Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky Show: Episode 22 – Doug DiSandro and Andy Norfleet

Joe Dougherty hosts Partners Doug DiSandro and Andy Norfleet for the Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky Show on WWDB Talk 860. They discuss their career paths, the well-earned reputation of Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky, and navigating challenging and sensitive matters.

 

The following programming is sponsored by Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management, or Beasley Media Group.

Joe Dougherty
Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky Hour here on WWDB Talk 860. We’ve got a fantastic broadcast, lots to talk about. We’ve got two great partners on the program, Doug DiSandro, a partner here at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. Doug, how are you, sir?

Doug DiSandro
I’m doing well, Joe. How are you?

Joe Dougherty
I am fantastic. And of course, we have Andy Norfleet, also a partner here. How are you, sir?

Andy Norfleet
Good, Joe. Thanks.

Joe Dougherty
It’s great to have you guys on the program. We’re going to talk about a lot of interesting areas. I’d like to, if you would, tell our listeners, and I’ll start with Doug, a little bit about yourself and your role here at the firm.

Doug DiSandro
Sure. I’ve been here at the firm now for almost seven years. Work on a team with a number of attorneys is headed up by Drew Duffy and Jeff Goodman. We work on all types of cases. The one common denominator is that all the clients we represent are catastrophically injured but that could bring us into construction, product liability, and handle a lot of maritime work. We’ve handled medical device cases. So we have a pretty varied practice, which is interesting because it’s always something new and something interesting to learn about.

Joe Dougherty
And your pathway to here. This is one of the premier firms in the country. What drew you in this direction?

Doug DiSandro
I certainly feel fortunate to be here. I’ve told people that I grew up sitting at the kitchen table hearing about Mongo because my father’s a personal injury attorney. He’s been doing this work for almost 40 years at this point here in Philadelphia and has been working with Bob since I was a young young kid. I’d hear about work and Mongo at the dinner table. I’ve always heard about the bigger-than-life legend of the legal industry.

And so it was a pretty natural thing to want to have a chance to work here and with Mongo and all the other incredible lawyers. So basically out of law school, I tried to get in the door if I could.

Joe Dougherty
And what did your dad think about that? Because you could have worked for your dad.

Doug DiSandro
That’s the beauty of both being on the same side of the “v” and that we get to work on cases together. We’ve done that in the past. We have some going right now. So I still get to work with my dad. I still get to learn from him experience while also being at this firm.

Joe Dougherty
And you know, what’s great, so your pathway, right? You know, you’re from the Philadelphia area, right? You went to Roman Catholic High School.

Doug DiSandro
I’m not smart enough. St. Joe’s prep guy.

Joe Dougherty
You know, I’ll tell you, speaking of the St. Joe’s prep. Watching the Eagles last year was a new experience for me because I knew every time they mentioned Swift, Prep was getting another recruit. The St. Joseph’s Prep guys are running around the NFL like it’s going out of style.

You mentioned Bob Mongeluzzi. I have been fortunate enough to be able to do shows with him here at the firm. And having done this broadcast for a couple of years now, and Larry Bendesky, of course. But I can say this, having done legal radio for about seven, eight years or longer. You’re not the only one that would hear those stories. I mean, I can’t tell you how many attorneys would sit there and say I had the opportunity to go and watch Bob do a closing or opening.

That’s a funny story about how he finally came on the show. I said to my wife, you know, I don’t think Bob likes me. He’s always got this little scowl on his face. Larry, I’ve done him. And the day I said that, I said that to her, he came up to me and said, I’m ready to do my show. And I’m like, whoo! Speaking of Bob, and that awesome story. Let me segue over here to Andy. Andy, a little bit about yourself and your pathway to where we are today.

Andy Norfleet
Yes, so I’m one of the old timers here. I’ve been here for about a month. So I came from Harrisburg. I was doing defense work. I defended municipalities, mostly in civil rights cases.

