Before dedicating themselves to personal injury law exclusively, John Singleton and Ken Gibson handled all sorts of legal matters — from family law to bankruptcy to insurance defense to criminal prosecution.
In this interview, Ken, a former prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice and Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney in Norfolk, Virginia, explained why they do what they do.
Ken: “Well, John and I love trial work, and there are two places to get trial work—as a prosecutor in the criminal law field, and in personal injury. And one of the things we pride ourselves on is we’re not afraid to go to trial. We’re not a settlement mill, we want to take cases to trial.”
Why would a personal injury client want his or her attorney to take cases to trial?
Ken: “For one thing, it shows the insurance company that if you’re dealing with our firm, we’re prepared to go to trial to achieve justice for our clients.”
How is your approach to clients different from others?
Ken: “We really feel like it’s a calling to help injured people. We take kind of a different approach, I think, from other firms, in that not only do we want to do our best to represent our personal injury clients, but we make it big mission of ours to educate the community about safety issues.
“We want to prevent accidents, and so we’ve held campaigns to raise awareness about distracted driving (see our Texts=Wrecks campaign). For example, we recently did a mock DUI sentencing for high school students in the area to raise awareness about drunk driving, particularly during prom time and graduation time.”
Note: Teen drivers were involved in 69 crashes in Gloucester County in 2018. That’s better than 2017’s five-year high of 95 crashes, but still 69 accidents too many. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These rates tend to spike around April and May, when teens are celebrating prom and graduation.
How else do you try to prevent injuries from happening?
Ken: “We’ve got a lot of educational materials on our website about child safety seats: making sure you have the right size, making sure they’re installed correctly.
“Each step of the way, we want to educate our neighbors about avoiding distracted driving and drunk driving, as well as making sure their car is safe and ready to get on the road, so that we can ultimately prevent accidents.”
Note: In Gloucester County alone, there were 31 alcohol-related collisions in 2018. Even worse, there were 61 distraction-related crashes! (Traffic Records Electronic Data System) A little preparation can go a long way to keeping you safer!
But how do you help once there has been an accident?
Ken: “Of course, we know that inevitably there are going to be folks who are injured in accidents, and we want to help them through the process. We feel it’s very rewarding to help someone navigate the complex process of a personal injury case — to help them put their life back together, to help them get the compensation to address any future medical needs they may have. Sadly, we do represent individuals who have ongoing medical problems as a result of their accident.”
From demanding justice for the victims of crimes to demanding justice for the victims of negligent behavior, Ken has a heart for clients. He and John pride themselves on caring more about stopping accidents than getting cases. As they’ve often said before, “We would gladly put ourselves out of business if it meant no one else got hurt!”
But as Ken noted, accidents do happen. If you or a loved one was injured in Gloucester County or beyond, we’re here to help. Give GibsonSingleton Virginia Injury Attorneys a call at (804) 413-6777 to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation.
