Transcription

• Speaker #0

  All right. Welcome to another episode of Millennial Money Matters with Kelly Turner.

• Speaker #1

  And Derek Mazzarella.

• Speaker #0

  And today we have a special guest, my friend, Haley Rice. Hi, Haley.

• Speaker #2

  Hi. Thanks for having me. You're welcome.

• Speaker #0

  Want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

• Speaker #2

  Sure. I'm a personal injury attorney with Goth Law Group. I've been practicing law for about 13 years. I live in West Hartford. I've lived in Connecticut most of my life, a couple of hiatuses to Boston and San Diego. Dog lover. I've got a whole menagerie of pets at home these days. We just got a puppy last week.

• Speaker #1

  How many pets do you have?

• Speaker #2

  I have three dogs and a cat right now. Oh,

• Speaker #1

  so you have a lot to do there.

• Speaker #2

  And two children, so the chaos is real.

• Speaker #0

  And one of her dogs is now going to be like TikTok famous because I've been watching him.

• Speaker #2

  Rying really hard. That's my retirement plan. Perfect. Perfect. Can't go wrong. No.

• Speaker #0

  He's horrible. Thank you for joining us. You know, I think from the millennial money matter standpoint here, right, is we hear like personal injury law and people think of one of two things. They think of billboards on the highway and they think of late night TV commercials, right? Of like, what do these people actually do? And I think there's a lot of like myth around it, right? Like what, what is personal injury law? Why are you called ambulance chasers? Is that like a legitimate thing? Or is it just sort of a misinformed opinion that people have? So I think that's sort of my first question is like what what does a personal injury attorney do?

• Speaker #2

  There's so much to unpack there And you know I grew up in the days You know in the 90s and the late 80s in Connecticut where there were certain firms that were all over the TV and that was Kind of the beginning of major legal marketing I think the legal profession for a long time sort of had its nose in the air about marketing and Can still from time to time even in the modern age, but I think most firms are recognizing that you have to get the word out there. Doing good work and word of mouth referrals aren't enough anymore, especially now when we are trying to reach consumers directly versus, you know, networking with other attorneys as much. The internet is a really powerful tool, so getting out there and getting in front is really important. You know, I'm fortunate enough to work at a firm that signs a lot of clients on a weekly basis, so I am constantly opening new cases, and I can't tell you. 90% of the people that I talk to on a weekly basis say, oh my God, I've never done anything like this before. I'm so lost. So, you know, I think there can be this stigma about personal injury law that there's a certain level of desperation to it. And it's something that's easy to kind of joke about until you need it. And then suddenly it's your life, it's your body. You're going through a really disruptive period in your life and you need somebody to guide you through that. So a lot of times I feel like part legal professional and part therapist. People are, you know, their car's ruined, they can't go to work, they have a million medical appointments, they have injuries, they're not even sure what they're dealing with. So part of it is educating people on what their rights are and what the law is, and part of it is just hearing them and talking to them about what they're going through and providing support and being... a beacon for somebody to get through a very difficult period of their life.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. I think something that's interesting too, you sort of mentioned the marketing piece, I guess, of attorneys is we find, I'm in real estate, obviously, and I work with real estate attorneys. 20 or 30 years ago, the legal divisions were far less than they are now, right? You had like a family attorney and they did your will. your divorce, your personal, they sort of did everything. And over time, we've really moved to this more like specialized law where it's not, you know, the one attorney in your town who's like representing everybody for everything. And I think that's sort of like an important distinction because you guys like specialize in this. You know all of the laws associated with it. You sort of know how to move these cases through where working with somebody who doesn't specialize in it, you may miss things.

• Speaker #2

  Absolutely. And that's a topic I feel really passionate about. I mean, the generalist is a dying breed of lawyer. And the reasons behind that, I think, are largely shaped by internet marketing. You know, Google AdWords, for example, back in its original iterations and, you know, modern variants are really interested in content that's highly specialized on websites. So in order to rank in social searches and things like that, you really have to show. expertise in a certain area and the influence that that's had on the legal profession has been really profound. But aside from that, occasionally we talk to a lot of clients that have consulted with their lawyers and things like that. And if personal injury for all of the criticism that it gets is a highly specialized area of law, there's a lot of nuances with insurance coverage. There's a lot of nuances with medical treatment and, you know, what your rights are and what your case is worth. There's very sensitive timing issues if you have, you know, certain types of cases on a municipal sidewalk or involving like a dram shop where someone was over-served. Notices have to go to very specific people within very specific time frames. And if you're working with somebody that really has never handled that before and doesn't know what they're looking at, you can lose a lot of your ability to recover damages in a case like that.

