Owner & Attorney
Bryn Swartz is a Virginia workers’ compensation lawyer and the owner of Pathfinder Injury Law in Richmond. He has been licensed in Virginia since 2011 and has handled thousands of workers’ comp cases, first at firms on both the injured worker’s side and the insurance company’s side, and since 2019 at Pathfinder, where he represents only people hurt at work in Virginia.
Experience
Bryn started his career as a prosecutor with the Virginia Office of the Attorney General, prosecuting online crimes against children. He then moved into workers’ compensation, working at firms that represented injured workers and at firms that defended employers and their insurance companies.
He has handled thousands of Virginia workers’ compensation cases through every stage: filing claims, discovery, hearings before the Commission, and review appeals. He has taken part in hundreds of mediations to settle them. He has been named a Super Lawyers Rising Star every year from 2021 to 2026 and a Virginia Lawyers Weekly Go To Lawyer for workers’ compensation. His years on the defense side mean he has seen from the inside how insurance companies and their lawyers evaluate a claim, from the first recorded statement to the settlement offer.
Why He Started Pathfinder
Bryn was laid off from a claimant-side law firm the day his son was born in 2019. He and his wife Mandy Truman founded Pathfinder sitting in the hospital room while Mandy was recovering from a C-section with a brand new baby boy, nothing to lose, and the whole world to gain. Pathfinder is a conscientiously small firm that handles only Virginia workers’ compensation, so every client gets diligent, attentive service in the middle of a work injury.
Bryn does his work wearing shorts and a NORML or mountain biking tee shirt. He firmly disavows the fallacy that one must wear a suit or uncomfortable shoes or have a dumb, self-serious office to be a great lawyer and a fierce client advocate. He is well known amongst his peers as a diligent, resourceful, and…unconventional lawyer. He prefers to do his job while riding his beloved Yeti SB130 mountain bike lost in the woods on the side of a mountain somewhere.
About Bryn
Bryn was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, the son of two musicians and schoolteachers. After dropping out of college to go on tour and make albums with his punk band, he resumed his education at Randolph-Macon College. He graduated in 2008 magna cum laude, in the top seven percent of his class, and with membership in the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. He then attended the University of Richmond School of Law, from which he graduated magna cum laude, in the top eleven percent of his class, and with membership in the Walter Scott McNeill Law Honor Society.
He is a member of the Virginia State Bar and the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association. Outside of law, Bryn loves mountain biking, traveling, eating great food, hanging out with his family and dogs, being a coffee snob, playing drums, and listening to podcasts, audiobooks, and music. Meet the rest of the Pathfinder team.
