Making the Case: Truth, Strategy, and the Pursuit of Justice with Jim Bergenn

In this episode, Rich sits down with renowned trial attorney Jim Bergenn for a conversation about what really happens inside a courtroom and why credibility can make or break a case. Drawing from more than four decades of experience handling high stakes criminal, civil, and white collar litigation, Jim shares the lessons that have shaped his approach to justice, strategy, and persuasion.

From cross examinations to jury psychology, the discussion goes beyond legal theory and into the real decisions that influence verdicts. Whether you're a lawyer, a true crime fan, or someone fascinated by how cases are won and lost, this episode offers a rare look at the mindset behind successful trial advocacy.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, everyone. This is uh another episode of I'll Call My Guy with Jim Bergen, Trial Lawyer Extraordinaire. Welcome. Extraordinaire, yes, sure. I'm now I'm I'm welcome. You're welcome. So thank you for doing this. As you know, um I've known you a long time, and uh this is a podcast that I do where we talk about with to different people about different things, and sometimes I talk about the law, sometimes I don't. And today I want to talk about you, and I also want to talk about the law and and how that and you know your legacy and um where you see the law and um some of the triumphs and failures and all of the things you've experienced in your career, if that's cool. Yeah, it will only take about a week or two. We'll get it done in an hour. So so Jim, are you a native Connecticut guy? I don't know the answer to that.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

No, no, I was actually born in Brooklyn. Okay, moved up to Camillus, New York, outside of Syracuse after uh before I was a year old, stayed there for eight years, moved down to uh Pennsylvania near Philadelphia a couple places, then Rhode Island for a year, then I moved to Stanford in um eighth grade. So I went to Stanford Catholic High in Stanford, Connecticut, from eighth through the end of high school. Um and then as I started college down in DC, my family moved to Delaware. So it was a lot of moving. You are like a military brat or uh well, I am a brat, but not a military brat. No, the the the the last three moves were because my dad started with ICI America, which is kind of like a DuPont type of company, but it's um in Great Britain is where it's owned. Uh and uh he had a was an MBA in marketing, but he had a chemical engineering background, also an artist. He was a very interesting guy. But his job required him because the company that he worked for bought other companies and kept moving wherever they bought the companies. So, so the move uh to um Delaware, excuse me, to Rhode Island, where I became a Red Sox fan. Uh, and then from there to Stanford, became a Mets fan. And then I hope you're still not a Mets fan. No, I well I've I've been to other places, but and I do have a legacy, by the way, with every place that I moved, the team did great. That's what's you.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

You better go back to help the Mets. Uh it's impossible. Yeah, yeah, they're done. So, oh, okay. So you so lots of and and were your and your dad was doing that. Was your mom uh working as well, or did she stay at home?

SPEAKER_01 2:33

No, she was staying at home. We had I have an older sister, two younger sisters, and she started college. My mom was a genius, really, really smart. Uh, went to Hunter High School and all, she was like crazy. But she was this Irish Catholic girl from Mass with Queens, and so they don't go to college, right? But you know, what are you doing going to college? But she did go when I went, and then she got all straight A's through that, got her master's. Wow. Uh yeah, oh yeah, she's just crazy smart. Um, but she never actually just went out and got employment, she was always just doing do good things.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

So it's you're the boy of three sisters in an Irish Catholic family. Yes, okay, well done. Well done. All right, and and so the um you then finish high school, uh, you end up where in DC? Catholic U. Okay. I went to American.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

And it was very busy. I was all over DC back then because I helped start PERG, public interest research groups at Catholic U. Uh, and it was right at its outset, and it was basically a consortium of the American GW Georgetown. And so I was always at the other schools too, because we were getting this thing going.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Oh, I see. Okay. So in DC, would you agree was amazing for code? Yeah. I used to ride my bike everywhere. Yeah, although, although when we were there, although you're a little older than me, but I'm 50. But in the late 90s, when I went, like we wouldn't go past 14th Street.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Oh, I understand. Well, I can tell you that when I used to ride my bike everywhere, there were a few times where I had to ride fast.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Yes. Yes. Well, I mean, that whole area where the FBI building was, I mean, that was a seedy seedy place. I mean, now it's just uh all gentrified and uh filled with restaurants and clubs and no, yeah, it was very different back then.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

It was uh actually I was there before the metro. Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, you said we're similar in age. We're not similar in a couple of years. No, no, I mean I mean, we're yeah, I mean I mean it's generous of you. Yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

I guess that's true, right? I'm 50, you know. So I'm gonna I'm 71. Okay, so right. That that that's a generous. But you can you can just blot that right out. I can edit it out. So you end up in DC. Do you go right to law school? Yes, straight out. To where? Uh Columbia.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Okay, so you move back to you go up to New York. Yeah, and lived on campus. Um, was a head resident of dorms, uh, which I had done that also at Catholic U. Oh, I didn't realize they have dorms at Columbia Law School. Well, it's just Columbia University. Oh. And so my first dorm was uh John Jay, and it was mixed graduate, some undergraduate, and I was up on the 13th floor. Um, couldn't see a green piece of leaf from my building. I could see like for a mile, but there's all concrete everywhere. Um, and then I was in charge of the Livingston dorm, the one that is frequently shown uh when you do, you know, you pan all the events that are always happening at Columbia. Um, but that really did um it's interesting you even asked that question. Good direct examination skill. Um, because that really influenced me. Being in charge of a dorm floor and then the dorm, both in college and in law school, just sealed in a few things. One, no matter what time the call was gonna come, because you get weird calls, three in the morning, you know, somebody threw their bed out the window. Suicide attempts and all that. So I made that decision to take a call 24-7, and I said, Look, I'm gonna have to get up anyway. I'm just gonna get up cheerful. And I'd get up cheerful and in control, and that was very disarming because people would expect somebody to get up grouchy and say, What the hell are you doing, kids? And I was just yeah, it's like, oh, what's going on? And and and I've really kind of sealed that in, and I've only a couple of times thought of that since how why it's so hard for me to retreat at 71 from doing all the things I do because I was always 24-7 and cheerful. Uh it was a it was a power move, really, but it was also a way to be kind.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yeah, interesting. So the so you're do so you have um you're you're running that as a you know, you're getting paid, presumably, to do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Oh, yeah, and you get free room. Like I remember I paid for my own high school, college, and law school.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Um, which your parents were of modest means, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

I mean they were both highly educated, but my mom never earned right.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

So it was a one one income running you know, five people.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

She was 10 years, I was 10 years old. I remember her telling me, and not thinking anything of it, look, you're really smart, you're gonna go to college, but you're gonna have to pay for it yourself. And I was like, okay. And from that day forward, I just was a hustler. First thing I did when I was 10 years old is I used styrofoam and those pipe cleaners and stuff and made Christmas ornaments and sold them door to door. And who's gonna turn down some cute 20-year-old kid, you know? And then I was shoveling snow, cutting lawns, babysitting, you name it. I caddied like a lot of caddying. For six years I was a caddy. Make money doing that way. Yeah, but it's also, you know, you learn service and you learn entrepreneurial skills. And it's just so baked in that I can't even stop myself.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Interesting. So when so you're at so at Columbia, it's a you know, law school's a three-year program. Yes. Do you immediately go to work for a New York shop?

