The Velvet Hammer™ Podcast

Trial lawyers can be real people, too—and this podcast proves it. The Velvet Hammer™ is back, and this time, Karen Koehler isn’t going it alone. Known for her fearless advocacy, bold storytelling, and, yes, even the occasional backwards dress moment, Karen is teaming up with Mo Hamoudi, a lawyer, poet, and storyteller whose empathy and resilience add a whole new dynamic to the show.

Together, they’re pulling back the curtain on trial law, diving into bold topics, heartfelt stories, and the messy, hilarious moments that make trial lawyers human. This is an unscripted, raw, and fun take on life inside—and outside—the courtroom.

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The Velvet Hammer™ Podcast

Madonna And The Double Standard

July 15, 2026 • Karen Koehler and Mo Hamoudi • Season 6 • Episode 27

0:00 | 32:58

People love to say they’re fine with aging right up until an older woman refuses to disappear. We start with Madonna, her decades-long career, and the noise surrounding her new music, then we get honest about what the backlash is really signaling: ageism, sexism, and a deep discomfort with women who stay powerful past the age society “assigns” them. If you’ve ever heard someone judged for how they look instead of what they built, you’ll recognize the pattern immediately.

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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.

The Velvet Hammer™ Podcast is where trial law meets real life. Trial stories, hard lessons, unexpected laughs, and honest conversations about life inside and outside the courtroom.

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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

iew with your take: where have you seen age shape who gets listened to?

Stay Connected with The Velvet Hammer™ Podcast

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.

The Velvet Hammer™ Podcast is where trial law meets real life. Trial stories, hard lessons, unexpected laughs, and honest conversations about life inside and outside the courtroom.

Podcast Hub:
https://thevelvethammer.buzzsprout.com

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

Why Madonna Still Matters

Mo Hamoudi 0:06

All right, what are we going to talk about today?

Karen Koehler 0:09

What else is there to talk about other than Madonna?

Mo Hamoudi 0:13

Okay. Okay, what are you doing?

Karen Koehler 0:14

What are you guys laughing about?

Mo Hamoudi 0:15

Well, I want to know This is serious. I think Madonna's. Madonna is serious business. It is serious business.

Karen Koehler 0:20

You guys are mocking me.

Mo Hamoudi 0:22

No. No, I I I love Madonna. I actually do. She's good. She is, you know, I listened to a podcast that she did about uh Kabbalah. Jay Shetty. Yeah, the Jay Shetty episode. It was really good. And uh the you know, the first half is Madonna speaking, the second half is her Kabbalah teacher. So I like her. I like her disposition towards life.

Karen Koehler 0:48

Okay, you like your philosophy. Well, let's talk about Madonna. Okay. Let's go way back to when I was in law school at the clubs. And Madonna had come out playing everybody. I don't know if you remember that one.

Mike Todd 1:03

Oh, I do.

Karen Koehler 1:03

We danced that one downtown at the Vogue. Do you remember the Vogue? The Corn Vogue?

Mike Todd 1:10

I've been to the Vogue many, many, many times.

Karen Koehler 1:12

Yeah, well, I think I was there before you were.

Mike Todd 1:14

Oh, you were probably a few years before me.

Karen Koehler 1:16

I'm a little older. But that's where I first saw Bandonna. Okay. Now, forward fast.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Okay.

Karen Koehler 1:24

She became obviously iconic. Yeah. Um, was all through the 80s and the 90s. And then, you know, the normal course for most pop stars is that's it. Um, very few bands, let alone people, continue to put out new stuff past like the age of 45.

Mike Todd 1:50

Yeah, I would go, I would go with a crazy number like below five percent.

Karen Koehler 1:54

Okay, then I appreciate that. It's rare, right?

Mike Todd 1:58

No, it's it's pretty rare. It's rare for artists to last that long.

