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2.26_From the Pigskin to Patient Advocacy: A Profile on Assemblyman Adam J. Taliaferro, RLAW '08
11 Plays3 years ago
Assemblyman Adam J. Taliaferro, RLAW '08 speaks with Co-Dean Kim Mutcherson about his transition from a promising football career into the legal arena, including his work with NJ legislature and patient advocacy through the Adam Taliaferro Foundation.
Learn more about the Adam Taliaferro Foundation.
The Power of Attorney is produced by Rutgers Law School. With two locations minutes from Philadelphia and New York City, Rutgers Law offers the prestige and reputation of a large, nationally-known university combined with a personal, small campus experience. Learn more by visiting law.rutgers.edu.
Series Producer and Editor: Kate Bianco
--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rutgerslaw/messageRecommended
Transcript
Introduction to Kim Mutcherson and Adam Taliaferro
00:00:09
Speaker
Hi, my name is Kim Mutcherson, co-dean of Rutgers Law School in Camden, and this is the power of attorney. Now, I know I always say this every single episode, but this is a very exciting episode. We have one of our alums here to talk with us today, and I'm extremely excited to talk about his origin story and how he moved from Rutgers Law into
00:00:37
Speaker
a very exciting life as a lawyer and as a politician. So welcome to Power of Attorney, Adam Taliaferro. It is so, so, so wonderful to have you
Adam Taliaferro's Childhood and Football Dream
00:00:49
Speaker
here. Thanks so much for your time.
00:00:50
Speaker
Kim, thank you so much. It's my honor, my privilege to be speaking with you and anything Rutgers Law related is a good day for me. Fantastic. That's good to hear. Usually what I do when we start these podcasts is I ask people for their origin story. How is it that they ended up in law school?
00:01:10
Speaker
I think for you, one, there are going to be lots of people who know at least bits and pieces of your origin story, but there will also be folks who don't know it. So I want to sort of start with the beginning and not start with law school. And the beginning, if I'm right, is a kid growing up who loved football and wanted to be a football player. Is that fair?
00:01:30
Speaker
You're absolutely right. I grew up in South Jersey in a town called Voorhees. And from the age of seven, my goal and my dream was to play professional football. And I was always a smaller guy. My mom was never thrilled with the fact that I wanted to play football. But thankfully, everything went well. I went to Eastern High School, which is also in Voorhees. And that's when my football career really blossomed. And then I had the opportunity to go on and play at Penn State.
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah. So there's something really extraordinary about identifying at seven years old your goal for your lifetime, right?
The Life-Changing Injury and Recovery Journey
00:02:10
Speaker
What was it that appealed to you about football?
00:02:15
Speaker
You know, it was still to this day, I haven't found anything that attracted me to the level that football did. I remember the very first time I put on my helmet and put on my uniform, I got this feeling that went through me that I really never felt before. And I remember going off to practice for the first time and holding the football. It was just like, you know, I felt like that was what I was meant to do. And it's really hard to put into words, but I just fell in love with the game.
00:02:42
Speaker
from a very young age. My dad played football growing up and he was the one that really first put the ball on my hand, but I just had this natural affinity towards the sport that has stuck with me throughout my entire childhood. I love that. You were one of those people who identified what you wanted to do at a very young age and then basically
00:03:04
Speaker
you know, built your life around getting to the point where you could play big time college football with the goal ultimately of ending up in the NFL. So you did great in high school, you got recruited to go to Penn State, which again is big time college football. And very early on in your football career, things went awry. Is it okay if I ask you to talk about that game with Ohio State and where things went from there?
00:03:31
Speaker
Absolutely. You know, as you mentioned, it was very early. It's only the fifth game of my freshman year at Penn State. I was playing in a game and I was playing defensive backs. I was on the defensive side of the ball and my job was to tackle the ball carrier. And the play happened, a routine play that I had been through my, you know, thousands of times while playing football. I went to make a tackle. They tackled a running back and I unfortunately had my head down when I made impact.
00:03:57
Speaker
And the impact of the tackle caused me to break my neck and I really bruised my spinal cord. And I tell people all the time, you know, when you have these kinds of injuries, I remember laying on the ground trying to get up and nothing was moving, but the thought of being paralyzed never went to my head because, you know, in life you always, you watch the news, you read the newspaper, you hear about all the bad things that happened. You always think that's going to be somebody else. So,
00:04:25
Speaker
Although I couldn't move, the thought of being paralyzed didn't go through my head. I just thought I was injured, but I'd be back flying home with my teammates later on that evening. But unfortunately, when they took me to the hospital, they saw the severity of my injury. And unfortunately, their initial prognosis was that I would never walk again. Right. Right. And so they brought you to Philly, right? And that's where you had surgery?
