The 100th episode of The Litigation Psychology Podcast features trial attorneys Paul Motz from Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney and Brad Hughes from Clark Hill. Bill Kanasky, Jr., Ph.D. and Steve Wood, Ph.D. talk to Paul and Brad about the challenges of connecting with jurors during trials where masks are required and ideas on what to do. The group discuss their thoughts on counter-anchoring damages, why the insurance adjuster playbook doesn’t work, and steps that need to be taken to diffuse a nuclear verdict before getting to trial. Paul and Brad offer their suggestions on how younger attorneys who lack experience can be provided opportunities to learn and talk about the difficult conversations that attorneys must have with their clients and their insurance companies about the investments that are necessary to avoid the ever-increasing nuclear verdicts and settlements.
Full Episode Transcript
[00:15] Bill Welcome to the centennial episode number 100. Everybody’s been waiting for it. I’ve been waiting for it, uh, hopefully our audience has been waiting for it. Litigation Psychology Podcast brought to you by Courtroom Sciences, www.courtroomsciences.com. Partner in crime, the man, the myth, the legend, Dr. Steve Wood. Steve?
[00:40] Steve Bill, how are you? Glad, glad to be here. I’m glad, glad to get a hundred. I’m excited we’ve made it this far and I…
[00:47] Bill I had no idea where this was going. I haven’t—the one good thing from COVID is that we developed this podcast and, uh, it appears to be a hit based on the, the feedback that we’re getting. Um, should I just start with the Kanasky rant?
[01:00] Steve I think you should hit it. Yep, what better way to start.
[01:03] Bill And I’ve been dying because this is happening every week. Okay, Steve, it’s not pre-boarding. Okay? It’s boarding. All right? So I am on a flight at Chicago Midway. I’m, I’m about to board the flight. I’m on Southwest Airlines. I’m a A1 always. Now, Paul Motz is going to be busting my [__] here in a second about Southwest, but I’ll get to him in a second. He’s gonna bring up all his United, you know, BS and there, and I’m counting them: 17 wheelchairs. Okay, hey, I’m a reasonable man. Should they be on the—yeah, of course, right? Well, they wheel all these people down, all 17. It’s amazing how they jump out of those wheelchairs like jackrabbits if you notice that, right? So 17 go, and then there’s like six other people, right, just hand in their pre-board thing, and I’m trying to figure out, okay, why are they getting on this plane? Why are they pre-board, right? So it’s making me nuts. So you got roughly 25 people getting on board before A1, so I’m really A26. Is that a fair assessment? Right?
Now, here, here’s the best part. I, I land in Orlando and they come on the intercom, “Yeah, welcome to, you know, Orlando. We’re so happy to, you know, enjoy your Disney trip. Oh, by the way, you know, ring your call button if you require wheelchair access off of the plane.” Guess how many damn buttons went off? One. Yeah, one. What is up with that? That’s bull. Every flight, every, every, every flight. So it’s not called pre-boarding, it’s called boarding. Okay? They’re like group one. It’s, it’s pissing me off. Sit there, put in all these airline miles and all these people get off. Right? Now, we’re going to have some association—yeah, yes, yeah, don’t, don’t get me started. Some association is now going to watch this and we’re going to get sued, right, saying that, you know, I’m discriminating or something like that. I can see where this is going. Well, we’re already in trouble in the first two minutes.
[03:05] Steve What better way to start.
[03:08] Bill I know. Episode number 100. Uh, two of our favorite guests that have joined us—and we lost Bassett, we lost Roush because they, they actually, um, they didn’t blow us off, they had some emergencies come up. But I got Roush’s, uh, info for later, which I’m gonna share with you. Paul Motz, Chicago, Illinois, wearing, uh, the Cubs gear. Paul, how are you? What’s going on in Chicago?
[03:32] Paul You know, I’m doing well. I, I’m, uh, I’m happy that it’s not snowing outside right now given that it’s December 3rd. And you know, I’m, I’m really sad to hear your, your horror story about, uh—you know, flying. You just gotta, you know, fly a real airline like, uh, United or American. Well, maybe not American. You know, Delta is pretty good too. You know, you can, um, you know, get status and fly, uh, across the ocean to real places like Europe and Asia with the real airlines. So…
[04:15] Bill But can I mute him? Can I mute him? Where’s the, where’s my mute button? Jesus. Well, that got off to a shaky start. And then we have a good friend from Los Angeles, Brad Hughes. Uh, he’s, this, this guy takes me to the Dodgers games when I’m out there and, uh, screws up my sleep schedule by keeping me up so late. Brad, what’s going on out in L.A.?
[04:35] Brad How are you? Everything’s good. Uh, my Trojans, we’re celebrating Lincoln Riley getting just ripped from Oklahoma. Watching, uh, watching, uh, coach Kelly come up with just the greatest southern accent overnight down in LSU.
[04:48] Bill That was the most bizarre thing. He’s like, “Thank you for having me as your coach,” and I’m going, “Who the hell is this guy?”
[04:56] Brad The fastest, uh, all of a sudden, “I have an accent” move. Uh, I can’t not comment on being a million, uh, mile status with Delta, a Diamond Medallion as I am. The fact that you would allow yourself to fly Southworst, I mean, Southwest—is remarkable. Remarkable.
[05:15] Bill Whose podcast is this?
[05:17] Steve Southwest is gonna be not happy with us.
[05:20] Brad Delta—shout out Delta. Uh, absolutely highest quality. I don’t have delays with Delta ever. Yeah, the only time I struggle is when I fly to Chicago because then I gotta go L.A., Minneapolis, Chicago.
[05:32] Paul And that’s just a mistake on your part because, you know, it’s the United hub. Fly the friendly skies, man. I’m global service with United. They’re great. I have no delays. They, uh, they send me gifts and you can get other things.
[05:47] Brad You gotta—fly Polaris. The only—gonna be a new Polaris, uh, first class, which is, you know, all the—
[05:55] Paul The actual Polaris is nice. You know, this is the CSI 100th, uh, podcast on travel and, uh, yeah, makes bad decisions.
[06:05] Steve Should we, should we trail off into how some of these unnamed companies have “Safety is your top priority” blasted everywhere?
[06:12] Paul Oh my goodness. Yeah.
