Boris Grushko

[Theme Music Plays]

Boris Grushko: The same way as I love this country right now, I love the Marine Corps too. A role model for me because my parents were living in Ukraine when I moved here, so my sister was basically accomplishing the roles of the sister, of the mom, of the friend, this and that. I said, “Your Honor, you cannot use the word fraudulent because this is all allegations.”

Narrator: Welcome to “Celebrating Justice,” presented by the Trial Lawyer’s Journal and CloudLex. The next gen legal cloud platform built exclusively for personal injury law. Get inspired by the nation’s top trial lawyers and share in the stories that shape our pursuit of justice. Follow the podcast and join our community at www.triallawyersjournal.com. Now, here’s your host, Editor of TLJ and VP of Marketing at CloudLex, Chad Sands.

Chad Sands: It’s a common question, I’m sure you’ve answered. And take your time when you tell me the story, but go back to the beginning and tell me why you wanted to become a trial lawyer.

Boris Grushko: Okay, to be completely frank with you, I wasn’t born thinking that I would be an attorney or even further like a trial lawyer. I don’t think it was anywhere close to being my mind. I was actually I used to be a professional soccer player back in Ukraine until the age of seventeen when I unfortunately got injured, had a meniscus injury, and because of that I moved to the US at the age of seventeen. Not really speaking English much, not really understanding what people were saying to me. And this is how my journey began. A couple years down the road, I joined the Marine Corps, where I served for almost four years. And when I was getting a discharge for the Marine Corps, my sister was already an attorney. And I think that was the major I would say decision maker who told me you should probably pursue my route because I can explain certain things for you and I’m also pretty successful. That’s what she said. And I think that’s why I joined. And not joined. That’s why I started preparing for the L set and then I ended up going to law school. But now I absolutely love it, love it, and I don’t have any regrets.

Chad Sands: So tell me a little bit about being a pro soccer player in Ukraine when you’re sixteen years old.

Boris Grushko: So I guess if someone would ask me a question, like what is your talent, if you have any, I would say my biggest talent is not being a lawyer or not like being a great person. It’s definitely I was a great soccer player and I still am, but my time is kind of already past because already thirty two and also I’m pursuing something different right now. But yeah, I was definitely like I would say it sounds subjectively, but I would say objectively because a lot of people told me that as well. I was really good at soccer and this is something I wanted to pursue, but unfortunately I had an injury. I guess the God had different plans for me.

Chad Sands: Right, yes. Did you tear your meniscus?

Boris Grushko: Correct. I tore my meniscus and unfortunately the medical system in Ukraine was not as advanced as it is here or in other countries. So the injections I was getting or any kind of other therapies I was getting were not really helpful. It was just like a temporary relief and it was never getting hundred percent. So that’s why I made the ultimate decision to just stop.

Chad Sands: Yeah, I mean I play tennis and I tore my meniscus and can’t imagine trying to continue at a professional level of sport after that type of injury unless you obviously have like a a s a major surgery to repair.

Boris Grushko: For sure. For sure. And just to add to this a little bit more, I think it’s better when the injury happens at the early age. Because if it will happen to me, let’s say like at the age of twenty five, twenty six, then you don’t really have majority of like the athletes don’t have a degree. And if you didn’t make enough money, like let’s say if you’re not a Messi or Ronaldo who have enough money at the age of twenty five, then you’re kind of stuck. So I’m glad it happened earlier than later.

Chad Sands: Yes. And so after the soccer career got cut short, you came to the US. Did you join the Marines right away? Or how did you how did you decide to enlist?

Boris Grushko: Okay, so that’s actually a good question. I didn’t I wasn’t thinking about joining the Marine Corps as well. I was going to the community college. I was on a student visa. I was going to community college. And then to be completely frank with you, I started like going out a lot. I started hanging out with some like people who were dragging me down. And yeah, I made the decision to join the Marine Corps simply out of a discipline. And later on also same as with the law. No regrets whatsoever. Like I loved it. It was like I became more patriotic about this country. We traveled, I met amazing people, amazing leaders, and I think it has a big like transferability into the law as well. Like the discipline and just the leadership and all of those qualities.

