Outlet: Authority Magazine
Brand: Whitcomb Selinsky PC
Iwas born and grew up in Hershey Pennsylvania. My father is an endocrinologist now with the Mayo Clinic, who trained at Penn State and ultimately moved to the University of Virginia. I enjoyed playing logic games and working with abstract puzzles with my Dad. I also read voraciously growing up — I learned to read very early, perhaps simply out of necessity. My folks did not have a television until I was 7 years old, and it was never medium I became enamored with. For example, my folks would take me to used bookstores and I read every piece by Tolkien I could find. I read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries over and over. I wanted to be a detective. In some ways, my current occupation requires a similar skill set in that it is my job to find the “truth” and then to tprove it to a jury.
Can you tell us a bit about the nature of your practice and what you focus on?
My practice is entirely civil (i.e., not criminal), exclusively representing persons who have been injured by the negligence or intentional acts of another, and families of persons who have died as a result of the negligence or intentional acts of another.
You are a successful attorney. Which three-character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? What unique qualities do you have that others may not? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I don’t believe I have any unique qualities that others do not. I believe that determination, a strong work ethic, reading literature (not just books), and an unquenchable desire to learn are core elements any successful person embraces. I have failed more often than I have succeeded; but you have heard it said that the measure of a (wo)man is not how many times s/he is knocked down — it is how many times s/he gets back up. Look up how many times Charles Dickens had his literature rejected by publishers before one finally took a chance on him….
My father taught me the value of education, and my playing Division I soccer at the highest level at university prepared me for the competition and the desire to win. I hate losing. Successful people lose graciously and get back up determined to win next time.
Do you think you have had luck in your success? Can you explain what you mean?
I don’t believe in luck, but I do believe in grace and good fortune. Those who are fortunate to succeed owe it to others to help them succeed — that is a maxim I live by — To whom much is given, much is required.
Do you think where you went to school has any bearing on your success? How important is it for a lawyer to go to a top-tier school?
Of course, going to a top law school helps open doors one would never even see. No matter what level or “tier” law school a student attends, he or she should do the very best he or she can and finish as close to the top of the class as possible. By going to a top 30 law school certainly afforded me opportunities I would have never had otherwise.
It certainly helped that I had a graduate degree in Biomedical Ethics from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia. Having worked in the admissions office at the University of Virginia Law School I can tell you that those schools are looking for a well-rounded candidate and someone who has overcome diversity — not had everything handed to them. It helped that I earned everything I had — Sure, my dad is a doctor, but I have 4 siblings and he has always been in academic medicine (not private practice), and the most valuable thing he ever gave me was a healthy sense of curiosity and a desire to learn. These are far more valuable than any amount of money one’s relatives could ever give them.
Based on the lessons you have learned from your experience, if you could go back in time and speak to your twenty-year-old self, what would you say? Would you do anything differently?
I would do more things differently than there is room here to describe. If I had to only pick one, I would tell myself to focus on school — not parties, relationships, soccer, nor all other manner of non-academic extracurricular activities (many of which I no doubt enjoyed at the expense of my best academic efforts).
This is not easy work. What is your primary motivation and drive behind the work that you do?
I love competition, and as I said before, I believe to whom much is given, much is required. This is a way to actually, tangibly help people who are most times at the lowest points of their lives because they have either suffered catastrophic injuries or families of persons who have had their lives cut short as a result of the negligence or intentional acts of another. Seeing clients smile and thank me when we’ve done what we had to do fills the cup that keeps leaking every time I taste defeat — which is more often than any of us would like.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
I have several very important and devastating medical malpractice cases going to multi-day/week-long trials early next year. I also enjoy writing and lecturing on topics like professional ethics and civil procedure.
Where do you go from here? Where do you aim to be in the next chapter of your career?
I would like to retire in academia. I taught for 13 years at the University of Virginia Law School as an adjunct professor (Mental Health Law), and I see myself knowing when it’s time to step aside from the trial work and to focus more on reading, writing, publishing, and teaching.
Without sharing anything confidential, can you please share your most successful “war story”? Can you share the funniest?
I have found, having done this for almost 20 years, that the most valuable “war stories” involve failure or defeat. We learn the most from our mistakes, and the measure of an excellent lawyer is not how many times s/he fails, but how many times s/he is able to get back up, put it behind him or her, and to keep moving forward.
That being said, the case that most defines how I approach life and the practice of law is almost certainly that of Cesar Chumil. I handled that case pro bono for almost a decade until Mr. Chumil died from undiagnosed colon cancer. The Legal Aid Justice Center and I were given information from a “deep throat” source that a Guatemalan man was being held in solitary confinement at Western State Hospital in Staunton, Virginia (one of the four state mental health facilities in the Commonwealth of Virginia). Mr. Chumil did not speak English, had never been accused, let alone convicted, of any crimes, and was held in a small room with an outdoor “kennel” where he was allowed “outside” for brief periods each day. I could go on for a novel’s worth of pages recounting the facts of that most horrifying and rewarding case, but I will tell you that in the end, I was able to force the hospital and the Commonwealth of Virginia (after multiple failed appeals by the hospital) to move Mr. Chumil to Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute (yet another state mental health facility in Virginia) and to begin to transition in the general population. His mother lived in Fairfax and was able to visit him for the last two weeks of her life, and he died shortly thereafter from complications of undiagnosed colon cancer.