[06:13] Bill And it gets worse. It’s getting worse.
[06:16] Steve Yeah.
[06:17] Bill Yeah, and it’s not true. Well, listen, I want to start off with topic one. Um, Brad, I’m going to start with you. Um, I’d like to say we’re post-COVID, but we’re certainly not, but a lot of things have changed, particularly the last six months. I’ve consulted on a ton of trials in the last six months. Um, and I know everywhere’s, uh, different. What’s going on in California and, um, are they doing trials? How are they doing them? And what are they doing with juries? What’s, what’s the update from California?
[06:48] Brad Yeah, so we are back doing trials. Uh, masks are required, uh, at all times during the trial. Um, in L.A. County, the jury gets picked in a huge, huge, huge courtroom. They’re all six feet apart. Uh, makes picking the jury quite the experience because they’re scattered about this whole room and then eventually they all move in a little bit closer together into sort of an extended box. But we’re not using the normal courtrooms, we’re using the big ones that were usually long-caused courtrooms where you’d have, you know, 24 plus jurors because you’re expecting people to drop off.
The two biggest takeaways: despite everybody’s hope and optimism, verdicts in L.A. County and in California are worse post-COVID than they were pre-COVID. Not even close. Second thing is trial lawyers are having a hard time figuring out a mask that works for them. And I’ve seen everything from just a little tiny clear box on the mask so you can, you know, jurors can see your face, to like a fully clear thing that they’re wearing over most of their mouth. Um, there’s a market out there for however long this is going to last—and I think it’s going to be another year plus of this candidly—um, you know, I think in Southern California, masks are going to be probably pretty close to permanent for a lot of places. Um, but you know, I think there’s a marketplace out there if somebody wants to create a trial lawyer’s mask. Something that covers but also we can see what you’re saying, doesn’t fog up.
Um, but yeah, I will say—and I’m sure we’re gonna talk about more—but the verdicts are crazy. The verdicts are crazy in my opinion: 10% because people have changed their mindset and 90% because my fellow defense lawyers have done a piss-poor job about trying to get in touch with jurors in a post, post-COVID quote world.
[08:41] Bill Well, you said it. You said it. And Paul—Uncle Pauly, as, as I call him—and Brad just said it. Every time I say that on stage or on a, or on a webinar, there’s like some people get mad at me and I’m like, “Well, hey, I’m right. I know I’m right.” But Brad just said it. Um, Paul, what are you seeing out there and what, what personal things have you done as an attorney to figure out how to reach jurors now relative to the way you did, you know, two years ago?
[09:15] Paul Well, having taken one of those ridiculous verdicts earlier this year in Los Angeles, I, I definitely echo what Brad is saying. And I can also say that at the time we were required to be masked at all times. I don’t know if that’s still the same way in Los Angeles. I know here in Cook County, the judges are starting to allow witnesses to take masks off when they’re testifying and lawyers taking their masks off when they are either doing opening, closing, or examination provided that they’re socially distant. I mean, it’s hard to, to connect with the jury when you are, uh, not able to see their face and they’re not able to see your face in its entirety.
I, I will tell you, trying to do a closing argument with a mask on or an opening statement—I, I don’t know what it is, but of the heat, the, the hot air coming out of my mouth—uh, yeah, walked right into that soft burn. There you go. You know, it was like it, it was awful. It was absolutely awful. What, what I ended up doing to try and get around it until the courtroom deputy kept yelling at me is I would hold a water bottle in my hand, open, like I was taking a drink, just, just to keep, uh, just to keep the, the mask police off me. Um, because it was killing me. It was honestly killing me.
Uh, but with regard to your broader question about connecting with jurors, I mean, it’s still, it’s still trial. And I think that there’s still a lot of ring rust from, for defense trial lawyers. I mean, we’re, we’re not, we’re, we’re not the, the best as a, as an in or as a side—not as an industry—uh, compared to our plaintiff, uh, brethren. They take more cases to trial than, than we do. That’s the, the simple fact. And all the defense lawyers are fighting, uh, for the business, so it’s, it’s automatically diluted. I just think we all need to get back into training, get back in front of mock juries, get, uh, and take these cases to trial. But remember how to make an argument. Remember that this is not a Zoom argument. They get to see your entire body. Uh, they get to see—you know, we’ve developed a lot of bad habits over the last 21 months…
[11:36] Bill Which in your case, which in your case, seeing your whole body and all your bad habits, that would, that would be an instant turn off if I’m juror number five. I mean, you know…
[11:44] Paul My, my bad habits include bourbon and Cheez-Its and sitting on the couch a lot. And, and so, you know, I fully take ownership of that fact. But it’s the same thing. We as a society, we as the world have—have—this is how we’re interacting with people now. It’s not, you know, it’s not face-to-face communication as much. I, I’m still trying to do as much face-to-face communication to be a normal human that remembers what life was like pre-pandemic. Yeah, um, running around with my hair on fire, uh, as possible. So, you know, there’s a lot of work I think the defense bar needs to get back up into the swing of things and, and really start remembering how to try cases.
[12:31] Bill Yeah, and one thing that, um—and the reason I have bags under my eyes and I look like hell—is, um, a lot—we’re doing a lot of mock trials and a lot of focus groups. And we always have, but I think now people have finally figured out, particularly the insurance companies, like, we can’t, we can’t be asleep at the wheel here. Uh, we have got to be prepared. Because that’s one of the main causes of the nuclear verdicts is they’re not really assessing these cases. They’re not getting rid of what they should. They’re not testing it with, with the real panel. And it’s a really good way to get burned.
And one of the things that we’ve been testing—and again, we’ve been very, very successful with this this year—and Brad, I want you to talk about this, is the concept of counter-anchoring damages. Because I’m telling you, whoever gets up there—Panish, Rally, whoever it is—and they say, “I want a hundred million dollars,” and you get up there and you just kind of shrug your shoulders and say you disagree, Brad, that’s not going to be enough. You—they’ve got to have a different number, but otherwise you’re going to get tattooed.