Karen Koehler 2:01

Okay. And Madonna is a hyphenate. She's very interesting. She started off as a dancer, she sings, and she writes. And then she taught herself, you know, got lessons to teach to play uh guitar. But she is definitely a visionary visually, like her dance and her visual, you know, her her uh all of her music videos and the way that she orchestrates her concerts, she's obviously a very creative person all the way through.

Mo Hamoudi 2:28

And she's a really good actress.

Karen Koehler 2:30

Well Okay, you guys better stop mocking her, but I'm not, she is.

Mo Hamoudi 2:35

Did you watch the movie Um Desperately Seeking Susan? I think that's the movie. She played herself, but I thought she was excellent in that movie.

Karen Koehler 2:43

Okay. I do love Madonna.

Mike Todd 2:47

Off the top of my head that I would say were better performances than that movie. But because she was playing herself. A Vita, she was really good in Avita. There you go. I mean, there's there's she was she did have some good stuff, but I was teasing Karen a little bit because I knew she'd be sent to it.

Karen Koehler 2:59

Yes. So just for just for a frame of reference, in 1985, during the summer, as I was studying to take the bar exam, Madonna was in full bloom. I wanted to dye my hair platinum. I just had never dyed my hair, so I just didn't do it. But other than that, I came to Barberie in the evening as Madonna-esque as possible. Um I just I found her wonderful. Yeah. So I don't know if there is another female artist in history that has been as hated on as Madonna. Um and I and part of that is because of the world that we live in now where social media is so prevalent and and and dominant.

Mike Todd 3:51

But I mean, I would say Princess Die, but she's not a she wasn't a a media, you know, she wasn't a music, a creative.

Karen Koehler 3:59

Yeah. So what has what has made her a target? Well, she has her own credo and she follows it. She is extremely successful. She was not so successful in her marriages, but looks like she's been a pretty successful parent, and she likes younger men, more power to her. Um, you know, people don't complain about all the reversals, uh, which is so standard in our in our world. So, and she and she doesn't hold back on just being letting herself um be a free and powerful presence as much as she can be. Well, she has come out. I don't know how old she is right now.

Mike Todd 4:40

She's gotta be She's in her 60s at least.

Karen Koehler 4:44

I don't know that she's quite 70, maybe she is 70. And she uh just performed in Times Square up on one of

Longevity And The Rarity Of Relevance

Karen Koehler 4:50

the bullboards because she's getting ready to have her next album come out, Confessions 2. Which I've been listening to all the songs that the three songs that are out there like on constant rotation. Um and again, she is being mocked. People want to talk about that she's old, that she's had a facelift, that she doesn't move like she used to when she was 20. Freaking, she's almost 70 years old. Um, but the consensus is that this is probably her most important work in 20 years. Okay, now, Mike. Of the musicians that you know, including all the famous bands and collectives, so not just one or the singles or collectives, how many people do you know that started out in their 20s and are putting out a new album that is now critically acclaimed, at least in the dance music sector where it comes, and her music video that goes along to it is fantastic. How many artists do you know that uh have been able to do that?

Mike Todd 6:01

I mean, I can think of if you put it into their perspective fields, as you did with her, um I could probably off the top of my head right now, I've probably got about under 10, but I bet I could think of a few more than that.

Karen Koehler 6:22

Okay, so and the percentages, the percentage of the industry you less than one percent.

Mike Todd 6:27

Oh yeah, no, it's very little.

Karen Koehler 6:28

Very little.

Mike Todd 6:29

I mean, I don't know, I was I wasn't trying to say that like it was a big number at all.

Karen Koehler 6:33

So we're looking at somebody who is a very rare bird. Yeah. Who is No, she's an artist.

Mike Todd 6:38

She's an artist who I would say is a template for many art successful artists right now.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Yeah.

Mike Todd 6:44

She came at a time when women were extremely underrepresented in the entertainment industry, especially in music. Um and quickly dominated, stayed relevant for many years. I would say, like many long-term artists, she kind of stopped producing as much material. So the spaces in between took longer. She probably lost a little bit of her relevancy. But I mean, I think any artist that's been around that long that can put out new music that can energize an audience that is 30 to 40 years younger than they are is, you know, that's a really big achievement.

