Jay Welborn Running for Shelby Co. District Court

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

He's got tough sweet fighting lawyer with the highest ratings for honesty and integrity. He's here to answer your legal questions and give you the help you need. You're listening to the legal loadout with your lawyer. Go ingram. Go ingram lost. Joe Ingram has more than 20 years of experience fighting for his clients here in the state of Alabama. Go to focus in criminal defense and family laws. You don't have to face your legal issues. You've got Joe Ingram on your side. In case of extensive legal matters, you can always wait after what we can at JoeIngram.com and wait for a private consultation.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Today's February 28th, 2026. You're listening to The Legal Lowdown with Joe Ingram, your Alabama lawyer on WERC 105.5, WBHP 102.5 in Huntsville, and WRTR 105.9 in Tuscaloosa. We made it through winter here in Alabama. There may be some cold days ahead for Alabama technically. Winter is over. Next week is daylight savings time, which we all love here in the Deep South. And I wish Congress would correct a law that was created at a certain time related to a war. We're past that. We need to fix daylight savings time. We have a great guest today for you the second hour, uh Jared Welburn, Jay Welburn. He's running for a district court judgeship in Shelby County, new judgeship created on the Republican side of the ticket. We are extremely grateful and proud to bring this uh candidate to you uh before the primary vote, and we will visit with him in the second hour. Uh next week, next week, folks, tune in. It is spy stories time. Like kind of like bedtime stories for adults. With spy for rent, uh Jeff Hammock, he'll be in the house for spy for rent. Bedtime stories. Uh no kidding joke, no kidding, folks. Spy for rent, Jeff Hammock, Corey Fuller are our our exclusive um uh firm investigator for my firm. They they do everything in the state of Alabama. They are the things to know if you need an investigator in the state. They serve papers, they they investigate your spouse or your paramour, they can uh do background checks for you, they can do forensic cell phone searches on cell phones, they can do bug sweeps, and they are the best at what they do, and we are proud to have them next week in the house for spy stories. So tune in for that. If you're listening to our show, you can download it, the podcast, share it, like it with your friends and family, encourage others to tune in and become a part of our broadcast. We've got some more great guests coming up in March and April. You need to tune in. We have some really good guests running for statewide office and uh even on the national level that are going to be coming in to talk with us. So please listen in. You can also listen to us on Spotify, uh, Apple iTunes, or you can even go download the podcast off my website as well. Joe Ingram Law is all that you need to know. JoeIngramlaw.com is all you need to know to find the legal lowdown. Uh if you have a question, this was explained to me a little better last week. If I've done a bad job, I think I got a better understanding today talking with the man that runs iHeartRadio here in Birmingham. So if you click on your little radio app and you want to leave a message for the SPY for the legal lowdown show on the SPY for rent hotline, all you have to say is, I'm leaving a message for the legal lowdown. Whether you leave it early in the morning or the Glenn Beck Hour, Clay Buck, Clay and Buck, Sean Hannity, any show that you that you decide you want to leave us a message, it doesn't matter. Because if it gets in the computer system, as I understand it, is this correct? He's shaking his head yes. We talked about this last week. We can he can go find it in the system because he is a computer genius, and then we can play it on the show. And we've worked out some of the kinks, and I think we're going to have one today if we get it worked out. Okay, that's that's all good stuff. We got through that. Uh, this is Joe Ingram with the legal let in. My office represents people from Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery, Tuscaloosa, and Mobile. If you need representation, just go look us up, joeingramlaw.com. JoeIngramlaw.com. It's all you need to know for legal representation in the state of Alabama. My office represents people in divorced domestic cases. Alimony. We prepare prenups and postnuptial agreements as well. We represent people for modification of a divorce decree, such as you may want to modify alimony. You may be paying alimony to your ex-spouse. Your income may have gone down because you may have lost your income. You may have become gravely ill. You're not able to make what you were making before. You may not be able to pay those alimony payments. So you can go to the court and ask that alimony be either increased or decreased due to the circumstances of the parties. We do that. You also might be able to prove that your ex-spouse is cohabitating with somebody and they don't deserve the alimony anymore. That's tougher to prove, but I've done that in a couple cases. If you go back and listen to one of my very first podcasts, we had a good case in which we proved cohabitation to terminate alimony. You may want to modify child support. These come up all the time. Here's what happens you get divorced when the children are young, and the children become teenagers. And originally child support may have been a thousand dollars a month. After five, six years, the child or the children are teenagers, they are in high school, they are in extracurricular activities, they may be in soccer, they may be in uh volleyball, they may be in travel softball, they may be in football, baseball, whatever it may be. And the money to raise the child has greatly increased from it from when it was when they were in elementary school. So for all intents and purposes, you may want to revisit child support. Maybe you're making more money. Maybe your ex-spouse is making more money. These are not hard questions to figure out. There's enough information out there on the internet. You can go plug in some numbers and see where you should be on child support. And if you think you're due for an increase, then you might want to reach out to a lawyer to see if you can modify child support as well. You also may have the issue where you were not awarded custody in the original divorce case. And as the kids have grown up, become teenagers, they're more happy seeing you than living with their ex with your ex-spouse as the primary custodian. And the kids come to you and they say, Hey, I want you to be the custodial parent. Now that's not the ultimate decision just because they say that. We got to prove in court that it's in the best interest of the child that the children should come live with you for a change in custody. But that happens all the time, more often than not. And it might be for another reason. Your ex-spouse may have an alcohol addiction. Your ex-spouse may have a drug addiction. Your ex-spouse may be seeing someone that is not in the best interest of your children, and they want out of that situation. It's scary, but that happens. And so all those factors come into play. And you fall, and we litigate the case, we try to get custody of your children. And we do that and we win more often than not. So those are all kind of modification cases in divorce court that we talk about that I really wanted to break down today. We also represent people in criminal cases all over the state. We represent people in state cases, which are felonies or misdemeanors. And if they're state cases, they could be everything from murder, rape, manslaughter, robbery, theft of property, drug cases, drug trafficking cases, cocaine, fentanyl, meth. We represent people in federal court. People that are convicted felon that have guns in their possession. 18 USC 922 G1 is the federal statute that the U.S. attorneys love to charge. Convicted felon, possession of a fire. We also represent people before the licensing boards. Everything from doctors, pharmacists, pharmacy techs, nurses, nurse practitioners, dentists, dental assistants, any professional board in the state of Alabama, we can represent you. And we do those all the time. So that covers a little bit about me. Oh, we also represent people in municipal court. Municipal court is primary uh misdemeanors, uh possession of marijuana second, DUIs, domestic violence cases, uh, traffic ticket situations. Those are primarily the cases you see in municipal court as well. Okay, that covers out. So, legal news of the week nationally. Legal news of the week nationally. Not a lot going on in the world this week, other than some really big stories. We have to mention the Tuesday night State of the Union address. We have to mention it. We have the State of the Union address, then we have the state of the extremes. Show. Um I mentioned this last week that the Democrats were talking about alternative events, and they did them from Oregon. They did them from the National Mall in Washington, D.C. I I went back and looked at some of these events. The one in Oregon, they had they had frogs on the stage. They had frogs on the stage. The one event uh on the national mall was Joy Reed. I think she got I think she got fired from MSNBC nerd or show, or she may have left. Not sure about that. Anyway, she was the host of it. That was comical, that event. Folks, you you just look like crazies out there. It just looks like normal people versus the crazies now. And that's how um Governor Huckabee termed it. The governor of Arkansas, she turned she termed it this week. She said now it's just turned into the normals versus the crazies. I thought that was the best way to put it out there. I don't know. It's kind of scary. They always have a um the the party that is not in power is always entitled to equal time after the State of Union address. So this year they had the governor from Virginia who just got elected, and she claimed to be a moderate. She claimed to be a moderate. For all intents and purposes, she is one step from comrade socialist man dani in New York. Yes, I don't know if she's as crazy as him, but she's getting pretty close. And uh she has gone all in, uh, just like California. They're just taxing everything that they can now. Uber rides. Uh anything that they can, that anybody that makes any money that is doing a contribute to society in a normal way, they are taxing all the normal people for all the other people that do not contribute to society. It's really scary out there. It's really scary out there right now. What's coming? If you look at the Republican bench and you look at the Democratic bench, it's a no-brainer. Republicans have 10 or 12 candidates that are national candidates. The Democrats have a bunch of people out there on the fringes. That is not where mainstream America is, is on the fringes, on the coast. All this nut stuff they talk about. It's scary out there. Anyway, um Trump set them up like he always does. He talked about immigration. By the way, I went back and looked because I saw this story and I wanted to verify it. You can go pull this up yourself, folks. Go back to 1995. You can go Google this. There's a C-SPAN video when President Bill Clinton was president. He gave the same exact set of facts Trump did. He talked about immigration and getting all the illegal aliens out of this country. The same thing he said. Guess why? The whole chamber stood up and applauded and clapped. That was in 1995. Where have we gone in 31 years? We've gone to the fringes. So Trump is not that far off from Bill Clinton in 31 years. Imagine that. Unbelievable. And then Trump set him up. He said, if you do not believe that the your first uh job as a member of Congress is to protect the citizens of the United States. If you don't agree, if you agree with me, stand up. All the Republicans and said all the Democrats sat on their hands. That became a commercial for the Republican National Committee. Right then. He set them up for it. They walked right into it. They didn't have to. And the State of the Union address has become this one thing over the last probably since Reagan. Reagan was the best. He was called the great communicator. He weaved personal stories into his speech. Everybody's done it. Clinton, Obama, Bush, Biden in his own way, I guess. They tried to say Trump was running a game show. You get a Congressional Medal Honor, you get a Congressional honor, you get a medal, you get a medal. Those were all great stories, and those were all real Americans, and those were people in the military. Two of the people that were recognized were a hundred years old that served this country 60 years ago. They were lovely men to see. These are young, young men, young kids. They were just glad to be at the White House. They were glad to be invited to the State of the Union dress. It wasn't a political statement. They were just celebrating being a member of the national hockey team. You know what this falls in to Trump was celebrating America exceptionalism. We are still exceptional. We're still the shining city on the hill. Governor John Winthrop from Virginia. Still the same saying that Reagan said in the 80s. We are the shining city on the hill. There you go. The biggest story that's out there that no one's talking about, and it really scares me to death, and it affects us all. Do you know what the Federal Reserve Bank did last week? They pumped$18.5 billion into the United States banking system through overnight repositories. This is the fourth largest liquidity injection since COVID. It was even higher than the peak of the dot-com bubble. But I'm sure everything's okay. Not folks, it's coming. For all of us. Jamie Diamond, you know I love Jamie Diamond of JP Morgan Bank. He's Mr. Wall Street. Every time he speaks, you need to listen. He gave an interview this week, and he is starting to sound the alarm bells that there is serious credit money issues in the system. In fact, uh JP Morgan Bank had to do a write-down last year related to the automobile industry of over$100 billion. There are issues out there, and if you're not paying attention, we are we are on the cusp. And it may be 24 months away from the 08 issue again. But we are there again. It's coming. The national debt is the biggest issue we have, and no one's talking about it. We gave out too much money. The Fed has too much money on their balance sheet as debt. I'm sorry. It's the biggest issue affecting all of us, and it's affecting all of your children for the next twenty twenty or thirty or forty years that they're going to be paying for if we still survive as a country. That is my biggest concern is the national debt. This was Jamie Diamond's quote. I don't know what the confluence of events will cause that cycle. My anxiety is high over it. I'm not assaged by the fact that asset prices are high. In fact, I think that adds to the risk. We have the real estate market at an all-time high. Think back to right before the housing collapse in 2008. Anyone that wanted to buy a home could. We had ninja loans, which basically meant no proof of income, you didn't have to approve a job. You just go down and sign a credit app, you could get a get a house. We had people that had interest-only loans, which means they weren't buying a house. They were just renting a house and paying the interest. If you're not seeing the signs, you need to look around. The stock market can't go up forever without a serious correction. You can't buy a house right now. Housing prices in the Birmingham area start around$400,000 for a three-bedroom, two-bath. That's crazy. That's crazy. Go look at the market. Go look at Zillow.com. House prices have doubled in in less than 10 years, 100%. No way. No way is that real. Don't believe it. And the uh cryptocurrency market is coming down. It's well overbought. And everybody's bought into the AI technology. Nvidia reported on Friday, Thursday this week. Everybody's overextending themselves credit-wise to be a part of the AI bubble. And there's going to be a correction. Don't know when, but it's going to come. So scary thought. Uh the Supreme Court wrote last week on the tariffs. They said that Trump did not have the authority to use the law that he used for the tariffs. So the Supreme Court sent it back to the lower court to figure out what to do with all the money that has come in since the tariffs were enacted last year. FedEx came out this week. They said that they're going to refund money to clients that paid tariff money. Good on them. I don't know how this is going to work out. We may have a bunch of plaintiff lawyers that jump in this as sharks and file lawsuits on behalf of different corporations or entities to try to get money back for all the tariff money. And what did Trump do the very next day? He's he turned around and said, okay, I can't use that law. I'll use another law, and we'll just make it a national 15% tariff. I love Trump. For criminal legal national news this week, Ryan, um, it's either Ryan Ruth or Ryan Routh. Not sure how you say his last name. He was sentenced to life in prison for attempting to assassinate a presidential candidate. Uh corporate and big law, I talked about this last week. They are tied and heavily invested to managing AI risk and mergers all over the country. In fact, they have bet the farm on it. Um profits for mergers and acquisitions in 25 are through the roof. 26 appears to be leaner. We're going to talk more about uh these data processing centers. Uh, this is big news, folks, and it's going to be big news for the next 15 or 20 years. Um I got to thinking about what are the biggest judicial cases that the Supreme Court has ever heard? And when you go through this list, it'll make sense to you. What is the most biggest controversial Supreme Court cases we've ever heard that have affected American society, law, and politics? Well, the first one is easy. First one's easy. Roe versus Way, 1973, which established the constitutional right to abortion, which divided our nation on moral and legal grounds. Now that case was essentially overturned about what, 24, 12, or 24 months ago. And uh we'll talk about that after the break. Um they tried to scare Supreme Court justice, change their vote. Didn't happen. We'll be back after news weather. All right.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

