Moreno frequently fights on behalf of clients who perform dangerous jobs, many of whom are immigrants, as well as passers-by caught up in avoidable disasters. She is driven by a desire to help clients in the aftermath of the most traumatic moments of their lives. “We keep companies on the right track,” says Moreno, who was the first Latino president of the New York State Academy of Trial Lawyers and served as president of the Puerto Rican Bar Association of New York. “We aren’t as well funded as the insurance industry. But what motivates me is public service — keeping companies accountable and providing justice for the injured. It’s deep in my heart.”

Moreno grew up in a tight-knit Puerto Rican family in the South Bronx in the 1970s. For her, personal injury law has long been personal. When she was six, her cousin was injured at birth, and medical malpractice caused him to develop cerebral palsy. However, the family didn’t seek compensation right away.

“My parents, who came to this country as immigrants, believed strongly in the importance of education,” she says, “but I was the first college grad in my family. And they didn’t understand that they could bring a case.” By the time the trial took place, Moreno was already in high school. Her family’s ordeal, exacerbated by the long delay in achieving compensation, helped shape her desire to practice personal injury law to serve the public interest. Helping families like her own became her life’s mission.

Garrett Lee ’07 agrees that for clients, it’s not just about the money — although that money is necessary for victims and their families. Plaintiff tort law is also about creating accountability and helping clients come to terms with a traumatic experience. “The amount of money never makes right what happened,” says Lee, who co-founded a law firm in 2015 that, in 2020, became the Boston office of Morgan & Morgan, the country’s largest personal injury firm. “We are helping to level the playing field and to give individuals a sense of closure.”

Other graduates help thousands of people at a time. Sheryl Berkowitz ’86, partner and principal at Fenstersheib & Berkowitz, a mass tort practice in South Florida, represents people harmed by dangerous pharmaceuticals, medical devices and other products, from poisonous silicone breast implants to cancer-causing hair relaxers that disproportionately harm Black women. Berkowitz, over three decades, has represented thousands of plaintiffs who have been injured by toxic or faulty drugs and products that should never have been approved and brought to market.

“In many cases,” says Berkowitz, “mass tort lawyers are the watchdogs. Because for some companies, unfortunately, it all comes down to putting profit and greed before people. That’s what we’re fighting; that’s what we are trying to protect against.”

After graduating from Northeastern, Berkowitz worked in environmental and energy law. Then she took a job with Legal Services of Greater Miami, which provides free legal services to those most in need. She was involved in AIDs advocacy and fought against homelessness and for children’s rights. In the 1990s, she heard about the Dow Corning breast implant litigation and segued into mass tort. Silicone implants were causing women serious health problems, including autoimmune diseases. Berkowitz started working on the class action suit, which settled for more than $7 billion. She felt she had found her lane. “I just loved representing women who were injured by a product that they were told was safe but wasn’t,” she says.

To win compensation, plaintiffs had to fit into the extremely narrow categories devised by Dow Corning’s attorneys. Many other defense lawyers had already given up, but Berkowitz persisted. Delving deeply into her clients’ medical histories, she obtained millions of dollars and continued fighting up until the final settlement facilities closed. “Dow could not believe it,” she says. “I think I was the last woman standing in that litigation.”

Since then, Berkowitz has fought for women who suffered serious complications from vaginal mesh implants. She’s brought claims on behalf of people who developed cancers after being exposed to Johnson & Johnson talcum powder and Roundup herbicide. And now, she’s working on claims against the big chemical companies that have contaminated our waters with PFAS, known as forever chemicals, which cause many cancers, including of the liver and kidneys, and immune system damage.

Sometimes, the mass tort cases Berkowitz is involved with help remove a product from the market. In other cases, litigation causes companies to address problems with their products or at least provide consumers with accurate warnings about serious side effects. This type of legal work leads to greater scrutiny on the part of the FDA, as well as increased public awareness. “I see my job as keeping people safe from harmful products and drugs,” she says. “If that doesn’t work out, then I want to make sure they are amply compensated for being misled and hurt.”

John Naranja ’14, who practiced as an orthopedic surgeon before retraining as a lawyer, is often in the unique position of understanding both the intricacies of his clients’ injuries and the legal remedies available to them. “I’m here to help simplify complex medicolegal issues,” says Naranja, who brings a wide spectrum of experience to injury cases at Diller Law in Boston, a firm where, as a law student, he had a co-op placement. “I believe strongly that our role as lawyers is not just about helping individual clients. It’s about holding systems accountable, which ultimately improves our community.”

Diller Law continues to train future Northeastern lawyers. Last summer, Maryam Seyfollahi LLM ’24 worked with Naranja on co-op. Helping prepare discovery materials, assisting with client communications and attending depositions, Seyfollahi was treated like a junior attorney. “Many clients were navigating incredibly challenging situations,” she says. “By assisting my supervisors, I felt I was contributing to cases that sought justice for those individuals. Being part of a team so dedicated to advocacy and client care was both inspiring and rewarding.”

Compared with his previous life as a practicing surgeon, Naranja believes, he can now assist people in a more holistic way. As a personal injury lawyer, he can help them fund their recovery and obtain financial security while coming to terms with their trauma and reducing the risk of the same thing happening to other patients in the future. “One of the really great outcomes we can achieve in personal injury law,” he says, “is helping the whole person, whether emotionally, physically or helping them reach a better quality of life.”