Pond Lehocky named Melissa Chandy, Frank Ciprero, Kevin Harchar, Andrew Ruder and Keld Wenge as partners effective January 1, 2021. They join the leadership ranks of Samuel H. Pond, Jerry M. Lehocky, Thomas J. Giordano, and Stephen R. Miller as seasoned professionals and longtime advocates for clients.
Chandy and Ciprero have been with the Firm since its inception in 2010. Harchar has made Pond Lehocky a house-hold name in the Scranton area growing the firms reach in Pennsylvania. Ruder and Wenge have been fighting on behalf of thousands of Pond Lehocky clients since 2012 and 2013 respectively.
“Their vast knowledge, advocacy, loyalty, networking and never-ending display of teamwork made them an easy choice,” founding partner Thomas J. Giordano, Jr., said. “Our new partners epitomize what it means to be a Pond Lehocky attorney with an ultimate combination of trial advocacy, legal knowledge and confidence.”
Chandy has focused her practice exclusively on Pennsylvania workers’ compensation law since graduating from Penn State – Dickinson School of Law. Chandy was born and raised in Canada where she attended the University of Toronto and was accepted into a highly competitive Specialist Program in Commerce and Finance. Chandy is a certified specialist in Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation by the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Section on Workers’ Compensation Law as authorized by the PA Supreme Court. She was also elected to the Pennsylvania Association of Justice’s Board of Governors and is also an active member of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association, the American Association for Justice, and the American Bar Association. Additionally, Chandy has been chosen to the Super Lawyers® Rising Stars list. She also serves as the Chair for the firm’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) committee.
Ciprero graduated from Dickinson College in 1995 with a B.A. in Anthropology and earned a law degree from The Dickinson School of Law of The Pennsylvania State University. He served as a legal intern for the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General in the Medicaid Fraud Control Division. Since joining the firm in June 2010, he continues to focus his practice on Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Law and protecting the rights of injured workers as a Senior Associate. Ciprero has been admitted to practice law in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He is certified as a specialist in the practice of Workers’ Compensation Law by the Pennsylvania Bar Association Workers’ Compensation Law Section as authorized by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Harchar is admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania, is a Certified Worker’s Compensation Specialist, and is a member of both the American and Pennsylvania Bar Associations. He obtained his J.D. from Widener School of Law, graduating in 2008. During his time in law school, he was a law clerk at the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole and a law clerk at a Harrisburg, PA criminal/insurance defense firm. Mr. Harchar was also a certified legal intern at the Harrisburg Civil Law Clinic in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and at the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Harchar is based out of Pond Lehocky’s Scranton office.
Ruder earned a B.S. degree from Towson University in 2007 and went on to receive his J.D. from Rutgers School of Law in Camden in May of 2012. Ruder interned with the Honorable Mitchell S. Goldberg in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and also with the Honorable Shelley Robins New in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Ruder is admitted to practice law in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Tech2Educate, a non-profit that raises money to provide new technology to charter schools in the Philadelphia area.
Wenge joined Pond Lehocky in 2014 as an attorney in the workers’ compensation department prior to becoming a partner. He has dedicated his practice solely to representing injured claimants. Wenge is admitted to practice law in both Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In addition to his leadership with the Bar Association, Wenge is a frequent volunteer for Philadelphia VIP. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, College Park and graduated from Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America in 2007.
