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THE SLG ADVISOR
JULY 2021
My Biggest All-or- Nothing Decision LEAVING MY CORPORATE LAW FIRM AND STRIKING OUT ON MY OWN
but I wanted to fight for the little guy instead. I wanted to make it a fair fight when it was time for an average Joe to go up against a large insurance company. As idealistic as this sounds, it was (and remains) my professional mission. So, I up and left my job and started my own firm to do just that. Now, for a little context on why this was such an all-or-nothing move for me at the time. My wife and I had just welcomed our first child into the world seven months prior to me leaving my job, and she had just reentered the workforce herself. Leaving the security of my job at a large law firm and starting my own law practice from scratch felt like leaping from a boat for an open ocean swim. It was a scary thing to do in my early 30s. I couldn’t even contemplate what failure would mean. Luckily, I never had to.
and by all indications, I was on track to becoming one. But then, I decided to leave it all behind. You might wonder why I did that. After all, I had a promising career ahead of me at that point. There was just one problem: The clients I worked for were large insurance companies, the same companies that I fight in the courtroom today. The work didn’t feel right to me. I grew up in a really humble working- class environment, and for that reason, I’ve always related more to working- class people than people in the corporate class. I wanted to help the “underdogs” of the world. At my old firm, it was my job to poke holes in the plaintiffs’ cases to make sure that the insurance companies wouldn’t have to pay them as much as they wanted for their injuries. I never felt great about what I was doing. I felt like I was just helping big insurance companies get richer as they took advantage of the little guy. I know it sounds hokey,
I recently learned that July 26 is officially All or Nothing Day. I don’t know who comes up with these weird little-known holidays or why (maybe just to have something to celebrate in the gap days between the actual, important holidays that are worth celebrating), but I will say that this one did make me think a little bit. Strangely enough, right around this time back in 1998, I had a pretty crazy “all-or-nothing” moment in my life, so what better time to share that story than now? In 1998, I was about seven years out of Boston College Law School. I worked for a very prestigious law firm here in Boston, and I did very well for myself. I had a lot of responsibility for someone my age because I'd had experience as a trial lawyer for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office before joining the firm. At the ripe old age of 32, I had tried over 100 jury trials, so even though I was only an associate lawyer at the firm, I was treated like a partner,
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Spada LawGroup: They Call Us The 2-Wheel Lawyers Helping the Cycling and Motorcycling Communities Throughout Massachusetts
What You Should KnowAb AND WHAT TO D Most motorcyclists have probably experienced or at least heard of situations where they came in contact with a driver who was behaving erratically or in a way that caused a motorcyclist to crash without ever having come in contact with the other vehicle. These are called no-contact crashes, and we see them all the time at Spada Law Group. No-contact crashes can happen in a number of different scenarios. Drivers changing lanes without using their signals, running red lights, or checking their blind spots, along with several other scenarios, can all lead
At Spada Law, we’re revving (and sometimes pedaling) right into a new phase of our practice. Since 1998, we have been representing injured members of both the cycling and riding communities. These two-wheel accident cases present challenges different from your routine car accident cases, and over the last 23 years, we have become quite good at getting our cycling and riding clients the compensation they deserve. So when people jokingly refer to us as the Two-Wheel Lawyers, we take it as a compliment. We know that on roads built for and dominated by cars and trucks, dangers and accidents are waiting to happen. However, rather than simply hide in your homes or vehicles, never to feel the wind on your face again, we believe that cyclists, motorcycle riders, and drivers should all try to share the road and be mindful of one another. We want to help the cycling and motorcycling communities in Massachusetts. That’s why this year, we’re working with Riders Helping Riders to sponsor the Fifth Annual Sammy’s Ride. Riders Helping Riders is an organization that helps raise money for the Massachusetts Motorcyclists Survivor’s Fund (MMSF), which they use to help the families of riders killed or seriously injured in motorcycle accidents. Sam Morgan Storm, for whom Sammy’s Ride is named, passed away in 2008 after complications from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. This event will honor her life and help raise money and awareness for motorcycle safety initiatives. The ride will take place on Aug. 28, and Spada Law Group is an official sponsor of the ride. We will have a tent at both the pre- and post-ride celebrations. At our tent, we will have five leather vests patched with our newly designed Spada Law logo on the back. For every person who agrees to wear the vest during the one-hour ride, we will donate $200 to MMSF. Since we have five vests, that means we will give away as much as an additional $1,000 to help families of people who were hurt or killed in motorcycle accidents. It should be a great day! We hope that as the summer continues, you’ll continue to stay safe riding on the road. If you or someone you know ever gets injured in an accident involving a motorcycle, give the Two-Wheel Lawyers a call!
riders to swerve, lose control of their bike, and crash. It doesn’t matter how skilled the rider is — it can happen to anyone. No-contact crashes can make it difficult
to determine fault or convince your insurance provider that you were even in an accident with another motorist, for that matter. Sometimes, the at-fault motorist will flee the scene, or they
Review of the Month
“My experience with the Spada Law Group was excellent. Professional, courteous, and effective. Their communication was absolutely fantastic and responsive. I would highly recommend them. Thank you.” —Dave W.
