Hone Your Craft. From Military Attorney to Private Practice Attorney; with Attorney Mike Melito | 108

"You learn your craft it, hone it; then eventually it becomes how I operate." 
 -Mike Melito

Episode Synopsis: 
Today we are meeting with my good close friend Michael Melito, who is an attorney here in town in Denver. But his story is rather unique. And I think the really good lesson that we're going to get from here is Mike was in a previous life, a paratrooper in the U.S. Army, and then he was in the Army JAG.  He was a lawyer in the Army, then later went and transitioned into the Colorado attorney general's office. And he was at the Colorado attorney general's office prosecuting white-collar crime cases. And then eventually, most recently within the last few years, transitioned from the Colorado attorney general's office into private practice, running his own business as a lawyer. And his story is really unique. I think he has some really great stories in terms of his transition from the military into working for the Colorado state government and into private practice.

Show Notes:
What got me interested in joining the military [3:26]
I remember this white-collar crime, a ring of thieves [7:42]
Find the Silver Foxes [10:30]
If you don't have the answer you find it [15:29]
 I'm curious, why did you decide to go ahead and start your own business instead of teaming up with other people? [27:23]
There's a lot of smart lawyers. They're smart doctors, but it comes down to can you communicate?  [41:49}
We're not fearful of confronting the client [46:56]

More Quotes: 
"I loved working for the government. I do not regret changing to private practice because as a business man, I am learning and continuing to learn my craft. And that's what every business person has to be a student of the game." -Mike Melito

"You've been referred to me because that's how I operate. I don't really advertise, but you want my skill set. Well, let me see if we fit because if you and I can communicate with one another, we built trust, we built honesty. And that allows me to hear and diagnose your woes as best I can because you're being thorough, you're being complete, and you're being candid with me, even for the stuff that it's hard to say because you might be admitting to, I did something wrong, I did a crime, I wronged my business partner or I wronged these people."- Mike Melito

https://www.melitolaw.com/

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Please note that the legal information shared in this podcast is for general informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not a substitute for consulting with a licensed attorney for specific legal matters. Past performance does not indicate future results; every legal case is unique. Consult your own attorney for personalized legal advice.

Transcript

00;00;01;13 - 00;00;33;06
Andy
So I me be of your corporate casual Denver based business attorney bringing you the Don't Get to legal podcast where you can listen in on the real stories, the real stakes, and the real legal lessons from real business owners just like you. These behind the door conversations about business are instrumental to your success. This is where the deals are made and negotiations are discussed and company problems are identified, leading you to overcoming the challenges we all face in our business.

00;00;33;07 - 00;00;54;09
Andy
This podcast is your invitation to where the real business happens and also where the best ideas take place. So let's get behind the doors and business and break down these legal lesson in overall. Remember, don't skip the legal a welcome to the Don't Skip the legal podcast. Now that we finally have ourselves a good, solid working title to this podcast.

00;00;54;17 - 00;01;16;13
Andy
Welcome. Today we are meeting with my good close friend Michael Melito, who is an attorney here in town in Denver. But his story is rather unique. And I think the really good lesson that we're going to get from here is Mike was in a previous life, a paratrooper in the U.S. Army, and then he was in the Army JAG.

00;01;16;13 - 00;01;37;29
Andy
He was a lawyer in the Army, then later went and transitioned into the Colorado attorney general's office. And he was at the Colorado attorney general's office prosecuting white collar crime cases. And then eventually, most recently within the last few years, transitioned from the Colorado attorney general's office into private practice, running his own business as a lawyer. And his story is really unique.

00;01;37;29 - 00;01;55;07
Andy
I think he has some really great stories in terms of his transition from military into working for the Colorado state government and into private practice. It's a really great story is that we are all going to be learning from today. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Michael Melito so please introduce yourself to our audience, everybody.

00;01;55;08 - 00;01;56;02
Mike
Mike Melito here.

00;01;56;08 - 00;02;01;04
Andy
Tell us a little bit about what you do, what you do here in the Denver area and give us a little background about yourself.

00;02;01;05 - 00;02;19;03
Mike
Sure. So my focus area of my practice is generally white collar, complex litigation to narrow it down even more. I would say that it revolves around racketeering or the frauds associated with maybe a securities fraud or maybe a business divorce, things of that nature.

00;02;19;13 - 00;02;26;09
Andy
And so tell us, what is racketeering? What does that involve when it comes to the type of law practice that you're engaged? Sure.

00;02;26;18 - 00;02;48;06
Mike
So used to be an organized crime. Prosecutors, you know, and that's actually how we met. And effectively, when you have a group of people and think Sopranos, think mafia, but you can also think Enron and you can also think of WorldCom or quest or white collar executives getting together and essentially committing fraud upon people.

00;02;48;06 - 00;02;52;03
Andy
In organization of people. So like a hierarchical structure, so to speak.

00;02;52;06 - 00;03;09;09
Mike
Well, technically, you don't have to have a hierarchy, as the Supreme Court tells us. Yeah, but what you can do is essentially a group of people involved in an enterprise, and each of those people are committing crimes which it's surprisingly easy to do, because once you start down a path of lying, you usually get a wound up in the criminal arena.

00;03;09;22 - 00;03;10;26
Mike
And that's where I come in.

00;03;11;05 - 00;03;26;14
Andy
And so tell us a little bit about your history, about what you did in the Army, in doing Army JAG, and how that led to what you're doing now and running your own business, defending vigils, and even doing plaintiff's work in the racketeering and organized crime space.

00;03;26;15 - 00;03;57;26
Mike
Absolutely. So one of the things that got me interested in joining the military was effectively the promotions that the branches put out while I was in law school. Right. And they had these wonderful full-page advertisements on the back of pretty much every law school magazine. And it said, Carry your own briefcase. Right. And so there was this image that you had this lumpy lawyer walking up some courthouse steps behind the older, more established, silver-haired partners and carrying a whole bunch of just crap.

