Firm Videos

I was born back in 1973. I grew up in Lovejoy, east side of Buffalo. The revitalization of the city is so refreshing. In this street down here, Sena Street, where our office is, I remember coming down here and skateboarding, and here we are in the footprint. To see that is just refreshing and it gives me hope for this city. I’m glad that our firm is part of this resurgence. I entered the Marine Corps shortly after graduating high school. I love challenges; I knew it was the hardest branch. I can honestly say if I hadn’t joined the Marine Corps, I would not be sitting here today. When I got out of the Marine Corps, I was looking for a job. My grandmother had seen something in the local paper.

She showed it to me, and it was for the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority police. From there, I was there two years, and then I transferred over to the Buffalo police and spent another ten and a half years there. I liked it with the camaraderie because it reminded me a little bit of the Marine Corps—not as intense, obviously—but it’s something special. At some point when I was working as a police officer, I realized I was going to be able to retire young with a pension. I thought to myself, maybe I should look at something as a second career. I went back to undergrad when I was 26 at Buffalo State College and also three years at UB law.

I worked afternoons as a police officer the entire time I went to school. That’s how I ended up becoming a lawyer. When I first started practicing, I always looked at the asbestos clients and said to myself, if I had been born 30 years earlier, that could be me sitting there with mesothelioma, a terminal cancer caused by asbestos. So, it was easy to fight for them. I’ve been serving my whole life, whether it’s the Marine Corps or the City of Buffalo, and now our clients. I think it just came natural to me. I thought maybe I should be a corporate lawyer or anything else—I wouldn’t have lasted a month doing that. It’s just not who I am; it’s not who I’m cut out to be. Being in personal injury will be the only space that would really work for me.