i’ve had a lot of memorable cases in my decade plus working insurance defense but there’s one that sticks out in particular
it was a slip and fall case where we were representing the international renaissance festival a gentleman had an unfortunate accident where he was on an outdoor boardwalk slip and slipped and fell and suffered a personal injury
it’s not an uncommon situation in the type of case that i get but why it sticks out for me is that one of the first cases that i handled without any particular oversight or managing from any senior attorney here it was my case to run with from start to finish with my colleagues available for any questions or second thoughts or considerations at the end of the day we got a great result in the case uh federal court granted our motion for summary judgment
so anytime you get a good result for your client it’s it’s a good day and it’s a memorable case
the reason this one stands out in addition to being primarily a independent effort for me is that it was really an opportunity to see both the forest and the trees so to speak in terms of how to effectively manage an insurance defense case and what i mean by that is when you’re a new attorney and when you’re working for a more senior attorney a lot of times you get very task driven you’re assisting the senior attorney and he or she is explaining why things are done but you’re focused on the task and you don’t necessarily see the bigger picture
in this case the ability to have the agency and autonomy to run the case to think strategically to go into a deposition with the plaintiff and understand exactly the facts that i wanted to elicit from him to use those facts in a motion for summary judgment effort the court to agree with my analysis and ultimately get a positive result for the client was a great feeling and something i continue to think about today not only as a benchmark but as a way to best approach all the cases i get from here forward