Trial Magazine

It was 1984. Jamie Ball was two-and-a-half years old, not quite big enough for his own bed but big enough to climb out of his crib. Jim and Marie Ball’s townhouse was like thousands of ­others in Columbia, Md., and like hundreds of thousands of others across the country. Jamie was, as usual, put to bed in his crib in his second-floor bedroom at 8:00 p.m. His parents, downstairs, heard him rustling around for about 15 minutes and then heard nothing but the crickets through the open windows on a beautiful spring evening.

Around 10:30 p.m., while they were still working at the kitchen table, Jim and Marie heard a whimpering sound; not crying, not screaming—whimpering. It seemed to be coming from outside, perhaps a cat, but Jim ran upstairs to check on Jamie, and Marie stepped out the front door. Jamie was not in his crib. He had climbed out of his crib and leaned against the screen in his bedroom window, causing it to fall out and, right behind it, his little body—head first. He landed on a concrete slab 12 feet below his window, crushing his skull. He died at the hospital early the next morning.

Jim and Marie heard of a case that I had with similar facts and called me. I met them at their house one evening about 10 months after Jamie’s death. When I arrived home that night, I found my then-wife already reading in bed. She asked, “How was your meeting?” It was heartbreaking. I could barely stop myself from starting to cry when they showed me pictures of what happened to Jamie. Those pictures are still in my head 32 years later. Of course, I expressed none of this. All I said was, “Their son died unnecessarily. Now it’s my job to do whatever I can to make their lives a little better.”

I spent two years representing Jim and Marie, suing the homebuilder and the screen manufacturer. This would be one of many wrongful death cases I took, representing parents of children of all ages. Jamie’s death tore at me, immediately reminding me of the line in John Donne’s poem “No Man is an Island”: “Any man’s death diminishes me.”

The effort and time I invested in doing all that I could for Jim and Marie were not unnoticed by my psyche or by my heart. But I did all that I could to ensure that my own issues went ­unnoticed by Jim and Marie, my clients, my family, and my colleagues. I never spoke to ­anyone about the toll it took on me, and in more than 32 years as a plaintiff attorney, no other lawyer ever mentioned the topic to me.

How are we, as trial lawyers, affected by our work? How are we supposed to handle the natural consequences of routinely dealing with death and grieving families? The topic is largely unspoken. But we ignore it at our peril.

At the University of Maryland’s ­medical school, students who focus on treating cancer patients must receive counseling on the personal impact of having so many of their patients die. They are taught the necessity of communicating their feelings to others so those feelings do not eat away at their dedication to their patients. They are taught the importance of humor—simply­ watching it on TV or at comedy­ clubs—as a means of balancing the bleakness of an oncology ward. They are taught the importance of empathy along with the need to step aside so that they are not overwhelmed with their patients’ suffering and families’ grief. Mostly, they are taught not to ignore the reality that no one is an island.

Why is the impact of our practice on our emotions, on our sleep, on our relationships at work, and on our relationships at home not a topic of conversation? A former colleague woke up every night at two or three in the morning and had trouble falling back to sleep, yet he never discussed it or attributed it to his work. Another colleague avoided funerals, as if he could catch and die from whatever our client suffered from. And years ago, a young lawyer worked up a wrongful death case for trial but asked me to try it because he did not want the responsibility—the decedent was a father who left two small children.

This topic needs to be addressed. We need to talk to each other and invite professionals to speak at seminars to help us learn how to cope and how to support each other and to assist us in supporting our clients.

Editor’s Note: Each state has resources available to help lawyers during difficult times. For more information, visit www.americanbar.org/groups/lawyer_assistance/resources/lap_programs_by_state.html.

Dan Clements recently retired as a partner from Salsbury, Clements, Bekman, Marder & Adkins in Baltimore. He can be reached at clementsdm@aol.com.