Ezra Wohlgelernter

Ezra Wohlgelernter is a co-founding partner at catastrophic personal injury law firm Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig, where he maintains a diverse practice portfolio, including a successful history of medical negligence litigation, motor vehicle and truck accident litigation, premises liability claims, and other significant personal injury matters.

A practicing lawyer for more than 40 years, Ezra in the 1990s and early 2000s was a trailblazer in litigation that held municipal police departments and their officers accountable for violations of police practices and civil rights, long before police accountability became a national conversation. His work included cases on behalf of innocent victims injured and killed while in the path of vehicular police pursuits involving high-speed chases in densely populated communities. He also has pursued claims in federal courts for citizens injured and killed from injuries arising from police use of excessive force, and he has represented incarcerated people whose medical needs were being deliberately ignored.

Ezra was lead counsel in the landmark case of Lipsky v. State Farm, where the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that an auto insurance carrier had to compensate victims suffering negligent infliction of emotional distress, without physical injury, in underinsured motorist claims. The victory not only helped his clients, but also brought closure to many more victims throughout Pennsylvania whose claims for these damages had been denied, pending the court’s resolution in Lipsky.

At the Philadelphia Bar Association, Ezra previously served as Chancellor-Elect and Vice Chancellor, as well as co-chair of the Young Lawyers Trial Academy, co-chair of the Medical-Legal Committee, and on the State Civil Litigation Section Executive Committee. From 2014 to 2016, Ezra served as an investigator for the Association’s Commission on Judicial Selection. When the Association worked to open the courts after COVID-19, he served on a committee of leaders of the plaintiff and defense bars that collaborated with the judiciary to open safely and expeditiously for civil trials.

Ezra is a past President of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association, where he served as a member of the Board of Directors for more than 25 years. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of PTLA’s publication The Verdict and currently is Chair of the Committee for a Better Tomorrow, the trial lawyers’ PAC.

Ezra has served in many leadership positions in local Jewish religious and educational institutions for over 40 years.

For nearly two decades, Ezra has been dedicated to the work of SeniorLAW Center, which provides pro bono legal services for Pennsylvania’s underserved and growing indigent elderly residents. He has served as an officer and Co-Chair of the Board Development Committee, and his work on the Finance and Audit Committees strengthened the center’s ability to advocate for seniors.

A graduate of Temple University Beasley School of Law (J.D.) and Yeshiva University (B.A.), Ezra has been selected for inclusion since 2013 in the Best Lawyers in America list. He has been named as a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer every year since 2009 and has been consistently recognized since 2014 as a Top 100 Pennsylvania Super Lawyer and a Top 100 Philadelphia Super Lawyer.

Ezra has been married for 48 years to his wife Susie, a longtime special education teacher. They are the proud parents of five talented adult children and the grandparents of many grandchildren, including two great-grandsons.