Chad Sands: And so after after the Marine Corps, then you mentioned your sister. So was your sister an attorney in California or was she in New York? Where was she practicing law? And is she a personal injury attorney?

Boris Grushko: So my sister is not a personal injury attorney, completely different. She does tax law for this firm called Link Laders, which is based in London. She actually just got promoted to council this week from a senior associate to council. And congratulations to her, I guess. But yeah, she does something completely different, but she was always a big role model for me because my parents were living in Ukraine when I moved here. So my sister was basically accomplishing the roles of the sister, of the mom, of the friend, and I think every decision she made for me or with me, that was only positive. That was never a negative experience.

Chad Sands: Did you kind of stumble into personal injury law and trial work or and did you kind of start thinking that, well, if my sister’s a tax attorney, you know, maybe I should just be a tax attorney or do contracts or something, or how did you officially g you know, find, you know, plaintiff personal injury kind of your calling?

Boris Grushko: So I did the prosecution internship, I did the criminal defense internship, which especially criminal defense, I liked it like I enjoyed it for the whole year. They c definitely have a lot of stories from that internship. My last year of law school, I started working for this like solo practitioner. His name is Robert Marcus. And also just an amazing individual. Like I don’t know, he treated me like he was my father. We was we s we still up to this day, like we go out together, we go to the gym together, even though he’s like older, he’s seventy-three and I’m thirty-two. And he was a I mean, he was he just retired, kind of semi retired recently. A very successful personal injury attorney. He was a partner in the firm. When I started working for him, he was already transitioning out. So it was only like, let’s say twenty, twenty five cases we were working working on together. But he taught me a lot. And I kind of I kind of liked it. I enjoyed I enjoyed the process and when I was getting ready for the bar exam, I also worked for another personal injury firm in Queens. And so this this is my third right now, this is my third experience. And I think you can help people out who actually like really got injured, of course, and you can make a decent living as well with it. So I think it’s it’s a good area.

Chad Sands: So other than being former Ukrainian soccer player and former marine who found their way from San Diego to New York, what makes you unique as a trial lawyer?

Boris Grushko: I would like to say what makes it me unique is I’m a very extrovert person and I like to help people out. Like I’m very caring and it has a big like transferability into the law and into ev like every activity I do every day. So yeah, like when I go to the courtroom, I tend to find it’s very easy for me to like start talking to a new person. Or the person already know and we like it’s easier for me to find a common ground literally with any person I talk to, if it’s a judge, someone senior, if it’s someone on the same level with me. And care, I just I just tend to care about a lot of things in life and I do them diligently. So I think just bringing that care into my practice also helps a lot because you tend to represent people better with care and like pay attention to their needs and details. And I think it has a positive impact at the end of the day. Do you

Chad Sands: Do you attribute your ability to kind of connect with people and just, you know, have conversations? Do you attribute that more to you being a guy who grew up in a foreign country and came to America? Or do you maybe attribute that more to the time you had in the Marines and, you know, the military and that a whole experience? Or do you attribute to something else completely?

Boris Grushko: I w I would say both. I would say a little bit more just me being me and like I guess my family maybe genetically passing something to me, maybe something I learned when I was a kid. And let me explain like what it is. It’s like I don’t know anywhere, like we would say me and my family we go to like to the beach or we go to like some vacation spot. The next morning when like everyone wakes up, goes to breakfast, already like eighty percent of the people know who I am. And I sometimes I don’t even try, like I don’t even try to like let’s say introduce myself to like a girl. Or would say anyone, it just happens like naturally. And I would like to say maybe it’s a certain skill. But second aspect of it is the Marine Corps definitely made me more like gave me perseverance and the motivation to accomplish and not give up. So even let’s say you want to pursue a certain woman in life, like you like someone, you have to have you know a certain strength in yourself to stand up and like. Go in front of everyone to go introduce yourself and maybe get embarrassed, or maybe not, or maybe w so I think it’s also the Marine Corps that teaches you, taught me not teaches you, but taught me personally how to be more strong and how to like have that motivation and not give up no matter what. Do you

Chad Sands: You see some of your skills that you got in when your time during the Marines, do you apply that as a lawyer to what you do on a day in and day out basis still?

