How to Tell If Your Truck Lawyer Keeps Up: A Conversation with Ashley Napier

David Craig: If you have a significant case, a serious case, and do some research, do some Google research, and try to figure out how involved is my lawyer in learning. We all come out with the same knowledge, but over the years, some of us continue to learn. Those I think are the people who I would want to hire to represent me, are people who are continuing to learn because law changes, cases change, strategy changes. I’m David Craig, a board-certified truck accident attorney who’s dedicated over 40 years to helping the victims of devastating semi-truck, large truck, and other commercial motor vehicle wrecks. When the stakes are high, you need the information to make the right decision. After tragedy strikes, many people don’t know where to begin or what questions to ask. It is my goal to empower you with the knowledge and resources you need to help you understand your rights and to protect you and your family. On the Ask David episodes, we flip the script. Instead of me asking the questions, I answer them. This is After The Crash.

Ashley Napier: Hi everybody, and welcome to the August edition of After The Crash Podcast, Ask David Edition. I’m your host, Ashley Napier. David, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to have our podcast today.

David Craig: Thanks, Ashley. I always look forward to yours and my Ask David series.

Ashley Napier: Yes, it is becoming one of my favorite monthly things that we get to do here. August in Indiana is back to school time for a lot of families. I know I in particular am getting school supplies and all of that stuff. I thought what better thing to do than to talk about education today. Most people might not know, but attorneys have to do continued education or CLEs. David, you have a unique experience that not only do you have to do them, but you also have the opportunity to speak and develop your CLEs that way. Why do you think that continuing education for attorneys is so important?

David Craig: Yeah. Well, that’s a great… I think luckily I don’t have to get my kids ready for school anymore.

Ashley Napier: Maybe grandkids.

David Craig: My grandkids, somebody else takes care of that. But I always liked that, I always thought that was fun, to go to school and the kids are so excited.

Ashley Napier: They’re so pumped.

David Craig: Get the backpack and get all that kind of stuff, so I do that. It’s not nearly as exciting necessarily to go somewhere. Although some of our CLEs are pretty cool. I go to Miami every year during the wintertime, and so they are cool. But I think people who aren’t lawyers don’t necessarily understand that when we go to law school, most folks go to law school for three years. We go to school and they teach us how to be lawyers, but they don’t teach us how to be any kind of specific lawyer. They teach us to be lawyers. At the end of three years, if we pass the bar exam, then we get a certificate that says we are licensed to practice law. Now we can practice any kind of law. As a lawyer, you can do anything that needs a lawyer’s license as a requirement. You can write wills, you can do divorces, you can do contracts, you can do business corporate disputes, you can do personal injury. You can do truck cases or wrongful death cases. You think about it, how well-equipped are we after we graduate from law school to get out there and actually practice law?

Ashley Napier: Absolutely.

David Craig: Law school does a great job in training you how to think. That’s probably the main thing in law school, I think, was it taught you a certain way to think and analyze problems and apply that in how to research and do those things. However, I would never want to hire somebody right out of law school to handle a catastrophic injury case, wrongful death case, or a trucking case. The question is, if you’re out there and you’re trying to decide to hire a lawyer, any type of lawyer, then you want to know, okay, has this lawyer learned anything since law school? Because you’re right, every state requires you to have some type of continuing legal education. But it’s pretty loose, and I know some lawyers, especially since COVID, they relaxed the rules even more. You can do CLEs from your office. You used to have to go in person somewhere.

Ashley Napier: Probably just like click through the slides.

David Craig: Absolutely. Some people sit there and even when they’re live, they’re working and it’s playing on the side. I think that if you have a significant case, a serious case, you should ask your attorney, you should find out and do some research, do some Google research, and try to figure out how involved is my lawyer in learning? I think that’s extraordinarily important because we all come out with the same knowledge, but over the years some of us continue to learn. Those I think are the people who I would want to hire to represent me, are people who are continuing to learn because law changes, cases change, strategy changes, technology changes. I would want somebody who’s staying on top of it. There’s also a problem with some lawyers think they know everything and they don’t learn.

Ashley Napier: No. No, I cannot even believe that.

David Craig: Yeah, it’s so shocking. There are a few lawyers out there who think that they know everything and that’s dangerous because when you quit learning, in my opinion, you’re weak. In my opinion, the best lawyers are those lawyers who are continuing to learn, who realize that they need to learn, they want to learn, and they’re excited about learning.