If you need a five legal consultation, you will go in the line now. Welcome back to the legal login.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Alright. Back to the legal low end of February 28th, 2026. We were talking about the biggest cases from the Supreme Court. Not gonna be able to get through them all, but Roe versus Wade. If you remember the story, uh this the opinion was leaked from somebody in the Supreme Court. They thought it was one of the justices' uh judicial clerks. They never did find the person. And they were trying to scare the justices in their homes, marching out in front of their house. Um the people that I love. Umito, Kavanaugh, those guys. Uh didn't work. They still put their opinion out. Anyway, biggest opinions from the Supreme Court that affected us all. Obviously, Dred Scott versus Samford. Um it made it ruled that African Americans were not citizens and slaves could not sue for freedom, which led to the Civil War. Um, Brown versus Board, 1954 declared desegregated schools unconstitutional, which led into the 60s and the 70s, people standing in the in the schoolhouse doors, all that. You know, all that history. Uh Bush Bush Bush v. Gore, 2000, hanging Chads. Supreme Court basically cited the um presidential election in 2000, if you're old enough to remember that. Um Miranda versus Arizona, 1966. Everybody knows what their Miranda rights are. That came from the Supreme Court as well. Um, out of all the cases that were on the list, the one that really shocked me the most because it was a state court case, people versus O.J. Simpson in 1995. If you lived back then, that trial lasted over a year and we watched it every day on TV. As sad as it was, not laughing about it, I'm just saying that that case had one of the biggest impacts in our lives. Uh some people in the news this week nationally. Zachary Ty Bryan. Who is he? Well, he was an actor on home improvement with Tim Allen, Tim the two men, Taylor. He's had some issues of domestic violence. In fact, I think he's on his second or third DUI. He's had two prior DUIs. This was his third. He just got sentenced to 16 months in jail. Uh so very sad for him. That's another young star that didn't have people looking out for him as he got older. Uh, some domestic news this week. Uh the singer Pink uh has allegedly separated from her husband, Corey Hart. They've been married for 20 years. They have two children. She first denied the report. Uh I think Pink was just trying to be protective of her children. She's she put a quote that says, Thank you for letting me know. Would you also like to tell my children that are nine, 14 and 9 years of age as well, who are unaware? But for all intents and purposes, it looks like it is finally over in their marriage. Their marriage is so similar to most marriages in life that last more than 20 years. You have good times, you have bad times. They've done counseling individually, they've done marriage counseling, but it does look like their marriage is headed for the hills for all intents and purposes. I love this story because it reminds me of Senator Mitch O'Connell, Mitch Connell of Kentucky. During Trump's first term in office, anytime there was downtime, he was like, Let's go put more judges in the federal judiciary. Well, it was just announced this last week. A group of Bush-era judges have decided to take senior status and step down. So Trump is going to have a whole new set of judges to replace. Um the chief judge of the Sixth Circuit, the a judge from the Second Circuit, and a judge from the 10th Circuit are all stepping away from service. And so j uh President Trump will get to appoint a whole bunch of new circuit court federal judges in their roles. Never understood this. If I was a federal judge and I'm appointed for life, I would stay for life. Uh one of them made the comment I'll be 70 in a few months, and everyone I know is retired. Well, okay, but we don't have the kind of job that most people have. Certainly as a federal circuit court judge. It's not that hard a job. But for all intents and purposes, these people are backing away. So Trump will get to pick a whole new group of folks to replace them. Uh there are 16 federal appellate judges appointed by Democrats who are eligible to go now. Uh obviously, they're gonna wait until the administration changes before they give up their time. Okay. We talked about this a couple weeks ago about the Clintons who were subpoenaed to testify in Congress, and they said no, thank you. And then they decided, oh, well, we'll vote to hold you in contempt of court for violating a federal subpoena, which means you could be referred to the DOJ to be prosecuted for for not showing up. And then they said, okay, we'll testify. Well, then the story got kind of murky this week. The Clintons didn't come to D.C. to testify. Congress goes up to New York where the Clintons live to take their deposition. Don't really understand that. Anyway, does it really matter? I don't know. I don't think so. At the end of the day, they got their depositions. And they're recorded and they'll be played in full. I'm already told there are some moments that Hillary Clinton got really hot in her deposition. Uh Nancy Mace, who is a congresswoman of South Carolina, crucified her in three rounds. Um then Hillary came out, as Hillary always does, and they always have their speeches down so well of what they're gonna say. If you think back to Clinton, I did not have sexual intercourse with that woman. They always have their lines written down so perfectly. Hillary's line was I've never met Jeffrey Epstein. I've never been to Jeff's office, I've never been on his plane, I don't know anything about him. Oh, but by the way, Glaine Maxwell was at Chelsea Clinton's wedding. Probably the biggest wedding of that year. Former president's daughter gets married, 500 people to that shindig. Her pictures all over the TV at the wedding, and you don't know who she is? Come on. Anyway, uh Nancy Grace, I mean Nancy Mace, not Nancy Grace, who is running for the governor of South Carolina, came out yesterday after the after the deposition uh for Hillary Clinton on Thursday. And she put this out on X or Twitter, whatever you call it. I want to thank many of my GOP colleagues for trusting me with a generous amount of time today to question Secretary Clinton on her ties to Jeffrey Epstein. I love his part, guys. I am not suicidal. The tires on my car were recently rotated. All of my security cameras work. If you know anything about the Clintons, you have to love that. That's kind of tongue-in-cheek, and that's also saying, please don't come kill me. Oh man. You can't make that up. That's pretty good. Uh, Bill Clinton testified yesterday on Friday. I'm already told that he's put out that he can't remember 25 years ago. Uh Jeffrey Epstein was in the White House 17 times. He'd been on Bill Clinton had been on his plane somewhere between 17 and 26 times. Um and you don't remember him? Y'all know how sharp Bill Clinton is? He had almost a photographic memory. He could see you today and say, I remember meeting you in 1994. I remember what you had for dinner that night. How's your mama? And he doesn't know what his relationship is with Jeffrey Epstein. Don't know if I buy that one. Don't know that I buy that one. Something to think about in the coming days. But I don't really think they are the targets here. I think their names just came up, and I think there were two pictures of Bill Clinton that looked kind of unusual at best. And so Congress being what they needed to do in this story, which is very serious to the trafficking of minor children, thought, well, we'll at least go talk to them and see if they can tell us anything how Jeffrey had ties to the most important people on the globe for I guess 25 or 30 years. How he was so connected. And not just here, over the pond with former Prince Andrew. Anyway, uh something we need to talk about a lot, and we're gonna talk about it. State legal news. The Alabama legislature announced this week that the new proposed legislation is dead for all practical purposes. They they ran a story out last week that they were going to stop having elected PSC commissioners, that they were going to be appointed. And then they ran a story out uh for new legisl legislation to do that. And then everybody said, Well, why are you taking the vote away from us? Even though most people don't even know what the public service commercial commission is or does, even though we've talked a lot about it on this show for the last six weeks. Um anyway, and then I saw a news article this week of how they tried to characterize it. That the elected, the bill was dead to kill left extremists for trying to take over the Public Service Commission. And I thought to myself, well, that isn't necessarily true. I don't know of any left extremists in Alabama that have been on the PSC in the last 40 years. You look at Twinkle Kavanaugh, Lucy Baxley, all these folks, by and large, are Republicans. I don't think they're left extremists. But then you had to go back and really read the article. What they're trying to stop and what they're claiming is that Soros' people have taken over the Public Service Commission in Georgia, and they were afraid it was going to fall over here into Alabama. I don't think that's going to happen. Alabama's a deep red state. I don't think that was ever really an issue. But there's been enough commentary about the PSC the last couple weeks. We talked about the recording that came out last week. Um nobody likes having something taken away from them, even though if they don't know what it is. So for all intents and purposes, I don't think that's definitely not going to come back before this legislative session that ends before the primaries. They're going to try to get out of town probably in April so they can go home and start running for office for the primaries. So that's