Bad Defense Lawyers Are Getting EXPOSED: What They Don't Want Judges To Know

Karen and Mo vent about the special breed of defense lawyer who turns routine litigation into a personal drama, then acts shocked when we push back. Along the way, we break down how bad briefing and petty attacks destroy credibility, and why making a clean record can save a case.

• a defense filing that drags in a nickname instead of law and facts
• why bully defense lawyers often act thin-skinned
• how poor writing and incoherent arguments signal weakness
• the value of recording Zoom meet and confer conferences
• whether our approach creates tension or exposes existing tactics
• a late motion in limine built on a stop sign technicality
• the difference between nonsense arguments and factual falsehoods
• the trial skill that pays off most: conceding what you cannot win

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Hosted by Karen Koehler and Mo Hamoudi, trial lawyers at Stritmatter Law, a nationally recognized plaintiff's personal injury and civil rights law firm based in Washington State.

Featuring Mike Todd, producer, audio engineer, and the Disembodied Voice of Wisdom & Reason.

Produced by Mike Todd and Kassie Slugić.

New episodes every Wednesday.

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Karen Koehler
https://karenkoehler.com
https://www.instagram.com/k3thevelvethammer/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-koehler-thevelvethammer/

Mo Hamoudi
https://www.instagram.com/mo.hamoudi/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mo-hamoudi-77a38733/

Stritmatter Law
https://www.stritmatter.com

Transcript

The Velvet Hammer In A Filing

Karen Koehler 0:07

We can't help it. We have to talk more about a bad defense lawyer. I mean periodically they crop up like constantly.

Mo Hamoudi 0:14

Do you know like wait, what is that? Do you remember there was that game where the thing pops up on the whack emotion? Yeah. And right, right? They go boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. This is one of those.

Karen Koehler 0:26

Yeah. Yesterday he submitted a was that a declaration or a motion talking about how I was rude to another counsel that's no longer in the case. But that segueing it to say that somebody told them that they saw that I did something that might have related to him and that I'm rude and I call myself the Velvet Hammer. He put this right in the legal pleading.

Mo Hamoudi 0:50

Oh, he did? I ignored that.

Karen Koehler 0:52

Well, I mean, that was Christian cut it out so that we could all see it and put it in there. Now, I thought it was so it's so common that they do that. First of all, there is nothing as thin-skinned as a bully defense lawyer. Like there's nothing more thin-skinned than a bully defense lawyer. They're just there's a prototype of them, right? And secondly, they apparently don't understand freedom of speech and the fact that maybe we don't like you because you're being so horrible to our client primarily, and really unbearable to us. By the way, this is generic. I'm not talking about any one particular person named LB. I'm talking in general. I am, I'm talking about in general.

Mike Todd 1:35

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 1:36

LB might be part of that, but I'm not saying they could be included. It could be a they or she.

Mo Hamoudi 1:44

No, no, she. No, well, we're not talking about anybody in particular.

Karen Koehler 1:47

We're just like Well, we are going to.

Mo Hamoudi 1:49

Oh, we are. Sprise. Surprise. Survise or rise.

Karen Koehler 1:54

But in general, there's this formula of we get along so well with most of the defense lawyers. And then there's these ones that we don't get along with. And we're just going about our business, having a ho-hum time. And honestly, we kind of like it when they act bad, because guess what happens? First of all, it's not just us, it's our staff. So if you send us a nasty gram, that means like six people probably saw it. So if you want to blame six people for all having the same reaction to your terrible thing that you just did, either the the amount of and in fact there are so many, there's three of them right now, that I keep getting confused as to which one's which. They're just the global bad defense lawyer. And they're taking turns just being bad on all levels. Their attitude, their work product, or people that are working for them as work product, their understanding of basics. And they're just they they need to be schooled. We school them, and then they get mad and they write something to the judge like she's rude and she calls herself the Velvet Hammer. Like, is that a defense for you not being a good lawyer? I guess.

Mike Todd 3:05

I think my Well, wait, do you call yourself like do you walk into court and proclaim the Velvet Hammer has arrived.