Boris Grushko: Hundred percent, hundred percent. Like every single day, not when I come in, when I leave my office, I like take everything out from my desk and from like everything around. I clean everything, I make my notes for the next day. And like sometimes there is no really like necessity to do that, but I feel like the fact that I do it every single day. The next day I come in, everything is clean, like I have my notes, maybe something got in the way last night, but that because I have this note still sitting from last day. I remember about like what I have to do. And I think even bigger in a quorum as well, like in a quorum, it’s a organized environment. So you need to be you need to know how to be organized. And you cannot be, you know, sloppy. And I think that’s also helps in a quorum because sometimes it’s friendly, sometimes not friendly, but it’s organized environment, like I said, and you need to be organized yourself in order to in order to be a good attorney there.

Chad Sands: Yeah, makes sense. It’s kind of like the the whole, you know, Marine or Navy SEAL making your bed every morning, I guess, analogy. But you as a lawyer kind of do that at the end of the day for your office. So when you come in the next morning, you know, things are as they should be.

Boris Grushko: Yeah, I’m like I’m definitely not as organized as I used to be when I was in Marine Corps, ’cause like over there you have like a field days and sometimes, especially in the beginning, people come into your room to check twice a day. Did you did you do this? Do you do I’m not as organized probably any longer, but yeah, definitely has a big impact into a lot of areas.

Chad Sands: You still have some of the core values that you

Boris Grushko: I think it I think it’s all here. Like this is the most important part.

Chad Sands: Have you been back to Ukraine in the years past?

Boris Grushko: I I have I used to go once or twice a year to see my family. But then when the full scale war began, like what, four or five years ago, I stopped going because even though like I have the American passport, like there is a possibility if I go there, maybe like they will take me and make me like I don’t know, but yeah, basically I haven’t been I still feel I still feel bad every day for like my friends who like die, like some of the people I played soccer with. They ended up joining willingly, unwillingly, and like th it’s not that I know for a fact that they passed away, but there is no information about them. So it’s kind of the same end result. So it’s very and I’m just here, you know, I’m enjoying the freedom. So I think like I I don’t take it for granted.

Chad Sands: Yeah, I I bet. I guess when it comes to the cases that you’ve worked on, can you share a story about a specific case that really had an impact on you?

