Lawyer Saves Woman
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007BigLaw responds they have heros, too: one third year private equity associate did not run over a mini-car while beating the driver to a parking space.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/08/15/lerach-coughlin
-lawyer-saves-woman-from-pit-bull-attack/?mod=hpp_us_blogs
August 15, 2007, 1:39 pm
Lerach Coughlin Lawyer Saves Woman From Pit-Bull Attack
Posted by Ashby Jones
No, the above headline is not a cheeky reference to skillful lawyering performed by a Lerach Coughlin lawyer against an aggressive opponent. It’s literal. This past weekend, a Lerach Coughlin lawyer, Paul Geller (pictured, left), a name partner at the firm and head of its Boca Raton, Fla., office, saved a pregnant woman and her small schnauzer, Midnight Duke, from two attacking pitbulls. Here’s the story from the Palm Beach Post (to find it, scroll past the lead item on Broadway Joe Namath becoming a gramps).
We caught up with Geller this morning, who recounted the tale. Geller was driving his 8-year old son home from a soccer practice last Saturday evening when, on a residential street in Delray Beach, he saw two pit bulls attacking a woman walking her dog. He pulled his car over and, after explaining to his son what he was about to do — “don’t try this at home” — he exited the car and ran to the melee. “The woman was on the ground and one of the pit bulls was on top of her,” he recalls. “Blood was everywhere.”
Geller says he was nervous — “the adrenaline was flowing” — but he had something going for him that the rest of us might not — he’s an expert in Ju Jitsu, chronicled in this recent article from Boca Life. (Note to Hollywood writers looking for quirky-lawyer details for your next screenplay: Geller practices Jiu Jitsu in a room in Lerach Coughlin’s offices.)
“My instinct was that I should kick the dog that was attacking,” he says. “So that’s what I did.” Geller says he barked a few loud commands at the startled dog, at which point it and its colleague ran back toward the yard from which they’d come. Geller helped the woman and a badly wounded Midnight Duke into his car and saw them to safety. The aftermath — the woman, who suffered a bite to the face, and her baby are fine, as is Midnight Duke, who had to undergo a lengthy surgical procedure. Geller, who calls himself a dog-lover, says he isn’t sure what became of the pit bulls.
So, was it just another interesting day in the life of a Jiu Jitsu-doing, high-stakes securities litigator? Hardly. “In the course of litigation, there’s no doubt that you get adrenaline rushes from time to time,” he says, “but nothing like this.”
“Mr. Geller is a true hero,” bystander Christina Ruby told the Palm Beach Post. “There could have been a loss of life.”
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