Taxie Lambert

Sponsored by RebuttalPR 

We'd love to hear about your career so far and what initially inspired you to pursue a career as a paralegal in plaintiff's law.  

I have been a litigation paralegal for over 20 years. I first started my career in 2006. I was going to undergrad to become an elementary school teacher and during my last semester, when we actually had to go and teach in the classroom, something spoke to me and moved me to where I was like, “I was not meant to be in a classroom for nine months out of a year.” So, I saw an ad for a project leader at a local law firm, I applied, I got the job, and I started in their mass tort department.  

I worked a lot of pre-lit for a long time. As a pre-lit paralegal, you work the case up all for a more experienced trial paralegal to come in and take the case over. You just tend to check boxes a lot, order medical records, call a client, and give them an update. And it really gets more interesting once we move into litigation, which is what I ended up moving to. You become more personal with the case. 20 years later of being a litigation paralegal, my true calling, which has always been teaching, has never left my heart. It just was not meant for me to be in a classroom with four-year-olds. Now it's meant for me to be in a “classroom” with 24-year-olds and 40-year-olds. I'm excited to bring my experience to this organization so we can uplift and support the paralegals who are joining the Society of Women Trial Lawyers.  

Have you always focused on the mass tort side of things or have you worked in different areas of the law?  

I have always focused on mass torts. There were a couple of years where my attorney took on some personal injury cases, and it was out of my wheelhouse. I remember going to seasoned paralegals who worked on personal injury cases and getting direction from them. The courts are way different. When you're in federal court, you have guidelines to help guide you: you have your pretrial orders; you have your case management orders. When I had to take a car accident to trial, I can remember scrambling around and going to a few seasoned paralegals and asking them, "Can you help get me through this discovery? Do I file a notice of service?". They were really instrumental in helping guide me with their expertise.  

When their attorneys then wanted to take on mass torts, they were coming to me asking for some more procedures on how to get mass tort cases and do MDLs. So that's one great thing about having a good network with your paralegal friends, is that we're all in different seasons of our careers. We tend to keep a lot of our seasoned paralegals in our pockets so that we can call them or just really affirm that we are doing things correctly. Having that network of support is going to be instrumental, not only to rising paralegals but even seasoned paralegals. And that’s part of the reason I'm excited about this paralegal track that the Society of Women Trial Lawyers is building out.  

A pretty common misconception is that if you're a paralegal, you can do whatever type of law, when in reality there are specialties. Tell us a little more about how you specialized and what advice you would give to someone who's starting out as a paralegal.  

The first piece of advice would be to get to know the attorney. I have worked with several different types of attorneys. I have worked with attorneys who are experienced, national trial lawyers, and I have worked with attorneys coming right out of law school. Where I felt most useful is working with attorneys coming right out of law school. Where I have felt like a little inchworm at time has been working with national trial lawyers. But working with both types of attorneys, I've learned and gained so much knowledge. I've been a sponge.  

You mentioned the importance of a network and having folks you can ask questions to and bounce ideas off. How did you establish your network earlier in your career?  

I joined our local paralegal associations, and that was pre-COVID, so our association met once a month. We were eating lunch together, and we had guest speakers. So that is really how I started off with my network.  

I can remember personally going through a probate issue. I didn't know anything about probate law. Having some experience as a paralegal, I tried doing research on it and realized I was lost. None of it was making sense to me, and I was fortunate to know someone in our paralegal association to be able to call because we had networked, we had gone to lunch, and we actually started that relationship. So, I was very fortunate to be able to call that probate paralegal and say, "Hey, I need help with getting my dad's name off of this home." She immediately sent me the paperwork, tacked it up, filed it, and the judge granted that my dad's name come off the house. It was great. That's the powerful thing about networking. Luckily, most of your friends that you're networking with are all on different types of cases; they're all in different types of law.  

That's the great thing about these organizations, is that it's more about creating that trusted relationship where you won't hold back on asking questions that might make you feel uneducated. The question that's never asked is really the dumb question. If you're asking a question, it's never a dumb question because it's really what people are thinking, and they're just too scared to actually ask it.  

Why are organizations like the Society of Women Trial Lawyers important to you, and how do you think they can impact members' work and professional growth?  

I think organizations like the Society of Women Trial Lawyers are important for us to regroup and reset. They allow us to go and ask questions that we haven't felt comfortable asking in different settings. They are important for networking, learning, and not so much just networking over a cocktail hour or over lunch but really getting to know ladies in the group. You get to know them on a personal basis, and you're growing together. A lot of these women who are members are in different seasons in their lives.  

Some are up-and-coming women within their careers, others are women who have raised kids, women who have had powerful careers, women who have had sustaining jobs at law firms, and have worked their way up from being a mail courier, to a litigation assistant, to a paralegal, and then became a lawyer. So, they have such good knowledge. It is also powerful to learn from and be around that type of network. Women supporting women and being around women who are like-minded is powerful. That's one thing I have learned as I have become more seasoned in my life: I want to be around like-minded women. I don't want to be competing with women. That's never been my wheelhouse. My wheelhouse has always been lifting each other up. I know for a fact that's what we get out of the Society of Women Trial Lawyers.  

