Allegedly Golden

A Conversation With Wayfarer Lawyer Kevin Fritz

• Not Actually Golden

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An episode we've all been waiting for! Little Girl Attorney and I sat down with Kevin Fritz of Meister Seelig & Schuster, who represents Wayfarer, to discuss the Lively case and what it's like to be a lawyer in highly publicized litigation. We talked about everything from Vanzan to how he became such a good writer, plus whether social media content was a positive or negative for the case. 

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SPEAKER_03

The information and ideas expressed in the allegedly Golden Podcast for legal explanation and legal analysis, not legal advice. While I am a lawyer, I am not your lawyer. If you need legal advice, please contact a licensed legal professional in your area. My opinions are my own, for better or for worse. Welcome again to Allegedly Golden. I am fortunate enough today to have not one guest, but two. One is actually more of a co-host, it's Little Girl Attorney. Thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01

Hello.

SPEAKER_03

And of course, our main guest today is the fan favorite, the undisputed fan favorite lawyer of the Lively versus Wayfair case, Kevin Fritz. Welcome, Kevin.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you for having me this morning. It's a pleasure.

SPEAKER_03

You bet. For those of you who don't know, we the three of us were all able to meet for about 30 seconds in January at the dispositive motion hearing. And we were able to say hi to each other. So it's really nice to be able to come back around now that at least part of, most of the case is over and get a chance to actually talk about some of these things. Before we get into talking with Kevin, I just want to give a couple of disclaimers. As you know, I always say at the beginning of this podcast that I am a lawyer, I am not your lawyer. I think it's important to point out that none of us are your lawyer. You are fortunate enough to have three lawyers all talking to you at the same time for free, but none of us are here to give legal advice. So just keep that in mind. I also want to just remind people that there may be things that Kevin cannot talk about because of attorney client privilege, because of cases and issues that may still be ongoing. We are going to get as deep into his brain as he'll let us. But if you if you wanted certain questions to be asked and they're either not asked or can't be answered, that's probably why. So just give him some grace on that. And to get started, you know, Kevin, we are on this mission to convince people that lawyers are in fact people. Um so we thought we'd start with who are you outside of the law?

SPEAKER_00

Um outside of the law, I'm the dad and husband that goes out to dinner with his family when they have a free moment that goes to their kids' hockey games, gymnastics meets, volleyball games, school musicals, school events, just like every other person out there.

SPEAKER_03

Are you from New York originally?

SPEAKER_00

Uh I'm originally from Long Island. Yes, I went to Colespring Harbor High School. So just about 35 miles east of Manhattan.

SPEAKER_03

Very nice. Um, do you have any sports allegiances that would stop me from liking you?

SPEAKER_00

Are you gonna say you're a Yankees fan? Well, unfortunately, I'm a Mets fan, Jet Islanders. The Knicks are doing well, but the other three are we're having a tough time.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. The Mets I can handle, because I'm a Francisco Lindor fan. So if you were gonna say Yankees fan, we might have some beef, but I'm gonna I'm gonna let it slide. Um Little Girl Attorney, you had a great question for Kevin and sort of how he figured out that we existed.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I'm you mentioned us on a couple of your podcast appearances. Thank you for that. That was very kind and generous of you. But I think um what I'm most curious about is how did you come across us? Were you on social media? Did somebody send it to you? And walk us through what your reaction was, where you were like, whoa, what are they talking about? Tell them to stop. Or did you find it entertaining? Like, tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00

So, really before this case started, the only social media I was somewhat familiar with was Instagram and Facebook, which seemed to me to be kind of the two standard ones that what I'll call everyday people use. And then as I started learning more about the case and the different types of social media, um, really actually the go-to site that I went to was Reddit, though I think that's the least popular, least used. And then it provides links to videos, whether they're on YouTube or TikTok or whatever. And I guess because of some algorithm for what I would search, because we were interested in what the public opinion was, um, it would lead me to your videos and other videos. And then after you watch enough times, you're like, wow, these people know what they're talking about, and especially coming from lawyers. Um, it's very helpful to have someone on the outside who is not invested in any fashion to look at it from you know a clean objective perspective.

SPEAKER_01

That's was there ever a time where you were like, they got it wrong, don't listen to them, or it annoyed you.

SPEAKER_00

Um I nothing that sticks out. I I think 90 to 95% of the time when you guys were like, here's what's going on behind the scenes, it was it was accurate. Right. Um so that's that's a pretty good hit, right? Right. I'll take it. I'll take it. This is what they're doing right now. And I thought you guys were spot on. So kudos to you guys.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you. We we had people always asking us, you know, do you think that the both sides, right? Do you think there's like a room of associates and all they do all day is watch social media and see what the takes are? And you know, I think in this day and age, you have to be aware of what's being said on social media, but because the bit one of the big substantive claims in the case was about social media and PR, like it's interesting to hear you say you had to get you had to bone up on it because we all know as lawyers, sometimes you get into a case in an industry you don't know anything about, and it's like, okay, I guess I have to learn everything about that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's half the battle sometimes, whether it's you know, real estate financing or you know, here the movie industry with, you know, uh touch or maybe a large slice of social media, you have to be familiar with it in order to properly litigate the case.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You do a lot of sports cases, right? Yeah, my partner Mitch Huster um chairs our crisis management uh division here, and so he represents a lot of athletes, musicians, other types of entertainers. And um it it certainly can be refreshing to work on cases like that, whereas my normal practice would be standard commercial litigation, real estate disputes, and whatnot.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it sounds like you have a pretty good mix because too much of one thing can get really dull. And then you gotta have a little spice, but spice all the time, I don't know if I could do like what Friedman does. That's that's an awful lot of spice.

SPEAKER_00

It's nerve-wracking, but I think as everyone's seeing, Brian's a pro at it.

SPEAKER_01

So um were you able to manage other cases while handling this case?

SPEAKER_00

Um of my cases we tried to transition to other attorneys here at the firm. Um other ones I did have to manage at the same time, which you know could be difficult or was difficult, frankly, given the demands of this case. Um but the all the other attorneys here did a great job, you know, taking over my cases or at least helping me with the substantive part of a case, whereas I would still be involved in strategy. But there's a lot of people here behind the scenes that made this all work.

SPEAKER_03

That's a great transition to our next set of questions, which is sort of the mechanics of working on not only a big case, a big case with multiple firms on different coasts and eventually multiple cases. So can you talk to us about what it's like in this case and others, when you've got multiple firms, how do you split up the work? How do you decide who's on top of what, who's responsible for things, all that?