Karen Koehler 7:38

So the reason I want to talk about Madonna on a legal

The Online Pile-On And Double Standards

Karen Koehler 7:43

podcast is ageism and sexism. Because they do go hand in hand. And it is different, it is different when the person aging isn't a female who's who's a leader in her industry. Now, Madonna, if you if you go and look at go and look at some of the comments about Madonna, they're horrifying. Um, old Crone, you know, Gobit, you know, all this stuff, which is personal, is attacking the fact that she's aging. She's not just aging, you know, people also make comments of like, well, she's not aging gracefully.

Mike Todd 8:23

But uh then, first of all, most no one ages gracefully in the way that everyone's talking about it, unless they spend a lot of time having surgery done. And even I mean, that's the thing, even then they don't look good in my eyes.

Karen Koehler 8:38

Or they or they just age and don't worry about it. Yeah. But then they have to reconcile with the fact, like Janie Lee Curtis, right, that the youthful beauty, like she's not chasing that anymore. She's come to terms with who she is and she's fine with it, but she is kind of a different person on the outside. The funny thing about aging as a person who's aging more than you guys is that you don't feel any different on the inside. And so for Madonna, what I see is a person who doesn't see any feel any different on the inside at all. And so she's that's why I think she's still being able to do what she does. Because internally, now on the outside, it's a little bit more work, right? For her. She can't dance like she used to dance. She freaking had a hip replacement. I don't even know how she's dancing at all. She looks fantastic, she's completely toned. She obviously takes exceptional care of herself and views everything meticulously. So, you know, as much as I want to just idol idolize Madonna from this whole podcast, I do want to take it to outside of that, which is I always would say, you know, we're so lucky in the legal profession. We're we we don't have ageism, but I don't believe that that's true. So I already challenged Mel on this. You go give us the contra, go tell us your opinion.

Mo Hamoudi 10:05

My opinion is that ageism is people's attitude, like the subterfuge to ageism is people's attitude about facing the inevitability of death and their attitude about it. And I think that Madonna has just a very healthy attitude about it, that she does not see her progression towards the inevitability of her own death as something like, oh, I must succumb to it and uh sort of follow the traditional approach of retire and slow my life down. What she's doing is seeking life. And that's an attitude, and I think it's a reflection of someone's spirituality. Um and I and I think that's really foreign to a lot of people, and they get intimidated by it. And so what they do is that they start to say, hey, that's not the way you think about aging. You think about aging like you gotta retire, it's you know you're past past your prime, and you gotta stop. But I see this um just in basic physical activity. Like I play basketball with some people who are in their 70s. And and I and one of the things I asked them is like, how do you do it? Simple answer, I don't stop. I don't think about my age. So I think it's an attitude thing that like people get really biased towards. Mike.

Mike Todd 11:29

Uh I agree with all of that. Um I I think that uh I think that I mean it's just the I I remember when I I think I'm gonna keep stumbling here, but personally I think that the the key is to just stay thinking young. Like I don't think that I'm as old as I am. I have never thought that I was as old as I am. And uh I think that in the case of Madonna, to keep going back to it, she was a revolutionary in the entertainment industry. When she when she put out that book, Sex, she did something that I at the time no artist that I can think of had ever done. Yeah. Um musically, she was constantly challenging things at that time.

Karen Koehler 12:22

So and thumbing her nose at the system.

Mike Todd 12:27

Yes. And I I think that that type of personality is the type that gets to this age and it still tries to perform like she did when she was younger, does as hard, does it as hard as she can. Is it not what she could do when she was in her 20s? No, it's not for any of us. Mick Jagger's out there doing the same thing, and he had to go get heart surgery to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Yeah.

Mike Todd 12:51

It's, you know, you're old. Stuff's gonna start breaking. That's the way it is. But she still goes out and does the best possible show that she can. You know, there's no, there's, there's so few artists that do that, and there's just as few male artists that do that. Yeah.

