00:04
my background
00:06
is a little bit different from some of
00:08
the other lawyers doing this
00:10
kind of work i started as a creative
00:13
writing major
00:14
in college and then went to hastings
00:17
college which is the lead
00:18
campus for the university of california
00:20
law school system
00:22
and worked at the court of appeal during
00:25
law school and then
00:27
clerked for the leading injury and death
00:30
law firm in the city and then i
00:34
immediately jumped in after
00:37
law school to a small firm where i got
00:39
to trial
00:41
much more quickly than other lawyers and
00:43
i was sent out
00:45
on a case that the defense and
00:49
the judge frankly didn’t think was worth
00:51
much and they offered me forty seven
00:52
thousand dollars to settle it
00:54
and i tried it and won a million and
00:57
forty six thousand dollars
00:59
so i had a a fortunate
01:02
start in the practice i may be
01:05
one of the few lawyers i don’t know of
01:07
any other lawyers who
01:09
had a million dollar jury verdict that
01:11
soon after
01:13
starting to practice law and it launched
01:15
me into
01:16
a different kind of career in personal
01:19
injury practice
01:20
my career in personal injury practice is
01:23
different from others because i only
01:24
worked
01:26
on substantial cases almost from the
01:28
beginning
01:29
i was allowed to take the lead role
01:32
in big cases really from the time i was
01:37
a fairly junior lawyer one of the
01:39
advantages i had in
01:41
getting out to trial so early
01:44
was that i got to experience
01:48
the push and pull of working against
01:51
top trial lawyers from the beginning of
01:54
my career
01:54
the ones on the other side who are
01:56
defending these insurance companies and
01:59
large corporations
02:01
[Music]
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part of what differentiates me from a
02:08
lot of trial lawyers is
02:10
i am very hands-on with my clients i
02:13
only take a few cases at a time
02:15
all my clients have my home and cell
02:17
phone number all my clients can call me
02:20
day or night if they’re in trouble i see
02:23
my clients as being
02:26
people who have had the hardest things
02:29
that befall us in life
02:31
happen to them someone
02:34
who supports them or
02:38
is their child or parent has
02:41
died and they are looking for justice
02:43
and they are looking for compensation
02:46
and they are also looking for someone to
02:49
try to
02:49
understand what it’s like to go through
02:52
what they’re going through
02:53
i think that empathy is a word that’s
02:56
sometimes overused these days but
03:00
you really have to have empathy for your
03:02
client you really have to be able to see
03:04
into their lives and what they’re
03:05
experiencing
03:07
what they’re suffering and be able to
03:09
respond to that
03:10
you have to give them hope and you have
03:12
to give them confidence
03:14
and they have to trust that you’re going
03:16
after the
03:18
corporations or people who are
03:20
responsible for what happened
03:23
in a really rigorous intelligent
03:26
well-resourced way