SPEAKER_00

Right. So this is actually, I think, the the first case that I can remember where I was part of a team of three firms. I've certainly been a part of two because often you have lead council and then local council if if the case is pending in the jurisdiction where the lead council isn't located. This may be the first case where I had three firms and certainly you know firms of of a decent size. And so the way um you know it worked is uh you know, Leiner Friedman was um able to kind of coordinate who would work on what. We had uh Kim Zeldon, who has worked for a long time with uh Ellen Garoffle over at Leiner Friedman for the most part, handling the assignments. And so she would coordinate with Shapiro and Bach's office for certain things, right? Uh Alice Butrick was you know a key part of putting together the summary judge in motion and gathering all the exhibits and working with um Mitra O'Horion, who is a solo practitioner, um, and gathering all the exhibits for that. From a discovery point of view, we had um from Leiner Friedman, Teresa Troopson, Jason Sunshine, Summer Benson, they were all the people on the ground handling gathering all the documents from the clients electronically, which is not an easy endeavor, right? Like imaging people's phones and devices and then having to search them and click through them. It is it is a thankless job, and and they they did amazing work. Um there were there was obviously expert discovery. Amir Kalkgrad was the point person on that. And if you were present at the oral argument on the uh the motions to exclude, he did a great job with the damages uh experts uh who were proffered by Blake. Um at my firm, we had Jordan Beener. She's like a second or third year associate, but she was working like she was a seventh-year associate. Uh David Gold, uh Jack Ryan, Joaquin Estera, all helping with parts of, hey, I need your help to write this motion or I need you to research this. And we brought it all together. Sometimes it was, you know, in rushed fashion, and but um it worked.

SPEAKER_01

Was there ever something that you were like, I want to write this letter? This one's mine.

SPEAKER_00

Uh there were certain times where I raised my hand, like, guys, I got this. I don't, you know, maybe I think it was stuff with the the Isabella Ferrer subpoena um I know was involved with, or if it had to do with um Vance An, um I would take that. And um there was a lot of stuff I you know volunteered for, and most of the time I got it, but other times if someone was more familiar with it, we're like, all right, well, why don't you handle this?

SPEAKER_03

So is it safe to say that there's a lot of associates who are going to make their billable hour requirements to get a bonus this year? I think so.

SPEAKER_00

I think they had a good year.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it's it's interesting when you get to this side of it. You know, we've all been, we're all about the same age, I think. When you you are the baby lawyer and you're the one doing it, right? And then, you know, you're kind of doing whatever you're told and right, you're learning. And then when you get to the other side of it and you're the one who is who is mentoring those people or delegating to those people, I think there's there's two options. There's either the folks who completely forget what it's like to be one of those folks, right? And there's the people who remember and know that they matter, and clearly you're the latter.

SPEAKER_00

I I appreciate that. Yeah, it it's a little um it's a little weird saying, hey, uh, you know, passing assignments off like that, because I I don't, even though I've been doing this for over 20 years, it doesn't feel like it's been 20 years. So, you know, part of I think uh growing up as a lawyer and and maybe um you know expanding your practice is letting go of certain things that you would otherwise do, you know, so that you could work on something else. Um you know, a lot of times I did my own research, but often I would give it to you know Jack Ryan or Jordan Bietner here at the firm. But when it came to writing something, I I did that myself.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, you have a very clear voice. We can tell. Um before we get into that, which uh you know we're gonna make you talk about, um obviously where this was filed was important, right? Especially now everybody's sort of questioning why was this filed where it was. And every we all know you have different decisions that you make. But obviously you're somebody who practices an SDNY all of the time. Um how does like knowing and understanding the forum or maybe even this particular judge go into how you strategize about a case?

SPEAKER_00

You know, the the federal court, especially here in the SDNY, it is, you know, the top tier of courts. They handle humongous cases, whether from a criminal or civil point of view. Obviously, they get a lot of the terrorism cases or the um RICO cases, organized crime and whatnot. So you have some brilliant judges there. And they are gonna appropriately keep you on a tight leash in terms of how long it takes to do um discovery and to get from the start of the case to the trial. Um and again, credit to them. They don't want to hear that you don't have time to do it, right? They expect you to do it. If you're gonna file here or defend here, don't file or defend if you don't have time to do the work on the schedule that it demands, right? It's it is a little looser in state court, at least here in New York, right? Deadlines get pushed, that's just the way it works. Um so but you you know what you're getting if when you file and defend in the SDNY.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, uh you mentioned that this particular court handles really, really big cases. Obviously, you knew that you were dealing with a big case when you saw the parties involved, but when did you realize that it was and it did you realize at any point that this is not just gonna be a celebrity dispute, that this is gonna be huge?

SPEAKER_00

Um it was over uh you know the holiday break, Christmas break, when I was advised that, hey, I'm gonna be working on this case. I think my partner, Mitt Schuster, may have, you know, forwarded a copy of the New York Times article or the C R D complaint. I don't frankly remember which one. And I I didn't know who either of the lead uh parties were, so uh I had to Google both of them. Um but we've worked on other cases involving athletes or celebrities, and uh but those are usually an arbitration, right? Or you're or it's pre-litigation where you agree to go to a mediation or you just figure out a way to work it out before litigation. This one obviously got to litigation pretty quickly, you know, after the New York Times article came out. Um and I did not know at the time how big of a following the book had, how big of a following Blake Lively had, or how big of a following Justin had. But that became clear pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_01

So it's safe to say you had to do some brushing up on the celebrity and PR aspect of the case.

SPEAKER_00

This case has completely opened my eyes to the role of publicity and PR um professionals and publicists in headlines that you see, right? I mean, we're all, at least I am, so used to you know, going online, whether it's uh whatever the New York Post, CNN, Fox News, whatever your preference is, and seeing a headline and reading it, like, oh, okay, that's that's the truth. But yeah, unfortunately, what you read is just not always the truth. And uh, I actually think that's quite disappointing and sad, but this is the age we live in now.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's how the two of us got involved in covering this case, frankly, because we would read the headlines on the case and be like, that's not what we read. Wait a minute, that's not what happened here. Let me break this down to tell you exactly what is happening here. Did you find those articles to be frustrating too throughout the case?

SPEAKER_00

You're talking about the articles in like the mainstream media?

SPEAKER_01

Mainstream.

SPEAKER_00

You know, even when we'd win, they would project it as if we had lost something. Or even if Blake suffered a loss, they would somehow spin it into like either a neutral result or some a win. And you know, again, at first it was frustrating, but you know, once we saw that the people behind the scenes or the people on social media understood what occurred, I didn't lose sleep over it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I want to ask a sort of uh sorry, I want to ask a sort of behind the scenes question, and you don't have to answer it, but I'm kind of dying to know. Is there lore between Gottlieb and Friedman? Why the personal attacks? What's going on with that?