SPEAKER_01 7:33

What what what happens after that? Good question. My uh at the end of my first year, beginning of the second year. Yeah, who'd you summer with? Uh well, the first summer I just worked for the Model Penal Code, one of the authors, um, and hung out and played basketball with the professor and all. It was just a great summer with this uh a mate of mine from uh it was Burger and Bergen. You know, we sat in alphabetical order in law school. Uh so that first summer was just making three dollars and fifty cents an hour and living cheap in the upper uh west side. But the second summer, I made a decision. There were 14 weeks between the last class and the first next class. I split my summer, eight weeks for Cummings and Lockwood because they characterize themselves as the Wall Street of Connecticut, and uh six weeks at a Delaware law firm because my family moved to Delaware, and that was a firm more the size of Shipman and Goodwin. So I was testing both the big firm and a very excellent firm, but like smaller, and I was testing geography. And I made the decision Cummings and Lockwood really was not my natural style, and uh the other one was, but I just didn't I don't fit in Delaware, I belong up in Connecticut.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Right, this was Delaware, yeah. And Delaware, as you know, right, is a very specialized area of the law.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

And I wasn't even thinking of it. I'm just thinking of first, I was just trying to make money, and and and Cummings paid a lot more than everybody else. So it's like, well, that's easy. But I had interviewed in the beginning of my second year with Scott Murphy, and he was at that time a brand new partner at Shipman. He had also gone to Columbia, he did it on-site. I didn't know anything about it. I looked at, oh, shipment and good one, Hartford, Connecticut. I'm gonna be going up there. Oh, interview, and he made such an impression on me because Shipman and Goodwin is very different from all the other law firms. I really wanted that firm and and really didn't want to go anywhere else. And there were other, I interviewed at 12 firms, got 12 offers, but the only firm I wanted was Shipman and Goodwin because it had this. First of all, they were exceptionally talented lawyers. And I also knew they were very insular. Like they had at that point, they were a 60-year-old firm, and you know, all Ivy Ivy and that, and they and they had the best clients, and all they did is take care of their clients. They were not at all outward looking, they weren't looking for new clients, they were just take care of these clients. And that's to this day, the firm is just take care of your clients and let the word spread. And at the time, I'm thinking, oh, this is gonna be perfect for me because I'm so opposite. And the reason I I thought that I said, look, this firm is so good that if there's something this firm can do, I'm gonna enjoy telling people, oh, we can do that. And so I've been very entrepreneurial for the firm, which you know it's made them a lot of money. I've done fine, but for the most part, it's like, well, we don't need it. But I've enjoyed it because of their reputation.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

And and you've and you went in so you split the summer, and then did they make you an offer at the end of the summer? Yeah, but but I didn't want to go to either of those places.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

I was just testing.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

So where did you go at the end of your third year?

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Uh I clerked for the chief federal judge. Uh in Connecticut? Yeah. T.M. McClary. And it was that in Hartford or New Haven? Hartford. Okay. Um, and he was like one of only three people around whom I ever felt nervous in my whole life because I respected him so much. He was very conservative Irish Catholic um Democrat who had been on the bench already a long time, since 1960, and so this is 79. Um, but he was so smart and so understated, and he respected everybody, very conservative. But I just admired him so much that I really enjoyed that. The only other two people around whom I got nervous was uh when I worked for President Carter for a bit, and when I first met Alex Lloyd, who was our managing partner pretty soon after I started, and he was so smart and so um easygoing and great sense of humor that I was just intimidated by like how amazing he was as a person.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Interesting. And and Carter, what did you do for when did you do work for Carter? Is it after the federal clerkship?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Very cool job after the clerkship. It was 1980, his re-election campaign, and I postponed starting at Shipman because I had this job where I would summarize the day's events. I was the editor of the Daily Political Report that went to Carter and the top 12 people in the campaign. And so what I would do is just pay attention starting around 1:30 in the afternoon till around one at night, and just crunch everything that happened into a 12-page report that went to again just the top people. Um a summary of the day's political events, exactly. So that they would wake up in the morning at six or whenever they went to work. Um they'd have this thing. There it is. So it's a whole day. And uh I still have them all because of it. Oh wow. Yeah, it was like it was so exciting. And I I really learned to edit because I wasn't writing anything. I was just trying to crunch, crunch, crunch, but make it readable and make it clear and make it.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

We're also being an editor, which is interesting because I think this is an interesting point because it it it that contributes, in my view, significantly to your advocacy skills because you need to know what to trim, what to include, what to not. You have to make editorial decisions because, as you know, you lead with shit part of your case that can destroy the good part of your case.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Well, I describe to many people's sense that writing and editing are completely different functions. The writing is for yourself, it's to get it all out and organize it and all, make it as persuasive as you think it can be or authentic or whatever it is that your your task is. But the editor, all the editor's doing is thinking of the eyeballs who are reading this. And so you're just it's a completely different look. And so, and I hadn't appreciated that going through you know school. Yeah, they don't teach that in law school or anywhere. And and so I really became an editor, which then affects my writing. And and even now I never hit the send button without I gotta go through it again.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

But but think about it though, but in terms of like your trial presentation, that's product. I I you're a producer and an editor, right? Because you have to take this story and you have to say, okay, what's my opening act? Right? How's the play gonna start? That's how I look at when I teach my associates. I say, This is a play, uh, a musical play, whoever you want to call it. I what's my opening act? And I have all this information, I have all this cool stuff, and I have these great songs, or it's like SNL, right? They have a they have a two-hour dress rehearsal, they have to cut it down to an hour and a half, and they watch it and they say, Okay, I gotta chop here, chop here, chop here. What are the best highlights? Because you know, you get two bad segments and it drags the whole show down, right? Right. Or they change the station. Go to bed. So that's a very interesting thing that you were like, like now, obviously, AI can do all of those things that you did, but the but you would So I guess I should never have had a career. No, no, but you just waited. No, but think about the the gear that it built in you, right? Like the skill set that like I have these very smart people that have high stakes, they need this information for high stakes decisions. What am I gonna include? What am I not gonna include? And how am I gonna do that? I think to me, like that's a very uh important point in your career as a trial lawyer, because I think that got you thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Well, what's implicit in your remarks is that your understanding, your job has nothing to do with you, it has everything to do with the person you're trying to persuade.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Oh, of course.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Yeah, you're you're a producer. I think you even use that. Yeah, I am and because literally it took me a long time to figure that out because I only learned much later in life that I'm inherently a dramatic person. I used to be totally against English. I thought it was a waste of time because I wanted to make the world better and like just talking about crap didn't mean anything to me. Um, and my I have a younger sister who is an extremely naturally gifted actress, and she used to watch TV all the time. I'm like, I don't have time for TV, I'm always working. Um, I'd watch baseball games, you know, or basketball games or whatever. Anyway, I eventually realized how I'm inherently very dramatic, but I didn't know it. I I'm I'm just so invested in whatever I'm doing, I and I'm so enthusiastic that but I learned from some of my students. Mike Chase was one of my best students, and um he was a movie producer. And and I taught him, you know, I was teaching him all the trial skills, and he was absorbing them. And and I realized, oh my goodness, it's just like what you said. The whole thing is get back and and it's all about service. All you're doing is serving the decision maker, in for in your case, in family law, the judge. And you want to let him or her feel the story. The facts are gonna move him, not you, not your oratory, your adjectives, your adverbs. It's just what are the facts, what are the sequence of facts, what's gonna get him from point A to point B? That's the whole point. And where do you start? Point A. You if you're not thinking of point A the entire time, you're never gonna get A to get him or herself to B.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Let's jump to something and then I'll go back because this is, I think, a good point. One of the things that people ask me all the time when I give consults, because you know now all I do is family law custody, whatever. And they say to me, Does it matter if I'm the plaintiff or the defendant, right? And I used to say no. Oh, yeah, no, it does matter. It matters. Oh, yeah. Because, well, in the sense that 95% of all family cases settle, right? Oh, yeah. And I think it's a little bit of a. But if I have to have a hearing, I want to be the first person to go. Because even though judges are, you know, depending on who you get, right, they're trained and they have certain skill set, they're humans, right? And they have confirmation biases that can develop. And if you can really call the other side or get your client and really, you know, before that the other side's gonna try to make them look like an like a like a like a dig bad or an awful human being, you can your opening act, you could leave the judge saying, Oh man, what are we even doing here? What are we doing here? This is this is the this guy's the this is Mother Teresa.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

