The @phillies winning the World Series turned me into a plaintiffs lawyer

It was 2008. I'll never forget because the Phillies had just won the World Series. I just left the public defender's office. I was actually in private practice as a criminal defense attorney. And if you know anything about Philadelphia, there is a street that runs down the center of it called Broad Street.

And when our sports teams win championships, the street becomes flooded with tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people. I had a client who was arrested for were allegedly beating up the cops. The police had decided they wanted to clear Broad Street. His friends were on the other side of the street. He was unaware that the cops were trying to clear the street.

As he crossed it, about 5 or 6 of these police officers surrounded him, and they beat him unconscious.

I had a picture of his back where he had about 20 or 30 stripes that were about 12 inches long, crisscrossing all the way up and down his back, and they hit him on the back of his head, and it formed a large hematoma, or swelling, that was about the size of a softball, and it was split open and held together by stitches they had applied in the emergency room.

The modus operandi for police officers who assault people is they accuse the assaultee of starting it, and that covers up their abuse. He was charged with aggravated assault, facing decades in prison. He was a union carpenter, had never been arrested before. He was quite frightened, and he came and he hired me to defend him on these criminal charges. And I took him to trial.

He was acquitted of all of the charges. He stood up in the courtroom and he gave me a hug. I was hugging him. We were both very excited. And as we walked out of the courtroom together, you know, I said, What those guys did to you was wrong.

We can't just let them get away with it. We should sue them. And literally, as I said, "We should sue them," I felt a pit in my stomach because I had never practiced civil law. I'm not sure I could have sued my way out of a paper bag. I didn't even know basic elements of civil procedure.

I had only practiced criminal law. And he said to me, "How much do you charge to sue?" And I said, "I don't think I charge you anything. If I win, I take a piece." I didn't even really know the word contingency at that point. I was shooting from the hip. And he said, "Well, if it doesn't cost anything, then I'm in." And I realized that I had just backed myself into filing a lawsuit that I had never filed before, and it wasn't clear to me how to do it.

I went back to my office and I spent hours researching the topic and I looked up civil rights complaints and other cases similar to what I was going to be alleging on the docket, formulated a complaint, and I served it on the city and I served it on all the police officers. And I got a call about 2 weeks later and it was the city solicitor's office, said, "Do you wanna do depositions?" I said, "Great, let's do depositions." City solicitor brings all of the police to my office, and before the depositions start, city solicitor says to me, "I'd like to speak to you in your office." And I had never done a deposition before, and so I was trying to pretend like I had, and I assumed that there must have been, like, some meeting that you have in your office before depositions start, so I was playing it cool, and I went into my office with the guy, I said, "What's going on?" He said, "I have an offer to settle right now." He told me a number that almost made me fall out of my chair.

I was only 2 or 3 years out of the public defender's office, and this was many multiples of what I would make in a year. So my client comes into the office, and I said, "Hey, Guy, here's the offer." and hand to the Bible, my client jumped into my arms. I was holding an adult male in my arms. He was so elated with how much money we were about to settle this case for. He couldn't believe it.

I went out, I shook the city solicitor's hand, and I said, "You have a settlement." I walked into my partner's office, and I said to him, I'm gonna start the civil side of the firm. And from that day forward, I was a plaintiff's lawyer, and I represented people for their injuries, and I pursued justice on the civil side.

The Phillies winning the World Series changed my career. I honestly don't know where I'd be today had they not won the World Series, had Broad Street not flooded with people. I might still be practicing criminal defense. I felt like justice wasn't done. Getting him acquitted wasn't sufficient.

We fought back and we won, and I changed that young man's life, and I changed my own at the same time.