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Pamela DeNeuve

Lawyer & Law Firm Peak Performance Strategist

The Lawyer of the Week Episode 11, Delaware, USA

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Ian Connor Bifferato

Managing Director

The Bifferato Firm, P.A.

Interview Transcript

Pamela: Welcome to Lawyer of the week. I am so pleased this week to have Ian Connor Bifferato from Delaware, and he’s the Managing Member of The Bifferato firm. In addition to being the manager of his practice in which he’s been the Owner and Principal since 1996.

Connor has been litigating complex disputes arising in both tort and commercial context for more than twenty years. Connor is also Of Counsel with Labaton, one of the countries premier firms for prosecuting precedent-setting Securities Class Actions on behalf of defrauded investors.

Connor has been arbitrating and mediating cases for more than seventeen years. In addition to being chosen as a party arbitrator or neutral in matters assigned to Arbitration by Agreement. Connors has arbitrated and mediated a variety of actions assigned to the ADR in the Delaware State Courts including the Delaware Superior Court and the Court of Chancery.

He also frequently mediates commercial disputes in the United States District Court and the United States Bankruptcy Court. So we are so pleased to have Connor Bifferato with us here today. Hi Connor how are you?

Connor: Good, Pamela thank you very much for having me.

Pamela: Just so pleased that you are the Lawyer of the Week from Delaware. Can you tell us a little bit about what made you decide to become a lawyer?

Connor: Sure you know I grew up in a family of lawyers my father was a Superior Court judge for more than thirty years. And my mother was an attorney for approximately thirty years. My brother is an attorney.  My brother in law is an attorney, and I am currently married to an attorney.  

Pamela: Oh

Connor: It’s sort of, I have been surrounded by it and, and sort of bred into it my entire life.

Pamela: Yeah I think we can say being a lawyer is in your DNA.

Connor: It feels like it sometimes.

Pamela: Tell us about your practice like what are some of your biggest wins and what are some of your biggest challenges.

Connor: Well you know one of the areas of practice that I’m most proud of that we’ve undertaken for a number of years is representing severely injured individuals and their families.

Particularly children, who’ve been affected by carcinogens and other toxins that are they placed in the environment, quite frankly, by careless and often times indifferent corporations.

You know it’s always amazing to me that major corporations will do things that no individual would ever consider doing on a basis like this. And we have been successful in representing a number of families and children recovering from really just horrific injuries from people around the world really.

Pamela: Oh boy, that’s quite a win to be able to stand up for those who have no voices really.

Connor: It really it does it is very rewarding.

Pamela: Well what are your challenges in this day and time?

Connor: Well you know there’s constant there’s always ongoing efforts are both on the state and federal level to change laws in favor of corporations. Particularly these days there is just unlimited access to Congress and both again on the state and federal levels by corporations who want greater and greater protections and greater and greater freedoms.

 You know at the same time, you have to be constantly vigilant to make sure that we are representing our clients in this arena and also making ourselves available and known to clients and potential clients that are out there.

Pamela: Okay that something that a lot of people may not be thinking of. But, we’re glad that you’re taking that cause up. And it has to be taken up to protect the clients and not just the corporation. That’s a very good point.

Connor: Yeah, unfortunately, most individuals who are placed in harm’s way by corporate interests don’t have nearly the same access to the same voice that those very wealthy corporations have.

Pamela: So that results in, do you think that sometimes justice is not carried out in in those cases?

Connor:  Well I think when you can get into court, justice is more frequently than not carried out. I think where justice is lost is when corporations are successful in convincing lawmakers that there is some social benefit to protecting corporations from being subject to liability for their own conduct.

And that’s what happens when, when they’re able to put so much money into the political system.

Pamela: Right, right. Well, we’re happy again that you’re taking up this cause on behalf of your clients. Now, who would be a perfect referral for your law firm?

Connor: Well, certainly someone who is looking for assistance in representing someone who has been or, someone whose family or someone whose children, have been harmed by exposure to toxins that been placed into the environment: air, groundwater, earth, by corporations living nearby, certainly in farm areas.

But also people who are looking for an avenue for a resolution to litigation that may be pending for a long time or languishing because litigation can take a heavy toll on individuals as well as on corporations who are involved in protracted litigation. We have a lot of experience in helping you get to a resolution through alternative means.

Pamela: That’s really good to know. What are the benefits of someone using a lawyer like you who is in Delaware?