Joe Dougherty
It’s not really unusual for successful plaintiffs attorneys to have gone that route. So from what I understand that you’re from Harrisburg. You still hail from that area, right? You’re commuting from Harrisburg to Philly.

Andy Norfleet
I do. I’m on the Amtrak twice a day.

Joe Dougherty
Wow, incredible. But having said that, what brought you to Philly? How did this situation come about?

Andy Norfleet
It’s a good story that I like to tell. My good friend sitting next to you, Doug DiSandro.I had actually done plaintiffs work before I was a partner in a plaintiffs firm in Harrisburg and then I had my own firm with one of my partners from that firm for about eight years. I decided to go to Temple to get my LLM. And that’s where I met Mr. DiSandro and immediately recognized him as somebody who I needed to know. Became friends with him, at least on my part good friends, right? I had talked to Doug about Saltz Mongeluzzi and hearing about it at Temple for a year, of course you get an idea of where it is in Philadelphia and how people feel about it and kind of the reverence with which they talk about it. And so Doug and I have always stayed in touch and an opportunity came here and talked to Larry about it. And when the opportunity came up, I couldn’t say no.

Joe Dougherty
And as we sit in these offices, it’s a funny story about these offices. This is Liberty One. We’re on the 52nd floor. As an ironworker, which is what I was, I was used to being on the other side of the window. My father ran the union for 40 years. I look at the view here. When you’re sitting in these seats and you look at where you’re at, that tells you a lot about the magnitude of the firm and where we’re at. Doug, you must know. I don’t care who you are, you have to pinch yourself sometimes and go, wow, this is an incredible place to be.

Doug DiSandro
Every day. And not just because of the physical office that we have, but the people that we get to work with and work around. And you talked about having access to Bob and what a benefit that is. And that’s true of all of the incredibly gifted and talented and hardworking attorneys here. And everyone has an open door policy, every single person in this firm. And you can walk in, you can bounce stuff off of them, you can ask them for their insight. And that’s tremendous.

Joe Dougherty
And we talked about Covid and that’s what a lot of young attorneys lose when you’re working remotely, you don’t have that. Let me just, wow, go over to see Andrew Duffy, Bob Mongeluzzi, Larry Bendesky, the whole crew, being back in the offices. And it’s a great resource.

Andy, your specialty, I know you’re involved in a lot of different things. You’re going to be dealing with civil sexual assault,, which is a very sensitive area. Which says a lot about you immediately. It’s a very traumatic type of area. What do you expect to bring to the table, especially since you know that the clients that are coming in, some of them have taken years before they even could make that phone call. So when you set expectations for yourself, what are you looking at and what can the client expect from you?

Andy Norfleet
I certainly don’t mind talking about my own experiences. So I think I have a unique perspective. When I was a child, I was a victim of abuse. Unfortunately, at the hands of my parents, physical and emotional abuse, certainly not sexual abuse. So I know that everyone’s story is different. Everyone’s story is personal to them. And you have to respect the person who is brave enough to come forward and allow them whatever room it is they need to breathe. You can’t ask someone to come in and tell you more than they want to tell you. You can’t tell them how other cases have gone, how other people’s experiences have gone because it’s a deeply personal experience. And if someone is brave enough to come through that door, then I owe it to them to listen to them and to worry only about them and care only about them.

Joe Dougherty
That’s an incredible story. And the empathy you have. It becomes personal. Yes it’s professional, you have a job to do, but the one thing, and I’ve said it many times, when it comes to what I’ve learned on these broadcasts and in these rooms, and what the great things you’re going to do for individuals that are in unimaginable situations.

But I’ve often thought, when it comes to a catastrophic injury or a civil assault case, civil sexual assault, or any type of that type of situation, what it must be like to be the attorney. Especially young people. You go to school. You can get your LLM and do all those things. You’re the smartest guy in the class, all those things. If you can’t deal with people when they walk in that door and have that ability to connect with them and the way you just laid that out, if you can’t do that, then you’re not going to be in this business real long.

