The Lawyer of the Week — Episode 40, Connecticut
Leslie Gold McPadden
Counsellor at Law, LLC
Owner, LGM Injury Law
Interview Transcript
PAMELA: Hi, my name is Pamela DeNeuve and welcome to Lawyer of the Week. I am so pleased for our guest this week. It’s Leslie Gold McPadden and she is admitted in the New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and the US District Court in the District of Connecticut. We’re very pleased to have her and let me tell you a little bit about Leslie. Leslie’s practice area includes a wide variety of litigation in all courts with an emphasis on personal injury, wrongful death, and insurance coverage. She has over 20 years of experience in all types of litigation, both representing plaintiffs and defendants, although her primary focus is representing people who have been seriously injured and individuals who have sustained catastrophic property losses.
Leslie is the founding member and past Chair of the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association, Women’s Law Caucus. She’s extremely active in the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association and holds a position on the Continuing Legal Education Lawyers Association Seminars for Lawyers and Staff on various topics. Leslie is an Executive Member of the Insurance Law Committee of the Connecticut Bar Association and she’s been an active member of the Connecticut Bar Association for years and was a member of the Health Law and Litigation committees. She is an active member of the American Association for Justice, regularly attending national seminars around the country. She was a founding member of the Medical Legal Committee of the New Haven County Bar Association and we could go on.
Leslie, we’re so pleased to have you as our Lawyer of the Week.
LESLIE: Oh, thank you so much!
PAMELA: I’d like to ask you our Lawyer of the Week questions: when and what made you decide to become a lawyer?
LESLIE: Well, I graduated from Boston University in 1987 with a Public Relations degree and I knew that I wanted Public Relations to be part of what I did but not the sole substance of it. So I thought, what field would really benefit from that angle and also allow me to give a voice to people who don’t necessarily have the vehicles and the ability to speak for themselves since I’ve sort of always loved to speak. So law school was a natural fit.
PAMELA: Oh, wonderful. So what made you decide to open your firm?
LESLIE: Well, I had worked in various other types of venues for years- small firms, big firms, I worked inside an insurance company and none of it quite fit. I went out in 2008 and I actually would categorize that as a life lesson. I went back into a firm in 2014, I came back out in 2016 with the lessons I’d learned and really was much more successful and things moved much more efficiently and rapidly, and my growth cycles have in turn also worked out much better. I’ve been much more selective about the type of work I take, although I’ve been asked many times to be people’s partners. This time around, I have declined and I feel that having control over what type of cases, how many cases, who I collaborate with has just been a way for me to be much more successful.
PAMELA: Mm-hmm. So we encourage peak performance and you have really created a robust practice. What would you say is one of the major reasons that you’ve been able to be successful with your law firm?
LESLIE: Well, I think it’s because, as you mentioned in the opening, I focus on- at this point in my career, I only work for people who’ve been injured or unfortunately people who’ve been killed. And so I only do that type of work and I’m loading my practice with these bigger cases, but what I’m doing differently from most other people, at least in Connecticut, is I really love working collaboratively. So my cases are big enough so that I can invite another attorney on board if I feel that that attorney lends a certain unique quality. The whole idea of a collaborative model for me diversifies the practice. It also diversifies the costs of these bigger cases.
Most people in Connecticut don’t perceive benefit to that and they tend to take whatever comes through the door and they are very reluctant to share cases, where I’m just the opposite and it allows me to run- my goal is a hundred cases with over a hundred thousand in value and coverage and I’m quite a ways towards that goal, whereas before when I opened up in 2008- first of all, I took on a couple of partners. They seemed like nice people, they asked, and we were taking everything that walked through the door. And it wasn’t necessarily a profitable model, even though we had more cases.
PAMELA: Mm-hmm. That’s great! So what would you tell someone who’s- the 2008 experience- like they’ve opened their law practice and now, you know, it’s not working? What advice could you give them from your past experiences?
LESLIE: Absolutely. I think that you need to keep your overhead very contained until you have a very good sense of how your cash flow is going to work. And when I first went out, I thought I needed a lot of the trappings and tools that I had had at my disposal in the bigger firms. It’s not necessarily true.
You can be very creative- like some people I collaborate on cases, other people I collaborate on other resources. We share research tools, we share office space, we share- and by sharing, you get the benefit of the same tool but for less money. So where most firms now in Connecticut run at a 40% profit margin, mine is about a 70% profit margin, whereas before I think the numbers were exactly flopped. That, you know, I really thought of paying myself as the last thing I needed to do, whereas I’ve moved that really up into the priority area.