SPEAKER_00

Um I don't know the reason for the personal attacks on on Brian. I mean, frankly, all Brian has done is zealously advocate for his client. Um and I I I found it hypocritical that he would get criticized or even, you know, uh uh they move for sanctions against him for speaking to the press when Blake would her counsel would do the same thing. They would hire whether it's Singrid or someone else, or they would say it was through a spokesperson or representative, they're doing the same thing. And they certainly did even more than that through the New York Times before they filed anything officially. But then on the other hand, they wanted to muzzle Brian Friedman for letting the public know what the true facts were. That that I didn't understand, and I I I still don't understand. And um, you know, Mike Gottlieb, I've had a chance to speak to him, you know, obviously a number of times, seems like a nice guy. Um, you know, I it's probably hard to swallow the result that has happened in the case, and maybe that's why he had some not so nice things to say about Brian recently. But, you know, we we've all won and lost cases. Um, there was a time, and uh again, I'm I'm not trying to date myself, when if you lost a case, even if it was hard thought, you picked up the phone and you called your adversary, say, hey, you know, listen, no hard feelings, great job, great result for your client. Let's get a cup of coffee or a beer, maybe our paths are crossed, maybe we can refer business to each other. You know, you do something like that. Um what's going on now where they are trying to take a loss and claim a victory, I I just I don't doesn't make sense to me.

SPEAKER_03

And I I think people see through it. I'm not I'm not sure that it's effective. I don't know, and I certainly would not ask you to speak about another lawyer's interview, but I don't know if you've seen that interview that Gottlieb did on the town. And like I don't begrudge him the right to go out there and try to, you know, make the best out of the situation. He's got a job to do. But the the dissonance of like, you know, all this information is like people have seen it with their own eyes. I just don't think it's working.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I have seen the interview and I thought it was a great interview. Um I've read some comments where people, you know, didn't think Mike did so well, or I saw one comment saying that they didn't think Mike even believed what he was saying, and I I don't know if that's true or not. Um but to me, some of the things that were said, such as the case was never about money, is underlined by the facts that they hired three experts to say that she had incurred over a hundred million dollars worth of damages, and then uh you know we we did the uh motions to strike, and if it if it wasn't about money, you could have withdrawn the claims a long time ago.

SPEAKER_01

Well, why are you in civil court? Civil court's always about money. It's not like they sought injunctive relief.

SPEAKER_00

Right, right. But you know, listen, they um it it was a long, hard-fought battle. It's not over. There are certain pieces that still remain. Um so people are gonna react the way that they do. Um I well, you know, if there's a case that doesn't come out so favorably, for me, I try to handle it, you know, with grace.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Well, and it seemed like um, in just following it from the beginning, that, you know, you guys had to figure out, you know, because it started with the New York Times article, it started with this big bang, right? When you're on the the defensive side, you're you're in defensive mode, right? Um but it seemed like, tell me if I'm wrong, that some of it was just you guys figuring out as lawyers how to strategize around um the plaintiff's side when it seemed very unpredictable and they were doing things that were quite unusual, right? Um like asking for the their, I mean, I know they'd said it wasn't a gag order, but asking for that in the beginning, getting the AEO category over discovery in a case about, you know, in an employment law case. Talk to us about what that was like, sort of dealing with that and figuring out how to handle it.

SPEAKER_00

Right. So if you think about it, after Blake obtained access to the contents of John Abel's phone, you know, and whether that was before the Van Zan subpoena or after or a combination of both. And then having taken months to digest everything and work with the New York Times to publish what Blake wanted to be published, only then did apparently they have concerns about what the public should be able to see and read or hear. Um and uh as you mentioned, there was discussion about a rule of professional conduct 3.6 and other rules about what attorneys can say. And it was important to us to do within the bounds of the law and the court's rules to get our message out. And we think we were able to do that uh again in accordance with the rules. And over time, over months, we think the sentiment changed online as more and more people saw what the facts were. And people they had a thirst for the facts, right? We said, Oh, everyone looked for the the quote the crate on ceiling. And you know, we were looking forward to that too.

SPEAKER_03

Well, in that big strategy decision you guys made uh not to file motion. To dismiss. Obviously, don't tell me about your privileged conversations. But it seemed from the outside like you guys were making pretty not only collaborative decisions together with each other, but really listening to what your clients wanted the ultimate goals to be.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, listen, emotion dismiss at times can be a quick victory if you have completely solid grounds on the claims. And here there were 15 claims. So one could certainly see that even if someone could be successful to getting a few of the claims dismissed, if some of them survive, you'll probably have to engage in the same discovery anyway. And if you make a motion dismissed, and I'm just talking in general, too early, then sometimes you tip the other side off as to what your strongest legal arguments are. You give them uh time for uh to amend their pleadings to maybe correct something. Um whereas if you move for in a dispositive fashion later, some of those uh issues uh don't come up or aren't as strong.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I think we as employment lawyers, little girl attorney, tell me uh what you think about this, but I think the two of us as people who practice employment law all the time, um, in particular, some of the, you know, some of the claims were employment and some of them weren't, but we sort of looked at it as an employment law case. There are things that there's steps that are kind of typically taken, right? Well, you always argue this on a motion to dismiss, or you always argue to strike this, or you always assert this. Um and so I think as soon as you guys decided not to do those things, it was very clear to us that you were not just trying this. And I know you're not an employment lawyer as an employment law case. Is that fair, LGA?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that that was what struck me is was it it seemed like the strategy was we want all of the information to come out. And we'd rather take our chances on a motion for summary judgment where we could win on evidence as opposed to a motion to dismiss where we would win on law, because some of those issues that you did end up raising in the MJOP were purely law. Obviously, they were all purely law and could have been won early in the case. But in some senses, looking at the bigger picture of what you had and the evidence that you were going to obtain helped you to address the case holistically or from a bigger picture perspective. And so we're we're obviously assuming and speculating what your strategy is as you're making these decisions, but wondered, you know, to what extent you are able to speak to that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we we I what I can say is we considered all the options, right? All types of dispositive motions, motion dismiss, motion for judgment on the pleadings, motion for summary judgment. Um, as you mentioned, it was important to our clients for um the public and the court to understand that we wanted a resolution on the merits, right? We wanted a resolution on the evidence that was presented. Um and the best way to do that would be to wait. Um and again uh just because you move to dismiss doesn't mean you're gonna get 15 claims dismissed. That that's that's a tough haul, especially when a plaintiff can can amend uh his or her pleadings as as did happen uh here um twice, I think. So um it was what I also what I would say a calculated uh decision.

SPEAKER_03

As it should be. As it should be, as everything should be. Had you ever worked with uh Shapiro and Bach before?

SPEAKER_00

Uh I had not. Um but as I mentioned, you know, last week, uh both brilliant lawyers, Alexander Shapiro, Jonathan Bach, um, and uh their colleague uh Alice Butrick. So um, you know, they you know were involved um in every aspect since they came on, which I think maybe was uh July. And um, you know, wherever their assistance or or leadership was needed, they did it. As you saw, they obviously uh did a lot of work on the Sunbury Judges motion in connection with Alan Garoffalo and and and the other attorneys at Lion or Friedman. Um they handled you know a number of the oral arguments, uh they handled um stuff on the motion to lemonade, and so they're they're complete pros over there. Um I would love to work with them again. Um and you know, you can see why they have the reputation that they do.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

They're characters too. Like I remember when we were at the hearing and they were there, like they should have like a reality show. They're very like they're just they're very singular people, and I mean that is the highest compliment, right? Like they they don't fit into any sort of like generic box, they're a very specific thing that absolutely works.

