VISTA Today speaks with Denise Werkley, Shareholder and Partner at West Chester law firm Unruh Turner Burke & Frees, about growing up in Centre County and moving to Chester County when she was ten, the life-lessons she learned working in her parents’ all-in-one butcher shop, ice cream parlor and gas station on Route 23 in Coventryville, her lack of interest in music, finding her way to Penn State and then Villanova for law school, landing her first law job and then joining Unruh Turner five years later, her passion for being active in and assuming leadership roles in the community and how she earned the reputation for being her firm’s resident Psychologist.

Where did you grow up, Denise?

I was born in Centre County, Pennsylvania and lived there until I was ten years old. After my father died when I was three, my mother did whatever she could to support us; she was an English teacher and an Avon lady for a while.

What brought you to Chester County?

My mother met my stepfather Ron who was from Spring City, and when I was ten we all moved to Chester County and since he’s a butcher by trade, they opened a butcher shop and seafood store on Route 23 in Coventryville called Boettger’s Meat Market.  The store, which sold not only meat and seafood but gas as well, was open from 7 AM to 7 PM year round and 9:00 PM in the summer for the ice cream crowd.

What memories do you have of growing up?

My memories revolve mostly around my parents’ store because that’s where I spent most of my free time growing up. My parents would get me when I got home from school, and I would often stay with them in the store until it closed each night. While I tried not to pump gas, I did everything else; I waited on customers, made sandwiches, cooked burgers, sliced meat and used the band saw.

What lessons did you take from your work in the store that remain with you today?

Being pleasant to everyone even when they’re not having a very good day. Customers who came into the store often remarked how nice it was to see a smiling face. My parents are both very giving people. When they were away from the store, customers would tell me how much they appreciated their kindness and how great it was that my parents knew everyone in the area.

What other activities did you do in high school?

Besides working after school at the store and babysitting I was involved in Student Council, Amnesty International, Key Club, National Honor Society and yearbook.

Did you have a favorite activity?

Yearbook gave me an opportunity to get to know people, and I got to see everyone’s candid photos. I was editor of the faculty section, so I had to know everybody to insert them into the right place in the yearbook. It fostered a lot of great relationships.

What kind of music were you listening to in high school?

I am just not all that interested in music!  I call myself ‘music illiterate’. People have trouble understanding that.  I listened to music because all my friends did, but music has never moved me like it does some people.  Even now, I don’t listen to music very often. My music interest, or lack of, is a constant source of discussion in the office.

What about movies? What kind of movies do you like?

I like most action movies. When I was growing up, I had Bruce Willis’ Die Hard series on tape and watched them over and over and I love the Bourne, Transporter and Fast and Furious franchises.  Action movies have always served as an escape for me.

After high school, where did you go to college?

Penn State gave me a nice scholarship, and since we didn’t have a lot of money to pay for college otherwise, I went there instead.  Aside from the scholarship, Penn State was an easy choice to make. Penn State was on my original list of schools I wanted to look at and I still had family in Centre County and friends who were going there.  It was a great place to spend my college years and we still have season tickets to football games and I am on the advisory board for a branch campus.

You must have been a good student to get a Penn State scholarship.

I was.  I was also voted most likely to succeed by my classmates in high school.

What did they see in you to award you that distinction?

I assume they saw that I obtained good grades and had a lot of activities. Beyond that, I hope they saw my commitment.  When I say I’m going to do something, I stick with it. I led things; I ran them; I completed them.

Did Penn State end up being a good fit for you?

Absolutely.  When I got to campus they gave incoming freshman a couple of days to walk around campus and see things, get oriented. Main campus was so big and I was housed in the senior dorm so those first few days were very, very lonely. Once classes started, however, I found a group of people to spend time with and organizations to join and the senior dorm was right in the center of campus so it ended up being the best spot.  The size of Penn State forces you to come out of your shell, get involved, and start talking to people. I considered several majors and eventually chose Psychology.

Was Psychology a better fit?

It definitely was, but over time, I came to the conclusion I didn’t want to make a career treating patients.  I worked in a Psychotherapists office starting in my sophomore year and saw how draining and mentally exhausting it was for the therapist listening to the heartbreaking stories of the adults and children who were her patients.

What did you do after graduation?

I had AP credits from high school and took classes in the summer, so I finished college in three-and-a-half years.  Learning is interesting to me.  I can rarely sit and do nothing.  I used the time after graduation to work in the service department of an appliance store and save money until law school that Spring.

