10 years ago

I can't help but think about what happened to me 10 years ago.  The Wednesday after Labor Day in 2000, I started working at Nolan Law Group  (  http://www.nolan-law.com/ ).  They not only do the standard personal injury cases (like car accidents) and workers' compensation cases, but also aviation disasters.  The premise in a aviation disaster case is that an airline tells you before you fly with them that they will get you to point A to point B safely.  When they don't do that, they don't do their job, and many times, it's due to allowing airplane parts to deteriorate and that's when crashes occur.  Thankfully, that doesn't happen very often.

I remember the first assignment that I had there was to help with their work on a case where a jet plane went down in April, 2000 in the Philippines.   The airline bought a 737 that had been laying in the AZ desert for years and there had been damage to the plane before it flew in the Philippines.  Anyway, the air crash in the Philippines was the worst in their history.  I was told to talk to one of the provincial governors there which was a thrill for me; it's certainly not something you do everyday.

I improved as a paralegal, and I learned a lot at Nolan Law Group.  I loved my office because it had a window with a small view of Lake Michigan.  I miss that view  :( !   Oh well, I am paid more now than I was when I worked there.  I have more responsibility.

Still, I am very thankful I had the opportunity to work at Nolan Law Group.  I learned so much from one of the paralegals there.  He was the best paralegal I ever knew!   Mike basically ran the workers compensation department there, and I'm sure it was a big loss (in many ways) when he died of a heart attack a few years ago.  He was not even that old (only a few years older than me), but when you smoke, you deal with some big health disadvantages. 

One of the big things that really helped is that when I applied as a paralegal at other firms, all my potential bosses knew about Nolan Law Group. The fact that I worked there for awhile helped make my resume stand out.