Two Chester County Law Firms Merge

WEST CHESTER, PA —The law firm, Gawthrop Greenwood, PC merged with the law firm, Steven L. Sugarman & Associates, to provide legal services to homeowners associations, planned communities, and cooperatives across Pennsylvania’s residential and commercial arenas.

Steven L. Sugarman is leading Gawthrop Greenwood’s community association law practice joined by attorneys Elliot H. Berton and Robert M. Mulhern, Jr., also of Steven L. Sugarman and Associates.

The merger with Gawthrop Greenwood’s Community Association Law Department, will support the growing needs for legal services of community association board members, builder-developers, buyers, sellers, realtors, and municipalities who are grappling with increased accountability to state and federal regulations, as well as homeowners seeking to raise their property values.

As the chairman and active member of the Community Association Institute’s Legislative Action Committee for many years, Sugarman drafted and advocated for amendments to Pennsylvania’s laws as community associations have evolved into the fastest-growing form of housing.

Sugarman also serves as an expert witness on community association matters brought before Pennsylvania’s courts and General Assembly.

In addition, Sugarman developed and teaches condominium and homeowner association law as an adjunct professor at the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law.

He is a frequent lecturer at local and national levels on real estate and community association matters.

Community associations are the country’s fastest-growing housing model, according to the Foundation for Community Association Research.

Approximately 1.3 million Pennsylvanians live in 541,000 homes in more than 6,930 community associations, according to the Community Associations Institute.

Community association housing is expected to become the most common form of housing by 2040.

“The majority of new housing developments are approved in Pennsylvania only if they are governed by a community association to handle traditional municipal services such as street and sidewalk maintenance, trash pickup, and stormwater management,” Sugarman said.

Stacey L. Fuller, chairwoman of the management committee at Gawthrop Greenwood, P.C., said historically, community association law has been a boutique industry, but clients are demanding a wider array of services that can be supported by our team of litigators, municipal, land use and zoning law attorneys, employment law attorneys and other experienced practitioners.

“This is a momentous development for our firm, which began by serving the farming communities of rural Chester County in 1904 and has evolved to support a booming business and residential corridor,” Fuller said.

Sugarman, Berton and Mulhern will continue to operate primarily from their Berwyn office, adding to Gawthrop Greenwood’s current offices in West Chester and Greenville office in Greater Wilmington, DE.

The announcement comes seven months after Gawthrop Greenwood announced a merger with the community association law firm Landis & Setzler, PC, and attorneys Holly L. Setzler and James D. Doyle.