• Speaker #1

  So why don't you, do you want to walk us through kind of like, all right, let's say I get in a car accident, an icicle falls on my head at, you know, a business, like what's, what's the first step you take?

• Speaker #2

  The first step I always suggest is document. The biggest, you know, problem that we can see in a case is if there's no evidence that it actually happened. Motor vehicle accidents tend to be a little bit more straightforward because the first thing people will do on the highway is call the police. But if it happens in a parking lot, for example, people don't always think to do that. So always call the police if you can. If you fall and get injured, you know, getting an immediate contemporaneous photograph of that defect. Obviously, if you're too injured to really deal with that and you're being taken away by the ambulance, that's a different matter. But if there are other people there with you or you can go back to the scene later, have a friend or family member go back, that's really important. Particularly, you know, the winter's coming back up with snow and ice cases. If you're falling on ice or something like that, getting an image of what that space actually looked like or what the weather conditions were that day. can be really important and they can make the difference between a really strong case and a really difficult case. Secondly, you know, call an attorney even if you don't think it is a very significant matter. A lot of personal injury attorneys offer free consults and free case reviews. They can give you some advice as to how to deal with things, what you should be looking out for, and then ultimately it's your decision as to, you know, what you want to do there. I guess I'll rest there and see what questions you have from that.

• Speaker #0

  What do you have?

• Speaker #1

  Well, after that, I would say, all right, so you have the consult with the attorney and the attorney says, hey, this doesn't sound like a case. Do you go to 600 attorneys to double check or do you?

• Speaker #2

  I mean, there is a wide range of, you know, different opinions on cases and what's a good case, what's a bad case, you know, depending on what a firm might specialize in or, you know, how. busy or not busy they are, you know, what they prioritize. I know a lot of firms try to make referrals, like if they can't handle it or they don't think it's a good fit for them, they'll say, hey, look, I know this other firm. But I always recommend at least getting a second opinion because you never quite know, you know, what you're dealing with. And if two or three lawyers say, yeah, you know, I don't really think this is a good fit, then you have a picture. But.

• Speaker #1

  Is it usually, um, sorry, is it usually dollar amounts or is it usually like, Hey, the specialty for us is like, Hey, we don't, we typically deal with car accidents. We don't deal with false or yeah.

• Speaker #2

  Most injury firms will deal with, um, you know, slip and falls, car accidents and dog bites across the board. That's kind of the core of it. Um, medical malpractice is a more specialized area. Not all firms will take that. Um, but you know, as you're describing the situation sometimes, um, I'm going to use the example of backing out into the street, right? If you're backing out of your driveway and you get struck from behind, there's a potential liability issue there and a question of who might be at fault. Depending on how those facts are described, when you call in, one firm might be like, I don't really think that's going to be something we can do. But another firm might look at that and say, oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, we believe this other person was liable. We can take the case. So if you have anything like that, you know, I always recommend getting a couple opinions.

• Speaker #0

  Gotcha. What do you think is the number one mistake people do out of the gate? when it comes to personal injury? Is it the not documenting? Is it talking to too many people? Is it posting on social media?