Karen Koehler 3:13

I think I need to have like a bot or like a little like a hype man that comes in.

Mike Todd 3:25

Yes.

Karen Koehler 3:26

Yeah, no.

Mike Todd 3:27

No. You don't you don't walk into court saying that. So why why would they be bringing that up as you trying to intimidate them or something?

Karen Koehler 3:35

All the time.

Mike Todd 3:35

I mean it's just a lot of people.

Karen Koehler 3:40

Which is the name that I got from the defense bar calling me that. And and apparently it's a true moniker. Now, I am very rarely outright rude. I am velvet on the outside, normally, until you cross that line. If you cross the line with me, I am not nice. I am effective. I am a trial lawyer. I am no different than Mo. I am gonna be like that. He's more velvety than me most of the time now.

Mo Hamoudi 4:13

I mean, I'm more hammery, velvety, whatever you want to call it. I don't think it mat I I honestly, I don't know, I don't know why they bring it up, but I well I have a couple of theses, like hypotheses. I think why it comes up. I think it comes up because like it's what I call the lowest common denominator. Like you go you go have to dig, right? Because when you read these pleadings, they have misspellings. These are defense lawyers getting paid several hundred dollars an hour. Not just them, too. Remember, they've got staff problems. Yeah, they've got staff. Misspellings, the law is not right. Um, some of it it's incoherent, some of it borders on conspiracy theories, and you're reading this, and then for them to come back and say, Oh, and the Velvet Hammer.

Karen Koehler 5:00

And I don't even by the way, I'm not even writing the briefs, right? Mo's writing the briefs.

Mo Hamoudi 5:05

I'm not writing the briefs, and I'm reading this, I'm going, like, what are they even talking about? And and so I think that like fundamentally, like, like I could see like the Velvet Hammer thing coming up if it's like appropriate context. Like, we're in the middle of like a conference, and and Karen goes, I'm the Velvet Hammer and I say what goes.

Mike Todd 5:27

I'd even I'd even take it further. I'd take it what she's never done. We talk about stuff like this all the time. If the and and other cases have referenced us as the podcast. Like if they did something like that, it would have a little bit more. But they're just going, she has a nickname and we're afraid.

Mo Hamoudi 5:48

What they tried to do is they're trying to what they're trying to do is say, Judge, this is not an ordinary lawyer, okay? This is not what you're usually used to.

Karen Koehler 5:57

She's a bad she's a bad woman.

Mo Hamoudi 5:58

Well, I I think that that's the that's like the I that's the conclusion they want the judge to draw. But what they're saying is that this is a personality. This is somebody who is not real, and they have this character that they're perpetuating, but they provide no context, nothing, which is what the the uh other party did and earlier in a case, and the judge ignored it. I just think that like it's a waste of time, and it looks to me like they're incompetent. Because when you don't have law and facts on your side, and you're like going reaching into this stuff, you're not serving anybody.

Mike Todd 6:36

No, you're just grasping and and I will go back to say that I still think everything that you just said is them going, I'm afraid, I'm afraid. Uh because I think they're grasping at straws at that point, and they're trying to find dirt on Karen, and that's the only thing that they can use, is that she's got a scary name. Yeah.

Mo Hamoudi 6:56

Look, she's by no means during any conference that I've ever attended with Karen, have I been like, wow, that's uh wow, look at that energy. Woo! I don't ever feel that. The only time that that's happened, she came up and she was she was defending me because somebody was being very rude to me. And she stepped in. And even then, it was with a guy. But even even then, but even then it was it with like a quiet voice. It was nothing like, you know. I know.

Mike Todd 7:26

You know, like I've said, I've only seen Karen Razor's voice a few times, and I've been working with her for 20 years.

Mo Hamoudi 7:31

But in contrast, I have heard people like berate people in Discovery, and I have had to step in and speak very like boldly and clearly. This part, because I don't get thrown under the bus, she does, that's where the bias comes in. That's because she's a woman. Oh, yeah. I swe you know, and like, and like the only way you can really out that is to like for me to tell the judge, like, judge, like this human being, this guy is behaving this way the whole time, and then he's calling her out, and she is, you're not present in these conferences, you're not even listening to her speak. That's the only way you could actually conclusively prove that these guys are all sexist. But now, at least in one case, we've got them to agree to record these conferences.