Why go to Villanova for law school?

Two reasons.  One, I got in!  Second, Villanova was close to home, so I could live at my parents and save money. It was a great school, a nice place and convenient to home.

Was Villanova a good fit for you?

Villanova’s size and student diversity were very different than Penn State.  There were more students in my first biology class at Penn State than in the entire law school at Villanova.

How did you adjust?

I lived at home, so I didn’t have to adjust all that much.  Also, a couple of days before school started I got a call from a friend introducing me to another woman who was also going to be a first-year law student.  She was also a commuter living at home about five minutes from my parent’s house, so we drove together every day for those three years and helped each other through law school.  Getting involved as a teaching assistant and starting a student organization helped as well.

What did you do after graduation?

I took the bar exam, got married and started my legal career in Chester County in the first three months after graduation.  I started practicing law with MacElree Harvey and was there for five years.

What brought you to Unruh Turner?

One day out of the blue, I got a call from a headhunter inviting me to interview at Unruh Turner, that afternoon if I was free. I told her I didn’t have my resume ready nor was I dressed appropriately. She assured me that was fine and to just come over for a quick meeting, which ended up lasting almost three hours. A few weeks later I was sitting at a desk at Unruh Turner.

Was moving to Unruh Turner a good move for you?

It was. Unruh Turner is a relaxed culture, very flexible and we all seem to like each other.  We generally like to spend time together and we have fun with some really interesting people. It’s not a good day if someone doesn’t stop by my office to say hello or put their feet up for a chat. It’s also a place that allows us to develop our own legal interests and client bases which is how I ended up spending so much of my practice doing work for financial institutions. I liked it and they gave me the support to run with it.

We also have free reign to join community organizations and I was encouraged to take leadership positions, so I’ve run the Chester County Women’s Referral Network, lead a committee of the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry, and most recently have gotten involved with both the Chester County Fund for Women and Girls and March of Dimes. Unruh Turner also supported my efforts to start a holiday gift drive at the office and I’m so proud that we have grown it to the point where we now support two local organizations so that Chester County kids and families can have a fulfilling Christmas each year.

How did you get the reputation for being the firm’s resident Psychologist?

I like to understand people and why they do things. I think it is important for everyone to discuss issues within the workplace that are bothering them or things they would like to see done differently. Everyone who talks to me in the office knows I can’t fix the problem by myself. What I can do is discuss it to help them achieve a resolution on their own or perhaps help them work their issue or idea through the system. There are people at Unruh Turner who do the same for me.

What challenges and opportunities are before you for the rest of the year?

Personally, I want to continue to develop my client base and continue with my leadership activities at various organizations. I also have a husband and two boys ages 6 and 9, who at the moment are very involved in little league baseball. I want to spend more quality time with them while at the same time building my practice. There’s never enough time.  I am also the first and only female equity partner Unruh Turner has ever had and I feel a sense of responsibility to be a good role model for other female attorneys looking to advance as well.

One of the big challenges all Chester County Law firms face is that there is so much competition for the same clients and with the same organizations. The stiff competition makes all of us constantly aware of the need to bring in more business and do better work. We are more aware of having to get out of the office than we’ve ever been. We want to get out of the office, not just for business development, but I believe you can’t serve your clients very well if you don’t understand what is happening in their communities. As lawyers, we should be and are often expected to be leaders.

The lawyer-leader concept is interesting.  Explain what you mean?

Most lawyers are leaders by nature. People come to us for advice and guidance. That’s the very definition of our jobs.  As lawyers, we have to be confident, articulate and able to give clients the information they need to make their business or personal decisions. If you look around the community and see who is serving on nonprofit boards and not just coming to meetings but raising up and leading their respective organizations, it’s often the lawyers.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received Denise?

My mother always told me to ask questions. Ask whatever questions you want she told me, people don’t have to answer. You might be surprised by the answer you get but if you don’t ask you’ll never get anything. As a result of her advice, I’ve always asked lots of questions; Why? What are we doing this for? Tell me how this got this way? That advice shaped a lot of my leadership ability and career.

I have a quote I love that says, “you attract what you are, not what you want.” I don’t know who said it, but I’ve had the quote on every bulletin board in every office I’ve ever had. You have to be who you are and let people like it or not.