Bilingual Iraq Veteran Turned New Jersey Injury Lawyer Advocates for the Voiceless
Episode 5: Bilingual Iraq Veteran Turned New Jersey Injury Lawyer Advocates for the Voiceless with Lazaro Berenguer, Esq.
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Transcript
Welcome to Jersey Justice, a civil law podcast that shares
Speaker:practical tips and stories about personal and workplace injuries.
Speaker:Joined two of the brightest New Jersey injury attorneys, Gerald Clark
Speaker:and Mark Morris of Clark Law Firm.
Speaker:As they take you behind the scenes of.
Speaker:Justice and civil law.
Speaker:But first, a quick disclaimer.
Speaker:The information shared on this podcast is for general information purposes only.
Speaker:Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any
Speaker:individual case or situation.
Speaker:This information is not intended to create and does not constitute
Speaker:an attorney-client relationship.
Speaker:Hi everyone.
Speaker:Welcome back to Jersey Justice.
Speaker:Today we are here with Jerry and we're here with Lara Behringer.
Speaker:So we're gonna be talking about why did he decide to become a personal injury lawyer?
Speaker:Because we always like to know the story and the why behind why people get
Speaker:up and they do what they do every day.
Speaker:So welcome to the show.
Speaker:So hi dimple.
Speaker:My, my name is Laro Behringer.
Speaker:I'm one of number of personal injury attorneys here at the Clark Law Firm.
Speaker:As you very well may know, we specialize in personal injury cases
Speaker:and in all kinds of accident cases.
Speaker:Wonderful.
Speaker:And now you know, I do have to ask you the question of the day, which is, when
Speaker:was it that you decided to become a lawyer and then, you know, tell us a little bit
Speaker:of that backstory of that why, and also how did you pick the type of practice
Speaker:era that you were going to go into?
Speaker:Well, that's a funny story.
Speaker:I went into college thinking that I, wanting to go to medical school, I
Speaker:took, I remember Biology 1 0 1 and that final exam was about 30, 40 pages thick.
Speaker:And I said, no, this is it.
Speaker:So then I just started taking classes in the pre-law area classes
Speaker:that ended up interesting me.
Speaker:And eventually I decided, yes, this is something that I want
Speaker:to pursue very passionate about.
Speaker:These classes.
Speaker:I was doing very well in them.
Speaker:So that's how I decided to go into law school.
Speaker:I'm gonna dig a little deeper.
Speaker:I'm gonna, so you wanted to be a doctor, am I hearing that right?
Speaker:You wanted to be a doctor, but instead you ended up becoming a lawyer.
Speaker:Feel like there's some in between story that we're missing there.
Speaker:So like how did you decide, how did that switch happen?
Speaker:It wasn't too, too abrupt.
Speaker:It was just, I decided just to, Take some additional classes
Speaker:and I ended up liking them.
Speaker:I ended up doing very well in them, and so I then in time, I decided,
Speaker:well, let me start looking into law school, into what it's about, what
Speaker:it's like, and, and that's how I, my, my interests grew, especially
Speaker:because I was doing very well in them.
Speaker:I enjoyed it.
Speaker:I had a number of internships as well that actually showed me what it is
Speaker:to be a lawyer in, in, you know, in different realms, in different areas.
Speaker:Tell us about like your, your family background.
Speaker:I mean, when people say to me, oh, you're a lawyer and you're
Speaker:youngest of 13 kids, there must be a lot of lawyers in your family.
Speaker:And I'm like, Nope, I'm the only one.
Speaker:What, what's your backstory, your family story in terms of that, you
Speaker:know, was there encouragement from the family and, you know, that kind of
Speaker:thing and, and how did that all wash?
Speaker:Definitely I, I'm the only attorney in my family, you know, it's my
Speaker:sister and I, and it's funny because I wasn't one who initially liked to
Speaker:read a lot, but you know, when you go to law school and you obviously go
Speaker:to undergrad, you, you don't have a choice and you build a liking to it.
