Mark E. Seitelman

Mark Seitelman: When I was in law school, you know, you’re given it’s like being at a buffet … I’m always amused with all the television advertising for lawyers protesting, “Call now,” urging you to call now … In the seventies I had a terrible fire case, about a hundred people were killed. So MGM saw it didn’t have enough insurance for that risk ….

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: Tell me the story about why you wanted to become a trial lawyer.

Mark Seitelman: I don’t have a story where I I the age of seven watching “Perry Mason,” that’s not my story. I came to the law, I should say, I don’t know how to put it basically culturally. I mean people I’m I knew in the family. I had an uncle who was a lawyer and became a judge. So certain professions were were the role models. Lawyer, doctor, accountant. My father was a certified public accountant. And I took a few courses in accounting and started out in that, but it didn’t suit me. So see, law was the next step. You get into law school and and trial law, so called trial law, is different than what you see in the movies and and television. A lot of it is interaction with the clients, investigation, work in the office. There’s very little actual getting in a courtroom. Strutting up and down and making speech speeches to a jury. There are some members of our profession that do that, that do go to many tri trial to trial, but I basically am not one of those lawyers. So I gravitated towards trial law, which basically is personal injury law representing plaintiffs. It’s been called trial law. Although many of us in the plaintiff’s bar don’t really try cases or handle many cases in the courtroom. We handle it short of the courtroom. And when I say short of the courtroom, short of the actual trial of picking a jury, doing openings, presenting evidence, cross-examination, the classical trial you see on television. So when I was in law school, you know, you’re given it’s like being at a buffet, some little criminal law, constitutional law, civil procedure, admiralty law, property law, states law, and you take a little of each because the law school education is to train you to be a general practitioner. And the bar exam basically is to determine if you could become a pr general practitioner. You you take these various courses and you see where many times where you end up or land. I mean, I was not re I was not going to go into criminal law. Although my first very first job was in criminal law, but it wasn’t one of one of my great interests. I’ve always been interested in a law of damages, the law of personal injury, the law of torts, the law of civil damages. I’m also interested in insurance and estates. And my first job out of law school was for a couple of months in the criminal court. I was in the law department of the criminal court. In Kings County, which is in New York City, they had a law department which did research for the judges. And then I after a couple of months I got a job as the law clerk to a civil judge. He was an acting Supreme Court judge in Kings County, which is also Brooklyn. But those are personal injury cases, almost all personal injury cases. So that’s where I got the firsthand experience of watching trial lawyers and watching the business of personal injury. Then I went off to a very brief period to a firm handling disability claims by policemen and firemen. That was a very short stint. Then I went to an insurance defense firm. I worked on the insurance coverage. And that was also trial law because it’s all in the context of litigation. We’re not doing contracts of sale, of purchase. I was with them for probably six years. I went to another insurance defense firm. I was also went to a plaintiff’s insurance firm for about six months, which represented plaintiffs who were suing for their damages, you know, for lost inventory due to fire, blood, damage to a building, and where the insurance company was not paying. So you had to contest the insurance company’s position. And —

Chad Sands: But not necessarily injuries they suffered.

Mark Seitelman: Correct. It would be property damage. Yes. Okay.

Chad Sands: Okay.

Mark Seitelman: Inventory damage. Loss of your inventory in a warehouse, that sort of thing.

Chad Sands: Right.

Mark Seitelman: And then I went off to an insurance defense, another insurance defense firm, where I handle insurance coverage, reinsurance. It’s the insurance that insurance company buys to to reinsure its its line of business. And then I opened my own office. And it’s it’s many one issue is that this is where the work is. Well most of the work in in the law is in the personal injury area. For example, the business of the Supreme Court, Kings County, it’s all personal injury. The commercial cases you could put on one hand. And that applies across the board to the state courts. Most of the civil work is in the personal injury sphere. So I gravitated to trial law and personal injury law to quote Willie Sutton, who was a very famous bank robber, and he was asked, “Why do you rob banks?” And he answered, “That’s because that’s where the money is.” So that’s really where the activity is.

Chad Sands: And that’s why you kinda gravitated towards plaintiff P —

Mark Seitelman: Yes. When I left the insurance defense firm, which doesn’t exist anymore, they they went out of business, I was originally going to try to get insurance cases, but I was a single guy, literally, it was just me and the firm. And it was very difficult to get that type of work, but I could get plaintiff’s work. There I mean there’s the general public out there. You look out the window onto Broadway, where I’m located, or Wall Street. You’ll see thousands of people. That’s our potential clientele.

Chad Sands: Versus there’s only so many people suing their insurance company. There’s only so many criminals you could defend.

Mark Seitelman: Correct.

Chad Sands: But the plaintiffs are all out there.

Mark Seitelman: Yes.

Chad Sands: So you’ve been in your private practice since nineteen eighty one, doing this a while. What do you think makes you unique as a plaintiff trial lawyer?