Connor: Well Delaware is a place where the majority of Fortune 500 companies and, quite frankly, large companies from around the world are incorporated and call their home.  So Delaware is a location of substantial litigation regarding both corporate interests and corporate conduct.

Pamela: So it would be a benefit for people to get your services because that’s really where their headquarters are is that what you’re saying.

Connor: That’s right it’s really where their headquarters are, and we are also very experienced in dealing with corporate issues and corporate governance issues because that’s what Delaware really focuses its attention on. That is what the Delaware courts are known for. So understanding corporate conduct and how to address corporate conduct is important no matter what state you’re in.

Pamela: Yeah okay that’s an excellent point. Well, we’re going to change the topic a little bit here. So I am going to ask you what kind of legacy do you want to leave in your law practice?

Connor: Well, you know what, I certainly hope the law firm lives on far beyond me. I’d like a law firm to continue to focus on improving the communities that we live in both the public community and the legal community. Delaware has a very small legal community, and we’ve always been known for maintaining a very high level of professional integrity, civility, and professionalism in representing our clients. And it’s important to me personally that our clients feel that they were always put first.

Their interests were always thoroughly advocated and done in a very professional and upstanding way. You know there are times when people win cases when lawyers when cases and they do so in manners that don’t reflect the highest integrity of the profession. And that’s, that’s no way to win in my mind, and that’s not the kind of legacy that I would want to be associated with.

Pamela: Okay, that’s very good to know that integrity is very important to you.

Connor: Absolutely

Pamela: Well on a personal level name one thing that you like to do to manage your stress.

Connor:  Well I like to, I spend a lot of time meditating, and I like to exercise. I don’t think there is any better stress reliever than exercise. It helps your body release its own chemicals to regulate stress and to remove all those stress hormones that we all have to deal with.

Pamela: Well good. So there was like one message that you’d like to leave to anyone listening here that would be of inspiration to lawyers, to create community, what would that be?

Connor: Yeah, I think this particularly here in America but all over the world, lawyers are an integral part of the process in the system of our way of life. Lawyers protect individuals from abuses, not just from corporations, but we are the line that stands up and says this is what the laws and this is what the Constitutions of our land are intended to do. When you take a lawyer out of the system, you take the voice and the ability of the people to protect themselves from overreaching government and overreaching organizations out the equation.

And lawyers need to always remember that their highest calling is to protect the people that they live with and work with every day from that sort of overreach. And we can see that, particularly in America growing in recent months and continuing.

Pamela: Very good. Well, Connor thank you so much for being the Lawyer of the Week. And we appreciate the cause that you’re looking at to protect your clients and to leave a legacy of lawyers and a law firm that really wants to stand up for integrity and protecting those without a voice. Thank you so much!

Connor: Thank you, Pamela, I’m really grateful for the honor.

Links: http://bifferato.com

Thank you for joining

Lawyer of the Week!

 

Pamela DeNeuve

Lawyer & Law Firm Strategist

feel free to email me at:

pamela@pameladleneuve.com

We Hope to See You Next Week!

 

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Quotes from our Lawyer of the Week