SPEAKER_00

You know what I think, you know, and again, they're they're very smart people. What I thought one of the most appropriate things that Jonathan Box said during one of his appearances was, you know, judge, we we are in federal court here in the SDNY. And these claims about, you know, that someone may have nuzzled or did this or that on the set of a movie about a romantic relationship just doesn't belong in federal court. And he was absolutely right. And to me, that, you know, just um kind of hit at home, and I think it did with some of the people in the gallery. When you take a step back and think about all the serious matters that are handled by this court and some of and the nature of some of the allegations in this case, um it's unfortunate in my view. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I have a strategy question that I don't think gets into anything too dangerous, but I had started to get really um into the expert reports because you know, I'm thinking if we have a trial, I need to read them. And some of them were more interesting than others, as usual. Um you a lost profits expert honestly makes me want to bury my face in the sand. I cannot stand it. I don't know if it's because of my father was a CPA and I hate accounting. Um, but it really struck me in looking at, and I know a lot of the Wayfair experts were rebuttal experts, right? You were responding to what Blake was saying. Um, it really struck me on the social media side that they had two experts who were professors and sort of professional experts, and your expert was somebody who had more experience than academia. Was that on purpose? Can you talk us through that?

SPEAKER_00

Um well, you know, this because this field is relatively new, and so, you know, there's not a major or a large plethora of experts, I think, in this field who have the requisite knowledge. So whereas one could say, yeah, it's better to have someone who has testified 20 times, you know, we were more focused on someone who really understood the way that social media worked in its current form, how it's developed over the last couple years. And um, you know, Amir Kowtrad did a great job of lining up our experts and working with them on getting the reports done. Um and you know, frankly, I th I think the topic, had it been presented to the jury, would have been pretty confusing. Um these these were not easy concepts. As uh my recollection is I think the judge, right, he had asked for additional briefing on it, and then there was going to be another Dowbert hearing. So um, you know, one thing that goes into any trial is is the jury gonna understand this? Because it's not easy material, and you're throwing them right into it, along with all what I would call the material allegations.

SPEAKER_01

Talk to us about brushing up on California and federal employment law. How was what was that like? Because it's a whole different, you know, ball game.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, again, luckily we had uh Ellen Garofalo, Kim Zeldon, and all of their colleagues over there at the Liner Freeman who are you know intimately familiar with the California employment law. So I actually didn't have to brush up as much as one would think because they handled that for the most part. I mean, obviously I'm you know now familiar with 47.1 and 47 and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01

But you don't say.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but the people at Liner Freeman handled that.

SPEAKER_03

Did you learn anything about employment law that made you think, God, I should have done this for my job?

SPEAKER_00

Well, you know what's interest, um what I did learn about employment law is that um you know, an adverse employment action, it doesn't only include a change in someone's you know conditions or salary or responsibilities or whatnot, but it but as Judge Lyman cited in his lengthy decision, it can include stuff after your employment that would be harmful to um whether you get another job or your reputation or whatnot, right? So and that obviously became um you know relevant or an issue in this case, and then I was not familiar with that body of law before the case started.

SPEAKER_03

Well, and for what it's worth, LGA, I don't know. I think you're with me. That is like the one thing we disagree with him on is that yes, there is this body of case law that says that you can't then like give someone a bad reference so they can also never get another job. But this case trying to extend that causation chain out, I understand he was sort of like, it's a fact issue, let's see what a jury does with it. Um, but I think we both felt like that was the one legal quote, like that would change our entire jobs if that were the case, right? Because most of the time it is a firing or a demotion or something like that. But if if things that people did after, especially for people who live in a small community, um I'm glad we don't have that precedent out there, frankly.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and you can't really control what your employees are gonna do after another employee leaves. And coming from an in-house perspective, advising a client that deals with people coming in and out all the time, it would be impossible to ensure that someone is not gonna go post something on Facebook or whatever that they're gonna do, that this put this potentially could have set a precedent that if you were to speak poorly of the person who's left because of reasons you don't even know or reasons you do know, that that somehow makes the employer liable for an adverse employment action. So I I I was concerned about the ramifications of of that being uh a ruling in this case. And ultimately I think it it doesn't really say that, but it came very close to saying that. And I thought that that could be really, really problematic. Yeah, agreed.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and that obviously goes into you know a decision whether to resolve the claims or resolve the case, right? Right.

SPEAKER_03

Right. Yeah. Um let's get to the thing that um made people fall in love with you, Kevin. Um You know, I think it's important because, you know, there are so many um, you know, obviously Friedman's strength is he goes out there and he does his public appearances, right? And he's very good at this and he does good by his clients and you know, people like him and his friend Mark Garragos, that is their that is their strength. But I think what was so remarkable to us in this case is that without ever hearing your voice or seeing you, I think you were on some hearings, I know. Um, people said, wow, I really like the way this guy writes because you were explaining things in a way they could understand, but also in a way that didn't seem too accusatory, right? Or out of bounds. Um So I know it's probably your entire career story, but can you tell us and folks a little bit about how you developed what your writing style is and why you write that way?

SPEAKER_00

Uh you know, a long time ago I I clerked for a federal judge, uh Sandra Fiersty in the Eastern District of New York. I did that for uh 18 months. And you know, her mantra was, you know, make it easy for a judge to rule in your favor, right? Make it easy for the judge to understand what you are saying. And so I've kind of just always lived by the credence that, you know, simpler is better or shorter is better. Um obviously there are times when you have to write a 20-page brief instead of a five-page brief, but if you can say something in five pages and support it with, you know, evidence and or case law, then say it in five pages and not 20. Um and you know, in terms of language used, uh, you know, on the one hand, you want to get the judge's attention, on the other hand, you don't want to come across as, you know, fresh or uh obnoxious or or whatnot. Um but you you need to hammer the the point home. And sometimes it takes, you know, an adjective or so to get there.

SPEAKER_01

But were you conscious that the public was reading your letters? And was there any nod to to to the public?

SPEAKER_00

Um not at first. I wasn't aware. That's just the way that that I write, which I imagine would be supported if you looked up my filings on, you know, New York State Court cases or other federal cases. So not at first. Um and then, you know, as if I'd be sitting on my couch at night reading online what people are thinking about the case, I would I would see the comment, or people in my office would would mention it to me. Uh and it actually kind of just created more pressure, like, oh, I better come up with, you know, better write, better not have any typo or anything. And as I did mention also last week, um it it was very helpful to have people like yourselves analyze the case and come up with arguments, or here's maybe what they should do. And you know, I'm not afraid or shy to say, well, I consider that, and sometimes I I use that in in my writings. So thank you.