[13:32] Brad Yeah, so Gary Dordick is, is doing opening arguments today in a case in Los Angeles where an elevator apparently fell down an elevator shaft on a student at UCLA, uh, and caused him to, uh, have damage to his groin and groin extremities, if you can get the drift there. Um, Gary Dordick—that case is the case with a lot of money. So I was watching it, doing it, and friend of mine sent me this thing where a claims adjuster put something up on LinkedIn or something and it said something to the effect of: “Nuclear verdicts are between one and five million, but I predict we’re gonna start seeing verdicts that will be more like Armageddon. And those will be verdicts at 50 million.” And whereas we used to see those for mass tort cases, we’re now going to start seeing them in, uh, personal injury cases. And the comment was from a jury—essentially a plaintiff-sighted jury focus group individual—and his comment was, “Imagine thinking justice is Armageddon.” And that’s, that’s the problem.
Yeah, you know, we, we—the, the insurance adjuster playbook is so old and worn out. It’s just so old. And nobody in our industry—god bless them—seems to want to really sit down and say, “I’m throwing this away because it’s broken and it doesn’t work.” You know, we’re all sports fanatics. If you have a team that’s running the same play and you’re losing yards or throwing a reception or giving up a home run, I mean, whatever, every single time…
[15:13] Paul I feel attacked because you’re talking about my Bears right now.
[15:16] Brad You can fire the coach. I mean, you guys are firing him at at the end of the year. But you fire the coach and say, “This doesn’t work. Throw the playbook away.” I mean, what’s crazy is that you try to sit down the client and you say the case isn’t worth 100 million dollars, but we need to try and tell the jury the case is worth six million dollars and here’s why. And, and, and you know what? Yeah, there’s a risk. I get it. The conventional wisdom is, “Well, the jury is just going to split the difference so you should say zero.” Well, no. If you could sit down and explain your—and say, “Here, here’s exactly why,” and the hundred million is not a real number and here’s why it’s not realistic, and that’s not, that’s not justice. Justice is the six million. Justice is of balancing of scales between two parties, not giving one person a blank check.
So, but our—until our mentality changes, um, we’re gonna have a problem. Now, not to drone on one thing that I think, uh, Bob Tyson wrote an article for Southern California Defense, uh, magazine and he was talking about hourly rates. And he made the point that if you were a person who got sued for something catastrophic, um, and you went to a really good lawyer and the lawyer said, “Okay, here’s what my rates are,” and your life was on the line essentially for this—this was gonna cost you your house and your family—uh, and would you sit down with that lawyer and say, “Here’s the deal. I’m going to pay you a lower hourly rate than what you’re worth. Then when you send me your bill, I’m going to audit it. And then when I audit it, I’m going to wait 60 to 90 days to pay you. And I want you to say thank you at the end of it.” You would never do that because you’d say, “This case is too important for my life.”
Now, the reality is there’s a lot of bad defense lawyers who sit there and say, “I’ll take the high-volume cases,” be swatted around by the carrier because it’s a high volume of cases. And then the carrier’s shocked when the, when the lawyer that they get is trying the case isn’t a very good lawyer, isn’t a very good trial lawyer. So just as an industry we have to change and I don’t know who’s going to be the first person to stand up and say, “We’ll be the people to make the shift.”
[17:15] Bill Yeah, and that’s a—it’s a huge problem. Again, every time I say it I get in trouble, but you, I think you’re, you’re completely right. Paul, um, again, this is kind of like the red-headed stepchild topic that no one wants. It’s the dirty little secret in the defense bar. Paul, there—not every attorney is, is equal. I mean, I’ve seen you two guys in action. I’ve seen some bad lawyering and I ran up into a guy in New York City earlier this week. He was talking about nuclear verdicts and he leaned right over to me—he’s giving me a ride to the airport—and he said, “A lot of this is just really incompetent lawyering from the defense bar.” And, um, it’s just, it’s hard to fathom that. But, but Paul, that’s, that’s true. Because you, Paul, you parachute in on a lot of cases and then you’ve got this big sandwich that they give you right, right before trial. I mean, you’ve got to see some just nightmarish things that then you end up getting stuck with it, right?
[18:15] Paul Oh, oh absolutely. And it’s, you know, I, I, I can’t recommend Bob Tyson’s book on this enough. Uh, you know, it’s one of those things where he makes a great point about counter-anchoring and anchoring. There’s, there’s great academic research out there that says you gotta argue damages. But the problem is not just at trial. When we get nuclear verdicts—like the verdict I just circulated in the chat—730 million for a 73-year-old getting killed by a truck. 730 million. That’s insanity. After they’d already settled for like 50 million with all the other defendants, they got a 730 million dollar verdict. Single plaintiff or single decedent. Just astronomical.
But the, the way that I see this really festering—you know, Brad hit it right on the head. You’ve got bad practices, old practices, both at the law firm and at the insurance carrier. At the law firm is the one that I can fix. And because I see it time and time again where the mentality is, “We don’t want to do anything to upset the insurance carrier,” so we’re going to do—I don’t want to say the bare minimum, but damn close to the bare minimum in terms of the legal work required.
I’m writing a paper right now with one of my colleagues about this exact issue. It’s, it’s really about focusing on how you defuse the nuclear bomb before you get to trial. That means argue damages. That means depose the damage witnesses. That means having the depositions of the doctors that help your—help the mitigation argument, help the non-economic—rein in those non-economic. And finally, you’ve got to have damage experts because the plaintiffs—that, you know, they’re going to break every rule in the book. Nick Rally is a prime example of that, but he is successful as he does it. Even if he gets admonished, he’s just going to turn to the jury and say, “You have to forgive me. I’m passionate on my client seeking justice. Don’t hold it against him or her.”
The defense lawyer—we can’t make those sorts of flagrant mistakes because if we get, you know, wrapped on the knuckles or punched in the jaw from the judge, the jury’s going to just associate that with a big corporation and make us pay even more. So it’s—it really means from the law firm sense we have to work out damages and we can’t just send the unexperienced associate with the first-year or second-year taking a deposition of a key damages witness. You can’t do that. Because you have to get things locked in for trial and it’s got to be a trial focus from day one.
