‘Not If But When’

In 2003, personal injury attorney Bruce Hagen bought an office building near the DeKalb County courthouse and moved his practice there. Then he rented office space to Ken Rosskopf, an avid cyclist, pedestrian safety activist, and litigator, who repped plaintiffs injured while cycling, as well as the family members of cyclists killed in collisions.

And Hagen’s career—and life—changed.

“It never occurred to me that that could be a niche, or an area requiring a different expertise than any other personal injury case,” Hagen says.

Rosskopf was 20 years older than Hagen, and the two quickly became friends and collaborators, working on cycling injury cases together. 

“He made me realize,” Hagen says, “that there’s a community out there when it comes to cyclists. Here’s this group of folks who share a common interest from all walks of life. Certainly all political backgrounds. Racial and religious backgrounds. It didn’t matter. The thing they shared was this joy of riding bikes.”

With Rosskopf as mentor, Hagen established himself as an authority on cycling-related law. Along the way, he rediscovered a passion for riding bikes—both in long-distance rides outside Atlanta and on international cycling trips to countries like Croatia.

“Growing up in New York, I rode my bike everywhere,” Hagen says. “In college I’d bike. And in law school I’d bike. Then I had kids and stopped riding bikes for no particular reason.”

In addition to being involved in the Georgia chapter of the Bike Law Foundation, and Propel ATL, a nonprofit promoting bicycle and pedestrian safety in Atlanta, Hagen began participating in movements that drew attention to unsafe streets. “We used to do these weekly rolling slow rides,” says Hagen, “where we were trying to call out the need for bike lanes and bike infrastructure on this busy corridor.” 

The city responded by putting in bike lanes.

Hagen grew up in the Bronx, the son of a criminal defense attorney whose business card read: Trouble, you’ll know it when you’re in it. “I spent the first 18 years of my life under the same roof with him,” Hagen recalls with a laugh, “and 16 and a half of those I was being cross-examined.” 

His father was a scrappy, talented attorney who met his clients at a Denny’s restaurant and charged them $250 and breakfast for a one-hour session. “He was the life of the party,” Hagen’s son, Matt, says of his grandfather. “Almost like a cruise director personality: ‘Let’s get something happening, let’s be silly.’ Playing a game as you’re waiting for your food, or talking to strangers out walking on the beach.”

At the University of Florida, when Bruce’s dream of becoming a professional football player fell through, he decided to become an attorney himself—but not the blue-collar type like his father. “I had every intention of being an ivory tower, big-firm lawyer that wore a fancy suit, had a marble office, and was on the track to becoming a partner after seven years,” he says.

That didn’t pan out. Hired by a firm in Atlanta, he practiced construction 

law for four years, then did commercial and bankruptcy-related litigation at another firm.

In 1992, frustrated he wasn’t trying cases, he formed his own practice with a $300 nest egg and an outdated IBM clone computer. He wasn’t picky about cases as long as he got into the courtroom. Eventually that included personal injury cases. “I got tremendous experience just grinding it out,” Hagen says. “And that certainly developed a level of fearlessness when it comes to standing in front of a jury or standing in front of a judge.”

After meeting Rosskopf, his first bicycle-related case was a wrongful death lawsuit in which a driver struck and killed a prominent cyclist known for safe-riding practices. The defense, and the police, claimed the cyclist ran a stop sign, but Rosskopf, who knew the man, was convinced otherwise.

So Hagen hired an expert on car-bike collisions to recreate the crash, which, he says, “demonstrated that this crash could not have happened if the bike was going full speed.” 

Hagen still lost the case.

“Whether it’s a conscious bias against bicyclists or something that’s subconscious, I don’t know,” he says of the jury’s decision. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve seen it, unfortunately, all too often.”

It’s one reason Hagen leads seminars with police officers across the state, teaching them about bike laws. While he advocates for new legislation, he’s committed to educating about existing rules. “Realistically,” he says, “I feel like enforcement of existing laws would be more helpful than new laws protecting cyclists.”

