8 | Making It as a Trial Lawyer with Michael Cowen

You know, in our research, one thing that stood out to me was, I don't know that everybody in your family was immediately thrilled with you going to the plaintiff's side, right?

My mother's still not thrilled about me going to the plaintiff's side.

I mean, she loved telling all her friends that I was working in New York City for the oldest law firm in the United States.

And then to go from that to doing, you know, Plaintiff's work, and she still kind of views it a little – she loves me in a week-long grade, but she still, I think, would be a little prouder talking to her friends if I was representing big corporations, yeah.

Isn't that funny? So I actually raise that because I think it's a fun little window there.

But also, I mean, I talk to law students all across the country, and, you know, there remains a – I don't like the word stigma here, but there's a notion of what a quote-unquote plaintiff's lawyer is that exists in some people's minds.

I would say it's bought and paid for by – by a lot of corporate advertising and effort.

But how do you talk about that? You know, somebody says, oh, well, you're a personal injury lawyer.

What's your reaction to that? And how do you talk about the work that we do?

Yeah, it used to actually bother me, and now it doesn't.

I mean, I just, you know, one, you acknowledge the truth that just like any profession, there's bad apples in the personal injury profession.

There's bad apples on the insurance defense profession, we just found out.

In a meeting right before this podcast, somebody's lying to us about evidence and hiding evidence, and we just got proof of it.

So, you know, it happens in any, you know, dentists, car salesmen, corporate executives.

There's good and bad people in every profession.

You know, so it doesn't bother me anymore.

I think once I got, I don't care, I guess, let them think whatever they want.

I mean, I love what I do, and it brings me joy, and I love the people I work for.

But I'm also lucky to be in a position where I can pick and choose a lot more who I represent at this point in my career.

So, yeah, it just doesn't bother me anymore.

But I'm not going to say it never bothered me when I was younger.

I also will say, just from my observation, this is just me talking, but speaking to so many folks, I feel like the tenor of that question is changing a little bit.

It's not so much like, oh, you're an ambulance chaser, at least amongst law students and people who are interested in the practice.

It's much more like, how do we deal with the misbranding? I feel like there's a deeper knowledge of what's happening and why those aspersions have been cast on us.

I don't know if you get that sense.