Karen Koehler 13:10

Well, I'm gonna give you so an example of ageism in the legal industry. And I'll I'm gonna talk about it, the Tri Lawyers Association. So um the Tri Lawyers Association had a long-standing executive director, and he retired. And when he retired, they brought in a new uh executive director before the current one, who was

Aging As Attitude And Spirituality

Karen Koehler 13:34

quite young, um, which was great, you know, new energy, everything. Um her focus was on bringing new members in and empowering the younger members of the organization uh so that, you know, to carry the organization forward. Noble goals. In doing so, she disenfranchised all the senior members. Um, she dismantled a lot of the systems that they used to be very involved in and replaced them with new members. So, for example, the CLE program that they had, I I used to run it for many years with Claire Velic, um, and we had these big uh committees, but there was kind of a formula because they wanted to keep it fairly diverse. And you also wanted to attract people to go to these seminars. And the formula was well, you would have it chaired by a stalwart, you know, often a senior member, always a senior, and then a newer person. So you had that diversity. You would try to get diversity of gender and race and of the of the speakers and even of the chairs. Well, that gone, that left. And so you would have just new members up there. And no offense, but why would a senior member want to go listen to a CLE put on by someone that doesn't know enough yet? Like there's a learning process in the law. It does take uh experience. There are some people that can do it really quick, really early, but in general, the more you practice, the more you learn, the more you can talk more broadly about, you know, it's the experience and the understanding of everything. So by wiping out that system um and disenfranchising the older members, people like me, who I wasn't even old back then, I was still like in my 50s, which I guess is old, um, were just like, yeah, then then just go do it. Um they changed leadership then and they've tried to, you know, get some of that back. But there's so much uh wealth from being able to be truly diverse, and one of those diversities includes age. And so, of course, all roads are gonna lead back to Madonna. I look I watched her confessions video, which has come out, her little introductory movie. What's amazing about it is the diversity is so beautiful in it. It's so almost non-intentional. It just looks like it's so organic. And these people are all dancing there, ranging from everyone that's older to younger, to any color, to any persuasion of anything. Just it's just the the beauty of it. And we are not in that place in our society. We don't we don't embrace the diversity, we don't see the beauty in it as much. We're very polarized, and the age thing is an issue. It is. So you guys haven't got to that point yet. And you're men.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Uh-huh.

Karen Koehler 16:42

So you're not gonna experience what someone like me is gonna experience.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Damn me.

Karen Koehler 16:48

You guys should be damned.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Damn me, I'm man. I am man, damn me.

Karen Koehler 16:53

Shelly and I have had conversations. Shelly and I had conversations where she felt that as her physical beauty was, you know, aging, that she wasn't gonna be taken as seriously by juries anymore. And I told her, well, I don't think that's true because we're, you know, we don't have, you know, Pollyanna, it's not as ageist in our in our field, people are going to respect us because we're wiser and but but you know, there's all kinds of d line, there's a lot of stuff there that, you know, there's a lot of subliminal stuff involved.

Mike Todd 17:29

Yeah. I definitely say, I mean, like when I had younger attorneys uh when I was on the jury, I was a a little I didn't think, you know, I automatically kind of went to, oh, they're not gonna be as good as they should be, which is just the same. It's the it is it's ageism towards the young as opposed to ageism towards the old.

Karen Koehler 17:49

You know what, Mike, that I mean, that's what I used to think was that, and I did for like all through my 40s and 50s, was like, man, I am so above what it was like when I was in my 20s and 30s, because

Ageism Inside The Legal Profession

Karen Koehler 18:01

I was spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to get more gravitas. Because, you know, when you look young, people do not take you seriously or don't think that you have to be able to get a lot of people.

