No Stoplight - Leigha Simonton

It's often the moments that don't seem remarkable at the time that change everything. For Leigha Simonton, those moments included a move across state lines, a mock trial competition, and a mother who never stopped believing in her.

In this episode of Counsel Brew, Leigha reflects on the experiences that shaped her long before she stepped into leadership. She shares what it was like growing up in a rural Louisiana community, moving to Dallas as a teenager, discovering mock trial, and learning that success comes from adapting, asking questions, and putting in the work. Along the way, she talks about the influence of her mother, a former NASA mathematician, the mentors who helped shape her career, and the unexpected way a mock trial competition introduced her to her future husband. 

The conversation also explores building high-performing teams, mentoring younger lawyers, and why she hopes to see the legal profession place an even greater emphasis on developing its next generation of leaders. Mixed in with stories about appellate arguments, Secret Service training, and a favorite morning coffee ritual, the episode offers a thoughtful look at a career built through curiosity and a commitment to continuous learning. 

In This Episode

• Growing up in rural Louisiana and adapting to life in Dallas
• How mock trial shaped both a legal career and a lifelong partnership
• The influence of mentors, family, and the people who opened doors 
• Lessons from a career in public service, including time as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas
• Building high-performing teams and investing in the next generation of lawyers
• Balancing a demanding legal career with family life
• Secret Service driving school, appellate advocacy, and a few memorable stories from the Department of Justice
• Why curiosity and lifelong learning continue to guide her career

About Leigha Simonton

Leigha Simonton is Co-Chair of Dykema's White Collar & Government Investigations Section. Before joining Dykema, she served as the Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas after an 18-year career as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. A graduate of Yale Law School, Leigha now represents clients in complex investigations, white collar matters, commercial litigation, and regulatory matters while leading one of the Southwest's premier teams of former Department of Justice attorneys.

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Find Leigha at  https://www.linkedin.com/in/leigha-simonton-506b3a6/

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 Explicit Rating is for the occasional use of colorful language.

Transcript

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Counsel Brew (00:35)
Welcome to Counsel Brew. Today we have with us Leah Simonton. She is currently the co-chair of DICOMA's White Collar and Government Investigations Group in the Southwest here in

Dallas, Texas, she's formerly our U S attorney for the Northern district of Texas. And, we are so excited to have you here. know you had a long career there. and we can't wait to dive into, you know, hearing about your path and all those things. also know Leah from the Richardson high school theater, cause our children were in it together and we got to do a presentation to other parents and students. She did the performance side, which I was like, thank God. I

don't have

Leigha Simonton (01:13)
Hahaha

Counsel Brew (01:14)
to deal with that.

And I did the technical side, but now I have an upcoming seventh grader who wants to perform eventually. I'm like, thankfully I've seen the preview. So I know what to expect.

Leigha Simonton (01:25)
It's intense.

Counsel Brew (01:27)
Did you have to give Shireen a podium when she did the presentation? We did it on Zoom. So luckily I was had a chair. you could white knuckle

Leigha Simonton (01:31)
It was on Zoom. Yeah, which was good.

Counsel Brew (01:36)
the desk. Yeah. And nobody would be the wiser. Well, I had to learn a lot because, you know, our children, unfortunately, had a

a COVID year during their high school.

Leigha Simonton (01:46)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (01:46)
So they lost, they lost a year of high school. And so there was a lot of catching up that they had to do. So I had to learn on the fly, like, this kid needs a portfolio and he's got junior year to do it.

Leigha Simonton (02:00)
I remember this, you're like, we gotta create a portfolio. That's hard.

Counsel Brew (02:05)
That's

really hard. Yeah. So he had to do all the shows that like every single show that year, which is a lot. They put on a lot of shows and a lot of different stuff and the performers

Leigha Simonton (02:13)
Hey, Jay.

Counsel Brew (02:14)
do, they do a ton. So, and you had, you know, a starring performer. So

Leigha Simonton (02:20)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (02:20)
who went on and is still doing that. And another one right behind.

Leigha Simonton (02:23)
Yeah, my middle daughter is graduating high school this year too.

yep, she's been in the theater magnet like my older one was for performance. And she has been in so many shows this year. It's like she was an understudy for, I felt like the first three years of high school. And finally she struck it big and she's getting all those leading roles. But it's meant that she's just, I'm never available.

Like we have to get on her calendar to see her. So like

Counsel Brew (02:52)
You

Leigha Simonton (02:52)
I thought I was busy. I'm not busy. That kid is busy,

Counsel Brew (02:54)
you

Leigha Simonton (02:55)
but she was in frozen. Our high school was one of the first high schools to get the rights to frozen because for the high schools, because it was just released the high school version this summer, this last summer.

So yeah, she was Ana of Ana and Elsa that she's in her best friend.

Counsel Brew (03:10)
love Ana. It was great.

Leigha Simonton (03:12)
So it was wonderful. She was, she was really good.

Counsel Brew (03:15)
She was fantastic.

Leigha Simonton (03:16)
Thank you, I appreciate that, Shereen.

Counsel Brew (03:19)
And where's she going to college?

Leigha Simonton (03:21)
She's going to Chapman University in Orange, California, in Southern California. And she's not going to pursue it as a major like my older one is, but she is going to do it. They have some great theater groups that are extracurricular activities. And then they also have a really big deal film school. So she's probably going to get some of the little film roles for student films, because any Chapman student can do that. So that'll be really fun. Yeah.

Counsel Brew (03:46)
That's really cool. And then

she should go to law school and become an entertainment lawyer.

Leigha Simonton (03:50)
I mean, she could. Right now, all of my kids are sure they don't want to be lawyers. I think it's like anything where they just see too much of it and are like, that doesn't look appealing. Working on your computer all the time, just writing boring legal documents does not look fun. Working all the time doesn't look fun. But, you know, making money is fun and they haven't figured that out yet. And so,

Counsel Brew (04:13)
Me?

Leigha Simonton (04:13)
one day.

They might need to go to law school or grad school to actually finance their lives because right now they're largely still being financed by mom and dad. So of course the sky's the limit in terms of what they want to do, but financial realities might change that.

Counsel Brew (04:28)
That's so funny. My oldest, had no desire, which she wants to go the pre-med route. which is great. And she very well may do it because she often sets her mind to something and then she goes, it's, she's indecisive for a huge amount of time leading up to the decision. But then once she decides something, but, recently, more recently, I ended up helping her. took AP government.

Leigha Simonton (04:52)
Yes.

Counsel Brew (04:53)
And nowadays, this is not how I remember APGov, but APGov was this particular, actually, the teacher she has at her current high school, I took government from in my high school at a different high school.

Leigha Simonton (05:05)
Wow.

Counsel Brew (05:07)
So the woman knows what, I mean, she's got the years to support the knowledge that she has, but

Leigha Simonton (05:12)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (05:12)
she was like a law school class. Like when I was reading, we had to annotate cases, we had to understand how they,

applied to the amendment, had to talk about amendments, we had to talk about just federalists, anti-federal, like all the things. And so I actually really enjoyed it because I now have a different perspective after practicing 20 years, right? And I don't have to take a test on it.

Leigha Simonton (05:38)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (05:38)
And by the end of it, at first, I just thought this is terrible. This is miserable. Like this is going to, she's a math science person. you know, trying to talk about law school cases and

all the things was just, you know, even explaining the court system, Supreme Court, federal court versus state court versus county court. And she's like, why would you have all these different systems? So even just getting those basic concepts down. But by the end of it, she really liked it. She came around. She came around. And I don't know, I could see where, you know, she might pivot. Who knows? Who knows?

Leigha Simonton (06:13)
Yeah, I can see my younger two kids potentially choosing to do that one day after they sort of explore their other interests. My middle one was very proud of herself in AP government because she understood the court system better than people like me. I did the same thing. When I went to AP government, I'm like, what's that called? Appellate what? That's a weird word. And then of course I was an appellate

Counsel Brew (06:38)
Yes.

Leigha Simonton (06:39)
lawyer for 18 years.

