For me, being an injury lawyer all started with a batch of homemade cookies.
Well, maybe it started a little bit earlier…
The other day my mother pulled something out of the basement, framed it and put it on my desk.
While it wasn’t a box of old cookies (which I will get to in a moment) it was my political platform for running for third-grade class president.
Like the Constitution, it set out a framework based on equality and justice for all.
I laugh at it now, because, in this day and age, what kind of equality and justice would I have needed to get my constituents in the third grade?
But, it turned out I was really focused – from a very young age – on helping people combat unjust situations.
I didn’t set out to practice law right out of school though I was in the trenches helping people in need.
My first job was on the nursing staff at a psychiatric hospital near Boston, helping patients meet their basic day-to-day needs.
I was fascinated by the mind and how it worked. And as I learned the unique stories of so many people, I wondered how we might help people avoid hospitalization, rather than just treating them when they arrived (usually against their will).
From social work to legal work
I left the hospital to earn a Masters’ degree in Social Work, where I focused my studies on community organizing and non-profit management, with the goal of helping social systems adapt to the needs of those they served.
In time, I found that I needed to work with people, not policies. And I realized that while the social work education was invaluable, the power to do good lay in the hands of lawyers. So my next stop was Northeastern University School of Law, from which I graduated in 1998.
I moved to Vermont in June of 1998 and spent the better part of ten years in civil legal services, keeping roofs over the heads of low-income families and protecting children and families from domestic abuse throughout Vermont. Along the way, I learned a few things about telling stories in the courtroom.
Those years of experience gave me the confidence that I could work in any courtroom, anywhere, and get 12 people, who I didn’t know, to like me and my client enough to give my clients much deserved justice.