Philly attorney and TikTok influencer ‘Tommy the Lawyer’ charged with assaulting his girlfriend
Thomas Bosworth has been growing his legal practice, and social media presence, since his 2022 separation from Kline & Specter that sparked a long and ugly court battle.
A prominent Center City personal injury attorney, known for his active TikTok account, choked his girlfriend and threw her to the ground during a dispute on a walking path in Lower Merion, according to police.
Thomas Bosworth, 37, has been charged with simple assault and harassment in the Sept. 3 incident. He was released on $15,000 unsecured bail.
Bosworth, of Gladwyne, did not return a request for comment. His attorney, Michael van der Veen, said in a statement that Bosworth “is presumed innocent, maintains his innocence and has full confidence in the courts.”
Bosworth, known to his 327,000 followers on TikTok as “Tommy The Lawyer,” gained prominence in 2022, when he won a $19.7 million verdict in a medical malpractice case as a 33-year-old Kline & Specter attorney.
In the years since, he has opened his own law firm amid accusations from his former employer that he poached their clients and sanctions for his behavior from a federal judge.
Meanwhile, he has grown his social media following through videos that give advice on everyday goods from his vantage point as a personal injury attorney and the context for prominent lawsuits he litigates.
On the day of the Lower Merion assault, four witnesses told police they saw Bosworth attacking a woman on a segment of the Cynwyd Heritage Trail behind Union Avenue in Bala Cynwyd, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. After choking the woman, he threw her into bushes along the path, and then walked away as she screamed.
The witnesses also said the woman slapped Bosworth and threw rocks at him while on the ground next to the trail, the affidavit said.
Officers responding to the call found the woman with “redness on her cheeks and discoloration of the skin around her neck,” the affidavit said. She told the officers she fell, and declined to speak with them further, as did Bosworth.
Witnesses later told police they overheard the couple arguing about Bosworth’s alleged infidelity, and the dispute escalated when the woman mentioned a text thread from his secretary he had deleted.
The alleged assault took place in front of the couple’s newborn daughter, whom they were pushing along the path in a stroller, the affidavit said.
Bosworth’s arrest is not the first time in recent years that he’s been the subject of scrutiny.
His separation from Kline & Specter in 2022 led to an ugly court dispute between the prestigious firm’s partners and their former young associate.
Tom Kline and Shanin Specter accused Bosworth of poaching clients, which the attorney denied and in return accused his former bosses of defamation. The parties reached a settlement in 2024 but returned to court multiple times since accusing each other of violating the agreement.
Kline & Specter aren’t the only ones who took issue with Bosworth’s conduct online or in the courtroom.
Penn Medicine asked a Philadelphia judge in 2023 to order Bosworth to stop posting on social media about a medical malpractice case he filed against the health system, saying the attorney misrepresented facts and “poisoned” the potential jury pool. But the judge sided with Bosworth.
That year, a federal judge sanctioned Bosworth for “misconduct” during four expert depositions in a product liability case, saying the lawyer was “rude, demeaning, and obnoxious” to a female defense attorney.
And last week, the Pennsylvania Superior Court called Bosworth’s conduct in the courtroom “deplorable” even as they upheld the $19.7 million verdict he obtained while at Kline & Specter.
Bosworth had been accused of repeatedly ignoring a the instructions of a Philadelphia Common Pleas judge during a medical malpractice trial in an attempt to inflame the jury.
On LinkedIn, less than two weeks after the alleged assault, Bosworth wrote about the decision to uphold the verdict without noting the admonishing.
“The courtroom is one of the only places left in our democracy where the everyday person can hold to task wrongdoers, no matter how rich powerful,” he said.
Bosworth is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing in the assault case Oct. 6.
