So much news about trial lawyers is negative… take the vindictive dry cleaning guy for example. Bad news and a few outrageous lawsuits sell papers and get ratings. Good news about lawyers doesn’t seem to get much press. Despite the coverage, more and more attorneys doing their best to give back to their communities and to "pay it forward."
A friend, Matt Meyerkord, in Kansas City recently announced on his blog that he would donate 5% of every fee earned to local charities. When making his donation, Matt chooses a charity relevant to the particular case or one that is of particular importance to his client. For example, Matt contributed to Mothers Against Drunk Driving following a case in which his client was injured by a drunk driver.
There are many attorneys – and clients – across the country with similar practices that go largely unreported and unnoticed. Our firm supports many causes in our community, and has been particularly involved in our county’s Community Christian Center and the Show-Me Christian Youth Home.
Many clients donate portions of their recovery to charities close to their hearts or to prevent others from suffering similar injuries.
One of our own clients – Tami Martin – was paralyzed in a minor collision because of a reclined seat in a Ford vehicle. After a verdict in her favor, Tami offered to return half of the verdict amount to Ford if Ford would just put a safety sticker in all of its vehicles warning passengers of the dangers of reclining seats.
Here’s just some of the outstanding charitable work attorneys are doing:
Trial Lawyers Care — offered free help to victims of the 9/11 attacks.
Missouri Trial Lawyers Care (MoTLC) — this charitable arm of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys provides monetary support to a number of charities and provides free legal services to a number causes within the state, including assisting the American Red Cross with disaster relief.
Lawyers To The Rescue — provides legal assistance and humanitarian support to people around the world in times of crisis.
The Innocence Project — a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people.
Wills For Heroes Foundation — provides essential legal documents free of charge to first responders, including wills, living wills, and powers of attorney.
Brett Emison is currently a partner at Langdon & Emison, a firm dedicated to helping injured victims across the country from their primary office near Kansas City. Mainly focusing on catastrophic injury and death cases as well as complex mass tort and dangerous drug cases, Mr. Emison often deals with automotive defects, automobile crashes, railroad crossing accidents (train accidents), trucking accidents, dangerous and defective drugs, defective medical devices.
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