[21:14] Bill Yeah, I mean, Steve—so Steve Wood during COVID, um, you got on some webinar and listened—was it Claggett that ran it, right? And, uh, I mean, these guys—it was, it was like a lot of plaintiff attorneys, right? I mean, talk of—Steve, talk about the, the, the themes that they were talking about because they essentially said, “You know, once these courtrooms open or reopen, you know, we’re, we’re going balls to the wall here. Pedal to the metal.” And, and what I’m seeing—because I think what you’re about to say is I’m seeing exactly this play out. These guys ain’t settling cases. I mean, Steve, talk about that because, I mean, he—they were—he was just ripping the crowd, right?
[21:52] Steve Yeah, I think one of the, one of the things—and we’ve talked about it before and Paul and Brad are touching on it too—is, is changing the way things are being approached. But I can tell you, plaintiff attorneys don’t want to settle anymore. I mean, what motivation do they have to settle the case? You know, they, they assume that defense probably hasn’t probably worked up the case properly, hasn’t done a lot of work on the depositions to make sure their witnesses present well. You know, maybe they have an attorney that’s presenting or that’s going to be going forward and has tried one case. Is not prepared, must out-perform against the plaintiff. Why would they settle the case, right? I mean, it just makes sense. They’d rather just roll the dice and try to get their big verdicts and, you know, ask for the moon and get the stars and go from there.
But I think to your point is what the plaintiff’s bar is basically saying is, “You know, you guys are weak if you’re settling. There’s no reason why you should settle because we’ve outmatched them. We’ve outgunned them. We’ve all collaborated. We’ve all talked. We know what we’re going to do. We’ve shared our secrets—what works, what doesn’t work. Defense bar is not doing that. So let’s just use it against them and let’s just ram these verdicts down their throats because they—going to do about it? They’re not going to—they’re going to take it and just keep paying out and then go on to the next one because they don’t want to do what they need to do and prevent these big verdicts.”
[23:15] Bill And Brad said it. The playbook—the playbook is the same playbook. It’s the same damn playbook. And everybody knows it. And I mean, Brad, they just fully just take advantage of it, right?
[23:24] Brad Yeah, I think, you know, the case and you see how the plaintiff lawyers who are really good do it. It’s, it’s hard to go back to your next case after the verdict comes back and say, “I’m going to do the same thing I did before.” No, you ought to react. And say I should take the deposition of not only the claimant but all of his or her kids and their relatives and their neighbors and their doctors.
And now if I were to go to a traditional insurance carrier and say, “Here’s my budget for litigate—for a trial, a pre-trial. I’d like to take 43 depositions of individuals who are key witnesses who the jury is going to believe.” Because, okay, I think Mr. John Doe could be lying about his brain injury, but when his wife comes in saying he doesn’t remember his name sometimes, and his neighbor says, “Yeah, he forgets his name sometimes,” and somebody else who’s, you know, an unbiased party says, “Yeah, you know, John’s not the same guy he was,” all of a sudden you’re sitting there, you know, a gesture in the third or fourth row of the pew saying, “Wow, the jury’s really going to believe that.” Well, yeah, you know, those are things we needed to, you know, have at our fingertips.
But, you know, I think that the solution in the short term—because I don’t think that the playbook is going to change because they’re—there’s just—it’s too easy for the carriers to say, “We’re just going to settle smaller cases and we’re going to try and manage the nuclear ones when they come in.” Because most nuclear cases are a result of bad lawyering early on in the case. Sometimes really bad claims management, a failure to seek bad cases when they’re there. Um, and then the second thing I think is we need to start being more creative with how we can cap some of the damages. So I would go—if you have a bad case, I think you’d go to the plaintiff lawyer and say, “Let’s do a high-low.”
Yeah, and maybe the low is way higher than what your adjuster wants but you gotta say look, I’m not worried about the low, I’m worried about the high. Yeah, the high is what I’m negotiating. I mean, the low—okay. So, so if the low is five and the high is 25, I got news for you. So long as it’s not 50 or 60 million, then maybe I’m getting a better deal. Um, but, but part of it is our attitude as defense lawyers is we don’t collaborate. We can pretend we do, but we don’t. We don’t share like they do. You know, they—there—and they fly their plane to a beach resort or a ski trip and they all sit around and talk about, “I crushed this expert, hire that expert, they’re awesome.” And they sit there and they gas each other up and they tell each other, “Here’s the arguments we’re using the work.” And then they go out, they disperse and they do that.
Defense lawyers—we get together at conferences, you know, we slug drinks, we try and find new clients. We don’t share at all. It’s not like, “Hey, you know, this argument worked great in this verdict in this jury.” You know, so I, I think the big point is we don’t try enough cases. Oddly enough, the way that we get lower verdicts—trying more cases. Um, you know, we—younger lawyers don’t have any skill set whatsoever to try cases. They barely have skill sets right now to take depositions. Uh, you know, and so yeah, it’s a crisis in some respects because I agree with Steve. Yeah, I mean, why not these guys—why, why not try the case?
[26:22] Bill Yeah, yeah. Paul, I know and yeah, I know both you guys have go through this. Um, how do you—what do you do with the, the younger attorney that needs to develop? I mean, how do you, how do you deal with that? Because I, I’m telling you, I said this last week—in about seven years, we’re all in deep. You get the veteran people retire. I mean, it’s gonna be—then it’s gonna be Armageddon.
[26:50] Brad So, so for me, I’ve, I’ve got a portion of my practice is corporate, and so I’ve got a lot of arbitrations. And so that’s a lot—that’s a good—I don’t want to call a scrimmage, but an arbitration is a scrimmage for a trial. Um, so that’s good. You’re kind of controlled environment. Um, I mean, not to get totally side barred, I think the younger generation is just a totally different mentality than, than ours.
[27:15] Bill Putting it mildly.
[27:17] Brad Part of where the law firm’s gonna have to change is, you know, look. When I was a young lawyer, 2100 hours was the standard. You know, that’s what you did. You grinded and you learned and you got better. Um, and you got paid a little bit of money, but the reality was you worked hard and you moved up the ladder. These folks today—ain’t no way they’re not doing that. They want to be home by six. You know, their mentality is just different. And they want to be paid a lot more and they want to work a lot less. So I don’t, you know, from a law firm perspective I’m not sure how we’re going to manage that either.
[27:50] Bill Paulie, what do you think?
