Lawyers

Michaels Bersani Kalabanka Again Named in US News’ “Best Lawyers In America”!

September 9, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

Aw shucks, folks, it was nothin’, really . . .

No, wait a minute. We are going to leave all modesty aside for a moment: Here’s the news: Michaels Bersani Kalabanka has been bestowed once again (for 2011) with a “first tier ranking” in U.S. News “Best Lawyers in America” for personal injury litigation firms in the Syracuse, New York metropolitan area.

Inclusion in Best Lawyers is based entirely on peer review (they ask other lawyers and judges about us). Other lawyers are asked this question; “If you could not handle a case yourself, to whom would you refer it?” Lawyers are asked to give nominees 5-1 numerical grades – 5 for a lawyer the voter would certainly refer a case to, 4 for a lawyer the voter would probably refer a case to, etc. Those with only the very highest “grades” make it to the list of “Best Lawyers in America”.

Seneca Falls Personal Injury Lawer? Really?

July 31, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

With internet search engine optimization techniques, many New York personal injury lawyers from as far away as New York City pretend to be “Seneca County personal injury lawyers” or “Seneca Falls Accident Lawyers”. Just do a google search with those words and you will see what I mean. You can even do a search like “Waterloo personal injury lawyer” and those far away firms show up on page one.

Those far flung law firms are just fishing for cases all over the State. But they are not familiar with the Seneca County judges and juries. And that’s critical when trying a Seneca County personal injury or medical malpractice case. You have to know your audience. That’s why I would never post myself on the net as being a “New York City personal injury lawyer”. First, it wouldn’t be true. And second, personal injury and medical malpractice victims down there are best represented by lawyers from down there who “know the ropes” in New York City courts, and who understand jury mindsets in the City.

My law office is in Auburn, New York, and I live in Geneva New York, many of my personal injury and medical malpractice clients hail from Seneca Falls and Seneca County. Our law office handles many personal injury and medical malpractice cases in the Seneca County Courthouse. We know the judges, and they know and respect us. And we know the jury pool. And we are the only law firm near Seneca County who handles almost exclusively personal injury and medical malpractice cases. We don’t do real estate closings or transactional work or criminal defense. We do only one thing, personal injury and medical malpractice, because by doing only that one thing day in and day out every day, we get really, really good at it. And we do it on a regular basis in Seneca County, and that is why I can say without misleading anyone that we are Seneca County personal injury lawyers and “Seneca Falls personal injury lawyers.”

Finger Lakes New York Personal Injury Lawyer Response to Article About Personal Injury Lawyers “Eyeing” Future Local Shale Gas Drilling

April 6, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

A web article I stumbled upon jumped off my computer screen at me today. It was titled “Plaintiffs lawyers eyeing Marcellus Shale Work.” My first thought: “Gee, I am a New York personal injury lawyer located right in the Marcellus Shale zone, so how come I am not ‘eyeing’ the future Marcellus Shall Work”. Next thought: “Hey, that hydrofracking work will be dangerous, workers will get hurt, they will need New York personal injury lawyers to represent them, so gosh, maybe I should be ‘eyeing’ the Marcellus shale work”. Next thought: “Don’t want people getting hurt, and besides, it’s going to be messy for our environment up here, so thanks but no thanks”.

All those thoughts streamed through my brain in about 3 seconds, before I even got to the first word of the article. Then I read it. A personal injury lawyer out of Pennsylvania somewhere was quoted as saying that the Marcellus Shale drilling would cause “horrendous injuries” because of all the gas and liquid under high pressure carried through pipelines, stored in big tanks, and ejected underground at high pressure. Drill rigs are notoriously dangerous. Toxic gas leaks burn workers and gas rigs explode. Big tanker trucks cause motor vehicle accidents on narrow local roadways.

OMG! Parade of horribles. Well, he convinced me: the Shale gas drilling, or “hydrofracking” as it’s called, if it ever happens up here, will be good for the personal injury law business. Unfortunately, it probably will, if it goes forward, produce a fair number of serious injuries and deaths. And I am sure that many of the injured and the families of the dead will find their way to our law office since we are well regarded in the personal injury field and, I believe, the only law firm located in our area of the Finger Lakes that limits its practices almost exclusively to New York personal injury cases.