SPEAKER_03

You're you're so welcome. You're so welcome. We got to do it in our our pajamas and you didn't. Um, maybe you did. I actually shouldn't say it's 2026. Who knows, right? Um I I think that's one of the things that people don't get is such an important legal skill, particularly for litigators, um, is you have to be able to communicate ideas, yes, verbally, but you're gonna do it in writing way more than you're gonna do it orally, because there just aren't as many hearings as there used to be. Did you have a, like in your undergrad program, did you do a lot of writing? Were you always somebody who enjoyed writing, or did you have to learn it?

SPEAKER_00

Um well, I was a political science major um at Michigan, so there was certainly a good amount of writing there.

unknown

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Um, you know, whether it was political science classes, history classes, um, certainly not my class on natural hazards or or you know, sports and ancient sports and daily life in ancient Rome. But the other classes, there were certainly a lot of writing. And obviously in law school, um what I did in law school, because you know, frankly, my grades weren't that good. I was like a B student, I I did a lot of internships. I interned for Harold Baer and the SDNY. Um I would um uh do other internships or you know, um external programs uh at Cardozo Law School where I went, and it just gave me an ability to write and not just you know do standard classwork. And so I think that's kind of where it started between you know my undergraduate major at Michigan and then some of the things I did outside of the classroom at Cardozo really helped. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Did you do law review or anything like that in law school?

SPEAKER_00

Um I was on a journal called um the Arts and Entertainment Sports Journal. And so I think my my I wouldn't, I don't know, the treatise or whatever I had to write was um it had to do with um you know violence in sports, right? If someone goes beyond the bounds of what's allowed under the rule on the playing field, can they be held liable and whatnot? Um, you know, unfortunately it's not cited often on Westlaw or something, but it but it's out there. So look at it.

SPEAKER_03

Citing it here, Kevin. Right. Yes. Here's the citation.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, now I'm gonna get a bunch of requests for the book, so I'll have to dust off the cardboard part that's probably in my patient.

SPEAKER_03

Well, we write, but you know, lawyers write all the time and nobody sees it. So it is kind of nice when you know people recognize um, you know, when you put together words well. It appeared to us, and I think us lawyers, LGA and I, but also non-lawyers, one of the things that came through was this, you had this constant theme of like, we are the rational ones. Like we are not, and and to some degree that's a defense side thing to do, right? This isn't as big a deal as they're making it out to be. But is it fair to say that you are consciously trying to, you're always trying to persuade, but were you also sort of trying to appear that, you know, this is just let's just use regular old common sense reason and ration, especially in the face of a lot of pleadings from the lively side that were not that?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I I think so. And if you think about some of the requests for discovery that we got from the other side and what had to be produced or searched for, I mean, never in my wildest dreams um would I have anticipated that certain things would have had to have been turned over, you know, such as videos of this or that. Um and so yeah, we we tried to obviously take a common sense approach and and and obviously within the the rules of uh civil procedure, what was um, you know, material and relevant and whatnot. Um but this at times seemed to go beyond the pale.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, some of those letters did seem quite inflamed. And, you know, being a former litigator and having written some of those responses, I there were moments in my career where I was too wrapped up in the emotion of the case. And I would my first draft response of a letter was equally inflamed, if not more, than what I received, because you're like, how dare you say this, this, and this to the judge, and et cetera, et cetera. And obviously those get toned down before they get filed. But were did were you ever tempted to be like, this is just so beyond the pale? I need to raise this to the judge. It seemed to me, from my perspective and and curious now your perspective, but each time you were given the opportunity, in a sense, to slap back just as hard, your team took the approach of, no, we're sort of taking a higher road in a sense. Like we're not gonna, we're not gonna stoop down to that level.

SPEAKER_00

Well, taking the higher road is it's not only something that I try to do in all my cases, but it was particularly important to Jamie Heath and the other individual clients of ours that we always take you know the high road, especially because this case got so much public attention. Um so that was our mandate from day one. And then, you know, when we would get letters that you know could be characterized as inflammatory, um uh certainly there were times, as you said, um, when we would write something and be like, oh, this is great. And then luckily we had you know, Ellen Garofflay would be like, all right, everyone just chill out, everyone take it easy, here's what we're gonna do. And her, you know, talking about writing, her writing is is great too. She has this way of calmly telling the judge, judge, what they are saying just makes no sense whatsoever. And she has a really elegant way of saying that.

SPEAKER_03

Do you have the this is um to what you just said, LGA? Like after yes, I used to get like all worked up. I learned how to like, especially with emails, you know, when somebody's like being an asshole about discovery and it's like I would type the email and then I would leave it for a couple of hours and come back to it. Um but what I do now is I give myself like a five-minute period to just be like enraged, right? And I like call my colleagues or run around the office. I'm like, can you believe? And then I calm down and then I write the thing. Um, do you I mean, sometimes it's the associates or the younger folks who are like, they're gonna have that that reaction. But I I don't know, I think it's kind of important to allow people to react to something in a way that it was intended to make them to react, as long as they can then pull themselves out of it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I I generally like to wait, as you said, whether it's you know, five minutes, an hour, or a day, or even two days to write something back. But a lot of times in this case, you didn't have that time to do that, especially with how quickly Judge Lyman to his credit would work, right? There would be something filed, and you don't know if he was going to rule on it an hour or you know, a week later. Um, but you know, my partner Mitch Schuster would routinely tell me, not so much in connection with this case, but earlier in other cases, earlier in my career, like just to kill them with kindness, right? Like there are ways to get the same result without uh being loud about it or obnoxious about it. So I I tried to live by that. Hopefully I did. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03

It appeared that way. And it's it's a I do think that's a perspective that comes from a position of strength, right? If you feel like I've got a good case, I believe in the case I've got, I believe in the clients that I've got, then you don't have to necessarily yell and scream as much. Right. Um, and it that that's what at least came across to us was everybody here, you know. I don't think anybody thought, I'm sure you had tough moments with clients, everybody does. But I there wasn't the speculation that you as a set of lawyers were disagreeing with your clients the way there was on the other side of the case.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah. Um what I can tell you is, you know, we we were always aligned. Were there different opinions about how to do something at first? But after you talk it through the pros, the cons, how would this be uh received by the judge, how would it be received in the public sphere? You know, we obviously came to a consensus. But um, you know, that's not to say that we didn't kick many ideas, you know, back and forth. We obviously did.

SPEAKER_03

Good, as you should, right? That's that's what the job is. Um so talk about sort of those boundaries of zeal, right? We are going to talk about Van Zan because people will come after me with pitchforks if I don't ask. Um but you know, just that whole issue of, you know, each lawyer, you know, we've you probably saw the two of us fighting with people constantly about is this a good thing or a bad thing, is this an ethical thing or a non-ethical thing? And ultimately it's like, well, every lawyer has to sort of decide for themselves where their lines are. How do you as a lawyer decide the right balance between, you know, zealously advocating for your client or zealously defending your client, but also having boundaries of what you will and won't do?

