“True advocacy starts and begins with a well-trained lawyer that is providing independent legal counsel in the best interest of the client, not in the best interest of shareholders or a corporation.”
Lance K. Brubaker traces an uncommon arc — from oil-and-gas and creditors’ rights work to founding a boutique plaintiff practice focused on catastrophic injury cases. Early in his career, he says, the paychecks were fine, but the purpose was missing. A Rick Friedman speech — the kind that sticks in your head when you’re dissatisfied — nudged him toward representing real people. That shift eventually became Brubaker Injury Law in South Florida, where he now personally shepherds cases from intake through resolution, resisting the assembly-line model that dominates high-volume practices.
Brubaker talks candidly about the leap from a steady salary to the uncertainty of building a firm — learning trust accounting, marketing, even the uneasy feeling of spending into growth and waiting for results. Those pressures, he argues, made him a stronger advocate. And they reinforced his hands-on approach, especially with “second look” matters: cases rejected by larger firms that, with time and persistence, can turn into life-changing outcomes. He shares a recent example — two years of work on a case another shop had dropped — that resolved just shy of seven figures. The point isn’t the number; it’s restoring hope for clients who were told they had none.
Lance also discusses the policy fight over Arizona’s Alternative Business Structures and the deletion of Ethics Rule 5.4. Brubaker worries that private equity–driven ownership undermines lawyers’ independence and invites national end-runs around states that have rejected non-lawyer ownership. He contrasts Arizona’s approvals with Utah’s stricter sandbox, calling for vigilance and, frankly, for more of the profession to engage now that players like KPMG are in the mix. Access to justice is real, he says — but contingency-fee personal injury isn’t where the crisis lies.
Threaded through the episode is a commitment to clarity at trial: show the rule, show how it was broken, and refuse to let insurers minimize what’s been taken. It’s a philosophy that fits a small, elite team that stays with the client from day one.
The Trial Lawyer's Journal is Presented by CloudLex and Lexvia.ai.
