My aviation background matters in these cases
I do not have to imagine what cockpit workload feels like when something starts going wrong in flight. I have lived it.
When my Piper Cherokee Six suffered a catastrophic engine failure north of Mount Pleasant, I had to work the problem in real time, manage the aircraft, and get it on the ground safely in Georgetown. The post-incident investigation showed that bolts had been improperly torqued during overhaul work and the engine was coming apart in flight. I have also dealt with an electrical failure in flight, and an ATC communications failure at night, in the fog, when flying an instrument approach.
Experiences like that change how you look at aviation cases. They teach you what a pilot can realistically process in a high-stress moment, what proper emergency procedures look like, and how quickly a maintenance issue can unravel into a life-threatening event. They also teach you to be skeptical of easy answers offered after the fact by self-professed experts.
I am also an aircraft owner. That means I understand the practical side of maintenance, inspections, logbooks, discrepancies, repairs, recurring squawks, and the realities of relying on mechanics, overhaul facilities, and maintenance records. In aviation litigation, that matters. Mechanical-failure cases often turn on small details hidden in maintenance entries, component history, or the sequence of events leading up to the failure.
And there is another practical point many clients never hear: in aviation claims, many insurance adjusters are pilots themselves. They know quickly whether the lawyer on the other side actually understands the airplane, the records, and the likely failure sequence—or is just bluffing. That credibility matters in negotiation from day one.
