Episode 5: Bilingual Iraq Veteran Turned New Jersey Injury Lawyer Advocates for the Voiceless with Lazaro Berenguer, Esq.

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Welcome to Jersey Justice, a civil law podcast that shares

practical tips and stories about personal and workplace injuries.

Joined two of the brightest New Jersey injury attorneys, Gerald Clark

and Mark Morris of Clark Law Firm.

As they take you behind the scenes of.

Justice and civil law.

But first, a quick disclaimer.

The information shared on this podcast is for general information purposes only.

Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any

individual case or situation.

This information is not intended to create and does not constitute

an attorney-client relationship.

Hi everyone.

Welcome back to Jersey Justice.

Today we are here with Jerry and we're here with Lara Behringer.

So we're gonna be talking about why did he decide to become a personal injury lawyer?

Because we always like to know the story and the why behind why people get

up and they do what they do every day.

So welcome to the show.

So hi dimple.

My, my name is Laro Behringer.

I'm one of number of personal injury attorneys here at the Clark Law Firm.

As you very well may know, we specialize in personal injury cases

and in all kinds of accident cases.

Wonderful.

And now you know, I do have to ask you the question of the day, which is, when

was it that you decided to become a lawyer and then, you know, tell us a little bit

of that backstory of that why, and also how did you pick the type of practice

era that you were going to go into?

Well, that's a funny story.

I went into college thinking that I, wanting to go to medical school, I

took, I remember Biology 1 0 1 and that final exam was about 30, 40 pages thick.

And I said, no, this is it.

So then I just started taking classes in the pre-law area classes

that ended up interesting me.

And eventually I decided, yes, this is something that I want

to pursue very passionate about.

These classes.

I was doing very well in them.

So that's how I decided to go into law school.

I'm gonna dig a little deeper.

I'm gonna, so you wanted to be a doctor, am I hearing that right?

You wanted to be a doctor, but instead you ended up becoming a lawyer.

Feel like there's some in between story that we're missing there.

So like how did you decide, how did that switch happen?

It wasn't too, too abrupt.

It was just, I decided just to, Take some additional classes

and I ended up liking them.

I ended up doing very well in them, and so I then in time, I decided,

well, let me start looking into law school, into what it's about, what

it's like, and, and that's how I, my, my interests grew, especially

because I was doing very well in them.

I enjoyed it.

I had a number of internships as well that actually showed me what it is

to be a lawyer in, in, you know, in different realms, in different areas.

Tell us about like your, your family background.

I mean, when people say to me, oh, you're a lawyer and you're

youngest of 13 kids, there must be a lot of lawyers in your family.

And I'm like, Nope, I'm the only one.

What, what's your backstory, your family story in terms of that, you

know, was there encouragement from the family and, you know, that kind of

thing and, and how did that all wash?

Definitely I, I'm the only attorney in my family, you know, it's my

sister and I, and it's funny because I wasn't one who initially liked to

read a lot, but you know, when you go to law school and you obviously go

to undergrad, you, you don't have a choice and you build a liking to it.

My dad, he's from Cuba.

He fled, he.

Fled that the Cuban dictatorship, my mom is from the Dominican Republic.

They, they met here in this country.

And then just interested in me, especially the, the justice aspect behind it was,

was, was just very interesting to me and that's what I initially found.

Thank you for sharing that with us.

And I think for you, it happened organically and I love that it just,

you know, you kind of fell into it.

You took some classes, you really liked it.

It's also quite interesting.

You're, you're the only attorney in the family sometimes, you know, there's

a family of doctors and everyone's a doctor, there's a family of lawyers and,

and everyone's a lawyer, so I love that.

Tell us, you know, tell us a little bit more about like

yourself as a person, like.

You know your background.

Is there anything you did when you were in school or growing up

that you wanted to share with us?

Or maybe I think Jerry might wanna dive into that.

Sure.

I, I can, I can definitely go into that a little bit.

So right after my, my undergrad work at Rutgers in, in New Brunswick, I,

I knew I wanted to go to law school, but I decided to, to take a little

bit of a break from the school.

So I decided to, you know, to join the Army.

I was in the Army, I was in the military.

I was with a very popular Division a hundred first Airborne

Division air assault based out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

While there, We deployed to Iraq to to create Iraq, and my passion for

the law grew while, while I was there.

Especially based on what was going on in the government

at, at the time in, in Iraq.

The, the, but the most important thing to me has been my faith.

My faith in, in God.

That has been the, you know, the most important thing to me.

My faith in the Lord started when I was in Iraq.

I was going through a very, very dark time, very depressed, even suicidal.

And then I, I had a, an encounter with God.

And, and then that's when my relationship with, with the Lord, uh, sparked.

And even after that is when I really started to pursue God and, and, and my

desire to be an attorney even grew because that's when I started realizing more

and more about what really is the legal field and what we do to, to help others.

LA I gotta, I gotta ask you about that.

So I, last summer I did a a Navy Seal swim.

It's organized by Bill Brown, who's an attorney at McCarter in English, and

he was of a Navy Seal and it's like a three mile swim across the Hudson River.

He likes to say the river's.