• Speaker #2

  Without being too broad, I think it is in general, having a little bit too much faith and trust in the system. And what I mean by that is by making the assumption that your word is going to be enough. And, you know, kind of approaching the whole situation as if the insurance company is on your side. You know, you're going to get a call right away, especially if it's a motor vehicle accident with a police report. If the other driver called their insurance company, their goal is to contact you as soon as possible and try to resolve the claim. A lot of times you might still be in the hospital. You might be dealing with your initial injuries when you get that first call. You don't really even know what you're looking at yet. And there's intention there to contact you before you get an attorney to kind of advise you as to what you would do. So. occasionally I see some clients, you know, get into a little bit of confusion or trouble with that because they've just sort of assumed that the insurance company is there to help you. The insurance company is there to protect themselves and to protect their insured. So it's a little bit of a contentious relationship. So my advice to everyone is if the insurance company calls you up and wants a written statement or wants to start talking about it, and you're not really sure what you want to do in terms of legal representation, you're under no obligation to call them back right away or have that initial phone call, you can tell them, hey, I need a day or two to get it together. I'm thinking about getting a lawyer, anything like that. And just buy yourself a little bit of time and think about it before you provide too much information or paint yourself into a corner with agreeing to a settlement.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, because that offer is not just going to immediately go away or disappear, right?

• Speaker #2

  Right. They have time with that. And sometimes I've seen insurance companies put a lot of pressure on, hey, we've got to get this resolved by the 16th. day and they sort of invent. false deadlines sometimes to get that pressure on to make a decision. And there's really, you know, there's statutes of limitations that are applicable to every case. But there's really nothing that you have to take care of in under a year in terms of the core personal injury cases. So you've got time to figure out what you want to do.

• Speaker #1

  You don't have weeks. So with that in mind, though, so it's typically is the other person's insurance carrier, the ones reaching out to you, they usually doing it through their your insurance.

• Speaker #2

  It depends a little bit on the circumstances of the case. Generally, the most traditional flow is, you know, you'll get in a car accident. The other driver, the at-fault driver will say, we'll go back and they will put their insurance company on notice. Hey, I rear-ended a guy on 84 this morning. Here's the information that I have from the police report or the accident summary. And then the insurance company will usually go to town with, you know, picking up the phone and calling. Sometimes, you know the non-fault driver will also contact their insurance company just to let them know. You can resolve the damage to your car through your own insurance, and then they will seek reimbursement from the other at-fault driver's company. So sometimes, you know, you'll find yourself reaching out and putting your insurance company on notice as well. And again, while they're there to protect you, they also have their own interests in getting things resolved, you know, as smoothly and minimally as possible. Um, so another assumption that people make is, well, this is my insurance company. This is a safe conversation. You know, I would take all that with a grain of salt and definitely consult a lawyer before giving any kind of recorded statement or anything to your own insurance company too.

• Speaker #1

  Gotcha. So, so I guess while we're on the top of the insurance part of it. So I mean, I don't know if it makes sense for us to go with what like limits are on a policy. And then when it comes to like bringing an attorney in, you know, the bodily injury, do you guys always go up to the limits? Is it like, Hey, we know going into this case, this person that hit us has low limits.

• Speaker #2

  It's definitely a factor, and it's usually something that we don't find out immediately in the beginning of the case, but usually within the first 30 days we're able to do that. The minimum insurance policy limits for motor vehicle in the state of Connecticut is $25,000 per person and $50,000 per incident.

• Speaker #1

  Which is criminally low.

• Speaker #2

  It's incredibly low, and there's been some legislation in the Connecticut state legislature to raise that to $30,000-$60,000, which is a step in the right direction, but...

• Speaker #0

  But still one night in the ER. Yeah.