dead. Um maybe that'll come around in 27 when nobody's paying attention again. But right now, everybody's paying attention to that, and nobody wants to touch that. So the other big thing that's going on in the state, all over the state, Birmingham, Shelby County, Mobile, everywhere. The stories about data centers. Um this is huge, folks. This is a big story. There was a story this week, um multi-billion dollar Birmingham AI factory taking shape. Uh artificial intelligence infrastructure provider Neebus wants to build a multi-billion dollar AI factory on the former region's Lakeshore Operations Center. If you know anything about Lakeshore, uh the square footage over there, not footage, uh Lakeshore Parkway, it's 75 acres. Uh they want to create a two-building complex that would generate 300 megawatts of power. It would take 30 months to build. They'd say, well, it's going to create a bunch of jobs for construction. Yeah, but once the building is built, here is the problem. It's not ever going to employ more than 100 people at any given time. This is not something that creates jobs. This is something that sucks the blood out of your out of your community and all of your all of your infrastructure as well. And it it may be an eyesore. And we don't know if this is going to cause cancers. I don't know. I'm not being a conspiratorial therapy person here. I'm just talking about what we don't know about this yet. So these data centers have a lot of lot of things to talk about. Um Shelby County, you know, uh made a decision last week that they're going to put strict guidelines on if you try to put a data center there. We've had Matt Gentry on the show twice, who's running for the Alabama Public Service Commission, who has talked about these data centers, what they bring, what they don't bring. They take a a huge swath of land to put one on. It takes a lot of concrete to build. It takes a lot of water probably to cool it. It takes a lot of power to generate these. We do not want the consumers to pay for the power of these data centers. And then what do they really create for us? They just hold data. Now I'm not saying we don't need these. I I'm not against data centers. I'm just saying there's a lot to figure out before we start building these things. This is a lot of new technology that we've got to talk to. Most people do not understand all this. Um it's a lot to read about, it's a lot to comprehend. You just hope the people that are in office are doing their due diligence and their research before they sign on to let these data centers being built in your community or in your state. That's all I'm thinking about here. So for all of you out there that care about your community and your state, start doing some research on data centers because they are coming. They are being built. They're being built in California, they're being being built in Texas. We talked about one being built in Texas that's taking a huge amount of uh energy to to run it, but they're using gas energy that's coming from three states away that's gonna power it. Um so the data centers are a lot to talk about and need a lot more uh information before we get there. So that's what I got on that one. I think for the rest of the time we're gonna talk about some things that we have mentioned earlier this year that I want to get back to. If you have a personal injury case, if you have a car wreck case, what do you do once you have the car wreck? Well, hopefully you get out of the car, you exchange information, your driver's license, insurance information, maybe even get their cell phone number. Make sure they're okay. If anybody's injured, call 911. Do not be afraid to go to the hospital and get checked out if you've been in a car wreck. Do not be afraid to go get checked out if you've been in a car wreck. If you have and you're not at fault, then you'll be reimbursed for going to the hospital. Not right away, but you will be eventually. It takes time, but you'll be compensated for your personal injury case. If you've been hit by a tractor trailer, you obviously need to go to the hospital. You've been hit by a vehicle that for all intents and purposes weighs several thousand pounds and you've probably been hit at 30 or 40 miles an hour, you're gonna be sore the next day. So you do need to get checked out. I'm not saying fake your injuries. I'm saying go get checked out and see if you're hurt. Obviously, if you've hit the windshield or you can't move and and you're not ambulatory, then you do need to go to the hospital. And uh if you have a case, then you go see a personal injury attorney and they can represent you. There's no cost to you. Those are what we call contingency fee cases. The only way the lawyer wins is if they record money on your behalf. And in the state of Alabama, there is a two-year statute of limitations to file a personal injury lawsuit. Most personal Injury cases are never filed in court unless it involves serious injuries. The lawyer works the case up, they get your medicals, they get your uh lost wages, they they get all the money that you lost from your car wreck and they send a what we call a settlement demand package to the insurance company. And they negotiate your case and it takes months to negotiate. I've got one that we started back in November and may take probably won't settle to June. Um but we're getting close, but from the day you file your your claim against an insurance company until you've reached your maximum medical improvement, uh as I would say it, it it could take six months to a year to settle your case. So you need to file your claim as soon as you can after you've been hurt in a car wreck. And people ask me all the time, how much is my personal injury case worth? Well, that's that's not an easy question to answer. The value of your personal injury case depends on a number of factors, including the severity of your injuries, the amount of your medical bills and lost wages, the extent of your pain and suffering. Your pain and my pain are different. It's hard to put a dollar amount on pain. Everybody knows what medical bills are. Medical bills are the medical bills. Lost wages are the time you were off work. Those are people those are easy numbers to quantify. But your injury is different. Did you break your arm? Did you break your leg? Are you paraplegic? Did you bust your head in the windshield and get ten stitches in your forehead? Those are all things that we can't quantify. We can get close, but no one can give you an exact number on those kind of things. What are the evidence that you need in a personal injury case? You need your medical records? Obviously, you need police reports. Photos. Photos are huge. If you're in a car wreck and you have bruises the next day, start taking pictures of your bruises. If you're in the hospital, have someone else take pictures of you every other day to see how long it takes for you to recover from your injuries. I had a client one time that was severely injured in a personal injury case. Their bruising lasted for weeks. The second day, the bruising was worse than the first day from the swelling. They could not even put sweatpants on their legs. Honest to goodness. Take pictures. They're huge. Witness statements. If anybody was around and they're willing to get involved and they're willing to make a statement, get a statement from them. Better yet, just get somebody to pull out an iPhone, uh, cellular phone, get a witness statement, audio version. Get their name, their address, their their phone number, uh, where they live, get them to tell their story on a video camera. And you got it. That's better than a written statement. They were there, they saw it. Huge. Obviously, you want uh pictures of the crime scene, pictures of your car. Especially if your car was told. Picture tells a thousand words. All this evidence is vital to building a strong claim. We talked about this. Well, you have to go to court. No, you may not have to go to court. For all intents and purposes, most injury personal cases are settled out of court through negotiations. However, if the insurance company is unwilling to offer a fair settlement, a lawsuit may be filed necessary, and the case could potentially go to trial. And where you're injured makes a huge difference. Jefferson County is better than some counties in Alabama. Some counties you don't want to file a lawsuit because they are ultra-conservative and they don't want to give you any money. Something to think about there. And sometimes you can sue more than one person in a personal entry case. Maybe the truck driver hit you, you sue the trucking company, and you sue the truck driver individually if he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Maybe he's had prior DUI in his past. You might be able to sue two insurance companies for your personal entry case. If you have been w hurt on the job, that's called a worker comp case. In a worker comp case, those are contingency fees as well. But lawyers are limited to only 15% of the recovery, and it should be. And um, that's worker comp cases. So uh next hour, Jay Wellburn, who is running for district court judge, is gonna be in the studio. We're gonna visit with him, and you're gonna get to hear all about him running for judge in Sheppey County. Your list of legal lowdown on WERC 105.5, also in Huntsville and Tuscaloosa. It's February 28, 2026. Folks, winter is over. Thank God we've made it. If you're a runner, you get to start doing some real running next week. We're going to have highs in the 70s almost every day. It's time to start getting your mileage in, guys. We're there. We made it through winter. If uh and we have daylight savings time that's coming next week. I'm so grateful for that. Um, we've made it through winter. J Welburn's in the house. He'll be with us in a few minutes. We'll be back after news and weather.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