00;03;58;09 - 00;04;15;21
Mike
And so, in contrast, the split screen of that advertisement was these physically fit, perfectly appearing soldiers or Marines or naval officers or Air Force officers carrying their own briefcases, kind of almost in a hurried, like running but confident pace.

00;04;16;09 - 00;04;36;25
Andy
So there's another piece of that. And as you and I were coming out of law school, which was right around the same time the mid-nineties, there was a fantastic Tom Cruise movie called The Few Good Men that was really pressing the idea of this is what it's like to be a lawyer in the military. And I mean, even I got stars in my eyes from that whole process.

00;04;36;25 - 00;04;53;13
Andy
Like, I, too, can go be a prosecutor or a defense lawyer in the military, and this looks super cool. And I get to wear cool uniforms and I get a cannot handle the truth and all that fun. Exactly. And that. So I'm sure that was a little bit of it. Wasn't the it was a.

00;04;53;13 - 00;05;14;17
Mike
Component of that. Right. It was one of the things that pushed the legal community at that time frame in the same way L.A. Law back in the eighties pushed people into the legal community or medical E.R. with Clooney. That pushed a ton more people into the medical field. And so, yeah, that absolutely influenced a huge influx of lawyers into the Army.

00;05;14;21 - 00;05;18;04
Andy
So tell us a little bit about like the type of work you did as an attorney in the Army.

00;05;18;13 - 00;05;52;22
Mike
Sure. So you start out with a basic job as a young lieutenant, and then as you get promoted to captain, which happens relatively quickly, you wind up taking on the more advanced jobs and the pinnacle of advanced job for that rank or a position called trial counsel. And trial counsel was this interesting mix of prosecutor. But at the same time, you had to issue spot like a corporate counsel and farm things out to the other lawyers within the JAG office, whether they be civilian practitioners or other Jags.

00;05;52;22 - 00;06;25;03
Mike
You had a focus area such as administrative law, operational law and countless other areas in environmental law. I could go on. And so my particular focus was as a litigator even back then. And so the Army first gave me this position of trial counsel over unit called the first customer or the first course or command headed up at the time by female one star general named and Dunwoody, who would later go on to become the first four star female general.

00;06;25;14 - 00;06;40;29
Mike
Now I had to tackle all sorts of issues, but most of what I did was dealing with courts martial. Right. And after I did sort of a two year tour, right around two year tours at Fort Bragg, where they did teach me how to jump out of airplanes. And despite being a lawyer, they actually gave me a parachute.

00;06;41;10 - 00;07;03;10
Mike
But sort of dad jokes aside, once I completed that tour, I then moved on to Fort Carson and it is routine in the military for you to go from a prosecutorial role over to defense. And I think that provided a lot of insight, not only on the business front, but also on the litigation front, because learning both sides, it's art of war.

00;07;03;15 - 00;07;06;21
Mike
You're studying the other side, right? Learning that your craft.

00;07;06;22 - 00;07;27;04
Andy
And what's interesting, I think in the military context is you don't get to choose to become a defense lawyer or prosecutor. You are in the JAG and you get an assignment and your assignment for the next year may be you're going to do court martials and you're going to prosecute people whose conduct is unbecoming an officer or whoever.

00;07;27;04 - 00;07;41;13
Andy
And you're looking at those issues and prosecuting people for crimes that they've committed, whether it's on base, off base, that kind of thing. And on another instance, the next day, you could be Lieutenant Milito. Today you're going to defend Joe here.

00;07;42;01 - 00;08;04;03
Mike
Sergeant Joe in the military, we did have white collar crime. And I remember this particular case. I think it's Master Sergeant Gonzalez who we prosecuted. He ran this ring of thieves and it was very white collar in nature. And you don't think about that in the military, because we did have the murders, we did have the rapes. We did have the other unique military crimes.

00;08;04;07 - 00;08;27;11
Mike
Right. And so we had that was a lot of my experience when I was doing courts martial. And some of these wound up becoming high profile as if, for instance, I had a drill sergeant client and that made the newspapers. I had a double homicide out in Kansas that made the national news because it was shortly after the troops had gone over to Iraq on Oh, I asked.

00;08;27;18 - 00;08;49;16
Mike
Right. So it really became an amazing place to be forged in the fire of the courtroom where the courts martial were conducted. So that I will say, and this is kind of hearkening back to my prosecutorial days, there was a particular defense counsel, Hank McNally was his name, and he stood out in my mind because he really knew how to conduct business.

00;08;49;26 - 00;09;25;11
Mike
He knew what was on point, he knew what was best. And he focused his craft and his negotiations in being on point rather than engaging in gamesmanship. And so that model that he said he was senior me and he was defense counsel having been a prosecutor himself, and that model is what I used and then honed and refined to my own liking that when I transferred over the forecast and I transferred over to Fort Carson and within the first four years, I certainly did more than 100 courts martial and administrative boards put together.

00;09;25;17 - 00;09;29;26
Mike
Right. And so that really gave me a lot of litigation experience more than most.

00;09;30;02 - 00;09;39;00
Andy
And how long did you spend in the military as prosecutor in JAG before that, making your transition over to the Colorado attorney general's office?

00;09;39;00 - 00;10;07;04
Mike
Sure. So between my time as a prosecutor and defense counsel, it was about six and a half years that I spent active duty in the Army. And one of the things that stands out that really came to the present was a conversation I had with a Colorado lawyer who'd been pulled into active duty. The guy's name was Steve, and Steve was kind of an anomaly because right after 911, we start seeing this influx of reservists.

00;10;07;16 - 00;10;30;19
Mike
And Steve was this anomaly. I say that because us active duty folks were not used to being on the outside, we didn't know what private practice was like. We were in our own little world. And Steve's father was a well-known JAG judge who had been retired and was a law professor somewhere. The story that Steve told us revolved around his dad and parting words of wisdom.