And at the same time, you’re going to have a hard time making that connection, Doug, in your world when you started this. OK, what was that process? But those experiences, nothing prepares you for that, I’m sure, except your mentors, the individuals that show you. Talk about some of your experiences when it was a catastrophic injury, when a family came in and maybe lost a loved one, a child or something like that, and how that maybe changed the game for you.

Doug DiSandro
I think that having practiced for a number of years before I got here. You understand a little bit about the inner personal nature of it but once you get to a firm like this, and you’re dealing with catastrophic beyond devastating situations, you have that moment where you realize that this is a tremendous amount of responsibility that families and individuals kind of put at our feet and hope that we can take care of them.

And the amount of trust they have to have in us, which kind of goes into what Andy was saying about allowing people to share with you, not share with you, whatever they feel comfortable doing. You have to respect that and appreciate the fact that they’re willing to do that too. Because this is someone who you’ve never met before. They’re going through unbelievable amounts of tumult and tragedy and stress. And they’re lost and they’re putting all of their faith and all of their trust in someone that they don’t know other than you know maybe what somebody has been kind enough to say about us or what they’ve seen on the news or on our website.

Joe Dougherty
I thought about a  couple of common denominators that I’ve noticed from doing this broadcast. Number one, the humility. I’ve said to Bob [Mongeluzzi], you would think it stereotypical. You walk into an office at this level, and you’d have suits everywhere and egos flying around. Nothing could be further from the truth. That empathy, the passion, and the work ethic, and the drive.

But also, you talked about Drew Duffy. You have clients that still stay in touch and there’s personal relationships there because you’re not only digging deep into it legally, but you’re digging deep emotionally. You’re not only representing them legally but you in a sense become a lifeline. You’re creating lifelong relationships and that is a common denominator across the board. People just care. Did you sense that, Andy? You’ve obviously been in the field a long time. When you sensed the culture around here, was that important to you?

Andy Norfleet
Sure. And it started before I got here. You meet someone like Doug. And Doug is who he is.  You get an idea of how earnest Doug is. He’s just a good person and you can tell that.

Joe Dougherty
I know you build a trust level. You guys are talking about the firm and your experiences. It’s a place you want to be. You’re coming from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Any plans to talk to the family about moving?

Andy Norfleet
We’ve had that talk, but I’ll plead the fifth.

Joe Dougherty
We talked about high-profile cases. Because when you’re here, you’re going to deal with  catastrophic cases. We can talk about the duck boat cases, we can talk about the Salvation Army, we can talk about the collapse in Florida. The record settlement in less than a year. We’ve all seen and heard of car accidents that have taken longer to settle than that. Now there were a lot of great reasons. A great judge and a lot of things like that, but a lot of it was great lawyering.

But let’s talk about navigating those high-profile cases. You’re dealing with different elements of the media, maybe even a criminal element. What is that situation like when there’s a magnifying glass on it? Talk a little bit about that Doug.

Doug DiSandro
That transforms a catastrophic case into an exceptionally complex catastrophic case because not only are you worried about what you’re doing on the civil side, but you also have to be mindful of what’s going on on the criminal side.  If there’s a governmental investigation The number one priority is obviously the victims and preserving their access to all elements of the system. But you also have to make sure that we’re doing, and able to do what we need to do on the civil side. So it involves, a lot of times, coordinating with prosecutors or the District Attorney’s office or FBI, NTSB, ATF, any of the agencies that might respond to a mass catastrophe, high-profile type of incident, and making sure that everyone can do what they need to do while, also protecting their own interests.

Joe Dougherty
And the integrity of the case. Andrew, you have represented law enforcement communities. I don’t think there’s anybody under more scrutiny than our police, our law enforcement community. Talk about that type of situation and what that’s like.

Andy Norfleet
Yeah, that was tough. That was tough for me to leave. I’ll use the acronym ACAB. So if you’re not familiar with that, ACAB stands for All Cops Are Bad. I have seen that spray painted around Harrisburg, around Camp Hill, where I live. So we went through that period to the point where people who knew me didn’t want to say what I did.They didn’t feel comfortable telling other people I represented police officers or I represented correctional officers. That was a difficult period to go through.