Go in the Go in the Love. Go in the 20 years experience, like you're in the middle of the week, go in.

SPEAKER_00 51:45

Remember, we're back with a second hour of the Liggle Logan. February 28, 2026. We made it through winter for all practical purposes here in Alabama. All right, so we teased it up the first hour. We have a great guest in the studio today. Jared Wellburn is running for a district uh court judgeship in Shelby County. He's in the studio with us. Jared, how are you today, sir? Doing well, Joe. Thank you. Thank you for coming in. All right, Jared. So um, first of all, introduce yourself to Tall Radio Audience before we get in talking about your background, your history.

SPEAKER_03 52:21

Well, again, you said uh, as you told everybody out in uh Radio Land, my name is Jared Wellbourne. A lot of people know me as Jay. Um that's the moniker that I got when I married my current wife. Um her family grew up calling her E because her name is Erin, and so by her first initial, and so that just transposed to me. I called her E, so she started calling me Jay. And uh 15 years later, it uh has stuck, fortunately. But uh no, I uh I'm a resident of North Shelby County. Um have three wonderful kids, uh 27, 21, and 12. Um, and so we uh we're very happy there. Um North uh native of North Mississippi originally, um, came to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in '94, and uh outside of a short stint to Morgantown, West Virginia for two years, never left the state.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

Okay. Kind of an age gap between the two and the last one. Was that one play?

SPEAKER_03 53:16

Yeah, well, um we finally figured out what caused that.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

And uh Okay. Not put just joking. Uh good thing. All right, so let's talk a little bit about um your resume and how you decided to run for a judgeship in Shelby County. Talk us through your your your past experiences in the legal world.

SPEAKER_03 53:37

Well, uh, and I'm not a first career attorney, Joe. Um I'm I'm 50 years old and got a lot of life under my boots. And uh I have not always been an attorney. Uh it was a probably a third or a fourth career uh for me. Oh before that I worked in uh in the fire service. Uh prior to that I was in uh student ministry with the United Methodist Church. Wow. And then before that, I was involved in uh operations management and was involved in corporate security and executive protection. Um But that being said, uh I remember the day very distinctly when uh I walked into my father-in-law's office, who was a practicing attorney in the Birmingham area for about 50 years. Um we had had an early morning house fire and I walked in smelling like smoke and everything else, dirty, filthy, had not had even a chance to shower before I was supposed to come into the office to work because I worked my 48 hours off serving papers and taking, you know, emails and responding and setting appointments and everything for his law practice. Uh and he called me into the office and said, uh, you know, I thought you were a whole lot brighter than you are. And I said, Well, what do you mean? He said, Well, at 34 years of age, you were still intentionally running into buildings that are on fire. That just does not sound smart to me. And I said, Well, what am I gonna do? And he said, Well, you know, you have a knack for this law thing. He said, You've always got good ideas and different perspectives of how we should, you know, approach cases, and you maybe you ought to go to law school. And I told him I had no idea how I would do that. It had been 16 years since I was out of college and you know, had no intent of ever scraping up money to go to Cumberland or Alabama law or anything like that, and did not want to sit for the LSAT. Um, so he directed me to go to Birmingham School of Law and he said, You can pay as you go, take a semester, and uh if you like it, great. If you don't, uh then no skin off your nose, you're you know, three months out. Yeah. And uh took a full caseload, fell in love with it. Um ended up getting a uh JA position with Judah Judge Pat Stevens, who's now the presiding domestic relations judge in Jefferson County. Um, worked with Judge Stevens for probably four years my entire time, and then about six months after I graduated law school, and uh she encouraged me to go ahead and uh spread my wings, as it were, and I hung out my own shingle and started practicing with my wife and my father-in-law.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:48

And uh did that for about uh five years until my father-in-law retired. And uh my wife and I went into practice together and I practiced with her until she was elected to the bench in 2022. Uh, she is the current sitting juvenile court judge and presiding juvenile court judge in Shelby County. Um and I realized that at that point um I could not handle a two-attory practice just by myself. Um, and so I either needed to go to work for a firm or find a job as a state attorney. And fortunately, I was blessed enough to be hired as an administrative hearing officer for the Department of Pardon and Parole. Um, and it was my job at that point to conduct parole evidentiary hearings for allegations of parole violations for parole leaves for the state, and uh then to find fact of whether or not there was sufficient evidence to find them guilty of the violations that they were alleged, or to find insufficient evidence of whether or not uh we were going to put them back out on the street.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

Okay. All right, so let's go back just a little bit for a minute. When you got to work with Judge Stevens here in Jefferson County, uh you got to see a lot of divorce work, a lot of modifications, rule nice eyes, the gamut. 100%. Yeah. You got to see life from from the bench side as opposed to a practicing attorney first. Correct. Do you think that gave you a better view when you hung out your shingle, if you will, into private practice, knowing how the court looks at things on the other side of the screen when we file documents all the time. Does that make sense what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 57:32