SPEAKER_00

Um yeah, I mean, just in its simplest uh take, I mean, you never want to say something that is just knowingly false. That's like you know, rule number one, right? Or you never even want to insinuate something that you know is false. Um when you're doing, you know, obviously research and and you find a case that was from 30 years ago and maybe it's not the the law anymore, you know, you have uh you have an obligation to not cite that earlier case, but to cite the other one, which maybe expanded or narrowed whatever the scope of the ruling was on the earlier one. Um so I I can't think of you know luckily any scenario in this case where we said or did something that um you know was was beyond what someone would think is is you know appropriate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Were you ever tempted to file sanctions motions, particularly as they started piling up against you guys? I think there were what 11 in the end?

SPEAKER_00

There were a lot. Uh tempted, yes. Um in my view, strongly considered, no, because we we had enough to do. We we know what judges' reactions are. They obviously take them very seriously, as they should, and we knew what the public's reactions were to what Blake was filing against our attorneys. So um we didn't see, at least I didn't see a lot of upside in it, right? Um we were content to play defense in that regard.

SPEAKER_03

Right. And and especially, of course, the big one. Um I think people understand Van Zan in terms of their, I think we've over time people understood there really isn't much to do about this um earlier in the case when you're in discovery, right? Um and then when we got to exhibit lists and it was clear, we got to motions and lemonade, and it was clear that you guys were like, you know what, we think that the public public reaction to this, the jury will react that way. But I do think people are left with a sense of like a lack of resolution on that one. Um, although I do we do recognize that it it is still live in the Jones case. Right. How do people work through their frustration or you know, sense of a hanging thread when it comes to ban famine?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, listen, I I've been practicing in New York State for 20 years, um, over, a little over. I have never seen anyone file a complaint with nonsensical allegations against John Doe's solely to issue a subpoena that is narrowly targeted to specific people and alleged acts. I've never seen that done in my life. Um and, you know, obviously there are times when the use of John Doe's is appropriate, um, when you truly have a claim, but you just don't know the identity of someone. But here it was, you know, it was just a fabrication. It was an abuse of the New York State legal system. And in terms of a remedy, you know, I'm I'm not sure the federal court has a jurisdiction has jurisdiction to punish an abuse of the New York State judicial system. Um, you know, that would likely have to be some type of complaint filed in state court or with the attorney grievance committee of New York State. Someone has to fund those litigations. You have to likely be able to, you know, prove damages or prove that it's worthy of censure. And, you know, we we had enough on our plate, and you know, we still have enough on our plate that we we set that to the side. But in terms of the trial that was going to happen with Lively, it was obviously important to show uh the steps that she took in order to get out her narrative while she was attacking um comments that were in the public sphere about her.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Right? And and whether those comments in the public sphere were justified based on steps or acts that she did or authorized her agents or attorneys to do to do.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that makes sense. I I've I've personally kind of started using it as like a litmus test for lawyers I know or legal professionals, even paralegals. Like, what do you think about this? Would you put your name on that? And to a person, now there are some people who will say, like, I don't know, it's on the line, maybe I'd think about it. But, you know, 95% of people who have, you know, who are in the legal profession are like, no way, no how.

SPEAKER_00

Um you know, the interesting thing about the Van Zann complaint, um, which is signed by Samantha Katz, K-A-T-Z-E. I may have missed it. I haven't seen her name signed to anything else in this case. Right? And she apparently signed it on behalf of the BNAF firm. Oh, where were the other attorneys from that to sign that?

SPEAKER_03

They wouldn't do it, it's my guess. Um, I remember early on when we were read when I was reading the complaint and we were all going through the hullabaloo of like it says, you know, pursuant to a lawful subpoena. Remember, and we were going 18 rounds trying to figure out what that what that meant. Um, I'm not sure I would have signed the document that said that that was a lawful subpoena.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you know, that's another thing that um I just can't understand what the upside was for um Jones works to take that subpoena, treat it as valid, produce the contents of Jen Abel's phone. I I I I just don't know what the benefit was to her, but I mean that's something that will probably be litigated in the Jones versus Abel case.

SPEAKER_01

Did you you don't have to answer this if you can't, but when did you guys learn about Van Zan?

SPEAKER_00

Um, you know, I think it may have been that content creator without a crystal ball who brought it to the forefront. I mean, um, so thanks to her or whoever uh it was that uncovered it, um you know, we were certainly digging around for where this came from. And I think there were certain instances where we asked opposing counsel, can you give us a copy of the subpoena? And they just they they refused to do it.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_01

That's mind-boggling to me.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, even after they in their pleadings that it was a legal or lawful subpoena, right? All right, you here, you hand it over. Um, and you know, listen, unfortunately, in my view, that's what was so underhanded about it. They know that the way subpoenas work is to give notice to the other side so that the other side has a chance to, you know, move to closet or object it. And and they they they knew they had the obligation to do that, in my view, as any reasonable attorney does or attorney practicing here in New York, and and they didn't.

SPEAKER_01

It's this and a couple of other things that to me signals that perhaps I'm speculating here, but the they didn't intend for this case to ever get to as close to trial as it ended up getting. Because maybe they thought this will blow up and it'll be a huge deal, and we'll never have to produce this subpoena. Did you get a sense to the extent that you can talk about that? Did you get that sense?

SPEAKER_00

Um Yeah, I'm just gonna give my opinion. I I I I think that they perhaps um underestimated the resolve of Justin and Jamie and Melissa and Jen and Steve Sarrowitz, and maybe they underestimated, you know, counsel representing those people, and they thought that everyone would fold once you know we were hit with the New York Times piece and the complaint and the discovery requests. But you know, our clients were clear from the start. This is their reputation is on the line, this is a public-facing case, and they were gonna clear their name. And if it took going to trial and telling the truth and a jury decided against them, then they were okay with that. They were okay with that.

SPEAKER_01

Which is, I would say, in my experience, a pretty rare position for a client to be in, right?

SPEAKER_00

It it is, and you know, obviously there are conversations uh about risk, but again, it was important to our clients, plural, that you know, we tell everyone what happened, again, within the rules, the federal rules of civil procedure. And then if if the jury ruled in our favor, wonderful, but if they didn't, you know, so be it. And so, and we got, as I've discussed before, we've got the result that we would have got on our best day at trial with the settlement.

SPEAKER_01

Right. I think people are still trying to digest that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well I'm I'm happy to try to simplify it because that's kind of what I do. I try to make say things simply. Two issues of trial would have been whether there's liability on Blake's three remaining claims, and if so, what damages, if any, she was entitled to. Right. Right. She withdrew her claims and we paid her no money. Separately, in the case that was filed by Justin and Wayfair and the others, which was under a separate case number where he had and the others had asserted a claim for defamation, which was eventually dismissed. In that case, Blake is seeking to be reimbursed some of her attorney's fees and for damages under this California statute 47.1. That issue, whether she's entitled to that or whether the statute's even applicable here in New York, whether it's constitutional, was not going to be decided at trial.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Yeah, clear, clear as day for us, but I know um frustrating for some people who have found themselves to be sort of team um team wayfair and wanting to see justice play out in a different way. But that is that is one of the hard truths about our profession that we learn early on that it doesn't look the way we thought it would look when we were watching movies about the law.