Boris Grushko: So I was actually thinking about like this this question specifically because like I saw kind of like a preview beforehand. Yes. I was like, I don’t really know how to answer this question in particular because I worked on so many different cases. Yeah. And I was trying to backtrack and remember like which one stands out the most. Is it like the because in the criminal defense, we would go in front of the judge a lot and like argue cases to get people out of certain like criminal activities. Yeah. So it was a lot of interesting cases and prosecution as well. Then I did some labor law cases where we would have to defend let me give you an example. Let’s say like a pilot on a Canadian Airlines who flew the airplane while we were intoxicated from the previous night drinking. Yeah. There is no like damage to the passengers, however the person gets fired, obviously because they could have been damaged, and we would have to argue that the person has like a certain seniority and certain years on the job and he should be forgiven. So it was always like balancing the moral aspect, is it with with the legal aspect, like what’s morally right, what’s legally right. So it was it was very interesting. But I guess okay, I kind of went around for too long. Let me try to answer the question. So I guess I I can talk about a specific case. It’s not really anything big, but the reason why I remember it is because it gave me kind of like a negative feeling and I feel like I can learn from it as well. So not too long ago, I was representing the dental. It was a small claims court because I’m still waiting for my admission. It’s been three months. I mean, I don’t know why, like I’ve been I’ve been contacting them, but they’re not they’re not really admitting me yet. So I go to the courtroom. With my boss, like I tomorrow I’m going to the corporate with my boss. I just can’t really do like the EBTs and stuff because I’m not admitted yet. So I went to the small claims court, was representing the dental practice against the defendant who was a patient at this dental practice. There was basically an erroneous billing. Erroneous billing took place and the patient was overbilled. Actually, the insurance, not the patient, the insurance was overbilled a certain amount. Once it was discovered that he was overbilled a certain amount, the insurance reached out to the dental office and the dental office paid out everything. So there was no physical damage to the patient and no financial loss because the money was between insurance and the dental office. There was no money ex involved from the patient side. And he still filed a lawsuit against the dental practice stating that there was a delay in treatment, that he couldn’t get a treatment somewhere else because of this. So even though his arguments morally make sense, legally, I don’t think he ca he had an argument. So he had he didn’t have any physical injuries at all. And financial aspect was all taken care of. Meaning the insurance was fully compensated by the dental office. Right. However. And it was my first experience, so I was I didn’t really know like what to do and I was nervous, I was anxious. So I went I went in front of the judge. But I guess the judge was sympathizing more with the patient without really looking into the legal aspect. And I was the one who did like I don’t know, I put like five, eight hours, maybe ten hours of preparation into this. Like I knew ins and outs of the case, I presented evidence, but she just sympathized with the person. And basically said, “Where is where is the money? Where’s the money from the dental practice?” And I was just really angry because I was like, shouldn’t be any money, the case should just be and sorry, but just to backtrack a little bit more. The first time I appeared for this case, the patient who was filing the claim, he didn’t even appear. So I traveled all the way to the court for him not to appear. The case was dismissed, and then he reinstated the case saying he was sick. So basically I had to appear again. And that second time the judges really not listening to my arguments, not really looking into my evidence, more sympathizing with the person. And they gave me a little bit of like a negative feeling. And yeah, so it was like a couple of and had to go back again the third time the next day to reach the settlement. We ended up paying the patient a certain amount of money. But I just felt ne really negative inside because I wanted to argue. But the judge really didn’t didn’t even listen to my arguments and so I guess from now on if something similar happens again, I just have to find like a maybe a different approach or sometimes you just have to take maybe certain loss and carry on with the plan of your day.

Chad Sands: What was he c he claiming? He was claiming that because the dental office paid and worked with the insurance company that he couldn’t get treatment at some other dental clinic.

Boris Grushko: What’s funny, he actually ended up going to vacation. He went to vacation, he didn’t even really seek any other treatment. But his argument was that because he was overbilled for certain procedures, he went to another office to get those procedures and he couldn’t get them done because another office already built for them. But in reality, in reality, he could have went to any other office, or he could have even gone back to the original office. And get that procedure and later on that insurance issue would have been taken care of. Right. But especially

Chad Sands: Especially if he just went back to the original dental clinic that was dealing with his insurance.

Boris Grushko: Correct. And lastly about this, the delaying treatment that we were talking about, it did not result in any kind of like tooth decay or any kind of like physical injury. He didn’t have any physical injury. So I I felt like it’s my first time. I still don’t know pretty much anything, but I I still have a valid argument and it just completely gets suppressed. So I felt a little bit offended. And I felt bad in the clients like I felt personally bad because I feel like the client was expecting this case to be dropped, but I now we have to reach the settlement, unfortunately.

Chad Sands: And so you were kind of working, I guess, on the defense side, right? Because you were defending the dental clinic aga

Boris Grushko: Yeah, yes, yeah. So that that was not our like usual type of work. That was just like kind of helping out like acquaintance that we that we knew. Yeah.

Chad Sands: And I mean, do you kind of feel like I hate to use the word, but was it a frivolous lawsuit? You know what I mean? In terms of he didn’t have any physical damages, he didn’t lose any money. He seemed to be okay to go on vacation and then come back and not show up for the first time he was supposed to in court and then said he was sick and so he files again. Did did you ever have that feeling that? Like this is complete BS and we shouldn’t even be having to deal with this.