Joe Dougherty
I guess about two weeks ago I did a show with the Police Chief of Upper Dublin Township, Chief Francis Wheatley. It was a really interesting conversation. It was a frank conversation. But, you talk about the morale of the police and a lot of those things. And so many good people out there. You’re going to have a bad egg somewhere like here. But I say that because the majority of people are solid, rock solid. And it’s a tough job and all those things. But the media, and the chief talked about managing all those situations. You started representing law enforcement, in the public’s eye or in the media. Have you experienced anything like it?

Andy Norfleet
I ran the Dauphin County pretrial group, which is in Harrisburg. So, you know, we worked with the District Attorney’s office, we worked with the Public Defender’s office, we worked with police officers. Back in the early 2000s, Dauphin County prison was terribly overcrowded. And so we were charged with trying to find nonviolent, first time offenders to have them released under supervision. And so you’re working with a lot of people to make sure you’re getting the right people out. And you’re talking to the DA and you’re talking to the police and you’re getting their input on it. We served warrants for it at pretrial for a period of time if our clients violated their bail conditions or if they didn’t show up for court.

I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to go out with the Harrisburg police, with the Dauphin County sheriffs, with the US Marshals on  a few occasions. So I was at least exposed to that side. And later doing criminal defense work. I always had a respectful relationship with the police officers. I never saw them as the enemy. But they had a job to do and they respected the job that I had to do as a as criminal defense attorney

Joe Dougherty
Doug, Andy said a lot of good things about you okay what made you think that he would be a great fit here at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky.

Doug DiSandro
I am fortunate that the firm supports the Temple LLM program the way that it does, so that I was provided with an opportunity to go participate in that program. And as you touched on earlier, for young lawyers who might not even be physically in an office, they certainly aren’t in courtrooms. So I was able to go through that program which is a tremendous learning experience and also a tremendous personal experience. I got to meet people like Andy, and there are a number of other people that we remain close with from our graduating class. He’s obviously a tremendous lawyer but to do the job that he needs to do here, and to run the team that he’s running, you need to be more than just a great lawyer. You need to be a great person. So when the opportunity presented itself I knew there’s no doubt from a practicing standpoint, Andy clearly could handle that role and would excel in it. I was even more certain of that from a personal standpoint that he would be a perfect fit for that team.

Joe Dougherty
That team and what Andy’s going to be handling, is a very sensitive area. We talk a little bit about justice. And one of the things that I love about our conversations, is normally when it’s a personal injury, the narrative is always dictated most of the time by the insurance company. In other words, they got the big commercials on TV and all these things, even though most of that might be auto, but that’s typically the David and Goliath thing.

But that’s not the way it is here. You have a firm with the resources to fight on behalf of your client. When you talk about high-profile cases, a lot of these things, they move the needle. And so you’re fighting on behalf of your client. Some of these individuals, or their families if it’s been  a wrongful death situation. I can’t even imagine what people go through, number one, but number two, attorneys that are sitting here like, what did you do for your job today? You know what I mean? Well, I met a family who lost a loved one under the most horrible circumstances imaginable. But you’re not only fighting for the justice of that family or that individual, but you’re also fighting so it doesn’t happen to somebody else.

Talk about that responsibility. Talk about that responsibility to represent a client, number one, but also how does it make you feel when you can be successful and make somebody as whole as they can be. To be able to make that happen and to make them have a decent life, but also to be able to make sure it doesn’t happen to somebody else.

Doug DiSandro
We are always looking for opportunities, when it comes to resolving cases, to include non financial components. Whether it’s additional training, whether it’s additional safety measures that be put in place, because for many of our clients, as much as it is making sure that they can financially take care of themselves and their loved ones, they also, across the board, will say, we want to make sure this never happens to anybody else so that there’s not another family or another worker or another person that’s in this position. And to their credit, as much as obviously being able to provide for themselves is important, they will go to bat for whatever non-financial parts we can negotiate for in settlements to help make the world safer.