00:04:50
Speaker
I had my surgery actually in Ohio. The injury was bad, but I was very fortunate to have had my injury in Ohio because right on campus at Ohio State, they have a nationally recognized spinal cord center right on campus. I had my surgery out there and I was in attention care there for a week and then they airlifted me back to Philadelphia closer to home to begin my recovery.
00:05:16
Speaker
And I can't imagine, I mean, you were, you know, you were quite young and I can't imagine what it must have felt like, you know, to wake up and to be told that you had what a 3% chance of walking again. That's, that's an extraordinary moment for a young person, particularly somebody who was an athlete. So did you, I mean, did you think to yourself, well, I'm going to, I'm going to beat the odds here.
00:05:44
Speaker
I think you hit the nail on the head when you talk about the brevity of the condition I was in. My parents realized that as well. I was 17 and my parents weren't at the game that evening. They flew out to Ohio. That's when the doctors first told my parents how bleak the prognosis was.
00:06:05
Speaker
But my parents made the decision knowing how young I was and the potential impact that would have on my recovery hearing such bad news. They made the decision not to tell me. So I never knew how severe the prognosis was. Wow. Wow. You know, I can definitely see people who would say, you know, that was not the direction to go in. And yet as a parent, I can completely see, you know, why they would have made that decision. And do you do you feel like that was the
00:06:34
Speaker
I mean, obviously the outcome has been really fantastic, but do you feel like not having that information actually puts you in a better position to think this is a bad experience, but it's a temporary experience? I think so because what I learned going, looking back on that injury and having an opportunity to be around a lot of folks that were dealing with the same type of injury is that getting through a spinal cord injury
00:07:01
Speaker
is, of course, physical, but a big part of it is the mental mindset that you bring into your recovery process. And we have such bad news early on, it's easy to get down, it's easy to begin thinking negatively, not believing that you'll ever walk again, but you know,
00:07:18
Speaker
I had no choice but to be positive and say, hey, I'm going to walk out of this. And that was the mindset I went into from my very first rehabilitation session, that this is going to be a tough process, but I'm going to come out of it. And having that positive mindset, I think, really helped me in my early recovery. Yeah, I would think so. So you spent, what, about eight months, I think, right? Yeah. Just in rehab and physical therapy.
00:07:45
Speaker
Do you remember what it was like to be able to take those first steps? Yeah. For me, I often equate it to a baby taking their first steps. That excitement in the household when you see your ... For those that have kids, when you see your little one taking their first steps, that's how it was with me. It's the strangest thing.
00:08:09
Speaker
I would try to remember what it was like to walk, and it just felt like my body completely forgot. But as you mentioned, over the eight months, I relearned the process. Then when it came to the point to finally take that first step, my entire family was there. We had a celebration that I was finally walking again. I was taking very small steps, but it was like, hey, I had a new lease on life.
00:08:31
Speaker
And, you know, I tell people all the time, you know, I took those steps, but there were so many, so many people, my family, my physical therapist, so many in the community that prayed for me. It really helped me get to that point. And without that support, that day would have never have happened. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's an extraordinary story and an extraordinary example of what people can achieve, right? When they have, as you say, the right mindset and also have the kind of
00:09:00
Speaker
support around you that you were able to have and access to good health care, right? Absolutely. In order to be able to do the rehab that was necessary.
Triumphant Return and Career Shift
00:09:10
Speaker
So I'm not, you know, I'm not a big sports person. I'm not a big football person. But one of the pieces of your story that I think is just that must have, it seems to me that must have felt so amazing and tremendous is you being able to walk back into the stadium after folks had seen you have this
00:09:30
Speaker
catastrophic injury and then to come back in this sort of what feels to me like it must have felt really triumphant. Can you describe that moment? Yeah. Even before I could walk, my teammates would come to the hospital, my coaches would come to visit me, and about three months into my recovery, my coaches said, hey, Adam, when you walk again, we want you to lead the team out the tunnel.
00:09:55
Speaker
And it was kind of a joke at that time because I was like, you know, I'm not even walking. And these guys are already talking about me leading the team out the tunnel. But the thing that it really provided for me was a goal. It gave me something to work towards throughout that entire eight month recovery. And then when I was fortunate enough there to get out, I felt like I was a football player all over again because I was practicing that moment coming out the tunnel.
00:10:18
Speaker
And I remember it was our first game of our season and it was 100,000 people in the stadium. And as I'm walking through the tunnel, I just heard this roar go through the crowd and something went through me that I had never felt before. And it inspired me to walk and run.