Speaker:My dad, he's from Cuba.
Speaker:He fled, he.
Speaker:Fled that the Cuban dictatorship, my mom is from the Dominican Republic.
Speaker:They, they met here in this country.
Speaker:And then just interested in me, especially the, the justice aspect behind it was,
Speaker:was, was just very interesting to me and that's what I initially found.
Speaker:Thank you for sharing that with us.
Speaker:And I think for you, it happened organically and I love that it just,
Speaker:you know, you kind of fell into it.
Speaker:You took some classes, you really liked it.
Speaker:It's also quite interesting.
Speaker:You're, you're the only attorney in the family sometimes, you know, there's
Speaker:a family of doctors and everyone's a doctor, there's a family of lawyers and,
Speaker:and everyone's a lawyer, so I love that.
Speaker:Tell us, you know, tell us a little bit more about like
Speaker:yourself as a person, like.
Speaker:You know your background.
Speaker:Is there anything you did when you were in school or growing up
Speaker:that you wanted to share with us?
Speaker:Or maybe I think Jerry might wanna dive into that.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:I, I can, I can definitely go into that a little bit.
Speaker:So right after my, my undergrad work at Rutgers in, in New Brunswick, I,
Speaker:I knew I wanted to go to law school, but I decided to, to take a little
Speaker:bit of a break from the school.
Speaker:So I decided to, you know, to join the Army.
Speaker:I was in the Army, I was in the military.
Speaker:I was with a very popular Division a hundred first Airborne
Speaker:Division air assault based out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Speaker:While there, We deployed to Iraq to to create Iraq, and my passion for
Speaker:the law grew while, while I was there.
Speaker:Especially based on what was going on in the government
Speaker:at, at the time in, in Iraq.
Speaker:The, the, but the most important thing to me has been my faith.
Speaker:My faith in, in God.
Speaker:That has been the, you know, the most important thing to me.
Speaker:My faith in the Lord started when I was in Iraq.
Speaker:I was going through a very, very dark time, very depressed, even suicidal.
Speaker:And then I, I had a, an encounter with God.
Speaker:And, and then that's when my relationship with, with the Lord, uh, sparked.
Speaker:And even after that is when I really started to pursue God and, and, and my
Speaker:desire to be an attorney even grew because that's when I started realizing more
Speaker:and more about what really is the legal field and what we do to, to help others.
Speaker:LA I gotta, I gotta ask you about that.
Speaker:So I, last summer I did a a Navy Seal swim.
Speaker:It's organized by Bill Brown, who's an attorney at McCarter in English, and
Speaker:he was of a Navy Seal and it's like a three mile swim across the Hudson River.
Speaker:He likes to say the river's.
Speaker:Dangerous because of the currents.
Speaker:I like to say it's dangerous because it's incredibly dirty
Speaker:and nasty to swim in that.
Speaker:And it's a three mile swim and it's a two mile run and then it's like
Speaker:a hundred pullups and 300 pushups.
Speaker:And you know, I'm kind of like a competitive person, so I'm
Speaker:like, oh, I'm wondering how you know who wins this thing.
Speaker:And there's like, and I was talking to Bill, he is like, cuz I did a
Speaker:couple practice swims with him last summer across the river, three miles.
Speaker:From Jersey City to lower Manhattan and, and I'm like, all right, who wins?
Speaker:He's like, well, no one wins.
Speaker:I'm like, well, what's this all about?
Speaker:And he's like, really?
Speaker:It's about getting veteran veterans together.
Speaker:Bill's big thing is if veterans don't look out for each other, no one's going to.
Speaker:So it's a way to get them together, and it is the reason we do.
Speaker:I forget exactly what it is, but it's, it's, we do 22, I think it's 22
Speaker:pushups at each station or something, or 22 pullups at each station.
Speaker:And that's the honor of the 22 veterans that take their
Speaker:lives every day on average.