But she was very proud because when the teacher said, we're in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, she's like, yes, I knew that we were in the Fifth Circuit because that's where my mom argues. So it was really sweet. It was really sweet. I'm like, see,

Counsel Brew (06:48)
Yeah.

Leigha Simonton (06:50)
we did help you. She's like, no, I like government because I understood it. Like, I hate AP microeconomics. I'm like, yeah, that's why I didn't take that. That's why I took the coach taught economics.

Counsel Brew (06:59)
Yeah

Leigha Simonton (07:00)
But I didn't discourage her from taking

Counsel Brew (07:02)
Next.

Leigha Simonton (07:03)
it. But it confirmed to me that, you know, none of us are really into economics in our family.

Counsel Brew (07:10)
yeah. We supposed to ask you. It's been a while since we've gotten to record an episode. I'm so sorry. Thanks for bringing me back. This whole this whole the name of our podcast has brew in it. We should start there. Normally, it's

Leigha Simonton (07:21)
Oh, I didn't bring a textbook.

Counsel Brew (07:23)
kind of like I kind of make light of it, but I actually forgot.

Leigha Simonton (07:26)
I have a coffee mug with no

coffee in it, so I'm going to sip it. That's I look like in general. Coffee.

Counsel Brew (07:30)
no, that's so sad.

Yeah, I love it. So tell us, Leah, what is your favorite brew?

Leigha Simonton (07:38)
My favorite brew is Califa Farms iced coffee, the blonde roast, and I do iced coffee every morning with

either nonfat milk or oat milk. It kind of depends on my mood and my husband makes it for me and leaves it on the counter for me every morning which is really nice. Yeah.

Counsel Brew (07:56)
Ooh,

I was gonna say, do you make it yourself or do you have to go get that somewhere? A hubby who makes it is magical. I have one of those. I know.

Leigha Simonton (08:04)
He just puts it together.

I mean, yeah, he pours it, like he opens the refrigerator and gets the plastic bottle of it out and pours it in and then mixes the milk into it. But still, that's more than I wanna do. Lately, I've been trying to do more protein, so

Counsel Brew (08:19)
Thank

Leigha Simonton (08:20)
I have protein powder that he also mixes in it. It's very nice that he does this for me.

Counsel Brew (08:25)
That is very nice. That's, I would put it below the emptying out your vomit trash can.

Leigha Simonton (08:34)
hahahahah

Counsel Brew (08:36)
If we were going to scale it. And I don't know if that part made it into this episode or not, but from my vertigo recently and all the throwing up, like my husband definitely earned some attraction points. You know, like sometimes you look at your spouse and in a particular moment or on a given day and they're doing something that's completely

I don't know, just ordinary, but it hits you just the right way where you're like, today you are a little extra attractive to me.

Leigha Simonton (09:03)
I totally understand this. Yeah.

Counsel Brew (09:06)
Now

I wasn't thinking that in the moment with the trash cans and emptying the vomit, but I did think it on reflection. I do find that pretty awesome. So I would say the making the coffee is up there. Making the coffee would be pretty good. I, we start the day off with just a regular pot of black coffee, but we try to, we try to make it like a decent roast. and I just drink it with some milk. I, the,

I used to have a protein almond milk that existed, it's my silk or something like that. We can't find it anymore. Like

Leigha Simonton (09:38)
Yes. I remember that. I had that. Yeah. I can't.

Counsel Brew (09:44)
in the last, I don't know, six months, the protein version has disappeared.

least in the Dallas area. But I have an idea of why. you do? Okay. Well, we can talk about that. so now I've just kind of gone back to my milk and my coffee, but in the afternoon, I really enjoy like a very nice.

latte and Todd makes it for me. that's

Leigha Simonton (10:02)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (10:04)
so nice. Which is really nice. And usually I'm in the middle of like a, you know, team's call or something like that. that- it just appears? Yes. What? No.

Leigha Simonton (10:13)
That's really nice.

Counsel Brew (10:15)
It's so lovely. So, like I said, it's on the list. Every time I'm like, want

Leigha Simonton (10:21)
Hahaha

Counsel Brew (10:21)
lattes magically appearing while I'm on conference calls. I know. Where did my protein go? My protein milk? What were you gonna say?

are you gonna make fun of me? it's not your environment? no, it's not you. like,

Leigha Simonton (10:29)
I bet it's the Warriors, something with the bad Warriors.

Counsel Brew (10:32)
what's g- i was gonna be like, tariffs.

Leigha Simonton (10:34)
No, it's tariffs.

I was thinking it's some sort of weird litigation with it, possibly, but you're right, it could be tariffs too.

Counsel Brew (10:41)
Or like what's going on with like all the stuff? don't know. It's probably too expensive. Who knows? It's probably because you need like 10,000 almonds to make one carton of almond milk and then add the protein in it. I don't know. But I did try, like I don't have just one coffee shop I go to. you know, I'll go to any coffee shop.

but Starbucks,

created these new drinks with protein ones. Yeah, and I put off trying it because I just thought do I really need to pay $8 for a grande iced coffee because it has protein in it. But I tried it. was like the other day because I thought I need to see what it's all about. It was actually really good.

Leigha Simonton (11:25)
That's really good to know because I've seen them and I haven't tried them either. That's really good.

Counsel Brew (11:29)
Yeah, I mean, it was one of two things, right? It was either they've done such a good job and it tastes the same regardless, right? And you get the little extra boost of protein, which is so hard to get, especially as we're getting older, or they forgot to put it in.

Leigha Simonton (11:50)
You'll never know! You'll never

Counsel Brew (11:51)
And I don't know what it is.

Leigha Simonton (11:52)
know!

Counsel Brew (11:53)
I'll never know.

You know, so I need to do it again. Just like, yeah, I have a rule of three, like, you know, I give everything sort of three tries, even if it's shitty, I'll give it three tries usually. It has to be really bad for me to not give something a second chance. That's hilarious. Because you shut me down when I was going to try the Dr. Pepper one again.

because I forgot that I had it. No, that's just great. There's not even you don't even need to

Leigha Simonton (12:16)
Wait, is there a protein Dr. Pepper? Or is it

one of those flavored Dr. Peppers?

Counsel Brew (12:21)
No, Dr. Pepper coffee. What? Yeah, it's at it's at civil poor. It's like it's like espresso.

Leigha Simonton (12:26)
Wait, what?

Counsel Brew (12:28)
Yeah, it's like an espresso with Dr. Pepper. yeah, it's

Leigha Simonton (12:30)
I have never heard of this. gonna, well, I live next to Sybil Pour. I'm gonna have to go there.

Counsel Brew (12:35)
right there. So I don't try it. I apparently tried it, but I forgot. And it was like you tried it and it was you thought it was awful. It

Leigha Simonton (12:45)
okay.

Counsel Brew (12:45)
wasn't traumatic enough because I remember.

I just was like, I remember and it was awful. And now you're actually contemplating ordering again. Again. So you can be equally disappointed and disgusted.

Leigha Simonton (13:00)
Well, my kids would think it would be a novelty, so I'll get one and then I'll pass around to them too and then we'll just,

Counsel Brew (13:05)
Yeah.

Leigha Simonton (13:06)
we'll collect our opinions on it let you know, so.

Counsel Brew (13:09)
I do like Dr. Pepper, like once in a blue moon.

Leigha Simonton (13:13)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (13:13)
Well, I don't really drink soda anymore. I don't drink soda anymore anyway. But like once a year, like a good Dr. Pepper. Ooh, and a cherry Dr. Pepper. No. So good.

Leigha Simonton (13:22)
That's my favorite cherry. My favorite soft

drink is a Coke Zero cherry flavored. That's my favorite. Yes. Yes. One

Counsel Brew (13:31)
I've never tried that. Okay. That's good.

Leigha Simonton (13:35)
of my big demands when I came here was, you please stock the cherry version of Coke Zero and not just the regular version? And we have such an amazing office manager. She's like, of course. So it's very exciting.

Counsel Brew (13:47)
We're so.

Leigha Simonton (13:47)
I think I'm the only one who drinks them, but it's nice to have them in the refrigerator here.

Counsel Brew (13:52)
That's good, then it stretches out and you never have to worry about taking the last one.

