Mike Clelland III (Cancer Presumption, Workman's Comp Claims and First Responder Health) - Episode 1098
Behind The Shield
James Geering
4.9 • 695 Ratings
🗓️ 17 June 2025
⏱️ 84 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mike was a firefighter in Central Florida for 26 years with Longwood, I.A.F.F. Local 3163. He entered the fire service directly out of high school and became an active member of his union, taking the lead in contract negotiations and labor disputes.
He entered management as Battalion Chief in 2002 and retired in 2007 at this rank. With this unique perspective, Mike is keenly aware of issues confronting firefighters and other first responders today.
His primary area of law practice is first responder litigation concerning Florida's Heart/Lung Bill, but he also handles first responders’ line-of-duty pension, and personal injury/accident matters.
Mike attended Seminole Community College and received an Associate’s Degree in Fire Science Technology in 1999. He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science in 2002 from the University of Central Florida. He received a Law Degree in 2006 from Florida A&M University College of Law.
Mike joined forces with Morgan & Morgan, P.A. in 2014. And because the firm has offices in every state, he can help firefighters with any injury/accident claim, regardless of the location. Trust Mike to connect you with a highly qualified injury attorney to help you with your injury claim.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode is sponsored by Team Builder, yet another company that's doing great things for the first responder community. |
| 0:07.0 | As a strength and conditioning coach myself who also trains tactical athletes, dissemination of wellness information is one of the biggest challenges. |
| 0:16.0 | Now, TeamBuilder is the premier strength conditioning software for tactical athletes. |
| 0:23.8 | And there are several features that really impress me. |
| 0:31.3 | Firstly, there is a full exercise library so you, the personal trainer, does not have to create that within your own department. |
| 0:36.8 | Secondly, you can send out programming, but also individualize, which I love. |
| 0:39.0 | So you blanket program for everyone. |
| 0:44.6 | Now you can tweak based on someone's injury, someone's need to maybe drop some body composition, |
| 0:49.0 | rather than having to write a program for every single person on their own. |
| 0:55.7 | TeamBuilder also allows you to build custom questionnaires to collate health and wellness data. It integrates with wearables. And I think one of the most important things is obviously it tracks. To me, |
| 1:01.3 | it's imperative that we as a profession start tracking our people from day one and then over the full |
| 1:08.6 | span of their career, therefore catching potential wellness issues and injuries before they happen. |
| 1:16.0 | Now, if you want to try TeamBuilder, they are offering you, the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast, a free 14-day trial to experience all of the features. |
| 1:26.5 | And if you want to take a deeper dive into Team Builder, |
| 1:29.1 | listen to episode 132 with Melissa Macardo or go to team builder.com. And I'll spell that to you |
| 1:37.3 | because it's not as you think. T-E-A-M-B-U-I-L-D-R.com. Welcome to the Behind a Shield podcast. As always, my name's James Gearing, and this week it is |
| 1:48.2 | my absolute honor to welcome back onto the show for the third time, firefighter-turned-lawyer, |
| 1:54.7 | Mike Cleland. |
| 1:56.3 | Now, in this third conversation, Mike wanted to go over all the changes in workman's comp laws when it comes |
| 2:02.9 | to heart and lung presumption, cancer presumption, PTSD presumption, not to mention topics |
| 2:10.8 | like fitness standards in the fire service and the 2472 work week. |
| 2:15.6 | Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, |
... |
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