristol, Rhode Island and graduated in 2008. I particularly enjoyed my classes on trial preparation which led me back to New Jersey to work Siegel & Siegel, P.C. as a third generation attorney at the family firm. Outside of law school, I love baseball, football and especially basketball. I play recreational basketball and coach in the Windsor-Plainsboro PBA League during the winter. One of my passions is collecting sports cards memorabilia, some which are on display in my office. I am happy to be able to work with my Dad and work in the community in which I grew up. I am proud to be the third lawyer in my family and fight for my clients’ best interests using the values that I have learned working at our firm.