Mark Seitelman: Okay. Well, I have the experience on both sides of the fence, plaintiff and defense. I have insurance coverage experience. I have a great empathy for my clients. I have empathy with the and sympathy and rapport with the judges, with juries. Life experience. Also, it’s life experience. I know who I am. I’m not gonna try to be anyone else. And that’s who the jury’s gonna see, and that’s who the judge is gonna see, and that’s who the client is gonna see. I’m gonna do the best job possible for the client. Get the best recovery pro possible.

Chad Sands: And have you always kind of carried that idea, the best job for the client, even going back to your days when you were defending the insurance companies, I guess, right?

Mark Seitelman: Yes. Absolutely. Because that’s your climb. Yeah. Yeah. So many times you go home at night and you’re still a problem or issue could be racking your brain. And you’re not billing for it. You’re still wondering how could I pursue this angle or get out on this angle. And I just had this I having it now. I just had it the last week. I have a case in the federal court and there’s a question as to what we’re going to do the next step. There we have a deadline on Friday and whether we’ll take a position on a motion or not take a position. And it affects us directly. So it it’s been racking my brain, even though I’m at home. I’m trying to figure out what we’re gonna do. So, yeah, so we absolutely wanna get the best for our clients.

Chad Sands: Right, but you can’t have the billable hour going necessarily when you’re in bed at three AM with gracing thought.

Mark Seitelman: Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Sands: I see on your website that you handled an MGM hotel fire insurance case. Was that a big case for you back then when you were defending the insurance company?

Mark Seitelman: Okay. Yeah, well yes it was, but of course I was not the sole attorney on the case.

Chad Sands: Right.

Mark Seitelman: There were a number of attorneys and and firms involved in the case with the MGM fi — so I was one of a team, just like you have one person on the baseball team.

Chad Sands: But the typical the typical defense teams, you know, you it seems like, you know, in the movies they always have three or thirty people, you know, teamed up against the plaintiffs. So yeah, obviously a big team.

Mark Seitelman: Well, it was against it was a very interesting case. Now MGM, the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas had a terrible fire and about a hundred people were killed. This occurred what was —

Chad Sands: What year?

Mark Seitelman: — this? In the seventies, I’d ha I’d have to look it up. In the seventies I had a terrible fire, about a hundred people were killed. So MGM saw it didn’t have enough insurance for that risk. And they talked to their insurance broker and they came up with a scheme: buy retroactive insurance. Now you might say, what’s how can you buy something now covering an accident happen in the past? It really was a financial scheme to take the money, let the interest grow, and hopefully they’d pay it out in the future. However, in this instance the plaintiffs all settled early and MGM demanded the insurance companies, you know, pay it. The ones who wrote this insurance. So there was a that was a litigation, and I was involved in one piece of the litigation. We were trying to show Del Webb, who was a contractor, exacerbated the conditions, the fire conditions, by punching holes in a fire staircase. So we were trying to show their blame and trying to get their insurance to cover as additional insurance.

Chad Sands: So I kind of cut ahead because I was just curious, and I saw that headline on your website, but can you tell me a story about a case from your plaintiff days that has really made an impact on you? And usually these aren’t necessarily the large verdicts. Some of them are the are the big losses that you never forget, but others might be that client that you’ve just or family you’ve never forgotten about. Can you share a story about one of those cases?

Mark Seitelman: Each c each client, each case has its its own own factors. I would say some of the losses you you were very valuable because you learned from the losses. I had a client who who was burnt in a fire due to an insecticide which exploded in her kitchen. Which we I did prepped it as much as we could, and we got her a good recovery and she took some of the money, you know, helped her buy a co-op apartment. And you know, she she had terrible burns, but she was able to go forward with her life. So that that was a very rewarding experience. I’ve had some losses, but you know, they’re losses. What can you do about it? Just trying to think of any particular wins. I mean, some of the wins are not in the courtroom. We you know, it’s funny. The personal injury business has evolved that there’s another sphere or maybe I should say, feel the battle, not the courtroom. It’s the mediation office. Many cases are resolved without having the case tried. Although they’re in litigation at some point of the case, the parties agree to go before a mediator. Who’s a mediator? Generally a retired judge. And the case gets conferenced, and it could be one settlement session or a few settlement sessions. And you’re able to s settle satisfactorily, you know, a significant case. I recently had a case where we didn’t even have mediation. We were able to settle direct with the insurance company quickly because the injuries were significant. And they said, “You know what, you’re right. You know, we’ll just settle and pay the insurance limits.” But but a lot of it’s it’s very satisfying when you have a client who thanks you and is happy. And it’s not necessarily a very big result.

Chad Sands: With the client who had the explosion in her kitchen, was this like a a bottle of like ant or spider killer that just kinda blew up in the middle of like while she was cooking and she suffered burns, or how did the case kind of unfold and how did it come to you?

