The debut episode! Charles Jung and Harrison Cooper welcome listeners to the show for the very first time and give them a taste of what to expect during Season 1 of “Exhibit Eh: The Oatley Vigmond Podcast”. Charles asks Harrison a series of questions about his upbringing to get to know him better and uncover what led to him becoming an associate lawyer at the firm (1:41-16:45). Harrison returns the favour and interviews Charles about his experiences as a law student, being drawn to the personal injury industry, and what it was like meeting Jim Vigmond for the first time (16:47-32:46). The duo wraps up the inaugural show by explaining how to connect with the podcast and its hosts online (32:54-34:41). The material and content provided on "Exhibit Eh": The Oatley Vigmond Podcast is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
The debut episode! Charles Jung and Harrison Cooper welcome listeners to the show for the very first time and give them a taste of what to expect during Season 1 of “Exhibit Eh: The Oatley Vigmond Podcast”. Charles asks Harrison a series of questions about his upbringing to get to know him better and uncover what led to him becoming an associate lawyer at the firm (1:41-16:45). Harrison returns the favour and interviews Charles about his experiences as a law student, being drawn to the personal injury industry, and what it was like meeting Jim Vigmond for the first time (16:47-32:46). The duo wraps up the inaugural show by explaining how to connect with the podcast and its hosts online (32:54-34:41). The material and content provided on "Exhibit Eh": The Oatley Vigmond Podcast is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
Welcome to"Exhibit Eh": Canada's personal injury podcast, presented by Oatley Vigmond, Ontario's personal injury law firm. My name is Charles Jung and I'm joined by my co-host, Harrison Cooper.
Harrison:Hey Charles, how are you doing?
Charles:Good. This is the first episode out of 10, and we're hoping to introduce some very exciting and interesting content for anyone who's interested in listening and learning more about personal injury advocacy and the opposite side of the coin, insurance law. So on today's episode we're just going to give you a primer and background about who we are, how we came into this field, and introduce ourselves so that you can get to know a little bit more about us.
Harrison:Yeah. And you may come to this podcast from a number of different perspectives. You may be a lawyer, you may be a law student, you may be a healthcare provider. You might be a client of ours or a potential future client of ours.
Speaker 2:Whoever you are and whatever your background is, you know, settle in and we'll teach you a thing or two about personal injury litigation. And, we've got some great guests along the way to learn from as well. On the first episode of Exhibit Eh, we are gonna interview each other. Essentially we're, you know, you don't know who we are and the best way to do that is just by having a casual conversation. So, Charles is going to interview me and then I'll interview Charles and by the end of the first podcast, you'll have a good sense of who we are and what our backgrounds are and why we love what we do working here at Oatley Vigmond.
Charles:Harrison, tell me, when did you first know you wanted to become a lawyer?
Harrison:When did I first know I wanted to become a lawyer? I think I always thought that I wanted to become a lawyer. Uh, I don't think I knew exactly...
Charles:Like, from when you were a baby or like what do you, what are you talking about?
:I don't think when I was a baby I knew I wanted to be a lawyer, but, uh, my dad was a lawyer. And so growing up, I always loved hearing stories from him about, you know, trials that he was working on, uh, cases that he had. And you know, even even when it wasn't a trial, he would come home and we would have dinner as a family and he would explain a really complicated, you know, personal injury case, um, a motor vehicle accident where there were multiple parties at fault and he would be defending one of them and he wouldn't tell us who it was and he would ask us to apportion liability. And I was like 12 years old and I thought that that was just a totally normal dinner conversation and he would use that, you know, market research with me and my siblings and my mom and his understanding of what, you know, sticking points might be in a case, almost like a little mini focus group. Like we do at Oatley Vigmond before a trial, he would understand: what is a juror going to latch onto in terms of finding liability. So, um, and he always liked my insight as well as, you know, my siblings. But so I think from that perspective, I always thought, hmm, this is something that I might be good at. And you know, I saw that we had a good life growing up and I thought this might be a thing that I'm interested in. As I got older I kind of was more drawn towards social sciences, more, you know, pre-law school type of a program. And by the time I was finishing up my undergrad at Guelph, I was definitely dead set on writing the LSAT, and going to law school. So I think for sure from a young age, but it probably didn't really fully crystalize until probably closer to university.
Charles:And for the listeners who don't know who your father is, uh, you can feel free to name drop him.