No, you would always want to be the one who starts. You always want to be the one who's I've been a plaintiff's lawyer almost my whole life. I'm a criminal defense lawyer, but on the personal injury. Personal injury said, right. On a civil case, you want to be the one who starts. I do, because you're gonna start, as you say, confirmation bias.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

You're hooking the confirmation bias, you're setting the you know, the anchoring, that's the word. Anchoring them. Yeah, we just had a case recently, you know about it, where I wanted to have um uh a colleague of ours be the first witness. And uh because I was concerned about the client, and I wanted to use that witness who would be a professional witness who's uh a lawyer for a very long time, you know, a friend of ours, who could have like gone on with me for three hours, being direct, and the judge would walk out of there and be like, Wow, what a story! Like, this is great. And then that would contextualize all the other mishagas, as we like to say in Irish, the craziness. And and and so, but that's to me like that's why I always say now, I tell people, I'm like, it damn right it matters. It matters if we're going to like look, if you settled the case, we do collaborative divorce, and we're just gonna file and then the court's gonna approve it. It doesn't matter, that's just whatever. And it and and you and actually they have the objective and almost the objective of all the and actually there's actually a a way now in divorce, you can have a non-adversarial caption. It says in read divorce of Smith family, so it's not plaintiff and defendant. You can actually file it like that, and they'll do that. So when people don't want to have plaintiff and defendant, they just want to be it's a nice thing because it's for people that don't want to have uh A versus B, it's just in read divorce, and they can they have the same never heard of statutory thing. Yeah, it's a very good idea. So, but they have that. So, but yes, so I say that. So, all right, so but let me ask you this. So you you do the thing for Carter and then you immediately start with Shipman after that? Okay, and is that in their Hartford office? Yes. What year is this? 1980.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Wow, I think you were born. 75. I was born. Yeah, see, you were already five years old.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

You've been there almost 46 years.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yes. I did, I took a leave of absence. So after nine months at Shipman, I still felt I needed to do more for the world, which was a weird thing because I loved Shipman a good one, but I loved it so much I didn't want to mess it up. Tom Clifford, who was everybody's primo, uh took me under his wing. Is that the guy from Rome, Clifford? No, no, differently. No, no, no, Tom Clifford. He was a judge and he died young, and he was just a tremendous guy. He was the first federal public defender. They started the job in 1975. Um and his assistants were like Hubie, Santos, and legends, yeah. He was a legend himself, and so um, so he decided um after I'm working with him for nine months that he was gonna go join, and it was gonna be Clifford, Buckley, and Santos, and they only had one associate and um they wanted me to come join them as their other associate. Chris Droney was their one associate. These are like big names. Oh yeah, and so they and it was gonna be just the five of us, and I'm like, oh my god, this sounds good. But I didn't want to be what in my head was the criminal law ghetto. I wanted to be able to do more things, but I loved these uh people. I mean, they were like, and and they're just so good. Chris was great. Um and then and I didn't want to leave Shipman either, so I just didn't know what to do. And then it happened to be somebody uh retired from the public defender's office, and Tom said, just do that because he had been the chief, and so I got to do that. So you were a federal public defender for two years, 81 to 83, two-year leave of absence. It was you know informal leave of absence, it wasn't contractual, but I came back two years to the minute to ship in a Goodman because I had gotten a lot of experience in those two years. How many cases did you try in those two years? I actually tried zero. Oh, but I had all these hearings. Oh, right, and what happened is I dig in, and one of the things I learned many later years in life, somebody described me as hard rain. Hard rain. Meaning I don't give up. I am very, very kind and very respectful. You're but you're like a dog with a bone. Yeah, and and what would happen is I'd figure out the case, I'd always work harder than the person on the other side, and I'd ultimately figure out what do they need, not what they need. Want what do they need? And what does my client need? And once I figure out what they need, and I'd never give anything more than they need, I'd always concede anything that no matter what happens, I'm gonna lose that fact. And I'd not only concede it, I frequently volunteer it, earn a little credibility. And then when it came to something that was a 50-50, never conceded. That's something they have to earn. Well, eventually, all prosecutors virtually, maybe you know, 5% exception, they got other cases they got to go work on. And if I give them everything they need, and I'm just you can get a favorable disposition. Yeah, well, they're just gonna end up so I came up with all kinds of diversionary programs and a lot of interesting things. And I I didn't get all the trials I wanted, but I got plenty of hearings. Um, and then I came back and I got a lot of trials thereafter because there weren't a lot of federal criminal defense trials.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

And for people that are listening that don't know this, I mean the federal government has uh the highest conviction rate around, right? It's oh yeah, you go to good luck.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Yeah, it's uh although I do have some pretty good acquittals, but they're not gonna be a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Yeah, it's tough because it's the there's a variety of factors, but they they these aren't like like I have a friend, one of my closest friends is a process is a criminal defense lawyer in Philadelphia. And he usually he he sometimes does two to three jury trials a week. He's a master. Wow, and he's got a system, and and it's because it's this a certain jury pool from the inner city that have a huge distrust of the police. In Pennsylvania, right? But listen, but this is because this is the you'll you'd love this. In Pennsylvania, you have to have a preliminary hearing for all charges. So there's a mini hearing, right? So there's a police report, right, and affidavits and all that, and warrants, right? Then you have the then you have the preliminary hearing where he puts you on the stand and locks you into your testimony. Right. And two years later, the Philly cop, right, who comes in. Yeah, you think his story is gonna match the report and his preliminary hearing testimony? Not a shot. All right, not with a good cross-examiner. So he literally just takes them apart. It's an it's an inner city jury pool who has a distrust of the police and he just walks them out. He just walks them out, like lines them up. They're all Mark Furman's. They're all Mark Furman. So bright, so it's like that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Um and for the people who don't know, that was in the OJ case. Yeah, and that cop, you know, had a lot of questionable things, and he got destroyed on cross-examination, and the jury had to find reasonable doubt based on him and their own experience.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