Karen Koehler 8:21

Because I think that's that's gonna tell, because you're you're so

Recording Zoom Meet And Confer Calls

Karen Koehler 8:26

so you know we live in this age of Zoom, and we all have Zoom meetings. And we always say to the defendants, well, let's record it so we can get the transcripts. So we don't have to send letters saying this is what happened, and then they say, No, that didn't happen, this happened. And we say, Well, that's not exactly what happened either.

Mike Todd 8:42

We've got video and we don't want to do that. We just want the transcript.

Karen Koehler 8:45

We just we're fine with just the transcript. They never agree. We have brought several motions, a handful of motions. The judge have has judges have refused to to uh to require it. I don't know why. They say, well, if you continue to have problems, come back to us. But this time, the lawyers were all like, yeah, we don't want to keep writing these self-serving letters. And there's like four of them. Aren't there four defense lawyers? They agree. They all agreed.

Mo Hamoudi 9:08

I think that's great.

Karen Koehler 9:10

Except for we had one issue where they wanted Kristen to attend every meeting and record it for them. And we're like, if you call your meeting, you gotta push the button yourself.

Mike Todd 9:19

Exactly. You're responsible for recording. We're not recording.

Karen Koehler 9:22

That was our only slight little, you know, thing that we didn't agree to.

Mo Hamoudi 9:25

You know, but I kind of want to dig in on this. Like, is it us?

Why Tension Happens With Certain Lawyers

Mo Hamoudi 9:31

Like, are we having like I wanna I wanna sort of like, is it something we're doing that's causing this tension? I mean, is like the norm that these defense lawyers meet these with these plaintiffs' lawyers, and you know, there's a shaking of hands and uh cordialness and uh collegiality, and we meet and confer and we resolve everything and everybody walks away happy. Am I like living in La La Land? Because I worked in a government institution, the Federal Public Defender, for over 10 years. I have never dealt with stuff like this. So like poor writing, uh conspiracy theories, and like case sites that are not appropriate. I don't know what what is this? What is what is with this discipline, the the the civil practice of the plaintiff's bar that draws this out?

Karen Koehler 10:21

You asked five questions. I did, because I'm going to go to the city. Let's go back. Let's go back. Number one normally a CR26i is handled by an associate attorney. But I will often come in and do them. So it is it is more rare that a senior attorney, you know, 41 year, oh God, I'm getting forty almost 41 years now. Uh, that they come in. But I'm a control freak. I like to come in and I don't see that I'm any better than anyone else to handle those. Like if I'm handling that part of the case, I'm gonna do the 26i. I'm not gonna delegate it to someone else. Like we are on the same, we're all working together, right? Yeah. We're not we don't have this artificial hierarchy. Yeah. And so I think that catches people by surprise. I do think that people have heard things about me. Not all nice, and so they have preconceived ideas. I think most people are very happy when they deal with me. Yeah, and then some people realize that I was good until I wasn't, and that's true for everything.

Mo Hamoudi 11:25

Wait, what?