[27:54] Paul Well, I, I, I think that, uh, Brad hit it right on the head. I just as a personal anecdote—I remember interviewing for a firm, um, early on in my career and they offered me the same amount of money I was making, but they said 2200 billable hours. And I’m like, “50 grand for 2200 billable hours? You’ve got to be kidding me.” I mean, granted it was the great recession, but, you know, holy cow. You know, I was a young lawyer at that point and I said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
But you know, I, I think part of the challenge that we face—granted I’m not 40 yet—but I see this in my supervision. I see this, you know, you know, as a managing partner for three years at my old firm. You know, trying to identify associates that still have a work ethic. Because the only way you’re going to be a trial lawyer is if you have a work ethic. You know, granted yeah, people can have the nine-to-five, nine-to-six, whatever—you’re not going to be a world-class trial lawyer. But there’s still enough of us millennials that will work our ass off.
And I think that the defense bar has to recognize that they have to reward that and put them in a place for advancement in education. And so what I try to do on every one of my trials is make sure there’s an associate. I’m going to make sure that they’re taking a witness, they’re going to handle key motion arguments. I’m going to be right there to make sure if things go off the rails I can violate the “one lawyer one task” rule. But I will violate it to get in there to save things. But that’s the way I learned. You know, on catastrophic cases, arguing motions, taking early—you know, taking, you know, the, the damages experts. You know, in a contested liability case, you know, you work your way up. You can’t expect that a young associate or even a mid-level associate nowadays is going to have the necessary trial experience to try a catastrophic case.
You may have an associate that came, came from some small claims plaintiffs or defense firm or lean firm. Those trials aren’t the same thing. It does give you a good base of experience, but when you’re going against the Panishes, the Rowleys, the Joel Powers, um, you know, the Mark Laniers of the world, you gotta match their expertise with, with the same level of expertise. But there’s also a duty to educate and bring people along because I, I’m sorry, trial lawyers can’t do these catastrophic cases by themselves. It just doesn’t happen. And we need to have our team mentality so that everybody learns.
[30:40] Brad Well, I think a lot of it too is, is when we, you know, the obligation I think we have is, is to our clients. And part of it is I think we need to start getting a lot more comfortable with having really hard conversations and going to the presence of claims and sitting down over, you know, several bottles of wine and saying, “Look, um, I’m going to have a hard conversation with you and I hope that you respect this as friends, as your lawyer. But here’s the deal. Um, you gotta start recognizing catastrophic cases when they come in. You gotta stop allowing people to marginalize cases that are gonna turn into bad ones.”
So it’s—it shouldn’t be up to the first person who looks at the file to say it was a loss of consciousness for like maybe two seconds, so this mild TBI claim is bogus. I got news for you: you’re not a neuropsychologist. You don’t understand how Nick Rowly is gonna take that claim and do a whole bunch of stuff with it. Um, and really I think we need to start having a lot more serious conversations. You know, the, the insurance company wants to spend as little money with us as they do with selling a case. That’s the business. But I think we have to start saying, “This case is worth potentially several layers of insurance and certainly within your layer up to a high level. So the budget I’m giving you should—and it necessarily will—include mock juries. It will include several focus groups. Don’t argue with me about it. I’m telling you, if you’re going to trust me, this is what you gotta do.”
That way when you show up, you know, four months before trial if you’re a good lawyer or earlier, and you’ve got your mocks and your focus groups ready to go before you get to experts and stuff—that way it’s not like, “Oh well, I don’t know, that’s not part of the budgeting for this.” It’s got to be the built-in. It’s what we do on every case.
[32:19] Paul It’s what the plaintiffs are doing.
[32:23] Brad These guys have built jury—they’ve built courtrooms in their offices and they bring in focus groups and do a full thing so that it’s like the real deal. For us, you know, we—most of us don’t have courtrooms in our offices so we don’t get the, the dress rehearsals like they do. But these guys are all doing it. So guess what? You know, we’re—we need to catch up. We’re way behind them then.
[32:48] Bill Yeah, Steve. Steve, um, Steve and I do a ton of mock trials and focus groups, uh, together. And what’s kind of mind-boggling—and we’re not going to mention names, we’re in enough—this podcast is in enough trouble already. Yeah, so let’s not. I’m not going to dog pile on anybody. But Steve, how many like just really, really bad attorney presentations have you seen? I mean, it’s shocking.
[33:12] Steve Yeah, it’s, it’s bad. Um, you know, and I did a solo podcast on this a while back about attorney credibility and about presentations. And yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s very bad. You know, and the point I made in that and the point I think I really want to drive home because, you know, it’s important for, for younger attorneys to understand that this is a—one of your shots to kind of put yourself up there and get the senior associates to see you, to get your clients to see you. And a lot of times, for lack of a better term—to steal a Kanasky-ism—I mean, they get up there and [__] the bed. Um, they just they don’t—They don’t, they don’t—you know, it’s just the preparation, you know. And it’s really stale. It’s, it’s really, “I’m going to read directly from my thing and I’m not going to look up at the jury and I’m going to read off my PowerPoints.” It’s just not, it’s not engaging.
And then go figure why when you get the verdicts back, the verdicts tend to go against that attorney. And you know, as I’ve said before, the jurors love nothing more than—they can’t wait to tell you how bad they think that attorney is.
[34:15] Bill Yeah, they love that.
[34:17] Steve Yeah. And I think one of the things actually I wanted to ask both of you guys—and we keep talking about it actually, you know, about training and about getting additional help for these younger attorneys. What do you guys think? Paul, I’ll start with you. You know, what is it when we keep talking about training all the time? Training and training, training. What would that training look like in your opinion as far as what you think these younger attorneys should be doing and getting—in the defense bar—should be getting to improve their chances and improve their, their opportunities against the plaintiff bar?
[34:46] Paul I, I think that if we can, you know, really get our clients on board with the concept of multiple mock trials or multiple, multiple focus groups where these young attorneys are giving presentations. That’s how I got my shot. I, I got asked the day before a mock trial when another associate of my old firm—when I was an associate—[__] the bed. And they said, “Hey, we need you to jump in here.” I put together a plaintiff’s presentation and I ended up, you know, not even—even though there were really bad facts in it, I, I got favorable verdicts from three panels of juries. Uh, you know, you gotta—you have to teach people that it’s not just reading right off of a closing.