Speaker:And so the reason they get the veterans together is to get guys together so
Speaker:they're staying in touch if they're going through difficult times.
Speaker:The person who gave the prayer at before the event last summer, the
Speaker:Swim on the Hudson started was Jim Purdy, I believe, a Navy Seal
Speaker:who went through some tough times.
Speaker:So can you talk about that?
Speaker:Like, you know, for people that did not serve such as myself, I.
Speaker:What is it that leads to that kind of thing?
Speaker:Is it the combat?
Speaker:Like what is it and, and what can you, what can you recommend to others
Speaker:that might have gone through that?
Speaker:Cuz you're doing, you know, you're doing awesome, you know, you're very successful.
Speaker:You just had an awesome win in Essex County Court.
Speaker:So having come from, so.
Speaker:Far from those dark times, what can you offer to others that might be
Speaker:going through that, that kind of thing.
Speaker:And, you know, how, how did you get through it?
Speaker:What can be offered to others is, it's one thing, honestly, it's it's hope.
Speaker:When, when you are in, in a place of combat, in a place of warfare, as humans,
Speaker:I don't think we're built for that.
Speaker:You know, you, you get all this training, but humanly speaking, there's
Speaker:only so much that you can handle.
Speaker:So, Come to a place of of sadness.
Speaker:I mean, you're away from your family, away from home.
Speaker:Constant living in fear.
Speaker:And the only thing that helped me was realizing that there is hope in the
Speaker:Bible, in the book of Hebrews describes, That our hope, our hope in the times of
Speaker:trials and tribulations, our hope, our anchor in the storm is Jesus Christ.
Speaker:And I started to realize that, not a as, as I progressed my and,
Speaker:and learn more about this hope.
Speaker:And, and, and that's, that's what helps.
Speaker:That's the only thing that really helps.
Speaker:That's the only thing that really heals and, and restores.
Speaker:I remember when I came back, From Iraq, I was in a parking lot,
Speaker:think of like a mall parking lot.
Speaker:And I was with my sister at the time and I said to her, what?
Speaker:And there were cars all around.
Speaker:There was a mall.
Speaker:And I said to her, this place is very quiet.
Speaker:And she looked at me, she didn't understand.
Speaker:But what she didn't understand was the, the life that I had been living for about
Speaker:a year in which there were rocket attacks.
Speaker:You know, we had a soldier that, that got killed in a rocket attack over there.
Speaker:And so it's something that's only understood, I think by someone
Speaker:who's been there, but also it's understood by God himself, right?
Speaker:Because he's ever present and he fills us with hope in, in those
Speaker:difficult, in those difficult times and seasons in our lives, whether
Speaker:it's at war, whether it's here, when things are not so, so great sometimes.
Speaker:So a as, as a plaintiff's lawyer.
Speaker:You know, we talk a lot on this podcast about fighting the insurance companies
Speaker:and how difficult it is and the challenges and how they always try to drown us
Speaker:in paper to get a away from paying.
Speaker:How is your experience like kind of going through just such a tough time like that?
Speaker:And the things you talked about.
Speaker:How does that, how does that incorporate into practicing law
Speaker:each day and, and keeping going and, and fighting for people?
Speaker:Like how do you incorporate those concepts about hope and your faith
Speaker:and, and the challenges that you went through fighting for the country?
Speaker:And, you know, I thanked you.
Speaker:I remember when I first met you, I thought, I thanked you for your
Speaker:service and I, I, you know, I hope it doesn't sound trite, but I gotta
Speaker:thank you again publicly like this.
Speaker:But if you can talk about that.
Speaker:Definitely, definitely as personal injury attorneys, as plaintiffs personal injury
Speaker:attorneys we're fighting for, we're fighting, in essence for the little guy.
Speaker:We're fighting for people who don't have a voice.
Speaker:You know the Bible in Proverb 31 says, speak up for those who don't have a voice.
Speaker:And, and that's an opportunity that we get to, to do, to
Speaker:fight these big corporations.
