Adam Shapiro

Shapiro took a mock trial elective as a high school senior in Queens, won the midterm trying a case alone, then won the final arguing the same case for the other side. His teacher told him he should be a lawyer. After studying psychology at SUNY Albany, he chose the University of Miami School of Law mostly because he wanted more school. Picturing lawyers as the criminal defenders he saw on television, he started as a public defender in Florida before moving into insurance litigation.

Shapiro spent years on the defense side, representing carriers such as Lloyd's of London, before making what friends called the “leap of faith” to plaintiff's work in New York. He says he knows what the defense will think and do before he acts, and what an adjuster needs in a report to authorize payment. He also credits something simpler: caring about clients and returning their calls. “I just did a good job and called people back,” he says.

A father called Shapiro after his daughter was run over near a school at a dangerous Jackson Heights intersection between two highways, leaving her unconscious with a broken hip. He would hire Shapiro only if he also sued the city of New York. A records request turned up about seven certified letters over five years, two from councilmen, warning the city about the intersection. Shapiro won the case, and a traffic light went up at the corner. “We make the world safer,” he says.

Shapiro says personal injury lawyers are treated as a joke until someone is hurt and a family suddenly cannot pay its bills. Clients arrive wary because of the profession's reputation, so his rule is to treat every injured person like a relative. “If somebody's hurt, act like it's your family member,” he says. Clients can tell whether the care is sincere, and they send friends and family years later. He also warns that lawyers who short-sell a case to close it quickly eventually get found out.

Shapiro earned a bachelor's degree in psychology, with minors in philosophy and criminal justice, from the State University of New York at Albany in 1990 and his J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law in 1993. He is admitted in New York and Florida, before the United States Supreme Court and in multiple federal district courts. He is a member of the New York State Bar Association and the American Bar Association.

Shapiro founded Adam L. Shapiro & Associates, P.C. in 1994. The firm is in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, and its website is shapirolawoffice.com. It focuses on accident and injury claims, workers' compensation matters and Social Security disability claims, along with general civil litigation. Shapiro's earlier career in criminal defense and insurance litigation in Florida, he says, gives him an inside view of how carriers evaluate claims and what pushes them to settle.