I was actually—I was talking with a claims adjuster about a case that has billions of potential exposure and apparently the defense attorney just read the closing.
[35:40] Bill How do you do that? How in the world does that happen?
[35:45] Paul I don’t know. I don’t understand it, but that’s what they did. And I will say it wasn’t a traditional insurance defense firm. It was more of a silk stocking firm. But hearing that and I’m just like, “Okay, they get paid all the big bucks and yet you are as charismatic as a pile of used copy paper.” That doesn’t—that doesn’t inspire confidence.
Yeah, as Brad said earlier, yeah, they’re getting paid. They’re getting paid, right? But they’re—when it—when the, the—when the rubber hits the road, they’re, they’re failing. They’re not ringing the bell. So you, you got to have ways in place to make sure that the young attorneys can present the cases. And sometimes it might not be a formalized mock trial. But again, what Brad says I can’t agree with more: you got to talk to the insurance carriers to allow us to do things in-firm to roundtable the case.
And maybe that’s where you start with these younger attorneys and realize, “Okay, we’re just going to grab a bunch of secretaries and paralegals together. You’re going to be the defendant, you’re going to be the co-defendant, and you’re going to be the plaintiff. You got 45 minutes each, present your case.” And we’re going to get feedback as it goes. There’s—the only cost is the lawyer time. That’s not, you know, engaging you and Steve, but it’s start of the progress. You can go from that to a focus group to a full-blown mock trial. And, and that’s the sort of things that are needed. You have to put young attorneys in a place where they can be forced to think on their feet, be forced to persuade. And, and they have to deliver the message. And delivering coherent thoughts—maybe that’s the biggest problem with the pandemic, we haven’t had to do that, as much.
[37:42] Bill Hey Brad, so speaking of that, does the—we was talking about 2100 hours, 2500… yeah, when you said 2100 hours Paul started laughing like, you know, he hits that by July. Um, does the billable hour model for the defense, does—is that what leads to the lack of training opportunities because no one wants to take time off from billing or there’s just no training? I mean…
[38:10] Brad Yeah, I mean so it’s—it’s—there are, there are a couple reasons why the, the model doesn’t work great for, for the defense. I mean first of all, uh, your clients hire you, they don’t hire your associates, right? And so you then have to find a way to deliver them the associates where the associate is well-rounded and trained. And so you’re doing a lot of the work yourself or all the work yourself while tying—trying to train an associate. So you’re really doing work and a half, or sometimes twice the amount of work. So you’ve got—that’s the first step. And so then you get a trained associate and you hope they stay with you. Sometimes they leave, sometimes you’re glad they leave.
I mean the way that I learned was my, my firm had, uh, once a week training and it started your first week. And it started with: here’s how you do discovery, here’s how you do this and that. And it was Thursdays at four o’clock. And they brought in a bar and the partners would get loaded telling war stories and you learned more in that hour than you could ever learn in a year of practice. Um, and so you went all the way through, and then once you finish that sort of year of classes, they did an advanced trial skills. And you stood up in front of the other associates who’d been hand-picked and you did an opening and you did a voir dire, you did a closing and you did a cross. And you were nervous as hell because it was always videoed and you didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of your peers.
But my partners back then, those guys and gals just gave their time and said, “I’m going to give an hour of my week, once a week to this.” And you know, I’d love it for us to have a way where we could continue to, to, to, um, inspire people to want to train. I love training. It’s one of the best things we do. It’s such a key thing. But our, our system is not set up to reward that.
I mean, I think what we have to do as a defense bar generally is convince people that if you want to be a lawyer that has the hardest job in the world, be a civil defense lawyer. It’s the hardest job in the world. Because the easiest job in the world is the plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer. I love these guys who’ve done so well—ladies done so well. It’s the easiest job in the world. Somebody comes to you and says, “I got somebody who’s lost four limbs and because they were involved in a car accident with your truck.” It’s like, what work are you going to have to put in, plaintiff lawyer, to get a verdict that’s not $15 million? Because you are taking a piece of this injured person’s, you know—justice, not Armageddon—their justice. You’re taking 40 percent of that justice.
So, me as a defense lawyer, you come to me and say, “I got bad news for you. My truck hit somebody and they’re a quadriplegic or a paraplegic. Now I need you to go defend us because we don’t think the case is worth 60 million dollars. We think it’s worth 25. Go do your best.” And, and you know, we throw ourselves at the mercy and we have to come up with more creative stuff. We’ve got to, you know, get outside the box. And the plaintiff bar is constantly adjusting there. The plaintiff bar is more in tune with what people want to hear and what’s connecting with people. And because we don’t do enough mocks, because we don’t do enough focus groups, we lose those battles. We’re guessing.
And the problem is they know exactly what lands and what doesn’t. I mean we should be doing focus groups on, on specific issues in cases. You know, we ought to have them ready to go on the fly and say, “Hey, I need a focus group on a question of how should this particular witness approach this issue.” Something simple as that. We just—I mean we don’t do it and they do, and we’re surprised at the results?
[41:46] Paul There’s one big other area of training where you can really get the associates involved and that’s witness preparation. Yeah, I love witness preparation because it’s the time just to hone my cross-examination skills, hone my deposition skills, hone whatever skills. But I know how to prep a witness. I, I love doing it. I will do it multiple times before a deposition. My associates don’t always know that and they don’t always have the same experience level with writing out a cross-examination when they can’t go off the cuff with it or go off a direct examination. Put them in that room, let them try. You got to be there with them.
So the—but that’s another big area of, of training. You know, I, I agree, we don’t do enough as, as a defense bar, uh, to, to really add, you know, advanced training. And you know, I’ve been hearing stories, uh, from, from firms in Chicago where, uh, there have been requests for firm trainings and they’ve been shot down by firm management because, “No, you know, it’s up to the partner supervising the file to train to make sure that the work is being done properly.” I don’t know how you can do that. That just doesn’t make any sense.
You know, our firm, we have CLEs, at least in-firm CLEs once, once a month. Plus we, we encourage writing of articles and getting out there, going to conferences, doing all the things that, you know, some firms just don’t ever do. Um, you know, I just—there’s, there’s a disconnect in the defense bar. You know, when you get that strata defense lawyer, so, you know, it’s going to be a problem, like you said, Bill, in eight to ten years time.