Absolutely. You know, it it it never ceased to amaze me. I would get phone calls from attorneys in the office all the time and go, I just filed a motion. You know, have you gotten it yet? And have you said it before hearing. Exactly. And you know, you know, as a practicing attorney, when you file that, you immediately get that kickback from Alicourt that says, hey, this motion's been filed, and y'all think at that point that the judge now has it on their email. Right. They don't. All right. It has to go all the way down to Montgomery, hit the vault system, and come back to ours. And it could be anywhere from five minutes to up to I've seen it take 36 hours before it actually populates in our motion queue, depending on how many people are actually doing work in out of court or not. Um, so that being said, it's definitely a different perspective to have seen it from the bench side and to see it uh and how how that role then transfers to practicing attorneys who are trying to come before the court and everything else. And that's where I, you know, I learned courtroom management.

unknown 58:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 58:29

Um, when to set and how to set cases, you know, what cases, you know, based on how long they've been pending, you know, what which ones take precedence, which ones come first, you know, whether it's an original divorce, whether it's a point one, point two, point six, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 58:42

Right. So uh I have a I had a case this week, uh Jay down in uh Tuscaloosa County. It was set for a hearing this week. I needed to get it continued the next day because it wasn't ripe. It was a criminal case. I called the judge's office and the Jay was very nice and she said, Well, Joe, it's not even showing up in our queue yet. I said, Well, I filed it this morning at nine o'clock. She said, hadn't made it through in Tuscaloosa, it goes to the court clerk, and then they send it up to the judge's queue or whatever. And then she went back, she said, give me the case number. She went and looked it up. She said, Oh, I see it. I walked her through, you know, the issues and she said, You know, we'll grant it. Don't worry about being here tomorrow. Um, but it is so funny uh as my side, when you're practicing law and you file stuff and we do everything instantaneously now, and you think, you know, I have clients and they're like, Joe, you filed an emergency motion. Why hasn't it even been set for a hearing yet? It's been 14 days, and we're here in Jefferson County. We have four dedicated domestic relations judges. I'm like, do you how many cases each judge has on any given day? Brian Huff was here with us back in December, January. I think he told us he had roughly 700 active cases on his docket any day of the week. And uh, so you know, when you're a lawyer and you're an advocate, you're you're trying to get your client to court if they really need some relief or they need some kind of something done in a divorce case. What the people on the street does don't see or understand is you're not the only one. And that's Jefferson County. When you go to Shelby County, they're great. All I'm saying is they don't have dedicated divorce judges, they don't have dedicated civil judges, they don't have dedicated criminal law judges. The judges down there, by and large, do everything in the circuit court realm, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:40

That is 100% correct. We have uh right now we've got four sitting circuit judges, and they all take a share of anything that might come before the circuit court. I mean, I think there's one judge that does not hear domestic cases, um, but the rest of them do. And um as I said, my wife is a district judge, but she also sits as a special sitting circuit judge by administrative order, so that she can also hear divorce cases. Uh the position I'm running for will also have that. Um we have a new incoming presiding judge in October of this year in Shelby County, Jonathan Spann will be our new presiding judge. Um Jonathan's a good friend of mine, but he uh insured me that if I was blessed enough to get this election and be get a seat on the bench that I would get all the district civil cases, some of Judge Duncan's traffic ticket overflow, because I think he's got somewhere around 12,000 just traffic tickets on his criminal docket. And then he smiled and said, And don't think you're not gonna get out of your fair share of the domestic docket, Jay, because that's where you have a lot of experience as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

So Yeah. Uh we're talking with Jay Welburn. He's running for uh Shelby County District Court judge, uh Republican side of the ticket for the primary in May. May 19th. May 19th. Not that you have a calendar market off the day. Not that you're counting anything like that. Uh okay. So that's good. We we talked about that. It made me think about something, David. Thank you for telling me that. Um all right. So let's talk about being a a uh hearing officer for the um for the parole system. Did you actually go to the parole to the to the to the prisons and hear the cases or how was that set up?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:23

Well, when when there's an allegation that uh a parolee has violated their parole, they're detained and taken to a county jail based on where they're picked up. Um and in my two years of working, I covered areas from Calbert County and Franklin County all the way down to Tuscaloosa, all the way over to Randolph County, all the way up to Jackson County. I mean, I I spent the better part of fall of 2022 in Gunnersville, uh which it it's a beautiful drive from here up there. I mean, especially in the fall, you can see the trees and go through the forest and everything else. But when those parolee hearings were set, I go to the jail and then they bring the inmates out to a booking area or to an interview room. And um law enforcement is sometimes there if they show up for the hearing uh to provide testimony for the stateside based on what allegations and the charges that uh the parolee may have violated. Uh the parolee is entitled to have an attorney represent them if they choose to, or to provide any sort of evidence. And we sit there and we have just a very uh informal kind of hearing to present evidence and testimony to see if uh anybody uh has any other information that they can offer to the hearing officer. And then after all the testimony and the evidence is presented, then uh what I'd do is I would write up a report and then I would go back to my office at the house and I would type up a report and make a recommendation based on whatever my findings are, and then uh either find sufficient evidence that they did violate the conditions of their parole or find insufficient evidence that they didn't. It's not really a guilty or not guilty situation at that point. And then I would send my recommendations down to the parole board. There was a three-person board at that time in Montgomery, and then when they would meet, they would review those files and then decide whether to issue a sanction of you know 30 or 45 or 60 days in the county jail, or whether they wanted to, you know, give them a little bit stiffer sanction up to a possible revocation and another 60 months in the Department of Corrections custody.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:22

Yeah. Um how many people in the state do that position, just out of curiosity.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:28

At the time, um they have seven slots for that, but at the time I worked for them, um, we only had five. And so there were five of us that covered the entire state. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:40

Okay. Interesting. Um not to name any names, not to anything like that. I just want you to think from your experience doing that. What was the most egregious case you can remember factually? No names.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:04

Right. Right. You know, a lot of these guys that are on parole, th they if they are alleged to have violated the condition of their parole. And of course, I d I don't necessarily know what they were originally, you know, in the dip in the Department of Corrections Custody for, for their original crime that they're now out on parole for. I mean, I I I have an idea. You know, I I tell people all the time in my job with Partner and Parole, I've sat across the table from more murderers than I ever did um in private practice as an attorney. And you know, but you don't ever really hear the details of those cases. I mean, I've I've sat across the table from murderers, I've sat across the table from, you know, people who uh, you know, grand theft, um, assault, drug charges, and things like that. But as far as violations go, most of them are your run of the mill. They either, you know, bought a bag of weed or, you know. didn't show up for a drug screen or did not report or a lot of them are technical violations where they just, you know, I didn't report this week. So, you know, their PO picks up on them and pick them up and they take them to county.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:15

So most of the guys that and and and women that I dealt with um don't want to go back. Um, you know, I've heard some horror stories. Um, I won't uh regale those with you here. But uh most of them don't want to go back to prison, believe it or not. They uh I mean there are some people that just can't help themselves, I guess, but most of the people that I dealt with really um most of them are technical violations or small little things like shoplifting. There was a guy one time that got picked up because he, you know, had to go get some undergarments and some Tylenol because he had sinus headache and everything else. And, you know, unfortunately he didn't have the money and he shoplifted them and got picked up for it. Yeah. Um and and it's cases like that. They don't there in my experience, there weren't any real egregious violations once they were on the parole system.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:04

Okay. That's it. That's good to know. All right, we're talking with Jay Welburn. He's running for uh Shepherd County District Court judge. Jay, let me ask you something. Um most people out there we we know the law, we know the difference between district court, circuit court, all these titles, things like that. Tell the people out there what a district court judge does and what their role is in the court system.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:28

Well, um I like to liken district court as kind of the front porch or the front door of the justice system. I mean, it is the lower level of the state court system. I have people ask me all the time, Well am I in your district? Well, if you live in Shelby County, you are in my district because district court is just the lower level of the state court system. District court hears everything from preliminary hearings on felonies, um, hears all misdemeanor cases. Uh I say all preliminary hearings on felonies, except for a save a handful of certain types of cases. Um but that's where all the criminal cases begin. Uh traffic tickets that are not written inside of a municipality that has their own municipal justice system. Um they hear small claims cases up to six thousand dollars. They hear civil property and monetary damage cases up to twenty thousand dollars. So small damage car wrecks, property damage, things of that nature. They hear evictions and unlawful detainers. Landlord tenant landlord tenant stuff, you know, all that wonderful thing that comes with uh renting and owning property. Um they hear in in this case, juvenile court, you know, they hear juvenile court cases involving kids that uh are either dependent or delinquent. Um they hear child support cases. Right. Um and as I said before, in this particular seat, I will also be a special sitting circuit judge, so this particular seat will also hear domestic relations cases, so divorces, uh modifications, custody modifications, child support modifications, things of that nature.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:53

