No male family members will play football or hockey if attorney Bucky Zimmerman can prevent it.
"Not knowing what I know today," he said. "I've been studying head injuries in contact sports for a long time and I would be very hesitant to allow my family to participate in those sports."
Concern about head injuries is about to rush to the fore of the national conscience with the Will Smith movie "Concussion." It's the story of Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist who discovered the degenerative disease CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in the brains of deceased NFL players. Zimmerman knows Omalu well.
I ended up talking to Zimmerman about concussions when I ran into him and asked whether his wife, former WCCO and KARE 11 news anchor Pat Miles, had already fled the mild Minnesota fall for the warmth — and golf — of Arizona. And she had.
Zimmerman Reed law firm, which handled the Target data breach and has long handled medical device recall cases, recently added a Los Angeles office to the ones in Minneapolis and Phoenix.
"We liked the attorneys there; we had worked with them before, and it expands our market to the most populated state in the country. The other thing we are doing is all the traumatic brain injury cases in football and hockey," he said. "We are the lead counsel in the National Hockey League concussion multidistrict litigation. We also did the NFL, that one settled and is still up in the appellate court."
Zimmerman said he will see "Concussion" as soon as possible. "I know Dr. Omalu," he said. "We are working closely with him."
I told Zimmerman that Omalu lucked out to be played by the handsome Will Smith, who had his ears pinned back for the role. "There is a striking resemblance between Bennet Omalu and Will Smith, in my view," Zimmerman said.