[43:34] Brad Not to, not to beat up on our profession too bad, but the one other thing that we’ve got to get better at is we do a really bad job of evaluating cases. Really bad. There are a lot of defense lawyers who, you know, clients will tell you after the second glass of wine, nothing drives them crazier than when you tell me, “This is a defensible case,” and then 30 days before trial you’re gonna get rocked with better settlements. We don’t give honest evaluations. I mean, apparently, because I’m hearing it from a lot of clients and that’s why you’re parachuting in cases, Paul, and trying. Because, yeah, I’m being told that this is a totally easy winnable case and then it turns out, “Nope, that was a total—I just wanted to kind of bait you to keep the case going.”
Yeah, you have to start thinking like plaintiff players when we’re evaluating cases. Truly think like a plaintiff lawyer. Say, “All right, I’m going to ask for this amount and guess what? Even though it’s a broken hip, I’m going to get a life care plan and I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that.” So you sit down and say, “You know, um, you know Panish’s office does a great job at mediations with showing you what the verdict is going to look like, right?” And when you sit down and you map out the verdict, you sit there and go, “Oh, okay. That makes sense. I, I see now how this is gonna work.” But everybody gets so in love with what they think their evaluation is and they forget to really have, you know, sober eyes with it.
[44:50] Bill Well, I’ll tell you what, we’re certainly going to piss off a few people with this podcast, but these are—you have to like—Brad, you hit nail in the head. You have to have difficult discussions to get through this. Okay, one more thing before we get, uh, to fun time. We have a very fun exercise to conclude with. Uh, Paul sends me an article last week and absolutely just loses his mind. Loses—in fact, I think was it from California, Paul? The, the contemporary—the, uh, contemporaneous objection. I mean…
[45:18] Paul Oh yeah, yeah. That’s, uh, that’s where it’s from.
[45:24] Bill I mean, what are you doing, right? I mean…
[45:26] Paul Well, was it? I can’t remember where it was from, but yeah, it had to do with contemporaneous objections. Let me look.
[45:34] Bill Yeah, and it’s, it’s—defense attorneys are afraid to object. But man, I mean, if, if the other side’s trying to pull a fast one on you, I mean, I mean Brad, I mean you got to object, right? I mean…
[45:48] Brad Yeah, I mean, you got—you got to have—I mean, not to, you know… of course every judge is fantastic. Any judge listening to this you might be the best judge we’ve been in front of. Yeah, but we have some judges that get a little bit fast and loose with some things. And some judges don’t understand the evidence code the way that both sides wish they would. But you know, I think we have way too much of judges saying, “I’m gonna let it in and you can argue about whether or not it’s, it’s something that should be considered by the jury or not.” It’s like, well, hang on a second. The whole point of the evidence code is for you to not let things in that shouldn’t be considered by the jury. Uh, and judges go, “Well, I’m gonna let it in and you can argue about—you can argue to the jury and the jury can decide.” I feel like that’s kind of punting a little bit.
I mean, look. I think part of it is you gotta have objections and I think part of it is you better know your objections. And if you don’t have good objections to make and a basis to make them, then a jury’s gonna hate you. If you get up there and make the objection and you’re compelling what the objection is and why the judge sustains your objection, guess what? The jury is going to be like, “Oh, that guy knew what he was doing.” If every time you get overruled because it’s a bad objection or something that’s not objectionable, the jury’s going to look at you like, “This guy idiot keeps making this thing take longer.” I mean, that’s how it goes.
[46:58] Paul I, I just found the article. It wasn’t in, uh, in California. It was in the opioid trial where they’re seeking 50 billion dollars. And the article highlights the, the idea of, well, defense counsel didn’t object to these, these tactics. I can’t—it makes me sick. You don’t have to be an [__] about it. You don’t have to stand up, spittle flying out of your mouth screaming during closing arguments or opening statement. But you gotta make it for the record. And, you know, it can be like, “You know, you know, Your Honor, I apologize, uh, I have to object here.” Not only do you come off a little more reasonable, but you break up the other side’s flow and you preserved your record for appeal. Contemporaneous objections are the only way that you’re going to create your record if things go badly.
So I—the, the last trial, the last jury trial I did before the pandemic, my—cl—my opening—or not my opening statement, plaintiff’s opening statement—pure reptile with a slice of, “We, we as the lawyers were the impartial investigators.” Completely imper—you know, improper argument. I objected over 20 times in opening statement. The first three or four were overruled. Then I went 15 for 15. And the judge ultimately said to the plaintiff’s lawyer, “You have one sentence left.” And she went over that by two words. And he said, “All rise for the jury.” And I swear he was this close to granting my mistrial motion. So it’s not only—not only do you have to make the objections, you’ve got to go up to the judge right, right away and say, “Judge, this is improper. Now I have to make an argument and, you know, this has got to be a mistrial.”
So, you know, it, it’s about making the argument, being aggressive, not being—you know, it comes back to the old school approach, uh, of, of our elders and Brad’s and my elders that are still working in the profession that don’t want to upset anybody. That they’re like, “Well, we, we don’t upset the jury by objecting. That, that—that’s bad form.” Or, “You know, we don’t want to argue damages because that—the jury is thinking, uh, you know, we’re conceding on liability.” That—both of those concepts, total malarkey.
[49:32] Brad By the way If you want to hear something crazy, the California legislature is currently considering amending our wrongful death statute so that you can get damages for the pain and suffering that was, uh, had by the decedent before they actually died. So the actual pain the person had and as they were dying, the actual suffering, the actual fear. You can get that as an element of damages. Pain and suffering.
[50:01] Paul Welcome to Illinois. That’s called a survival action right there.
[50:03] Brad So the survival action is an economic damage issue right there. But this is, this is actually the pain and the suffering that the person felt.