• Speaker #2

  It's really, it's tough. And there are a lot of minimum policies in Connecticut, quite a few. And, you know, you run into scenarios from time to time where your case is worth far more than that minimum insurance policy limit. And you're kind of left holding the bag. So. My advice to everyone always when they're looking to protect themselves, the only thing you can control is your own insurance. So everyone should really be looking at their underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage because that's what's going to kick in and protect you if the other driver has an expired policy or minimum insurance cases and you've, you know, gotten into a catastrophic accident. What underinsured motorist coverage does is it kicks in. If you recover all of the... liability insurance, say that full $25,000, you can then turn around to your underinsured motorist coverage and say, that wasn't enough, I need more. Or if there was no insurance at all, you can say, I need my coverage. A lot of people don't really think about that and they don't pay attention to what that is. But I advise everyone to get the best coverage that they can afford on that because that's really how you're protecting yourself to make sure that there's something available for you if you get into a catastrophic. accident. I also advise everyone to try to get conversion coverage. And again, I have to disclaimer, I'm not an insurance expert. I'm not trying to sell anyone a product here. But evaluate your conversion coverage. Because how non-conversion coverage works, say I have $100,000 in underinsured motorist coverage, and the other driver has 25. If I don't have conversion, my underinsured motorist coverage is entitled to an offset. of anything I got from the liability carrier. So if I got 25 and my policy is 100, then there's only 75 left for me to get. But if I have conversion coverage, they are not entitled to that offset and I can get the full 100,000 without any sort of deducting. It's a very important distinction that I don't think consumers are always understanding what they're buying when they get it.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, and I think a lot of people don't really even get that. So we... We had a car accident in our household six years ago. It was at a traffic light. My husband was driving our one-year-old minivan, all three kids in the car. There was a car behind him and then a third car. They were all at a red light. Third car didn't see that the light was red and plowed into the car behind him at 45 miles an hour, which plowed into my husband's car. And we were in a situation where the middle car, obviously the driver that hit all of us was at fault. The middle car had injuries and more severe damage. By the time they got to our car, there was nothing left. And we thankfully had an underinsured policy and things like that. And so our car was fixed. Everybody was fine. But it was, we didn't even.

• Speaker #2

  you know like i've never been in a three-car accident before like had no idea that it was like by severity that the car in the middle had the more serious situation they had the more serious claim they get it first um and that was kind of it was disappointing at the time because you don't really know it until it happens to you yeah it's true and you know with that minimum policy that's a 50 000 per limit or per incident coverage so if there's five people that were injured in the accident. you know, if we divide it evenly, they all get 10,000. But if someone's critically injured, you know, there's no automatic payout for that. It's usually like the attorneys of all the people will sort of argue about who gets what. But yeah, I mean, it's there's 50,000 is not a lot of coverage in a multi-vehicle accident.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead.

• Speaker #0

  Even the car, like to get your car fixed to, you know, whatever. It's more than that.

• Speaker #1

  Well, yeah, I think that's the biggest misconception with car insurance in general. I think people think car insurance, I got to look at my car, but the real value of the coverage is not. you're their auto body coverage. It's a collision coverage. It's, it's the liability, the bodily injury, all that other stuff, the uninsured motorist coverage to your point. And then, and then, so most of the time I recommend clients also get an umbrella policy on top of that because the limits are typically low. And you know, if you hit someone making a hundred thousand dollars and they're out for four, five years, that's half a million dollars right there. Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  You're right.

• Speaker #1

  You're in trouble. It's pretty quick. So what do you, what do you, when you, when you're determining, okay, we've got a case, got this person we think you know, the damage should be like three or 400,000. Let's just throw a number out there. I don't know. That's how you guys figured out if I'm totally wrong, tell me I'm wrong. Um, so how do you know, okay, like they're way, we're way above the limits on the damage. Like, are we going to fight this? Like, how does that work?

• Speaker #2

  Um, so it's going to depend a little bit on the individual. So the insurance will cover up to its limits for the injury. Anything that goes over that the insured is personally liable for practically speaking. Not everybody has the means to pay a $300,000 or $400,000 overage. So we find ourselves from time to time when there's not enough insurance coverage having difficult conversations with clients to say, hey, you could fight this in court and try to get a verdict in excess of the policy, but what are your options going to look like after that in terms of collection? Are there assets to attach here? Does this person have the means to pay on a weekly basis? Is this person perhaps going to just go file bankruptcy and get out of the judgment? Things like that all have to be evaluated. So it can be a little bit tricky, and it's going to depend a little bit on how severe the injury is, what the likelihood of recovery is in the excess, and then, you know, we kind of go from there and we advise accordingly. There are certain circumstances where the insurance company can become responsible for overages if they didn't really negotiate in good faith to settle the claim. But that's rare that it gets to that point. So there's a bunch of factors that go into that. And that's where having a lawyer you can really sit down and go through that with is going to become so important.

• Speaker #1

  Do you find most tend to settle up to the limits for the most part?

• Speaker #2

  Generally speaking, yes. And that's a mix of not every act. There's so many accidents and there's plenty of catastrophic ones, but the reality is most of vehicle accidents in Connecticut are rear-enders on the highway and people are injured, but they're not losing limbs and things like that. So, you know, usually we're able to work something out between the liability coverage and the underinsured motorist coverage. But, you know, people do walk away disappointed, as in your case, where there's just really not enough to go around.