Boris Grushko: This is exactly how I felt. However, maybe like once again, you know, I’m not even admitted yet. So I don’t have I’m using a lot of logic and I I used a lot of flaw too. But for me, that’s exactly how I felt. It’s like, why are we even listening to this? It’s c it and I also presented all the evidence completely. I sent it out beforehand. This person just shows up. He does not present any evidence that he he says delaying treatment. Then present some kind of evidence that there is a because delay in treatment has to result in a physical injury. Pres present presents something. There was absolutely zero paperwork, zero it was just one, two sentences to the judge who’s like, “Okay, yeah, like we feel bad for you. Let let us give you some money.” And I’m like, “But this is not how it’s supposed to work. This is not what I envisioned.” So basically the way you explained it, that was actually very good. Yeah, that’s how I felt.

Chad Sands: But I guess, you know, you can chalk it up to technically a loss, right? And so now you’ll have to learn from that loss, which a lot of people say you learn a lot more from your losses than you do from the win.

Boris Grushko: Correct, correct. I mean, maybe ’cause I I feel like I got hitted a couple of times with the judge, even though she was not I don’t think she was a real judge. I think she was one of maybe the attorneys. I I don’t know. I don’t wanna I don’t wanna make this claim because like I don’t know. But I got a little bit hit and the next day I was like I apologize, even though I think she was okay, something I forgot to mention. Yeah. She said. On the first day when we were like kind of going back and forth, she said, “Your office that I represent commit committed a fraudulent this and that.” I said, “Your Honor, you cannot use the word fraudulent because this is all allegations. How can you say it’s fraudulent? This is already like a conclusion.” You you so I was getting a little bit suspicious about certain words she was saying, and that’s why I got hit it. So the next day I was like, you know what, let me change the strategy a little bit. I’m gonna apologize. There’s it doesn’t hurt to apologize even if I felt like I was right, but maybe I was wrong in something. So I apologize, but after I apologized, she’s I said that Your Honor may be heard, and I wanted to once again present the argument. There is no physical, no financial harm. She said, “Where is the money? Where is the money?” And I was like, Yeah, this is this is pointless. This is I’m not even I’m not even a human being here.

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Explore what’s possible at www.cloudlex.com. Now here is this episode’s “Closing Argument.”

Boris Grushko: I wanna share a little bit about how great this country is. For me personally and overall, I think this is the greatest the greatest country on earth. And let me explain to you why. As I mentioned previously, I moved to the US from Ukraine when I was 17 years old. Didn’t really know much about the US. I didn’t really speak the language. So every time I would come into my school, I couldn’t understand what people were saying to me. It was really hard, so I had to bring my sister with me to translate. Eventually, step by step, I would say five, seven months down the road, I was able to communicate and explain myself. I was working for the restaurants on the weekends as a busboy, cleaning the plates, getting home, you know, at seven AM while people were sometimes going to work on Monday. And I sometimes I felt like I’m not a good individual, I’m not a proper citizen of this society. Eventually I stopped working for the restaurant as then I joined the Marine Corps. In the beginning, same thing as moving to the US. Had no idea what their organization was. Like they dropped us off in the boot camp. The drone instructors were yelling at us and I had I was like, “What is happening?” I’m not really prepared. Like psychologically, mentally it was super hard. Then things started getting better and once again, the same way as I love this country right now, I love the Marine Corps too. It was a great experience. I met amazing leaders. We traveled. I was became very patriotic about this country, which I’m gonna carry with me for the rest of my life. I finished the Marine Corps, then I went to law school and now I’m an attorney. Even though I’m not anywhere as accomplished as I want to be in the future, there were bigger goals and bigger achievements in my mind. Hopefully one day I will be there. Even though this country has some certain issues, like maybe on a political level, peop people’s opinions are divided and stuff, some other problems inside the country. If we fix these things, this country is gonna become an even better place. America is just a great place that gives people unlimited possibilities for success. And a lot of people unfortunately they don’t really understand this, can only see those things. In order to really feel what it is and how great it is to be here on this earth and like live here, breathe this air and be an American citizen.

Narrator: You’ve been listening to Celebrating Justice presented by CloudLex and the Trial Lawyer’s Journal. Remember, the stories don’t end here. Visit www.triallawyersjournal.com to become part of our community and keep the conversation going. And for a deeper dive into the tools that empower personal injury law firms, visit www.cloudlex.com/tlj to learn.