By the way, I spent I spent a um an evening with uh Eflee Bailey, and we developed a relationship texting and whatever. And then I texted one day and I found that he died, but it was like sitting next to like uh, I don't know, like Jesus or something.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

No, he was very good. I worked on a few cases.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

And he and he wrote the book on Crossing, literally wrote the book. So you come back to shipment, and then are you because because I I view you now as a lawyer's lawyer, and I and I mean that with all compliment. Um, like you're a jack of all trades in the trial field. Like you can, you know, you obviously you you you know most lawyers either they go criminal or they do, you know, civil trial work. You do both um well, exceedingly well.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

So there's only a handful of lawyers that do that that have really absorbed and invested their time and talent in both fields. And for me, most of my career, there's an overlap. Most of the career. Very few.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

You know who the guy I could think of that comes to mind that you you know sort of shared that role with was Hugh Keefe.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Oh, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

He was a trivel and criminal.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Um, but uh, and and obviously, you know, obviously two different types of you know advocacy, right? One, you don't have a burden at all. Right. Mm-hmm. Right? Oh yeah. Right. You don't have a burden at all, and they have a and there's a very high standard that the other side has. The burden is the highest we have in the law, which is beyond a reasonable doubt. And then, of course, then we have the civil, which is a fair preponderance or preponderance, or clear and convincing, depending on the type of hearing you have.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Um in the Hartford area, the only other two that I that come to mind immediately as doing both are Pat Tomasowitz and John Laudati, uh, each of whom are tremendous lawyers.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

What about um Shawhorn?

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Um, I don't know of him doing a whole lot of silver cases, although I'm sure he would do civil rights cases. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Ladati, oh, sure, I know him. Yeah, yeah. He's a tremendous cat too, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And and what I really like about them, when I have a conflict or when for whatever reason I can't get the case into shipment and good win, I know either one of them will just do a great job. And especially those cases uh like personal injury cases that have a criminal component, you really have to appreciate what's going on on both levels. And almost always your adversary doesn't. So it gives you some advantage and it gives you vision uh to help handle both cases.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

So, what do you do? So now that you you get two years of federal public defender work, then they come back. What kind of work are they giving you? Well, that's the interesting thing.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

They didn't have to give me much because already I had a reputation.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

And because there's not a lot of federal criminal defense lawyers back then, this is way before big firms would have whole criminal defense groups, you know, white-collar stuff. And so I was just hanging out with the Jim Wades and Hubie Santos'es, and I'd get cases referred. I had cases come with me that, you know, where people had found some money or whatever it was. Um, so even when I started in '83, and we back then at Shippen Aguen had attractive partnership that was only five years. And so so I was only at the firm for about a year when it was like time for them to decide. And most of the work I was doing was my own work, and they're like, Who is this guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome. And they actually came to me and my colleague who's my classmate, and they had just made like two or three different uh litigation partners, and they said, Can you guys wait a year? And I'm like, What do you mean wait wait a year? And I'm like, Yeah, okay, I guess I better wait a year. I mean, they're the ones to make the decision. Um how big of a firm was it then? When I started the firm, I was the 26th or 27th lawyer. It was a small firm. It was one of the reasons I was very attracted to it because colleagueship, when you started that shipment, you were expected to be a partner from day one. And the way they treated staff was different from all the other firms. Like they treated the staff like it was a very horizontal place. Everybody was involved. It was really just wonderful for me. Um, and we still aspire to do that, except for now we're 150 lawyers and we got, you know, all you're all over. Yeah, and and we still that some of the core stuff has not changed. Our aspiration for colleagueship, absolutely our demand for excellence, has never changed. And this other phenomenon that I described just a little bit before was the cases, the clients that we have are very, very loyal because we never do anything more than is what is absolutely necessary that's safe and the most cost effective. We never just throw bodies at it. And they know it and they appreciate it, so they're loyal, they stick. And then how do we grow? Well, somebody who we've serviced at this firm becomes a general counsel in another place, and now we have two. But it's nobody's out there trying to get work. Uh, I do it because, well, first of all, I do a lot of personal injury, and people don't get two traumatic brain injuries and you don't die twice. So those are the kinds of ton of competition. Yeah, but uh frankly, for the personal injury, there's really nobody who does it like the way we do it because they all have volume. And we, Bill Renalter and I basically are doing these cases. Um, you know, we invest just like we do in any other shipment and go in case. And so the client doesn't call somebody off a billboard and talk to, you know, they are talking to Bill Renalter for the most part now, and he invests all his time, senior partner, and then we don't settle those cases for something that the client's happy with. We settle the cases for what they're worth. And clients, you see all these billboards, oh, look how much money I got. The clients have no idea that the first offer you get from the insurance company is designed, it's their fiduciary obligation to give you a crap offer for their shareholders because some people take it and everybody gets a little scared and intimidated by it. So then when you get 15 times the number, that still has nothing to do with the value of the case. Right. But if you're a shot that's got a volume and you got to get other cases done, you get 15 times the client's happy, we're done. On to the next one. For us, no, we know that the clients don't know what the value of the case is. So we just figure out what the value of the case is, and that's what we stick with.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

So so when you're doing so, it but in in that early portion of your um career at Shipman, is it almost exclusively criminal defense?

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Good question. Yes and no. I say yes because that's the only cases that came to me. Okay, but then no because I'm still a junior associate at mid level. Oh, yeah, yeah. Giving you memos and yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, research stuff and all that. And some pretty interesting things. I remember some like 10B5 fraud cases that were very complicated and against some really good. Oh, you have to go to the books. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm that was fine with the books. Um, I mean, I really do like the research and thinking component. Um so that wasn't a problem. It just was, frankly, I find a lot of it very boring. All the you know, pre-trial discovery stuff is just you know, it's a bore. And it when now we have paralegals and now AI helps.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Oh, yeah, fantastic with that.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

So you're doing that, and you're obviously you're you're you're growing in your reputation. What's the first uh big jury trial that you remember um as a lawyer?

