Making Its Presence Felt

As Featured In Suburban Life Magazine

Since expanding to South Jersey, Stampone O’Brien Dilsheimer Holloway has become an integral part of the shore communities and an ardent supporter of local charitable causes.

By Matt Cosentino, Suburban Life magazine, July 2023

Like many Philadelphia natives, Joe Stampone has long reserved a special place in his heart for the Jersey Shore. Sixty-plus years of visiting the boardwalk, the beach, and everything else the shore has to offer has not diminished his fondness for the sun, sand, and surf. A longtime summer resident of Wildwood Crest, he has passed down his passion for the shore to his five children, including his son Dan, a fellow personal injury attorney at the firm Joe founded in 1984, Stampone O’Brien Dilsheimer Holloway.

It makes perfect sense, then, that the Stampones have expanded the firm into South Jersey. In doing so, the legal team has offered its years of combined experience and breadth of legal knowledge to a whole new population of clients who have been seriously impacted by motor vehicle accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, product liability, and more.

“We have a natural connection to South Jersey,” Joe says. “I’ve been going to the Shore since I was a little kid, and my son Dan has likewise spent every summer of his life there. Another attorney in our office is my nephew Tyler, and Tyler is now a full-time resident of South Jersey in the Tuckahoe area. He’s becoming very involved with the communities, and he spends the summer in Strathmere, where he’s a volunteer fireman for the Strathmere Fire Department.

“Our law firm has eight attorneys who are all licensed to practice in New Jersey,” he continues. “We’re primarily a Philadelphia regional law firm, but we’re happy to be making this push into South Jersey.”

Not only did Stampone O’Brien Dilsheimer Holloway open an office in Wildwood Crest a few years ago, but the team has made it a company mission to support a wide range of charitable causes specific to South Jersey. For example, the firm has partnered with the DeSatnick Foundation, which was established in honor of Chad DeSatnick, who suffered a spinal cord injury while surfing during Hurricane Humberto in 2001. After undergoing an 11-hour surgery to repair his C6 and C7 vertebrae, Chad was told he may never walk again and would never be able to surf.

During his rehabilitation, Chad learned that spinal cord injuries were on the rise in Cape May County as the result of a 50-year beach replenishment program, and he became active in lobbying for and promoting beach safety. The foundation now holds events like the Around the Cape Paddle, a paddleboard race of which Stampone O’Brien Dilsheimer Holloway is a major sponsor.

The firm also collaborates with the DeSatnick Foundation to sponsor an event called Life Rolls On—They Will Surf Again, which was started by another injured athlete, California native and world-class surfer Jesse Billauer.

“He was also told he would never be able to surf again, but he was able to adapt his technique, style, and equipment to allow parasurfing to occur, and now they run about 16 different surf and skate events across the country for those who have been disabled with spinal cord injuries,” says Dan Stampone. “Only a few of them are on the East Coast, and one of them is being held in Wildwood on Aug. 6. We started sponsoring that event last year, and there’s an obvious connection to our personal injury firm, because of all the serious injuries we see.”

Also, in connection with the DeSatnicks, the firm has supported the distribution of special handicapped accessible wheelchairs for use on the beach. They recently donated one to the Wildwood Crest Beach Patrol, and plan on doing the same for other beach patrols along the coast in Cape May County.

The firm has also teamed up with longtime friend Steve DelMonte of DelMo Sports to sponsor multiple triathlons per year, including the Escape the Cape Tri, Tri A.C., and Tri the Wildwoods, in which they give a Perseverance Award to one of the youth competitors. They also support the Wild Harbor Tri Club, a Wildwood-based triathlon group that regularly participates in these events, and have connected DelMo Sports with other nonprofits like The Superhero Project, which benefits neonatal intensive care units in hospitals across the region and the country. Joe Stampone is a board member for The Superhero Project and, through his relationship with DelMo, he arranged for the organization to be the official charity partner of the Women’s Philadelphia Triathlon, an event that draws over 1500 female athletes.

“Supporting charities has always been important to us and it has certainly become a much bigger focal point over the past 10 years as the law firm has matured,” Joe says. “Some of these things are personal, like our involvement in The Superhero Project, which came about after I had two grandchildren in the NICU. My first grandchild weighed just 2 pounds at birth and required a relatively long stay in the NICU. … You see the great things that these NICUs do for your family, and it’s really easy to move them to the top of your list from a standpoint of being charitable.”

The Stampones have also had many friends and family members work as lifeguards over the years in Wildwood Crest and other shore points, which is why the firm sponsors the South Jersey Lifeguard Racing Series as well. Those events include the Wildwood Dutch Hoffman on July 28, the Margate Memorials on Aug. 4, the Ventnor Bill Howarth Cape Atlantic Women’s Race on Aug. 9, and the Margate South Jersey Lifeguard Championships on Aug. 11.

“We have a big connection to that community, and these races are all about health and wellness, which is a natural thing for us to promote and contribute to,” Joe says.

In supporting so many causes, Stampone O’Brien Dilsheimer Holloway hopes to remind those who may suffer a traumatic injury of the positive results their legal team can deliver. Of course, if branding were the only goal, the firm could easily invest in billboard ads on the Atlantic City Expressway or launch a television campaign. More important is the opportunity to be an integral part of the shore communities that have meant so much to them.

“We want to give back to South Jersey,” Joe says. “Many of these events benefit people who have suffered from traumatic injuries, and those are people we care about because of our work. By getting involved, we feel like we’re part of the fabric of the community, rather than just providing a service within the community.”