Interview with a Bellingham Personal Injury Attorney

I ASKED TOM, A BELLINGHAM PERSONAL INJURY ATTORNEY, TO START BY MAKING A LIST OF WORDS HE ASSOCIATED WITH A GREAT LAWYER. He gave me some words I expected-effective, skillful, persuasive—and some I appreciated-honest, loyal, compassionate. He listed zealous twice. But he surprised me with “creative.”

Creative? Really? That’s not a word I commonly associate with attorneys.
Yeah, creativity isn’t a common attribute among lawyers. Lots of lawyers are rule-bound, black and white. They tend to put things into little boxes and think very mechanically. But every situation is so unique. People’s lives don’t fit neatly into little boxes.

So how do you use creativity in your job?
Lawyers are problem solvers, and creative thinking can produce great solutions. I had a client once whose claim was in competition with two other injured people for the same amount of insurance. I knew the insurance company would like to pit the claimants against each other—divide and conquer. I phoned the other attorneys, presented the strength of my client’s claim along with the supporting documentation. We all agreed to present a united front to the insurance company.

Ultimately, it was the best outcome for everybody-even the defendants.

Sounds a little bit like a diplomacy game.
Well, good attorneys are great negotiators and strong strategic thinkers. They need to be able to read and understand people. It’s critical to be a good listener, to understand people’s true motivation, to care about people, their lives, their stories.

Don’t you get tired of hearing all the sad stories?
It’s hard to see people in pain. But I have a passion for justice. The client could easily have been me, or a member of my family. The law says that when a person has been injured by someone else, they have the right to be “made whole.” You see the commercials that run the film backward, return someone’s life to what it was before the accident. That’s a fantasy, of course. The film won’t ever run backwards. But we can give people the financial resources they need to take time off, to rest and recover, to get good medical care, and to find help and support through the tough times.

So you help people maximize their recovery?
My goal is to care about the client as a person. There’s this myth among attorneys that the highest award equals the best interest of the client. But people deserve to be educated and informed, to be an active participant in their cases.

I have clients whose goal was simply to maximize their recovery, and that’s what we did. I’ve also had clients with other goals. Many clients just want to settle. I’ll tell them, “I think your case is worth more if we go to trial.” But sometimes they say, “I just need the money now,” or “I’m tired and I want this to be over,” or “I just need to move on.” I respect their decision.

So a good outcome is . . . ?
A good outcome is a happy client. I want to do whatever is in the client’s best interest. I’ll give advice, show them all the different scenarios, predict what a jury might do, discuss all the possible outcomes, but in the end it’s about what the client wants.

Does it bother you when they ignore your advice?
You mean, does it bother me when they don’t want to maximize their award? I was having this exact conversation with my brother, talking about what I do. He just assumed that my main goal would be to maximize profits in the business sense-earn the most money for the least work.

I think as an attorney you have to train your mind not to even go there. You have to empathize completely with the client, to see the case entirely from the client’s perspective. That’s the only way to do the job right.

At the end of the day, if the client feels I’ve done my best for them, I’ve done my job. Obviously, I have an office to run, staff I employ, partners I have to satisfy, a family I have to feed. But over the years I’ve found that if I keep the client’s wishes as my top priority, the financial side works out fine.