by Natasha Khairullah
Staff Writer
Don Maciejewski just may be the only attorney you’ll find wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt and covered in airplane engine grease four out of five days of a week.
However, while he will get on a plane for a vacation, he no longer flies his own plane.
Maciejewski is a partner in the law firm of Zisser, Robison, Brown, Nowlis & Maciejewski, P.A. His practice focuses primarily on aviation, airplane and helicopter crash litigation, personal injury and complex product liability suits and about 85 percent of Maciejewski’s time is spent examining engine components.
His 35-year career as a pilot in the Army led him to practice aviation law and although his job is what keeps him from flying, he asserts that he’s doing just what he was destined to do.
“That’s because if you do something part-time, you’re only going to do it part-well,” he said.
After receiving his bachelor’s degree from John Carroll University in biology and chemistry, Maciejewski enlisted in the United States Army Reserves where he eventually became a Major. He was a commissioned officer and became a helicopter pilot. While in the military, Maciejewski also became a certified aircraft accident investigator and attended advanced courses in Crash Survival & Investigation. He is also a graduate of the Aviation Safety Officer’s Course, but says that he doesn’t fly any more by choice. His main goal these days is to help bring restitution to the family members of individuals who have become debilitated or killed by plane crashes.
“When a woman comes up to me and asks why her husband is dead,” said Maciejewski, “it’s my responsibility to give her what she wants and what she needs – answers.”
Maciejewski attributes this attitude to his time in the Army.
“I lost a lot of buddies in the military,” said Maciejewski, “and those who have not served cannot understand the type of camaraderie that you have with one another at that time.”
It’s that kind of background that makes Maciejewski step back and tell military families, “I don’t care how long it takes, I’m going to get you answers.”
Maciejewski first realized he should become a lawyer when he was working on an accident investigation team and flying a lot.
“Whenever there was an accident, our team would go out and do a complete analysis and do a very detailed report,” he said.
“I used to get calls from civilian lawyers who needed our help on things and this one lawyer that called me said, ‘Captain Maciejewski, I need for you to show me photographs of propellers from that helicopter,’ and I said ‘Sir, there are no propellers on a helicopter’ and I thought to myself, ‘I can do that.’”
He then received his master’s degree from the University of Southern California in safety engineering and later earned his law degree degree from the University of Baltimore School of Law and was finally “one of the guys in the suits.”
He is currently an active member of the Army Aviation Association of America, the American Helicopter Society and the American Society of Safety Engineers and is a board-certified aviation law attorney.
He also frequently lectures on product liability, safety and aviation law, and is a former faculty member at the United States Army School of Aviation Medicine. He teaches courses in Aviation Law and Product Liability Law at the Florida Coastal School of Law.
Maciejewski said his experience as a pilot and with planes, plus his engineering background, have all come in very handy.
“Over the years, I found out one thing: you can be a lawyer and be really good at it and you can be board certified in aviation, but that’s a small part of it. The real important thing is experience,” he said. “There’s some disjoint if you’ve not done it and there is no substitute for doing it.”
Much like the attorneys in the American Association of Physicians Attorneys who all have both medical and law degrees, Maciejewski knows he’s a rare find and that’s why he feels like he was meant to do this.
“I’m doing what I love, I’m helping the people I love and I get to wear blue jeans while doing it,” he said. “What more could I ask for?”