Leigha Simonton (13:56)
That's right. Yep. Everyone else can have the plain Coke Zero, which is also good, but you know, I have the one. I feel like the cherry flavor makes it taste not so like diet. Yeah.

Counsel Brew (14:06)
Zero-y.

Leigha Simonton (14:07)
Not so zero-y. That's a good, that's a good word. Should trademark that word. Yeah.

I like it.

Counsel Brew (14:14)
Zero-y. Zero-y. I

know it's whenever I explain to someone like the basis of counsel brew, like its ultimate premise, is we just talk about people's paths to badassery. I would say nine out of 10 times I have to repeat the word badassery because the person can't process what I just said to them. They're like, wait, what? Like, you know.

Leigha Simonton (14:39)
I know

that word. I'm sure I've used that word. I think I've even used something

Counsel Brew (14:42)
Nah.

Leigha Simonton (14:43)
like that word on LinkedIn. I love that. That's so great.

Counsel Brew (14:46)
Yeah, that's like my elevator pitch. Like we talk about people's paths to badassery and then I always have to repeat badassery and then their face lights up once it's registered.

Leigha Simonton (14:56)
Ha ha ha ha!

Counsel Brew (14:57)
Right. really? Can not because I think they're expecting something about the law and we're like, no, not that.

Leigha Simonton (15:02)
yeah, yeah. We'll that all

day.

Counsel Brew (15:07)
Right. day. I don't want to listen to it

Leigha Simonton (15:09)
I don't know.

Counsel Brew (15:10)
also if I don't have to. But I think that'll take us on a little tour. I know, Leah, you grew up here and but I don't know that. you didn't stay. Well, she came back.

Leigha Simonton (15:26)
Ha

Counsel Brew (15:26)
came back. Took off and came back. I only say that because I'm envious because I tried to escape a few times and never fully escaped.

And you did, you not only for, you went for undergrad, for law school, job, but

Leigha Simonton (15:41)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (15:42)
you clerked here, right? But then you.

Leigha Simonton (15:44)
I did, well,

you know, I actually, this is not like an obvious thing about me, but I grew up in rural Louisiana until I was 14. So a very

Counsel Brew (15:56)
Okay.

Leigha Simonton (15:57)
tiny town.

It had about a thousand people. was, actually an unincorporated community. So it doesn't really have like a, a town structure. We didn't have a stoplight. We were basically a collection of farmers and people who are kind of adjacent to farming community and like teachers and post office workers and stuff. And we live the little towns called Monterey, like Monterey, Mexico, but without the second R. And it,

is on the banks of the Mississippi River. There's a big levee, but I would go there also. I kind of grew up on the Mississippi River, and it was this flat farmland. And my mother's side of the family had been there for, I don't know, like 100 years or something. My dad was from Texas, not south, but Houston area, small town near Houston.

Counsel Brew (16:49)
no.

Leigha Simonton (16:51)
So...

My mom, just to brag on her for a little bit, she passed away last summer, but she was a total math and science person, which I am not. so she went to college at what's now University of Louisiana, Monroe. And then she got a math degree. And then she was hired by NASA in the 60s to go work at one of their Houston facilities.

to study mathematical things like rocket trajectory. I can't even say it, trajectories. She wrote a manual. She's one of the writers of a manual and I have it. And my plan is to put some of the pictures from it up in one of my bathrooms. So I have it and I'm gonna do that. that was really cool and I really didn't appreciate that when I was a kid. It was only growing up. eventually, they hired a lot of people in the 60s because of the space race. And so once that calmed down,

you know, she was laid off. It was very traumatic for her. So they, my mom and dad decided to move back to this little town she had come from.

Counsel Brew (17:55)
Thanks.

Leigha Simonton (17:57)
And so I grew up around her entire side of the family. Eventually my dad's parents moved there from Texas there. So that's where I grew up and it was very small school, tiny, all the grades were on one little campus. But then my mom had dreams of doing some other sort of

big career and moved first to Baton Rouge, then to Dallas. And so that's when I moved to Dallas as a ninth grader, which is the best time to move is when you

Counsel Brew (18:24)
Right.

Leigha Simonton (18:25)
a whole new state and new education, far harder educational system when you're 14. So.

Counsel Brew (18:32)
That's true. What high school were you at here? Falkner. Okay.

Leigha Simonton (18:34)
Berkner in Richardson. Yeah, I'm pretty loyal to

RISD because my husband

Counsel Brew (18:40)
Yeah.

Leigha Simonton (18:41)
went there too. My sister-in-law went there. We all went to Berkner. My sister-in-law taught in Berkner schools forever. She's now in Wiley, but so that's where our kids go to school.

Counsel Brew (18:52)
That's amazing.

Leigha Simonton (18:53)
Thanks.

Counsel Brew (18:55)
and really cool about your mom.

Leigha Simonton (18:58)
Yeah,

it was really cool. mean, the more I get older, the more I really appreciate a lot of things about my mom. mean, there were a lot of hard things about her as my mom, she was so smart. And she gave me the call. I was my parents' only child because they had a pretty tumultuous relationship.

I was their focus and I think I just never, I always was confident in what I was doing because basically my mom was like, I'm smart, you're smart, you you should be doing great things. And I didn't know how, but I kind of figured it out. It wasn't like she just took me to look at all these great things, but I figured out that path. I think having her as a mom, seeing her work throughout my life.

and accomplish a lot of things was one of the reasons that made me kind of have the ambitions that I did.

Counsel Brew (19:55)
She set you on your path to badassery. Yeah. That's so cool.

Leigha Simonton (19:58)
Yeah, she did.

Counsel Brew (20:01)
It's kind of a bummer that, you know, with everything that just happened recently with NASA and

Leigha Simonton (20:08)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (20:09)
around the moon and, you know,

Leigha Simonton (20:11)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (20:12)
that's it's kind of come full circle and really amazing to see us back now focused on that. then to know that your mom was part of it. Yeah.

Leigha Simonton (20:19)
It is. No, she would have been fascinated. She would have loved it.

There was one time I was much younger and I had read, I love reading about weird things, like any kind of weird thing. And so that latest weird thing was like the conspiracy theory that no one actually has ever gone, has ever touched, that the moon landing was fake. And I just ran it by the end of the day. Yeah, exactly. It was all staged. So.

Counsel Brew (20:41)
Yeah, the fly-dryer thing.

Leigha Simonton (20:46)
I asked my mom, I'm like, have you heard of this theory, like, that it was staged? And what do you think about that? And she looked at me like I was crazy. So I'm like, okay, well, someone who worked at NASA certainly doesn't think that it was staged and that she thinks it really happened. So that's really good to know.

Counsel Brew (21:01)
She's like, honey, have you read my manual I wrote?

Leigha Simonton (21:03)
Yeah, exactly. I wrote a whole

manual about this. know, I was like, okay,

Counsel Brew (21:06)
No

Leigha Simonton (21:07)
yeah. So I was like, yeah. I thought it was just a conspiracy theory that was baseless, but it's good to have confirmation from someone who worked at NASA during that time.

Counsel Brew (21:19)
So you really transitioned from like rural to the big city. I mean, I know we're not New York, but Dallas is a pretty big city

Leigha Simonton (21:27)
No, huge.

Counsel Brew (21:30)
for like this part of the United States and all the communities around it. we're not a farming community. like even just coming from a rural farming community too. But a lot of people come here.

from those communities. Like

Leigha Simonton (21:41)
in her.

Counsel Brew (21:42)
this is the big city. I they travel hours to get here. I'm agreeing with you. what was, I mean, that must've been a big transition. Do you remember anything specifically that was just like, wow, that's how the kids in Dallas go do it?

Leigha Simonton (21:58)
Yeah,

two things. Two, one was my accent.

So people always remark on, don't really have an accent or I can't really tell where your accent comes from. It doesn't really sound like what I would think a Texas accent would sound like. then when they hear I'm from rural Louisiana originally, they're like, you don't have a deep Southern accent.

Counsel Brew (22:15)
You're missing that too.