00:10:35
Speaker
I didn't think I could run at that time. And I ran out a little bit. And for me, it was just, as you had mentioned, it was a triumphant moment. Not just for me, but for so many people that supported me, you know, my parents were in the stadium, my physical therapist, and so many people that prayed for me were in the stadium. And for me, it was just to show everybody that I was okay again. And also to thank so many people for their support over that last year to get me to that moment. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's sort of one of those things where
00:11:04
Speaker
And again, I'm not necessarily a big sports fan, but there are certain moments that even if you're not a sports fan, you know that they happened because they're such sort of lightning moments. And certainly for somebody who was as young as you were, who was incredibly promising as an athlete, who was playing in a big time football program to have you come back.
00:11:31
Speaker
I think was probably an incredibly inspirational story for a lot of people. Yeah. I will forever be thankful for that moment. I got to be careful because I'm married now and I have two kids. So I can't say it's the best moment of my life, but it is definitely up there. Absolutely. So I want to transition now to talking about what happens when you have a dream from the time you're seven years old and that dream is that you're going to end up in the NFL.
00:12:01
Speaker
And then you have this really significant injury, which you recover from, but which puts you in a position where that dream is now elusive, right? And you have to sort of think about, all right, well, what's going to be next? And you're still very young. What was the process like to sort of figure out, all right, this thing that I was going to do is no longer on the table. So what's next for me? How did you work through that? And who helped you work through that? Yeah, Kim.
00:12:30
Speaker
I would be lying to you if I said that it was something that just clicked overnight. I struggled for a while. I went through this eight month journey of recovering. And then I went back to Penn State to restart my academic career. And I remember getting back to campus and I was no longer a football player. The team was fantastic. They kept me part of the program. I was still with the guys, but I was no longer out there playing anymore.
00:12:57
Speaker
And I struggled with it. And there are often times I will say, you know, why me? Out of all the people in the world, how could this happen to me? But what really was a benefit to me was just having such a great support staff where, you know, my guidance counselors at Penn State, and also my coaches, you know, my coach at the time, Coach Paterno, every day that I would walk into the football building, he would say, you know, what do you want to do with your life? And I couldn't answer that question, to be perfectly honest with you.
00:13:25
Speaker
And he directed me back to my guidance counselor and they had me take a test. Some folks that are listening may have taken the same test where you answer a bunch of random questions. And at the end of the test, it tells you what you may be interested in in life or as a potential career. And for me, it came out as something in the law field.
00:13:47
Speaker
I never, nobody in my family was lawyers. I never had thought about being a lawyer, but I remember going back home to my apartment that evening and I told my roommate, I said, his name was Tony. I said, Tony, I took this test and it says I may be interested in the law field. And I remember him saying, he said, Adam, you know that's for smart people, right? My own roommate doesn't believe in me, but that little test was what started me on my career towards the law.
00:14:17
Speaker
Oh, that's great. So then how did you end up at Rutgers Law School in Camden? And I know that part of that story involves Camille Andrews, who was our former admissions dean. So I'd love to hear how she roped you into a Rutgers Law education. Yeah. So after I took that test and I decided I wanted to go towards law, I said,
Law School Experience and Influences
00:14:39
Speaker
you know what?
00:14:40
Speaker
I can't play football anymore, but I would love to be able to represent my teammates that go on to play in the NFL. I want to be their attorney. I want to be their agent.
00:14:48
Speaker
So I decided, you know, okay, I'm going to go to law school. I started looking around at law schools. And for me, I say, you know, maybe I can come back closer to home or maybe I could stay at Penn State. But I came home and I had an opportunity to have lunch with Dean Andrews and took a tour of Rutgers Law School and had some friends that had gone through Rutgers Law School and heard nothing but good things about it. And I was kind of hooked that my first tour at Rutgers Law
00:15:13
Speaker
As I say, the rest is history. I started on my journey towards applying to Rutgers Law, and I was fortunate enough to get in, and I tell people it's one of the best decisions I ever made. Good. I like that. I always love to talk to people about what it was like to be a law student, particularly folks who don't necessarily have lawyers in their family, and walked into this space. Law school is a very distinctive experience that is quite different
00:15:43
Speaker
from being in undergraduate school. So what was that transition like, particularly that first year, which is the year when people often get really hammered by the experience?