00;10;30;19 - 00;10;52;00
Mike
When Steve wanted to first hang shingle, open his own business and become a lawyer, and his father had conveyed a very simple message, which was Find the Silver Foxes and find the people who had gray in their hair. Silver in their hair have been around the block a while because you're going to be able to ask them for office space and rent from them.

00;10;52;08 - 00;11;05;08
Mike
And you'd be in sort of the trenches with folks who knew how to run a business and folks who really knew where it was at and how to conduct yourself as a lawyer. And if they had a little bit of pity on you, they could throw some cases your way.

00;11;05;13 - 00;11;42;20
Andy
And. Well, is that also the component of seek out a mentor? Exactly. And, you know, you build relationships with people. And I'm sure you built a fantastic relationships with people through the military and into the state government. But all of us, I think, whether it's as a lawyer or whether it's as a business owner, I think the telltale here is go out and find someone you can latch on to, who you can look to for guidance, who you can use to help mentor you and help you make these decisions that are not always easy to make because in law it's sometimes it's easy to say, I don't know the answer.

00;11;42;20 - 00;12;06;04
Andy
I mean, you can go out and research it. You may or may not come with the right answer, but being able to go to somebody and say, listen, here's the situation I'm dealing with, how would you manage this event and what advice can you give me in the process? I mean, that becomes really the lesson that that you sort of take as you are coming out of Army JAG and moving on in your career.

00;12;06;04 - 00;12;23;06
Mike
And I would go a step further because in the same way that you have a chain of command in the military, what that translates to is you have a chain of mentors and you don't have just one. You have multiple mentors. And sometimes the mentors might be the same rank issue because they've had an experience taking impart on you.

00;12;23;16 - 00;12;51;16
Mike
And it ultimately comes down to those relationships of finding mentor or mentors and being a mentor yourself can help you learn and can help you become a more effective lawyer because you learn how to do things efficiently and in a cost effective manner for your clients. Because in private practice, the bottom line is your clients want to make sure you're providing them a good value.

00;12;51;16 - 00;12;54;28
Mike
And so that's critical to understand. And mentors help you get there.

00;12;55;14 - 00;13;20;11
Andy
Well, they also help you streamline your process. As I said, going through and researching topics going through and dealing with events within your career, being able to go to somebody and learn from them and learn from their mistakes or learn from, you know, how they manage a particular situation really is. Helps me then streamline my behavior moving forward and I know will great.

00;13;20;12 - 00;13;34;27
Andy
I don't have to go through and do these 20 different steps. You've already gone through those 20 steps and you know now how to do it in three steps. And you can tell me at that point, listen, do this in three steps. Here's what you need to do, ABC and move on. You don't need to go through the other 17.

00;13;34;27 - 00;13;55;05
Mike
So I completely agree. And one of the things I think most lawyers can relate to is as you migrate through law school, you have this fear and the fear that the professors impart on you is saying the phrase, I don't know. Right. Because sometimes that can be an F for the day or worse in after the course.

00;13;55;12 - 00;13;59;18
Andy
Well, they don't teach you that in law school. They don't teach you to admit that you're wrong.

00;13;59;18 - 00;14;01;27
Mike
And that they state they teach you.

00;14;01;28 - 00;14;07;27
Andy
If you don't know the answer, go find it. And then if you can't find the answer after that, then there is no audience.

00;14;07;28 - 00;14;45;08
Mike
But that also leads. I think, for the young lawyer. That leads to the bad habit of talking off the cuff. Yeah. And giving an off the top of my head answer. Right. With conveying all the confidence in the world when they shouldn't be. And in contrast, in the military, when you come from that environment of being afraid to say, I don't know the military embrace, I don't know I'm going to learn it, you have an attention to detail that forms because people are constantly correcting you or the little things, whether it's a shoelace that's tucked that needs to be tucked back into your boot, whether it's a little string, which we would call the rappelling

00;14;45;08 - 00;14;56;23
Mike
ropes that's coming off your uniform that needs to be burned off or even making sure your belt buckle is on center with you giggling. That's where the phrase comes from. And so that the button down.

00;14;56;24 - 00;14;57;09
Andy
Exactly.

00;14;57;10 - 00;15;23;03
Mike
Yes, the button line with your belt buckle which line up with your pants line. And so those little meticulous details make you a little bit more aware of that finesse that you have to have. And it translates well to the business man because the business man who's effective, the business man who's experienced, is capable of saying, I don't know, with an amount of confidence that actually instills faith in their clients.

00;15;23;15 - 00;15;26;13
Mike
But it becomes, I don't know, I to find out for you.

00;15;26;23 - 00;15;28;09
Andy
And that becomes the next step.

00;15;28;12 - 00;15;28;24
Mike
Yes.

00;15;29;00 - 00;15;47;18
Andy
And being able to instill the confidence and have the credibility with your customer and being able to say there is an answer to this question, I don't know it, but I can find it and I'll be able to advise you or I'll be able to help you and we'll be able to tackle this event together and will be able to guide you through to the conclusion, whatever that is.

00;15;47;18 - 00;15;49;06
Mike
I could have said it better myself. Yeah.

00;15;49;07 - 00;16;10;26
Andy
Where you didn't. I said it. I said, All right, so what happens then? Here you are. You're coming out of the military. You've you're in the military for what you said. Six years, six and a half years. I'm kind of looking at it from the standpoint of like you had six and a half years of a large law firm experience doing a lot of different types of law in a very confined and detailed organization.

00;16;11;10 - 00;16;33;25
Andy
Many lawyers in that at that time frame would decide, I'm ready to leave and go out on my own. But you didn't decide to do that. You decided to take your government experience in the US military and then transition into government work for the state of Colorado. Tell us about why you decided that transition and what the nature of that looked like.

00;16;34;08 - 00;16;38;14
Mike
Wow, that's actually a ten hour answer, but I'll break.

00;16;38;14 - 00;16;39;16
Andy
It down to 10 minutes. Sure.

