McLeish Orlando's Brandon Pedersen came onboard ready for the big leagues
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As someone who grew up happy to play any kind of sport, and was a member of both the Western Law Men’s Hockey Team and the Law Games Team during law school where he competed in everything from ultimate frisbee to ball hockey, Brandon Pedersen can’t help but draw comparisons between the lessons he’s learned on the field, pitch and arena and what he is now a part of at McLeish Orlando LLP.
Being a member of sports teams taught Pedersen that if you’re not willing to work hard, you won’t be as good as you can be. The best teams Pedersen was a part of were always exactly that — teams — and that spirit of collaboration applies to any workforce, but “particularly and especially a law firm.”
“A firm can only be as good as the sum of all its parts — to be the best you need all hands on deck and everybody committed to a common goal,” he says. “McLeish Orlando is known as one of the top, if not the top, personal injury firms, and I believe a lot of that can be attributed to our team mentality.”
Pedersen was drawn to McLeish Orlando — first as a summer student, then for his articles and finally as the firm’s newest associate — because of its reputation as being home to lawyers who are the best at what they do. Seeing everyone in the firm from reception and administration staff, to assistants, clerks and lawyers so dedicated to getting clients the best possible results inspired Pedersen to join the team and solidified his desire to stay with the firm for the long haul.
"The way the lawyers talk about their work and their clients resonates with me, and I see daily the impact our work can have on people who suffered a tragedy,” he says.
Pedersen has a more intimate connection with this area of law— when he was young, his cousin and aunt were killed in a car crash. As he got older, he understood the full extent of the devastation it caused and the more he learned about the law, the more he realized he had an opportunity to help people affected in ways similar to his family.
The nature of the practice is highly emotionally driven: it can be tough to hear people’s stories, and while empathy is key so is keeping your eyes on the ultimate goal — acting exclusively in the client’s best interest.
“I think to be a great personal injury lawyer, you have to be willing to push through that emotion and use it as leverage to motivate or inspire you in a way that keeps you striving for the best possible outcome.”
As Pedersen embarks on his legal career, he’s motivated to continue learning from the best, and is fortunate enough as a junior to have the opportunity to study the more tenured lawyers’ styles and approaches, taking bits and pieces of each to find what works best for him and creating his practice from there. Every day is an opportunity to dive deeper into the practice of personal injury law, and Pedersen looks forward to being a life-long learner.
“You have to be willing to apply what you’ve learned from previous cases, but also be quick to adapt. It’s refreshing in that it’s never the same thing — there’s always more to look forward to.”