Leigha Simonton (22:17)
Yeah. And so I would say, I would explain, did when I, well, for one thing, I don't keep accents. I'm not one of those people who just like something in my brain, I don't keep an accent, but it was hastened somewhat, like not having an accent by the,

you

Now they would call it bullying, but it was actually just really good natured, you know, just sort of like poking at me. But in one of my classes, we sat at a table, was like art class in ninth grade. And these kids who sat at my table were fascinated with my accent because it was so thick. And I always give an example of I would put an R in washing, so was washing. Like I would say,

Counsel Brew (22:58)
Yeah.

Leigha Simonton (22:59)
washing my clothes or something like that. And they were like,

what did you say? And I'm like, wow, I do have an accent. For just from being around the kids in high, somewhere in high school, I lost it. And so that was pretty funny. I mean, so yeah, I talked very differently. And the second thing was I had never been in a two story school before. So even though the junior high started out, because in ninth grade was in a junior high building at that time, it was just a square.

It was a square that was two floors. I got so lost the first day trying to find one of my classes. And I'm like, where, this is a maze. And it was just a square. But I really wasn't used to like that big of a school. So I acclimated. That first semester was hard. I also was not used to turning in all my assignments. I mean.

It was a really small school and we didn't have honors classes in Louisiana. We didn't have most fine arts programs. It was very poor. Yes, it was. And so

Counsel Brew (24:04)
We just had the local schoolhouse. Yeah.

Leigha Simonton (24:07)
I go and it's like, I'd always done well in that school, but it wasn't, there were not like super high requirements for things like turning in work. And so I started making terrible grades. I made terrible grades my first semester.

at Apollo Junior High in Richardson, Texas, because I just really didn't know how to be a good student. And I learned just from the school of hard knocks, just from making bad grades and figuring out, okay, I have to do this differently. And then that actually, so what I tell people, when some people ask, were you valedictorian in your high school class or something? I said, no, I wasn't in the top 10 % of my high school class, because I didn't know what I was doing until probably at least my sophomore year. And I wasn't in any advanced.

I had to jump into advanced classes and that's what gives you the point boost to like sort of more my junior

Counsel Brew (25:00)
Yeah, yeah.

Leigha Simonton (25:01)
and senior year. But that is one reason why I was so successful at University of Texas where I went for college is because I told myself when I graduated high school, I know I can do better and I'm going to do better. I am going to do like I'm going to kill it in college. And I just wanted to prove myself

Counsel Brew (25:20)
Well,

Leigha Simonton (25:20)
that I could. So.

Counsel Brew (25:22)
yeah, and you did. And then you went on to Yale for law school. I feel like you've done okay. Yeah.

Leigha Simonton (25:27)
Thank you.

Counsel Brew (25:29)
I mean,

I feel like you figured it out.

Leigha Simonton (25:32)
I didn't have like fun in college really. mean that's the whole, you know, sacrifice is I was so focused on school and I had one real extracurricular activity and it was time intensive. It was mock trial. I was on the UT's mock trial team but other than those, than that, I studied and I studied and I studied. So I didn't even know what Greek life was. I didn't know what a sorority was so I certainly never went down that road because I didn't even understand what that was.

And yeah, so I always like to say my husband who went to Notre Dame and was also a great student, but he had much more fun at Notre Dame than I had at UT.

Counsel Brew (26:11)
Well, it's probably a great balance as you're ushering your children from helping

Leigha Simonton (26:16)
Yes.

Counsel Brew (26:17)
them transition from high school into college to understand what to look for and find hopefully a good balance, whatever that looks like for them. So

Leigha Simonton (26:26)
Yes.

Counsel Brew (26:27)
did your oldest decide to pledge?

Leigha Simonton (26:30)
No, my oldest

did not, she thought about it and I was like, whatever you wanna do, we're happy to do. One of the good things about both the universities my daughters are going to is they don't have high fees for Greek life. They're very, very nominal. It's not the kind of fees that I've heard about at certain other schools and so it's more just kind of like a fee to join a club, right? It's a few hundred dollars, that's fine.

Counsel Brew (26:56)
Yeah, it's

not Bama Rush.

Leigha Simonton (26:57)
It's not Bama Rush in any way. So I said, of course you can join if you want, whatever you, I mean, this is your college experience and if you want to, to make friends and whatever you can, but she decided on her own. She got into improv and she's just really tight with her theater majors, fellow theater majors. So that's her friend group. My middle one is going to, is going to rush, but she, that college does not allow you to rush until spring of your freshman year.

Counsel Brew (27:24)
That's so nice. That

is much better. That is not the case for my daughter. It's fine. We'll be fine. It'll be okay. It'll be okay.

Leigha Simonton (27:31)
You'll be fine.

Yeah. And I think I really, I don't know how sororities used to operate, but I feel like they're a lot more mainstream now. I just think they're a lot more, I mean, I feel like back when, when I was in college, so maybe you guys had the same experience, maybe not. I felt like if your mom was in one and then you knew about one and that's how you get the letter of recommendation and all of that. Well, that was totally outside my world. I didn't even realize what Russ was. I saw a girl from my high school.

all dressed up, walking down the drag by UT and with other girls. And I'm like, what are they doing? And then I figured out, she's doing like a pledge thing. She's rushing.

Counsel Brew (28:11)
Yeah.

Leigha Simonton (28:11)
I didn't know the first thing, but now I can see how it can be really beneficial because you make all of these

Counsel Brew (28:17)
Yeah.

Leigha Simonton (28:18)
friends. mean, you know, if you want to look at it like sort of as like a, you know, in sort of a cold way, I mean, it's like, you know, you make all these.

potential networking connections for later, but honestly, it's just, I think you just make a lot of friends that you have sometimes for a really long time. And so I just hope my kids are in some organization like that when they're in college.

Counsel Brew (28:39)
Yeah, they find their tribe. Shireen's whole

college was a sorority, so she didn't need to join a sorority. So

Leigha Simonton (28:44)
hahahahah

Counsel Brew (28:46)
we didn't have any Greek. Yeah. It is the sorority. Yeah. Well, it's a Quaker school, so they didn't have any Greek life.

Leigha Simonton (28:53)
that's awesome.

Counsel Brew (28:54)
And then, but I grew up in Lubbock and I grew up down the street from Greek circle. So

Leigha Simonton (29:00)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (29:00)
we saw, but I felt like, I thought Rush was in the spring back then. don't.

For me, it was in the spring. It's not now. They changed it at my SMU. when I went to go fill out my application, because my parents were both immigrants. So obviously they had not been part of the Greek line. No

Leigha Simonton (29:18)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (29:19)
clue. And when I went to go fill out my application, asked if I had any Greek affiliation. This is just my college application. And

I asked my and I'm half Lebanese. So I asked my dad, said, is there do we have any

Leigha Simonton (29:34)
Bye.

Counsel Brew (29:34)
Greek in our family? And he goes, are they asking you that on your app? Yes,

Leigha Simonton (29:38)
That's amazing.

Counsel Brew (29:40)
I read them. I read them the question. And he goes, Oh, no, no, honey, that's like Greek life sororities and fraternities. And I said, Oh, okay.

Leigha Simonton (29:48)
you

Counsel Brew (29:50)
So do I put no? He said, Yes, you can put no. But if you want to go through the process, you can totally do that. And that'll be separate. And we will figure that out.

And I said,

Leigha Simonton (29:59)
That's a great story.

Counsel Brew (30:03)
You're like, am I Greek? that? Well, if you go back, I mean, if we go back enough centuries, you can trace my family to the Queen of Sheba. Yeah, so I know we have some Greek, you know,

Leigha Simonton (30:13)
Wow.

Counsel Brew (30:16)
I just didn't know if that counted as putting a yes or no. Was that sufficient?

Should I list her? I name drop her? know, was hanging out with Cleo and Mark anyway.

Leigha Simonton (30:27)
That's my group affiliation.

Counsel Brew (30:30)
Anyways, my dad handled it so graciously. Like that's not the question. Right. That's hilarious. I did end up pledging, but I just I just vividly remember that conversation. It was really funny.

Leigha Simonton (30:44)
That is all.