PAMELA: That’s excellent! That’s excellent advice. Now, can you describe some of the challenges that you had to overcome to be successful initially?
LESLIE: Sure. Well, for me, my strength is that I’m a relational person and that’s, I think, a very good thing because I tend to do well with other attorneys and that’s where I get most of my work from. By being relational, I have good working relationships with judges, and claim reps, and my clients and all of that. But what I found was, I would spend a whole day essentially- I’d go to lunch with one person. So I’d, you know, start getting ready for it around 11:00, I’d drive. By the time I got back, it was three o’clock and I really had only spoken with one person.
Now I try to be much more efficient and I actually started an organization- I call it Connecticut Attorney Networker (CAN). We meet once a month, I have a hundred and ten members, who are lawyers- it’s a cross-marketing group, as well- and I have one dinner meeting a month. But it allows me to tag these hundred and ten lawyers who I’ve either worked on cases with or who I think might be in a position to send me a case at some point.
I- like this month- we have dinner at my office every month- this month, I have a panel of accountants coming to give advice to lawyers with respect to tax tips in light of the new tax reforms. So I’ll definitely get 15 or 20 people come here for dinner. It’s after hours. It’s very casual and warm and supportive. I do- it’s like going out to lunch with a hundred and ten people because even the people who don’t come, I stay on their radar.
I just did a membership drive for American Association for Justice. Instead of calling everybody on the list, I invited a couple of hundred women lawyers to come to the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut. We did a beautiful cocktail party there but I was able to touch base with 200 lawyers and, you know, had face-to-face meetings with 40 of them in one evening. So I think if you can be efficient but still be very personable, that’s the key to the operation.
PAMELA: Wonderful, wonderful. So I like how you looked and you saw how much effort and time it took to meet with one person and you actually created a structure so that you could do more in less time and connect with more people. And I’m sure everyone who came to the aquarium or comes to your office really have you top of mind because it’s a pleasant experience.
LESLIE: Absolutely. And with the CAN meetings, I try to pick interesting topics and speakers every month. And because CLE just became mandatory in Connecticut, people can actually get their CLE requirement fulfilled just by coming to the meetings. So it’s a win all the way around.
PAMELA: Wonderful.
LESLIE: It’s amazing to me how much business is transferred to me and to everyone else because when you’re in that relaxed setting, you can kind of open your mind a little bit and, you know, it’s just been something I look forward to and really everyone looks forward to once a month.
PAMELA: That’s really great! Can you give advice for anyone you think who’s struggling of how they can reach their goals?
LESLIE: Sure. I think you need to find your community. You need to really identify what cases you’re best at, what cases are most profitable for you, and then you need to figure out how to get those cases. I find I almost never refer people to general practitioners because it’s very unclear what they’re best at. So if you can- in addition to maybe you do do real estate and a number of things- but in your marketing, promote yourself as having a niche that maybe other people don’t have.
For instance, I started at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, I’m very interested in medicine, I have a nurse on my staff. And that gives me a real strength for not only medical malpractice cases but also cases that are medically complicated. Sometimes, you know, somebody has an unusual injury as a result of a car accident or some other type of negligent action and I love diving deep on the medicine, and people know me for that. So I think you need to separate yourself from the pack and then you need to be visible to the people who are most likely to need your services.
PAMELA: Okay. That’s really, really good. Now, you’re- with all these different organizations, how do you manage your schedule to have such a robust practice and yet be able to contribute in different ways in the community there in Connecticut, and in the legal community as well?
LESLIE: Well, I think in order to really have an impact in an organization, you have to have a leadership role.
PAMELA: Mm-hmm.
LESLIE: Though I don’t take leadership roles in all of the organizations at the same time.
PAMELA: Mm-hmm.
LESLIE: So for instance, I’m Vice President of my synagogue. I was asked to join a new committee within the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association this year and I said to them, I’ll do it after I complete my two-year term as Vice President. Because I think what you do outside of the meetings, if you’re a good contributor, that’s how you’re gonna make a name for yourself and that’s when people are gonna be comfortable referring you cases. If you just belong to a lot of things but you don’t participate in a way that advances the organization’s goals, I feel that that’s actually a detriment to your reputation.
PAMELA: Hmm. Okay, that’s really important. So what legacy would you like to leave?
