From obtaining successful jury verdicts to advocating for the best interests of our youth, Royer has spent his entire adult life in the courtroom and helping everyday Americans with various legal issues. My mother, Alvilda Royer (nee Warner), worked as a substitute teacher while raising me and my older brother and sister. Every summer, we packed into the station wagon and drove back east to visit
family in Carlisle and Waynesboro.
During my teenaged years, my parents moved the family to Pennsylvania to live closer to their parents and settled on a beautiful farm in Cashtown.
There have been Royers and Warners in this part of the country since 1718. Renfrew Park in Franklin County is considered the Royer ancestral home, and my direct descendent David Royer fought in the 17th PA cavalry at Gettysburg. In a strange twist of fate, they filmed a large part of the movie Killer Angels (Gettysburg) on my parents’ farm. In fact, the best summer job I ever had was working as a “gopher” for the crew, earning $300 a week in cash and breakfast burritos from the food truck.
While I take pride in my American heritage, the honor belongs to my ancestors. After all, the mill doesn’t turn on yesterday’s water. The first job I had was working as a cook at Hardees at the age of 14, and I’ve been employed or in school ever since. After graduating from Mercersburg Academy in 1993, I went back to Illinois for college and, after a few years living and working in Washington, DC, I went to law school and earned my Juris Doctor from the Penn State Dickinson School of Law in 2003.
I began my career in civil litigation, and I also worked in the oil and gas industry in Potter and Susquehanna counties before finally settling down in Adams county in 2016. While natural gas might be controversial to some, I took great pride in helping to produce clean energy that we all need. Plus there was no better feeling than giving a check to a side-hill farmer for royalties he didn’t even know he owned.
Since relocating to the Gettysburg area I worked for John Mooney and Kristin Rice and have been lucky enough to make a living in a profession that can truly be a privilege. I would encourage all young attorneys to spend a few years with either a Public Defender or District Attorney to gain valuable experience and serve our justice system. After all, to live in a free society, everyone is entitled to counsel or, ultimately, no one will be.
There are no small cases, just small attorneys. We are given money by people who need help with their problems. Maybe they are self-inflicted wounds; maybe they are mistakes or conflicts that they just cannot resolve on their own. Regardless, being an attorney presents the practitioner with a daily choice to try and do what is right.
That being said, I believe that the courts are there as a last resort. We are a free people whose liberties are only limited by our responsibilities to our fellow citizens. We all must strive to have a moral code that enables us to try and resolve disagreements peacefully, amongst ourselves and not immediately look to the government (and courts) to tell us what we already know is right.
Obviously there are many instances where that is not possible and the right course of action isn’t clear. Fortunately we live in a country with a rich Anglo-American legal tradition that goes back hundreds of years. I feel strongly that the job of a Court of Common Pleas Judge is not to be a posterchild for a political ideology, but to apply the law as it is written, with reason and without emotion in pursuit of justice and fairness.
That all being said, my greatest accomplishments are my children and my marriage. I have been married to my wife Denise Royer (nee Membreno) for 21 years and we are the very proud parents of two daughters—a Freshman at Penn State and a Sophomore at Gettysburg Area High School.
