Articles Posted in General

Believe me, getting injured is not worth the money you can get in settlement or at trial with a personal injury like me.  It never is.  I have represented hundreds of clients over the years, and every single one of them would have gladly returned the money in exchange for turning back the clock to their pre-injury life.  Although obviously no one can turn a clock back (well, except for Marty McFly in “Back to the Future”), there is a lot we all can do to reduce the odds that a serious accident – one of life’s great wrecking balls – will strike us.

In my line of work, I see accident victims all the time.  Most serious injuries I see happen while my clients are operating a motor vehicle or dangerous machinery or when they are working from heights. To help avoid or minimize these injuries, drive carefully, don’t get distracted, wear seatbelts, wear helmets when required or advisable, use the right safety equipment, use eye protection when using power equipment, and don’t drink when you are using machinery of any kind. The point is this: Even when your injuries are largely someone else’s fault, you still might avoid or minimize the injuries if you just use your common sense.

What about Medical Malpractice?  Can you avoid being a victim of that kind of injury?  This is an important question because medical malpractice is now the third leading cause of death (after heart disease and cancer) in America.

I recently flew across the Great Pond to France. I’m no stranger there. I lived there for five years in my 20’s.  So my French ain’t bad.  I also have three daughters and four grandchildren over there.  Here we are having some fun:

While in Toulouse, my French son-in-law and father of two of my grandchildren, Fabrice, took me to a Court called the “Tribunal d’Instance”.  There’s no exact translation for this since the justice system is so different over there.  Mostly this Court processed what we would call misdemeanors and low-level felonies.   Fabrice and I sat through four legal proceedings in one afternoon for about 5 hours.

Here’s a picture of the courthouse:

Last night my wife Alejandra and I attended the Geneva YMCA’s fundraiser, the “Frost Fest”, at Three Brothers Winery right along the eastern shores of Seneca Lake.  Here is a photo of us sitting on the ice thrown:

Yes, lots of beautiful ice carvings.  And lots of other great stuff to see and do.  Local wine, beer and restaurant tastings and to top it all off a huge fireworks display.

And notice the beautiful moon-lit evening:

Merry Christmas everyone!  Hope you all enjoy this holiday season.  Like most of you, I will be spending Christmas with family and friends.  But come the New Year, I will be spending a week with complete strangers.  Here’s my story:

I will be a volunteer lawyer on a week-long assignment in an immigrant detention center near the Texas-Mexico border. I will be helping asylum seekers advance their claims. I will help them present evidence that they have a credible or reasonable fear of returning home because their safety or lives are threatened there. The fear cannot be simply economic. It has to be a fear of persecution based on their ethnicity, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

It’s not an easy claim to win.  As anyone who follows the news knows, our borders are now crowded with refugees, mostly from Central America.  Some politicians have painted these refugees as evil.  Although there may be a criminal here and there in the group, the vast majority of refugees consist of simple, poor, and desperate families seeking safe harbor.  And unfortunately for them, most of their asylum claims will fall on deaf ears.  Their “reasonable fear” of returning home will not fit within the narrow confines of asylum law.

Yesterday there were lots of smiles on the sidewalk of East Genesee Street, Auburn, NY, just outside the office of Michaels & Smolak.   The reason?  Our back-to-school backpack giveaway.  We loaded up the new backpacks with all kinds of school goodies and supplies.  Live radio coverage was provided by Mix 98.5.  For a full hour they came, lined up, chose their backpack, and left with a smile.  Most takers were single parents or grandparents with their kids.  It was so great to see smiling kids pick out their backpacks.  Shout out to Catholic Charity volunteer Ellen Wayne and Angelo DiAngelo of Angelo’s Pizzeria (free pizza)! Check out our photos below:

Keep safe!

Mike Bersani