00:15:55
Speaker
I remember telling people I was going to law school, the first thing everyone would say was, it is so hard. It's going to be so much reading. You know, are you sure you want to do it? And I got people that made me so nervous that I applied to I took a summer course early. So I took contracts over the summer. And I remember just being so nervous in there and
00:16:20
Speaker
The thing that I will always give credit to Professor Fine before was that he made the class enjoyable. He made it understandable. He said, you know, there's nothing to be nervous and scared about. We're all going to learn together. And I took that contracts course over the summer and I realized, you know, law school is not such a big, bad, scary place. Yeah. We're all here to learn with one another. And, you know, me and my fellow classmates got through that summer. So I went into the fall.
00:16:45
Speaker
you know, confident for my first year for, you know, four wall courses. And it was like, like everyone else, you know, it was it was a lot of reading, but you get accustomed to it. And I just know I may be a little bit biased, but I said that the professors
00:17:00
Speaker
at Rutgers Law just did such a fantastic job of making the content understandable, building the confidence, and being available before and after class if I had questions. I just felt like it was a community of people that were all there to help you get through. It may sound crazy, but I tell people my first year was enjoyable.
00:17:24
Speaker
It taught me to think a different way. It was just a unique, unique experience that I look back on finally. Yeah. You know, one of the things I often say to first year students, particularly students who, you know, are struggling and just feel so kind of confused by the experience, I say to them, you're learning both a new way to think and a new language.
00:17:49
Speaker
And that's hard, right? And it takes time and you have to sort of give yourself some grace to build up to a point where it all starts to come together, right? For most people, it's not gonna all start to come together on day one. It's gonna take a little bit of time for sure. So I'm glad to hear that your experience was that the professors were a really important part of helping you make that transition. We always hope that that's gonna be the case for folks.
00:18:15
Speaker
Are there any particular classes or professors that you remember with a very, very high level of fondness, right? Those people who you'll kind of never forget? Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, I think, you know, Professor Feynman, because he was my first, you know, he was the professor that introduced me to the law school world. And I'm so hesitant because I'm thinking back, there was so many that I look back on
00:18:43
Speaker
And I smile about, but the thing I tell people, Professor Robbins, who was my legal writing professor, because even to this day, I was not a confident writer. I always wasn't sure if my writing was good enough. And she spent so much time with me.
00:19:03
Speaker
and helping me to craft and refine my writing my first year. If I had to probably say anybody, I probably spent the most time with her my first year. Even to this day, I'm sure we'll talk later, I'm in public service and she was walking through the state house and I saw her and it just brought back so many great memories and we still talk to this day. So I'm just so thankful that the experts
00:19:32
Speaker
wonderful law professions that are at Rutgers really helped prepare me for life after law school. Terrific. So you said once you, you know, you took the test and the test said, Hey, go be a lawyer. And you were thinking to yourself that you would become a lawyer who could work with athletes, right? Who could work with the kind of folks that you had been playing football with as they moved into their careers. But that is not what you ended up doing.
00:20:01
Speaker
So was there a particular point where you kind of shifted focus about what you wanted to do with your law degree? Yeah, I think it was, no, actually prior to my first year in law school, I had the opportunity to intern with the NFL agent and really see what it was like to be an agent on a day-to-day basis. And you know, you see it on TV and it looks so glamorous and luxurious when you had the opportunity to see it up closer and
00:20:28
Speaker
Personally, you realize that it's not as luxurious as you thought it was. And I quickly realized that I don't know if I want to be basing my livelihood on the decisions of young, crazy athletes. I decided, and also that summer, I was fortunate to spend a few weeks at Montgomery McCracken in Philadelphia as an unpaid intern.
00:20:51
Speaker
and just get a little glimpse into the corporate law side of the business. And I thought, you know what, this may be something that I'm interested in, particularly around labor and employment law. So I quickly shifted towards seeking opportunities to work in the corporate litigation setting. Got it. And then, so when you graduated, you did a little bit of law firm work, but then you ended up going to Bristol Myers Squibb.
00:21:18
Speaker
Can you tell us what the work is that you were doing there or are doing there? Yeah. As you mentioned, I was working at a corporate litigation firms in Philadelphia for about four years. For me, I had my injury and healthcare advocacy was something that was so important to me, not only in my personal life, but I wanted to get more involved on the professional side. I started looking around for different opportunities.
00:21:46
Speaker
We all talk about networking and getting to know people and I tried to do that to the best of my ability and I got to know some folks that worked over at Bristol Myers and an opportunity arose to join Bristol Myers Squibb in our health advocacy department. So I came over to Bristol Myers and I was a policy advocate. So my main goal was working with patient advocates, helping them to better understand the policies at the state level that
00:22:14
Speaker
are beneficial to them and getting access to the medications that they need. And I played that role for a couple of years. And then we had a merger at BMS and all of us on the health advocacy side joined the state government affairs department. So through that integration, I became a lobbyist for Bristol Myers. And they quickly moved over into the lobbying fields. I was a lobbyist for Bristol Myers covering about five states for him and did that for three years.