Um but as I said, this is where 98% of the population has their first interaction with the judicial system.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:01

That's true.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:01

And district court truly is the people's court, and I don't mean that in a like a judge Wattner sense, but really if you've seen that show, that's exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:11

I'm glad you said that because I was about to bring this up in a way. I'm glad you said it first. So, you know, when when you start practicing, you take everything you can to put food on the table. Uh in 24 years of practice, I've had all kinds of experiences in district court. I've had I had some corporate clients that I did a lot of um small claims, contract collections for, uh breach of contract, things like that. I loved all those cases because they were opportunities to be in a courtroom and try a case, even though it was what we called district court or maybe, maybe from my sense now looking back, called baby court, right? And that's not that's not putting in. Absolutely. And so, but it's still important to the people that those names are in the courtroom that day. And my worst experience I hated was when the other side was pro se and didn't have counsel. It drove me insane because the judge gives them more latitude, right? Because they don't know the law, they know that they're there, they know that they're entitled to their day in court. It just drove me insane when they were pro se. I would rather have counsel than somebody that didn't have a lawyer. And and so those days turn into like the people's court on TV or judge duty. Um but it but it even though it was fun and entertaining, it was important. I loved it, I enjoyed it. Anytime I still get to do some of those cases, and I still have some collection cases for some clients, I love those cases to be in the courtroom. Um because it matters to the people whose names are the plaintiff and defendant in that case. And it's important, whether it's 3,000, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, or 100,000. You agree?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:56

100%. Uh everybody wants to have their story heard. Right. And it's important. And whether they're pro se or whether they have an attorney, and I understand your frustration with one-sided pro se counsel, you know, and when you got counsel on one side, pro se on the other. It's even more frustrating when it's a double pro se.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:16

Because then it becomes he said, she said, bickering and arguing and finger pointing, and you know, well, he did this, well, she did that, and they did this, and they did that. And really, when it comes down to the end of the day, those people just want the opportunity to have somebody who is going to sit there and listen and understand that it's important to them. You know, and that's what, you know, the dignity and the respect that those people deserve when they come in, regardless of whether they've got a team of eight lawyers or whether they're coming in with, you know, a stack of legal pads and everything else with hand notes and post-its all over it and you know, receipt copies and you know, hot tape from, you know, the gas station from where I had to pick up this and that. Um they they want to know that somebody's gonna listen and at least understand where they're coming from. And that's important to me because I I've been on that side of it. You know, district court has made me a very good living in my career as a private practice attorney, and that's where the majority of my practice has been. Yeah. Um, outside of divorce cases. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:17

I had a case one time with Judge Bobby Bynum here in Jefferson County, and it was a collection case against a um business. And um anyway, one of the witnesses for the business was Hispanic. They didn't bring an interpreter. And uh when they asked the questions of the person that was Hispanic, they they didn't have any trouble, any trouble understanding English at all. When I started when I got up and started doing cross-examination, she acted like she had never heard the word the. Judge Bobby Bynum said, he said, you know what's kind of funny? You understood all of his questions that just asked you. You you knew English very well. Now all of a sudden you don't know what what English is. I mean, Judge Bynum got it really quick. They lost that day because they played really stupid, and I had the factual case. One other thing I want to talk about district court. Um, friend of mine was having lunch with me one day, and we were talking about district court, and we were kicking around, you know, if I could do this job, if I could do that job, what job would you want to do? A friend of mine said, Joe, I would be a district court judge any day. And I said, why? And he said, if you get it wrong, it doesn't matter. They just peel it to circuit court. There's no real liability on me. What's your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:30

Well, uh, you hope that you you never get it wrong more than you get it right. But I will tell you, um, as a young attorney, I heard uh Judge John Amari at one point make the comment to another attorney uh when the attorney uh expressed his displeasure with the way that Judge Amari ruled up here in Jefferson County, and Judge Amari looked at him and said, Sir, he said, I understand your concern. And in 14 days, you might find that I am wrong. But today I'm right. And you have every ability to appeal that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:05

So I mean, there is a I guess there's a comfort level, I guess, to some people in district court that, you know, the worst you're gonna do is cost somebody up to$20,000. Yeah. You know, which is a lot of money to a lot of people. Sure. But nobody's really gonna go to prison in district court. Um, I mean, without it being a criminal case and getting bound over to grand jury, but then that's a whole other kettle of fish. Um, but literally, about the worst that you can do is cost somebody up to about$20,000, and they have the opportunity, if they don't like the result, to appeal it within 14 days.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:40

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:41

So I look at it as, you know, again, you know, it's about public service. And, you know, to take a judge ship, you know, as a private attorney, you you definitely take a pay cut. Um, and it's not about the money, it's not about the robe, the title, or the status. It's about wanting to make sure that people know that justice lives in the courtroom.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:02

That's a good way to end the the uh hour, half hour. All right, we're speaking with Jay Welbur. He's Renford's Chabbe County District Court Judge. We'll be back after news and weather. Stay tuned. This is a great uh great interview. We'll be back. February twenty eighth, two thousand twenty-six. We got the month of February in the book. We have Jenny Wilburn in the house. He's running for Shelby County District Court, Judge. So we were talking there in the break. I think I I I didn't know this specifically. Uh Jenny, this is you're not running for somebody's position. This is a new open judgeship that's been created for Shelby County.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:40

That's correct. Uh back in 2024, the legislature and uh the administrative office of courts did a caseload study for Shelby County. Um, as long as you've been practicing, I mean you're aware that Shelby County has needed a third district court seat for probably a decade or if not more, due to the increase in population. The last time we had a district court appointment uh for a judgeship in Shelby County was the mid-90s, and back then I think the population was around 107, 108,000 people. Uh I think the last definite number that I heard was 20 2024. I think we were up to about a 228, 229,000 people, so more than double since the last time we've had a district court seat allocated to us in Shelby County. And uh based on the caseload and the population increase, the legislature went ahead and allocated us a third seat. So this is a brand new seat um, never before been filled, and it uh will hopefully the the goal is to take all of the civil cases that our criminal district court judge is handling and the civil cases that our juvenile court judge is handling and take that load off of them and combine them to put this in this district's civil seat.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:46

Do you have an idea yet? You probably do. How many how many roughly cases will you have out of the gate on a document if you win the seat?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:53

Um I would say right now I know my wife has got about 1,600 or 1,700 active cases on her load, and I think she told me that um she's looking forward to transferring to the JID JCW because that will reduce her caseload to about 800. So I'll get about a thousand cases from her, which are small claims collections and things of that nature. I'm not sure how much Judge Duncan has. Casey and I don't talk, you know, closely about that kind of thing, and uh I don't feel comfortable necessarily asking him about his docket management. Um but uh I would venture to say it's probably gonna be somewhere between a thousand and fifteen hundred cases out of the gate immediately.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:31

But the good thing about in district court, I would think, just thinking, you know, legally and and processing through courts, I would think district court cases would probably turn over faster. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:43

They do. I mean, it's it's high volume, high speed. Right. I mean, there there's not a lot of delay. It's all bench trial, so there's no striking a jury. Um, you know, my goal is for you know larger, you know, dollar injury cases, ten to twenty thousand dollars. You know, I would love to be able to start a mediation program uh down in Shelby County and immediately order those cases to mediation within, you know, giving a report within 90 days. Um and once that happens, if they can get it settled, great, wonderful, submit a report. If not, then we set it for trial in the next 60 days. So they're in and out in less than six months.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:14

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:14

You know, whereas if they file it in circuit court, you know, you may wait around 12, 18 months before you get your very first scheduling order. Um, but most of these are gonna be small claims, you know, daily bench trials you hear three or four or five a day, um, get them in and out and get them, get them results almost immediately.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:32

Yeah, that's good. I'm glad to see that happening for Shelby County. You know, one of the my biggest pet peeves about going to Shelby County from being from Birmingham is the drive down there. Uh I I take one road in, one road out. I've always made this comment, not making anybody mad in Shelby County, is why can't they put a satellite courthouse closer to I-65 so we don't have to drive all the way down to Colombiana?

