_

Introduction

Odds are, I’m very sorry you’re reading my book.

Many of my years-long relationships with clients start with the same regret. As a personal injury lawyer, I often meet people in the middle of the worst days of their lives. Nobody who comes into my office for the first time is happy to be there, but I’m always glad to meet them—across my desk or by their hospital beds. I take no pleasure in the grief and shock they’re experiencing, but I know (as you’ll see in the stories of loss and recovery I share in this book) that they are part of a larger narrative. There’s something heroic about every one of them, even beyond the strength it takes to tell me about what’s just happened to redirect their lives in a direction they never wanted or planned.

No matter who they are, and although we’ve just met, I already know a few things about these people (as I suspect I do about you). For one, I know there’s hope. From my outsider’s perspective and years of experience, I know the person I’m speaking with is living through the worst days of their lives. And I know that thingswill get better. There’s no room left to get worse.

If they’re talking to me in my professional capacity, I also know someone has told them they need to consult a lawyer. During their struggle to go on without a loved one they’ve lost or in the face of a grueling physical recovery, they’re talking to me because they want to right a wrong. They want to do this, not for themselves, but to hold the system that’s responsible to account and to protect other people from harm. They’re thinking about taking on the hero’s work of standing against injustice, but they’re also feeling overwhelmed, guilty, or unsure. I always grieve for them and with them, but I’m always awed by them as well. And proud to stand with them.

I tell them that it’s my objective to ensure that, as time goes on, they’ll look back on our meeting as the absolute worst time because, I hope, it will mark a turning point where things began to get just a fraction better. I tell them I’ve been right here where we are far too many times but that I’ve seen what comes next, and it does—itwill—get better. Not every day is better than the one before, and it never gets easy, but there is hope, and they’re not alone.

If you’re reading this book because you’re living through tragedy, please know that you have my genuine and experience-informed sympathy. You also have my respect. I hope you’ll take some of my hope as well.

When I first meet with people, they are entirely and understandably overwhelmed. They don’t know how to go forward. They don’t know what they should do or how to do it. Often, in addition to the practical and emotional upheaval they’re facing, serious financial worries threaten them. Finally, they’re struggling with ethical questions: How could this have happened? Who’s responsible? What can and should I do about it?

My advice to them and you is always the same: do what you need to do to take care of yourself and your family. If you want to stand up to those responsible, you don’t have to