00;16;39;19 - 00;17;09;01
Mike
That now I'll cut to the chase. I would say that a lot of the reasons I did so were very personal. I had everything from a great sense of community coming out of the military. I was sad to go. I had a great team that I was going into at the Attorney General's office. I had applied for and gotten a lot of private jobs, but I ultimately turned them down because they didn't provide me with that sense of belonging, and they didn't provide me with that sense of team.

00;17;09;07 - 00;17;29;15
Mike
And most importantly, they didn't provide me with that sense of a greater purpose. And going into the government at that point in my life really helped out. I was single dad at the time. I wanted to be able to manage my hours, do something I still enjoyed and not be in the basement of some law firm looking through boxes and boxes of discovery.

00;17;29;15 - 00;18;00;05
Mike
Right. And not even knowing what the son looks like. So that ability to stay in the litigation world is what motivated me to take the job I did at the AG's office. And I came across great people, great team, great sense of purpose, and then just did more litigation. It was some cutting edge stuff despite being civil. So I did that for about two years and then by 2007 I run into this guy who's about to be promoted himself within the criminal justice section of the AG's office.

00;18;00;16 - 00;18;26;27
Mike
And I had an opportunity to get back into criminal law and that really was my love. The puzzles, the whodunits and the sort of psychology of crime is what lured me back again. And ultimately, Andy, that's how I met you. Yeah, our audience knows I wind up doing complex crimes, whether they were environmental, white collar or racketeering. And so that really was the kind of job I didn't know it at the time.

00;18;26;27 - 00;18;41;15
Mike
But in retrospect, the rest of the lawyers and prosecutors in this state really wanted to be there because it was an exciting and amazing job and I just stumbled into it out of love. So nothing.

00;18;41;15 - 00;18;41;25
Andy
Wrong with.

00;18;41;25 - 00;18;42;12
Mike
Law? Yeah.

00;18;42;26 - 00;19;09;27
Andy
You did. Complex litigation. You built a reputation for yourself within the legal community as being a fair and just prosecutor and your credibility among the defense bar. As a prosecutor, that's a hard place to fit for prosecutor. Typically there is this us versus them mentality, and there are still many lawyers, whether you're on the defense side or on the prosecution side, it's a fight.

00;19;09;27 - 00;19;41;10
Andy
No matter what. It's always me. It's not you, and you never took that attitude. Even in my experiences with you, you were very forgiving and very forthcoming in terms of trying to do the right thing down the line and I don't think enough prosecutors carry that mentality with them in their jobs as prosecutors. And then what happens? Because the interesting thing about being a prosecutor is the team, the leader, the team, the district attorney or the attorney general changes in Colorado, their term limited to eight years.

00;19;41;20 - 00;20;02;29
Andy
There's a strong chance after eight years or after four years, whatever it is, when the A.G. leaves or the D.A. leaves, that you might be out of a job, which means you either have to go to another government office or you end up going into private practice. Now, you were able to sort of decide on your own the path you wanted to take, but you built relationships with people.

00;20;03;05 - 00;20;09;13
Andy
You reached across the aisle to your opposition and built in forged relationships with them.

00;20;09;24 - 00;20;30;20
Mike
I'm going to skip forward to the year 2018. So I gone in the private practice and one of my former adversaries, I'm sitting there and I'm working with her. She was younger. I had less experience than I had at the time, but I regarded her as an amazing attorney and we were working together on this complex racketeering case.

00;20;31;06 - 00;20;44;11
Mike
And this funny subject came up and there is this listserv, this criminal defense listserv that exists. And I was a little worried about joining the listserv at the suggestion of my friend. Right.

00;20;44;16 - 00;20;46;09
Andy
Tell people what the list servant's. Sure.

00;20;46;09 - 00;21;06;09
Mike
So more or less it's a forum where defense attorneys can exchange ideas proposed issues that they need assistance with. And it is kind of coming full circle to your point. It's a way to find a mentor. And even if it's with someone who's your equal, they can mentor you in a specific area, a subject of law, you name it.

00;21;06;15 - 00;21;21;12
Mike
And one of the other things about the listserv is it communicated about your opposition, so you could go there as defense counsel and find out about the prosecutors you were facing. Right. And you could learn about them, their peccadilloes or whatever, sort of floated their boat in negotiation.

00;21;21;12 - 00;21;22;08
Andy
Know that enemy.

00;21;22;09 - 00;21;53;27
Mike
Exactly. That's another Sun Tzu expression. So one of the things that I brought in my practice as a prosecutor was having gone from prosecution to defense back to prosecution, and I was mindful of how the other side thought military training, Sun Tzu, like we've said a couple of times today and my friend's story was, Hey, Milito, don't worry about joining the listserv.

00;21;53;27 - 00;22;29;07
Mike
You're not going to be ostracized. You're going to be accepted. And here's why. And I suppose the listserv just kind of like social media is just going to be trash talking. That's why I was just I felt I'd be ostracized, but I was. And my friend says there's two things I learned about you ten years ago when she first started facing me and she said, thing number one, the defense community could trust your word, which as a prosecutor that's so, so important, because if you don't have credibility behind your statements, you don't get your job done.

00;22;29;14 - 00;22;47;22
Mike
Right. And that is something that is your stock in trade. You have to cultivate that. As prosecutor, I always knew it, but I was humbled to hear that the community, my opposition helped me in that regard. And then the second part, which I kind of laugh at, because she turned to me and said she want to hear the second thing they said about you.

00;22;48;16 - 00;23;17;14
Mike
And I said, Does it rhyme with trucker? And and and she said, no. She said that she said that the defense attorney word on the street was simply nobody is going to know their case better than Mike Molitor. Yeah. So in comparison to all of the prosecutors I knew these big, complex, convoluted racketeering cases better than anyone else in the state, and I knew them with that attention to detail and also the approach from the other side.

00;23;17;29 - 00;23;38;28
Mike
And the rest of the phrase that she said to me that day was, Nobody's going to know your case better than Mike Milito, including you. And she meant that, say, the defense attorneys out there could trust me to know that I would have a frank conversation with them. I would say, here's my case, here's why your client is going to be convicted.

