Trial, the Journal of the American Association for Justice, asked me to write an article on mediations in death and catastrophic injury cases. The article will contain a section about preparing your client’s for the mediation process which is what I did yesterday last week in a wrongful death truck accident case, meeting with the decedent’s 15-year-old daughter and her mother, and the victim’s mother and three children. Just a wonderful family.
It is grueling to relive with a nice family the death of someone they loved so dearly. The hardest thing we do here is digging deep into the lives of those who experienced awful suffering. But as difficult as this process is, it also makes you feel better about going to work every morning. In an age where the media, doctors, and politicians routinely vilify personal injury lawyers, it is uplifting to be reminded of why we left our defense lawyer hats behind to represent severely injured victims.
Reading this back, I realize this all sounds trite. I hate reading personal injury lawyer blogs that blather on about how we are saving the world. I realize that my job is about 1/1,000,000th as important as some doctor risking his life for Doctors Without Borders in Somalia right now. I get where I fit in the circle of life. That said, even forgetting for a second the macro benefit of being a part of a system that holds people accountable for their actions, I think trial lawyers—particularly those that genuinely care about their clients—are making a big difference in the lives of many people who need our help the most.