Harrison:My dad is Vance Cooper. He's a mediator. He used to be an insurance defence lawyer and a partner at his firm, Laxton Glass. And, he's been mediating now full time, and not practicing as an insurance defense lawyer for probably over a decade. He got in at mediation when it was first made mandatory by the rules committee when they made mediation mandatory for Toronto, Ottawa and Windsor, he recognized an opportunity and uh, and you know, took some mediation courses, got proficient and it was one of the first guys in as a mediator.
Charles:I've had the pleasure of having a mediation with Vance and uh,
Harrison:How'd that go?
Charles:Oh, I don't think we settled that day, but.
Harrison:He must've been off his game.
Charles:I don't think it was his fault. But, I remember him wearing a sweet bow tie and I think he's known for uh, wearing bow ties to,
Harrison:Yeah, he,
Charles:His dress, he's very sharp.
Harrison:I think that's his signature look[laughter] yeah, certainly noticeable amongst everyone else in a much nicer full length ties at Network.
Charles:In a sea of blues and greys.
Harrison:Yeah. Stands out a little bit.
Charles:So you decided to go to law school. Did you know you wanted to get into litigation or be a litigator from the get go? Or did that kind of, uh, come about later?
Harrison:For sure. No, it was always litigation for me. I could never think of law in any other way. Even at law school, you know, you take real estate in first year I think it was called property is the name of the course.
Charles:Where'd you go to law school again?
Harrison:I was at Windsor. Best law school in Ontario.
Charles:There's an asterisk beside.
Harrison:And uh, and so yeah, for me it was always litigation. I always knew I wanted to be in court as much as I could, advocating for a client's position and, you know, win, lose or draw. I definitely wanted to be on my feet in the courtroom. And, I couldn't fathom, you know, a career sitting behind a desk and doing transactional work. Not that, you know, I'm sure that those lawyers also love their work, but for me it was, always litigation was what I was passionate about.
Charles:Right. And so when we get into the, I guess the nuts and bolts of it, litigation can mean a lot of different areas. Did you know, you wanted to be in like a certain area, or were there kind of, uh, paths open to you and you kinda, you know, explored?
Harrison:So I went through the OCI process and went through the in-firms and I ended up winding up at a top personal injury boutique firm, in Toronto. And so I summered there. Uh, I was asked back to article there and, uh, I really, really liked doing personal injury litigation. I had the opportunity to spend three weeks with a family who, their 18 year old daughter was in a very, very serious motor vehicle collision. She was driving home from her part time job when an inattentive speed racing driver who is speed racing some other car that was out driving around that night. He was going 120 kilometers in a 50 zone and she was coming through and he made a left turn. And, absolutely destroyed her car and completely changed her life. And he was charged criminally with criminal negligence causing bodily harm. And there was a full criminal trial, a full, you know, like expert evidence, uh, 12 jurors and went the full distance to all the way to verdict. And the family went to the trial every single day and they listened to all the evidence and they just couldn't comprehend why this young driver was behaving so poorly. And so I really, um, relished the opportunity to kind of help guide this family through this very difficult time. And I wasn't, I was an articling student, not a lawyer, and I had no real experience in criminal law except for what I learned in law school and what I studied for on the bar exam. Um, and so, you know, they would ask me a certain question about, you know, what does this mean? You know, what, what does the rule of Browne and Dunn, and I would remember, I would recall back from my evidence lectures and I would, you know, make sure that I made a note to myself to do some more research tonight and you know, come back the next day with an answer for the family. And they really appreciated, you know, the, the hours that I spent with them, guiding them through, uh, making them feel comfortable with the criminal trial that didn't impact the law firm's ability to prove negligence on this driver, but to make them feel comfortable, make them feel like they were being looked after. And, um, from that point on, I knew that I wanted to be assisting, uh, families or, or individuals who had been injured as a result of someone else's negligence. Um, you know, to make an impact on an individual like that I think is hugely important. And you know, you take someone who's been in this car accident or, or any sort of accident, medical malpractice, any case, they're really, they're hurt, they're vulnerable and they don't know where to turn for answers. And at the end of it, you get to rebuild them, whether it's making a referral for a certain treatment team or you know, making a recommendation to go see an OT who then helps get them for psychological counseling. And at the end of it, you resolve their case, with their instructions and you get a hug from that client and it, I can't imagine a better feeling than that. So it's very rewarding. So, and I think I got that sense early that it could be very rewarding from even just spending my summer and my articling term working in a personal injury law firm. And, uh, yeah. So for me, that's kinda how I, I decided that I wanted this as a career.