00;23;39;08 - 00;23;59;18
Mike
But here are the weaknesses in my case. Here's the ways you can attack my case. And even though you can attack me over here, I still have your court over here. And I was kind, I was straightforward about it. And I treated my opposition with dignity and respect. I just communicated with them in a very surgical way.

00;24;00;12 - 00;24;19;26
Andy
Tell me what's going through your mind when you decide that you want to leave the AG's office and go into private practice? I mean, by this time when you were making that transition, you and I were already opposite a case of one another. It was a large white collar case that was going on involving marijuana industry in Colorado.

00;24;19;26 - 00;24;36;26
Andy
And we end up having this conversation. And I remember you telling me that, listen, I'm going to be leaving and going into private practice, but tell me, what goes through your mind? Why do you decide now's the time to go into private practice? Why did you decide that leaving the AG's office and going into private practice was the right thing for you?

00;24;36;26 - 00;24;45;04
Andy
And second part of that question, what were you scared of? What were you afraid was going to happen as you were making this transition?

00;24;45;19 - 00;25;07;01
Mike
So my kids growing up knowing what I had done in my history, knowing that I had jumped out of an airplane a couple of times, they would ask me like, Dad, were you afraid? The answer was, Yes, I was. But I would tell my kids. And this is swiping a quote from Stephen Ambrose. You're one of the many great heroes that he interviewed in Band of Brothers.

00;25;07;02 - 00;25;07;11
Andy
Yeah.

00;25;07;20 - 00;25;31;15
Mike
It was. Courage isn't a lack of fear. Courage is actually being afraid and doing it anyway. And so I was afraid when I got out in the private practice, I hadn't had such amazing, wonderful, happy experiences at the AG's office for so long. And then eventually, you know, politics get to you. The politics got to me and feel the right thing was occurring, right?

00;25;31;15 - 00;25;52;09
Mike
It happened and I had the benefit of 2020 hindsight to see my own mistakes, to see where I made mistakes, to see how I could have done a better job, or to see how I wasn't as mindful of other people's feelings that I should have been right. Those things really came to a crescendo and I got a piece of advice that helped with the fear.

00;25;52;19 - 00;26;17;22
Mike
And it was scary, but it was exciting. Scary. It was jumping out of an airplane. Exciting, scary. And a couple of my friends, a mentor of mine who's a judge and then a friend of mine at the AG's office, had said, Take some time off, take some time so you can figure out, just decompress and figure out what you want to do and where you're going to go.

00;26;18;10 - 00;26;43;16
Mike
And I realized that that was just great wisdom. It allowed me to spend some time on the ranch and hang out with my family and just take some time off. And plus, as I understood it, November and December, which was my time off, are slow seasons for lawyers. Anyway, I thought this would be a good opportunity and I had interviews with countless law firms in the meantime, constantly meetings with folks.

00;26;43;28 - 00;26;56;11
Mike
And I saw the Silver Foxes that we talked about moments ago. Yeah, and that's how I ultimately got past that fear. I found a job. I turned down some big law firm jobs.

00;26;56;11 - 00;27;23;09
Andy
And I want to get into that a little bit because you and I did have a few conversations about it, because we became friends through our case and we developed our business relationship with each other. And even today, now we work cases alongside one another. But I remember when you were making that transition and you and I had conversations and you were sort of hedging on whether do I go join this big law firm or do I go and start my own business?

00;27;23;26 - 00;27;46;12
Andy
And I'm curious, why did you decide to go ahead and start your own business instead of teaming up with other people? Because you were getting some amazing offers and you turned down some high profile places and you wanted to sort of go do your own thing. Why did you decide that was the right path for you versus going and joining in other organization?

00;27;47;02 - 00;27;56;10
Mike
One word and I think every small business man or woman would nod yes. As I say this one word, freedom.

00;27;56;24 - 00;27;57;06
Andy
Yes.

00;27;57;18 - 00;28;22;01
Mike
Yeah. They think I think I can help. And I don't mean to go patriotic, but it's about a personal freedom that is is so invaluable when you engage in a practice or a field or a business and you have the freedom as the boss or partner in some bigger institution, someone with pull, you have freedom to make decisions.

00;28;22;01 - 00;28;52;02
Mike
And it's amazing. I don't regret any of my 20 years of public service, but when I turned down the big firms, when I turned down the firms that interviewed me from other states, and I flew out there and they did the whole wine and dine in like take out to NFL games and you're ten yards from the end zone and it's just amazing stuff like that when you turn that down, you turn it down because to be your own boss is an amazing, amazing, liberating moment.

00;28;52;15 - 00;28;57;20
Mike
And so that is the reason where I went from there. Oh, yeah.

00;28;57;25 - 00;29;18;29
Andy
Well, you're sitting here this cheering. Exactly. But the idea of starting your own business and turning down very high profile offers freedom is obviously the determining factor here. But I mean, what's going through your mind? I mean, you're in this zone, you're in a new area. You've worked in the government for the last year at this point, 20 years of your legal career.

00;29;19;10 - 00;29;38;02
Andy
And now you are sort of cast into the wind, you know, much like jumping out of an airplane and you pull your chute, you don't know where you're going to land. You hope that your chute opens. You hope that the wind current is the right way and that you can, you know, favorable and that you can maneuver your chute to the right landing zone.

00;29;38;13 - 00;29;47;22
Andy
What's going through your mind after you make this leap and you're like, Oh, yeah, I'm not going to take this plane to the end zone or to the landing zone. I'm going to jump out and try to find my way there.

00;29;47;27 - 00;30;05;16
Mike
So I joined this amazing small law firm which offered me the freedom I was looking for. And effectively they said, How do you want to come into this practice? Do you want to be an associate? Do you want to be a partner? Do you want to be of counsel? Do you want to be a hybrid? What do you want to do?

