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I wanted to become a lawyer since I was a little kid. My father is a lawyer. He's been
a lawyer in western New York and still is a lawyer in western New York. And so when
I was in kindergarten, I drew a picture of him and wrote “lawyer” on that, and he
actually had that in his, on his dresser for probably 25 years. And now actually about
five years ago, he took that picture off of his dresser and he actually had it framed
and gave it to me. I saw my father helping people as a lawyer all the time, and he had
many clients and clients would come by the house and he'd talk to them and try to help
them out, and I saw the ability to help people and the ability to make things better.
I told him I wanted to become a lawyer probably when I was in high school, and he looked at
me, and at that point, I wasn't the stellar student. I had pretty good grades, but I wasn't
a straight A student at that point and time. And he looked at me and he said, “Oh, you
should try.” And I said okay. And once I got to college I decided to really start to
work and I decided I understood I really wanted to be a lawyer, so I made decisions to become
a lawyer, and the way you do that is by getting good grades in college so you can get to the
next level. So, that's what I did. Once I got to college, I really focused on my studies
a little more and I was able to do very well. I mean, it's one of those things, I think
everyone has that feeling a little bit that they wanna uh, make their parents proud of
them and be respected, and I think it's important to be respected by your family and by your
clients, and it's important that people can trust you.
I went to undergraduate school at SUNY Plattsburg up north, north of Albany, and then I went
to law school at Syracuse University College of Law.
One of the reasons I've kind of moved more and more into motor vehicle accidents is that
um, quite a number of years ago, I was in Florida and I was on a vacation with my family
and my kids were really young, and we were driving up the Florida turnpike and I was
the first one on the scene of a single car death accident with multiple people who died.
So I'm getting out of the vehicle and I see these different people, and I go up to a young
baby who's less than one years old and trying to figure out a way to help save that baby's
life. And um, that's one of the reasons that I, really I think, moved and continued to
move into motor vehicle accidents, and that's also one of the reasons I really have these
campaigns with regards to wearing your seatbelt. And my thought is that if we can convince
more people to wear their seatbelts 100% of the time, that that will really cut down on
the serious injuries people have and so that's kinda one of the reasons I kinda have these
safety campaigns that our firm does. After you see a situation like that, you really,
it kinda helps you to slow down when you're driving and trying to drive within the speed
limit, and it kinda reminds you to wear your seatbelt.
If I wasn't a lawyer, I think what I'd ultimately probably do is run a business. I enjoy working
with a lot of people and being able to help people, and I'd probably find a business that
I could help people.