  • I am here to protect the human rights and I will do the best in my capacity to do so.
    Diana Constantinidou
  • I love this work. I really do. To me, especially now more than ever, we need a strong news media. It’s not just a business. It’s part of our democracy.
    Edward Birk
  • You don’t have to be large and on the world stage to seize these opportunities and to apprehend these threats. It really is a function of the vision and the insight of the leaders. When they get it, then there’s an opportunity for them to persuade and help their partners get the message and act to remake themselves.
    George Beaton
  • I did not intend to create this legacy, but I see the ripple effects of it, and it’s so meaningful to me. I think that through the podcast, I’m also hoping to create a legacy of service to the profession.
    Okeoma Moronu
  • That’s one of the things that I find very satisfying; building bridges between people from different countries, working closely with them and seeking those deeply satisfying relationships that are created in cross-border trade and investment facilitation.
    John Grimley
  • I’m very lucky to have a family and a wife that absolutely just creates a life that’s there and that one can go to. I think about the stress that we experience in our work, that is the best we can offer. So I really live for that. It’s something to be grateful for.
    Nic Swart
  • The legacy that I want to leave in the work that I’m doing is having made a difference and having hopefully spearheaded some type of meaningful change in the culture of the legal profession, as it relates to addiction and mental health specifically.
    Patrick Krill
  • It’s not so much my practice that I want to make a difference in, but I want to know that I left the legal professional a little bit better than I found it.
    Courtney Wylie
  • the real reality is some of the lawyers, some of the law firms, are going to be left behind because they’re not moving into the current reality where they can’t just rely on referrals.
    Montina Portis
  • When you take a lawyer out of the system, you take the voice and the ability of the people to protect themselves from overreaching government and overreaching organizations out the equation.
    Ian Connor Bifferato
  • I think a lot of attorneys are very, obviously, economically driven, which is fine, because we all need to make a living. But, at the end of the day, I also think that we are in this profession to give back and I would like to see that happen to a greater degree.
    Dr. Jeanne-Mari Reteif
  • "I would like my clients to think of me as of being a valuable resource to them and a knowledgeable resource that helped them protect their business and the most valuable assets of their business, which is their inventions, their ideas, their brand and that they remember me as somebody they could go to at any time to help them protect their intellectual property assets.
    Crystal T. Broughan
  • The person I’m looking for is the one who is going to come along and say ok; we can’t just tweak what we do with law; we have to radically re-invent it.
    Ken Grady
  • So you have to be that person who is challenged again and again so that you will grow as an expert.
    Dr. Peter MacMillan
  • I always tell my clients and my friends and colleagues, it’s a two-way road. You know- you give, and you receive, you give back, and it keeps going that way. It’s wonderful.
    Fernanda Alem-Freitas
  • In terms of successes, I will tell you, having done this, I’ve gone much further and made more connections and more friends and more inroads into the industry much earlier in my career than I ever could have possibly imagined.
    Gene Quinn
  • my thinking was that I really need to understand what clients really wanted. So in order to really do a good job, I needed to find out what moves them, what kept them up at night.
    Silvia Hodges Silverstein
  • So when we talk about a legacy, it’s a legacy that people to this day tell me — oh, I remember working with your Grandfather and he was such an upright man. Wow, let’s hope they say that about me.
    Jordan W. Charness
  • this answer made me to become a lawyer instead of a mathematician.
    Anandavasagan K.
  • What I want to try to do is create the beacon, or the light toward, developing law firm culture, as in the legal profession culture in general...where they do find a sense of meaning, purpose, connection, joy and want to stay in the profession.
    Anne Brafford
  • it is my goal to try to increase diversity within our profession, and even for as long as I’m here, I will advocate for the inclusion of different perspectives, different peoples, and different ideas that can make this world a better place.
    Robert Johnson
  • I have learned a lot of things the hard way and if I can help others sort of avoid the mistakes I’ve made and have the vision I lacked, then that’s how I want to help
    Frank Ramos
  • "I’m sort of traditional with an edge. I have respect for tradition. I have respect for history, but I’m also very inquisitive. I like to, you know, sort of architect things.
    Mark A. Cohen
  • I am all or nothing. I believe that the world has enough mediocre people. I had a mentor tell me that once and I give 110% to everything I do.
    LaKeisha Randall
  • You’ll never know how high that peak can be unless you find recovery, and with recovery, anything is possible
    Brian Cuban
  • Being able to live and work anywhere in the world. And we do live, you know- we live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, in County Cork, Ireland now.
    Walt Hampton
  • You know, the best thing that anyone could possibly do is think about what’s important to them and get back to that really basic thing. Personally, professionally, financially. You know, where would you like to be? Because you can be there if you take a couple steps, you know? And it just- it can be incremental
    Bridget Venus Grimes
  • The people I represent have their own families and their own spouses and I see that vividly through my own experiences and trying to help them. I often try to, although perhaps not the easiest thing to do, but try to put myself into their shoes and approach a case with that regard.
    Mark A. Torres
  • My legacy really is to try to enhance the wellness of the members of our profession and to open up this dialog.
    Heidi K. Brown
  • At the end of my days, I want people to look back and say, "Yes, he really did make the world a better place and here are some concrete examples of places where he's influenced people, or influenced organizations, or cultures." So, if I can do that and leave that to the world, then I think I've done a pretty good job.
    Maurice L. Rabb
  • Pamela helped brought us a $12MM deal and was a key player to help finalize the negotiations. She was a valuable investment for our firm with a magnificent return on our investment.
    Bill L., Chairman of Litigation
  • I was on the verge of losing it. I felt confused and had no idea why I was practicing law in the first place. Pamela helped me to regain my enthusiasm and grow my practice enjoy my life again.
    Lewis M., Partner
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