George Cahill | New Haven Railroad Injury Lawyer

Prior to founding our law firm, George was a fifth-generation railroad worker. During his high school days, George began working summer jobs on the New Haven Railroad as a clerk, trackman, laborer, and caboose inspector.

In 1968, George volunteered for the United States Marine Corps and trained at Parris Island and Camp Lejeune. From 1968 to 1970 he served as a corporal in the Marines, including a tour of duty in the Republic of Vietnam as a combat rifleman where he was awarded a Purple Heart. After the Marines, George returned to work full-time on the railroad while also attending college and law school.

During his college years, George worked for Penn Central in the New Haven crew callers office, as a block operator at Devon Tower, a brakeman at the New Haven East Class Yard, a skate man at the New Haven Eastbound Hump, a road freight brakeman on jobs to Selkirk and Maybrook, and then as a passenger trainman on the New Haven Shoreline Division. In his spare time George was an amateur boxer with over 60 fights in AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) matches and in the New York City and Massachusetts Golden Glove tournaments. In 1973, he was selected for a national AAU team as a middleweight.

While in law school, George continued working for the railroad. He worked on a local freight at night from Framingham to Lowell and then started working as a passenger trainman on the Franklin and Needham branches during the weekdays. On the weekends, he also worked as a conductor on the mainline from South Station to Penn Station in New York City. During George’s first years as an attorney from 1977 to 1978, he continued working as a passenger conductor on Conrail’s Metropolitan Region between New Haven and Grand Central Terminal.

George’s career as a railroad employee ended on November 9, 1978. That was the day he won a federal court FELA (Federal Employers’ Liability Act) jury verdict of $600,000 against Conrail on behalf of a fellow Conrail conductor. That night George worked his usual conductor job between New Haven and New York’s Grand Central Terminal with his co-workers celebrating his great victory (the $600,000 verdict was record-breaking at that time). The next morning George received a call from Conrail’s General Superintendent informing him that he was fired for “disloyalty.” The superintendent told George that Conrail’s top managers in Philadelphia were almost more upset about the fact he earned his $60 in conductor wages during that night of celebration than the $600,000 verdict Conrail would have to pay.

George is admitted to the bars of Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C.