“You don’t seem like the Personal Injury Lawyer type ...”
I often laugh when I’m told this because I know exactly what they mean. The truth is that I’m not like most personal injury attorneys. To understand why, you have to understand why I do what I do — that is, why I represent accident victims.
You could say my career started by accident. Specifically, it started when I was involved in a life-threatening rollover accident on August 3, 2004.
My girlfriend (who has since become my wife) and I were driving from Texas to New Mexico when we were involved in a car accident. Our car rolled numerous times going 70 mph. As you can tell from looking at the photo of my vehicle here, we both should have died, but, by the grace of God, we were protected. While we were both able to walk away from that accident relatively unscathed 15 years ago, I still remember every single detail: the billowing dust, the blood, the shards of broken glass, the crunching of metal. There is something surreal about seeing all your personal items being thrown about the roadway that makes you extremely aware of every single sensation you can see, hear, and smell. I remember it all quite vividly.
Once the car came to a halt, my mind raced with concern for my girlfriend. Once we realized that we were going to be okay, our concern was quickly replaced by an imposing fear of the unknown. Is my car totaled? Can I afford to buy a new one? How severe are our injuries? Do we need to go to the hospital? Can we still walk and work? How much will our medical bills be? Unfortunately, the stress, anxiety, and fear pervading your mind while you’re sitting in a mangled car doesn’t leave once you get home. I know this because I experienced it.
While I won’t go into every detail, I can tell you that my accident had a profound impact on my life. But I’m thankful I went through that experience because I realized I wanted to spend my career helping people through the scary unknowns of life after an accident.
Drawing on my own life-changing experience allows me to relate to clients in ways most attorneys cannot. When a client comes to our office and tells me their story, I can feel the sensations — the fear and the mental, emotional, and financial burdens — along with them because I’ve lived it myself, and that experience has made me even more devoted to helping those who come to us. Being the person who gets our clients back to living the life they had before their accident is the most important part of my job, and I will continue the process of empathizing with clients’ fears and advocate for them as best I can for as long as I can.
Helping accident victims is a deeply personal mission for me, and it’s why I do what I do.