Counsel Brew (30:44)
I did. I did have a question. So you you mentioned that you did mock trial in undergrad. So like when did the

When did the law school bug? Did you do any of that in high school or did you just find yourself more in the reading and writing and saw that as the path?

Leigha Simonton (31:00)
So, I mean honestly, and this is the funny thing and it sounds really nerdy, but this is actually kind of the story of how my husband Dave and I got together,

So Berkner at that time had a really, really amazing mock trial team. We had an amazing coach who was at Carrington Coleman, this really old Dallas law firm. And we had an amazing government teacher who was our educational sponsor. Maria Martin, hey, hey, Miss Martin. Now she's Maria Arena,

Counsel Brew (31:29)
Yeah.

Leigha Simonton (31:30)
but I still keep in touch with her. I...

I don't know, I always had this urge to do something where I was speaking and I thought it was a fun challenge and I wasn't a natural speaker. I was not a naturally comfortable speaker and I tried out my sophomore year and I didn't make it. And the funny thing about it is if I had made it, I would have been on the team with my husband, my future husband. Yep.

Counsel Brew (31:54)
fun.

Leigha Simonton (31:55)
We went to Bertner

for one year overlapping, but we did not know each other in high school because we

Counsel Brew (31:58)
you

Leigha Simonton (31:59)
were on the mock trial team together. So then I tried out again my senior year, I was much better and I did get on. so I did that in high school and then that was so fun. And that sealed the deal for me that I loved the intellectual aspect of it. I loved the crafting, the narratives for the opening or the closing. And I loved writing the direct and cross examinations. And I loved the strategy.

But I also love the courtroom aspect. love not just the idea of not just having a job where I would just be, you know, just kind of behind the scenes, which a lot of people love. A lot of people are like, I would never want to kind of be out front arguing in case. I'm sure you guys get that a lot too. But for me, I just thought it was really exciting. So when I got to UT, there were some people who had been in Berkner Mock Trial who were now leading the UT Mock Trial team. Yep.

Counsel Brew (32:50)
that's

it's who you know, you just never know.

Leigha Simonton (32:52)
Yeah.

And so I tried out my freshman year and I made it. And the captain of the team, Jamal Al-Safar, I'm giving him a shout out because he is one of the most well-known trial lawyers, I think in the United States at this point. And his wife, Higginbotham is the same. They're both really well-known. They're in Austin. They've done some incredibly high profile trials, but he was president of our mock trial association. So he always was helping coach us and direct us.

And he would refer to this friend at Notre Dame who was doing mock trial up there. And he would say his name. And I'm like, okay, I've heard that name in high school because I did know his sister a little bit. I knew Dave's sister a little bit. And I knew that Dave had been in Berkner Mock Trial. So when we made it to nationals and then the Notre Dame team made it to nationals in romantic Des Moines, Iowa, where the nationals used to

Counsel Brew (33:44)
Mmm!

Leigha Simonton (33:45)
be every year in...

Basically, it was almost still winter. was like in mid-March, it was around spring break and it was still very cold and snowy and icy up there sometimes. So we were in the downtown Marriott and I was sad because I hadn't been dating anyone in like a year. I was kind of a serial monogamist, but I had had like a year break since my last boyfriend. And my friend said, who's on the team with me, she said, well, who are you interested in? And I had said, well, I met this guy, David Horan.

I actually met him back at Berkner. We were both doing this program where we talked to high school seniors about what college is like during the winter break of that year. When I was a sophomore, he was a senior in college. And I said, he was pretty cute. You know, he seemed smart. And so she said, let's call his room because no one had cell phones back then. And we call his room and

Counsel Brew (34:35)
Yeah.

Leigha Simonton (34:36)
they just laugh and they say, Dave, no, he's in the bar. I mean, he was 21. So he was in the hotel bar with his friends.

I was not 21. I was a good girl. didn't have a fake ID or anything. So my friend said, let's just go sit in the lobby because the bar. Exactly. And he, and

Counsel Brew (34:52)
Wait for him to walk out. Yeah, why not?

Leigha Simonton (34:55)
it worked. And so we,

yes, yes. He, he walked. I don't even know how to do it. Yeah.

Counsel Brew (35:00)
These are old school tactics. Yeah, just in case. tech dies, when

tech dies or explodes or AI,

Leigha Simonton (35:07)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (35:09)
you also, yeah, well, it's really the right word you have. Yeah, there are techniques pre technology that worked and worked well.

Leigha Simonton (35:18)
I mean, yeah,

I mean, what you write notes to them, you call them on your house phone and you talk to their mom and ask for them. You stalk them, you know, do that sort of thing. So, yeah, so I kind of was just laying in wait in the lobby and he came out and he, we started talking and then we talked for four hours that night. And that he had already planned to move to Austin after he graduated to live with this friend that I knew.

Jamal and this other good friend of theirs, Brian. And so it just worked out that he took a gap year before law school during my senior year What was the senior year? Yeah, no, junior year And then my senior year I graduated and got married to him. We lived in Chicago for a really little while because his first year was at University of Chicago Law School. So I graduated in December. We were in Chicago that year. And I only applied.

because he already had picked where he wanted to go to school even before his gap year. was University of Chicago. I was only applying to four schools. one was UT, because at that time, frankly, was lot easier to get in.

Counsel Brew (36:24)
Yeah, I that's.

Leigha Simonton (36:25)
also, yeah, so was like my safety. And I knew I could get in there. And if I didn't get into any Chicago schools, I would just defer admission until we could move there after he finished. Then I applied to the University of Chicago where he was going. I applied to Northwest.

Counsel Brew (36:40)
Where fun goes to die.

Leigha Simonton (36:42)
Yeah, well,

exactly. And that is one reason we transferred. So that's one reason he transferred. well, and the fourth school, I asked him, is there any school you would just for fun? Is there any school you would transfer to out of Chicago? And he'd gotten into major other really impressive schools, but he had gotten waitlisted at Yale. And he said, you know, I think I might want to be a law professor one day. So

I mean, if you got into Yale, yeah, I would just try to transfer. And I'm like, well, challenge accepted. And so

Counsel Brew (37:13)
No.

Leigha Simonton (37:14)
I applied there as like a random application. And I actually think I heard from Yale even sooner than I heard from Chicago, which was really funny. But we ended up getting the choose between the two and.

I

saw how hard he was working. I saw what that first year was like. And they have grades that are really exact. I mean, they have a scoring system that stops at, think, 89. I think the highest score you can get, which like no one ever gets like an 89. So their grading system is unusual. I was like, Yale says the first semester's pass fail. And after that, they give honors. What is it? No, high pass, pass, and fail, I think are the three grades.

Counsel Brew (37:55)
Yeah, like

a hardcore liberal arts And to be clear for anybody listening, I did not come up with the motto, where fun goes to die, for the University of That is actually their like,

Leigha Simonton (38:03)
No, no, I believe you. Yep.

Counsel Brew (38:07)
unofficial motto. I know because I've visited the campus and had some alum who have told me who are very proud of their motto. well.

Leigha Simonton (38:19)
Yeah, like I have friends who went there for undergrad and I mean, they basically said getting into some sort of club or or or Greek life was how they made it and made it enjoyable. But yeah, mean, people there are so studious and it carries over to the law school. And I just thought, I don't know, I just kind of I think, you know, I work so hard in college and I was going to work hard in law school. You always work hard in law school. But it's like I just.

I felt like, you know, it's hard to start off our marriage if we're just got our noses in books the whole time and if we're just so stressed about grades and that really did take pressure off. It did take pressure off to go to a school

Counsel Brew (38:56)
Yeah.

Leigha Simonton (38:57)
that did not. Yeah.

Counsel Brew (38:59)
feel like any school

that you have to like, takes a while to say the full name is also kind of a turnoff. Like, SMU, Yale. Like it's just, UT. it's much easier than your high school.

Leigha Simonton (39:10)
Yale Harvard Stanford, University of Chicago.

Counsel Brew (39:13)
University of Chicago Law School. it's, you know what I mean?