• Speaker #0

  Now, I think, like, you know, we talked a lot about car accidents because that feels like the most common, right, sort of situation. But on TikTok, on Instagram, on the news, you hear a lot about these, like, big, like, I'll use the Royal Caribbean incident that happened, what, like two weeks ago?

• Speaker #2

  Is this the water slide?

• Speaker #0

  The water slide, the guy, oh, yeah, I'm going to be on a road. We will not be on the water slide, no. Um, you know, but then everybody, all the commentary on that is like, you're going to own your own cruise ship. And like, you know, you hear about, you know, somebody slips and falls in like a big box store and like, you're going to sue them for millions. And it's not as simple as that. It's not as in a lot of these companies and places are incredibly well protected. You're signing liability waivers. Like when you step on board a cruise ship, you have signed a liability waiver, essentially waiving them of all responsibility to your life. Um, and people don't really like get. that? Is that something that you sort of come up across sometimes that people like, I'm going to own Walmart? And you're like, no, that's actually not how this works.

• Speaker #2

  Yeah. From time to time, we see people that have very different expectations. You know, I was just making a joke with someone I was on the phone with the other day where everybody knows somebody who got, you know, $5 million. And, you know, whether that's true or not, I don't know. But sometimes, you know, we hear from people that had a cousin's friend's aunt that, you know, recovered all this money in a case. And that sometimes can be difficult to explain why this scenario is different. And things like liability waivers do come into play. It can be very difficult for entertainment venues like cruise ships and theme parks and things like that that have these liability waivers sort of written in. If you check the back of your ticket or, you know, the notice at the front gate, you will sometimes see these very long winded waivers that say by crossing this threshold, you're agreeing that, you know, we're not responsible for any of this. And there are certain ways to overcome that depending on the facts of the incident. Um, but it does make things very difficult. So it's not so clear just because it's a giant corporation with a lot of money and a lot of insurance that your case is going to be a layup. Those are often the cases with the strongest lawyers that know their rights and have entire legal departments dedicated to dealing with these issues. And so by design, they're prepared to fight back. Yeah. They're not.

• Speaker #1

  Do those waivers actually really do much or are they, they kind of like a first wall?

• Speaker #2

  Um, they are a first wall, you know, a lot of times we see cases like that, you know, get resolved in like pre-litigation, what we call, and sometimes they go all the way to litigation. It's a very fact sensitive type of thing. A lot of times the waivers will, you know, they don't waive everything. But, you know, there's usually exceptions for gross negligence. And, you know, depending on the state that you're operating in, some types of waivers are just kind of void automatically by law. So it's going to depend a little bit on where you are and what you're dealing with. So a lot of times when we bring those types of cases to court, you know, we're going to argue that the facts are outside of the waiver because this was so egregious that they should have known or, you know,

• Speaker #0

  waterslide falling apart. something like that.

• Speaker #2

  That's a tough one. I don't know how that one's going to play out. You know, but the facts that would come up in that is what was their duty to inspect that? You know, were they abiding by their own policies? You know, if they have a policy that says, look, we were supposed to inspect this every month because it's XYZ type of glass. and they didn't do that, then they're probably going to have a liability problem on that case. So those are the kinds of things that come up in that scenario.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. The waivers I feel like are a crazy life now is that... I don't know about you guys, but we have kids. You're signing waivers continuously as a parent, camp waivers. the jumpy bounce place waivers, the birthday party waivers, the Chuck E. Cheese, like you're signing waivers continuously. And I think we don't really think about them because they're such like a normalized part of life now. They're like, oh yeah, like you're not going to not go to the bouncy place because you got to sign a waiver, but you do have to sort of contemplate that. And a lot of them, like I was reading one sort of in preparation for this because I was contemplating it. I was reading like one of the waivers that I had signed. And it mostly talked about it if like you're harmed by another patron. And I thought that was kind of interesting that they did give you space where if they messed up, you had space within this waiver. But some of the other waivers are pretty much like you cross this threshold and we are not responsible for you. And again, I think that's some of the like myth and misconception that lives in personal injury law is that like all you're doing in personal injury is you're suing people for big bucks because you deserve it. And it's not it's not as simple as that.

