Founding Member Spotlight: Johnson, Duffie, Stewart & Weidner
What services or products does your business offer?
Johnson, Duffie, Stewart & Weidner offers comprehensive legal services in over 15 practice areas including health care law, commercial and residential real estate, land development and zoning law, insurance defense and subrogation, transportation law, business planning and corporate law, commercial transactions and litigation, collections and creditors’ rights, municipal and school law, labor and employment law, estate planning and administration, domestic relations and family law, workers’ compensation law and mediation. We also provide title insurance and real estate settlement services through our affiliated company, Assured Land Transfers, Inc.
How does your business separate itself from your competition?
We have earned a reputation as practical, results-oriented professionals. The breadth of our experience combined with the creativity of our diversified group of attorneys enables us to effectively represent our clients’ interests. Producing the right results for our client requires more than knowledge gleaned from law books. You need to have an intimate knowledge of the decision makers, their legal representatives, and the community in which they operate. Throughout our history, our lawyers have always been leaders in government, in professional and civic organizations and within their political parties. Our longstanding service to the community and the profession is often more helpful to our clients than all of the volumes in the State Law Library.
How has your business grown over the years?
We have grown from a sole practitioner in 1914 to over 20 lawyers today with offices in Lemoyne and Reading.
How has Chamber membership been beneficial to your business over the years?
Chamber membership has enabled our attorneys to be connected to the pulse of the business community. The networking opportunities offered by the Chamber have been invaluable to our growth. We have made many friends and developed countless mutual business relationships over the years. As the premier advocate for business development, the Chamber has contributed significantly to the West Shore’s growth which has been beneficial to all businesses.
What involvement have you had, and/or do you have in the Chamber?
In addition to helping to found the Chamber, our members have served on the Board and numerous committees including the legislative committee, the veterans’ affairs committee, by-laws committee, airport committee, and the BRAC committee. Roy Weidner served two terms as President and has served in all the Vice President positions. Dick Stewart has served as Vice President of Business Development.
What does the future of your business look like? How do you see it growing?
We expect to continue growing. We expect that laws will continue to become more complex and that technology will continue to change at a rapid pace. One thing, however, will not change. The practice of law will still come down to the judgment, skill, creativity, and dedication of the individual lawyer and that is what will continue to keep our firm always one step ahead.
John E. Myers opened his law practice in the Lemoyne Trust Company bank building in 1914. Mr. Myers was a sole practitioner until he was joined by his brother, Robert L. Myers, Jr. in 1921 and the firm became known as Myers & Myers. John Myers’s son, Thomas, joined the firm in 1948 and in the mid-1950s, James D. Flower, Sr., a son-in-law, became a partner and the name was changed to Myers, Myers & Flower. In 1961, Horace A. (Hank) Johnson was the firm’s first non-family member hired. Hank Johnson became a partner in 1963 and the name was changed to Myers, Myers, Flower & Johnson. In the 1970’s, after serving as a military Army judge in Vietnam, Jerry R. Duffie joined the firm. Edmund Myers, a third generation partner and grandson of John E. Myers, joined the firm in 1977.
In 1987, the firm changed its name to Johnson, Duffie, Stewart & Weidner and in 2004, the firm shortened its trade name to Johnson Duffie. At the time, Jerry Duffie said most of the firm’s clients already shorten the name so “we’re simply recognizing” that fact and “the reality that the trend is toward shorter, more streamlined names for law firms.”
Throughout our more than 100 years, the firm has remained at the same location, 301 Market Street, Lemoyne. The original building was enlarged four times between 1905 and 1955 and housed not only the law firm and a bank but in later years the West Shore Regional Police Department. The law firm purchased the building in 1979 and renovated it in 1980. With the explosion in technology, the firm expanded its offices in 1992, adding on a 9,300 square foot addition. In 2010, as its client base grew the firm opened an additional office in Reading. Our new modern office allows for state-of-the-art equipment, more conference rooms, and additional support staff to deliver superior service to our clients. As the firm continued to provide professional legal services to Central Pennsylvania residents and companies, additional attorneys were hired with expertise in various fields of law ranging from property and estate work, family law, corporate, municipal law, hospital law, and litigation. Johnson Duffie currently has 21 attorneys, supported by a dedicated staff of paralegals and legal assistants; all fully qualified to assist you in myriad areas of law.
If he were here today, we are confident John E. Myers would be proud to know that the law firm he founded over 100 years ago continues to thrive and provide outstanding legal services to the residents, businesses, and communities throughout Central Pennsylvania and beyond.
For more information on Johnson Duffie, visit www.johnsonduffie.com or call (717) 761-4540.