00;30;05;16 - 00;30;29;00
Mike
And that that allowed me to do several things. Number one, I could get the amount of money I needed, you know, to pay the bills, pay the mortgage, right. That alleviated the fear. And then it allowed me having that little sense of security, doing a little bit of work for some great folks at this firm that allowed me the freedom to then explore right and find my niche.

00;30;29;09 - 00;30;39;07
Mike
And I had a unique skill set. People did not handle the type of work that I do, the complexity, the volume that I had in governmental practice.

00;30;39;07 - 00;30;41;00
Andy
You had a particular set of skills?

00;30;41;00 - 00;31;02;02
Mike
Yeah, I guess I don't want to sound like Liam Neeson, but yeah, don't kidnap my kids, only look after you. So the stop or I shall say stop again. I know. Or stop Henry time, which my wife and I love to say. Oh, boy. So I would say this as I was exploring where I wanted to practice in terms of where in the law.

00;31;02;15 - 00;31;31;17
Mike
I knew I wanted to litigate because I had such fun doing it. And then I thought back to a moment where I was speaking with my great uncle Cesar Gwoza was his name, such so well-respected within my family. He himself was an employment lawyer and a litigator and I asked him, and these are other than the great things like your family man, other than the family stuff, what were your top three moments in the law?

00;31;32;04 - 00;31;58;25
Mike
And he said the following At number one, I was a founding member of the AFL, CIO and that was super impressive if you're a student of history. Yeah, number two, I don't remember, but number three, he said I was the first attorney to win civil racketeering damages against the mafia. That is super cool. It is. And what jumps to mind, number one, I said Caesar first.

00;31;58;25 - 00;32;30;12
Mike
I'm not going to start your car, ever. Number two, weren't you afraid considering who you were going against? Yeah. And number three, how did you overcome that fear? Right. And he said, Well, yeah, definitely going up against the Mafia was something that was certainly challenging and could instill fear. But it kind of reached out to some folks who had some connections and ultimately they get back and they say the powers that be didn't look at this as one family fighting against another, but rather the cost of doing business.

00;32;30;12 - 00;32;47;15
Mike
Right. So the safety concern. Right. He alleviated the fear in the same way. I leave it to the fear by working part time or of counsel to so the firm. He alleviated that little bit and he could handle the chunks because then it just became a lawsuit and it just had the fancy name Rico behind it.

00;32;47;15 - 00;32;49;00
Andy
Cost of doing this, cost.

00;32;49;00 - 00;33;06;06
Mike
Of doing business. I looked at it. That's an equation that as a lawyer, you go over with your clients as any business person, you go over with your clients. What's the cost of the decision you're about to make? Right? So I ripped a page right out of my Uncle Caesar's book and I thought, There's not too many people who do this.

00;33;06;06 - 00;33;23;22
Mike
And when clients come up to me and they say, Wow, organized crime, you did this for 11 and a half, 12 years. I say, yes. And then they say, How many other people do it in the state? I say, 20 and 19 of the American government. So I realized I was kind of the only game in town. I had a good reputation.

00;33;23;22 - 00;33;44;01
Mike
I worked hard. I took my ethos from military of attention to detail and just getting out there and loving what I do. And that's the field I went in to the complex white collar litigation. So I do criminal defense and I do the organized crime stuff. But I was also able to translate those skills over to the more complex litigation, right?

00;33;44;01 - 00;34;07;19
Andy
So and so like in the cases that we're managing now, you and I representing some very high level executives in some publicly traded companies and managing litigation from a very, very high level. I want to sort of go back to your uncle and the cost of doing business. Let's start from the beginning. I mean, litigation sucks, there's no doubt about it.

00;34;08;00 - 00;34;35;20
Andy
But do you think that people in business should be afraid of litigation? Do you think that litigation is something that companies or business owners should shy away from? Or do you think that this is something that, again, that this is a cost of doing business? I think most of the people, like small businesses, you know, a lot of my clients in that respect don't have the finances to be able to litigate something like a huge multimillion dollar lawsuit, like we manage it on occasion.

00;34;35;20 - 00;34;37;21
Andy
But what do you think in that respect?

00;34;37;27 - 00;34;44;15
Mike
That is a very, very simple question. Without the ability to answer in a simple fashion.

00;34;44;16 - 00;34;45;24
Andy
Yeah, never is in law.

00;34;45;24 - 00;35;15;29
Mike
I know that. I think any business person has to be mindful that litigation could come. I think capital reserves, having the war chest available for you as a business man. Yeah. Allows you of flexibility in your decision making because it does come down to, hey client, it's going to cost you X. Is it worth it now that you know what the legal fees would cost?

00;35;16;11 - 00;35;41;14
Mike
Here's your situation. You might not win as credible as you think you are. You might lose. On this finesse point of law. The jury might not like you. Do you want to take that risk and maybe even have to pay their fees so you can give your client a mathematical number and allow them to evaluate. As a lawyer, as a business person, you should be able to do that with your consumers, whoever that happens to be.

00;35;41;22 - 00;36;11;22
Mike
Here's the risk in making this decision. Are you going to go with the cheap toilet? You're going to go with the expensive toilet because the expensive toilet has a durability of 20 years. The cheap toilet does it. Now, how do you go out and get insurance to cover the cheap toilet versus the expensive toilet? So there's so many different avenues of thought here that I can't give you a simple yes or no answer, but every business person needs to be prepared to have to litigate.

00;36;12;06 - 00;36;13;09
Mike
So what it boils down to.

00;36;13;09 - 00;36;35;28
Andy
I think it's an unfortunate reality of what we're living in nowadays that you as a business owner are going to be faced with legal action in some form or fashion, whether it's a customer who wants their money back, whether it is a bad review online, whether it is failed partnership, fail partnership, which happens all the time or in your particular case, we don't need to get into the details of it.

00;36;35;28 - 00;37;04;00
Andy
But, you know, right before we started recording here, you were on a conference call, you know, for a settlement conference on a piece of litigation that you're a part of, involving intellectual property and involving a dispute over ownership and over an app that was created. And what is going on in that case. And what I find, at least from my perspective and I don't know if you agree with this or not, is that many business decisions are made on an emotional level rather than on a business judgment level.

