Welcome to First off, let's kill all the lawyers that off misquoted Shakespearean phrase from the 1500s. But as many people will still say today, it's probably not a bad start. I'm David Halford. And I've been practicing law for about 30 years here in South Florida. And the goal behind this broadcast is to bring lawyers in that maybe shouldn't be on that kill list and let you meet some of the local lawyers in this town. Talk about what they do talk about some trending things in law, and just overall kind of educate on on various aspects. My guest today pretty easy one, if you look at the name of the law firm, it's Karen Heffernan. Well, he's care and I'm Heffernan, so that that puts the law firm together, but good friend of mine, I've known mark my entire legal career since we went to law school together. But Mark, welcome. Thanks, Dave. And actually, when you said 30 years practicing our graduation was about 30 years ago this weekend. So good lord, or something like that? It does. It does. So let's, let's talk a little bit about you. What was your journey to get into law? I mean, what was what was the decision between, you know, for law school, and then kind of how did it go from there, like, candidly, I think I was too dumb to do anything else. So stumbled into law school, I really had no direction when I went to law school. And thankfully, my brother in law was a practicing lawyer in Miami. And he had a workers compensation and Personal Injury firm. And he was kind enough to give me a job, both in law school and coming out of law school. So I worked there for a while and went out on my own. Shortly thereafter, I opened up my practice in 1997. And was on my own and then you and I joined up probably almost about probably almost about 10 years ago. Yeah, yeah. Which was, which is an interesting story. Mark, and I had stayed in touch since law school. But then mark had a very interesting case of a guy who broke his neck and in a world Indoor Football League. And so given my background, you know, sort of asked me to help with that case, and things went very well. And yeah, and I think at the same time, we were probably working on that negligent security case. I don't know which one came first. But we had the negligent security case as well. And it worked on both those cases. And the next thing I knew we were part of, yeah, no, it worked. Worked out. Well. Very similar, I think in in in background and everything else. Oddly enough, you know, you've been married a long time. It's now my 32nd wedding anniversary today. How long? Yep. But you know, three kids and and sort of that stability of of life, which I think is important. 100%? All right. So let's, let's talk about one of the things obviously, that we do in our practice between you and I 1000s and 1000s of automobile cases, right. Right now, Florida is on the verge of probably the most sweeping changes in in automobile insurance law in the last 50 years. So, Senate Bill 54 has passed the House and the Senate is now just waiting for the governor signature. But But let's talk about that a little bit, because we hear the phrases a lot. So Florida, up until maybe this this January, something governor signs it, it's been a no fault state. So what does that mean? Sure. What What is the no fault portion of it mean? Yeah. In other words, here's the law in Florida, because because it is unique. I think Florida is only one of a handful of states, that actually still has no fault. I believe it's one of two and the backward the backward ation of the system is it I guess it is what it says no fault. So in Florida, you were and still are currently until the governor signs the law, right responsible for payment of your own medical bills. So if you're in an accident, and the accident is not your fault, your insurance company knows as your P IP carrier, your no fault carrier will pay 80% of your medical bills up to $10,000. And with that PIP requirement, I think it's twofold. Right? So Florida, I think, again, was one of only two states that doesn't require a driver to have bodily injury liability coverage in effect. So all you need in order to drive a car in Florida is the minimum requirements of P IP, which is for payment of your own medical bills, and to replace someone else's car property damage of $10,000. Even that is so outdated, because right now you're talking about a fender bender in Florida on any car is going to exceed $10,000. So both were one was outdated, the system itself and then the minimum requirements were likewise outdated. Yeah. Which is which is bizarre when you look at it because those minimum requirements, I think were put in place in 1972. So you haven't right, you haven't changed those numbers since since 1972. Insane. So so the odd thing is and we see a lot in our practice because people come in and they said I don't know I'm fully insured, right? But so if I understand what you're saying to be fully insured in Florida now, you don't have ...
