Marc B. Kaplin

For the past 45 years, starting in the early 1980s, Marc Kaplin has been a leading real estate lawyer in Eastern Pennsylvania. Over the last 35 years, while continuing to represent the real estate industry in all types of transactions and litigation, Marc has spent the majority of his time helping owners and developers navigate the increasingly complicated local, county, state, and federal regulatory, approval, and litigation processes. These efforts ensure that land can be improved or redeveloped, necessary infrastructure can be installed, and buildings can be constructed and occupied.

From 1978 to approximately 1981, Marc served as the Solicitor for Whitpain Township, Montgomery County (Blue Bell), at a time when suburban Philadelphia growth was moving into the second tier of suburban townships. During that time, Marc saw the development process from both sides—municipal and developer. When he transitioned from his role as Solicitor in 1981, he began representing developers and owners such as Hansen Properties, Toll Brothers, Realen Homes, Franklin Realty, The Klein Company, Federal Realty Investment Trust, Brandywine Realty Trust, The Wolfson Group, and others.

In 1976, Marc co-founded Lesser and Kaplin, which grew to over 40 lawyers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, concentrating its practice on the representation of the real estate and financial services industries.

In 1997, Marc and 12 Lesser and Kaplin lawyers created Kaplin Stewart Meloff Reiter & Stein (Kaplin Stewart), where he and a group of extremely talented and motivated professionals continued to develop their practice. Today, Kaplin Stewart is home to 40 lawyers and sophisticated paralegals practicing in real estate, corporate, tax, employment, litigation, and estate planning. The firm includes a large group of experts who guide owners through all types of real estate transactions, with 12 specialists dedicated specifically to land development, brownfield redevelopment, regulatory approvals, condemnation, and environmental permitting.

Marc is admitted to the bars of the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and the Commonwealth and Superior Courts of Pennsylvania. Marc is a very active litigator in all county courts in Eastern Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley, as well as the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, where the majority of zoning, land development, and environmental law is established.

Marc served as counsel to Realen Properties in the landmark Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision In Re Realen Valley Forge Associates. This decision held that Upper Merion Township had violated the rights of the owners of the Valley Forge Golf Course by maintaining an Agricultural Zoning District while the surrounding 1,770 acres were zoned for the intense, multifaceted King of Prussia development. The Supreme Court determined the Township had engaged in illegal “Reverse Spot Zoning.” Today, that site is the Village of Valley Forge, which contains nearly 3,000 dwelling units and 1,000,000 square feet of commercial and medical facilities.

Over the course of his career, Marc has been counsel to the developers of multiple Walmart stores, Blue Bell Country Club, Penn Medicine’s Radnor Medical Campus, the Sentry Park and Union Meeting office complexes in Blue Bell, Ellis Preserve Town Center in Newtown Square, Main Street at Exton, the proposed apartment development at the Plymouth Meeting Mall, and the townhouse community at the Philmont Country Club. His current projects include the redevelopment of Willowbrook Farms into a mixed-use golf, equestrian, and residential community in Allen Township, the Metroplex, and numerous large warehouse developments in Berks, Lehigh, Northampton, and Franklin Counties.

Marc and Esther have been married for 54 years. They are the proud parents of Andy Kaplin and Simi Kaplin Baer, both of whom are involved in the real estate industry, and have three grandchildren.

Marc is a cancer survivor; he and Esther are longtime contributors to the Abramson Cancer Center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, KleinLife, and the Anti-Defamation League.