SPEAKER_00

So Yeah, and again, as confident as we were going into the trial and that we would get a favorable outcome, you know, you never know. It's still a jury of, you know, six strangers and they have to digest a lot of information over a several week period, and you don't, you know, you just never know what happens.

SPEAKER_01

One of the things that we grappled with as content creators, I guess you could call us, is you know, fighting with people in our comments, misinformation about the case swirling, misinformation about us personally swirling, and just this kind of um notion of misinformation overall. And then parallel to this is what's happening in the case where accusations have been made, and it seemed to me at some point that accusations almost were an admission, that the people that were making the accusations were admitting to the thing that they were accusing the other side of. Did you feel that way at any point throughout this case?

SPEAKER_00

Um I don't think so, right? I mean, there was obviously a lot of noise to cut through that we were reading online, and uh um, you know, there were if you're referring to the subpoenas that were sent out to the 107 content creators, um, I I don't recall anything of value that came from that, whether, you know, from a PR or an evidentiary point of view. Um so, you know, listen, obviously each side, you know, had people that they were allowed to speak to about what was going on in the case, and and sometimes perhaps they did speak to them. Um I I never understood how serving 107 or whatever it was subpoenas on content creators was going to dig up anything of significant value or win any favor in the court of public opinion. I just didn't understand.

SPEAKER_01

Were you ever tempted to subpoena the other side to see what content creators they may have been working with?

SPEAKER_00

No, because it didn't matter from our point of view. Right? Um We were focused on, you know, what are the elements of claims for uh you know sexual harassment or hostile work environment, or what are the elements she's gonna have to prove to prevail on the uh retaliation claim? Or how is she gonna prove any damage even if successful? We were more focused on those and how to attack those.

SPEAKER_03

That makes sense. I I think it was hard for people exactly that question, LGA, that people would say, well, why don't they go ask and we could make you a list of the names you probably know who they are. Um and it's like, well, first of all, that doesn't help you because you're the defendant. And second of all, that might actually help them prove their case. If right, if there's evidence that content creators do, in fact, take orders from from parties in cases, that's not that's not helpful. I'm not sure that that was the case for anybody. But I I think that's hard for people to understand that when you are defending a case, it is not equal grounds. You're not trying to prove anything, right? Right, right.

SPEAKER_00

We we didn't have time or frankly inclination to go out on what I would call frolics, right? As fun, maybe as it could have been, but it's you know, we had an obligation to prepare a defense and to be focused on who are the witnesses we need, what's the evidence we need to defeat these claims, right? So some of these, the extracurriculars, as I would call it, were not of interest to us. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_03

Well, we've reached the point where we're gonna ask you some questions that our followers want us to ask here. We've kept it clean. We kept it real clean, don't worry. Um, although is it okay if people call you Fritzy?

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. I've been called that since probably elementary school. So 100%. Including Katie and KC. You call me Fritzy.

SPEAKER_03

Katie, it's all good. You're totally fine. Um I'm gonna let LGA uh ask the first one.

SPEAKER_01

So I I'm super curious about what your reaction was when you first saw the PGA letter.

SPEAKER_00

Um, you know, there's it's a rare case where you've got like a silver bullet or you know, a dagger, excuse the phrase. But you know, she said right there in four or five pages that she controlled everything. And so obviously one of the themes um in you know an employment uh case or hostile work environment or retaliation or whatnot is you know who had control, who suffered, who didn't. And I she's she put it all out there for us. Um and you know, luckily that existed. Um it's unclear to me how you know the case was prosecuted uh while knowing that that was out there and how they were gonna get over that. But as I think Alice or whoever wrote the in the summary judgment motion, it is a remarkable document.

SPEAKER_01

It certainly is. It certainly is. Was there a piece of it yeah, and that that phrase makes we've been repeating that. It is truly a remarkable document, especially in the context of you know the analysis of independent contractor versus employee. I mean, that that that is the sort of the the quintessential question is power in that assessment, in that classification assessment. And so to have something like that is like whoa. Um was there, other than the PGA letter, was there a piece of evidence that really surprised you that was sort of um that we've seen or not seen that shocks you the most?

SPEAKER_00

Um what shocked me the most was the the levels or the effort that the adverse party went through to undermine the person and the studio that hired her to co-star in such an important film about such an important topic. Right? They they went to her and said, Well, we want you in this film, right? We want you to help get this message out about domestic violence. And it almost seemed like from the get-go, I think it may have been in April of 2023 or earlier, where, in my view, and in my opinion, she was working to undermine her director and to criticize him and make fun of him and whatnot, to a very high-profile megastar, right, who she tried to use to you know grab more power. So that that was surprising to me that a professional actress would would do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Did you get all of the discovery from them? Was it did it come in like in uh tranches? You know, sometimes it's like they've got it already and they give a lot of it to you at the beginning. Sometimes it's a trickle, trickle, trickle. Did you get it sort of a bunch of it at once, or did it trickle in over time?

SPEAKER_00

Well, the stuff that trickled in, I think, was the so-called damages discovery, which, you know, frankly, again, in my opinion, undermined their claim of causation, right? I mean, I think the evidence showed that her companies were not performing well before any of the alleged acts, or or that I don't know, the it was based on three days of data, you know, whatever Amir Kalkarat, you know, eloquently said at the oral argument. Um, so that stuff obviously came at the end, and I my recollection is there was a change in her computation of damages. Um the other stuff I think came in for the most part when it should have. Obviously, some of the best stuff we got was from Sony about what they believed was the cause of all of this. Um and you know, we thought that was great evidence for us.

SPEAKER_01

Was there any evidence that you guys were saving for trial?

SPEAKER_00

Uh no, other than stellar cross-examinations, you know, which wouldn't have been based on anything they didn't know was coming, right? Because on, you know, uh, as much as it's played on TV, I know you guys know this, maybe some of your audience doesn't. It's not gonna be some surprise document you walk in with trial, right? Yeah. Everything's gonna be on an exhibit list. Um and frankly, even if it's something that's used for impeachment, especially in a case like this, they know what's out there. They know what we were gonna use to cross-examine Blake or the other witnesses. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I for me, like the PGA letter, obviously was I I think I literally made a video that was like a whole holy shit. I think the title of it was holy shit. Um I I've just especially doing employment, I've never seen anybody do that before. Um but the other thing was seeing messages inside of Sony and particularly with the head of the studio, um, just I think it was between maybe Sanford Panage and Ange, just talking, like to see their internal banter. Um, I don't know if you watched that show, The Studio, that Seth Rogan show. Um, it's really good, but it's it's essentially his um satire of a movie studio. And that's pretty much what it is. Um, it just it felt like we were getting to see behind the curtain a little bit in an industry that is often sort of a lot of upfront and and we don't really get to see behind the scenes. And I don't think that did anything to help uh people being less interested because we just don't get access to that stuff that often.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and listen, those types of internal communications is another reason why, from my point of view, I'm not sure why the case went as far as it did for a lot of reasons, because as you said, you know, the curtains being pulled back. And when the curtains pulled back, from my point of view, it showed that the facts are different from what was alleged, you know, by the plaintiff. Um and you know, I've read articles saying that the Hollywood industry isn't particularly happy that this case was litigated and went as far as it did. But you know, obviously everyone should know, and hopefully they do know that that wasn't our decision, right? We we we we were the defendants, we were playing defense here.