Joe Dougherty
Andy, how important and gratifying when that happens is it to know that you’re making a difference not just for your client, but to help ensure that it doesn’t happen to somebody else?

Andy Norfleet
That’s a rewarding part of what we do. In my practice area, it’s also a little different. The events and the injuries and the harm that is caused for a victim usually happens in the dark. It happens in the quiet. It happens outside of the eyes of everyone else. And until that victim has the strength to come forward. You never know. In most cases. So it’s not only helping the person who’s in front of you, which is the most important thing. But it’s also, we protect the identity of our clients. But even though we do that, the hope is that – other victims who are still working towards that courage to come forward and step out and say I was victimized, I was harmed, but there are people out there who will listen to me, there are people out there who will believe me, and there are people who are out there who will fight for me because that is a pretty significant fear of most victims.

You know, you see it on television. And they portray it in the movies, they portray it on television that the victim becomes the focus. What was the victim wearing? How was the victim acting? And so when someone is a victim, when they see that, even if it’s a portrayal, that forces them back into the darkness. And so we don’t want that.

Joe Dougherty
Privacy is respected. It’s confidential and they’ve already been victimized. Thankfully, obviously a lot of advocacy has happened over the years. Imagine years ago when a woman was afraid to go to the police department because there was no sensitivity training. One of the things when we talk about civil sexual assault. We’re doing these shows, and we get to educate the listener.  We’re talking about educating the public on these issues. With civil sexual assault, I always wondered, how are they going to sue the perpetrator?

Some of the cases out there like Glenn Mills, who hired teachers or people without doing background, talk about that, what your role is. You’re getting a recovery. It’s not the criminal case, although you have a background in criminal matters. This is the civil side. Explain what that is.

Andy Norfleet
Sure. So I think Doug mentioned it with the catastrophic cases that he handles is that there’s often a criminal component to an assault case. And we want to be another advocate for the victim. To stay in touch with the District Attorney’s office, to work with the victim witness coordinator, to monitor how the criminal case is going, and to be there and explain how it’s going if they need someone to step in there.

Joe Dougherty
I would assume that typically the civil side comes after the criminal case. Is there a lot of cooperation going back and forth between law enforcement and civil? Because I know when it’s a personal injury case or workers’ comp, there’s a lot of communication that’s vital back and forth. How does that work in regards to what case typically goes first? The criminal matter, I assume that goes before civil, correct?

Andy Norfleet
It can. There are some perpetrators who have not been charged criminally when you’re considering civil action. And generally if the criminal action is happening simultaneously, unfortunately the civil case will normally be stayed until the criminal matter is handled. Because the perpetrator, and on the civil side whomever is representing that individual is not going to let us take a deposition. They’re not going to give us discovery. They’re not going to answer interrogatories, which are written questions that the defendant has to answer because that person has a Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves.

Joe Dougherty
Is there typically a communication when you’re representing the civil side? You have to get evidence and there’s a lot of investigating. Is there cooperation because again, when it’s a personal injury or a workers comp case there is communication back and forth with medical records all those things.

Andy Norfleet
Sure and thinking back throughout my years in Dauphin County, we had some amazingly talented district attorneys and ADAs who handle the criminal cases. Much like we’ve talked about today, if you’re in that section of the district attorney’s office, you are a believer that you are fighting for victims everyday. And it has been my experience that to the extent that they can, and there are some limitations with what they can and cannot disclose, when they can and cannot disclose, that there’s usually a fair amount of cooperation.

Joe Dougherty
If you’re a prosecutor, you’re fighting on behalf of a victim. You would want them to be whole in every possible way. But you’re not typically going after the negligent party. I’m sure that you’re going to go after the perpetrator, whoever they are. But that’s typically when it comes to a civil sexual assault. What are you looking at? Because I know here at the firm, whatever case that comes in, you’re vetting the case. You want to know all the facts to see if there’s an actual case there. What are you looking at, Andy, when a case comes in? There has to be a negligent party. Other than the perpetrator who may have no assets to go after.

