About Kathleen
Kathleen Thomas earned her law degree from Temple University Beasley School of Law in 1989 after completing a bachelor’s degree in business administration at West Chester University of Pennsylvania in 1981. She entered the profession at the end of the 1980s and has worked in both private practice and municipal legal roles since then.
Her earliest recorded position began in 1989 at Jenkins, Siergiej & Smith, P.C., an entry that coincides with her law school graduation. Two decades later she joined Kerns, Pearlstine, Onorato & Hladik, LLP in 2012, then moved to HLADIK, ONORATO & FEDERMAN, LLP in 2013. In 2018 she took on the title of Special Counsel at High Swartz LLP. Those shifts reflect steady involvement in firms that handle municipal and tax matters, alongside litigation and advisory work tied to local government practice.
Thomas is admitted to practice before the Pennsylvania courts and holds admission to the U.S. District Court for both the Eastern and Western Districts of Pennsylvania. Her courtroom experience is matched by long-running municipal appointments. She has served as an Act 511 Local Tax Review Hearing Officer for Upper Merion Township since 2001 and for Radnor Township since 2000. She has served as a Special Act 511 Tax Solicitor for the Township of Lower Merion since 2007, for the Township of Abington since 2012, and for Cheltenham Township since 2016. That roster of municipal roles indicates sustained work on local tax disputes, ordinance interpretation and administrative hearings.
Beyond municipal appointments, Thomas has engaged with professional and community groups. She is a member of the Montgomery Bar Association and the Pennsylvania Business Privilege and Mercantile License Tax Collectors Association. She has volunteered for Wills for Heroes, providing legal services to first responders. From 1998 until 2018 she served on the board of directors of the Center for Loss and Bereavement, a role that placed her on a nonprofit governance track for two decades.
Colleagues and clients have encountered her in administrative hearings, local government consultations and federal court matters in Pennsylvania. Her career mixes firm-based practice and public-sector assignments, and it shows particular recurring work on Act 511 local tax issues and municipal legal matters. She currently practices municipal tax and local government law at High Swartz.