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3 Great Topping Ideas Local Chef’s Corner For Your Next Pulled Pork Sandwich
bout No-Contact Motorcycle Crashes DO IF YOU’RE INJURED IN ONE
Even if you can’t identify the at-fault party, you’re not completely out of luck. You can still file a claim under your own bike uninsured motorist coverage. Basically, if you can prove that someone else caused the accident, you can get your insurance company to compensate you for
simply won’t be aware that they just caused an accident, and they keep driving. Regardless of the exact reason that the at-fault driver isn’t still at the scene, what can you do if you find yourself alone with your bike after a crash? Well, the first thing you should do is call 911. Describe to them in as much detail as possible what happened. Then, if you remember details about the at-fault vehicle, such as the make and/or model or a license plate, share them with the police as well. Additionally, if you’re medically able to speak to people at the scene of the accident, ask them to stick around and give their take on what happened to the police. Independent witnesses corroborating your story are the best form of proof you can have in that situation.
your damages. It’s certainly a more complicated scenario, but it’s one we handle all the time.
For any other questions about no-contact crashes, call or text Spada Law
Group today at 617.889.5000.
There’s nothing quite like a good pulled pork sandwich, smoked and seasoned to perfection, on a warm summer evening — and nothing elevates a pork sandwich like the perfect toppings. Here are a few to try the next time you throw a pork Tomatoes have a sweet, savory flavor that makes them pair well with pulled pork, but they’re a little too watery. Sun-dried tomatoes, however, ensure that you get all the flavor without any of the mess! Red Gravy Made with tomato paste and the holy trinity of Cajun cooking (celery, bell peppers, and onions), this gravy will give you a moist sandwich with all the best flavors of the Big Easy. Onion Rings shoulder on the smoker! Sun-Dried Tomatoes Much like pulled pork itself, onion rings on their own are pretty great. But together, pulled pork and delicious onion rings bring out the best in each other.
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Since 1998, I’ve exclusively represented people who have been injured and had to do battle against the very insurance companies that I once represented. Every day, I get to challenge myself by actually building cases rather than just poking holes in them, and I get to actually help people by doing so. I get more freedom to spend time with my family, and I get the satisfaction of relying fully on my own hard work and talent for my paycheck. Even though it felt like such a risk to strike out on my own at the time, I would do it all over again in a second if I had to. Are you facing an all-or-nothing decision of your own right now? If so, go for it! You can make the right decision, and when you do, it could turn into one of the best decisions you’ve ever made in your life. I firmly believe we are more likely to regret the things we did not do than the chances we took that may not have worked out perfectly. Life is short, so live it to the fullest!
-Len Spada
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617.889.5000 | SPADALAWGROUP.COM
111 Everett Ave., #1F Chelsea, MA 02150
INSIDE My Biggest All-or-Nothing Decision
Helping the Cycling and Motorcycling Communities Throughout Massachusetts
What You Should Know About No-Contact Motorcycle Crashes
Testimonial
Three Great Toppings for Pulled Pork Sandwiches
The Miraculous Mountain Cat
The Meow at 10,000 Feet
The cat stayed with them for some time before they met up with another group of hikers who were headed down the mountain. The cat joined them for what would hopefully be a journey back home. And it was! Remarkably, the cat’s owners were found. They revealed that their cat had vanished four days earlier and apparently followed yet another group of hikers up Bristen. "Animals do weird things. And they are way tougher than humans. They'll never give up. Even though they are hurting really, really bad," Cyril said of his feline hiking companion. Hopefully, that will be the little feline’s last trip up for some time!
wandered away from one of the nearby towns or villages near the base of the mountain, but even for a human, that’s a major undertaking. Lost, the cat followed the only sign of civilization it could find: the skiers, Cyril and Erik Rohrer. "She started to shiver, and her paws began to bleed from the hard snow,” Cyril noted. “We picked her up and carried her when she was too exhausted to walk uphill anymore. We were definitely confused. I felt really sorry for the cat. She was really exhausted on the ridge underneath the summit."
High on the slopes of Bristen, a mountain in the Glarus Alps in central Switzerland, a pair of skiers discovered something unexpected. At 4:30 a.m., the skiers climbed toward the summit of Bristen when they realized they weren’t alone. They were being followed by a cat — not a lynx or a wildcat, but a little mewling house cat. How does a house cat end up on the slopes of a snow-covered, 10,000- foot mountain? This was an answer the skiers wouldn’t get. They weren’t even sure what to do with a cat in general. It’s likely that it simply
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