Mark Seitelman: Case was taken in by another firm I did work for. It was a pretty well-known firm. The first name in the firm was a very legendary trial lawyer. They had a lot of cases. So they would send cases to me. I was just starting out in 1990, 19 the nine 1992. They would give me cases of a lower value or case they felt were very difficult, you know, very iffy or difficult. So this is a case where she had the insecticide. It was a it was a roach bomb.

Chad Sands: Okay.

Mark Seitelman: Where it’s a spray can, supposed to empty the room. You push down button or lever, and it locks in place and it empties out, spews out the poisonous fumes. She did that and she ca she heard a rumbling or whatever, came back into the kitchen, she did in the kitchen, and then all of a sudden it exploded. It it didn’t explode like a bomb, but she was soaked in some fluid and then she she was ignited.

Chad Sands: Wow.

Mark Seitelman: Yeah. So it it burned her legs, her buttocks and her legs. So it didn’t explode like a —

Chad Sands: Like a microwave exploding or something. Yeah.

Mark Seitelman: Yeah. There were some issues as whether she left the stove on. You’re not supposed to leave the stove on.

Chad Sands: Right.

Mark Seitelman: So there’s one report the fire department came there and they said the burner was on. So we we we settled for —

Chad Sands: Okay. That’s why it ignited then.

Mark Seitelman: Possibly, but our claim was it was they used it in a very flammable substance in the formulation where they could have used something that was not flammable, would not have exposed a fire threat. What was interesting in that case is that we sued the manufacturer. The manufacturer was not, you know, like Johnson Johnson or a major company. Some little hole in the wall company. She bought the spray at a little grocery store in her neighborhood. The manufacturer defaulted. They were in Florida, they didn’t appear. Got we got a default judgment, but we would pursue the grocery store. Under the law, the grocery store would be liable as a distributor in the chain.

Chad Sands: Right, not like the product liability of the company that defaulted, right?

Mark Seitelman: It’s the same thing. They have they’d have to prove the product was safe. They had an engineer saying, “This is how these things are made. This is practical. You need an accelerant and the accelerant and to push the fluid out of the can is flammable.”

Chad Sands: Right. And you don’t have to use flammable accelerator.

Mark Seitelman: All right.

Chad Sands: But you couldn’t go after them because they just didn’t show up and did they go bankrupt or —

Mark Seitelman: They they went bankrupt, but the store had insurance.

Chad Sands: Right.

Mark Seitelman: And we went over the store. It was a little grocery store. Now if there were no insurance for the grocery store, then you know, we’d be totally out you know, out the window.

Chad Sands: Right. But since they had insurance then they should be a little bit more careful about what kind of products they’re selling in their grocery —

Mark Seitelman: Yeah, e you know, they should I mean, from a from a business viewpoint, they should really sell products made by Johnson and Johnson, you know, major companies.

Chad Sands: That are using the safe accelerant.

Mark Seitelman: If they are. If they are.

Chad Sands: Right.

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

Mark Seitelman: I could say as far as being a trial lawyer, being a plaintiff’s personal injury attorney, the the attorney must have a lot of heart, a lot of dedication to the client. And it takes a lot of hard work because it’s very time consuming. And plaintiff’s personal injury law is in a sense not any less time consuming and involving heart than any other business. But you have to really be dedicated to the clients, work with the clients. You’ll have clients that are very difficult and demanding, sometimes unreasonably so, but it’s their case and they are the client, and they only have one case. And you have to understand that and you have to try to work with them as best you can. I’d say the rewards in working with clientele is very great to the attorney because they’re getting to deal with people who have been injured, who might be at their worst, or who are in a matter they’re in a stage of distress. They can’t go to work. They can’t walk around without crutches. They need a wheelchair or they need physical therapy. So it gives you the opportunity to help people and to help them when they need you. As I said before, it’s it’s it’s very demanding. And it’s very time consuming. It’s it’s really not an easy business because you’re dealing with people, clientele. You’re not dealing with machines, you’re not dealing with algorithms, you’re dealing with people. And I’m always amused with all the television advertising for lawyers and also billboards. Sa you know, protesting, “Call now,” urging you to call now. The handling of a of a client’s case, whether it be one case or multiple cases for a client and family, the family of the client, even sometimes things like an estate for a client, it all takes time and all takes understanding. And it’s it’s not readily solvable by an easy, flashy commercial “call now.” So since personal injury and trial law is a highly personal profession, when it comes time to hire a lawyer to interview around, speak to your family and friends, get references from them, find out what their experiences are. Don’t get seduced by a television commercial where the lawyer who’s advertising says he’s the biggest in town. “The biggest firm in town. We’ve recovered ten billion dollars just this week.” You need to, you know, do your homework, talk to your family and friends, and see who they have used. Handling cases for clients has been very satisfying to me. And when it comes time, put on my tombstone, we’ll put “trial lawyer.”

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.