Ashley Napier: Yeah, absolutely. I know you spend your time not only in the office, but outside of the office, constantly reading books, constantly doing all these things. You travel across the country to give talks and things like that. But we have a specialty in trucking, we have a niche. Can you talk to me about the specific education that you get in that regard? Because you are one of the top trucking attorneys. Can you tell me a little bit about what that further education looks like for those that are listening?

David Craig: Yeah. That’s a perfect example of, any lawyer can do any kind of thing. You can graduate from law school and get a trucking case and immediately handle it. That doesn’t mean you can handle it well. You can do CLEs. You can get your continuing legal education for 30 years, 40 years like I’ve done, and still not know how to handle a truck case. If you’re handling a truck case and you are out there and have a serious injury, catastrophic injury, wrongful death case that’s related to a truck case, you need to understand that first of all, truck cases are different. They’re not the same as car crashes. They’re not the same as other personal injury cases. I would want a lawyer that keeps up on the trucking area, the area of truck law. That is a niche. That is an area of the law that you can be very specific in. I have been, and my entire career has been involved in trucking cases. I can remember when APITLA started. APITLA was the Association of Plaintiff Interstate Trucking Lawyers [of America]. I think it was, I’m looking at my notes, it was like 2008 when they started. I was one of the first lawyers, and that was the very first group in the United States that was just focused on lawyers who represented victims of truck wrecks. Before that, there was the AAJ, the association of attorneys that are nationwide, that are plaintiff lawyers. The AAJ, they had changed their names, but the AAJ was that group. They had a trucking division, but the APITLA was the first group that was dedicated only to trucking.

Ashley Napier: Just trucking specific?

David Craig: They ran their first seminars over in St. Louis, Missouri. I would go and learn and listen to great attorneys that handled trucking cases. As I got experience and I started handling more cases and getting good results, then I was invited to speak at that APITLA. I started speaking at APITLA and I spoke all over the country, in Florida, Texas, you name it. I was speaking all over the country for that organization. That organization, like I said, was nothing but trucking. You would go to a two-day conference and every single speaker would be on a subsection of trucking law, and the insurance, the coverage, the technology, the defense lawyers, the mediations, the trials, all those different types of things. You would come out of that with a lot more knowledge than you went in. You think about lawyers who aren’t going to that, and the funny thing was, as I’ve done… Then that evolved to a new group because they wanted to see… There was a guy named Joe Fried and Michael Leizerman. Those two really wanted to see it go to the next level. Not only did they want to see a trucking group only, they wanted to see a board certification. They really were big advocates because there had been no board certification in truck accident law. Joe and Michael decided to start a new group. That group, the ATAA [Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys], I was invited to be on the Board of Regents of that group. Right off, I was one of the original Board of Regents members. That group, again, specializes in trucking. Then those guys were responsible for creating a board certification process that was approved by the ABA [American Bar Association]. Not only do you have lawyers that just do trucking, but now you have lawyers who have to be board certified to be on the Board of Regents. Most of their speakers are board certified truck accident attorneys. I’ve been honored to have been able to speak all over the country at trucking seminars. I think I’ll be heading to Colorado this year, Denver, to speak. But again, it’s two days of nothing but intense trucking law and nuances of trucking. I go to those conferences and I do speak, but I also go to learn. I’ve never came out of a conference where I didn’t learn something.

Ashley Napier: Absolutely.

David Craig: If you think about that and you’re looking for a lawyer and you want a good lawyer, you want the best lawyer you can get, because we basically all charge the same. We work on a contingency fee and it’s usually a third to 40% depending on different things, but it’s pretty much the same. You’re going to pay the same for a lousy lawyer who’s not educated versus a good lawyer who’s educated. Why not pick a lawyer who’s going and getting training and learning from seminars? Trucking niche is a separate niche. If I was hiring a trucking lawyer, I would want somebody who’s going and continuing every year, multiple times a year sometimes, to gain knowledge in trucking.

Ashley Napier: Yeah. Just tightening that funnel, right? Because I look at it in doctors. I wouldn’t hire a general practitioner to do a surgery. Why would you hire an attorney that just does general practice to do a trucking case? I wouldn’t.

David Craig: The best lawyers are lawyers who want to learn, who think they need to learn. John Romano is one of the best lawyers in the country. He’s one of the best trial lawyers. He’s a great human being.

