Work With Me
Two doors. Pick the one that describes you.
Most people who land here are one of two people: someone who got hurt at work, or the attorney handling that person's file. You need very different things from me, and sending you down the wrong hallway helps nobody.
Door one
You were hurt at work.
You need a lawyer, not a book recommendation. Case enquiries go to my firm, where there is an actual intake process and someone answers the phone. No cost to ask.
Go to Aspell Law OfficesDoor two
You're a Connecticut attorney.
Co-counsel on a comp file, a referral, a second opinion on a hard case, a mentoring conversation, or a talk for your bar section. That's this page.
See how that worksFor attorneys
What working together actually looks like.
You send the file, or the question
A paragraph is enough to start. Most of what I am asked can be answered in one reply, and I would rather send that reply than book a call about it.
We talk for half an hour
Where the exposure is, what the commissioner is likely to do with it, what the medical record is missing, and whether it is worth what it will cost your client to find out.
We agree what my role is
Co-counsel, referral, or nothing at all. I will tell you when a file does not need me, because a reputation for that is worth more than the fee.
You keep the relationship
Your client stays your client. I have no interest in quietly acquiring a practice one referral at a time; that is how people stop referring.
In Their Words
What attorneys say afterwards
Send a note
No intake form, no funnel.
This goes to me. Tell me what the file is and what you have already tried; that is enough detail to be useful, and not so much that you have to redact it.
Speaking enquiries are welcome here too: bar sections, firm retreats, and law school clinics. I talk about the comp system, about writing for non-lawyers, and about the workload arithmetic nobody teaches.
Before you write
The book answers most of the first email.
Connecticut workers' compensation in plain English: the sequence, the deadlines, the questions clients are afraid to ask, and the parts of the record that decide files. Attorneys tell me they keep it within reach.
Get the Book
Say hello
Ask me anything. I answer it myself.
Readers, injured workers with a question, Connecticut attorneys, podcasters and event organisers all land in the same inbox, and none of it goes to an assistant.
James F. Aspell
Farmington, Connecticut