Andy Norfleet
Sure. And that certainly a part of it. You have to evaluate each case honestly. And you have to be honest with the person who’s sitting across from you and you have to gauge what their goals are. I don’t anticipate that there’ll be many people who are going to walk through my door the first time and the first question they’re going to ask me is how much do you think my case is? That’s just not the nature of this type of work.

They are looking for someone who will fight for them and hold someone accountable. And so when we’re evaluating a case you have to look everywhere. You have to look at the perpetrator. You have to look at the circumstances under which the assault occurred. Where did it occur? When did it occur? Are there other parties who should have known that this was happening and didn’t do anything, or did they not have the policies, procedures, or staff in place to let you know that it was happening and stop it before it ever happened. There’s a lot of components beyond just the perpetrator that you’re looking at in these types of cases.

Joe Dougherty
We’ve talked about the resources in this firm. There’s such a wealth of resources and experience.

You’re listening to the Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky Hour here on WWDB Talk 860. We have a fantastic broadcast. Our guests are partners Andy Norfleet and Doug DiSandro here at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky.

We’re talking about sexual civil assault. I look at a business owner who has a parking lot that’s not guarded, or is very dark and if somebody’s walking to their car, there’s no security. Or an institution that did not vet somebody and now all of a sudden there are predators running around. We saw what happened with the Catholic Church. But with big institutions if you don’t do something, if somebody is not willing to do something, that situation’s going to happen countless times. Do you feel that responsibility also? Do you feel that responsibility or at least an opportunity to not only help somebody who’s going through a situation, but also where you are helping more people than the individual that may have unfortunately gotten assaulted?

Andy Norfleet
Sure. Yes. And, you know I think it’s important for people to know, and I hope they do, that this just isn’t an issue that happens to women. Children are victims. Men are victims. Women unfortunately remain the overwhelming number of victims and if we can do anything to not only be a voice for people who don’t have a voice, but get to the point where those people are not experiencing it. Victims are not being victimized. That has to be the reason you do this. If that’s not the reason that you do it, you’re in the wrong business.

Joe Dougherty
It does take a special person. And I know you guys have been friends for a long time. But this is such a sensitive area and such an important part of the firm. You’re not just sitting there looking at somebody’s school they went to and the grade point average. It must make you proud to know that the firm got the right person. But also those individuals that make that phone call, that they’re in good hands.

Doug DiSandro
One hundred percent. One hundred percent. Sitting here listening, feeling very fortunate that we were able to pry Norfleet away from Harrisburg. The one question you were asking about, you know, the responsibility that we have, not just with respect to one incident, but preventing future, I think that’s so important to what we do. Not just in the sexual abuse cases, but even a fall from heights or a trucking accident, or whatever the case might be. Because something bad happens and the entities that we’re looking at want to just chalk it up as one bad apple, one bad situation, and it’s not. It’s our job to prove and to establish and to show that this is representative of institutional failure.

Joe Dougherty
One of the things about this firm is you’re moving the needle here. Like this is where the needle was moved. I assume it’s a sense of pride, because a lot of really good law firms around the city and around the country send the cases here. This is a place where front line media, high-profile, very impacting cases, where lives have been changed, and devastated in many ways. They don’t just happen once. They’re institutional failures in a lot of sense. There’s a number of institutions that have made mistakes and generations of people have failed. But the needle was moved here to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

And my point about the nightclub conversation was, money. You hit somebody in their wallet and hit them hard, they hopefully won’t do it again. Now, we’ve had conversations here about talcum powder and a lot of those big cases. The duck boats. They kept running. You look at a Johnson & Johnson situation with the talcum powder cases, and a number of other things where the mass tort that this firm has at the highest level in every situation.

We only have a few minutes left, but let’s talk about the contingency fee agreement. And what does that mean? I’m sitting across from some great lawyers, outstanding representation. But if I don’t know anybody, I can’t afford this. Talk about that contingency fee agreement and how it’s the great equalizer to individuals, who go through that living hell of what we’re talking about here at so many levels, where they can come in here and be represented by the best lawyers on the planet and not come out of pocket for that representation.