Mike Todd 18:15

Well, and when you're when you're entering a professional field, you want to be respected. Yeah. And, you know, automatically the like I said, I didn't I didn't stick to that when I was listening to those attorneys, but my initial reaction, oh, they're young. Oh, they he said he was new. Well, he must not know what he's doing. You know, I think that that's pretty easy for people to do that.

Karen Koehler 18:39

Hey, let's go back to a scenario where you were hit on hit hit way on your skateboard. Oh, yeah, and you got uh four attorneys to choose from. You got a uh 29-year-old, fresh, ready to help you, uh young male. You've got a 30-year-old, um really kind and sweet and modern and really in touch female, you have a uh 59-year-old aggressive male, and you have a 70-year-old kind of kind grandmotherly, but also known to be aggressive female. Which one do you want?

Mike Todd 19:24

57-year-old Mike would go for the older one. I don't know, like 20-year-old Mike hated attorneys so much, I have no idea. He probably would have gone for the 29-year-old male, because he would have felt closer to that.

Karen Koehler 19:45

What about you? What do you think?

Mo Hamoudi 19:47

About which part? You've said a lot of things.

Karen Koehler 19:49

Well, whatever you want. And it better be controversial because I can't agree on everything.

Mo Hamoudi 19:53

No, I mean part of what I think part of the disconnect is about this whole idea of like first thing you talk about, the trial lawyers association and the concerns about a younger generation coming in and then displacing the older generation. And I think that like part of part of what's sort of missing.

Karen Koehler 20:11

I'm saying quickly. Quickly. I'm not saying like there was a like there was a transition over, you know, well, this is where we're gonna be moving.

Mo Hamoudi 20:17

I'm just saying like very quickly. But like that organization is very personality driven, and like people like to like organizations across board, they want to like hold on to the organization. They stick so much identity from the organization. And so when they feel that slipping away, they don't like it. But the ones that are getting it are getting a rush. Like, oh, I am I am now the organization. That's true, like in political institutions. You see it all the time. You have like from like a swing, like you know, the Bernie Sanders folks and the Hillary Clinton stuff. So that's like there's an aspect to that that I think is like missing. It's not about ageism, it's about saying that I am the master of my own domain and I am going to self-determine. And I don't need you to tell me how to be to determine myself. And then I think then you're talking about I don't even know what you just said. Do you know what I said? You know what I'm talking about.

Karen Koehler 21:16

Because his eyes just crossed.

Mo Hamoudi 21:19

Just keep going. Well, no. I think what I'm talking about is that to be to be clear, older persons want to have control.

Karen Koehler 21:29

What's an older person?

Mo Hamoudi 21:30

An older person is someone older than somebody by age who is now stepping into a situation.

Karen Koehler 21:35

And by definition, what is a boomerang?

Mo Hamoudi 21:36

Don't engage with her, Mom. I will.

Karen Koehler 21:38

What's the older person in this context?

Mo Hamoudi 21:39

Baby boomers.

Karen Koehler 21:41

Okay, thank you for hating on the boomers.

Mo Hamoudi 21:43

Okay, baby boomers. And look at them just knowing exactly what the political fate of this country should be. Holding on to power, congressional seats, Senate seats, all of that, and saying, because we know what's best. But guess what? Fifty years from now, you're not gonna be here.

Karen Koehler 22:01

Where are you? Are you a millennial?

Mo Hamoudi 22:02

Fifty years. Thirty years from now, you're not gonna be here.

Karen Koehler 22:12

Oh my God, we have three different ones in here.

Mike Todd 22:15

We have three in a row.

Karen Koehler 22:17

All right, millennial. Okay.

Mo Hamoudi 22:19

So so so then so then they say, let us tell you that like the policies that we have relied on and benefited from for decades, we need them to stay because we want to keep benefiting. Where right now there is a generation of younger people who say, no, I want to take this country in a completely different direction.

Karen Koehler 22:38

I don't know how to do politics.

Mo Hamoudi 22:40

How did you make the Because it is politics? You're talking about a trial organization. The trial organization is about power. Do you understand? It's about power. We've discussed this before. Yeah, we've discussed it. It's about power and how it divides how it is organized.

