What is your practice area, and how did you choose it?
When I was in Law school at UB, I clerked for a Plaintiff’s law firm.  When one of their attorneys left the firm, I was asked to manage their workers’ compensation claims on a day-to-day basis to get them ready for hearings.  I took Richard LaFata’s workers’ compensation class at UB Law School at night.  After passing the Maryland bar, I became an attorney at that firm, but quickly realized that I looked at the claims from the defense perspective.  I moved on to defense work and have never looked back in almost 40 years.  I have been a founding principal at Franklin & Prokopik in the workers’ compensation practice group for the past 24 years.

What is your favorite aspect of working at F&P?
I love the people I work with.  I truly enjoy my clients.  The collaborative effort is so important.  I feel that we have built a firm that really tries to manage the work/life balance.  We have managed to weather the untimely passing of our principal Bob Franklin as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, and will undoubtedly face challenges in the future as our world changes and evolves.  But I am confident in the strength of the bond with my colleagues and the fact that we all have our complementary strengths and skills that we bring to the operation, management and development of the firm.  I am proud to be associated with F&P and look forward to many years ahead.

What’s your favorite restaurant/show/event in Baltimore?
I love the Kinetic Sculpture Race in May in Baltimore City!  One of my sons participated in the design, construction and racing of entries while he was in high school.  It’s a fantastic event which starts and ends at the American Visual Arts Museum on Key Highway and travels throughout Federal Hill, the Inner Harbor, Fells Point, Canton, and Patterson Park.  It’s a great way to spend a spring day and root on the competitors and engineers.

Tell us something about you that few of your colleagues and clients would know.
My parents met as pen pals and corresponded originally in French.

What do you like to do outside the office?
Exercise, martial arts, stamp collecting, caring for my two cats and my dog, and traveling with my family.

What is the weirdest thing you have ever eaten?
A Fig Newton doused in ketchup.  It was a 5^th grade lunch dare, and while it was not awful, I have never repeated it.

If you could have lunch with anyone in the world, who would it be?
Wow, so many people come to mind, some living and some no longer with us.  I would love to have had lunch with Robin Williams, but I fear that I would never have gotten to eat because I would have been laughing too hard.  Emma Thompson and Queen Elizabeth II are but a few others.

If you had an eighth day every week, how would you spend it?
Relaxing, reading, and rejuvenating to face the new week.