SPEAKER_01 31:26

I can only say the one that really just blew everything away was when I won the Wells Fargo case, and that was the FBI versus the Machateros. So the Machateros was an organization in Puerto Rico, most of them lawyers and doctors and social workers who looked at themselves as patriots, who, like our founders, wanted to be free of colonialism, right? So they don't want to be in this, you know, hybrid state. And so they had this whole organization, and the FBI hated them because they also had done some things that were very destructive, like blowed up planes and stuff like that. So I got hired. Um, at the time, the other lawyers were like nationally renowned, Len Weinglass, who did the Chicago stuff, and and I'm in with these like superstars. So they indict who? They indicted 16 Puerto Rican nationalists, people who believed that it should be a separate nation. Okay. And they did it basically because at the time it was the largest robbery in the history of the country. Oh, this was the Wells Fargo they they they depot in West Harper. Somebody knocked over a uh Well, they yeah, they an inside job, Victor Harena uh was arranged to like he knew there was 7.2 million in the Goodfellas, the height, Lufthansa heights.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Yeah, except it was way simpler. Really? So what what happened? There was where was the depot? What street was it? It was uh like New Park or something.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

I don't even remember right now where the depot was, but I do remember that the Hartford, uh West Hartford police were involved. So so there's a so that so what's what happens? There's money coming in an armored truck, yeah. It's just drive it's just travel along, and they and they the guy basically ties them up, nobody gets hurt, he inject injects into something to knock them out or something, and and he off he goes with $7.2 million. And now the real trick is oh, well, how do I get out of here? And the organization had set it up so that they would then get it into another vehicle, and then they actually borrowed a lawyer's because by the way, the people in the organization, this one guy, uh his father was like, you know, the lead lawyer of Puerto Rico. Uh, I think he might have been the attorney general or something, I can't remember what it was. And he had gone to Harvard and he had a Harvard classmate who was a very good lawyer and young, and he borrowed his camper, and he didn't tell him anything, but he was using the camper to bring the $7.2 million across the country and down to Mexico to get rid of it so they could, you know, anyway, keep it. And uh ultimately they everything all ultimately unwound. But I only got involved because my guy was in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, a young man who was alien to the culture, you know, an archaeologist, literally. And and he was always putting on cultural phenomena. So robbery is October of 83. In January of 85, on Three Kings Day, which is a big thing for the Puerto Rican population, they give away thousands of dollars and hams and all this on Park Street and made a big celebration of it. And my guy joined the Machateros after the robbery because they wanted somebody to run this cultural event that they were going to do. And when they did it, everything was videotaped. And by the way, the the FBI had been audio taping and listening in without recording, by the way, which was illegal, but constantly all their stuff, because they were all onto them. They knew who did it because they claimed credit for it. You know, they were all proud of themselves. They put that on the man, so to speak. And my guy gets running just to do this. He does it, the three Kings Day giveaway. And but they overcharge him. They charge him with being involved in the conspiracy itself, which was silly. And and I got to tell the jury, like, you know that they know that that's not true. But they charged him.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

And what and what was the AUSA telling you? Like when you would bring him your, you know, when you tried to do it.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Well, they it was it was being dictated at the time by the AJF High. In fact, Bob Mueller was the supervisor of that case way back. Um, and Al Dabrowski was um in charge, and a great guy became a federal judge and all um, bankruptcy judge. So there were some really good lawyers on the U.S. attorney side, but it was way out of their control in a sense. And uh so they had to bring the case, they brought the case and they separated it. So the first there are five people in the first trial and nine in the second. And I happened to be in the first. And by that time, during two years of pretrial hearings, every day, trying to suppress all these tapes and such, um, it kind of settled in that Len Weinglass and I were the best trial lawyers of the five lawyers, and so you know, he and I kind of anchored the five, and he represented somebody who was indefensible and got um prosecuted, but I got to watch how he did everything. And my guy, to me, I looked at him like, I'm innocent. I am totally innocent. He did not even know it was stolen money. Um, he just knew because they had money, and it was an organization that had you know dozens and dozens of people, and they they weren't criminals, and I had a couple of them that were criminals, but for the most part, they were scholars and you know professionals who just believed in their independence. So I got to look the jury in the eye, and my cross-examinations were killers of the FBI agents because I knew that they knew some of this was crap. I don't know why they overcharged them, but once you tell them, ladies and gentlemen, you know that they know that it isn't true, and they're expecting you, you, to convict them on stuff they know isn't true. So keep that orientation as we go through all the evidence, and then I go through all the evidence. And uh so he got acquitted, and it was just and all charges, yeah, total walk. And everybody's like, What the heck? And was he was he incarcerated pre-trial? Uh for a bit. It took uh three months to liberate him because it we were just doing the hearings, it was act during um uh what was that uh hurricane back then? Oh uh Gloria. Gloria, yeah. So it was during that, during the in fact, a big tree falls down in my yard. But he was uh in for uh three months before I got him out. Uh but he was out, you know, most of the time. And then that case resurrected many years later when they finally found one of the guys they never found. And then Oh, I remember that they were he went on the LAM, right? He Yeah, yeah, yeah. And very you know, clever. These guys they know what they're doing. Um, but then I had to handle that case, and I had to go find the guy, knowing that I'm being followed, which is weird. Oh, by the FBI, sure. I mean, wherever I'm going, but I had to go tell him, look, this is a good deal. You don't want to be under you know, radar for the rest of your life. This is ridiculous. And I somehow was able to communicate with him and ultimately get a deal that was all locked in, but they somehow found him after we had this uh conceptual deal. But we worked it, we we finished the deal. Uh Avalino Gonzalez Claudio, his his brother, uh he was part of the steering committee. So this was years decades later, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't remember, but I'm gonna say 20 years ago. I can't remember. It was a long time after, yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

So when you won that, when you got the acquittal, then obviously. Oh, it people couldn't understand it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a very unusual thing because it was getting national attention. It was in the TV, you know, national attention. How long and how long was the trial? Eight months.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

Six, six to eight months, and it was two years of free trial hearings. But six to eight months in a consecutive days?

SPEAKER_02 39:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Wow. Yeah, it was a big trial. And who paid for you? Oh, it was all criminal justice act.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

Oh, which ironically, at the time You get like a lodestar or something? How does that work? No, no, back I'm trying to remember what the rates were back then. I should be able to do that. And Shipman was okay with it? Well, first of all, I worked a ton of hours, and at that rate, it ended up my earnings were not different than if I was just working on regular.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Oh, because you're working so much, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Yeah, yeah. I was, you know, I don't know, two, three thousand hours a year just on that. And of course I had to keep up other stuff, right? Right, right. But that really did occupy me. And it was a very worthy investment because I got to know all these other very interesting because the guy I clerked for, and most judges, when you be here before them, they want to almost appear too fair, they don't want to give you too much of a break because you know everything about the judge, you know how he thinks. And I had to be pretty tough on some cross-examinations, and uh because I knew I got a lot of people in the eyes, but I have to do it in a way that the jury finds them. Let's talk about cross-examination for a second.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

If you could give, I don't know, a couple of points on like axioms or on cross-examination, what would you say?