Charles:So one of the biggest draws for you was the ability to help people, ordinary people?
Harrison:Yeah.
Charles:Who get hurt in serious, uh, awful ways and to help them through this. What can be a very complex and confusing process.
Harrison:Yeah, I mean, and I try never to, I try to always remember that this is, this person's only experience, uh, with civil litigation. Um, unless, you know, maybe they have some commercial experience before maybe they have their own business or something like that and it didn't go well. But you know, being involved in litigation is really foreign to everybody. It is scary. And meanwhile, you know, they might not be working, they might not be earning an income and they might have a mortgage to pay and a family to support and they're trying to keep it all together and they just, you know, it's our job as personal injury lawyers, not just to know the law and to advocate for them at discoveries and mediations and pretrials and trial. It's our job to make sure that they're informed every step of the way and make sure that, you know, they feel that their needs are being looked after. And so I'm always mindful of, of if a client sends me an email, I'm going to respond. You know, even if if I can't give them the exact answer that they're looking for, Hey, got your email, let's set up a time to discuss.
Charles:Right. And that's by doing that, you know, you're helping them. You're making sure that they know that their needs are being looked after, right? So you have this great, uh, experience articling um, but you don't necessarily go right back into a personal injury plaintiff's side of things. Uh, where do you go next?
Harrison:That's right. I was, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to, uh, get some experience from the defense side. So I finished my articling term. Uh, there was no space. Me and my co-article and colleagues, uh, didn't get hired back. And, uh, I found a job at a defense firm in Toronto, uh, where I worked for two and a half years just under. And I gained tons of valuable insight into how, uh, an insurance adjuster would adjust their claims, how they evaluate and assess risk, what factors are important to them, where they might spend money, um, on surveillance, what that might mean. What experts they like to retain, um, and ultimately just gain a sense that there's, I can't even begin to list off the different, uh, soft skills that I kind of inherently now know when a defense lawyer says something to me at discoveries. I, I now know, uh, okay, they're probably trying to get a sense of this and maybe they're thinking about, you know, are they gonna really try to reserve this file as a threshold defensible file or are they going to really make sure that they recommend to their client, you know, this is a likable plaintiff and they don't want to have a case where they can't later get money to resolve the case. Um, for something where it might be a threshold case, but it probably isn't.
Charles:[transition music]. Alright, we're back. So you did two years of, uh, work at the insurance defense side, which I've also, you know, I've always heard described as two sides of the same coin. Plaintiff, you know, personal injury plaintiffs, sorry. And insurance defense. Um, how did you end up at Oatley Vigmond?
Harrison:I, uh, was fortunate to learn that, uh, Jim was looking for an associate on his team and, uh, it actually coincided perfectly with some discussions that my now wife and I were having about, you know, where we want to set up our roots, where we want to buy a house, where we want to raise a family. And, uh, we had been looking and thinking about, you know, maybe we want to be out of the city, uh, where we can afford a house that, uh, you know, is in a great location and is bigger than, you know, 700 square feet or whatever the case may be. So we learned about this opportunity and, and, uh, my wife is a lawyer as well and I applied to the job. Uh, I interviewed with Jim Vigmond, with Brian Cameron, with Adam Little and, uh, got an amazing vibe right away. Um, was so fortunate to have met them and got hired, you know, the next day and moved up. We were renting a condo at the time. We found a rental house in Toronto. Sorry, excuse me. We got rid of our condo in Toronto. We found a rental house here in Barrie and, um, moved up, couldn't have been easier. Uh, and that was in November of 2017.
Charles:And you've been here since?
Harrison:I've been here since. Loved every minute. Uh, at the time my wife was my girlfriend. We got married in June of 2019.
Charles:Congratulations.
Harrison:Thank you very much. We recently bought a house. We, uh, you know, are just absolutely loving, uh, our life in Barrie, uh, loving working at Oatley Vigmond. And, uh, it was the best decision that we've ever made, uh, without a doubt. So, yeah. So now I work with Jim. I work with Adam. I practice a wide range of different personal injury files. Um, you know, working with Adam, he does a lot of medical malpractice work. Right. Which I find extremely fascinating. Um, it's, it's very different than, you know, when I was at the defense side where I was doing pretty consistently, I was doing motor vehicle accident defense and slips and falls in grocery stores.