00:22:41
Speaker
I transitioned, you know, outside of my work at Bristol-Myers, I started to get involved in public service and politics. And what I quickly found was it was a little bit of a conflict to be in public service and serving as a legislator and also serving as a lobbyist for Bristol-Myers. So, Bristol-Myers was really great with allowing me to move back to advocacy, which was really my first love, which is what I still do to this day at Bristol-Myers. So I lead our patient advocacy efforts in 12 states.
00:23:09
Speaker
and going back to educating patients on policies and helping them better understand how they can get better access to healthcare. I love that. I obviously want to get into your work in the assembly and your foundation work, but I also want to talk about a law career that doesn't look like what people often imagine a lawyer is going to do coming out of law school. The reason why I'd love to hear you talk about that is
00:23:39
Speaker
You know, one of the things that we say to students all the time, whether they're in law school or people who are thinking about law school is, oh, there's so many different things that you can do with a law degree. But then, you know, their field of vision oftentimes gets very narrow at various points. And you're, you know, you're a person who has used your law degree, I think in a really interesting way in terms of the work that you've done at Bristol Myers.
Leveraging a Law Degree in the Corporate World
00:24:03
Speaker
And so I would love for you to sort of talk about how
00:24:06
Speaker
You're doing advocacy work, but you're not in a courtroom and you're not writing briefs. So what are the ways in which your training as a lawyer is integral and really critical to the kind of work that you're doing both in educating and advocating for patients and helping them advocate for themselves? Yeah. And I think you're so right because even when I was a law student, I just had that narrow view you spoke about like, I've got to be at a law firm. I want to be a partner one day.
00:24:36
Speaker
That was it. But as I started to really look at the landscape, and I had so many people tell me, you can do so many different things with your law degree. And it took me actually a few years after law school to realize that. And I tell people all the time, my law degree helped me get my foot in the door. I would not have had the opportunity at Bristol-Myers Squibb if they didn't look on my resume and see that I had a law degree. And that law degree helped them to better understand and know
00:25:05
Speaker
that I had the ability to think differently, the ability to evaluate. And in my role now, I'm looking at legislation every day. And if you can read a legal brief, you can easily read a piece of legislation. So I think, I tell law students all the time, the way that you're learning to think will open up so many different opportunities, whether it's within a law firm, but even more so outside of the law firm setting,
00:25:35
Speaker
So I have never stepped foot in a courtroom after I graduated from Rutgers Law School, but I use the skills and my law degree each and every day in my role. Because as you mentioned earlier, I am helping patients understand the laws, the laws that are written by attorneys all the time.
00:26:00
Speaker
So that's why I smile whenever I hear someone going to law school. I smile because it really is the key to opening up so many different doors. And some of those doors you may not even know exist when you're walking into the law school. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's so critical for students to keep an open mind, to recognize that
00:26:23
Speaker
If you, if you have blinders on and you, you know, come into school and say, this is what I'm going to do. And there's nothing else that's, that's there for me that you might actually miss out on some, some really great opportunities. So that's, that's my little bit of life advice in this podcast to all of our students out there. So I said, I did want to transition into talking about your career as a politician. And then I also wanted to talk about your foundation. So let's, let's start with the, with the politician piece.
00:26:50
Speaker
So you are presently a member of the General Assembly in the New Jersey State Legislature. And can you just sort of describe for folks what a typical day is like for you? Yeah, I've been in the Legislature for six years now, serving on the General Assembly side.
Political Career and Advocacy
00:27:10
Speaker
And the thing that I really enjoy about serving in the Legislature is that there typically is no typical day.
00:27:18
Speaker
I would say from our side, you know, in New Jersey, we're what you call a citizen's legislature. So 80 to 85% of the legislators in the state have full-time employment outside of their roles in the legislature. So it provides a lot of flexibility to really make your position your own. So I have the honor and privilege of chairing our law and public safety committee.
00:27:42
Speaker
within the legislature. So I deal with a lot of policing type issues. So from day to day, the way that my day goes is in the morning, either early in the mornings or later on in the evening hours outside of my BMS time, I try to take constituent calls or respond to constituent inquiries, but also we have committees. So my committee meetings are usually three or four days out of the month.
