Fighting cancer 101: A great team, strong faith, and baseball?

When personal injury attorney Joseph M. Barrett was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in 2023, he didn't spend much time dwelling on his prospects of survival.

Treatment was going to require very aggressive and immediate chemotherapy and immunotherapy, and he didn't have long to get his business in order before it commenced.

There was a brief period spent determining next steps and plotting a plan of attack. "I can't help but do that, analyze things," before acting, he said.

Barrett, who heads his own shop in Redondo Beach, was able to hand off clients to other attorneys at the firm. He said most, but not all, judges were understanding when it came to granting continuances, though he added that there was a notable lack of official procedures in place to deal with attorney illness.

He said it was easy to be detached from the severity of his diagnosis because the truth was, he wasn't worried about death and therefore didn't spend much time entertaining the idea.

"I may not be the greatest practicing Roman Catholic person, but I am a person of Catholic faith. And I am a member of the Knights of Columbus. And one of the things that we know, if you have that faith, is that you should not be afraid of death," he explained.

"So, I never really recall feeling despair or fear, even though I knew it was out there as a potential."

But there was one thing he was dreading. Barrett has been an avid athlete for most of his life. Basketball, cycling, but mostly baseball. His firm's tag line is, "Hitting home runs for personal injury clients."

"Right away, I said to myself, 'This sucks, because it's gonna fuck up my baseball season,'" he said.

And now he needed to let his coach know he'd be skipping a few games.

"Rub some dirt on that tumor and get your ass back out on the field," his coach told him, when he finally worked up courage to make the call.
He took the advice quite literally.

As soon as he could, he was back out on the field, much to his doctor's dismay. He purchased padded gear to wear under his uniform, but even with the added protection, the blood thinners he was taking meant that one errant ball could have life-threatening consequences.

Why risk it all?

"It was a bit of normalcy. I continued getting together with the boys and getting dirty, and smelling the pine tar, and getting an at bat," he explained.

"Everything else is just doctor's appointments, because I wasn't visiting people, I wasn't going out into society, particularly during those months. You're just in your cocoon. So, [other than treatment and recovery], it was just baseball."

What started as a mental escape from the endless hospital visits then turned into something else. Post-chemotherapy, baseball now serves as a reminder of what Barrett has achieved, and what he has lost.

"When I didn't hit very well last year, that didn't bother me, because just the fact I got any hits was a miraculous thing. It was after the chemotherapy ended around Fourth of July last year, and trying to then come to terms with what all that did to me, where the frustrations came," he said.

His doctor had told him that he would regain 80-90% of his physical fitness for the "purpose of being an attorney or getting around with the family." But the lost 10% was going to be felt on the field, both physically and mentally.

A former president of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, Barrett has spent his career serving clients who have suffered. Born in Boston to an Irish American family, he moved to California in the early 1980s on a whim, graduating from Southwestern Law School.

One of his first cases was working with attorney Garo Mardirossian at Mardirossian & Associates Inc. on a major civil rights case against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. That case arose from a 1989 incident where deputies were accused of brutalizing 36 people attending a bridal shower at the home of a Samoan American family. It resulted in the largest police brutality judgment against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in history, $15.9 million, which was later upheld by the California Court of Appeal. Dole v. County of Los Angeles, C751398 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 9, 1990).

He worked with Mardirossian for more than a decade, including on a product liability case involving the Ford Explorer. Between 2007 and 2013 he worked for the The Cochran Firm, before opening his own shop, currently under the banner of The Barrett Lawyers APC.

Has the experience of returning to the field in a different physical state changed how he relates to his clients, many of whom have also suffered from a form of physical injury or ailment?

"It's helpful in every way. It's helpful when I choose juries. It's helpful with the people I work for, those who give me the honor to be their attorney. Absolutely. Because most of the people that I and my group work for come to us when they've been somewhat broken. And now I think I have greater insight and empathy. I had it before, but I think when you go through something like this, you get more," he said.

"I didn't have high level screaming chronic pain, which is unfortunately something that many of the people I might work for have. Cancer is different. But the loss of control, turning your life over to doctors and pills and a system of care, I can empathize with that now," he added. "I think it's made me a better person and hopefully a better lawyer, too."

Contacted for an update on his health Monday, Barrett, currently playing in a baseball tournament in Phoenix, Arizona, wrote, "My health continues to be monitored and it's looking really good right now, looking forward to helping many more people in their fight for justice!"