Central New York Lawyers Get Two Black Eyes

February 27, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

Syracuse area lawyers received two black eyes this weekend. The Syracuse Post Standard reports that a Syracuse bankruptcy lawyer, Christopher Chadick, was convicted of defrauding many of his clients. He was found guilty of one of the oldest switch-and-bate tricks in the book — taking a customer’s money up front and then failing to deliver the product. In his case, he took retainer fees to file bankruptcy petitions and then didn’t do the work and didn’t return the money, either.

In a separate case, a Baldwinsville lawyer, David Pelland, was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for conspiring to commit mail fraud. The facts are someone complicated, so I won’t go into them here. What struck me about this case, though, was that this is Pellard’s second felony conviction — he was convicted in 1994 for concealment of bankruptcy assets. I guess some folks never learn.

As a fellow lawyer, I take these stories to heart. Lawyers — especially personal injury lawyers like myself — already suffer from a negative public image rivaled only by used car salesmen and politicians. (A letter directed to the editor of a local newspaper from an insurance industry professional not long ago referred to us as “bottom feeders”.) More bad publicity for lawyers is not needed.

Central New York Personal Injury Lawyer Takes a “Fan’s” Call

February 26, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

I’ve got a “fan”! She called yesterday and told me she had subscribed to my Central New York personal injury lawyer blog a few months ago and enjoys reading my posts. She thinks I write nicely, clearly, and my posts help her understand New York personal injury law. She even forwards some of my blog posts to her friends and family. Nice compliment!

But that’s not why she called. She wanted advice. Before subscribing to my blog, she had hired a Syracuse New York personal injury lawyer to represent her for injuries she had suffered in an accident. She had some questions about how this lawyer was handling her case. She wanted to hire me to give her a second opinion. I told her I would not charge her. We then talked for about 10 minutes. I eased her mind about how her lawyer is handling her case. Her lawyer is doing a fine job, and his only shortcoming was perhaps a failure to explain clearly certain aspects of the case to her. She was grateful to me. I made a new friend!

Unfortunately, some New York personal injury lawyers would have seized on this opportunity to “bad-mouth” the client’s lawyer so they could take over the case. That’s not right, and not fair. Her Syracuse personal injury lawyer is a darn good one. And he is doing a darn good job, I am sure. I am not so conceited to think that Michaels Bersani Kalabanka is the only excellent Central or Syracuse New York personal injury law firm. (But, if you ask anyone who knows, you will hear we are among the best!)

New Rule In New York Meant To Eliminate Judicial Bias From Election Campaign Donations May Have Unintended Consequences

February 14, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

Yesterday I blogged about tCentral and Syracuse New York personal injury law firm, has a list of judges they feel favor the insurance companies and corporations over their injured clients. It’s not that they intend to favor them; it’s just in their blood. For whatever reason, they are by nature less sympathetic to injured plaintiffs and more sympathetic to the corporations and insurance companies being sued. Those judges seem to pretty consistently rule in favor of corporate and insurance company defendants, and against the injured plaintiff, at least on close calls.

What if we, at the personal injury law firm of Michaels Bersani Kalabanka, wanted to disqualify those judges from hearing our injured clients’ cases? Under this new rule, all we would have to do is donate $2,500 every two years to the re-election campaigns of each of the perceived “bad” judges on our list. Those judges would then always be precluded from hearing our cases. By default, our cases will be assigned only to judges to whom we haven’t contributed $2,500, that is, the good judges, the ones we like. Ironically, we would get the “good” judges we want for our cases by funding only the “bad” ones’ re-elections.

I am sure this is not what the rule-makers had in mind when they made this rule. But is it too far-fetched to think that some lawyers will make the rule work in their favor by funding the campaigns of judges they don’t want to appear in front of? I think not.

Silence is Golden — NOT! — Central and Syracuse New York Accident Lawyer Explains.

February 13, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

Mum’s the word.