00:28:08
Speaker
where we bring testimony in and we pass bills out of our committee for their full assembly to consider. And then we also have our full voting sessions, which are usually two or three days out of the month. So it's been quite the unique experience. The thing I tell people is I'm a person. I enjoy being liked by people. Who doesn't? But when you get involved in public service, you realize you could be a very nice person, but there's going to be folks that just
00:28:38
Speaker
aren't a fan of yours because of your political affiliation or because of the way you voted on a specific issue. But I try to, at the end of the day, I don't know how long I'm going to be in the legislation, but while I'm in here, is to try to help in my own little way. I got involved in public service because I've been tremendously assisted throughout my entire life, mostly, you know, more so during my, you know, my injury. I saw how
00:29:05
Speaker
good people can be when they come together. And that's the mindset I take into my service in the legislature. I try to the greatest extent not to be partisan. I say when I played sports, I didn't know if my teammates were Republicans or Democrats. I just knew we were all pushing in the same direction. And that's how I focus when I'm serving.
00:29:31
Speaker
I've enjoyed it. It's had some tough times. There's been some tough issues, but that's what makes this job unique and fun. You meet a lot of good people. You get to interact with so many wonderful people throughout the state, but most importantly, you get to help people. And I think that's what it's all about. Yeah. One of the things that I think is really great that you share that maybe a lot of people don't recognize is that there are lots of state legislatures where folks, as you say, have full-time jobs and then are also
00:30:01
Speaker
you know, part of the legislative body in their state. And one of the critiques we often see of Congress is this idea that, you know, these are people who are living in this sort of very rarefied air and who don't understand the lives of their constituents and, you know, don't interact with their constituents enough and, you know, don't really know what it's like to kind of be a real person who walks on the ground.
00:30:26
Speaker
Is it your sense that because you are in a legislative body where folks are sort of living real lives in a way, that it's useful for the work that you do and the work that your colleagues do? I completely agree. I think when you look around our legislature, you've got small business owners, you've got lawyers, you've got people from all walks of life
00:30:52
Speaker
that are bringing their real life experiences to their votes. And so I think it's been a tremendous help to have that aspect within our legislation because I think we do get removed from
00:31:08
Speaker
the everyday life of either working a job or dealing with issues that we all deal with on a day-to-day basis, I think you can, I don't wanna say lose yourself, but you can lose perspective. So I think it's been a good thing. Some others may feel differently because it is a balance. Balancing my daytime job with my legislative duties took some time to find that balance, but thankfully,
00:31:35
Speaker
you know, Bristol Myers has provided that flexibility, but also, you know, I've learned to balance my days and it's, you know, six years in, I feel like I've got it down now, but there are times where I got to walk that fine line. Yeah. I obviously cannot ignore the fact that you have been in the legislature during a global pandemic when life just shifted so much for all of us.
00:32:02
Speaker
And really quickly, you know, I think about that a lot, how quickly everything sort of changed for all of us. And there are lots of ways in which people really look to the legislature to be a body to help folks out during this really difficult time. I wonder what the, sort of what the pressure of that has been like for you and your colleagues, right? Particularly, you know, as you say, somebody who wants to help people and who wants to serve the public.
00:32:31
Speaker
at a time where there are serious fiscal concerns and health concerns and so many different things going on. How do you work in an environment that to me at least seems like it would be incredibly stressful? Yeah, when the pandemic first hit, none of us thought it would be to the level that it has to be common that it's still with us. And when you're looking at it just from a state budget perspective,
00:33:01
Speaker
When you look at the impact the pandemic has had on the state budget and the tough decisions that need to be made just to balance the budget, whether it's cutting funding to the programs that we all care about or shifting funds from one program to another, those are decisions that you don't take lightly. But more importantly, not only my district office, but district offices throughout the entire state.
00:33:26
Speaker
have just been overwhelmed with constituents saying, we need help. We've called, we're unemployment assistance. We're not getting any calls back from the state. There's just so many different things, and your heart just hurts. And it goes out to these folks that just need that assistance. As legislators, we can only do so much, but we've got wonderful staffs of people
00:33:49
Speaker
that on a day-to-day basis are having these conversations with not only our constituents but the state trying to make sure that folks are getting their their unemployment funds and there's just so many issues that have come along and I know I'm preaching to the choir that I've come along with this pandemic but I think you know at the end of the day I always tell you know our staff in our office you all are doing the best that you can you know they come to work and they work their you know
00:34:16
Speaker
12 hours a day just trying to get through the amounts of emails and phone calls. But that's what we're here for. I say none of us were forced to get involved in public service. This is something that we chose. So we've got to take that on and do the best that we can each and every day. And that's what I try to do. I can't speak for every member of the legislature, but I'm pretty confident.