• Speaker #2

  It's not. And, you know, I'm a personal injury attorney myself. I've got two young kids and we go to the you know bouncy place and everything and same you know i just take that waiver and i'm like whatever you know i don't always read it don't tell anybody that you know but there's that part in the back of my mind that's just like well you know like we'll deal with that if it ever came up um but yeah it's very easy to just kind of not pay attention to that not think about it and then something happens and you're not even really sure what you signed there's

• Speaker #0

  a lot of that Because I signed a lot of things.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Plus the terms and conditions online. Like, no, I got 20 minutes to read this thing.

• Speaker #0

  No one is reading it.

• Speaker #1

  And understand it.

• Speaker #2

  But you clicked the box. You said you read and understood it.

• Speaker #1

  You did. Yep.

• Speaker #0

  I would love to kind of just know a little bit, right? Like we're talking to millennials and Gen Zers. I feel like it's kind of pivoting from the personal injury piece a little bit. It's like law just in general has become a super popular career path for people, right? Everybody wants to go into law.

• Speaker #2

  Law schools do that really hard.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. Listen, when I were, you guys know, I worked in higher ed part of this. It was like half of my students, like, I'm going to go to law school. And I'm like, oh, okay. What are you going to do with that? And like, nobody really has an answer, right? What are you going to do? Because I think, you know, it's interesting to me, right? You've had a couple versions of your career at this point in law. What sort of brought you to personal injury?

• Speaker #2

  Yeah, so, you know, my thing with personal injury, I knew some people in the space. I worked at another injury firm a few years back and, you know, got into it there. And I think that integrity of the body is one of the most important things in the world, right? And your body is your presence in this world, and it's your ability to do everything that you do. So when that gets violated, and I mean, you know, in an injury sense, somebody else did something. they shouldn't have been doing. They were speeding. They weren't paying attention. They were texting on their cell phone. They didn't plow their parking lot. And now all of a sudden, you can't do the things that you used to do. I think that's some of the most important work in the legal field. It affects everything. It affects your ability to participate in society. So I feel really strongly about protecting that. And, you know, for all of our talking about how personal injury can get a bad rap, I think it's really easy to say, oh, yeah, you know, it's a... little bit of back pain, whatever. But when you can't pick up your kids, you can't, you know, do things in your garden, you can't go to the gym, that's a major disruption. And that deserves to be protected. And I believe in it so strongly that I just really love doing this work because money's not going to fix everything. But it's, you know, sometimes the best way we know to make things right. So how to get that money.

• Speaker #1

  Well, also, it also acts as a check and balance on the companies, right? Because if you know there's a threat of being sued, you've got to do your stuff upfront to protect people.

• Speaker #2

  Absolutely. There's a major David and Goliath imbalance going on. And I also feel really strongly about that. And I became a lawyer because I had a really bad experience working at a company when I was about 22 years old. And I was like, never again. I'm going to go become an employment lawyer. I'm going to protect people like myself that didn't know any better. So always kind of protecting the little guy against the big guy was my motivation. And And I spent many years as a consumer attorney doing the same. taking John and Jane Doe and bringing suits against places like Bank of America, Ford, you know, major companies like that. And, you know, just really making sure that the companies are staying in check.

• Speaker #0

  That's so cool.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. So how'd you, how'd you pivot to personal injury then from there?

• Speaker #2

  Um, you know, we, I had spent a lot of time in, uh, consumer financial services and it was one of those things where it was, you know, a very, as Kelly will say, It was a very turbulent time in the industry. We were dealing with some very intense regulatory changes and I think I just burned out a little bit and I wanted to try something different. So I had some friends in the personal injury space. This was around like 2017. And, you know, they said, hey, come join the firm, like give it a try. And I absolutely loved it. It was great. And so I got hooked and then the pandemic happened. There was a lot of changes for law firms. The court systems were really paralyzed for a long time. And the mortgage industry was booming.

• Speaker #0

  So

• Speaker #2

  I went back and I spent a little time there. But, you know, getting back and really fighting for the little guy was calling me. So when the opportunity came up to join Goff, I knew it was going to be a great fit for me.