Karen Koehler 22:58

He adopts it and then he thinks he created it.

Mo Hamoudi 22:59

How it is organized vertically and how it is organized horizontally.

Karen Koehler 23:05

And the millennials belong there. And the boomers are attack. That's the natural order of the thing.

Mo Hamoudi 23:20

Be available to support. Be an elder states person, and somebody can come to you and say, hey, I need some guidance. How do I do these cases? How did you do these cases? Because I got some fresh ideas. And I'm going to do things completely different.

Karen Koehler 23:35

Okay, this is personal now because you know I supervise him and he is definitely feeling his oats. And he's like, Well, I want to do it this way. And I'm like, yeah, no, that's not gonna work.

Mo Hamoudi 23:44

Because the old ways are just the old ways.

Karen Koehler 23:47

He's like, Well, I want to do opening. I'm like, how are you gonna do it? He tells me, I'm like, yeah, I can't do that. I'm gonna do the opening.

Mo Hamoudi 23:54

This is what you're hearing now. Okay, she says she wants controversy, and I'm giving her what she wants. Yeah.

Karen Koehler 23:59

But here's the here's the issue with the person with the persons who are this is our underlying dynamic here. This is a personal thing.

Mo Hamoudi 24:06

But here's the issue with the with with not being ageist, but persons who are who are of a date of birth that are prior to mine.

Power Struggles Across Generations

Mo Hamoudi 24:19

Okay, here's the issue. As soon as you come up and you start to do you start to assert yourself, they go, no, I can't. I will not let go.

Karen Koehler 24:30

It's mine. No. No, this is what we say. It's mine. No, this is what we say. This is what we say.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

Go on, Mike. It's Drew Lin.

Karen Koehler 24:39

I say, this is what I say. I said, Mo, you don't know what you're talking about. I'll take care, I'll take over it. Go back and here, read this book. Read one book. Okay, Mike. Mike, it's your turn. Go gen X. How did these topics devolve?

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Yeah.

Mike Todd 24:57

Well, you said this is it. That's just like. Well, no, the thing is, is that that's nothing new. That's that's the way it's always been. It's always the old trying to hold on to what they had and the young trying to say they've got better ideas. That's that's time, baby. That's dime, baby. It's not ageism. It's time, baby. Well, it is ageism, too. The problem is it goes both ways. Yes. I mean, there's plenty of times when you're talking about just that, take the political issues. I think that there should be a, you know, there's a there's an age that you have to be able to vote. I think there should be an age where you can't vote anymore. Oh.

Karen Koehler 25:38

Well, certainly I think that you shouldn't be running the country when you're that's my point.

Mike Todd 25:41

Like when you're when you're 20 years from dying, you have no responsibilities to what happens after you're gone. If you're getting your social security, you got your Medicare. I mean, and you're not you're only gonna care about those 20 years. You don't care about what happens 30, 50, 100 years after that. Yeah. So all the issues that people talk about right now with climate change and economics and and so on and so forth. Donald Trump doesn't care about that. My, you know, people my parents' age, most of them don't care about that. Because it's no they don't most of them don't watch the news anymore. And why? Let's not let's set aside Trump.

Mo Hamoudi 26:21

Let's set aside all that. But like, but like people who are like in those 20 years, the twilight of their lives, what are they doing? They're trying to like be remembered forever. They're trying to make sure that they're part of some great. They're trying to be comfortable.

Mike Todd 26:36

And I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. But and it's another view to say this. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. I think it's great.

Mo Hamoudi 26:48

Okay, boomer.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

Okay, boomer. I mean, bring it, boomer. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Karen Koehler 26:53

The weight of the boomer world is upon my shoulders.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

Boom, boom, boom.

Karen Koehler 26:57

Okay, first of all. My whole other than practicing law to help people, my whole focus is on uh protecting the future of my of my kids and the grandkids and the kids before them. Um that's my whole focus. Like that's that's the truth.