If you are interested in the case, I would encourage you to google, “Cesar Chumil” and “Veldhuis” and you will find plenty to read. In the end, the story is desperately tragic in that he spent almost a quarter of his life locked in a state mental health facility, with the majority of that being in solitary confinement; however, the light at the end of that very dark tunnel was that I was able to have him moved closer to his dying mother so she could see him for the last two weeks of his life. I remember her crying with me on the phone as we talked about his being moved and how she could see him again. Of course, by that time, he had inoperable colon cancer and died weeks after his mother did. The profoundly upsetting story “ended” with a bit happiness, although it felt like a pyrrhic victory, given the overwhelming sadness and fatal outcomes of the protagonists in the story. All told he spent over 18 years in solitary confinement, but he spent the last two weeks of his mother’s life with her.
Of the utmost importance was the ability to make the proceedings public over the hospital’s strenuous objections. I was so pleased the world was able to learn the story of Mr. Chumil and to realize the resultant outrage that he was treated as he was. In words, as “an animal in a cage.”
The funniest story will have to wait until the next interview — There are too many to choose from….
Ok, fantastic. Let’s now shift to discussing some advice for aspiring lawyers. Do you work remotely? Onsite? Or Hybrid? What do you think will be the future of how law offices operate? What do you prefer? Can you please explain what you mean?
We work in our offices the vast majority of the time out of necessity.
How has the legal world changed since COVID? How do you think it might change in the near future? Can you explain what you mean?
Lawyers have certainly become more comfortable with audio/visual communications — even in formal proceedings. A couple of examples would be counsel participating in federal pre-trial status conferences which would have largely been telephonic (by agreement of counsel and/or leave of court) pre-COVID, and are now conducted via WebEx, or like platform (viz., to include the visual part). Similarly, depositions and other proceedings are still taking place via Zoom, WebEx, etc., long after COVID restrictions were lifted. Previously, the latter would have been unthinkable — depositions were always conducted in person (with rare exceptions, in which case those were taken by telephone).
Committee meetings, interviews, Board meetings, and the like are still often conducted remotely, even though remote communication is not mandated or otherwise necessary.
Based on your experience, how can attorneys effectively leverage social media to build their practice?
This question is very broad, but I don’t think this has changed as a result of COVID — social media has always been critical — essential — to advertising, networking, and information sharing. It remains that way today.
Excellent. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Become A Top Lawyer In Your Specific Field of Law?” Please share a story or an example for each.
I answered this question a bit before, and it’s virtually impossible to narrow this down to “5 Things,” as you can imagine, but here are “5 (very closely related) Things” a lawyer must have — in no particular order — to become a top lawyer representing victims of negligence or intentional torts (this list is not exhaustive — it is limited to 5 necessary “Things” a lawyer must have):
1). Drive — no one can teach you to get up every morning, go through whatever morning routine, and get out the door to do your level best to make sure you give everything you can to whatever tasks with which you are charged that day. This is true whether the tasks are menial, administrative, clerical, etc., or whether it is day 3 of a two-week jury trial, or the deposition of an opposing expert witness. You cannot “switch-off”, work as hard as you can and then, when you get to the end of the day (whenever that is) you must simply stop. No one can teach you drive — you either have it or you do not.
2). Intelligence/IQ — you need raw intelligence to do this job well. Law school is fine, college is fine, but collectively they do not teach you how to be a lawyer — they teach you how to be a law professor. Where raw intelligence/IQ comes in is when you are asked to do things, almost immediately, that you have never done before, never heard of before and have never been taught to do before. Raw intelligence affords you the ability to know where to find the answers to the problems with which you are presented and the ability to apply whatever you have found to the specific legal/fact pattern with which you are presented.
3). Creativity/Imagination — Einstein famously spoke about the critical importance of “creativity” and “imagination” in approaching problems. You can be the smartest person in the room in terms of “book smarts,” “Drive,” or “intelligence/IQ,” and consistently fail if you are not creative/imaginative. One example of this is the ability to come up with creative arguments, using raw intelligence and your drive to do the work, to present to a jury. I am a storyteller by profession. I have to come up with creative, engaging stories to tell juries all the time. I have to come up with creative arguments to present to judges almost every day (whether orally, or in writing). You must be creative in your approach to practice — you must have a vivid imagination.
4). I said it before in this interview — You must read. You must love to read. Reading is foundational to learning virtually everything that is not purely experiential in this profession. I will never forget — it’s been seared into my mind — the hearing where the Circuit Court Judge castigated all counsel in the room for violating Va. S. Ct. R. 4:15 when it came to page limits and motions practice related to discovery. He told us all he simply stopped reading after he reached the page limit and the next time he saw this violation the offender(s) would be sanctioned. Read the Rule is the moral to that story….
5). You need compassion and charisma. If you don’t care about the people or the families you represent, you will fail at this work. You must have genuine compassion for the people you are helping. Similarly, you must have charisma and exude it in your work. It must come naturally to you, or whatever you are trying to convey will sound forced (and it will, in fact, be forced). I was in theatre through college and performed in a variety of musical groups, in addition to playing soccer throughout. These experiences certainly helped bring out the charisma in me. Your clients have to believe you, witnesses, opposing counsel, and juries and judges have to believe you. YOU have to believe you, or no one else will. Exude charisma in applying the other 4 characteristics listed before this one.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might see this. 🙂
If we can travel back in time for this question, I would have loved to meet Mother Theresa. Her wisdom, compassion, and philanthropy were unrivaled in the 20th Century, in my view. I know I would have left any meeting with her a better human being than I was before entering that meeting.
If we are limited to the present day, I would love to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy — the current President of Ukraine. He has been nothing short of a modern-day hero for Western Civilization. His bravery, determination, charisma, leadership, and sheer will to keep Ukraine sovereign and intact are utterly astounding to me. I have not seen his kind of unrivaled level of bravery wedded with such strong and desperate leadership in my lifetime.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!