• Speaker #0

  Love that. So again, millennials like to go to law school. Gen Z likes to go to law school. So you didn't set out to be a lawyer then? Like that wasn't the initial...

• Speaker #2

  It wasn't. I was an English major at a small liberal arts school from Massachusetts. And I. also I double majored so my other major was Spanish and I got out in 2007 and everyone who was a millennial knew what was going on in the market at that time and there was just nothing.

• Speaker #0

  Nothing. Yeah. So I worked as a librarian in a public library in Southbridge, Massachusetts for a while, making about probably $25,000 a year and figuring out how the hell was I going to pay back my student loans. And, you know, I just I did a little bit in like consulting and things like that. And, you know, I got that old adage of, you know, hey, you're really great at arguing. You should go be a lawyer. And I was like, I think I will go be a lawyer. And that's really what brought me to the law.

• Speaker #1

  Wow. That's a cool, that's a cool. So we've talked a little bit, I think in other episodes about like the pivot that, because, you know, Haley knows this about me, maybe everybody doesn't is like my bachelor's degrees in fine arts. And here I am in the mortgage industry, right? Is like you kind of never know where things are going to take you. And I think following your interests and following your passions and knowing that you're great at arguing all can like bring you to, to, you know, a lucrative career where you do well and, and you enjoy the work that you do.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. And I think, you know, there's so much focus like. I like to take note of how my kid's childhood is so much different than my own. And I think like the central question that I remember from being a kid was, what do you want to be when you grow up? Right? People don't ask my kids that really, not in the way that I remember, like everyone had an answer. And if you were like a Lisa Frank kid in fifth grade, you want a marine school or marine biologist, right? Everyone wanted to be a marine biologist. I don't think my kids even know what a marine biologist is. They've never even heard that word. But I remember having these discussions about, you know, what I wanted to be. And I think, you know, for our demographic, it's really ingrained in us that importance of work and career pathing and everything like that. And it has to be linear. And I think one of the great blessings of my career is that I've had a lot of pivots and it's made me, you know, really be able to dig deep for a lot of different types of resources because I've seen, you know, so many different areas of the law and so many different kinds of people. and how companies think and all of these things. So it's never too late for a pivot. And I think, you know, the pivots are actually what really can make a very interesting candidate and a really effective advocate, particularly in the legal space.

• Speaker #1

  Maybe I'm going to go to law school, Derek.

• Speaker #2

  Yeah, go for it.

• Speaker #1

  I'm going to leave. No, I'm not.

• Speaker #0

  You've got time. No, yeah,

• Speaker #1

  I've got all the time in the world. No, that will not be happening. But no, I sort of like that thought. And I would agree with you. Like, nobody asks my kids that anymore. And I sometimes ask my kids, and they don't even really have an answer at this point. We're like, yeah, when we were a kid, like, I'm going to be a marine biologist. I'm going to be a teacher. I'm going to be a firefighter. Like, you had the answer. And I asked my kids, and like, nobody really knows. And I don't know if that's like a good thing. It's they don't feel as like locked into things, or maybe they watch too much TV. I don't know.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I mean, I asked mine last week, because I was just thinking about this. And they both looked at me like I had five heads. And they were like, I don't know. And I was like, no, but like, what do you like to do? And they were like, I don't know.

• Speaker #2

  My seven-year-old is going to be a landscaper because they have big trucks with six wheels. Oh,

• Speaker #1

  I like it. All right. I'm here for that. I'm here for that. One of my kids wants to work for dad. That's really like, I'm going to work in construction. I'm like, cool, do that. But yeah, like my two daughters are very, one wants to be a dog walker. I'm here for that. She loves dogs. And then the other one wants to be a model, which is very aspirational. We all love that. Yeah. Yeah. She's an ambitious kid.

• Speaker #0

  I think I've got one that probably wants to play video games professionally, but she doesn't know that's an option yet. But that's the answer I'm anticipating I'll get when she figures out that's a thing.

• Speaker #1

  You can major in that now in college. It's true. And there's a sports college D1 video game play? Yeah,

• Speaker #2

  sports gaming. Wow.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, the producer is like, yes. Justin has been on the show before. The producer is a Gen Z-er. Yeah. Oh, well, yeah. He's a youth.

