Jane Lessner

Her Story

The following is an e-mail from Jane Lessner to Gerry Wilkinson.

Its great to hear from you. I don't have Internet capabilities on my firm's computer system, so I'll have to borrow someone's. I am in contact with Mickey (Saperstone). I'll send you his address this week and I'll follow up with a longer letter. Meantime, I'm dying to know how every one is doing. Also, who else are you looking for?

The following is an e-mail from Jane Lessner to Gerry Wilkinson for posting on this site.

Well, thanks for all the mail. Its good to hear from the old crowd. First things, first. Mickey's e-mail is micksap@bellatlantic.net

I knew Ed married Ellie only because I am a WHYY freak. Ed has mentioned his wife during a number of fund raisers. It was great to get Mike Biel's e-mail. Its hard to picture him as a college professor!!!!

Rick Friedman was a producer for Channel 6 (?) for many years. He was down-sized at about the time you were. I understand he moved to L.A. with his family. Bob Cirillo was working for one of the local stations for many years, but I haven't seen his name on credits for a long, long time. Marlene (Patrick) and Al (Maslin) got divorced. I think she is living in the Northeast and assumed her maiden name. Sue Ann Miller Reiss, who had only a small involvement with WRTI, has reappeared in my life. I will have to let her know how to reach you.

As, for me, after graduation from Temple, I became a teacher in the Phila. School District and went to graduate school at night. I was enrolled in the School of Communications working towards a Master's Degree while teaching reading to grades 7-12 during the day. I really enjoyed teaching, remained in the system for over 15 years and got a Master's in Education and a Secondary Principal's Certificate. I also became active in the PFT, the teacher's union and did extensive political work for the union and for individual candidates.

After becoming a statistic and victim of the increased violence in our schools, I enrolled at Villanova Law School, where I was a full time student. It was great fun to be a student after all the years of teaching, and because of my background, I did very well. I was hired by Fox, Rothschild where I have been ever since my graduation in 1988. I was named partner in 1996. I am a litigator--not surprising since I always loved to talk!! The majority of my work is in family law with a special interest in surrogacy matters. However, I do it all--custody, adoption, divorce, etc.

As to my personal life, after being a professional dater, I married for the first time last month--November 10th. I acquired a wonderful man with 3 wonderful grown children, so that I have the best of all worlds. In short, life is good.

We'll keep in touch...that's a promise.

From Gerry Wilkinson.......Rick was at WCAU, Channel 10. He may have been at Channel 6 prior to that. I don't know. I don't have any idea where he is now, but we'll look into tracking him down with the information you have provided. Also, I talked on the phone to Ed Cunningham on December 10th and he said that Bob Cirillo is doing freelance TV camera work. When the TV12 fundraiser is over, he will get me Bob's number....
By the way, Ed sent Bob's number (609 )866-2067. I have tried several times and only got his machine. It is Bob's number...I recognized his voice. Anybody over in South Jersey want to try to reach him??

The following is an excerpt from an e-mail from Mickey Saperstone to Gerry Wilkinson.

Jane was just elected President of the Villanova Law School Alumni Association. There is a fabulous (article about) Jane Lessner in this past Monday's Inquirer, business section. If you can get your hands on it it would make a great addition to the site.

The following is an excerpt from an e-mail from Jane Lessner to Gerry Wilkinson.

Thanks for noticing! So Ron is not too far away. All because of you, I got our computer people to provide me w/Internet access. So I've hit the website a few times. I'm interested in technology only when I need it--its never a theoretical interest.

I'm really enjoying the old gang--it seems like yesterday AND a million years ago, all rolled into one. Keep up the great work.

The following is an e-mail from Jane Lessner to Gerry Wilkinson.

You and Jerry are doing a great job. The oldgang stuff is great to read. Even better is reading everyone's messages. Its like hearing all the old staffers again--in the same"voices" as when we last spoke.

I was so exciting to see that you found Bill Stock. I cannot wait to talk with him--I forgot how much I missed him after he graduated. I've heard from Marlene and from Al and I am looking forward to speaking with them both very very soon.

My access to the Internet and to e-mail is limited to work (I was never a techie and I've gotten even worse), so I will catch up with you infrequently. Whenever I find my old WRTI things, I'll let you know the AM positions and any other info I find. You don't remember SB (name removed at the request of SB), but she was FM station manager. She is now SC.

Keep up the good work. I treasure Mickey's friendship after all these years. I bet you are all surprised that we are still friends. We don't even fight anymore. Hopefully our other friendships will re-new themselves.

From Gerry Wilkinson.... In working out the details for our reunion, we have found out two more things about Jane...

1. She doesn't cook
2. Her husband's name is Gerry Donnelly