Ashley Napier: I was just going to say, he’s a fantastic person.

David Craig: He’s a great human being. I can remember for years going and watching John speak at conferences. I would go to the National Trial Lawyers Conference in Florida, Miami, Florida every year. John is a big speaker and a big presenter, and he’s very active in the role of the National Trial Lawyers. Not only did I always learn from his presentations, but the thing that always amazed me was when he’s not speaking. I would watch him and he would be sitting in the conference taking notes. He would be paying attention and taking notes and learning. This is one of the best trial lawyers in the country. Yet he’s still taking notes and learning from others. I thought, my God, if somebody as good as John still has the need to learn and the willingness to learn, then all of us should. I now go and I pay attention to the other speakers. I always look for the opportunity to learn. Again, I never walk away from one of these conferences where I haven’t learned.

Ashley Napier: Right. I was lucky enough to work on a case with John, but also see him speak at one seminar that you left off your list, is one that you actually put on, or our firm puts on, in August of every year. It’s our third annual this year, which is really amazing, but it specializes in trucking as well.

David Craig: What I found was that, so I go to these national trucking conferences and, unfortunately, I didn’t see a whole lot of Indiana lawyers. The conferences are expensive. They’re time-consuming. When you’re busy practicing, and you’ve got local trial lawyers associations that are running conferences and you want to support the local trial lawyers association. But I felt like I really would like to see the Indiana lawyers gain the same knowledge that we were gaining at the national level. We took it upon ourselves to work with the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association so we could support our own Indiana Trial Lawyers Association, run it through them and run our own trucking seminar. It’s called Winning Truck Wreck Cases. This is the new 2026 program. We have it ready to go. It’s here recently. We invite speakers from all over the country. I invite speakers who I want to learn from. That’s cool, is that I get to control the agenda. I look and say, “Well, what lawyers do I think that I could learn something from? Let’s see if they’re available and if they can speak.” We bring them in, and ours is a one day. We also bring in a semi because unfortunately a lot of lawyers have no idea. They’ve never seen a semi, they’ve never been in a semi. They don’t understand semis or what’s different about them. We bring a semi in and they’ve seen them on the highway, but they’ve never gotten down in detail with it. Then Scott Faultless and myself, we’re both board certified in truck accident law. There’s only four of us in the State of Indiana. All four of us have spoken at this conference. We come in there and we speak, but then we also bring in speakers from all over the country. This time we’ve got the current president of the ATAA, the upcoming president of the ATAA. She’s speaking. I have one of the top mediators who’s settled some of the largest cases in the country this past year, who used to be an attorney for the trucking industry but now she’s a mediator. She’s doing a fantastic job. Again, all over the country. Then we have a mechanic, a big truck mechanic who can talk about specifics about the truck mechanics, how it works, what type of problems he sees. He’s going to show us what a level one inspection is or a pre-trip inspection on a truck is. We’ll go out and he’ll show us. Then we have Dr. Fletcher who is very active in making sure truck drivers are medically qualified to drive trucks. He’s been a big advocate of that system. He finds fault in the system that they currently have. He’s testified in many cases, but he is an expert on what it qualifies you, what it needs you to qualify to get your CDL, and who’s responsible when you have a truck driver driving who’s not medically qualified, who causes an injury or death. Who should you be looking for? I’m excited. I know I’ll learn something this year, and so I’m excited about that conference as well.

Ashley Napier: Yeah, absolutely. I’m looking forward to hearing everybody speaking. I know Dr. Fletcher has been on your podcast twice now. I think a few others have been too, so exciting to get to hear them speak.

David Craig: That’s another thing. Podcast, you mentioned podcast. We have this podcast After The Crash, and it’s not nearly as popular as Ashley’s Ask David series, but still it’s one of our other podcasts. Michael Cowen, who’s one of our speakers this year, he’s going to be there. He’s been on my podcast before.

Ashley Napier: That’s right. Yeah.

David Craig: He has his own podcast, which is one of the more popular ones in the country, directed towards attorneys. Mine’s directed to the average everyday person. His is Trial Nation.

Ashley Napier: Okay. I was like, Trial Lawyer Nation.