Leigha Simonton (39:18)
And to anyone else, it's a great law school. It's amazing. People were so confused

Counsel Brew (39:21)
enough

Leigha Simonton (39:21)
why he was transferring to Yale because they're basically equivalent in so many ways. They're small, you know, it's a very intimate atmosphere, but.

Counsel Brew (39:29)
It was like I'm going for a woman. Who

I'm later going to make coffee for in my lifetime that I don't know yet, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Leigha Simonton (39:39)
Yeah, exactly.

He was very happy. He was like, whatever, whatever works. But he had a good time. He bonded with the other transfer students. So he ended up having a really good group of people that were his friends and therefore my friends. And then he knew my friends from my small group in law school and we're so close with some of them today. So it ended up being a really good experience. And then he was able to clerk for a district judge who was really close to New Haven where Yale is.

during my third year of law school since he was a year ahead of me. And it just all worked out so well.

Counsel Brew (40:10)
And does he still practice now? Oh, yeah.

Leigha Simonton (40:13)
Yes, he is

a magistrate judge in the federal building here, but he is, so his name is David Horan. He's a magistrate judge, but he will be leaving, stepping down from the bench, retiring is what we call it in January to, as he likes to say, mediate, teach, and write, because he's already written a legal

Counsel Brew (40:34)
no.

Leigha Simonton (40:35)
writing book and he's going to do more of that. But also he's well known for his discovery opinions and for understanding the landscape of.

discovery of the

Counsel Brew (40:43)
Mmm.

Leigha Simonton (40:44)
civil rules. And so he's going to.

Counsel Brew (40:46)
I was going to say, is he going to write something that the majority of the population is going to read or is he going to write something that's so highly specialized that only a select few will actually pick it up?

Leigha Simonton (40:57)
I

think this, you know, he'll write more legal writing that'll be kind of for everyone who people can use in law school, but as a resource in law school. I think he's going to write a discovery book that is such that in any law school class that teaches, you know, discovery under the federal rules or any law firm associate level person will probably want it. Yeah. Yeah.

Counsel Brew (41:21)
mean.

It's gonna be like Dorsonio, but it'll be alright. So I have a funny story.

Leigha Simonton (41:25)
That's what I'm hoping.

Counsel Brew (41:26)
Go for it. About the bench. So we were neighbors before in Lake Highlands. And we ended up having the same trainer. She had a little gym in her house.

Leigha Simonton (41:38)
Yes! my gosh!

Counsel Brew (41:40)
And so he got appointed to the bench. And I know we had run into each other like we

to teacher nights or something, our kids are like very close in age. They're not the same grade, but around the same grade. So anyway, so I go to the gym one morning and I tell them that I got appointed to the municipal.

bench and they're like, Oh my God, there's another judge here. And I'm like, he's like a real judge.

Leigha Simonton (42:02)
No.

Counsel Brew (42:04)
And I'm

Leigha Simonton (42:05)
you

Counsel Brew (42:06)
over here in city court. Yes, yes, we are the same. It was just so funny. was like, Oh, because I thought we were in the same building. was like, no, it's a little bit different. It's like going back to AP government where there's different levels of people's court, traffic tickets, and he's, you know, dealing with

major discovery issues. do take credit for Shereen actually becoming a judge, just so we're clear. I don't know if I've ever shared that or not. If I have, I apologize.

Leigha Simonton (42:38)
What did it happen?

Counsel Brew (42:40)
Yeah, because I was on the fence. was working for... And I am going to ask you this because I think you were in private practice for a little bit before you went to the AUSA's office. Was that also federal practice or did you get to hang out in the wild?

Wild West as I call state court in below.

Leigha Simonton (42:59)
So I did mostly federal court. I think it's because that was kind of defaulted as my specialty since I'd done the two federal clerkships.

Counsel Brew (43:09)
She

would just come from Yale. So it's a little bit just automatically adds prestige to your life. I know. some of I mean trial lawyers, some of them do both. Oh,

Leigha Simonton (43:19)
yeah.

Counsel Brew (43:19)
I know. I'm just saying like if you're going to pick federal like if you're going to pick a court, federal court is definitely has a level of prestige that comes with it just because of the pomp and circumstance and the structure. Well, and they follow the rules. They have rules to follow.

Leigha Simonton (43:31)
And they follow the rules. and they're simpler

rules. mean, Texas has a lot of

Counsel Brew (43:36)
Well the state court has rules, they just don't follow them.

Leigha Simonton (43:38)
rules, Texas. And we, you know, one of the disadvantages of going to a school that is not in the state you're going to practice in is that you don't learn those rules. So, yeah, you

Counsel Brew (43:49)
The local, yeah.

Leigha Simonton (43:50)
learn federal rules. And so I just had a much bigger knowledge base of the federal rule

Counsel Brew (43:57)
Uh-huh.

Leigha Simonton (43:57)
by that point. So.

Most of the stuff was federal. I did work on a really great Texas intermediate appellate matter. And that's really where I started honing my appellate lawyer skills. So I did do that and I still do that. I work on state and federal trial and appellate matters. But I definitely always partner with someone who has worked their whole career in state court when I'm in state court.

Counsel Brew (44:26)
Okay, so I do have a couple of questions that I want to make sure we cover. Okay. Okay. So one is, please don't be offended or leave the conversation when I ask this.

Leigha Simonton (44:38)
I,

it's really impossible to offend me, I will say.

Counsel Brew (44:42)
Okay.

So appellate lawyers, I have so much respect for, and I did appellate court and like did all those things. Obviously not my practice focus, but I have worked with several of them as in-house counsel, hiring them, right? And every single one I've come across have their own little like prep quirks that they do leading up to oral argument. So I'm just curious, do you have like a couple of tells or?

things that you are like, if I'm preparing for this next brief and I need to go actually speak in court and argue, like, do you have anything like that that's of interest, willing to share?

Leigha Simonton (45:24)
I

mean, yeah, not so much excite. So when I first started arguing cases and New Orleans is where I usually went for the circuit, my kids were really little and I would relish and I had a hotel room in a nice hotel and I didn't have to put anyone to bed. So I like was always happy unless I was like at the end of a pregnancy or something and I couldn't travel. Like I was always happy to go to New Orleans because it's like.

You don't even have to feel guilty about it because you're gone for about 24 hours, but

Counsel Brew (45:57)
Right.

Leigha Simonton (45:58)
I did. And so I would go and I would take a hot shower, put on the hotel bathrobe, put on junk reality TV, like back

Counsel Brew (46:08)
You

Leigha Simonton (46:08)
when Survivor was on or something like that. I typically work a lot with mindless TV in the background.

but I kinda need to have some background noise like that, but I would just actually just watch the television. I will have prepped a lot in the days ahead and I kinda needed that mental break. Then I would start, then I'd open my binder and I always prepare my oral argument binder the same way, same structure, same things. And then I would go through it until probably about 11 p.m. and then I wanted to get a good night's sleep, but it was always hard, I was really nervous.

And then I would walk to the courthouse, I would leave at eight, I would usually stop at this one place and get just orange juice or something, because I couldn't really eat before the oral argument. Well, no,

I have friends who are just like that. One just really can't eat, or the only thing she can eat is sushi. I would... No, no, I know. It sounds

Counsel Brew (46:56)
my god. Is she? That sounds terrible.

Leigha Simonton (47:00)
weird. Yeah, shout out to Gail, sushi. I'm gonna, she's gonna laugh when she hears this, but yeah,

Counsel Brew (47:03)
Yeah.

Leigha Simonton (47:05)
I don't know, but it worked for...

Counsel Brew (47:07)
Tell

her mine was a half of an emodium. Is it like the night before? Because then I could understand because it seems like light and that it would be digested by morning. Unless you're shitting your brains out because you just ate bad sushi. Yeah, but they're in

Leigha Simonton (47:18)
Hahaha

Counsel Brew (47:18)
New Orleans. There's no bad food in New Orleans. Hello? What are you talking about? That is not true. There is a lot of good food, but there is also stuff I would never touch in New Orleans. OK, but they're closer to the coast. They are closer to the coast. That's true.