But building more bike lanes in Atlanta wouldn’t hurt. “If I had a magic wallet, I would find the funds to create safe spaces, particularly in metropolitan, urban areas where people could ride comfortably separated from car traffic,” he says. He notes that Atlanta will be hosting six World Cup games in 2026 and could learn from its European counterparts. “There’s not a single great city in the world that doesn’t have safe ways for people to get around on bikes,” he says. “Atlanta could really benefit from it.”

Especially the next generation. Hagen says that his grandson, Matt’s son, loves to bike. “[He’s] a little demon on the bike,” he says. “I take him to these bike rodeos and various events where they have obstacle courses for the kids.”

Matt is the third-generation Hagen to become an attorney. He says he was inspired by his father’s ability to structure his time to be there when his kids needed him. “I was probably asleep when he was working in the evening,” he says, noting that he now does the same thing for his three children. 

Like his father, Matt worked for an Atlanta firm doing construction law—what he calls “litigation avoidance”—and, like his father, grew tired of it and longed for the courtroom. “It wasn’t for me, being trapped in a room reviewing documents,” Matt says. 

When a junior attorney left Hagen’s firm in 2016, Hagen asked Matt if he was interested in applying for the job. “I wrestled with the appearance it would have,” Matt says. “But I’m so glad that I got over that, because the work has been extremely fulfilling.”

Matt finds cycling law particularly satisfying. “People come to us when they haven’t done anything wrong, and they’ve been put in this position by someone else’s mistake,” Matt says. “And all of a sudden there’s defense lawyers and insurance adjusters and all these people who are set up professionally to try to take advantage of them. I enjoy the role of counselor—providing guidance to these people through what is otherwise complicated and scary times.”

Father and son balance each other with different approaches. “I tend to be conservative when I’m analyzing a new case,” Matt notes. “Sometimes I’m like: I don’t think there’s a case here. And my dad is the opposite, and very much a true believer for the plaintiff.”

Two years ago, Matt says he learned a lot from his father during a major case involving the death of a 6-year-old in a car accident. Their firm eventually won a $14 million verdict against the insurance company, which was trying to make a minimal payout. 

“Watching him orchestrate that trial was certainly a lesson to me, both in how to do the work and how to do it with a kind of emotional steadfastness,” Matt says. “You have to try to present the case as both a cold, analytical, strategic counselor while also telling this emotional story in a way that resonates with a jury. It’s a difficult line to walk, but I learned a lot watching him.”

Bruce continues to advocate for bike safety, including working with the advocacy organization Go Georgia to pass a vulnerable user ordinance in the city of Dunwoody. It allows prosecutors to ask for higher penalties in situations where a driver has harmed a pedestrian, cyclist or wheelchair user. In the first case in the state to make use of the new law, his firm, repping the victim, worked with the solicitor’s office on the plea agreement. 

“That was one where we helped get the law passed, and then we helped make sure that it was actually enforced,” he says.

The need for bike safety is still apparent, with some examples hitting closer to home. Last August, Rosskopf, who had stepped away from day-to-day work but was still an avid cycling activist, was killed after being struck by a car on his bike. He was 85.

On the last day of his life, Hagen says, Rosskopf helped someone who was down on his luck get set up with a donated bike at the firm’s office. “Ken spent two hours meeting with this guy, picking out the right bike for him, fixing it up, making sure it worked right,” Hagen says. “That the gears shifted, the brakes were working. Everything’s well lubricated. Tires were good. And then teaching this guy how to ride and be safe on the bike.

“He was so happy to have been able to help this guy out,” Hagen says, “and kind of beaming from the opportunity.”

Then he went for a long ride himself. Hagen says that though Rosskopf was wearing a helmet, his head hit the windshield hard. He was conscious and able to talk after the crash but died in the hospital the next morning. 

In a post on Facebook, Hagen wrote a memorial to his friend and mentor. “Meeting Ken helped guide and shape my career and life in a way that I will carry forward until my time comes to an end,” he wrote. “There were no strangers when Ken was riding a bike, only fellow travelers on a shared journey.” 

Hagen carries that sense of community—and a sense of how tenuous our lives are—with him to every cycling event. “I’m like: ‘I hope you never have to call us. But if you do, here’s our info.’ It tends to be not if but when for cyclists.”