As a Central and Syracuse New York accident lawyer, I religiously read the New York Times and other newspapers for news that affects my law practice. Today I read in the New York Times that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has not spoken for almost five years at oral argument in Court! He has not asked a single question of the many lawyers who appear before the highest Court in the land to argue cases. By contrast, many of his colleagues on the bench pepper lawyers with tough, piercing questions “right out of the box” (as soon as they start their argument).

So what’s better, a quiet judge or an inquisitive one? As a Central and Syracuse New York personal injury lawyer who argues appeals in Courts all over New York State, I have learned to appreciate the talkative type. Why? Because the questions usually tell me what problems the judge is having in adopting my reasoning. If I know the concerns he or she has, I can then customize my oral argument to try to get that judge past his or her mental roadblocks to ruling in my favor.

Central And Syracuse NY Personal Injury Lawyer On Taking A Child’s Testimony

February 9, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

Being a Central and Syracuse New York accident lawyer requires me to subpoena Central New Yorkers to testify many, many times a year. Sometimes I even have to subpoena children. Tomorrow I will take the subpoenaed deposition testimony of several child-witnesses to my child-client’s Seneca County New York personal injury case. I served a subpoena on their parents notifying them that they were required to bring their child to my office to give testimony on the matter. That must have been quite a shock to them!

I certainly don’t relish putting a family through the stress of a subpoena and then a deposition, but sometimes I can’t avoid it. I have a duty to represent my client diligently, and in this case that means finding out what these child-witnesses know, and making a record (called a transcript) of it.

On the other hand, for the kids it’s probably not so bad. (“Cool — I get out of school for the morning!”) The parents, though, are probably kind of worried (“what the hell do they want my kid to testify for — did he do something wrong?”)

What?! A Rochester Tort-Reformer Filing A Frivolous NY Personal Injury Lawsuit?!

January 27, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

As a Central and Syracuse New York personal injury lawyer who takes on only legitimate accident claims, I resent, despise, disown, and spit-in-the-general-direction of all frivolous personal injury lawyers and their frivolous lawsuits. They give my bonafide injury lawsuits a bad name. And they give all legitimate personal injury lawyers a bad name.

Yes, I hate frivolous claims, but I also dislike so-called “tort-reformers”. Most of them have self-interest at heart; they work for or represent big insurance companies or businesses who stand to gain by taking away the little guys’ right to hold big business liable in court for their careless safety shortcuts that injury innocent people. To dupe the public into believing our time-tested tort law is a problem, they blow out of proportion the very few “frivolous lawsuits” that are filed, and try to convince the public that all or nearly all, personal injury lawsuits are frivolous.

So, since I despise frivolous lawsuits, and I also dislike tort-reformers, I should doubly despise and dislike frivolous personal injury lawsuits filed by tort reformers, right? What? A tort reformer filing a frivolous accident lawsuit? Yes, you heard me. An editorial in the New York Daily News the other day criticized conservative Republican New York State Senator James Alesi, a self-proclaimed “tort-reformer” (he represents the Monroe County towns of Chili, East Rochester, Henrietta, Irondequoit, Mendon, Penfield, Perinton, Pittsford, Riga, Rush and Wheatland, and portions of the City of Rochester) for filing a frivolous lawsuit.

How Does A NY Personal Injury Lawyer Calculate The Settlement Value Of A Case?

January 23, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

Mystified by how a New York personal injury lawyer knows how much a case should settle for? Let’s demystify the process. I’ll walk you right through it!

The first step for determining the settlement value of a case is to wait. We have to wait until either the client is either done treating or has reached “maximum medical improvement”. When that happens, we can look back at all the client have been through and decide what the pain and suffering is “worth”. Also, at that time we will know whether the client has any “permanency”, meaning whether she is going to continue to suffer for the rest of her life. If her doctor says the condition, pain, or disability is “permanent”, then we can claim pain and suffering compensation for the client’s natural lifetime.

The next step is to look at what other juries have awarded people with similar injuries. We can figure this out both by looking at past verdicts we have gotten in court for our clients, and also by cases we have read about. All lawyers in our office read religiously a weekly publication called the “New York Jury Reporter” which describes in detail plaintiffs’ injuries and what juries have awarded for them.