• Speaker #0

  You young.

• Speaker #1

  What was the joke that you made?

• Speaker #2

  We made a Ron Burgundy one.

• Speaker #1

  He joke and Justin didn't know. Ron Burgundy.

• Speaker #0

  Oh, that hurts my heart. Right. My millennial heart.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. You got to know. You got to know. So do you have any sort of last minute advice for people that like, again, you get bit by a dog, you get rear ended, you fall in the, in, you know, the grocery store, like first step is document.

• Speaker #2

  Yep. Take the dog with you.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. It's. It's never overkill. And I think, again, and not to harp on it, but with some of the stigmas around personal injuries, some people have an idea of, well, personal injury is just for fakers or people that are desperate or anything like that. And then it happens to them, and they're completely paralyzed. And they're like, I never saw myself in this scenario. My advice to people is it's never a bad idea to protect yourself. It's not too much to ask questions. It's not too much to ask that the police come. It's not too much to go to the doctor and get your spine checked out to make sure you don't have a spinal fracture. And I think people have been sort of... conditioned to believe that advocating for themselves in those types of scenarios is somehow a bad thing. Get the information from the dog owner about their insurance. You know, ask the questions at the scene, make sure you're getting the information and you're doing what you need to do to protect yourself because this is a really important thing and it can have long lasting consequences on your life. So, you know, make sure you're doing what you need to do. And if the scenario winds up being different, you can always say, you know what, I've decided not to pursue this, but at least if you've. preserved everything you need to preserve at the beginning, you're going to have options down the line.

• Speaker #2

  I like it. Yeah, that's great. I think you got to be your own advocate. You've got to not feel like you're a victim and take control of your situation.

• Speaker #1

  Absolutely. And don't go in the water slide on the real Caribbean cruise because it will- Unless you're trying to make a big bucks,

• Speaker #2

  right?

• Speaker #1

  Right. No, you signed a billion liability waivers and cruise ships are not usually flagged. I went in like a deep marine law dive. We've talked about it in the show.

• Speaker #2

  International waters is up the column.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. The HD rabbit holing that I like to do where I like watch one video on something. I am now an expert on marine law. Well,

• Speaker #0

  I can call you and I have a question, but that's my personal nightmare. I already get a little claustrophobic in those like water slide tubes. I don't like to do them. So when I was watching the video and I was like, this is already terrible as I'm watching these people come down the slide and then it busts open. I'm like. Yeah. Okay. This is my personal.

• Speaker #1

  Well, I'm like, I'm a thick girl. I don't want to be in that tube anyway. Like that is like, I'm going to get stuck and everything is over. But like, then you're like such a thick girl, you bust through. It was a guy, but like you bust through like that's, that hurts bodily, that hurts your self-esteem. That hurts a lot of things.

• Speaker #0

  That's going to require some therapy. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Right. Yeah. And now you're being airlifted off of a cruise ship, like to, you know, an island for, I know, I don't want anything.

• Speaker #0

  Not for me.

• Speaker #1

  Not for me. Thank you. Agreed.

• Speaker #2

  Yeah, I think that's it, right?

• Speaker #1

  I think that's it. Haley.

• Speaker #2

  Thank you so much.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, thank you.

• Speaker #0

  Thanks so much for having me. This was so much fun.

• Speaker #1

  We will put your contact information in the show notes. So if anybody wants to get in touch with Haley, we will have all of her information.

• Speaker #2

  I want to just shout out quickly. How do we get ahold of you?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. So you can contact me at the firm anytime. I'm super active on LinkedIn as well. So DM me, check out my profile. I talk a lot about personal injury and the law and working out. So I'm always up there. You can find me there. and Hopefully I'll meet some of the audience.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. And wait, what is the TikTok handle for the dog?

• Speaker #0

  Sir Elton Dog. He is a corgi and he's got real big ears. He's super cute. So find him on TikTok.

• Speaker #1

  I've been watching the videos and they're pretty spectacular. Appreciate it. Awesome. Thank you. And thank you everyone for listening and we'll see you next time. Thank you. Bye.