About Personal Injury Lawyers

About Personal Injury Lawyers

By Garry R. Salomon, Esq.
Published in The Trial Lawyer Magazine
Published by The Trial Lawyer, Inc.
June 2024 Issue

A lot of people like to make jokes about personal injury lawyers. Perhaps some of that is brought about by tasteless attorney advertising or questionable tactics employed by some injury attorneys to find new clients. When 1 explain to some people what I do, they feel it necessary to respond, “So, you mean you’re an ambulance chaser.” I smile and laugh at their joke because 1 realize they mean no harm. The jokes may seem to be funny, but to someone who’s injured, it’s no laughing matter.

Similarly, law professors who educate future lawyers with the aspiration that their students may, upon graduation, land a job with “Big Law” seem to frown upon recommending their students to consider a career dedicated to being a personal injury “trial attorney.’ Instead, they prefer their students to engage in corporate legal work. Somehow, to them, a career of contract reviews, foreclosure law, and perhaps real estate transactions is more noble. As a result, few law students are encouraged to enter a career specializing in “tort law,” commonly known as Personal Injury Law. Fortunately for me, I know otherwise.

As a law student with an undergraduate degree in accounting, my intention was to become a tax attorney. However, that changed as soon as I studied tort law, which is about compensating people injured by another’s negligence. Having started my legal career as a general practitioner, I found it most satisfying to devote my career to being an “injury lawyer.”

I found that by being an injury lawyer, I became not only a member of the “Plaintiffs bar”, but more like being part of a fraternal organization. Even though plaintiff trial lawyers may compete with one another for clients, they were open and collaborative about sharing trial skills to be effective advocates for their injured clients. More importantly, they are active in lobbying, passing, and advocating for pro-consumer laws that hold negligent corporations and institutions accountable for their negligence. It was then that I understood that each case I brought helped make the world a bit safer.

You see, in our society, law enforcement protects against crime, but who protects the people against neglect, malfeasance, and carelessness? I then truly understood the trial lawyer’s contribution to society. Because if it weren’t for the work of trial attorneys, cars would not be as safe, food would not be as wholesome, prescription drugs would not be as safe, and police brutality would go unchecked. There would be no seat belts, functional airbags, flame-proof baby clothing, mall security, back-up alarms, product warnings, etc. Corporations have no hearts, souls, or consciousness. They exist to make money, and it’s the fear of being sued that causes them to institute safety protocols.

There was a time when, during snowstorms, storekeepers would stock rock salt for sale, yet not apply any to their own walkways. Now, because of the threat of lawsuits, they make certain to de-ice their parking lots. When it snows, the manager may tell an employee, “Go salt the entryway before someone slips and sues us.” But they have it all wrong. What management should say to their porter is, “Go clear the snow and salt the parking lot before some woman falls and breaks her hip, and because of that, she may lose her job since she can’t go to work. Furthermore, because the woman lost her job, her house may go into foreclosure, and because of her pain, she can’t take care of her disabled husband and even ends up missing her granddaughter’s wedding. Now go outside and clean and salt the parking lot!”

The truth of the matter is that the store owner only cares about not being sued.

Not only am I proud of the work that I do, but I also realize that trial lawyers need far more skills than other lawyers. We need to know all the applicable statutes and case law. We need to know Evidence Law inside and out. We need to understand other areas of the law, including real estate, partnerships and corporations, civil procedure, family law, estate law, criminal law, bankruptcy, contracts, and constitutional law. We also need a good understanding of medicine, accounting, engineering, and psychology. We learned to be good legal brief writers and, above all, “good on our feet” in front of a jury. We need good investigation and negotiation skills as well as a good understanding of human nature, and good debating and theatrical skills.

On top of it all, we trial lawyers need to have enough confidence in ourselves to win our clients’ cases, because if we don’t win their case, we will not get paid. But despite it all, I would not change a thing in my career. In fact, often while trying a case, I say to myself, “I can’t believe that I get to do this.”

During my career, I’ve had the privilege of interviewing hundreds of lawyers for a position at my firm. When asked why they decided to go to law school, they all say that they became lawyers “to help people.” Well, the reality is that we trial lawyers are the lawyers who really do help people from all walks of life, whether they are old or young, rich or poor. In the end, by doing our jobs, we helped a person or a family get their measure of justice while making the world a safer place.

And that’s what it means to be a trial lawyer.