00;37;04;18 - 00;37;34;09
Andy
And I always try to impose upon my clients, listen, this is a business decision that you need to make, not an emotional one. I understand that. Yes, this is your business. You put it up from scratch, whatever it is you need to now make a very difficult business decision. What's the right business decision? What have you found in your representation of clients when it comes to the types of emotional decision versus the proper business decisions that they have to make?

00;37;34;17 - 00;38;02;20
Mike
A lot of the client management piece, whether it's criminal or whether it's civil, is being the surgeon and telling your client, I don't care if you did it being sort of the wrong act. But let me very dispassionately go over the facts and discuss the risk with you. And like a surgeon removing a cancer, you don't have to care about that person.

00;38;02;20 - 00;38;28;25
Mike
It doesn't have to be a family member. Right. In fact, it's almost better if you're detached. And so I think lawyers bring a detached, more objective view that allows whoever that CEO is, whoever that business owner is, to come in here their analysis and say, put aside the passion that you had when you start up this company. It's your child.

00;38;28;25 - 00;38;51;24
Mike
It's the business version of a child. Yeah, put it aside. Hear me out and allow me to give you a dissertation on the risks you're about to face and the costs you're about to incur as a business person, as a CEO of a multimillion dollar company. Let me tell you where the risks are. And frankly, I think good lawyer is worth your weight in gold.

00;38;52;07 - 00;39;14;10
Mike
And that objective view, even if you want to disagree with the business person, that objective view of the risks they face often calms him down and allows them to be more analytical, to put aside that emotion and to satisfy, I'll say, the business judgment rule, but to satisfy their intellect, their emotions, and then maybe even their shareholders.

00;39;14;26 - 00;39;35;07
Andy
Yeah. And we see this at a small business level too certain. And this just happened to you and me yesterday, but we both got discharged by client and that happens in our business. And I run along the philosophy of listen I may not be the right lawyer for everybody I come in contact with. I have a particular attitude.

00;39;35;07 - 00;39;59;17
Andy
I'm a particular way about how I like to do things. And I expect certain things from my clients in the process. And if my clients don't adhere to my strict rules about what I expect from my clients, then I'm put in a position where, listen, I need to withdraw from the case or you need to discharge meas your lawyer if we're not going to agree on these things, and that's sort of written in our ethical rules as as counsel.

00;39;59;24 - 00;40;39;25
Andy
But did you and I cry over losing a client that could potentially bring us thousands and thousands of dollars in fees over this course? Not because it was the right business decision, not only for our client, but also for us moving forward, because there was a breakdown in communication between the way that we were dealing with it. And I think that it's important for every business owner to not try to force a relationship to work that there are signals, that there are signs out there in the universe that you're getting, like this client of mine is not getting back to me or this person isn't paying their bill or apps like that that leads to

00;40;39;25 - 00;40;41;25
Andy
this. Maybe we just need to cut the ties.

00;40;42;01 - 00;41;10;15
Mike
And it comes back to the ability to communicate effectively, right? That good friend of mine who was just a person who provided wonderful insight when I went out into private practice, this person, even though they were junior to me and overall lawyering experience, they certainly had a lot more experience in private practice. This woman, Kelly, said to me, You know, Milito, I know that there's a lot of lawyers who go out there and they try to instill this fear, and that's their advertising.

00;41;10;15 - 00;41;19;22
Mike
The same way an alarm company would have a burglar trying to break into a house or some violent advertisement right on the edge of violence. It scares people into buying an alarm system.

00;41;19;22 - 00;41;25;02
Andy
I think there was there was an alarm company there. Commercial was somebody breaking in, the alarms went off, the lights went off everywhere.

00;41;25;05 - 00;41;48;29
Mike
And everyone's safe since. And survive, even though the evil masked criminal with the striped shirt, it wasn't a raccoon and they ran away. And so I wasn't comfortable with that. And I took on the wisdom of this person who mentored me. I took on her wisdom and really just looked at it like the same way you would go in and talk to a doctor.

00;41;49;05 - 00;42;14;12
Mike
There's a lot of smart lawyers. They're smart doctors, but it comes down to can you communicate? Yeah. Do you fit? Because if you have said if you sit your client, if you sit your potential consumer, you're going to have good communication. And if you sort that out early on, rather than just looking at it as a means to an end to have money, you should look at it instead of if we sit, it's going to be more fruitful for both of us.

00;42;14;21 - 00;42;31;23
Mike
If you force a relationship, it shouldn't exist. You're going to have a breakdown and you're going to get bad results for everybody. And so I took that to heart, that wisdom, that mentorship of my friend heart. And I employ it to this day where I make sure I sit with my clientele. And I said, Hey, look, I get it.

00;42;31;23 - 00;43;06;06
Mike
You're here. You've you've been referred to me because that's how I operate. I don't really advertise, but you want my skill set. Well, let me see if we fit, because if you and I can communicate with one another, we built trust, we built honesty. And that allows me to hear and diagnose your woes as best I can, because you're being thorough, you're being complete, and you're being candid with me, even for the stuff that it's hard to say because you might be admitting to, I did something wrong, I did a crime, I wronged my business partner or I wronged these people.

00;43;06;06 - 00;43;13;29
Mike
It allows me to cure that cancer. It allows me to commit that surgical mindset to your operation to help you.

00;43;14;14 - 00;43;35;03
Andy
You know, you get this opportunity to sit down with your client and really discuss and have good communication and build the relationship, which I think is important, not only as a lawyer, but in any business it's critical because if you can't communicate with your client, your customer, you're going to break down that relationship. And it's just not going to work.

00;43;35;06 - 00;43;37;11
Andy
There's just nothing you can really do to get past that.

