Lawyer As Peacemaker

As a personal injury lawyer, representing injured clients against large insurance companies, my days are often filled with conflict.  I butt heads with insurance adjusters and defense lawyers, who seem to only desire to retain every possible penny for the bloated corporations they represent. 

For example, just this month one adjuster suggested that my five year old client – who has a permanent backwards-six-shaped scar on his forehead – was lying about being bitten by a dog. What motive does a sweet five-year-old have to lie?

Another adjuster, in response to a job-ending work injury caused by a falling fence, simply said that “fences don’t fall.”  Try telling that to the man whose muscle was torn from his bone, when the fence did, in fact, fall.

When I become especially frustrated with the legal process I look at the quote pinned to my bulletin board.  John W. Davis, a lawyer speaking about lawyers, said, “True, we build no bridges. We raise no towers.  We construct no engines.  We paint no pictures…. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see.  But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men’s burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful lives of men in a peaceful state.”

My job is to take up the burden of my injured clients.  I protect them from callous adjusters and defense attorneys.  I let the mud get slung at me, so that my clients don’t have to feel it.  And in the end, when a case gets settled, I bring my clients peace of mind.  Their medical bills have been paid, their economic losses recouped, and they can move forward again.

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