LESLIE: One of my favorite activities is helping young people, whether they’re students or beginning lawyers, find their path. And in Connecticut, sometimes we call that “dropping down the ladder behind you.” Especially for women, because in the injury world that I practice within, it’s still dominated by men, so I particularly love to help women, although I also help young men, as well. And I’ve made so many close friends and relationships and have included those people in the organizations that I lead and that I belong to. I just think being someone who gives back, being someone who gives students confidence, being someone who says, yes, you may have to approach this differently than I did years ago. And the conventional position in a larger firm may not be the road everyone’s going to travel but I love being a resource for young people, as well as more seasoned people, who maybe are not as immersed in my area of law.
PAMELA: You know, there’s a lot of talk about the Millennials- when you speak of young lawyers- and what would you say to those people who, I think they come -you know, that they believe that Millennials have particular characteristics and not all of them are favorable and they don’t really give the Millennials an opportunity- what would you say to them?
LESLIE: I think that- the first thing I learned about Millennials is they don’t like to be called Millennials.
PAMELA: Yes.
LESLIE: But I think you have to judge each person on their own merit. At my event that I just had Thursday at the aquarium, I invited my law clerk from a couple years ago. And she actually, after graduating from law school, went and got her LLM from Trinity. Her name is Maria Morse, and she’s lovely and she’s looking for a job if anyone out there happens to be looking for an incredibly smart, hard-working, talented person. You know, nothing that people say about Millennials is true about her.
She is dedicated, she’s loyal, she’s smart. I think a lot of the younger people have been told it’s unlikely you’re gonna find a company loyal to you so that there’s no reason you should feel a loyalty going in the other direction. I think that’s sad commentary and one by one, it’s our- you know, it’s our job to disavow that. You know, I know plenty of people of every age that are looking for an easy road or a quick dollar. I don’t think it exists, at least not in Connecticut. You get in what you put out on these cases. You put- did I say that right?
PAMELA: Yes.
LESLIE: What you bring to the cases is what you get out of the cases. Last year, actually, after a 10-year road, I got a verdict of 6.824 million dollars. It surprised a number of people.
PAMELA: Wow, I’m sure. Congratulations, by the way!
LESLIE: Thank you. Persistence, putting the right people on my team, you know- and it was a long, hard-fought battle but every step of the way was worth it when we got our verdict.
PAMELA: Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. So it seems that, Leslie, that you’re leaving legacies for young lawyers, young women lawyers, and young male lawyers, as well as for your peers. So that is really admirable. And I just noticed how you, you know, in your interview here, you actually were looking out for someone else. What was the young lady’s name again that is looking for a position?
LESLIE: Her name’s Maria Morse.
PAMELA: Marie Morris?
LESLIE: M-o-r-s-e.
PAMELA: Morse, okay.
LESLIE: You know, I was doing the products liability and premise case together when she was my clerk. She did tremendous research. We had a jury charge that was novel to Connecticut, thanks to her good, hard work. Like I said, she just got her LLM. She’s gonna be a rock star but she needs her foot in the door. She actually lives in New York. I think she took a couple of bars. She’s very flexible as to what her first position might be, keeping a lot of doors open.
PAMELA: Excellent. And I’ll keep my ears open too, in case I hear of something.
LESLIE: Sure.
PAMELA: So our final question for Lawyer of the Week is, name one thing that you do to manage your stress levels.
LESLIE: My favorite way to manage my stress level is to play poker.
PAMELA: Oh!
LESLIE: First of all, I just love being at the casino- the sound of the chips, the people- it keeps my brain just busy enough so that I don’t think about anything but the hand I’m playing.
PAMELA: Mm-hmm.
LESLIE: And I’m pretty good. You know, pretty happy.
PAMELA: Wonderful, wonderful. Well, Leslie, thank you so much for being the Lawyer of the Week. Is there anything that you might like to say to your fellow Connecticut lawyers or lawyers- other lawyers, in general- to inspire them? Because you seem to be very much a person who likes to inspire those around you.
LESLIE: Sure. I think it’s just find your community. You know and keep an open mind. Whatever you love to do, you know, let people know because I think sharing and collaborating really makes a lot of people successful. And from what I understand, when people isolate, they may get the work of the few people they know or so forth, but they seem pretty unhappy. So I think by sharing your success and sharing other people’s success, I think that gives me a lot of new energy, fresh energy.
PAMELA: Wonderful, wonderful. Well, thank you so much for being our Lawyer of the Week. And to our guests- to our community- we are so happy that you were here with us today and we hope to see you again next week.