A friend is someone who stands up for someone else when they are down. That is what lawyers do. We speak for people when they are down, often at the lowest point of their entire lives. I take that very seriously. I try to treat every client like family, like it was my father or my mother who someone hurt.
I went to law school to help people. I wanted to be the kind of lawyer I’d seen on TV and read about in books who speaks for people, stands up to the big bullies, and fights for what is right. But when I graduated from law school during the great recession, there were very few jobs. My first job as a lawyer involved foreclosing on homes for big banks. I learned a lot and worked very hard, but my heart wasn’t in it.
In 2011, a friend gave me the opportunity to start representing people who had cancer from asbestos. It changed my life forever. My clients invited me into their homes. I sat with them. I ate with them. I talked with them. I laughed with them. I cried with them. I really got to know them. I fought hard for them. And sometimes I was there with them when they died.
I saw what mesothelioma means in real life. Once early on in my career, I had a client with mesothelioma who was only 45 years old. He had three little children. I spent a lot of time with him in his home. He got sicker and sicker. One day, his six-year-old daughter came to me and said, “why can’t Daddy play with me anymore?” I’ve had similar experiences since then. I have seen people who were so sick they could barely breathe extend kindness to me. I have seen families come together and take care of a loved one in ways and with strength and courage, I never could have imagined. I have seen juries, at great personal sacrifice to themselves and their time and their lives, do the right thing when it would have been easier not to.
And so this job isn’t just a job to me. It’s work but it isn’t just work. It’s the most meaningful thing I have done in my life. I know that no matter what happens in my life in the future, I have made a difference to some people in this life.