David Craig: Trial Lawyer Nation. Then Gary McMinoway, who’s the mechanic, he’s been on my podcast before. Again, the question is, not every lawyer is listening to podcasts, not every lawyer is hosting podcasts. Not every lawyer’s listening to trucking seminars. Not every lawyer’s teaching trucking seminars. If you’re looking for somebody, it just makes sense that if I’m going to pick a lawyer for one of the most important things in my life, why would I not pick somebody who is attending these, or even better yet teaching, running podcasts, hosting podcasts, teaching others, sharing their knowledge with other attorneys?

Ashley Napier: Yeah. I feel like those that are hiring attorneys shouldn’t be afraid to ask, “Hey, what do you do to continuously stay on top of the law?” Because the law is changing every single day in our country, whether it be nationwide or statewide. I would want an attorney, if it were me or my family, to tell me exactly, “What are you doing?” “I’m attending these conferences. I’m keeping up on this type of law.” I would do my due diligence in that way.

David Craig: I hope most people will. A lot of people just think if you’re a lawyer, you’re a lawyer. A lot of people go with whoever advertises, it doesn’t mean that they know what their specific niche. Yeah, I would encourage people to look at that and try to figure out who is the best qualified for this particular job. But I think the board certification helps, the writing, the speaking. I spoke at multiple different types of conferences. I speak at some that are just plaintiff oriented, that are just lawyers that represent victims. But I also have been invited and have spoken, this year I spoke at one and have throughout my career to, where both sides are represented, both the defense and the plaintiff. I’ve been invited by both sides to speak. I think that’s real important to look and say… You can usually go on their website. You can look at LinkedIn. You can look at things and say, “Okay, is this lawyer that I’m looking about, thinking about hiring, is this lawyer writing, reading, or teaching, lecturing on the area that I need?” Which is if it’s trucking, truck wrecks.

Ashley Napier: Yeah. No, all great points for the viewer to take away. Acts and omissions. Did I miss anything in our education talk?

David Craig: No, I think the other thing I would mention, and I’ll flip it around a little bit to you, which is I think I have a unique position that I believe that when you are hurt in a serious wreck with a semi, that you’re hiring a team. It’s not just one person.

Ashley Napier: Well, you hope it’s a team.

David Craig: Yeah. You don’t want just me. You don’t want just Scott Faultless. You don’t want Chris Berry or Alex or Whitney or Samantha or Jacob or Sidney.

Ashley Napier: Or Sid. Yeah.

David Craig: You’re not looking for one lawyer. You’re looking for a team. Certainly, you want somebody driving that team or leading that team that is qualified, who’s getting the education, who’s teaching other lawyers how to handle that. But then beyond that, what if the staff doesn’t know what they’re doing? I would ask you, how important is continuing education? Because it’s not required in your area.

Ashley Napier: Oh no, we don’t, as paralegals, we don’t have any continuing education requirement. I think it’s unique and I’m incredibly blessed to be able to say that I go to two conferences every single year, ATAA and our trucking conference. I think that the information that me and my team come back with, outside of the information that you attorneys take away because we’re boots on the ground, and the initial aspect of everything is just invaluable. We have, every single year, the paralegals and I, and our rapid response team coordinator who also goes to these, not as a paralegal, but as somebody that’s doing our inspections and everything like that. We have a meeting and we say, “Okay, what are our major takeaways?” We go around the room, and what do we want to implement now in our cases? It’s an immediate change or it’s an immediate addition to just all the information that we’ve gotten. I think that’s also something that people should look for, is do your paralegals specialize in anything? Because I can tell you that our team does and we’re really proud of it.

David Craig: Yeah. I agree. I see lawyers who, they don’t look at their staff or their team. They don’t invest in them. I think that’s a huge mistake. We’re only as good as our team, and so we believe in education. The other thing about belonging to ATAA, which our paralegals do, is that they have access to video library. There’s all kinds of subjects and topics that if they want to go look at something, they can go find it and they can research it. They can watch a seminar, an hour thing. There’s no excuse for people not to know something today because it’s all out there on the internet. All you have to do, if you belong to ATAA, then you get to have access to that. You have access to the conference, they have a yearly conference. They run now specialty programs. This year I’ll speak at two different ATAA conferences. One was in North Carolina, I think, and then this one’s in Colorado. My staff, like you said, will be at the Colorado thing. We do our own trucking seminar and we let the majority of our office go to that because they can learn from these other attorneys outside our firm, but it is changing. The analytics that are in these trucks, the technology with these trucks are changing. What’s available, how you go about getting it. There’s no way you know that because they don’t teach you that. There’s no class in law school on any of this.