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Well, first of all, I've got I've over the 40 years teaching, I've been teaching trial advocacy to lawyers, thousands of lawyers and students like UConn and Kunepiac, uh, cross-examination among other skills. So I've got 10 commandments that you just follow. Yeah, when you give them to us, we're gonna post them. Yeah, yeah. But but the thing that probably is the most important is to realize that your job is just to be sure that every time you're standing up, every word coming out of your mouth is credible. That is, you're it's all about credibility. When you go to a trial, certain facts you're gonna win no matter what you do. Certain facts you're gonna lose no matter what you do. The guy who or gal who wins the case is the one who wins most of the ties. The things that are jump balls could go either way. And by you always being credible on cross, because you control it, all you're doing is looking for certain dots, the facts that you know they have to say yes. I have not had a question in the last 35 or more years on cross-examination where the answer wasn't yes. And and that's because I learned the hard way. I cross-examined the deputy chief of the uh uh FBI in a case where it was a bank rape. My guy had like committed like five bank rights, six bank, whatever it was, a bunch of bank robberies, but he did it for somebody else's. He was a junkie, and uh, but his mother and his sister were highly educated, and he was from the North End, black id. And so, and we had this pretrial hearing in front of Judge Blumenthal, uh Blumentfeld, excuse me, and he was somebody who never really granted any pretrial motions, but he was really a softie when it came to sentencing. And so, and he he was so old at the time he'd appear to be sleeping. And so the clerk's job at some point was just to bang the pencil and make sure he was awake because somebody had made an objection or something. So I cover what happened when they were seizing stuff at my guy's house, where I think he lived with his mother and his sister. And uh, and I had the mother and the sister testify, and they're extremely credible, highly educated about how they just didn't comply with any of the constitutional provisions, and they ced everything. And this guy gets up on the stand, FBI agent, and uh during the direct exam, because you know, even though it's my motion to suppress, you know, he has the other lawyers asking him questions, and he's just telling crap. Everything he said was like he was just reading a book of this is how it's supposed to be, and it had nothing to do with reality. And I'm just looking at it, I'm like, Are you kidding me? And when I and at one point during cross-examination, I'm looking at him and he just gives me this big smile. And I was like, Oh my god. And he was just saying, Yeah, so what? I'm lying. I represent the good guy, you represent the bad guy. And I it took me three days to get over it because I was still this rah-rah, you know, I believe in the law and all this stuff. And I came to be very good friends with him ultimately because I realized in my experience, 85% of people in law enforcement, if they can say something that's gonna help their view of justice in America and the society that needs the protection of law enforcement by saying something that's not true that can't get caught, that's what they're gonna say. And the people who don't in the FBI who don't subscribe to that core unspoken philosophy, they do background checks because. Because it's just like good guys versus bad guys. And a lot of young boys used to play cops and robbers, right? And sometimes you're the cops, sometimes you're the robber. It's like just a game. Well, for them, they really do believe in their heart, because they're not lawyers, although most FBI agents are lawyers or accountants, but they in their heart believe they're just doing right by society. And I don't disagree with that motivation. I just disagree with that being what goes on when you're under oath at a trial. So I learn never make a statement or ask a question on cross if you don't have something to make sure that if they disagree, you go, but that, bang. From then till now. And so that's one of the reasons why if there's one thing in cross-examination, it's be sure that every word that comes out of your mouth, the witness's only answer is yes. And if he dares say no, you have the impeachment. You bring it out. And ultimately, I was just teaching this yesterday to a bunch of lawyers at trial lawyers. Um, which is you you there's a way to confront them with the prior, which is not to just get into an argument, it's just to make establish that the prior was under circumstances that would make it credible. And then you just say, tell me if I'm reading this correctly, and you just read it. And you know how to read. I always I love that line. I always say, I read something, I'm like, Did I read that correctly? That's the question. And then if he says yes, that's it. You pause, you go do the next thing. And meanwhile, the whole jury or the judge is thinking, Well, wait a minute, that's obviously true. And he said something else. Why? And now you're making that person think in their own life, they're the ones who have to make a decision.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

That's a lie. Why is he lying? One of the things I do is I I I've done recently is a lot of lawyers and family don't do this. I have a big screen with a projector on my computer, and I'll actually, when I'm reading it, I pull it up. Oh gosh, yeah. So it's just right there. And I'm like, Am I reading? I said, I'm gonna get my glasses, right? Because, like, I'm not, you know, I gotta see, getting older, you know, you do so that I can build some empathy with the judge. Oh, it's kind of cute, you know, easy to reading. And then I say, I read that there. I said, Did I read that right? You know, like the Columbo. The best one I did, I gotta tell you a story because you'll be proud of me for this. I had this lady on the stand, and um, I did really well, but she she was claiming she she's a she's a malingerer for sure, but she was claiming she had uh all kinds of back problems and that she walked with a cane and she couldn't work, therefore he had to pay more alimony and all these things. She had a cane. So at one point I'm hammering her so hard in cross-examination, she says, I just can't do this anymore. He can have everything, and I know that I'm killing it, right? And one of my buddies is her lawyer, right? So I'm looking over at him. So she's I just need to take a break. And I say, Oh, okay, ma'am. Um, you mentioned walk with a cane. I said, Let me grab your cane for you, right in front of the judge. And I go over and I go over to my the other counsel's table and I go under, I climb underneath the table. I'm like, is the cane under here, ma'am? She's like, Oh no, no, I I didn't I didn't bring the cane. Oh, because you just told the judge you'd walk with a cane. I I wanted to make sure you'd have it so you'd be stable. I'm so great. So she's like, so anyhow, we get a we get a trial date two months later, right? Never two months later, and the same thing comes up there, and I say to her, I say, Oh ma'am, I don't, you know, you're resuming testimony today. I said, Um, I just went over to I I'm gonna walk over to your council table again. I said, Did you bring your cane today from last time? Yeah, and after that, so I subsequently saw the judge. It was she was doing everything that came out because then she was claiming she was beat up and all these lies. And the point is, from that point, she was saying she has to walk with a cane. And I said, you know, and she can't work. And I said, How'd you get here today? She says, Oh, I drove. I said, You drove from Enfield? That's like a 40-minute drive, right? Right. I said, Can't you drive for Uber? How if you drove here, well, I have trouble, I have to get out with my cane. I said, Oh, but the cane's not here today, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

So it was so good. Like it was just one of those moments. And and the yeah, the only challenge in those circumstances is to never gloat. Never gloat.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

And and let the judge have the reaction, don't you? No, that's right. But it's like the other one I had was the um, it was in a custody case where the um the kid had reported to the family relations officer that the the father who was with a new woman, they were bringing people over, they were like swingers or something, and that they he saw the the stepmother like kissing another guy or something at the house. And you know, so the the stepmother got on the stand and was denying all of these things, and she had a tattoo I noticed um uh of Jay on her arm that's when she moved over. And I had looked at the family relations report. The kitty reported that she was kissing somebody named Jason. So I said to my client who used to be married to the guy, I said, I betcha that's that's what that is. And she's like, I don't know. So I go up there and I say, ma'am, I said, You deny ever doing that? I said, Jason, who's Jason? Jason's just a friend of mine. I said, Okay, you know, the kids reported that that's not true. I said, Oh, I said, I noticed you have uh there's a tattoo on your arm. Could you pull your arm out again? That's a judge. What's worse that could happen? She pulls it out and said, Jay, I said, I'm gonna venture a guess that the J doesn't stand for Jesus, it stands for Jason, doesn't it? Oh she goes, Well, yeah. I said, wait a second, the guy who's your friend who you're denying kissing with, you got a tattoo of his name? What you you know, that's all you have to say.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

That's all you have to say.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

And I saw the judge who's a new judge who had no poker face, her jaw dropped. And the clerk who knew me looked at me, and then afterwards, she's like, Holy shit. It was like because her credibility was gone after that. So I love those. To me, I live for those, but they're rare, right? They're called reveals. Reveals.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

And if you get a witness to reveal themselves to have no credibility, you're kind of done. Now that's where you can just make your other points. And and even if the whatever the person says the judge now knows you have credibility, they don't.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

False, falsus anonymous. There you go. That's very great. Right. So that's like I I I love that. I live for that stuff. What about um what about so we talk about cross. What about what are your give us a uh an axiom on direct?