Can you share a case that had a significant impact on you professionally or personally, and what lessons did you take away from that?  

Starting off as a project leader, 20-something years ago, I was working on a drug case. It was an antidepressant that ended up causing liver damage. I can remember one of our clients had taken the drug for just three months. She had just become a mother, and postpartum had sunk in, and she started taking the drug, and immediately went into liver failure and had to have a liver transplant. That really set my growth and interest in connecting with the client. It wasn't until that pivotal moment in my career that I went from working up a case as a pre-lit, to being in a position where it was two nights before we were leaving for trial. The trial team asked, "Hey, will you come to trial with us?" And I said, "Yes, I will be there. If you need me to staple papers, if you need me to make copies, I’ll do whatever." I just wanted so badly to experience that trial moment and see it all come to fruition for all the work we had done.  

In another case, I was invited to go to the trial to be an assistant, and I was looking at the evidence, and I saw a 13-year-old boy. He was killed by an all-terrain vehicle. It had flipped, and when he fell, his head hit the bar on the vehicle. I can remember viewing his autopsy for the first time. That was the first time I'd ever seen an autopsy. That always stuck with me. That felt like a turning point in my career. I want to do whatever I can with my education and whatever experience I am building on to be able to make a difference, so these things don't happen. Whatever situations that families find themselves legally, I want to be able to be able to give them as much knowledge and preparation about the road they're about to undertake as they move into litigation.  

How do you approach building and maintaining trust with clients, especially when it's an emotionally charged case with a lot on the line?  

I build trust when the client reaches out to us to even inquire about whether they have a case. The trust starts by calling them back in a timely manner. We have to let the client know their call is important. Once we connect with the client, it's about maintaining that communication with them.  

It is also understanding what they're dealing with in their own household. I have the pleasure of working with clients across the United States, so we're all in different time zones. It's especially important to get to know each one of your clients, regardless of whether you have 100 clients a year or if you have 2,500 clients in one litigation type. You need to know as much as possible.  

We all have case management software. You can put notes in the software that lets you know a little bit more about their family, their life, and their work. That way, when you get on a call again with them, you're asking them more questions outside of their injury. It's about treating these clients not as a number or a case file but treating them like they're human. While this litigation is ongoing, they're going through other important life-changing events in their own life. They could be dealing with a sick parent or a sick child while also trying to pursue that legal case. Keeping communication consistent and connecting with them is most important.  

What aspect of your work are you most passionate about? What part of your role as a paralegal excites you the most?  

What excites me the most is looking into more detail about the client with their medical records, understanding where things went wrong, and where things could have gone differently. It wasn't until about four years ago that I remember reading documents produced by the defendants, and that's where my passion really kicked in, because reading documents, I was able to see firsthand where knowledge is known from the beginning, before tragedy happens, before it becomes a national case. Building a case around those documents has really lit the fire under me. I've become more passionate about their lack of training, turning a blind eye. Those are all things that I'm looking for when I'm reviewing these documents that are produced by defendants.  

What are some attributes that you think set paralegals up for success working in the mass tort space or in the plaintiff space at a large firm?  

I think what sets them apart is definitely organizational skills. Technology is advancing at lightning speed, and I think organizational skills set them apart. I think detailed orientation sets them apart. Dealing with lots of clients and dealing with wearing multiple hats as a paralegal, you can set up an appointment, reading medical records, or filing something. So just being detail-oriented and staying away from the robotic mindset or the autopilot mindset, just being more detailed, really sets them apart.  

Looking back on your career, what accomplishments are you most proud of, and what future goals are you working towards?  

I've had a lot to reflect on over the past 22 years. I have demonstrated loyalty to the attorneys who poured into me, and I have demonstrated being able to pour into myself, to do a reset. When we tend to work on more detrimental cases, we're emotionally connected. Over the past 20 years, cases and litigations have changed. We're in a more digital world right now. So, I look at my growth there. I also feel that just having a seat at a table that I am given, I've made the best of those moments. I've used my voice even when my voice was shaking at times. That's a powerful statement in itself, because learning to speak up has put me in a lot better position than other paralegals who don't use their voice. Using my voice has allowed me to be aligned and has advanced my career.  

As paralegals, we wear so many hats. And when you think of a paralegal, I hope someone just doesn't end it with "they're support" because we are so much more than support. We are strategic thinkers. We are strategic partners that add value to the case because we are almost like the military – how the Marines are the front line of the war; the paralegals are like the front line of a case.  

Looking forward, I have moved away from litigation paralegal to an administrative director at Rafferty Dominant Cunningham Yaffa. I'm excited to bring the skillset of how a law firm operates and how mass tort litigation operates. I feel even as a seasoned paralegal, I'm always looking to learn. I don't ever come across as if I know everything. I will admit I don't know everything. I am open to always learning. I'm open to always growing. I think that, as young paralegals, if they keep that mindset, they will have a successful career as paralegals.