Dangerous because of the currents.

I like to say it's dangerous because it's incredibly dirty

and nasty to swim in that.

And it's a three mile swim and it's a two mile run and then it's like

a hundred pullups and 300 pushups.

And you know, I'm kind of like a competitive person, so I'm

like, oh, I'm wondering how you know who wins this thing.

And there's like, and I was talking to Bill, he is like, cuz I did a

couple practice swims with him last summer across the river, three miles.

From Jersey City to lower Manhattan and, and I'm like, all right, who wins?

He's like, well, no one wins.

I'm like, well, what's this all about?

And he's like, really?

It's about getting veteran veterans together.

Bill's big thing is if veterans don't look out for each other, no one's going to.

So it's a way to get them together, and it is the reason we do.

I forget exactly what it is, but it's, it's, we do 22, I think it's 22

pushups at each station or something, or 22 pullups at each station.

And that's the honor of the 22 veterans that take their

lives every day on average.

And so the reason they get the veterans together is to get guys together so

they're staying in touch if they're going through difficult times.

The person who gave the prayer at before the event last summer, the

Swim on the Hudson started was Jim Purdy, I believe, a Navy Seal

who went through some tough times.

So can you talk about that?

Like, you know, for people that did not serve such as myself, I.

What is it that leads to that kind of thing?

Is it the combat?

Like what is it and, and what can you, what can you recommend to others

that might have gone through that?

Cuz you're doing, you know, you're doing awesome, you know, you're very successful.

You just had an awesome win in Essex County Court.

So having come from, so.

Far from those dark times, what can you offer to others that might be

going through that, that kind of thing.

And, you know, how, how did you get through it?

What can be offered to others is, it's one thing, honestly, it's it's hope.

When, when you are in, in a place of combat, in a place of warfare, as humans,

I don't think we're built for that.

You know, you, you get all this training, but humanly speaking, there's

only so much that you can handle.

So, Come to a place of of sadness.

I mean, you're away from your family, away from home.

Constant living in fear.

And the only thing that helped me was realizing that there is hope in the

Bible, in the book of Hebrews describes, That our hope, our hope in the times of

trials and tribulations, our hope, our anchor in the storm is Jesus Christ.

And I started to realize that, not a as, as I progressed my and,

and learn more about this hope.

And, and, and that's, that's what helps.

That's the only thing that really helps.

That's the only thing that really heals and, and restores.

I remember when I came back, From Iraq, I was in a parking lot,

think of like a mall parking lot.

And I was with my sister at the time and I said to her, what?

And there were cars all around.

There was a mall.

And I said to her, this place is very quiet.

And she looked at me, she didn't understand.

But what she didn't understand was the, the life that I had been living for about

a year in which there were rocket attacks.

You know, we had a soldier that, that got killed in a rocket attack over there.

And so it's something that's only understood, I think by someone

who's been there, but also it's understood by God himself, right?

Because he's ever present and he fills us with hope in, in those

difficult, in those difficult times and seasons in our lives, whether

it's at war, whether it's here, when things are not so, so great sometimes.

So a as, as a plaintiff's lawyer.

You know, we talk a lot on this podcast about fighting the insurance companies

and how difficult it is and the challenges and how they always try to drown us

in paper to get a away from paying.

How is your experience like kind of going through just such a tough time like that?

And the things you talked about.

How does that, how does that incorporate into practicing law

each day and, and keeping going and, and fighting for people?

Like how do you incorporate those concepts about hope and your faith

and, and the challenges that you went through fighting for the country?

And, you know, I thanked you.

I remember when I first met you, I thought, I thanked you for your

service and I, I, you know, I hope it doesn't sound trite, but I gotta

thank you again publicly like this.

But if you can talk about that.

Definitely, definitely as personal injury attorneys, as plaintiffs personal injury

attorneys we're fighting for, we're fighting, in essence for the little guy.

We're fighting for people who don't have a voice.

You know the Bible in Proverb 31 says, speak up for those who don't have a voice.

And, and that's an opportunity that we get to, to do, to

fight these big corporations.

And many, many a times our clients are, are indigent.

Our clients don't even speak the language many a times.

And we have the honor, we have the privilege being.

An advocate for someone is a high calling.

It is a calling from God.

And so we, we get the opportunity to be able to be a blessing in someone's life.

I remember we had this case, Jerry and I, we took it to trial.

We had a very, very, very large verdict, Washington Munos.

And I remember when we were, I was at his office, I think on

a weekend just handing him his checks and he was, he was in tears.

He was, he was so happy.

He was so overjoyed.

Not just because we won a verdict for him, because we can lose,

lose it such as easily as well.

But he was overjoyed because we fought for him.

We were his voice.

So that's something that's very important that I carry on a daily basis when, you

know, when we see our clients, we have the opportunity to be someone's voice.

I remember that trial when we, you helped arrange, when you helped to arrange to

get Washington Munos and it's, it's all public information to get, I think it was

his daughter to testify from remote and I remember when she did and talked about.

When she talked about her dad and the changes in her dad since

he fell, I remember there was at least one juror was in tears.

It was in tears as well as that, as I remember.

