Now in his mid-40s, David Steerman is already one of the leading matrimonial lawyers in the five-county Philadelphia area. He’s a key litigator at the prestigious and high-profile firm of Obermayer, Rebmann, Maxwell & Hippel, and is recognized by clients and peers as a standout among a new generation of skilled attorneys in the field. Moreover, Steerman in many respects is heir apparent to the firm’s veteran divorce litigator, Robert Whitelaw, himself inducted into Ten Leaders in 2004. (The firm has six full-time domestic relations lawyers in its One Penn Center office alone, making it among the largest family law groups in the region.) Steerman, Whitelaw and others say, brings to the profession the traits of the best family lawyers: He is ultra-perceptive of people, and an articulate and skilled litigator respected by adversaries, judges and other court personnel he regularly appears before. Peers say Steerman is prepared and organized, with a steadiness, confidence and professional ambition that does not offend. “He’s a damn good lawyer,” says Whitelaw, who lured Steerman to the Obermayer firm in 2004. Steerman is every bit a Philly-area product – he grew up in Gladwyne and attended Episcopal Academy and Harriton High School before going on to Penn and later Temple Law. To some extent he was steeped in the law from an early age: His father, William Steerman, built a successful independent personal-injury practice and remains well known and respected in the region. In his second year of law school the younger Steerman took a Family Law course that “really sparked my interest”, and with an undergraduate degree in Psychology, “family law seemed like the right field of practice.” After law school Steerman accepted a clerkship with William Witten Vogel, President Judge of the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas in Norristown, and later joined respected matrimonial lawyer Arlan Mintz Kardon.