Why work as a personal injury lawyer is never boring
Working life as a personal injury lawyer is never boring, but means a journey through a motley collection of people, homes and places in the Netherlands (and beyond). Even as a student, the niche of personal injury appealed to me, because unlike many other areas of law, it can personal injury Well, it happens to everyone. It is a vertical cross-section of our society: young and old, rich and poor, uneducated and highly educated, and from every cultural and religious background imaginable. So one day you will be sitting opposite an extroverted CEO of a large company wearing the finest tailored suits, but who is not accustomed to a rebuttal from another party. And the next day you will meet a boy from the countryside who knows how to handle things, but is averse to legal texts and paperwork. One day you mail a man who is very worried because his child has been injured, but in language that is difficult for me to understand because of a language barrier. And a little later you call a chatty lady from the Jordaan with lots of time with whom the glass is always half full (both literally and figuratively). They are all different people, each with their own character and story, who require a personal approach. There is no point in sending standard letters with legal jargon; our work is truly customized and based on mutual trust and respect.
All those people in different shapes and sizes give the work color and an extra dimension. And often you end a working day with an experience richer and a big smile. This applies even more to the home visits you make as a personal injury lawyer. Usually an initial intake meeting with a client takes place at our office (or at a hospital or rehabilitation center). Once a case is ongoing, it is very common for a home visit to take place next. This involves me, as the advocate, visiting the client in his/her own home where a representative from the insurance company often joins as well.
It is quite an honor to be invited to such a personal place by someone and usually I feel very welcome. For example, I was once met by a client who had put on his Sunday suit, received me very hospitably and had prepared an entire buffet of delicacies. Of course you can't come up with an excuse that you just had breakfast. And armed with doggy bags I was on the train a moment later, in case I got another hunger pang on the return trip. Also funny was the time the insurance company claims adjuster and I were kindly asked to leave our shoes at the front door and put our feet in the slippers that had been prepared. When it was the claims adjuster's turn, all that was left were huge fluffy, but mostly bright orange, Garfield slippers. Not only did it make for warm feet, but more importantly it caused hilarity for the visit. Just like the time the claims adjuster and I were asked to take a seat together on the somewhat small sofa that was mainly occupied by a rather large rabbit hutch in which a Flemish giant sat. And sometimes you meet not only the client himself, but also his children, who are of course far too impatient for a long conversation. During one visit, while I was busily taking notes of our conversation, in the meantime my shoelaces were tied together, so that moments later I got up from my chair and stumbled on like a wooden idiot. And another time, a child who had been bitten by a dog told me proudly that during her therapy she had been allowed to chop imaginary pieces of sausage from a dog and now felt much better. These are funny anecdotes that often conceal serious and intense stories of people.
The wide variety of people teach me not only to see that differences between people are beautiful, enriching and sometimes just plain funny. They make me see that there are many ways to communicate and understand each other. And most of all, it makes me see that people are at their best when they can be themselves.