When Fighting for Justice Becomes Personal
My path to becoming an asbestos attorney wasn't planned. It was shaped by tragedy, loss, and the gradual realization that the same products killing my clients had already taken members of my own family. I just didn't know it at the time.
My First Asbestos Case Opened My Eyes
I came to law school the long way. I grew up in a blue-collar family, dropped out of high school, and spent years working in technology before the dotcom crash wiped out my career and forced me to start over. Using my GED, I put myself through college and then law school, graduating from Michigan State University College of Law in 2010.
The first firm that hired me out of law school assigned me to the mesothelioma case of a family seeking justice for their father, a pipefitter who had died from mesothelioma after decades of exposure at a petrochemical plant outside Houston. As I dug into the evidence, researching the products that had killed this man, a chilling realization began to take shape.
The same asbestos-containing materials that had robbed that family of its patriarch had killed some of my own family members. I just hadn't known it at the time of their deaths.
Roy: The Grandfather Who Made Me a Car Guy
Some of my most treasured memories of adolescence are weekend afternoons spent in the garage with my maternal grandfather Roy, a WWII veteran and gifted mechanic who could fix anything with his hands. Even after a stroke affected his speech, he patiently taught me how to do a proper brake job on my old Chevrolet Suburban, guiding my hands with the quiet expertise of someone who had spent a lifetime working with tools.
What I didn't understand then was that Roy had been unknowingly exposed to asbestos for decades—through the brake pads and clutches he handled daily, and during his Army service aboard ships lined with asbestos insulation. When I was 19, he was suddenly hospitalized with severe pain and diagnosed with untreatable cancer. Three days later, he was gone. I wasn't even able to make it home in time to say goodbye.
At the time Roy died, we had no idea asbestos was to blame. Roy was a smoker, and we didn't think to look for other causes. Today, I know exactly which companies put those deadly fibers on the ships where he served and in the auto parts he worked with every day. Every time I settle a case involving those same products, I think of Roy.
Terry: The Grandmother Who Brightened Every Christmas
Roy's wife Terry faced a double exposure that was tragically common for women of her generation. She worked in a Silicon Valley computer chip factory during the 1960s and 70s, operating ovens insulated with asbestos. But perhaps more dangerously, she washed Roy's work clothes each week, never knowing that the dust clinging to his coveralls contained deadly fibers that would settle into her lungs.
When Terry was diagnosed with lung cancer, everyone assumed her smoking was to blame. It wasn't until years later, as I learned more about asbestos exposure, that I understood how asbestos fibers multiply cancer risk in smokers. Doctors call it a synergistic effect and it basically means that the combination of asbestos and smoking is far more dangerous than either one on their own. But here's what matters legally: smokers are still able to file trust claims and lawsuits.
Terry died with almost nothing. If we had known about her legal options, her final months could have afforded her much more comfort and dignity. I think of her every time I help a client who's been told their smoking disqualifies them from compensation. It doesn't.
Jerry: The Father Who Taught Me About Integrity
My father Jerry worked in a titanium foundry during the 1950s, surrounded by asbestos-lined equipment that no one warned him about. I never knew the blue-collar version of my father because by the time I was born, he had moved into white-collar work. But he never lost the values he learned coming up. He was scrupulously honest and instilled in me how important it was to be someone people could trust. He had a strong moral code, and he expected the same from me.
When his cancer diagnosis came decades later, none of us suspected asbestos was to blame. We thought it was just bad luck. The doctors told him he had a grapefruit-sized tumor and gave him three months to live. He fought for nine months, which was long enough for him to watch a video of me graduating from law school; he was too unwell to fly out and watch the ceremony in person. Dad died a few short weeks before I got the news that I had passed the bar exam. I think of him every time a client is scared that they won't be there for their loved ones, and I tell them how much of a difference money can make in the last weeks and months. My father's life insurance policy paid half of the policy shortly after my father's diagnosis. That $50,000 was more money than my family had ever had access to at one time, and it took the financial pressure off during the hardest period of our lives. It gave my father the dignity and comfort in his final months that my grandmother never had.
Suzanne: The Mother Who Taught Me to Never Give Up
Growing up, I was always annoyed by the white, powdery residue that clung to the little blue throw rug in front of our bathroom sink. My mother Suzanne used baby powder daily as part of her routine, never knowing that some brands contained asbestos contamination. And when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, we didn't think that the baby powder she used could have been to blame. Today we routinely represent women with ovarian cancer who were exposed to asbestos through talc.
Talcum powder wasn't the only source of my mother's exposure to asbestos, either. As a child, she had helped wash Roy's asbestos-contaminated work clothes alongside Terry, creating a multi-generational exposure pattern that connected her illness to her father's work decades earlier.
Unlike the others, my mother's story has a different ending. She survived her battle with cancer and is still part of my life. When I help clients who've faced similar struggles with talc-related cancers, I think of her and feel profound gratitude that her story had a better outcome.
My Own Battle with Cancer
My understanding of what my clients endure became even more personal when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Though my cancer was treated successfully, I experienced firsthand the crushing fatigue, emotional numbness, and sense of hopelessness that so often accompany a diagnosis. Those dark days gave me a deeper empathy for what my clients and their families go through, including the physical exhaustion, the emotional toll, and the way cancer touches every aspect of life.
My experience with cancer made me a better advocate. When I sit across from clients who are struggling with their own diagnoses, I don't just understand their legal needs. I understand their fear, their anger, and their desperate need for someone to fight for their family. And when they have bad days and bad moods, I remember how cancer sometimes brought out the worst in me, too.
Why I'll Fight This Fight for the Rest of My Life
There isn't a day that goes by when I don't think about the family I've lost to asbestos exposure. I miss them during holidays, I missed them while fighting my own cancer, and I see echoes of them in many of my clients' stories. But rather than simply grieving these losses, I've learned to let their memories motivate me.
This work isn't just my career. It's my calling. Because when I someday join my loved ones, I want them to be proud of the work I did to help families like ours.