SPEAKER_01 50:05

Well, the first thing is where do you stand? I always try to stand behind the jury. Now, if you're in a family court, you want to be sure to get out of the view of the judge because it's not about you. Oh, interesting. That's a good, that's a great yeah, no, because again, it's it's all that, and it's how you start strong and end strong. I every single direct examination I've ever done, I do the exact same order, whether it's a one-minute or a two-day examination. Background, set scene, action, detail. Background. You just want to identify those things with open-ended questions that will establish that that person is to be believed. So can you identify yourself, please, Mother Teresa? You're done.

unknown 50:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

But but most people, like for example, if somebody is just the the the father of the victim, you don't need to do much, okay? Um, but you just make you just put that as a category, and then you separate that. Now I'd like to talk to you about okay, you give a little transition, and then you set the scene. You ask every single background thing that explains why is that person here in this court and what's their relationship to all the parties. You get that all done so people really know credible person, why they're here, and you cover everything you possibly can except for the action. Now you get to the story, and you just do it chronologically. And when you do it chronologically, it's so easy because the best examination there can be includes what I call looping. All you do is when you hear a word or a phrase you like, you loop that into your next question. And you always, in order to avoid leading and to avoid the witness just going on and on and on and on and on, I always, for the first question, use the word first. And you take them back to a point in time and space. Because not surprisingly, that's where we all live in time and in space. You pick that point in time and space and say, Can you tell me what first happened? And whether it's time or space. If it's space, it would be can you tell me at that time where exactly were you? And then what was next to that? And it will they'll say where they are. And then you say, and and then next to the car, what did you see? And what you're doing is anything that they say, and and most of it is is is time, it's chronological rather than space. So just before an accident, let's say it's 10 seconds before the actual collision, somebody stopped at a corner. And when you were at the corner of Kirby and Mattis uh on Wednesday, November 21st, um, can you tell us where were you where you were with respect to the rest of the traffic at that corner? I was first in line. When you were the first in line, what was the next thing that you did? Oh, I started to proceed. When you started to proceed, which direction were you going? Right. And all you're doing is looping the things you like and you create the vocabulary of the case. And if they give you a great word and you use that word, everybody's going to start using that word. You never call it when you're a plaintiff. It's never an accident, it's a collision. It's a crack.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

Yeah, but I don't know why we use the word accident. Because it's the smart defense lawyers and insurance companies.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

Oops. Well, we oops. We get what they call in the South, a wreck. Yes. Oh, but that's better for a plaintiff. It's better wrecked. Yeah. The wreck. Before the wreck. Before the wreck. Before and then during that, when you said the car and the other car that hit you created this wreck, can you describe what happened to your body? Oh, and then they describe it. And after, and other than your wrecked knee, or whatever word that would be used, can you describe it? So you're basically letting the fact finder, judge, or jury stare the whole time at the witness. You're off. You're Spielberg. You're not Hanks. You're out of the picture. And you're just feeding these softballs. And you're keeping them tracking. And since you do this every single time, consciously and unconsciously, everybody's expecting it. And when they finish the story, by the way, when they're telling a story, it's and then and then after that, what happened next? And after that, what happened next? They finally get done. You don't interrupt them and fill in the kind of important details because it's important story. Nobody wants the footnote. When you're all done, the fourth segment is detail. And all you do is you go back always to the most important points and finish strong. You know, primacy and recency, those are the things you remember. The first thing you learn, the last thing you learn, you end strong and you ask open-ended questions, and you got to come up with a different way of asking it, otherwise it's asked and answered, right? But you do, there's always another way of doing it. Yeah, just you know, before I sit down, I just want to make sure that the judge understands a couple of things, or the jury understands a couple of things. When you said blah, blah, blah, let's go back there, and then you just open up a couple more questions. And then usually when you're done, pause as if you may have something else. You're letting the finder of fact think equate everything to their own life. No further questions. The other thing on direct is whether you redirect. If you do, really limit yourself. And by the way, when I sit down, um excuse me, when somebody else does a redirect um and I've just done a cross, I almost always remain standing before sitting down because even the most experienced trial lawyers, when they do their redirect, the temptation to just continue with the cross leading questions is overwhelming. Excuse me, Your Honor. I gotta stop the person. We're back on redirect. I just thought I'd make that note. You know, I'm trying to be friendly, but no, you can't do cross-examination.

SPEAKER_00 56:29

What up, what about the the the other things? Like I call them the subtle trial tactics that are like the the nonverbal things. What are you doing in a let's talk about on a judge on a courtside trial? You're you know, sometimes if I know the judge and I can make eye contact with them, I'll be like, Sometimes I could be like, if I know that the the person, I'll be like, I'll I'll almost act, I'll look the other side, I'll be like, and I want the judge to see that. Like, oh I yeah, tell me about those types of cues.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

I try to be absolutely minimalist, no emotion, which is weird because I am so inherently passionate, but no, because I don't want to signal that it's about me. So I I use this as an example when somebody's lying right to my face and everybody's looking at me. This is the most I'll do. I'll clench my jaw.

SPEAKER_00 57:19

So they see that.

SPEAKER_01 57:20

Like they see that, right? But what I'm really saying is it doesn't matter that I'm mad, it matters that you're mad, right? Jury or judge. But but you do give a signal because but it's so subtle. Subtle, right, right. It's uh it's or sometimes I'll draw a breath. But I want to tell them, of course I'm peeved. Of course that's outrageous, but it's not up to me. Do you ever give the you know you're under oath, but no, you don't do any of that? No, it's because it it's there the there are other techniques that are there's so many other techniques I just don't recall me ever saying, you know, you're under oath. Because it's argumentative.

SPEAKER_00 58:01

Well, I know that because they the counsel has done that before in other cases to me. Like they were like, you know, ma'am, but you sit here today under oath. I said, Your Honor, so I you know, if it's a court to try, you have much more flexibility, right? Oh sure. So I said, Your Honor, let's stipulate that we're under oath from here till the end of time. We're under oath. We leave today, we're under oath. He doesn't have to keep saying that he's under oath. He's sworn in, he doesn't have to remind him, it's argumentative, it's distracting. Could we just please put an end to this?