Speaker:And many, many a times our clients are, are indigent.
Speaker:Our clients don't even speak the language many a times.
Speaker:And we have the honor, we have the privilege being.
Speaker:An advocate for someone is a high calling.
Speaker:It is a calling from God.
Speaker:And so we, we get the opportunity to be able to be a blessing in someone's life.
Speaker:I remember we had this case, Jerry and I, we took it to trial.
Speaker:We had a very, very, very large verdict, Washington Munos.
Speaker:And I remember when we were, I was at his office, I think on
Speaker:a weekend just handing him his checks and he was, he was in tears.
Speaker:He was, he was so happy.
Speaker:He was so overjoyed.
Speaker:Not just because we won a verdict for him, because we can lose,
Speaker:lose it such as easily as well.
Speaker:But he was overjoyed because we fought for him.
Speaker:We were his voice.
Speaker:So that's something that's very important that I carry on a daily basis when, you
Speaker:know, when we see our clients, we have the opportunity to be someone's voice.
Speaker:I remember that trial when we, you helped arrange, when you helped to arrange to
Speaker:get Washington Munos and it's, it's all public information to get, I think it was
Speaker:his daughter to testify from remote and I remember when she did and talked about.
Speaker:When she talked about her dad and the changes in her dad since
Speaker:he fell, I remember there was at least one juror was in tears.
Speaker:It was in tears as well as that, as I remember.
Speaker:How about your Spanish speaking skills?
Speaker:You want to talk about that a little bit?
Speaker:How that, you know, how that's helpful to you as a lawyer and an advocate and,
Speaker:you know, understanding maybe a lot of the cultures that we, that we come
Speaker:across, you know, representing, you know, a lot of immigrant workers and,
Speaker:and the people that we give the voice to.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:So Spanish was actually my first language.
Speaker:I was born and raised in this country, but at home we only spoke Spanish.
Speaker:So that alone, that's been a, a huge, a huge blessing because we have many clients
Speaker:who speak Spanish and then other very similar language like Portuguese and.
Speaker:You know, they're able to find someone, an attorney.
Speaker:We have many foreign speaking staff who speak Portuguese, Spanish, and, and
Speaker:they're able to find someone who is able to speak their language and understand
Speaker:them and, and not just understand what they're saying, but understand
Speaker:the, the culture, what's behind that.
Speaker:So when they're able to find that, I think many a times.
Speaker:They're able to trust, they're able to open up in a way that, you
Speaker:know, it is not always possible.
Speaker:So I think that they feel comfortable.
Speaker:So I think that having that Spanish language skill is definitely very helpful
Speaker:in being the voice for, for others.
Speaker:I have to say I love that because, you know, there's a
Speaker:whole population out there, right?
Speaker:That they are, you know, working in America and, and they may not know
Speaker:the English language that well.
Speaker:They, they might not know how to communicate, right.
Speaker:So I think it's so important that you can represent them and be a voice
Speaker:for them because they, they don't know how to do that for themselves.
Speaker:And even in cases it's, it's hard to defend yourself.
Speaker:That's why there's lawyers.
Speaker:So thank you for, for what you do every day.
Speaker:And Jerry, what, what else can you, you know, talk about in terms
Speaker:of, you know, the importance of being a voice for other people when
Speaker:they don't have their own voice?
Speaker:Well, I, I don't know.
Speaker:It'd be kind of anti-climactic if I were start to talk about that.
Speaker:Given the incredibly powerful, powerful story and really testimony that La
Speaker:Lazare, we call a la la a lot just gave.
Speaker:But I would like to him to talk a little bit about the trial he
Speaker:just had and about the result and, uh, and how it all went down.
Speaker:And, and if you could tell us about that Les, what the insurance
Speaker:company was offering to, to settle before and, you know, what the
Speaker:court arbitrator thought the case was worth and what happened there.
Speaker:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker:So recently, last week just had a trial and this was a car crash.