Charles:And how important is it to you, um, as a newer lawyer that you're exposed to sort of, um, you know, a wide variety of types of claims or lawsuits for your clients?
Harrison:It's amazing. It's, uh, to be able to always pick up little nuances from different files, from handling different types of claims, from dealing with different types of insurers and you know, researching and knowing how different areas of law factor in. There's no two cases that are alike. And by practicing a wide range, it's really helpful to make sure that you're always live to different, you know, issues that you might never be otherwise aware of. Um, you know, uh, someone who slips and falls and hits their head on a parked car, they're entitled to claim maximum benefits. That's, uh, that's something that's nuanced that, you know, if you only did slips and falls, you wouldn't know about accident benefits because you've never practiced motor vehicle litigation. So, um, little things like that, you just, you never know how it's all gonna fit together. Um, but it's important that you have a big enough knowledge base that you can always be learning and honing your skills too.
Charles:To students who might say, you know, Oh, I know I have reservations about getting into personal injury because it sounds like you'd be doing the same thing over and over. That might be the case at certain firms, but at Oatley Vigmond, would you agree or disagree with that sentiment?
Harrison:I couldn't disagree more strongly. Not only are you always doing different work on different files, you're not even having two days that are ever going to be the same. Uh, yeah you might have an office day on Monday and you might have an office day on Tuesday, but you know, you might think you're going to be drafting a mediation memo and then a pretrial memo the next day and then your phone rings and someone wants to talk to you about, you know, settling a file or your phone rings and it's your client and they have an issue with, you know, some treatment that they're getting or that they're not getting. And now you're working with the accident benefits specialist and you're trying to find a way to, you know, convince their AB adjuster to, you know, set aside some extra money for the treatment plan that they've denied and um, you know, it couldn't be more different. So you're definitely always doing different things and you're doing different things every single day.[transition music] Charles, what is it about Oatley Vigmond that attracted you to the personal injury practice?
Charles:Um, I guess to answer that, I have to back up just a little bit. So I went to law school at Queens and.
Harrison:Pretty good law school, not as good as Windsor, but pretty good still.
Charles:Good reputation. I've heard. Uh, and I went in not really knowing what to expect. I didn't know what I wanted to do in terms of the law. All I knew, all I knew was that it was an interesting area.
Harrison:Personal injury was an interesting area?
Charles:Yes, that's right. That's right. Well, the law and generally. So in first year, as you know, and as many of our listeners will know, you have to take mandatory courses like torts and property and you know, public law. Um, so I took all those courses obviously, and it wasn't until second year when you have the choice to choose your courses, your electives, um, that I started, you know, taking things like evidence, civil procedure, um, you know, tax law and for whatever reason, I don't know, I thought, you know, insurance law might be useful, like tax, you know, in everyday life maybe I'll learn something.
Harrison:Yeah. I mean most things are insured, you know, you can drive a car, you have insurance. If you own a home, you have insurance.
Charles:Absolutely. Yeah. It's a part of everyday life, so to say. Um, so I take this course not really knowing what to expect. All I know is this guy named Jim Vigmond is the instructor for this course.
Harrison:And at that point did you know what he was, who he was or what he did?
Charles:Zero idea. Absolutely not. So I go in and it's about 15 students in the class and uh, this guy walks in and the first thing he tells us is like, Oh, a story about a trial he did. Um, and it was a personal injury trial that he had done, uh, and you know, the arguments that he made. Um, and I was sort of basically gripped at that point from, from then on.
Harrison:He is a captivating speaker.
Charles:He's very compelling. For anyone who's met him,
Harrison:What was he wearing? What kind of blazer was he sporting? Cause he's known for his fine threads.
Charles:So some kind of, well it was some kind of sports blazer and I think he might've been wearing jeans, although I may be confusing the two with Brian Cameron, who I later took another course with as well.
Harrison:A different course or they were co-instructors?