Mike Todd 27:16

So so But would you sacrifice other people's over them? Yeah, that sounds really feudalistic. Mike, my Mike, my own.

Karen Koehler 27:28

I am not a politician. So those are the people that I'm responsible for, my personal and also, of course, the law firm. So for example, I think that I'm not exactly the typical because I I felt two years ago now, three years ago, when we when we you know we started with Denny, we got Denny, we started getting the office under control, and my big pressing need now, my first need was I can't keep doing this and and and doing what I do and work. I can't being the managing direct director of this law firm and actually managing it and doing it and hiring and firing and you know in the weeds before we got director of operations, plus doing my job was killing me. So once we got that and we got Mo to help me out, that's right. You're not gonna look at me.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

That's right. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Karen Koehler 28:16

Once I got that under somewhat under control, not all the way under the control, my very next initiative was sustainability. That was from me. That was my request. That has been my request. We've been exercising that for the past year and a half. All these changes is all because I wanted sustainability for everyone here and for the people that we can potentially serve. Like I feel like it's super important when you have a firm that's like this, that is a precious precious commodity law firm because we are not owned by corporations, we are not owned by the government, we are for the people. Um and we do things for even though we do make money, we are altruistic.

Mike Todd 29:07

You win cases that most other firms wouldn't take.

Karen Koehler 29:10

Absolutely. I mean, even when we try cases, people are like, that was a really hard case. And we're like, uh Yes, it was. Give me a give me an easy one. I would like to try that one. Um so so that's me being defensive, but it it's also me saying that there are a lot of boomers that give boomers a bad name. I mean, they're in the White House right now, right? But there are also people that aren't like that. Um and so just like any other category that we put in, uh this all roads are coming back to this ageism. Yeah, you you can start talking about, did you see how pro pro what's that called um uh polarized we got when we started going the X and the Boomer and the And then we started focusing on that label and we became very polarized quickly. And that's what happens, unfortunately.

Mike Todd 30:03

Yeah, that does. So I think the less-cause you had a good point. I mean, the whole the whole hippie movement happened during the boomer era, and that's a a lot of that is supporting the issues that I talked about there.

Karen Koehler 30:18

Climate change.

Mike Todd 30:19

That's all all of those. I would say people from that era, you know, probably the majority are in support of those issues. But there's a loud opposition to that.

Karen Koehler 30:29

Yeah.

Mike Todd 30:30

You know, and they happen to be in political power right now.

Karen Koehler 30:34

So You know what was really interesting? I went to um I've gone to both, not I didn't march, but I went to Seattle Center for both of the No Markings. It seemed to me like it was primarily boomers that were marching, just FYI. So the point of this whole thing, other than my adulation of the Madonna, um, is just to address something that we don't really talk about, which is ageism, uh, which is very prevalent. People get polarized and they get into their little spheres. We don't really talk about it hardly ever. Even in an arena like the practice of law, there's ageism.

Mike Todd 31:15

I think people don't like to admit it too. I mean, just like I said, you know. You know, old people don't want to admit that they're that they think that young people are stupid. Young people want to admit that old people are stupid. You know, I mean, it's it's it's been like that forever.

Karen Koehler 31:32

Yeah.

Mo Hamoudi 31:33

But I think to I want to close it out by saying that if you're talking about the law firm and we work together, at the end of the day, there are like

Respect, Experience, And The Wrap

Mo Hamoudi 31:45

a lot of decisions we make all day. We're making decisions all the time. And there are decisions we don't agree on. But I I and I do this not because of age, but because of experience and just pure respect, I'm in my mind, I go, I will not like that your decision goes. And I will, I will like defend it, and I will say it's a collective decision, and like that I think a lot of young people don't understand. It's not really about age, but it's about a sense of respect for someone who has done more, seen more, experienced more, and you just have to defer. And I think that like that's a different thing. I think that's respect for the power dynamic and wherever you are.