How about your Spanish speaking skills?

You want to talk about that a little bit?

How that, you know, how that's helpful to you as a lawyer and an advocate and,

you know, understanding maybe a lot of the cultures that we, that we come

across, you know, representing, you know, a lot of immigrant workers and,

and the people that we give the voice to.

Absolutely.

So Spanish was actually my first language.

I was born and raised in this country, but at home we only spoke Spanish.

So that alone, that's been a, a huge, a huge blessing because we have many clients

who speak Spanish and then other very similar language like Portuguese and.

You know, they're able to find someone, an attorney.

We have many foreign speaking staff who speak Portuguese, Spanish, and, and

they're able to find someone who is able to speak their language and understand

them and, and not just understand what they're saying, but understand

the, the culture, what's behind that.

So when they're able to find that, I think many a times.

They're able to trust, they're able to open up in a way that, you

know, it is not always possible.

So I think that they feel comfortable.

So I think that having that Spanish language skill is definitely very helpful

in being the voice for, for others.

I have to say I love that because, you know, there's a

whole population out there, right?

That they are, you know, working in America and, and they may not know

the English language that well.

They, they might not know how to communicate, right.

So I think it's so important that you can represent them and be a voice

for them because they, they don't know how to do that for themselves.

And even in cases it's, it's hard to defend yourself.

That's why there's lawyers.

So thank you for, for what you do every day.

And Jerry, what, what else can you, you know, talk about in terms

of, you know, the importance of being a voice for other people when

they don't have their own voice?

Well, I, I don't know.

It'd be kind of anti-climactic if I were start to talk about that.

Given the incredibly powerful, powerful story and really testimony that La

Lazare, we call a la la a lot just gave.

But I would like to him to talk a little bit about the trial he

just had and about the result and, uh, and how it all went down.

And, and if you could tell us about that Les, what the insurance

company was offering to, to settle before and, you know, what the

court arbitrator thought the case was worth and what happened there.

Yeah, definitely.

So recently, last week just had a trial and this was a car crash.

Our client was, was traveling and out of nowhere a defendant.

On Route 22, she shot across two lanes of traffic trying to hit

an exit on the left lane, and she ran right in front of our client.

He had no time and he just crashed into her and, and he was a young guy.

He was at the time, he was in his thirties, but this

drastically changed his life.

This one in incident drastically changed his life.

He had low back pain and.

He was a husband.

And a father of two young sons, a three-year-old and a six-year-old

at the time of the crash, because of his lower back injury, he had to miss

out on a good amount of their life, a good amount of their upbringing.

He had to, he used to bathe his little sons and on the witness stand, I

remember his wife testified, And she said that he was a very active father.

As soon as he came home from work, he was taking care of his sons running, jumping

around with them, getting him baths.

And after that crash, he wasn't the same.

He wasn't the same father, he wasn't the same husband.

In fact, He, he wasn't able to even bathe his own sons because he

wasn't able to bend down because of the, his lower back injury.

So it was a, at first the insurance, the arbitrator found the case to be

worth in the area of 33, 30 $5,000.

That's what he gauged it at.

Right before trial, defendants offered about $50,000, and that

wasn't even anywhere close to help in any way, the client.

So we went ahead and we fought for him.

We were his voice.

We fought for him.

We took it all the way to trial to verdict, and we had a good verdict.

And I think what helped was some of the witnesses, right?

We wanted to present a case that.

Showed how this crash impacted and changed his life.

His wife took the witness stand, his work supervisor took the, the stand as well,

remotely through Zoom, and she was very, I think they, they were able to present in a

very, in a very solid way, which portrayed how this crash had changed his life.

So Les, we, we, we did some podcasts.

We did one recently about experts, and we were talking

about the defense medical expert.

And we, we don't name any names or anything, but what did the experts say?

What did the expert hired by the insurance company say about your

client and how did you deal with that to when the trial, and by the way,

what, what was the total recovery?

Well, the, the total verdict when you add everything up was

in about 90,000 plus, right?

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Cool.

So te Yeah, how'd you deal with the, the, what'd the defense expert

say and how'd you deal with it?

So, the defense expert was saying that our young 30, 33, 34 year old client at

the time of the crash wasn't injured.

W there was nothing wrong with his back, and in essence, he was

just faking and exaggerating.

So we were able to cross-examine him, not just on the medical, which I believe

strongly showed that he was wrong, but we were able to cross-examine him.

And as far as his history, Right, that he had a history of earning

millions of dollars representing these insurance companies.

And I think the jury got it.

I think they understood that this guy was just, you know, in it for the money.

Right.

And I think what really helped was the, what we call non-party fact witnesses,

which is those other people that know the life of the injured victim.

Right.

They were able to tell a story and I think the jury was able to understand that he

wasn't faking, he wasn't exaggerating.

And when they looked at all the medical records, when they looked at all of

that and really heard the story and saw the evidence, I think they were able

to come to the the right conclusion, which was, He was actually injured.

Awesome.

Wow.

Thank you so much.

And thank you both for being here today and we will see

everyone on the next episode.

Thanks, dimple.

Thank you.

And there you have it, folks.

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