00:34:37
Speaker
That's how all of us take our jobs. And I'm fortunate. I have a wonderful district that I work in where my colleague in the assembly, Gavin and John Berticelli, he's been in office for 16 years. He's been a great mentor to me, a great source of information. And then my colleague on the Senate side is Gavin and Steve Sweeney.
00:34:56
Speaker
who serves as the Senate president. And he's the main reason that I got involved. He inspired me to want to get involved in public service. So I'm fortunate to be with two great guys that have really helped guide me in my understanding of how this all works. Absolutely. I want to talk a little bit as well about your work on the Law and Public Safety Committee. I imagine, so we had the pandemic going on this year, which was incredibly difficult.
00:35:26
Speaker
but we also had some really tough conversations as a country about policing and criminal justice and racism and all sorts of issues. Do you feel like we are moving in the right direction? I mean, I think it's been hard to try to have those conversations in conjunction with also having the pandemic and yet they're so,
00:35:53
Speaker
critical and so meaningful to lots of people's lives. And it feels like we're moving in a good direction and that there are interesting things happening, like the marijuana referendum that went through and what is that going to look like? But these issues obviously aren't going to go away. We're still going to be thinking about prisons. We're still going to be thinking about police. So what's your take on where you think we are and where you think we're going? Yeah.
00:36:23
Speaker
I think he spoke it very clearly that this pandemic and the issues that we all witnessed over the summer really cast a strong light on the issues that we've all known about for years.
00:36:36
Speaker
But I think, you know, certainly speaking from a legislative standpoint, the conversations are happening now at a much higher level and people are listening. Are we where we need to be? You know, I don't think anyone would agree with that. Are we taking steps in the right direction? I would say yes. Certainly in our Law and Public Safety Committee, over in the Judiciary Committee, and so many committees on the Assembly and Senate side have taken up issues such as, you know,
00:37:04
Speaker
policing and the tactics that are used. Just in my committee last week, we were talking about prison reentry, so making sure that folks that are in prison have an opportunity to get back to their lives and that we're providing them with the appropriate resources.
00:37:20
Speaker
to be successful when they're released. The pandemic, our presidents were ravaged by COVID. Are they getting the appropriate protection behind bars? These are individuals that are people too. And sometimes, unfortunately, they are forgotten about. So what could we be doing to make sure that they are treated as they should be treated? So for me, I was pleased to hear from the governor down
00:37:49
Speaker
And from our attorney general that these are conversations that are important to everybody and that we're taking steps in the right direction. So I think, as you mentioned with the marijuana side, the reason marijuana, it was on the ballot, it was voted out overwhelmingly, but we're still having
00:38:09
Speaker
voted out, you know, created regulations around it because there's a social justice component to the marijuana legislation that is still being talked about. So I think, you know, it has been an eye opener for all of us, but I am truly thankful that we are all listening and that we're all, as I mentioned earlier, trying to work in the same direction. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a sense of momentum, which is really wonderful. And I hope that we can sustain it. And I hope that
00:38:38
Speaker
I think there are lots of ways in which, as much as people like to make fun of New Jersey, this is a great state, right? I mean, this is a state where there are incredible opportunities for people, lots of wonderful places to live, great schools. And so I'm sort of excited by the idea that New Jersey could be a leader, really, on some of these issues and be an example for other parts of the country, hopefully. Yeah.
00:39:06
Speaker
And with you 100% on that, as a guy that's lived in Jersey my entire life, you hear about, you know, high property taxes and different than we, as you, we're in the butt of a lot of jokes, but I think we're all trying to, you know, make this plate, make New Jersey a better place. And I think even more so thankful to have you, uh, you know, leading our wonderful law schools. So, you know, thank you to have you here. And, uh, you know, just really honored to be talking with you. Thank you.
Foundation Work and Advice for Law Students
00:39:30
Speaker
So I don't want to let you go without talking about your foundation. And the foundation strikes me as being an extension of your commitment to public service and your commitment to patient advocacy and to being a person who is a helper in the world. So can you tell folks what your foundation does? Yeah, so the foundation
00:39:55
Speaker
20 years ago when I was going through my injury, over a half a million dollars was raised for my lifetime care because the news reports, as I mentioned earlier, were that I was never going to walk again. So, so many people, so many wonderful people donated money to make sure that in the case that I wasn't going to be able to walk again, that I was going to have funds to help retrofit my home and really take care of anything that I needed to make sure that my life was comfortable in my current situation.