SPEAKER_03

Right. Um I know there were a lot of depositions, um and we probably will never see most of those depositions. Um but what were the what was the vibe like in particularly in Lively's deposition? Um, you know, it there was so much leading up to it in terms of where it was and security and the dates and all of that, which I have never in my life seen. Um I mean, I've seen the CEOs of multinational corporations do less scheduling than that. I'm sure we all have. Um, but when you actually got down to the deposition in the room, what was the vibe like?

SPEAKER_00

Um professional, calm, you know, people, you know, being pleasant with each other, obviously off the record and whatnot. Um so it it wasn't anything to be unexpected. There were obviously a lot of people in the room, both attorneys and and clients. Um you know, I I don't recall what portions of her transcript are still under seal or not, if any, so I you know, I don't want to get into you know what her testimony was, but um it was done professionally. They served us a nice lunch, so thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01

Um it's always nice.

SPEAKER_00

Um so I wouldn't say there was anything uh Abnormal about it, except as you said, all the correspondence and court conferences we had to have about when it would be and where.

SPEAKER_03

And you did it in a day, right? It was a it was a straight up seven and a half hour. I mean, that's in a case with 15 claims, that's no small feat.

SPEAKER_00

It's a long day, obviously, and then it takes longer than seven and a half hours. You're breaking every, you know, probably hour or 45 minutes for a 15, 20 minute break, you're having lunch and and whatnot. So I uh we probably didn't get out of there until about seven, seven o'clock. That's my recollection. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know, in California, you can keep the plaintiff's deposition and employment case open forever. Wow. You can just keep going back and taking more and more deposition testimony. There's the rules are different.

SPEAKER_00

No time limit.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Essentially.

SPEAKER_00

That would be a very different thing in this case.

SPEAKER_03

I know. I would think of that in Wyoming, but I wouldn't think of that in California.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, nor would I.

SPEAKER_03

Wow. Um, so as we're just wrapping up here, um, you know, tell us what you obviously you had to learn about the industry. You had to learn some stuff about employment law. But what do you think you'll carry with you from this case as you go on practicing in all of your other cases?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, this was, in my opinion, the quintessential example of where even if someone thinks they were wronged, and I don't think she was, it filing a public suit to me is not always the best option. There are other ways to resolve disputes, whether it's a mediation or an arbitration or a phone call or a meeting between the principals. And, you know, a lot of times as litigators and your client comes to you and says, Hey, I've been wronged, I want to file suit. I think you really have to you really sit them down and you say, This is what this will look like. This is what it will cost, this is what this is the emotional uh toll it's gonna have, this is a potential outcome, good, bad, or in the middle. And, you know, especially in a case like this, I I think there could have been a different approach to how whatever claims she had, as you know, with whatever merit you want to give them, and I I don't give them any, um she had there was a different way to do it. That that's that's what I would take out of it. There was a different way to do it. Um and maybe she was told that, maybe she wasn't, maybe this is the forum she wanted. Uh I I I don't think it gave her the result maybe that she wanted.

SPEAKER_01

I think that's actually an important point for audience to understand is that this is a defense litigator saying maybe the best thing wasn't to sue my client, essentially means less work for me, right? And I I think that's kind of important because the takeaway is a lot of people have talked about the fees in this case and how expensive this case has been for both sides, really, and that the lawyers are the ones winning. And and maybe that's true on some level, but it I think it is important to highlight that at the end of the day, you can come out and say, I don't think the best way to resolve this issue is actually through litigation. And that to me takes us back to the top of this, which is we're humans as well. And some of us, not all of us, but some of us don't really see the point in wasting that much money for a dispute that could have been resolved outside of the courtroom. And that's that to me is a really, really important takeaway from everything that you shared. I'm a little bit curious about what's next for you. I mean, do you have uh are all your other cases seem like really chill compared to this one? Like I know you still have some of this yet to come, obviously, but what's next?

SPEAKER_00

Well, we still obviously have the Jones versus Abel case, which um we're finishing up, I believe, with the expert discovery in that, and there's a uh conference schedule in August. So um we will shift some of the focus, obviously, over to that. Um, yeah, I certainly have other cases that I have to work on, and um, you know, whether there's a trial schedule on those or an arbitration hearing. So um my plate is still full, but this one has certainly been you know the most interesting. I don't think anyone can debate with that.

SPEAKER_03

Are your kids disappointed that you didn't get to meet Taylor Swift?

SPEAKER_00

My daughters wanted to get a picture with Taylor Swift. So if uh if her attorney, I think I forgot his name, maybe Doug Baldridge, I think was his name.

SPEAKER_03

Um if you don't know, Kevin, although I think he's been lurking around obviously for a while, he does officially have um a TikTok um account now. Do you want to tell people where they can follow you?

SPEAKER_00

Um yeah, I think I now have accounts of TikTok and um um X, Twitter. Obviously, I you know I have um Instagram and Facebook, but I don't know how much content I'll put on there, but I'm certainly I'm certainly around. We'll see. You know, I I don't think I could do as what you guys do as nearly as well as you guys do. I'll probably just stick to litigating for now.

SPEAKER_03

But I'm probably I think it's it's Kev Fritz, right? It's not your full name.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but maybe I should change it to Fritzy.

SPEAKER_03

I think maybe you should. I think maybe it should be the Fritzy, like the Ohio State University, you know? Right capital T, the Fritzy.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you so much for talking to us. It was really nice. And um, thank you for validating us that we knew what the hell we were talking about most of the time. It is it's a really interesting experience to watch it from the outside. And sometimes you'll never know, right? You'll you never get the the chance to know if you were right. So it's actually really comforting for us, I think. Yeah, you guys didn't know.

SPEAKER_01

And I'm just relieved I didn't annoy you at any point. Like someone running up to you showing you this video, see what she said, and you're like, that's not how it goes.

SPEAKER_00

It was extremely helpful, I I promise you that.

SPEAKER_03

So thank you. Well, thank you. We appreciate that. And if there are any interesting cases, sports cases, or something else that comes along, we would love to talk to you again because we really appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00

You got it. Thanks for your time this morning.

SPEAKER_03

All right, take care.

SPEAKER_00

Bye bye.