Karen Koehler 11:26

I'm good until I'm not. Like I am good until I'm not. I'm good until you betray me. I'm gonna always give you the benefit of the doubt. If I don't know you, like you're coming into this world, this sphere, you're a lawyer, you're a witness, you're employee, whoever you are, I'm gonna take you at face value. And as soon as you screw with me, then I'm a different person. But up until then, it's like I would much rather, maybe not always, I do like a good fight, but in general, I'm all for love, peace, and harmony. Let's yeah, let's be, let's be great about this. Let's do this. Yeah. So let me give you an example. We have a case, um, the one where we've agreed to, where there is another attorney involved. And Mo's like, I'm having nothing but problems with this lawyer. He's such a jerk. And I said, Who is it? So-and-so. And he's and he worked with you before. Oh yeah, I know that person. He's really good. He's really professional. Mo's like, I don't know what's going on then. And fast forward a couple months, I finally have a meeting with this person. And I realized that I got a mix, the name is mixed up. This is not the one that I really like. This is one that I've never liked. That's always been hard. And I said to Mo, because Mo is trying to be like nice. I'm like, no, no, they're very professional. It's very nice. I was like, oh no, he's always been like this, always been a punk, always trying to take advantage, and just, you know, just kind of nasty, a nasty guy. And so then we just switched up. I said, yeah, we don't need to, you don't need to try to accommodate at that anymore. It will never work. He is gonna, he is gonna always quarrel and he's always gonna be a problem. So you can go be with us, Mo now. Look at how look how happy he is.

Mo Hamoudi 13:05

Well, I will say I had stopped accommodating him because he was just flatly lying. Like just saying things that were untrue. And and so I was like, there's something wrong with this guy. But like they can't talk to a person like that. I just can't I can't reason with people like that.

Mike Todd 13:22

No, I mean I I to me it sounds like he was using that as a tactic to, you know, try to win by keeping you off your game all the time. Yeah. But I don't know.

Mo Hamoudi 13:35

I don't know. I don't know. I wasn't interacting with them, you were. I will say where it's effective when they do this stuff. That's my point. I mean, it's effective because it like boggles the case.

Mike Todd 13:45

Yeah, it throws everything.

Mo Hamoudi 13:46

It throws everything. It's almost like you're like right. And then so like the key is like you gotta move the case forward. Yeah, you gotta keep you can't you can't let it r derail you. And and these loyal soldiers to the insurance companies, I mean loyal. These are lieutenants. These are what I call basically uh uh stormtroopers. That's what they are. That's what I see every time I see these Zoom. Really they're mor mercenaries. Well, I see them as stormtroopers. Very much, Mike. You see that I don't mercenaries. I don't know. I think that we are the rebel of the people.

Karen Koehler 14:16

They have they have sold they have.

Mo Hamoudi 14:17

No, mercenaries are paid soldiers. That's what they are. Well, all right. I just think that they're like those stormtroopers, just basically carrying carrying the bucket and water for these insurance companies because the insurance companies pay them. Yeah, it's just it's it's money that they're tied to, but yeah.

Karen Koehler 14:36

Okay. I was a I was an insurance defense lawyer. There is there is hope for something. Oh, there you go. Or talking about ones that are just they're so bad. And I know that we have these conversations, but when is it gonna what you you think that you grow out of it like the lawyers get better and it just no no no no no no. They there's just there's just gonna be, I would say two out of ten, so one fifth.

Mo Hamoudi 15:02

I I mean I will name you like four or five. Wait, wait, I won't name that I will name you four or five who I think are wonderful. I am I'm really identifying like the ones that are, I really think, like like Darth Vader's little younglings, you know. But the ones that are wonderful are Shelly. No, uh sh sh Ryan Groshong, I think he is wonderful. I think John Justice is a good and decent man. I mean, these are just two right off the top of my head that I'm like have dealt with, and I'm like, these are very pleasant, reasonable, candid, and transparent lawyers. And Shelley. Until they're not. Until uh I haven't I haven't had issues, but I will name positive, I would like to name the doctor. Don't do that.

Mike Todd 15:54

But right now, they're already listening and they know who they are.

Karen Koehler 15:57

Right now, poor Jamie and Kristen. First of all, on the one hand, we are bemused every time another terrible thing comes in. We're just like, we call up each other, we laugh about it, we send memes, um, we make very funny jokes and just scratch our head together like I mean the most recent one that came up. Um I don't even know. I did post that, but I took out the name. I always take out the names. So we are on standby. I'm supposed to be in trial now, as we all know. That's why I'm really crabby. I'm supposed

Motions In Limine And Nonsense Arguments

Karen Koehler 16:35

to be on trial, and the defense lawyer has now filed another motion in Lemini. They were due, by the way, at the end of May. Here we are on June 11th. So two weeks late. But you can just keep filing stuff, you're just gonna keep filing it. The newest argument is so this guy is coming out of a parking lot, there's a stop sign at the parking lot before you get to the sidewalk and then the road that goes up to it. Their argument is that he did not need to stop at the stoplight, a stop sign, because there was no line on the ground. And if there's no line on the ground, then you only have to stop, you know, somewhere b before you get to the road. This is the excuse for why they ran over the pedestrian who was Who was walking in front walking well uh on the sidewalk and gonna go was gonna go across. Or he didn't see her.