00;43;37;11 - 00;43;48;00
Mike
Exactly. And sometimes you have to say goodbye to your customer no matter how much you like. The person and I haven't had the experience, but sometimes there can be a good riddance component to it. Yeah.

00;43;48;11 - 00;43;59;19
Andy
So well, let me ask you this question. So what do you think has been your biggest challenge in your own business as you've left the AG's office growing your own business right now? What has been your biggest challenge?

00;44;00;13 - 00;44;24;06
Mike
Wow. Being able to say I'm a rookie all over again. Right? Embracing the fact that I don't know. I guess I shouldn't say it's been a challenge because the Army taught me to do that. They taught me to say, I don't know. They taught me to say, go seek out a mentor. But there's a humbling component when you go from really the spot everyone wants to be to.

00;44;24;10 - 00;44;46;03
Mike
I'm a rookie learning these things all over again, and so that's humbling. But for me it was exciting and it was I have this opportunity to learn I can fail, but if I fail, I'm going to fail forward and I'm going to learn from my mistakes and then I'm going to succeed. I've had such a wonder fail experience I do not regret.

00;44;46;03 - 00;45;01;09
Mike
I loved working for the government. I do not regret changing to private practice because as a business man, I am learning and continuing to learn my craft. And that's what every business person has to be a student of the game.

00;45;01;23 - 00;45;16;16
Andy
Well, I will also add to that that there is in our representation of people saying that you have taught me, which also comes from the whole band of brothers component. Yeah. Why don't you go ahead, tell our listener what that is.

00;45;16;21 - 00;45;39;17
Mike
So the phrase that I said, when you and another one of our counsel were worried about having to make a tough decision that the client might not like to hear. Yeah, I said the guys that simple. I said I'm a steal. Once again from Stephen Ambrose and him quoting some just heroes of the greatest generation. And it was this You're already dead.

00;45;40;09 - 00;46;01;02
Mike
And so to put it in context, when the soldiers were dropping out of the sky or landing on the beaches of Normandy, if you had the attitude of I have a job to do, my life at some point will come to an end or my employment at some point may come to an end. If I'm going to be fearful the whole time of I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die.

00;46;01;14 - 00;46;20;04
Mike
If you're focused on that fear, it's going to get you nowhere. But instead, if you just say, I'm already dead, I'm going to do my job, you put aside that peace, you put aside that fear, and it allows you to do your job effectively. I noticed a change in you. I noticed a change in our colleague. Yeah. When I said, Guys, forget it.

00;46;20;04 - 00;46;22;13
Mike
You're already fired. Just do your job.

00;46;22;13 - 00;46;40;03
Andy
Do your job. And as long as you can get past, that has resonated with me. And the funny thing is I went back and rewatched Band of Brothers and I came across that scene. I think it was Sergeant Winters at the time, or maybe no time, Lieutenant Winters, because he was an officer, he was like, you know, he's like, you're already dead, you know?

00;46;40;03 - 00;46;53;11
Andy
And he, like, sort of walk them through because the guy was terrified of having to go and do his job. And listen, when you realize that I'm already going to lose this client, so now I could go provide services that I've been hired to do.

00;46;53;11 - 00;46;56;22
Mike
And did you lose the client? We still have that thing we do.

00;46;56;23 - 00;47;19;08
Andy
Yeah, exactly. And we're not fearful of confronting the client. We're not fearful of discussing difficult situations with that client. We're not fearful of losing him down the line. There is a lot that you can gain from the you're already dead kind of attitude. That's a really, really important component that I think everybody in business can really take, which is don't be afraid to lose.

00;47;19;08 - 00;47;29;00
Andy
These people don't just make adjustments or just say things to placate your customer. Exactly. Just out of fear that you're going to lose them or.

00;47;29;00 - 00;47;33;18
Mike
Fail or fail. Right. Failure is an amazing teacher, that's for sure.

00;47;33;22 - 00;47;46;19
Andy
Absolutely. Well, listen, this has been an awesome time chat with you. And again, you know, you and I are always hanging out and always having a time. Where can people find you online if they want to look you up and find a little bit more about you?

00;47;46;22 - 00;47;50;07
Mike
Sure. W w w melitolaw dot com. I want.

00;47;50;07 - 00;47;51;01
Andy
You spell that out for.

00;47;51;14 - 00;47;59;00
Mike
Sure. Mike Melito dot com. I look forward to hearing from you.

00;47;59;03 - 00;48;13;02
Andy
Awesome. Well, thanks, man. I appreciate it. And again, we'll catch up soon. And for all of you out there it is Andy Contiguglia and Mike Meltio reminding you to don't skip the legal. Have a good day.

00;48;18;19 - 00;48;37;02
Andy
Thank you for listening to the Don't Skip the Legal podcast. I'm your host and accountability. I hope you enjoyed our time together in this great opportunity to peek behind the business door and examine the legal lessons in business. If you're keen to hear how these lessons can be applied in the real world, well, join us next week for another episode where you can listen in to another business success story.

00;48;37;02 - 00;48;53;11
Andy
As always, you can head over to Countable Econ Forward Slash podcast to sign up to our email list as well as check out all the links and resources in our shownotes. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review to catch all the latest for me.

00;48;53;11 - 00;49;19;07
Andy
You can follow me on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok at CSU. Thanks again. This is Andy Card to Julia reminding you to don't skip the legal. Good luck. The legal information contained in this podcast is intended for general informational and entertainment purposes only. It should only be used as a starting point for addressing your specific legal issue. The legal information I talk about does not create an attorney client relationship between you and me.

00;49;19;07 - 00;49;39;15
Andy
This podcast is not a substitute for an in-person or telephonic consultation with a lawyer whose license to practice in your jurisdiction about your specific legal issue. And you should not rely on this legal information for those purposes. You understand that questions and answers or other information contained in this podcast are not confidential and are not subject to attorney client privilege.

00;49;39;15 - 00;49;55;19
Andy
I am not providing you a legal service. Every Legal case is different and past performance is not indicative of future results. Please consult your own attorney.