Samuel F. Miller

Anyone worthwhile has someone somewhere along the line who taught the values of hard work, keeping your word, doing it right the first time, and choosing the right path for the right reasons. For Sam Miller, that person was his maternal grandfather.

Sam grew up in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, once corporate home of International Harvester. His mother's father, a self-taught engineer, designed the chassis for his generation's International Harvester semi. His more notable achievement was the impression he made on his grandson.

"We built all kinds of things together - wooden cars, marionettes for a class project, a giant backdrop for a stage. I learned traditional values from him. He seemed to know everybody. We never went anywhere when he didn't bump into somebody he knew, someone who liked and respected him."

As a boy, Sam says he was a rule follower. He was on the high school swim team, became an Eagle Scout, played tenor sax in the marching band and served as editor of the newspaper.

Sam's mother was 64 when she earned her bachelor's degree. His father was an insurance adjustor. Sam's dad used to talk at the dinner table about various cases he was working on. "He'd talk about the kinds of injuries people would have and lawyers representing them." He listened and learned a lot about law.

At first, Sam thought he'd pursue a career in medicine. Then while dissecting a cat during a summer course at Xavier University in Cincinnati, he realized medicine wasn't for him. He took his parents' advice and enrolled in the Indiana University Mauer School of Law. His grandfather had instilled an interest in mechanical things and how they work, which eventually led Sam to a position practicing intellectual property law in Nashville in 2003.

A few years and upward moves later, Sam and his wife, Rachel, had the first of their three children. Sam took a job with the Nashville office of a large national law firm of nearly 700 lawyers, still practicing intellectual property law.

Two children later and after over a decade in big law firms, Sam made the leap of faith and opened his own firm on Nov. 7, 2017. Initially his firm continued to represent companies in intellectual property in litigation until he didn't want to do that anymore. He made the switch in his focus from IP to PI - personal injury.

"The pandemic gave me a chance to reset. I was doing a lot of high-end litigation for major companies. I didn't want to keep representing big companies. I always wanted to do contingency fee work, be a plaintiff's attorney. I wanted to help actual people."

Since then, Sam has represented injured people in cases involving auto accidents, medical malpractice, attorney malpractice, sexual assaults at schools and slip-and-fall injuries.

Sam will tell you he decided to leave a secure practice in IP law and take up personal injury for the right reasons. "I feel better about myself and about the work I do."