Leigha Simonton (47:35)
Yeah, after the argument,

I would always go to Mother's because there's no line if you go in the morning, it's usually just around lunchtime and I would get some variation of like one of their breakfast plates that had one of their like meats on it and the grits. I love grits. That's a Louisiana thing that I really loved from my childhood. So it was always a good time. And I would also, I'd also most of the time stay in or near the French Quarter and I would always walk around the French Quarter that night or the next morning.

because I just think it's so different from the rest of the United States.

Counsel Brew (48:07)
It's

so interesting. So I was there in February and I was there the weekend after Mardi Gras But we were walking through the French Quarter and unintentionally found ourselves in a wedding parade.

Leigha Simonton (48:25)
How fun!

Counsel Brew (48:26)
Yeah, and we were the tail end of the wedding parade. I mean, we weren't the end, but we were close to the end.

not enough to not be part of the parade. Do you know what mean? You were like you were in it. And I was like, I turned to my daughter at one point and I said, I just just I just want to make sure in this moment you recognize we are actually in someone else's wedding parade. So like, let's just

Leigha Simonton (48:47)
Hahaha!

Counsel Brew (48:48)
enjoy this moment and dance it up with them. And we did. That's fun.

Leigha Simonton (48:52)
that's wonderful.

Counsel Brew (48:54)
Yeah. OK, so I wanted to ask you the quirkiness. I love that. OK, then I wanted to make sure that I mean, being a U.S. attorney,

is like we could do a whole thing on that. but to Shreen's point, you know, we're not here to talk about the law typically, but it would be fun to hear some of like maybe a couple of interesting things through your career that you just, I mean, we've seen some crazy stuff. But

Leigha Simonton (49:18)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (49:19)
if there's anything you're able to share. Well, just that transition and that, that position, right? Cause there's working at a federal agency like that. And then there's being

The head of the office.

Leigha Simonton (49:32)
Yeah, yeah.

Counsel Brew (49:33)
Yes.

Leigha Simonton (49:34)
Well, I mean, it was just crazy in terms of...

the power of that position and the access to other

Counsel Brew (49:41)
Mm.

Leigha Simonton (49:42)
DOJ leaders and community leaders that you have. And it hits you really fast. And then you have to think about how do I use this in the way that best benefits my district? One of the crazy things that happened was the attorney general at that time, Merrick Garland, was attorney general when I was confirmed. so like the first week I was US attorney, he had an all US attorney call with all of the US attorneys.

in the whole country, which is the first time I'd seen most of them. And he was rolling out this new sentencing memo about sentencing recommendations for districts to implement in terms of what types of sentences to pursue and what types of violent crime and drug cases. And so all of a sudden I found myself just staring at the attorney general who was talking to me and all these other people. And some of what he was saying dovetailed with my experience.

that I'd had as appellate chief and sort of the substantive expertise and I had a few questions. So you know at the end he's like any questions and then I just like well I do have a question so I unmute and I'm like I just ask him my question and he's like yeah like we'll have the someone else call you about that to talk you through that. I'm like

Okay, good. And I'm like, yeah, that makes sense that he's not just gonna like get into the weeds. Like, but this sentencing guideline says this, and that's a four level enhancement. So what do you say we should do in this? But the guy who called me after from his office was like, I used to be an appellate, criminal appellate. I loved your question. I could tell you knew what was happening. And it was, we just nerded out, but it was crazy. And then the last major.

exciting thing I did as US Attorney right before I resigned is I went to the Attorney General's holiday party. So if you're a US Attorney, yes, they have a holiday party. And so Merrick Garland had this holiday party. We all knew at that point we were leaving because the election had happened. it was really nice to see all these other US Attorneys and other DOJ officials before I ended. But at one point I was looking around, there were all these

people, you're starstruck. There are past attorney generals, like I saw Loretta Lynch in a corner just taking a phone call, and in their press, like I met this big CBS reporter at the time who was there, who was friends with General Garland, and then I was standing there in his kind of entryway to his office, because you can go in the office. The office is very historic. has like a painting of Bobby Kennedy. has...

a wooden door that leads to his private office, which you don't go in the private office, you go in sort of the meeting room that's right by it. And it has holes in the wooden door where Bobby Kennedy's kids would throw darts or something. So that

Counsel Brew (52:29)
wow.

Leigha Simonton (52:30)
was incredible. And then at one point, I found myself just staring at a conversation. I was trying to place all the people, but it was Neil Katyal, who is one of the former Solicitor Generals, talking to

Christopher Ray, who was at that time the FBI director, with Dana Bash from CNN, they were all talking, just chatting, casual chat. And I'm like, is my,

Counsel Brew (52:54)
What are they talking about?

Leigha Simonton (52:56)
yeah, yeah, oh, it was just casual stuff. And I was like, this is a crazy life. This is a crazy life. The other crazy moment, not crazy, but really fun moment I had as US attorney, we became very close with all of the heads of the federal law enforcement in the area.

I think they felt very well supported with my team and we just had a great relationship like the head of the DEA, head of FBI, head of Secret Service. Well, the head of Secret Service, he said once, have you ever gone to the Secret Service training facility outside of DC? And I'm like, no, of course not. He's like, would you want to go? We can bring people and you can just like, yeah, like do stuff.

Counsel Brew (53:33)
Yes, yes, I would like to go.

Leigha Simonton (53:36)
Yes.

So I did, I was up in DC for some other meeting. He's like, just tack it on to another meeting. And so then he drove me out to the training facility and you just see pretty much all aspects and it's crazy because they have part of like a presidential plane that they do for training. like, know, yeah.

Counsel Brew (53:55)
That makes sense.

Leigha Simonton (53:56)
And they just have all these different types of training things, but I did, he's like, do you want to do the shooting gallery? I'm like,

I don't think so. I've shot a gun before, but he's like, we have these non-lethal munitions that are basically like cannons. And I'm like, yes. So I went out and I was firing. It was really fun. Yeah, yeah. And he

Counsel Brew (54:15)
I'll take the cannon.

Leigha Simonton (54:18)
videoed me and there were, I am saying kind of like curse words at the end. that one went, you know, like it just hit the thing I was going for and it was so fun. was like, fuck yeah, let's do this again, you know.

And then I got to go in a car that was doing this, they call it evasive maneuvers. So it's like they train the Secret Service agents to if you're driving a car with a dignitary inside and something bad happens and you have to just like get out of there. And so they have a track for that. And I got to ride in that and they kept saying, you're gonna be sick, you're gonna be sick. And I said, I don't get motion sick.

and I went in and it was so fun. And so we got done. I'm like, do it again, do it again. went in and they're like, okay, we'll do it again. So that was really fun. Yeah, exactly,

Counsel Brew (54:59)
Now this time in reverse!

Leigha Simonton (55:01)
exactly. I was like, I'm good with this, let's do it. that was, that was really fun.

Counsel Brew (55:09)
That is really cool. Well, I hope you never have dislodged crystals so that

Leigha Simonton (55:13)
I know!

Counsel Brew (55:13)
you don't know what it actually feels like to have motion sickness.

Leigha Simonton (55:16)
That's like torture.

I'm so glad. Don't do that. Don't go in any evasive driving maneuvers.

Counsel Brew (55:19)
Yeah. my God. Because I would

love that. That'd be really cool. The only thing that I have that's even remotely close to what you're describing is I so when I started at the city attorney's office, I worked really closely with the police department.

Leigha Simonton (55:33)
Yes.

Counsel Brew (55:34)
And so I got to go to a couple of their training sessions for their new police officers. And that was just so eye opening and very cool. And I had an intern at the time.

What an incredible young woman. Anyways, they asked if anybody would like to be a volunteer to get tased. yeah.

Leigha Simonton (55:51)
No. Really?

Counsel Brew (55:53)
And yes. And she was like, I'm in and I'm looking at her and I'm and I'm, you know, I I'm thinking to myself,

Leigha Simonton (56:00)
That's crazy!

Counsel Brew (56:01)
I feel like.

We didn't assign any waivers coming in here, right? Like my can't deal with us

Leigha Simonton (56:06)
Bye.