SPEAKER_01 58:24

Yeah. Like, yeah, you know, like that kind of stuff. It's like, yeah, it's okay. But I try to do all these things because it's interesting, you have the same passion I do. But what I do is I really try to contain it, which because for me, I have a jury's a much different animal than a judge that I appear before every day. Yeah, but judges like to see this too. And I remember when I first started, there were the some legends, you know, would come in, and the judge would always say, I think you're gonna want to come and watch this, you know, and it'd be like Ralph Elliott or Jack Zeldis or one of these like real deans. And I was always surprised at how little flair they had. I was always surprised at how they weren't like these inherently charismatic personalities. They had earned credibility and they prepared, they worked their butts off, and they were smart. And so when they spoke, they were minimalist. And I realized that that's what you really want to aspire to. Judges respect competence and forbearance, and you can let them know that oh my god, that's outrageous. But to manifest it, I think judges um your credibility is going down. I I did mention earlier that credibility is everything.

SPEAKER_00 59:43

Likeability is everything.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

Likeability is a very big thing, too. But credibility is and likability relates to credibility. People credit people that they like. Um, and I remember early, you know, uh I watched a Woody Allen movie, and you may remember this scene. Um, you're not supposed to cite Woody Allen anymore, but some of those things are just so perfect. It was an Annie Hall line, and he's describing their relationship. You know, she was from California, he's from New York, right? And uh he says to her, Well, we have, you know, relationship is like a shark, it's got to keep moving or it dies. What we have here is a dead shark. I just thought that was such a great line. So I use that as a parallel to say credibility is like a shark, it's always moving. And if you don't know whether it's going up or it's going down, you know where it's going? If you're not mindful at every moment of your credibility, even here, I put a tie on. Why would I do that? I just think it's part of the credibility. Um, everything I do in my life, I I really am like so committed to being a kind person. It's just in my nature anyway. So it's like and it feels good too. Yeah, exactly. That's the whole that's I mean, enlightened self-interest is be kind and generous.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:04

You know what I tell my kids? I said, I don't care about your report cards. I really, I said the most important thing to me is your kindness and how you serve other people. A BK. Always be kind. Not always be closing, but I always say them A BK. Always be kind.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:16

Isn't that nice?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:17

It it's it's just the you have to like and and and and and and one of my other well, I had a guy on here too, like who gave me who's a guy, uh, an author who who's an expert on nachos.

unknown 1:01:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

He wrote a book. He's a local kid, right? And he's got a book coming out. He was in the Harvard Current, the big thing last week. Um Alex Taylor, right? Uh yeah. And um he you know, he wrote a book on nachos, an expert on it, but we got into this really deep conversation about that he something he learned when he was working for this nonprofit, the I forgot what it's called in Harvard, you probably know them, but he says, when somebody approaches you, and we see this in our in my lot of my line of work, and you actually see somebody acting like weird or that how they lash out or whatever, and he always says, assume trauma. And to me, that's the kindest, most thoughtful, intuitive thing, because you don't know where somebody's coming from. And and so you have people like you've encountered lawyers before that are like nasty, right? They're awful. And sometimes I find that that nastiness is their way they're dealing with their own insecurities.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:13

Absolutely, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:14

So, so again, to take another, you know, funny thing, there's the show Ted Lasso, right? And they talk about, right? You know what? Tremendous. And what they say is he says, What do you do with a tough cookie? And the question, the answer is dunk them in milk, right? You give them a hug. So my reaction is when I deal with somebody who's nasty like this, I go out of my way to be kind to them and say, Listen, you're my adversary, but you're my colleague, right? You're my brother. That's why I always say brother counsel or sister counsel, you're my brother. And the kindness, in my view, um, is the way to live and the way to act in your profession. And so I want to wrap this up by asking you this because the theme of my podcast um is I'll call my guy, right? And what that is, is that's like an old Brooklyn expression. I got a guy, right? You know, you worked, you grew up with a know a guy. I know a guy, that's Rhode Island. I'll call my guy, I know a guy. I know a guy, right? And so I and I call my guy. And so I want to, if you could sort of finish strong with this, to use your your metaphor and your instructions here, about the importance of the relationship and building strong relationships in your career being successful and rewarding.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:18

It's interesting because I just learned a lot from the way you expressed it. And I have followed the Saint Francis prayer, which is seek first to understand, not to be understood. And if you are following the Rich Rockland's always be kind, to the best of your ability your whole life, you know if somebody's treating you nasty, it has nothing to do with you. So rather than try to urgently try to change that person, just seek first to understand. And so that trauma, that's what I really love about it. Yeah. I because first of all, it's true. And I can I my life is just filled with anecdotes where somebody was so nasty, and I was instead of being hurt or defensive, I knew I had done nothing wrong or unkind. So I'd seek to understand. And as I reflect back on all those instances, it was trauma. And um then once you understand, it's they don't they didn't give themselves the trauma. They're not trying to have this reaction that they have to that trauma. It's baked in. But if you understand, you take the and and most of the cases I've taken, I love cases where nobody wants to touch them. Now, what I did learn is that three and a half percent of the pure narcissists who really have no empathy, um, that you really have to protect yourself from them because I have donated a lot of my time and energy to people that everybody else hates because I want to show them kindness and I know that it's coming from something. Um, and then once you've got their loyalty, oh my goodness, now now you've got somebody forever because you're the only one that was kind to them, right? But I've also had that abused plenty of times in my life. And as a senior, alive human being, I now can smell it, and I'm still gonna be kind, but I'm gonna have a boundary. That's right, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:22

Because right, is when you're younger and you do that, you get taken advantage of.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:25

Oh, yeah. And then I did it all through my whole career, literally. I've still I have to reinforce this learning a lot in the last five to ten years. And I it's still hard when you just want to be kind to everybody, and then you you're realizing well, your kindness is just empowering somebody who's totally self-absorbed and has no feelings. It's you're actually making it worse for the rest of the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:48

Final question. Yes, two questions. How long have you been married? 27 years. What's the secret?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:54

Oh boy, we just got lucky. We each had very similar experiences in our first marriage and came out of people who had these narcissistic tendencies and and addictions. And uh, you know, we each had just kept trying, trying, trying, trying, and then finally the other asked us for a divorce, and it was like, okay, good. Uh, but you know, and then when I I love this guy uh because um he makes me look good, you know, the her her prior spouse. And he does have a lot of virtues, he has a lot of good features, but these other things he can't control. But with the secret to you, your your 27. Our secret was we each had the same experiences, and we were so we our values are a Venn diagram total. We have the identical values, our personalities are very different, but our values are identical. So we know that whatever our differences are, it's because we're pursuing the same values, which are very similar to what you've articulated, right? But that's what it is values, Jim.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:09

Thank you so much. Uh, you're a uh somebody that I look up to, and I'm glad that you know I've known you a long time, but we were able to connect recently on a case, and uh I I I vow to continue to uh grow our friendship, and I can continue to learn from you.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:22

That's very kind. I've I've really enjoyed it. I've learned something here. That's great. Thank you, brother. Right, thank you.