Mo Hamoudi 17:25

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 17:26

So they don't want the jury to know that the guy didn't stop at the stop line before he hit the pedestrian, who in all fairness hadn't got to the intersection yet, right? He he this case is about a guy who goes past the stop sign, stops, but is only ever looking to the left. He never once looks to the right and runs over somebody. But literally makes the argument that a stop sign means that you don't have to stop. This isn't a pleading.

Mo Hamoudi 17:57

Yeah. Well, mine is worse. Mine is worse. It can't be worse. No, mine is worse. Mine is this says um this exhibit says this, and I declare it to be true. You go look at the exhibit, it says the exact opposite. I mean, literally, like it's not even a typo. It's repeatedly in the document. The exhibit says this, this, this. And you go look at the exhibit, you go, the exhibit says not that. It says entirely the opposite. What the hell are you thinking, man? What the hell are you thinking? That to me is nuts. I this I think is like what you described as like a nonsense argument. Like that's a nonsense argument. What I'm describing is just flat falsehoods. I would like to name them.

Karen Koehler 18:46

This same lawyer earlier during the first trial that was supposed to have gone, argued another motion that was written by someone else. When he argued it, he argued it in a very interesting way because nothing he said was actually in the motion. The judge actually said, I I really don't understand. Like your argument is not in this motion. Like everything you're saying to me, which right you're supposed to put it in the motion. Me, the person that's supposed to oppose it, has an opportunity, but no, I'm hearing it for the first time, arguing it. And and it's me, and they're also making it up. He's also since he didn't write it, he didn't have the really now, some of it he he he was, you know, being clever, and obviously he was brighter than the person that wrote his horrible brief, and he realized if he stayed on that horrible brief, he was gonna lose. So he thought, oh my god, well, I'm gonna segue, and maybe I can save this by doing by arguing, you know, this, this, and this, uh out of this way. So he did it. I mean, he was obviously a better attorney than whoever wrote the brief, who was horrible, but that's not how you do it. You don't get to just invent stuff midway through. And also he was wrong on about not all of it, he got about half of his facts right, and half of them were completely not right. I'm not gonna say that they're a lie. I just think that he was, you know, making it. Making it up on the fly. Yeah.

Mo Hamoudi 20:07

Yeah. Okay, I want to like give a little bit of an instructional because you get a lot

The Credibility Rule For Courtroom Wins

Mo Hamoudi 20:13

of mileage if you just tell a judge, I don't have it. I lose on this. They're right. If you start to say that in your pleadings and say, they're correct, I was incorrect, the facts don't support me. The judge will like you. And as you go into trial, you'll start to get some rulings. Historically, I've always been in positions from the defense side where I didn't have any facts. My my case was sunk. So I would come in and say, I don't have this fact, I don't have this fact, I'm gonna focus on this, this is what I want to do, this is my defense. And the judge was like, Yeah, you get that right, but you lose credibility with this little stuff. So when you're in court and you ask for things on the fly, objection, judge, uh, that that's hearsay or that's excluded because of this rule. You're asking the judge to exercise discretion on the spot and trust you. And if you have a litany of nonsense that's led up to that moment, the judge is not going to give you that ruling. So that's the lesson. If you're a defense lawyer, young, new, or this is the kind of law you want to do, either side, like take your losses. I think it just is better. It gives you more credibility. That's my lesson.

Karen Koehler 21:29

I'm so sick of it. And when will it end?

Mo Hamoudi 21:33

I don't know.

Karen Koehler 21:34

It won't