Cello-playing lawyer impressed by private experiences

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And he remembers the irony of it: He’d been on his way home to put on his tux and grab his cello to play for a bridal fair called The Wedding Crash event.

He got home from the hospital to find his orchestra friends there to help. Meals from Amigos. Funds to help pay his medical bills.

He was grateful, but really? One crash and now another? Neither one his fault?

And the nerve problem in his right hand? The second crash caused the same pain to his left, making it more painful than ever to play the instrument he loved.

“I spent the better part of six months being angry,” he says. “It felt like God, fate, karma, the world, something, was trying to tell me, ‘No. You should have given up the first time.‘”

David Handley and the civic-minded cellist knew each other from Rotary Club No. 14.

Handley has his own Lincoln practice and takes personal injury cases, like Collingham’s.

As they made their way through Collingham’s case, his fellow Rotarian peppered him with questions.

“Clients generally want to know what’s going on,” Handley said. “But he was why? Why? Why? He had a love for wanting to know what was happening.”

Collingham was inquisitive and sharp, Handley said. He seemed ready for a career change, too. And he seemed to have what it took to be an attorney — a mind for research, a desire to dig deep.