Doug DiSandro
I think it’s an incredibly impactful arrangement that we have in that we do not ask for anything from our clients up front. No retainers, we’re not going to bill you by the hour. The only thing that we ask you to do is to trust us, and to trust us to handle the case, and to work the case up, and to do right by you and your family. If we do a full investigation and there’s no case, we’re going to be honest. Andy said it’s one of the obligations that we have when someone sits down and looks us in the eye. We’re not going to sugarcoat it. We’re going to be honest with them. But if we do a full blown investigation and spend thousands and thousands or tens of thousands of dollars and there’s no case, they don’t owe us anything.

Joe Dougherty
A regular person walking outside, if they’re lucky, they’ll never need legal representation. But a lot of the individuals that find themselves catastrophically injured or in other situations, it’ll be the only time in their life that they need legal representation. And if they make the wrong decision, they may not realize. You talk about the resources. You just mentioned vetting cases. The resources the firm is willing to invest in just vetting a case to see if it’s a case on behalf of that client before you even accept it. But then if you do accept the cast, the client never has to worry about money coming out of pocket. But that the firm has the resources and will spend the resources on experts and whatever it takes.

Is that a comfort in your world, Andy, that you don’t ever have to worry about not seeking justice because the firm doesn’t have the resources? And I bring all that up because a regular person wouldn’t know to ask that question. You have to know that whatever firm you’re going to not only has the culture and the right people, but also that has the resources from an attorney’s standpoint to be able to fight that and represent them. How important is that to you, Andy?

Andy Norfleet
Yeah, that’s a great question. Like I said, I’ve done plaintiffs’ work before, but not on this scale. And the first day that I got here I walked from 30th Street Station to here. The funny thing was I said to Doug, you know it took me so long to get here because I’m from Harrisburg so I had to stop and look at all the big buildings. I say that because there are fantastic attorneys here and and I say that as somebody who’s been practicing for two decades, that this office houses fantastic legal minds who are very talented in the courtroom. To an extent that I never thought that I would be a part of.

You couple that with the resources to do their job. And the personalities. And the passion. You can be the smartest person in the world. You can get a 4.0 in law school. If you don’t have fire, if you don’t have compassion, if you don’t have a work ethic, you’re not going to be successful at a place like Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. You’re not. That’s what separates them. They can get as many 4.0 people as they want. It’s the people who are Doug. Doug separates himself from anyone else because of his passion. Because of his work ethic.It’s like sports. You can be the greatest individual player on the 1980 LA Clippers. It doesn’t matter that you can score 35 in a game. You’re not beating the Lakers.

Joe Dougherty
You said something interesting with that analogy with sports. The measurables. Tonight’s the NFL draft. They have measurables. Same in law school. They can look at your grade point average and all that, but it’s the intangibles. You’re looking at Jason Kelce, right? Six foot two, 280 pounds. There’s a legendary Hall of Fame first ballot. They’re not going to just replace that guy. There’s character, there’s passion. So that’s what you’re talking about coupled with the team aspect.

Gentlemen, this has been the fastest hour in radio. I cannot thank either one of you enough. Doug DiSandro, partner here at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky and Andrew Norfleet, partner here at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. I want to thank you both for being our guests. Keep doing the job you’re doing on behalf of your clients and representing this firm the way you do and our people will be better for it.

Doug DiSandro
Thanks, Joe.

Andy Norfleet
Thank you, Joe.

Joe Dougherty
My pleasure. I want to thank everybody for tuning in to the Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky Hour here on WWDB Talk 860. On behalf of everyone on our panel, on behalf of Bob Mongeluzzi, Larry Bendesky and I I always give Bob Z, Bob Zimmerman, a shout out because he helps put the program together. And of course, everybody at the firm. I’m Joe Dougherty. Thanks for listening, everybody.