Tom Theado is a cradle Catholic, having been Baptized on January 7, 1951, at Saint Mary Magdalene Church in Columbus, Ohio, at age eleven days. Tom enjoyed twelve years of Catholic education in Peoria, Illinois—eight years at Saint Philomena’s grade school (where each classroom hadabout fifty students) and then high-school at Spalding Institute where he was privileged to serve on the Bishop’s pontifical crew for all four years. Tom’s father was the advertising manager of the Peoria Diocese’s weekly newspaper and his mother, after her third child reached high-school age, served as a human resource director for central Illinois’ St. Francis Medical Center.
In 1969 Tom moved to northern Ohio to attend Oberlin College from which he graduated with honors in economics. He went on to study law at Case Western Reserve University where he was awarded a law degree with honors, having earned the American Jurisprudence award in business organization, the Phi Delta Phi award for his graduating class, and membership in both the Order of Barristers and the Order of the Coif.
Tom was admitted to the practice of law in November 1979 and he has never been reprimanded,sanctioned, or otherwise disciplined with respect to any aspect of his uninterrupted practice of law for all the past 40 years of his career. Tom’s law practice has come to focus on managing and coordinating large, complex civil litigation involving various and diverse law firms situated throughout the nation. He has served as a Lead Counsel in numerous class–action lawsuits in both state and federal courts, andTom has litigated to a successful conclusion many class actions of national or regional scope. The national publication Lawyers Weekly included Tom in its 1995 series of articles featuring the country’s top trial lawyers and he has received a number of additional accolades, most recently having been chosen the Lorain County Bar Association’s first Member of the Year in March of 2014. Tom has presented at many legal seminars throughout the nation, and he has authored numerous legal publications.
Tom was a member of Sacred Heart Parish in Oberlin, Ohio, for some thirty years before he moved to Amherst, Ohio, in 2003. At Sacred Heart Tom served as a sixth-grade PSR instructor for a decade and for another ten-year term was happy to lead the Parish’s high-school youth group. In Oberlin Tom’s other roles included serving as a lector and a Eucharistic Minister.
At St. Joseph’s Parish in Amherst Tom was very much involved in the renewal and retreat efforts of the Parish’s Men’s Group, in which his studies have included Ignatian spirituality, Marian consecration, and Scripture study, and he has served as a Eucharistic Minister both at Masses and to thehomebound and has been a member of his Parish’s RCIA Team for years.
Tom is very, very happily married to a lovely and loving woman, Stephanie Sierra, and he has two children, Peter and David, by whom he has three grandchildren.