SPEAKER_03 1:20:01

You're right. Um, you can't get there from here. You just, I mean, there's no good, quick way. I mean, even coming all the way down 65, you got to get off at Alabaster or Kalera, and then you got to take either 70 from Kalera all the way in, or you got to take, you know, 31 to 26 and 26 to 70 to come into Colombiana. There's just not a good, quick, direct way. I would love it if we could, you know, have a satellite, you know, courthouse in the north part of the county. I I just don't know that uh the county commission would allow that to happen. I mean, I I don't know. That's kind of out of my realm. I but I would love, because I live on the north part of the county, I would love to not have to drive, you know, 30 minutes even from my house to Colombiana, but you know, I'm willing to do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:42

I do you do you know yet? You may not know this. I'm just thinking practically because I'm thinking when I go down to Sheppa County Courthouse, do you know where they're gonna put this judgeship position uh in a courtroom yet?

SPEAKER_03 1:20:53

I mean I have no idea. Because it is district court, there's gonna be a lot of litigants there, it's gonna be a lot of cases. Um I would venture to say that uh Judge Duncan and I are gonna probably share a little bit of that large courtroom that he has now for his courtroom for you know big dockets and things like that. But there's a vacant courtroom upstairs on floor three next to Judge Alvis's courtroom. Right. Um but I I really that's gonna be up to the courthouse administrator and you know Judge Spand is presiding because he's the one that assigns all the courtrooms and everything else as the presiding judge.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:24

So you hadn't heard any scuttlebutt on that? I have no idea. Okay. I was just thinking curiously because you know, people that don't go or hadn't been down to Shelby County, Judge Duncan's down on the first floor, your wife, Judge Aaron Welburn, is down there on the first floor, lower level, where probate down Dirt Round probate court. And then you get up to the second floor, and that's where most of the circuit court judges, Judge Kennedy, Judge Spann, um, Judge um Bostick's kind of on the two and a half floor up in the ceremonial courtroom five. Right, right. So I was just thinking strategically where they're gonna put this judge here. Okay, that's great to know. So uh I I I ask everybody that comes in, how long do you how long have you been announced that you're running for this position?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:10

Well, um I started talking about it in August of 24 when uh we got the finalized word that this was gonna be allocated to us. Um and I made the decision probably late September, early October of 2024 that I was gonna resign from my position with the state because you can't be on the state's dime and be a full-time candidate. Um because they they tend to not want to pay you to do that. Um but I started campaigning when I resigned in December. December of 2024. My last day was Christmas Eve, 2024, and uh I took two weeks off to spend some time with my family and to kind of regroup and start a plan. And then I started campaigning full-time in January 5th of 2025. So I've been doing this well over a year. Yeah. So I was, you know, I I started announcing to people that you know then back in January of 25.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:59

So I ask everybody, um people that's never run for a position, much much less a judge ship, um, are you tired? Are you tired from the traveling and the uh speaking and it it can be tiring.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:12

Um, but I I look at it like this. It's kind of like um I don't have to do this. I I get to do this. You know, it's a privilege for me. I mean, and I love getting out and meeting people and talking to people. I my mom always said I don't meet a stranger. Um but uh the interaction with the public is actually my favorite part, and I know there are a lot of people that uh don't like to knock on doors or make phone calls, but I I love knocking on doors. I love walking the neighborhoods and getting to meet who the people are and hear their stories and things of that nature. And and to get them aware of what district court does because a lot of people don't vote for the judges. I mean, we got a big ballot coming up in May. We got the governor, lieutenant governor, all the constitutional offices are gonna be on there. Um, district court is on the backside of that ballot all the way down, right above the statewide amendments, like whether or not we want indoor goat raising in Moringo County. I mean, I I'm not a goat farmer and I don't live in Moringo County. I really don't care if we have them indoors or not, but they don't bother to go to the other side because most people either think that I've never been to court, I don't care who the judges are, or I'm never gonna go to court. So what does it matter who the judges are? So they just don't vote. So it's an undervoted category on the ballot. Um, and when people tell me that, I say, Well, I don't ever anticipate being on my back in the cardiac ER of UAB having open heart surgery, but by goodness, if I find myself in that situation, I want to make sure that the guy that's working on me and is in charge knows what he's doing, he's the right way for the job.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:43

Right. That's important. A lot of people don't know that when they vote for judges in any county for that matter. Um, so how many miles have you traveled in your car in this quest?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:55

Well, I I'm not keeping mileage uh tallies really, but Shelby County is 808 square miles, and I have seen just about every corner of it at least two, if not three or four times. Um I told my wife yesterday I came home. I, you know, I I'm a member of the Shelby County Cattlemen's Association. We're getting ready for our you know ro annual rodeo in Columbiana, and I went down to the exhibition center and helped set up and put up bucking chutes and pens and everything else yesterday for the rodeo tonight and uh tomorrow. Um I ache from putting out signs and driving tea bars, and I told her, I said, I don't remember it being this bad four years ago when she ran, and I was out putting out signs and things for her, and she goes, Well, you're four years older than you are now. So I I have aches and spots that I didn't know existed. Um, and it takes a little bit longer to get going in the mornings after a long day of putting out signs and being on the road and being on my feet and everything else. But again, I get to do this. This is a privilege. This is not something that I am forced to do or that you know I have to do. It it's a privilege to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:56

Yeah. You uh have you gotten to speak at a lot of breakfasts and dinners and lunches?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:02

I have had more coffee and pancakes than I care to even recall. Um I have gotten to where I just go. I typically don't even eat anymore because I mean you can only have so much eggs and sausage and pancakes or have so much uh, you know, baked chicken with green beans and a salad. But uh yeah, I've I've I've been to a lot of luncheons, been to a lot of coffees, been to a lot of breakfast meetings and uh privileged.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:29

Yeah. It makes you it makes you really appreciate the people in the state of Alabama when you get to go out and you get to talk to them and they open up to you and they get to find out a little bit about you.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:41

I mean, isn't that isn't that exciting? It is extremely exciting because everybody's got a story. I mean, regardless of whether it's court related or they know somebody that's had a court-related story, or they just are shocked that somebody that's running for public office wants to sit down and meet with them one-on-one, or to stand on their front porch and talk to them one-on-one. I had a lady uh that I spoke with that goodness knows, her driveway was probably a quarter of a mile long. And I walked up to her front door and knocked on it, and uh she said, Can I help you, young man? I said, Ma'am, I'm I'm running for judge here in Shelby County. I'd just like to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about why I'm running. And she said, Do you know in the 47 years that I have lived in this house, nobody has ever walked up the 483 steps that it is from my mailbox to my front door to knock on my door and ask for my vote. And I said, 480 She said, I walk that every day to check the mail. So I know exactly how far it is, but nobody in the time that I have lived in this house has ever walked up my driveway to knock on my door and tell me who they are and ask for my vote. She said, You got my vote. So that's important. I mean, people people appreciate that personal touch. They appreciate being able to um connect with, you know, somebody that you know they may not ever have a chance to. If just out in public.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:02

And uh that's important to me. I mean, it it it makes the difference if, you know, when they go to the polls and they see my name on the ballot, they go, Man, I I I met that guy. I know him. He came to my door, you know, left me a sample ballot.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:14

Yeah. Uh even though this is a county uh elected position. Let me ask you something. Have you done a lot of social media advertising, or has it been more personal, personal uh election campaigning?

SPEAKER_03 1:28:31

I I will say social media has become in the last probably decade a huge component of political campaigning. I mean, you can reach so many people just on a Facebook or an Instagram post or a TikTok video or something of that nature. Um I'm kind of late to the game on TikTok and Instagram. I you know, I've had a Facebook page since I was, you know, probably in my 30s. But uh it it's it's a different world now where you have to, you know, understand the algorithms and what you post and who you invite and how you like things and comment on things to develop. And the more you do that kind of thing, the more people that they show your information to. And you can do targeted ads to just Shelby County people. You can do targeted, I mean you can you can find, you know, streamline it down to people who have voted in the last three or four primaries only if you wanted to. But uh but yeah, so it's a huge component to the campaign because uh again, it's 808 square miles with 227,000 residents. There's no way, even starting in January of last year, that I can meet every single one of those voters. So social media is a huge way that I can do that by, you know, finding the people that live in Shelby County, you know, messaging them, friending them on Facebook, showing posts, you know, on Facebook that their friends will say, Oh, hey, look at this guy, you know, he's running for judge. Um programs like this, I mean, that get out on the radio. Um meet and greets in different communities all over the county. You know, that's that's important because you invite people to come and say, hey, this is who I am. Come and meet your candidate. You know, I'll answer your questions and you know, talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:13

Yeah. Um gosh, I was just about to ask you a question. I forgot. Before I get to it, I want to ask you something. Uh spy for rent, Jeff Hammock, is my uh exclusive uh investigative firm here in town. You know them very well.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:27

Oh, yeah, I love Jeff and Vicky both.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:28

