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My Thanksgiving Wishes from My Family and I to You and Yours  

A Blog and Video Blog Explaining Why I am Thankful  

My family and I have much to be thankful for this year, not the least of  which are the care provided by Dr. Wright, the cardiologist who cares  for me and my wife, Thea.  I am personally in good health, walking four to five miles a day, and in  retirement from the practice of law, working only six to eight hours a  day doing what I love the most, writing about insurance, insurance  claims, insurance law and acting as an insurance claims consultant and  expert witness.  

Contrary to what was done in the insurance industry at the time,  Fireman\'s Fund allowed me to study law at night while I worked as a  full-time insurance adjuster with the Fireman\\u2019s Fund. I was fortunate  enough to work for a claims manager \\u2013 Coleman T. Mobley \\u2013 who did not  require me to go out of state to adjust major storm claims if it  interfered with my law school studies. Since I was in law school 50  weeks a year the only storm duty I was required to work was a fire storm  that burned from the San Fernando Valley to the ocean at Malibu.  

Because of Mr. Mobley and the Fireman\\u2019s Fund I was able to complete my  studies and pass the California Bar late in 1971 that allowed me to be  admitted to the California Bar on January 2, 1972.  I took a cut in pay to get my first job as an Associate Attorney with a  law firm that was willing to teach me to be a lawyer handling every kind  of problem a new lawyer could face from wills, tort claims, divorce,  drunk driving, trials, depositions, and dozens of orders to show cause  in multiple courts around the Inland Empire of California. By doing so,  the first two years after I started practicing law in 1972 I was able to  become a lawyer who could deal with any issue brought to me.  I was fortunate enough to move to an insurance law firm in Century City  where I was assigned to a coverage lawyer who was trying to deal with  over 500 active matters who, when I arrived, assigned me 250 of the  matters and pointed me to the firm\\u2019s library to learn what to do. At the  time new technology was an IBM Selectric typewriter that could erase  errors from the keyboard without the need to use white-out paint. 

I did  legal research in the firm\\u2019s large library which, when it was inadequate  for the task, I had to drive to the County Law Library in downtown Los  Angeles. Research in a large library took days to find support for an  issue.  In 1979 I decided it was time to be my own boss. I started a law firm  called Barry Zalma, Inc. with a secretary who came from my last firm and  brought an IBM Selectric typewriter with her into a small windowless  office. I had obtained a line of credit from a bank that I hoped would  carry us until the practice started since the only case I had was my  sister\\u2019s rear-ender from which I could not take a fee. The office was  furnished with a file cabinet from my father-in-law\\u2019s dental practice  and a dining room table from my wife\\u2019s grandmother who had passed away.