Ashley Napier: Right. No.

David Craig: If you don’t go to these seminars, then you don’t know that. You don’t even know what you don’t know. You don’t know what you should be asking for. You go to these conferences and it’s like, “Oh my gosh, there was just a recent United States Supreme Court case decision that the Leizermans took up and changed the law in this extraordinarily important decision.” That decision just came down. This year, I’m sure at our conference, we’ll be talking about that decision. The Leizermans will share with us what they think the next strategy should be, how you can use this decision to help your clients. I take a lot of pride in being part of a group that shares information. That’s something unique too, that people don’t understand, is that the defense doesn’t share nearly as much. The plaintiff bar is willing to share and help each other because we are looking out for the victims of serious wrecks and truck crashes. We share and we will… A lawyer’s called me up and I’ve never not spoken with them. I’ve never not sat down and had a cup of coffee with them, because we want them to do a better job handling and representing their clients. But I think having your staff, we have a couple of board certified paralegals here, I think that that is just such a unique opportunity experience, and we invest in it. When we go there, how many Indiana law firms do you see that they have their entire staff there?

Ashley Napier: I’ve not met everybody, but what I can say with pretty good certainty is zero.

David Craig: Yeah. Even if they have one or two, I have not met a firm yet that brings everybody.

Ashley Napier: No.

David Craig: Even in our trucking seminar, we bring everybody.

Ashley Napier: Right.

David Craig: Because our clients benefit from that.

Ashley Napier: Absolutely.

David Craig: The more we all know, the better services we can provide for our firm and our clients.

Ashley Napier: I did forget to mention, and I think it’s actually neat. At ATAA, they do separate breakout sessions, is what they call them, but they have a specific paralegal day. We break out and it’s just paralegals in a room. We talk about how not only can we best serve our attorneys with the different changing in the laws and the things to look out for on their behalf, but also, how can we better help our clients? They give us a lot of resources for victims. I don’t know. I just come away from that conference feeling so energized and just ready to make those changes and make a big impact.

David Craig: I had a lawyer, I was speaking at a conference in Atlanta, Georgia, and I had a lawyer come up afterwards and say, because I was talking about sending our staff out. He was like, “Well, why would you spend the money on your staff?” He’s like, “I understand attorneys, but your staff, why would you invest so much money? Aren’t you afraid they might leave?” I thought, “Well, guys, if you’re not going to invest in your people, they probably will leave. Why wouldn’t they leave?”

Ashley Napier: You should be asking yourself a different question here.

David Craig: I thought that was really, and I apologize, but it’s ass backwards. Quite frankly, is that I don’t care. I hope people stay with me. But what I do care about is raising the quality of the knowledge that we all have. I’m the first, I have the most to learn and I’m going to be in there learning. But if I’ve been doing it for 40 years and I’m still capable of learning, then I’m pretty confident that most of the people who work with me can also learn something, and I’m excited about it. It’s fun and it gets you out of the office. This time, you all get to go to Denver, Colorado.

Ashley Napier: We get to go to Denver. We’re very excited about it. We’re planning a side hike that maybe some of us will go to, some of us won’t go to.

David Craig: I wonder which ones will?

Ashley Napier: I don’t know. I don’t know. But Clint and I will be going on our little hike. But no, we’re looking forward to it. But I think it’s something that everybody needs to be educating themselves, regardless of what your profession is. Just be the best you can be.

David Craig: Absolutely.

Ashley Napier: That’s my soapbox.

David Craig: There you go.

Ashley Napier: Be the best you can be, everyone. Not only as a person, but in your craft. Well, I don’t think I have anything left. I didn’t miss anything?

David Craig: No.

Ashley Napier: Okay. Well, everyone, thank you so much for watching August edition of After The Crash: Ask David edition with your host, Ashley Napier. We look forward to seeing you guys again in September after Labor Day. Thanks so much. Bye.

David Craig: Thanks for listening to another episode of After The Crash. If you or someone you know has been involved in a semi-truck wreck and you want to talk, go to ckflaw.com or give me a call at 1-800-ASK-DAVID. If you want additional information about semi-truck wrecks or how to pick the right attorney, check out my two books, Semi-Truck Wreck, A Guide For The Victims and Their Families, or It’s Never Been Easier To Hire The Wrong Attorney. Both of them are available on Amazon, or you can download them for free on our website, ckflaw.com.