Counsel Brew (56:06)
with the prosecution. My head just starts, and then finally, so she volunteers, and I'm thinking the police officers have signed whatever they need to sign, right? To be there training, doing all these things. Anyways, I got her a waiver. I'm like, before you start, like we need to, we have some things.

Leigha Simonton (56:20)
That's awesome.

Counsel Brew (56:24)
You know, I'm 20, I must've been 27. Yeah. 28 at the time. was a young lawyer and,

Leigha Simonton (56:30)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (56:31)
um,

Yeah, anyways, needless to say, we got the waivers and

Leigha Simonton (56:36)
Wow.

Counsel Brew (56:37)
she was so enthusiastic about it. My other intern also wanted to do it. my God. So I just I'm like watching it all unfold and I just kept thinking I would have been nicer to be able to like shoot off cannon. Yeah, that would have been better than watching your

Leigha Simonton (56:54)
Hahaha!

Counsel Brew (56:54)
interns get tased. Absolutely.

Leigha Simonton (56:57)
Yeah, I you don't get injured that way.

Yeah, there's like, there's no injury involved unless you massively like mishandle it. So that is.

Counsel Brew (57:04)
Yeah,

I had no desire to get taste. I would have been the one that like there would have been a warm stain that started to spread across my pants. You know what I mean? Because

Leigha Simonton (57:12)
Yeah.

Counsel Brew (57:13)
like you freeze and anyways. No. Yeah, that was wild.

Leigha Simonton (57:15)
my gosh, that's crazy. I did not know, I did not want to experience that.

Counsel Brew (57:19)
I can't remember when I did that who who volunteered. you go? Did you get to go? Yeah, we did with prosecution because we had to like we did like the LIDAR training. Yeah.

And they showed us how they, you know, catch people speeding and actually they can do it by vision. So they'll do the visual take and then they'll use the lighter to confirm. I didn't do that. And then, yes, but they, did have somebody who also volunteered to get tased. I'm like, hell to the no. I did not want to be

Leigha Simonton (57:42)
hahahaha

Counsel Brew (57:43)
tased. Yeah. I was like, I'm good guys, but here's my sacrificial intern. It'll be great. she did not come back to work for the city attorney's office after that summer.

I don't know if it was the Tazing experience or not, but that's

Leigha Simonton (57:58)
my-

Counsel Brew (57:59)
so Okay, are you going to take us home? Well, I mean, that sounds like cool shit. Do we really want to go to stupid shit? I don't know. Do you have

Leigha Simonton (58:04)
HAHAHA

Counsel Brew (58:05)
a stupid shit story that we need to share? Because we can totally go there, but I also

feel like you shared some really cool stuff.

Leigha Simonton (58:10)
No. Yeah,

I shared my, you know, there were tough legal decisions. I got to watch the Rahimi argument in the US Supreme Court. I watched Elizabeth Praeliger, who was the Solicitor General at the time, give it. It was really inspirational to watch a female Solicitor General do an argument.

Counsel Brew (58:28)
Mmm.

Leigha Simonton (58:29)
much less that argument, was huge for domestic violence issues. It was the intersection of gun rights and domestic violence issues, and the government won. So we were able to keep prosecuting people who violated a protective order by possessing a firearm. And so that was really great. And I brought my management team. I brought my first assistant, my criminal chief, who had never seen a Supreme Court argument. I'd seen like a couple before, just in my lifetime, not recently. That was

Counsel Brew (58:54)
Yeah, that's amazing.

Leigha Simonton (58:56)
awesome, too.

Counsel Brew (58:57)
Do you have a favorite amendment?

Leigha Simonton (59:00)
man, I mean, you know, I'm doing.

Counsel Brew (59:02)
Are

you laughing at me? Shereen's laughing at me, but I, cause you just did government AP. I'm like, do you have a favorite amendment? Are you a federalist? Are you anti-federalist? what? Oh my God. We don't have for that. That's why I stuck with the amendment question.

Leigha Simonton (59:17)
Well, OK, so really quickly, I actually recently gave a toast to the Constitution at one of the ends of court, so I'm a member of. And it was on an experience I had recently about the right to remain silent. And my husband and son and I went to Phoenix for spring break, just for fun. We'd just never been there. We had friends there and stuff. And we took a tour of the downtown, and we stopped in front of the courthouse where

Ernesto Miranda was prosecuted and

Counsel Brew (59:44)
Hmm.

Leigha Simonton (59:45)
yes, and as everyone knows his trial you know his original guilt verdict was thrown out because Police went into this room with him for two hours came out with a signed written confession There were rights that were on paper that were written there, but they had not read them to him and So obviously that went up to Supreme Court Supreme Court, you know reversed and so he was retried and

What I said about it was I was so happy to know that we live in a country where the Supreme Court will make that kind of decision in a case where someone is just very obviously guilty. I mean, there, was really no question he was guilty. He had raped someone. He had raped a woman who was getting off a bus after doing a night shift at a movie theater where she was like a concession stand worker. And she was very brave and reported that. And the police caught...

him and he was the perpetrator, but the prosecution only used the signed confession to convict him. And it would have been very easy for the U.S. Supreme Court to say, eh, doesn't matter in this

Counsel Brew (1:00:53)
I use built-in, we'll just...

Leigha Simonton (1:00:55)
case, yeah, but they took that opportunity to reinforce and expand everyone's Fifth Amendment rights. the

justice that occurred after and I was really, I was really, I wanted to just give the whole tale because it's not enough to say everyone knows Miranda, but you know, he did something really bad and there was basically no question that he did it. And so justice did come for that victim after, mean, I'm not sure what she would say about how much justice she felt with it, but he got retried and he got convicted based on admissible evidence and you know, he served time in prison. So

I think that's an example of how certain rights like that that we all have, Fourth Amendment rights are the same way, right? Trial by jury, same, that they apply even in the face of a guilty person. And that makes our country beautiful, I think.

Counsel Brew (1:01:52)
That's awesome. That is awesome. That's like an awesomes. That was better than a stupid shit segment. It was. It definitely was.

Leigha Simonton (1:01:58)
I like those too, so maybe next time.

Counsel Brew (1:02:02)
There's some good stories. I feel like you had the good shit moment. like we're good. Yeah, we covered it. So you're stepped into private practice again, and hopefully really enjoying it. Do you have anything in the future that you're really hoping to do? We talked about your husband's ambitions as he retires. Is there anything that you feel like on your bucket list you haven't you haven't gotten to that's kind of waiting for you?

Leigha Simonton (1:02:25)
Yes,

okay, so for one thing, I love what I'm doing now here. I'm at Dicama. I was able to, Dicama was very generous to me and they let me bring my senior managers over and also a star fraud prosecutor and later our paralegal to work in the Dallas office. We

Counsel Brew (1:02:43)
Very cool.

Leigha Simonton (1:02:44)
work on all kinds of stuff. We don't always work together, but we do get to work together a lot and I feel so lucky every day I'm able to do that. in a sense, I'm

just live in my best private practice life right now, but I am passionate about leadership and the law, very passionate. And so at some point I'd like to publish something on it and that's more than an article, but I don't know when that will happen or have certainty that that...

will happen soon, but that is sort of my next goal is to actually start speaking and writing more on leadership in the law because I think it's just something that everyone who's been a practicing lawyer knows is a deficiency in the profession, but not enough people talk about it.

Counsel Brew (1:03:29)
Yeah. That's awesome. Well, we can't wait to hear that. We can't wait to hear you speak. We're so glad that you were able to join us today and, you know, enjoy your coffee. Maybe my magical latte will appear on your desk this afternoon. John's

Leigha Simonton (1:03:45)
hahahaha

Counsel Brew (1:03:46)
waiting downstairs for us and is going to have lattes for us. would be fantastic. I

Leigha Simonton (1:03:49)
Hahaha

Counsel Brew (1:03:51)
know. Yeah, this was amazing.

It was good. I feel like

Leigha Simonton (1:03:54)
Thank you.

Counsel Brew (1:03:55)
we may need to do a part two at some point and just go into more stories.

Leigha Simonton (1:03:57)
I look like hanging out with you guys

and talking. I'm like, this is so fun.