Today we’d like to introduce you to Jim Mullen.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jim. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
As a Registered Nurse, I spent four years working in critical care and trauma settings at safety-net hospitals and high-volume emergency rooms such as Grady Memorial in Atlanta, Georgia and most recently as a charge nurse at Methodist Charlton in South Dallas. I think this is part of the reason my start in personal Injury law was a smooth transition. I interned with Curtis Law Group while I was attending law school and got a first-hand look at how the two worlds of ER Nursing and injury attorney seemed to cross paths at almost every turn. Whether it is reading medical records or deposing Doctors, I use my nursing background every day.
The question then became is there a need? There are hundreds of injury attorneys in Dallas for someone to choose from and the vast majority of them are very good at what they do. But I knew from the day I got started that I could offer my clients something that the others could not. As both a nurse and a lawyer, I’m able to represent clients for their injuries, but also have medical knowledge to tell a client’s story. First, to an insurance adjuster, then to a mediator and finally to a judge and jury.
For those critically injured clients in the commercial truck wrecks, and drunk driver high-speed collisions I haven’t just read about their injuries, or heard about them from previous client experiences I have literally been in the Level I Trauma center when people with these exact injuries were slid off the ambulance stretcher and into my care. I can help to put the adjuster/mediator/juror in the trauma room so they can visualize what it looks like to see pieces of the tibia and fibia poking out of a shoe while it is attached to the leg by only a few ligaments or tendons after a crush injury with an 18 wheeler that flattened a van’s front end like a pancake. I can empathize with my clients and convey the crash so that an adjuster not only hears but understands the experience of the first few seconds of silence when a parent finds out they have lost their daughter to a drunk driver that hit them head-on at 8 am.
It sounds grim, but this is the reality of my profession. My clients’ stories are never encapsulated in a medical bill and they cannot be told by a medical record. These injuries don’t just cause pain. They change the very course of my clients’ lives. It is a privilege to be able to help share their stories to get them the compensation they deserve.
Has it been a smooth road?
COVID-19 has certainly created some challenges in building my practice. Yes, I’m a personal injury lawyer by profession, but I’m still a licensed Registered Nurse, so seeing how COVID-19 was impacting NYC made it hard to stomach the idea of having a skill set that could help in the middle of a pandemic and not using it.
Of course, I had to first consider the idea of leaving my family for five weeks. Other than when I was studying for the Bar exam, I had never been away from my soon-to-be three-year-old daughter for more than 24 hours and my wife never more than a few days. When you take into consideration that I had only recently started to roll out the Crash Nurse brand, it was definitely another cause for concern. Thanks to an unbelievably strong support system at home, along with the support of my colleagues at work, I was able to pitch in with thousands of nurses, doctors, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and respiratory therapists that descended upon New York during the pandemic’s peak.
We’d love to hear more about your practice.
My business is The Law Offices of Jim Mullen, PLLC, but I’ve branded myself “Crash Nurse” because of my background as a nurse merged with my experience as a lawyer. I am an injury attorney specializing in catastrophic injuries. Primarily I deal with commercial truck and car wreck injuries, similar to those I would have seen in my Trauma nursing days. I am most proud of the fact that I’ve retained my nursing license, and not only do I use that background for medical knowledge in dealing with my cases, my experience allows me to empathize with my clients as both a client and a patient. What sets me apart is years of experience treating thousands of trauma patients. When clients hire me, they’re getting someone who understands their case beyond how to represent them in court.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
The people of Dallas are by far what I like most. As someone who served on the frontlines and seeing the impact of COVID-19, I have been so impressed with the way the vast majority of people have handled all these new challenges that COVID-19 has presented. When I go grocery shopping, I rarely see anyone without a mask (even before it was required in Dallas County). I think the vast majority of people living in Dallas are looking out for their fellow residents, and it’s a good feeling to live in a city like that as far as what I like least — definitely the heat! Sure, it’s great not to have to shovel snow in the winter (I grew up in Boston), but I could do without 100+ degree days for what seems like months on end, though I usually get adjusted about a week before it ends.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.crashnurse.com
- Phone: 877-CRASH01
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crashnurse/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CrashNurse
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