Okay, so um I was told I have to ask you this question. How far back does your family go with Jeff Hammock's family?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:38

Oh, good night. Um well, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, uh I knew Jeff when he had hair. Sorry, Jeff. Um, but uh no, I I I love Jeff and Vicky. We we have known each other for at least 15 or 20 years, at least. And I love Jeff to death. Jeff is, you know, he was the first person to get on this whole uh private investigator licensing board for the state. Super, super crucial in getting that formed and uh you know does great work with spy for rent. You know, Jeff has done more investigating and uh he's got a great method of drug testing for you know clients and things like that. He's got the little fingernail clipping thing that he does that's real quick, it's non-invasive. But uh, you know, they're just great people, you know, and Jeff has always been in my corner, he's always been in my wife's corner, you know. And when he called with the opportunity said, Hey, I want you to go on my buddy Joe's, you know, radio show, it was it was not a question in my mind. Absolutely, I'll do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:43

Yeah. Uh we're talking with Jay Weber and he's running for district county uh uh district court judge ship in Shelby County. Uh Jay, is there anybody running on the Democrat side of the primary, or is it the candidates all on the Republican side?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:59

All of the candidates are on the Republican side. So the primary and if there is one subsequent runoff, we'll decide who the next district court judge is in Shelby County.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:07

Are you is there a is there a thought at that that there there might be a runoff? I mean, has that been I hope not?

SPEAKER_03 1:32:13

Um, but I would be remiss to think that with three other people running against me that I would be able to, you know, in a in a county like Shelby County with qualified candidates, I you know, I would be remiss to think that if I could, you know, get out of it with 50% plus one. Okay. Um, so I I look at it like the primary's tomorrow and I'm already 10 points behind and I have already removed the May 19th vote date off my calendar and moved it to June June 16th, which is the the date of the runoff if there is one.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:43

And the the thing about a runoff is really scary because it's in June, everybody's out of school, everybody's going on vacations. Unless you're hardcore for a candidate, it's really hard to get people to go vote in a runoff election and show up somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:58

It's hard to get them out to begin with in a primary. Fortunately, this this ballot's got all the state offices, all the constitutional offices, so there's gonna be a huge turnout anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:08

You're gonna get that crossover.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:09

You're gonna get that crossover. And I'm hoping that they just flip that ballot over on the backside, you know, and they vote all the way down. Um the runoff is is very questionable because, like you said, it's summertime, people are on vacation, they're out of town, either they don't know there's a runoff, um, and there's a lot of door knocking involved on that. A lot of phone calls involved on that after a primary is to get make sure that people that would be more scary for me a running in a prime in a runoff. It is. Um, but hopefully, you know, you get the people that uh don't have a dog in the fight anymore will pick one side or the other to lean toward. And so that's that's always the goal is to remind people to get out and vote on the run on a run on the on the runoff date and encourage them to, you know, please find out about the two candidates that are there.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:54

Yeah. Man, that that's important. It is. I'm glad we talked about that. Okay. Uh so we're running, we're talking with Jay Welburner. He's running for district court judgeship. Jay, question most people don't know out there, how long uh is is your is this position for if you're elected and you win statutorily?

SPEAKER_03 1:34:11

If elected and win, it is uh a six-year term. Yeah. And then uh we'll be back up for re-election in six years.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:18

Right. And then under Alabama law for judges, you can't is it you can't run if you're 70 or or what you can't be elected after 70 years of age.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:31

Right. Right now I'm 50. Uh I could run three terms, be sixty-eight, and still run again for a fourth term because I would actually take the bench and be elected before I'm 70. Right. I would take the bench at 69 years of age. And then after that, I could not run for a fifth term because I would age out. Right, right. That's where I was going. So you can be 70 or older on the bench, you just can't run after your 70th birthday for another elected spot. Right, right. I knew that was important.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:02

Okay. Uh, we're talking with Jay Welburn. He he's got a lot of great of experience. Um, what would you think? You've talked about you had other jobs before you practiced law. What would be something in your background? You said you did firefighting, uh ministry, things like that that would be good and make you a good candidate for a judge in those positions.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:25

Well in all those positions, you deal with everyday real people. You're not you're not dealing with corporations, you're not dealing with big business, you're not, you're dealing with the public. You're dealing with everyday real people, families, small business owners, and things of that nature. And those are the exact people that come to district court. I mean, you're you're not gonna have um publics in district civil court. You're just not. I mean, unless it's a shoplifting case or something like that. But you're not gonna have a large civil case. These are, you know, little Miss Betsy whose heritage roads beds were dug up by the neighbor's dog and she had to pay$400 to have it replanted. Those are the people that as a firefighter, as a, you know, student ministry person, as as you know, everyday life, those are the people that I dealt with, you know, that uh I got a chance to serve. And uh so I I think that just my experience with real life helps me to see the side of people that come before the bench in district court.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:33

Yeah, I think that's really crucial. I think that's important. Okay, so we got about uh three minutes left. What do you want to share with the audience out there for people of Shelby County that are listening to talk radio that are going to go to the polls here in 83 days?

SPEAKER_03 1:36:49

Well, I think that the main important thing is that you know nobody ever goes into court and it's their best day. I mean, they when they walk through the doors of the courtroom, they're never having their best day. It's always a pretty cruddy day. And so I want when people to come in to know that justice lives there, they're gonna get a fair shake. It doesn't matter, like I said, if they've got a team of you know, 12 attorneys or whether they're representing themselves, whether they've got fifty million dollars in the bank or fifty cents in their pocket. Doesn't matter what they wear, doesn't matter what they drive, doesn't matter what part of the county they come from. Nothing's been decided until the facts are heard. You know, I'm not gonna just look at them based on where they live or what they drive or what they're wearing and make a decision. They're gonna know that when they leave that courtroom that justice truly lives inside that courtroom, that they got a fair shake, that they were treated with respect and dignity, and that they were, you know, listened to and heard. And that's that's probably the most invaluable thing that I think people want is they want to be listened to, they want to be heard, they want to make sure that they get their day in court, they get to tell their side of the story. And that's just important to me because I've been on the attorney side representing those people, and you know, have had to sit down and have them say, Well, I just don't feel like he heard what I was trying to say. I understand. And I want people to understand that they're gonna get that fair chance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:10

Hey, let me ask you real fast. I know in Shelby County they they have uh the court reporters uh uh for the judges more than they than we do here in Jefferson County. We have to pay for our own up here. Well will you have a the ability to have a court reporter for your cases, or do you know that question?

SPEAKER_03 1:38:26

I will be able to utilize one of the staff court reporters if necessary. Typically, district court's not a court of record. Um I mean, especially like they don't have court reporters for traffic dockets or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:39

Well I'm thinking about a I'm thinking about a small claims case.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:41

But but small claims, I mean, there's there is the ability to audio record, do digital recording and things of that nature. So we could do a digital recording of of the proceedings so that there is a a voice and digital, you know, audio transcript of it. Yeah. Um and if necessary, I guess we could get the court reporters to transcribe that. But uh if necessary, absolutely, you know, you're talking about a$20,000 injury case, you know, that you're gonna have some decent medical records and stuff come in. You we might utilize one of the staff court reporters to come in and actually hear the case.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:13

Yeah, that's important to know because anytime I go to district court, I try to have a a court report. Uh especially if it's a case with any real money involved. And I want to get that person on the record, get their testimony locked down if I if I know there may be an appeal. All right, folks, you got to hear from Jay Welber. He's running for district court of Shelby County New judgeship uh on the primary in May. Jay, we thank you for coming in today.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:38

Absolutely. Thank you, Joe. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:40

All right, folks, final thought for today. I'm gonna get this in. Responsibility comes before comfort. No one owes you anything, not even fairness. Control your emotions or they will destroy you. Your judgment discipline beats talent every single time. Stand your ground on the first sign of disrespect. Your word is a contract you sign with your character. Strength is built in boring, invisible moments. Walk away from anything that slowly disrespects you. Do the hard things first, especially when you don't want to. Take ownership even when it hurts your ego. Learn to solve problems without waiting for someone to guide you. Comfort and loneliness is a survival skill. Hard work is not punishment, it is training. Admit when you are wrong and fix it quickly. Do not chase people, chase standards. Learn skills that make you useful, protect your time as it is your most limited resource. Learn to stay calm when things fall apart. Choose long-term respect over short-term pleasure. Do not let fear make decisions for you. Learn to say no without guilt. Keep difficult people at distance. And yes, that even includes family members. Build a life where your actions speak louder than your words. Stop expecting people to like you. Do not run from responsibility. Have a good week. Go run this week. We got beautiful weather for runners. Gotta go. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:43

Legal logo that the quality of legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by any other lawyer.