Charles:Different courses. Insurance law was taught by Jim at the time. And then I later on took personal injury advocacy, which was taught by Brian Cameron. He's also a lawyer at our firm, obviously. Um, but I took the, took this course, again, challenging, I'm learning all about personal injury law, insurance law, um, how complex it is, the accident benefits while, you know, in between all this substantive and heavy, you know, learning, uh, Jim brings in guest speakers, other lawyers at Oatley Vigmond, he brought in a well known, uh, defense lawyer, Todd McCarthy, and they would do mock cross exams just for the classes benefit. And it was really refreshing.
Harrison:They examined, like was there, did they bring a witness or,
Charles:Sort of just a demonstration of what types of questions that they would be asking.
Harrison:That's very neat.
Charles:Yeah. And um, although they might've done one with a few witnesses, hard to remember. But, uh, at that point it was a really big contrast in terms of what I'd learned so far in law school in terms of like the law and very, you know, abstract ideas. And Jim comes in and he's telling us real stories of real people and how we helped them in their lives. Um, so I take this course. Uh, I do fairly well and I email him after and I say, Hey Jim, um, it's just a cold email. I hadn't really been too outspoken.
Harrison:You said... Hey Jim...?
Charles:I definitely did not.[laughter]
Harrison:Dear Mr. Vigmond...
Charles:I think I said Hi Jim. Cause this is the other thing about Jim people probably know is he's a very friendly guy. He wouldn't want you to call him Mr. Vigmond.
Harrison:But he definitely wouldn't like, Hey.
Charles:No, no, that's, that's true.
Harrison:That's a tip for any young lawyers out there.
Charles:I definitely, definitely didn't use hey, I said, hi Jim, I took your course. I loved it. I'm interested in the field, because that's literally the reason how I got interested in personal injury.
Harrison:Is that right?
Charles:Of course. Yeah. Through Jim. Uh, so I said, I'm interested. Look, what should I be doing? Uh, I have, you know, uh, no clue. In terms of reputation, what kind of tips can you give for aspiring lawyers in this field? And the, and he, you know, he's very good about emails. He replies within like an hour. And he says, uh, look, why don't you come down for a beer or a coffee? We'll chat in person. So I meet up with him and I still remember to this day, uh, we met at Bannock in Toronto.
Harrison:And so you're a second year law student at this point?
Charles:That's right in the Summer. I'm going into third year. And uh, you know, he's giving me tips. He's saying, you know, you want to be at a reputable firm, uh, because that's important when you are a plaintiff's personal injury injury lawyer. And he gives me a list of names, uh, and uh, at the meeting, I remember him calling Brian Cameron. He didn't pick up and he said, you know, Hey Brian, I've got Charles here, he took our class, uh, you know, let's make sure he gets an interview. And I did the interview. Got the articling position. And uh, obviously I was fortunate to get the job and I was brought on as an associate afterwards. And the rest is kinda history. But that's how I sort of got into personal injury, to answer your questions.
Harrison:That's amazing. So did you summer at Oatley Vigmond or you just went straight to articling?
Charles:I didn't. I was in Hawaii and uh, after first year, after during my first year Summer.
Harrison:Let's come back to that in just a bit. What was your first impression of Oatley Vigmond as an articling student?
Charles:Well, the very first thing is these guys are professionals. You know, they're at the top of their game and that's the impression that I certainly got from Jim. But also like equally as important to me. Um, again, it goes back to this, the name partner taking time out of his day to meet with a second year summer student. It's incredible, right? That to me spoke volumes about, I think, uh, the type of the culture at the firm, how humble he was and how generous he was with his time and his resources and his expertise. So that really resonated with me personally. And I could see myself definitely wanting to be at a firm that values those types of things.
:Right. And so, and what, okay, so now you, you've finished your school, you've written your bar exams, you started as an articling student, you've never worked in personal injury litigation. Your only experience to that point was a class with Jim and a class with Brian, you know, plus evidence and torts and civil procedure and whatnot. Um, how steep was the learning curve? What was that first month? What was that first articling term like?
Charles:Uh, I'll be totally frank. It was a very steep learning curve. You really have to spend a lot of hours, not only learning like the substantive stuff in terms of obviously the law, drafting claims, you know, drafting motion records. But the second piece to articling at a firm like Oatley Vigmond or any other, um, you know, a demanding law firm, uh, you gotta learn the dynamics because you're not only doing work for one lawyer, you're doing work for several.
