What motivates me as a lawyer is my sincere belief that every person is good and deserves to be treated as such. We have clients from all walks of life and all life experiences who are in a situation that they did not plan on and that they did nothing to cause and we deal with that person the way that they deserve to be treated, and we try to get them a result that they wouldn’t have been able to do on their own. And that matters on every single person’s case and that drives me every single time that I meet a new client and I hear about where they’re at in their life and what harm has been caused to them. And so it’s a renewable source of passion because each person really is different and unique and deserves to be helped.

When you’re dealing with insurance companies you have to first and foremost be honest. However, you also have to be tough and brave. You can’t just encourage your client to take whatever the last best offer is if it’s not fair for what they have experienced. You can’t be afraid to go to trial. You can’t be afraid to take on a case that other lawyers might say has too many problems with it because the insurance companies keep track of these things. They know who is just settling every case and they know who is not afraid to actually take the case through litigation and fight. And so you have to have some sharp teeth when you’re dealing with insurance companies.

One of the pieces of advice that we give to clients right away is that they need to not sign anything that they receive. You might be signing away your future rights. You need to make sure that you have consulted with someone before you’re signing anything that you might receive from an insurance company or a provider that you don’t understand. Another thing that’s important is just don’t go around talking about your case to everyone. You need to talk to your case about the people who are in a position to help you, if that ends up being the attorney you hire, then great. But the things that you say, even in the early stage, can hurt your case later on down the road.

And one last piece of advice for people who maybe haven’t retained a lawyer yet is watch your social media. The things that you’re putting out there right now might come back to hurt you three years later when your case is before a jury. So be careful of that.