Speaker:Our client was, was traveling and out of nowhere a defendant.
Speaker:On Route 22, she shot across two lanes of traffic trying to hit
Speaker:an exit on the left lane, and she ran right in front of our client.
Speaker:He had no time and he just crashed into her and, and he was a young guy.
Speaker:He was at the time, he was in his thirties, but this
Speaker:drastically changed his life.
Speaker:This one in incident drastically changed his life.
Speaker:He had low back pain and.
Speaker:He was a husband.
Speaker:And a father of two young sons, a three-year-old and a six-year-old
Speaker:at the time of the crash, because of his lower back injury, he had to miss
Speaker:out on a good amount of their life, a good amount of their upbringing.
Speaker:He had to, he used to bathe his little sons and on the witness stand, I
Speaker:remember his wife testified, And she said that he was a very active father.
Speaker:As soon as he came home from work, he was taking care of his sons running, jumping
Speaker:around with them, getting him baths.
Speaker:And after that crash, he wasn't the same.
Speaker:He wasn't the same father, he wasn't the same husband.
Speaker:In fact, He, he wasn't able to even bathe his own sons because he
Speaker:wasn't able to bend down because of the, his lower back injury.
Speaker:So it was a, at first the insurance, the arbitrator found the case to be
Speaker:worth in the area of 33, 30 $5,000.
Speaker:That's what he gauged it at.
Speaker:Right before trial, defendants offered about $50,000, and that
Speaker:wasn't even anywhere close to help in any way, the client.
Speaker:So we went ahead and we fought for him.
Speaker:We were his voice.
Speaker:We fought for him.
Speaker:We took it all the way to trial to verdict, and we had a good verdict.
Speaker:And I think what helped was some of the witnesses, right?
Speaker:We wanted to present a case that.
Speaker:Showed how this crash impacted and changed his life.
Speaker:His wife took the witness stand, his work supervisor took the, the stand as well,
Speaker:remotely through Zoom, and she was very, I think they, they were able to present in a
Speaker:very, in a very solid way, which portrayed how this crash had changed his life.
Speaker:So Les, we, we, we did some podcasts.
Speaker:We did one recently about experts, and we were talking
Speaker:about the defense medical expert.
Speaker:And we, we don't name any names or anything, but what did the experts say?
Speaker:What did the expert hired by the insurance company say about your
Speaker:client and how did you deal with that to when the trial, and by the way,
Speaker:what, what was the total recovery?
Speaker:Well, the, the total verdict when you add everything up was
Speaker:in about 90,000 plus, right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:So te Yeah, how'd you deal with the, the, what'd the defense expert
Speaker:say and how'd you deal with it?
Speaker:So, the defense expert was saying that our young 30, 33, 34 year old client at
Speaker:the time of the crash wasn't injured.
Speaker:W there was nothing wrong with his back, and in essence, he was
Speaker:just faking and exaggerating.
Speaker:So we were able to cross-examine him, not just on the medical, which I believe
Speaker:strongly showed that he was wrong, but we were able to cross-examine him.
Speaker:And as far as his history, Right, that he had a history of earning
Speaker:millions of dollars representing these insurance companies.
Speaker:And I think the jury got it.
Speaker:I think they understood that this guy was just, you know, in it for the money.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And I think what really helped was the, what we call non-party fact witnesses,
Speaker:which is those other people that know the life of the injured victim.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:They were able to tell a story and I think the jury was able to understand that he
Speaker:wasn't faking, he wasn't exaggerating.
Speaker:And when they looked at all the medical records, when they looked at all of
Speaker:that and really heard the story and saw the evidence, I think they were able
Speaker:to come to the the right conclusion, which was, He was actually injured.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
Speaker:And thank you both for being here today and we will see
Speaker:everyone on the next episode.
Speaker:Thanks, dimple.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:And there you have it, folks.
Speaker:Another episode of Jersey Justice Podcast.
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