Harrison:Yeah. How many at that time, I mean, we've got,
Charles:It was about 16 at that time. 17 now. So you're getting word from 16 lawyers potentially at any given time, who don't necessarily know who's giving what. And as an articling student, you're expected to manage your priorities and your workload and also deliver quality work product. Uh, so that was a significant learning curve that I'm sure a lot of other, you know, articling students and summer students can relate to because not only are you learning the substantive stuff, but you're trying to learn the stylistic preferences of different lawyers, how they like certain things and you're trying to juggle all these things at the same time.
Harrison:And you're doing it all while, you know, trying to make sure that you get hired back and put yourself in the best conditions.
Charles:Absolutely. You're trying to make a good impression. And again, because of the nature of the practice and the business, you're also expected to, uh, appear at certain conferences or go to these, uh, you know, uh, marketing events, networking. Absolutely. Uh, you know, getting your face out there, uh, making sure, um, that you're spending, uh, you're showing the willingness to be able to do that side because that's one thing that again, students don't really get to learn or experience during law school is the business side of the practice of law.
Harrison:And I feel, at Oatley Vigmond, I think we really are lucky in that we do get to see, uh, you know, what it is, you know, not just to be a successful lawyer and to advocate on behalf of our clients, but to understand what goes into the business side of it, how it, how you, you know, are come to be known as, as an industry leader and you know, get the referrals from other lawyers who say, you know, this case might be too complicated.
Charles:And I think like one of the challenging things as a law student, um, is that there really isn't, it's not an indictment on the, you know, the, the legal education or system or anything like that. But as the students, we were just never taught much about the actual business of the law, which is what you're expected to do when you go into a firm. Um, you know, you're expected to demonstrate some type of knowledge or at least willingness to learn that side of things and to be at a firm that places you in a good position to at least give you those opportunities or at least show that you can step up to the plate. Uh, I think it's really important as opposed to just being thrown to the wolves.
Harrison:I agree. I remember coming out of law school and, and everything in law school starts from the premise of you've been retained and you are now at trial and you're making precedent by advancing this case on behalf of your client. And that's how the law is evolving. And those are the principles that you're learning as a law student. Yeah. But that's a small piece of what being a lawyer is. Cause we spend most of our time preparing for things and, and you know, getting retained on files and meeting people, you know, working with teams and making sure that discoveries are booked and making sure that things are being advanced, you know, within a timely fashion.
Charles:Or even how do you get retained to get even to that starting point.
Harrison:And those are things that is not at all on any curriculum in any law school as far as I'm aware. So, um, yeah, maybe in a later podcast episode, maybe we'll talk more about the business side of things and get into that. Um, just to finish up your, your articling term before we move on, what was your most interesting, um, task or file that you worked on when you were an articling student? Did you have the opportunity to, uh, assist on any trials or anything like that?
Charles:Uh, no, not during articling. But I do remember, I don't know if it's the most interesting, the one that I worked on, but I just have this memory of it. And it was a file where, um, I got pulled into it at the very late stages of it. And, uh, our client had been involved in a dirt bike accident over like 10 years ago and there was no prospect of a tort claim at the time. Um, but you know, one of our lawyers, very capable lawyer, he did some research on it and he brought it to the partner and they figured out, well actually there might be a claim here depending on how we interpret the definition of an automobile, not going to get too technical.
Harrison:But you mean a claim for accident benefits?
Charles:No, no it was a tort claim. There were some technicalities, some hurdles that we had to get over. Uh, but they did that. And then after I, when I got involved was because there was an aspect of trying to recover money from the motor vehicle accident fund. Yes. So I had to sort of help the client through that process. And that was one of the rare opportunities as an articling student where I got to have sole responsibility in terms of interacting with the client, communicating what's going to be involved in this process and understanding what his needs were and, and managing his expectations of timelines and what the results were going to be. So that kind of sticks out in my mind. There were many others obviously, but that one was quite interesting.
Harrison:Wow. And so, um, you know, you said that it wasn't until you met Jim that you really realized that you wanted to do personal injury litigation. What was it that inspired you to go to law school in the first place? What was your, you know, what was growing up like that led you down that path?
