About Tom

Tom Wells was the founding partner of Wells, Jaworski & Liebman LLP. He served as the firm’s first Managing Partner and initially guided its growth to its status as a highly respected firm. After stepping down as Managing Partner, he remained the CFO and one of the firm’s three Administrative Partners, until his retirement in 2021 when he moved to “of counsel” status. Tom concentrated his practice in real estate, land use, business, commercial, and non-profit areas. For more than thirty years, Tom has enjoyed AV (highest possible) Peer Review Rating from Martindale Hubbell national lawyer’s directory.

As also the owner of a number of business enterprises, Tom has significant expertise in the area of business client representation and complex financing arrangements for real estate development and business working capital. In addition to the law firm, Tom is the Managing Partner of Wells Mountain LLC, a real estate development and management firm with properties principally in the state of Vermont, including five restorations of historic buildings into modern, successful commercial properties with over 45 tenants. Additionally, Tom is the Managing Partner of Wells Mountain Investments which has various and diverse holdings. Finally, Tom is also a “banker,” having served nine years on the Board of Directors of Cascade Bancorp, a Bend, Oregon-based bank holding company, and more recently the Board of Directors of Beach Bank Corp. in Tampa, Florida.

Tom also enjoys numerous philanthropic and civic involvements, including over 30 years of active participation in both Rotary International and the YMCA, principally as an Officer, Director and Trustee of the Ridgewood, New Jersey YMCA, and in recent years as a non-Haitian member of the Board of Directors for YMCA d’Haiti. Tom’s principal philanthropic activity is as the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Wells Mountain Initiative (www.wellsmountianinitiative.org) which he founded 16 years ago. “WMI” is a 501(c)(3) qualified charity focused on social change through education and community building primarily in the developing world which at last count had over 500 WMI Scholars (up from just one in 2005) studying and working in 51 countries, and 85 WMI funded social entrepreneurship programs in 18 countries. In Haiti, Tom spearheaded the construction and development of six Container YMCA Community Centers built from former shipping containers utilizing a unique award-wining design.

Tom is a graduate of Bucknell University, where in 2016 he received the Distinguished Citizenship Award together with his wife Carol, and of Case Western Reserve School of Law. He is admitted to practice law in New Jersey, Vermont and Ohio and in various District Courts. He is a former member of the Bergen County District Ethics Committee.

Tom presently divides his time between homes in St. Thomas, U.S.V.I., and Shoreham, Vermont, where he has been busy creating a 20-acre “family compound” on Lake Champlain. Tom and Carol are proud parents of three daughters, and have a grandson and two granddaughters.