David J. Colleran

David J. Colleran has done one thing for his entire career: represent injured people. Since entering private practice in 2000, he has never worked for insurers or corporate defendants — a purity of focus that is rarer than injury victims might expect, and one of the strongest signals a potential client can look for when comparing attorneys at Thompson Law Injury Lawyers.

His courtroom record is substantial. As a lead trial lawyer, Colleran has taken dozens of complex injury cases to verdict for plaintiffs and resolved hundreds more through settlement or alternative dispute resolution. Just as important, he has protected those wins on appeal, successfully defending his verdicts and arguing complex legal issues before the appellate courts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. That appellate strength matters: a verdict is only worth what survives the defense’s post-trial challenges, and Colleran handles cases from intake through the final appeal himself.

A Philadelphia-area native, he studied at Villanova University and earned his Juris Doctor from Villanova University School of Law, then clerked in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for the Honorable John P. Fullam — a federal clerkship that grounded him in how judges actually decide cases. He spent 18 years practicing in his family’s law firm and later worked with several major Philadelphia plaintiffs’ firms before joining Thompson Law LLP in July 2026. He remains licensed in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, having litigated in state and federal courts across both states.

Outside the law, Colleran spent years coaching youth sports and founded an independent youth baseball team that competed across the mid-Atlantic. He and his wife Shelagh have three adult children.

Colleran is the right call for injury victims with genuinely complex cases — disputed liability, serious damages, or a defendant likely to fight through trial and beyond. Clients who want a seasoned first-chair trial lawyer who has personally stood before juries dozens of times, rather than a settlement-mill approach, will find his quarter century of exclusive plaintiff-side experience hard to match. Consultations through Thompson Law are free, with no fee unless the case produces a recovery.