Charles:You know, my parents, they're not lawyers or judges or anything like that. Um, so just to give you a little background of myself, I was born in Korea and our family came to Canada when I was six. And, uh, might be a stereotype, might be not, but my parents owned a small business, a convenience store. Uh, first started out in Toronto, then we went to like Belleville and then up to Barrie actually, and then moved down to Bradford. But, uh, you know, I took the same courses in high school as everyone else. Um, but I sort of had an attraction to the sciences, life sciences. So I took that and went to Guelph University for undergrad.
Harrison:Oh I didn't know that. Go Gryphons!
Charles:Go Gryphons, yeah. I did a bio science major, did that for about three years and I just, I don't know, there was something about like the sciences are a very interesting area, uh, for anyone who's out there who is a scientist, you know, physician, uh, doctors, researchers. It's a great field. But for me personally, it felt like the more I studied this area, it was sort of like arm chair academics. It felt like I was being further detached from society and what actually, you know, actual people deal with on a day to day basis. So I wanted to do something a little bit more hands-on in terms of helping people. So I, you know, I started taking sociology courses, criminology courses, and actually did a minor in sociology and that's when I started thinking, okay, maybe law school might be a good fit if I like helping people. I like solving problems and I like to read and write. So it was sort of a natural progression over degrees I, I'd say. And that's how I kind of got involved.
Harrison:Well, I'm glad that you did.
Charles:Me too. Me too. I like it.
Harrison:And now as an associate, you work for Troy primarily, is that right? That's right. And what, uh, what types of files are you handling? Um, what do you find most interesting, most demanding?
Charles:Yes. So similar to to yourself, uh, Troy does some medical malpractice work, uh, but the bulk of the work is definitely motor vehicle accidents. There's some slip and falls obviously. Uh, and we get the odd unique case, like our guy, one of our clients who got hurt while boarding an airplane, for example, not necessarily your everyday type of file.
Harrison:How do they get hurt while boarding an airplane?
Charles:So, uh, he, he was in a wheelchair at the time, unrelated to the incident and he was being assisted onto a flight at Pearson airport. And the person who was assisting him had let go of the wheelchair and he went down the ramp on the jet bridge and he struck the wall and suffered a head injury. So no shortage of, uh, interesting, uh, files, that's for sure.
Harrison:There's no shortage of ways that people find to, to injure themselves unfortunately.
Charles:Absolutely. And we, we tend to find, uh, the most severely injured and I think part of the practice that is quite appealing to me is learning how to navigate through that from the beginning to the end. Um, because first of all, as you, as you mentioned before, you find clients who are in the situation where, um, they really don't know what to do in terms of next steps, let alone a lawsuit. Uh, and usually, uh, ourselves in the accident benefit specialists who we've talked about will be the one sort of assisting them on the day to day things, you know, filling out forms, what to expect, timelines. Um, so that part of the practice is, is uh, very rewarding for me is actually dealing with clients who are, you know, uh, dealing with some very difficult situations.[ transition music] Alright. Thanks very much for everyone who stuck with us so far. Hopefully you've learned a little bit more about your hosts. Um, and we're really, really excited, um, not only with this episode but some of the more, uh, interesting episodes that we've got coming up. We've got interviews with uh, interesting lawyers who have very interesting cases and stories to tell. Um, so we're really excited to,
Harrison:Can't wait. It's going to be fantastic. Absolutely. The podcast, we've got a number of different ways that you can communicate with us. Um, you know, as with every podcast we ask that you subscribe and rate and review. You know, those comments are, are interesting for us to see and,
Charles:We'll read every single one.
Harrison:I absolutely will. Having never hosted a podcast before, I can't wait to hear the feedback about what people think. Um, if you want to get in touch with us more directly, there's a couple of ways to do that. The easiest will be on Twitter@exhibitehpod. Um, and so that's just our Twitter handle there. Um, or even easier than that. So you can email Charles or I directly, my email, my name is Harrison, but you can email me at H Cooper at oatleyvigmond dot com and you can interact with, uh, Charles by email at C, Jung, J U N G at oatleyvigmond dot com or our bios are on the Oatley Vigmond website. If you want to read more about us there. Um, you know, we've got an Oatley Vigmond Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and everything. So, uh, if you liked the podcast, if you want to see more about what we're up to, uh, please feel free to interact with that, interact with us on social media.
Charles:We're happy to hear from you guys.
Harrison:Oh, and I should also add that we are having a mailbag episode at the end of the first season. So, uh, please do send us questions. Please send us feedback and we would be thrilled to answer that question on the podcast.