The Culture Changer
Personal injury attorney Salvatore Zambri remembers
the most important thing about clients
BY JOAN HENNESSY
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEPHEN VOSS
IT HAPPENED AT RUSH HOUR ON
June 22, 2009. An inbound Washington
Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Metrorail train slammed into the rear of
another train stopped on the tracks. Nine
people died. Fifty-two were injured. One
of the injured victims, a young woman,
recalled glancing at her ankle, dazed, as
the train cars crunched. She noticed her
tattoo was missing, along with most of the
skin on her lower leg. A first-responder
firefighter who arrived on the catastrophic
scene described the day as the type he’d
only have to encounter once in a career.
For Salvatore J. “Sal” Zambri, partner at
Regan Zambri Long and a lead attorney
on the Metrorail case, it wasn’t just one. He
lived the accident on replay for years.
“I was not on that train, so I certainly
am not a victim,” Zambri says. “But as
an attorney intimately involved in every
aspect of that case, I was privy to the
specific details of the injuries and suffering
that occurred. I carried with me every day
the responsibility of bringing about some
comfort and some measure of justice for
all those impacted by this tragedy. It is the
very reason why I became a lawyer.”
Zambri grew up in Wading River, N. Y., a
hamlet on the north shore of Long Island.
While a student at the local high school,
a teacher told him he should become a
lawyer. He had a head for logic.
After Zambri’s first year of law school,
he took a summer job with a Long Island
firm that did business, transactional and
contractual work. At the end of the summer,
the head of the firm invited him back for the
next summer and even offered to hire him
out of law school. But Zambri wanted to
log courtroom hours. He realized he’d have
trouble doing that in contractual law.
Increasingly, he thought of personal
injury law. One of the salient memories of
his youth was the death of a grandfather.
“We all believe he perished because of
malpractice,” Zambri recalls. “That was a
difficult struggle for my extended family.”
When he graduated from law school in
1992, he took a job with a firm that handled
injury cases, Koonz, McKenney, Johnson &
Regan. One of the partners, Patrick M. Regan,
remembers, “It was apparent early on that he
had a particular knack for civil litigation.”
Four years later, not long after Zambri
proposed and was preparing to get
married, he received his own proposal.
Two, in fact—one to become a partner at
the firm, and one to leave with Regan and
start their own practice.
Undecided, he and his new wife, Mary,
flew to Hawaii. There he sat in the sun
and pondered the possibilities. The idea of
becoming part of a new law firm won out.
“Starting a firm with Pat—someone I
greatly admire and respect—was a special
opportunity,” Zambri says. “I remember
fondly our first offices at the Presidential
Plaza building.” As the firm was being
constructed, the Zambri family was building,
too. “My wife was pregnant with our first
child,” he says. “It was a very exciting time.”
It’s difficult to imagine a father holding
a newborn in outstretched palms and
debating what a life is worth. But Zambri is
required to ask the tough questions. What
is the cost—the absolute dollar amount—of
human suffering?
Robin Miles knows this firsthand.
Fourteen years ago, her son sustained
a traumatic brain injury in a diving
accident. Zambri’s partner, Regan,
represented her. During meetings at the
firm, Miles met Zambri.
A decade after her son’s accident, Miles’
parents were killed in a collision. Both were
in their ’70s, but still active. She had to
drive by the spot where her parents were
killed each day. It was unavoidable and
“wrenching,” she says. “Just wrenching.”