00:40:20
Speaker
I thankfully recovered, and I didn't need those funds. But when I was going through the recovery process, I came across so many people that I was in the hospital with that didn't have the same resources that I had. They were getting kicked out of the hospital early because their insurance wasn't covering their basic physical therapy needs. So when I got out, it was actually my high school football coach who said, hey, what do you think about creating a foundation to help provide
00:40:48
Speaker
some emotional financial support to patients. Of course, we thought it was a great idea. That's where the foundation was born 20 years ago. The main goal of the foundation is to step in when insurance steps out. If insurance isn't paying to help retrofit your home, if insurance isn't helping you purchase a van so you can have basic transportation needs, we try to provide the funds for that. We had a
00:41:17
Speaker
a gentleman who had a spinal cord injury and he wanted to just go back to college, but he needed a full-time nurse to be there with him and his insurance wouldn't cover it. So we provided the funding so we could have a full-time nurse so he can go back to college. So we just provide that financial and emotional support to help people the same way that I was helped when I was going through my recovery.
00:41:39
Speaker
It's been around for 20 years, and it's an entirely volunteer organization. So every dollar that's raised goes back to helping patients. And I'm just like, as I always say, my name is on the foundation. We have a great board president, a guy by the name of Tom Ikebone, a great board of directors that really do the day-to-day work and making sure this foundation goes that we're truly helping patients. So for me, it's a labor of love.
00:42:03
Speaker
because my main goal within the foundation is talking to the patients, hearing their stories, sharing my story, bouncing ideas off each other. And I'm just so thankful that the foundation is still living it and that we just had such great and to this day have such great support from so many in the community. We have a few fundraisers throughout the year that really help us raise money to help patients and it's just been a great experience for me. That's really terrific.
00:42:28
Speaker
You know, it's interesting how, again, these sort of experiences that you never would have imagined, right? So, you know, the injury that happened to you, which of course nobody would ever wish that on somebody, but the ways in which you've been able to take that experience and use it to, you know, not only improve your life, but to improve so many other people's lives is really, is really tremendous.
00:42:52
Speaker
So I want to ask you one more question, and this is a question that sort of rooted in your experience as somebody who didn't grow up wanting to be a lawyer, but ended up going to law school. So if you had an opportunity to talk to somebody who was getting ready to start their career as a law student and who maybe didn't quite know what they were going to do with that degree, but they want to earn it,
00:43:21
Speaker
What's a piece of advice or a couple pieces of advice that you would want to give to that person to help them start off on the right foot? The big thing that I wish I would have done this more when I was in law school was just networking. Not only, of course, when you think about networking, you think about interacting with folks that have already established themselves in a specific field.
00:43:47
Speaker
but I would say networking with your classmates. You don't even know what they wanna do, what path they're currently on, how you guys can work together because I remember there were days when I would go to law school. I was living at home with my parents. I'd go to law school and leave out and really didn't have much connection. So I would say, get involved with the different programs that Rutgers Law has to offer because there's so many great experiences
00:44:15
Speaker
that are at your fingertips when you're going through law school. And some of your classmates, even your professors, these are folks that could be helpful to you throughout your entire law career. And the biggest thing is just enjoy each and every day.
00:44:28
Speaker
I talked to folks that I went to law school with and we always reminisce and say, man, I wish we could go back to law school because it was such a good time and you're learning something new every day. So it's such a fascinating experience. Yeah. And I really appreciate that advice. One, because so many of our students, not all obviously, but so many of our graduates stay somewhere around this area, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York,
00:44:56
Speaker
So you're going to be running into these people constantly. So having those relationships that you can form in law school is just going to help you in your career ultimately. But I also just love the idea of somebody saying law school can be fun, right? It can be fun. It can be a place where you're meeting new people and having new experiences and doing things that you never thought
00:45:20
Speaker
that you would do. And for lots of folks, it's going to be their last experience in school. So why not take advantage of it? Absolutely. So Adam, I just want to thank you so much for your time. It was really wonderful getting to hear your story and getting to talk to you and hear about the amazing, amazing work that you're doing. And thank you so much for continuing to be a friend of the law school and hopefully we'll be able to get you back there in person once we're able to be in the building again.
00:45:47
Speaker
No, I just have to thank you. I know there's so many amazing, wonderful Rutgers Law alums you could be speaking to. So for you to even think about me, it was my absolute honor and anything I could do as we go forward to support the law school, I'm happy to do it. But most importantly, thank you for everything that you're doing for Rutgers Law.
00:46:05
Speaker
Absolutely, absolutely. And whenever people say to me, you know, anything that I can do, I always like to warn them, I will take you up on that. So you'll be hearing from me. That sounds good. I very much look forward to it. Terrific. Thanks so much.
00:46:26
Speaker
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