[50:11] Paul Yeah, that’s part of the development for us. It’s total BS. And yeah, it’s one of those things. I, I remember having a shooting case, uh, that, that went to trial about four, almost five years ago now. Holy cow, I’m getting old. Uh, but we had an expert, a biomechanic/MD trauma surgeon that said, “You know what? This bullet would have incapacitated immediately. There wasn’t minutes upon minutes.” Because, you know, it’s one of those things where it’s been an element of damages in Illinois, unfortunately, um, that we, we also get the nice thing that if you were—if you argue reduced life expectancy, that goes on the jury verdict form as a separate line item. So you—everybody’s got to have a, you know, the quadriplegic that is never getting out of bed, uh, and has got a G2 for like normal life expectancy because you don’t want them to say, “Well, uh, here’s 50 million for reduced life expectancy.” It’s, you know, it’s fun practicing here.
[51:20] Bill Oh boy, unbelievable guys. This has been really a fantastic, fantastic episode. Uh, 100. This is great stuff. Um, you guys have been terrific on the show previously. We want to keep having you on because we—the goal, and hopefully we’re matching—hopefully we’re meeting our goal and I think we are based on the feedback—uh, we’re the only guys that do this for—I mean, I mean, I don’t think there’s any other civil litigation defense, you know, podcasts that do this. And what we’re trying to do is, you know, get this word out, have these discussions so, you know, folks that listen, um, you can, you know, get some ideas, start thinking about, “Well, wait, maybe we should do some internal training. Maybe I should be objecting more.” And so this is kind of a, um, a training within itself, hopefully, to, to get things started.
Now let’s move to the—let’s move to the fun stuff because I got some surprises for you. I gave you—I gave you one question we’re gonna start with, but we’re not gonna finish there. All right? We’re gonna start with Uncle Paulie. I need your Super Bowl matchup—and we’re writing all this down, Steve. You write everything down because you’re, you’re not going to weasel out on us. Okay? I need, okay, Super Bowl matchup and then your winner.
[52:30] Paul Georgia versus Cincinnati. Georgia—no. Wait, that’s not Super Bowl. Uh, I think it’s going to be Pats probably. Pats-Bucs. And I think, I think the Pats will win 27-24.
[52:50] Bill Wow. Wow. That would be an epic matchup. Uh, Nick Roush did email. He has the same exact matchup and I think he’s going Bucs. He’s going Bucs. Brad Hughes, shake this thing up for me. Don’t be like these guys, come on.
[53:07] Brad Yeah, I mean, I—if the Patriots get in Super Bowl again, I’m gonna be so mad. I’m gonna be so, so mad… I’m gonna be a hometown stan. I think my Chargers are going to figure it out. The San Diego Superchargers of Los Angeles in the Super Bowl and they will beat the Arizona Cardinals.
[53:27] Bill Wow. Now that would be—that was—yeah, that’s a, that’s a good one. Okay, Steve, you have the benefit of, uh, listening to these guys. Where are you going with this?
[53:35] Steve Well, I, I told Brad up top actually I’m gonna be boring and go with Bucs-Patriots. However, I did at first initially think about the Chargers. I think Herbert’s, you know, getting it going and you got Ekeler and a lot of the other weapons there. Um, it’s my concern about the fact that how their defense plays. So I would say close second, Chargers. But I unfortunately have to go with, with the Patriots-Bucs. And as, you know, as much as it makes me want to barf in my mouth, I’m gonna say the Bucs are gonna win the Super Bowl and Tom Brady is gonna win another championship and I’m gonna be just as angry as I am every time Tom Brady wins a championship.
[54:14] Bill Perfect. Well, I’m gonna shake this up. Uh, I’m gonna go Patriots-Cowboys and the Dallas Cowboys. How about them Cowboys? It’s only been since 1990 what, five? Um, they’re due. They’re overdue. Dak Prescott’s gonna prove, “Hey, I deserve this paycheck.” Dallas—why are you guys shaking your heads?
[54:33] Brad Because, because you—because you watched—you watched the football game last night? They were terrible. The Saints were terrible. Taysom Hill threw as many interceptions as he almost ran for yards.
[54:44] Steve I threw less than interceptions in high school in, like, my whole career than he threw last night.
[54:53] Bill Okay, now we’re gonna go reverse order starting with Steve Wood. NCAA football National Champion this year.
[55:01] Steve Oh, I’ve got to go Georgia. I haven’t seen anything that makes me think otherwise.
[55:07] Bill Brad? It’s a tough one.
[55:12] Brad So I, I’m gonna, I’m gonna continue to be a contrarian here. Uh, Notre Dame.
[55:20] Bill [Laughter] I think—I’m sorry, I just had water, like, come out of my nose. Holy…
[55:28] Brad Let me walk you through this and I’m gonna see you guys. So me saying Notre Dame is truly to be the ultimate constraint. Here’s how: I think Alabama beats Georgia. Uh, sorry. No, I think Georgia beats Alabama so Alabama’s out and I think that the—I think that they let in Notre Dame over Oklahoma State even though Oklahoma State will win its conference. Money, money, money, money, money, money.
[55:54] Bill Man, oh Paul, but this is—wow. I’m not drinking any more water during this podcast.
[56:00] Paul When Notre Dame and Michigan play each other I root for acts of terrorism because I hate both schools with a fiery passion. But if it’s not Georgia winning it, I think it’s going to be the University of Michigan. And let me tell you how much I hate saying it…
[56:15] Bill Here we go—yeah, let’s go. Let’s hear this.
[56:17] Bill My best friend is—
[56:20] Brad I don’t know how you’re going to explain this. My Notre Dame call sounds great in comparison.
[56:25] Paul And I will tell you this: I watched that Ohio State-Michigan game and I actually turned it off at halftime because I was so confident that Michigan was going to run, win. And I’m the guy that would show up to a Michigan fans’ Michigan-Ohio State party wearing a red sweater vest just to, you know, rub their noses in it. I have never seen Michigan—their offensive line is scary dominant. And I thought Ohio State was the best team, second-best team in the nation behind Georgia. And then I watched them just get absolutely annihilated and run over by Michigan. So I think if it’s not Georgia, it’s going to be Michigan. And I want to, like, totally clear the vomit out of my mouth.
[57:14] Bill Wow. We’re ending this podcast the right—this is great. Um, yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna give you a very discipli—I’m sorry. I, and I, I have so many, so many clients in Georgia and they’re all texting me, “Go Dogs.” Nick Saban’s gonna figure this out. Alabama is gonna be your National Champion. And because now everybody’s falling asleep on them. What they just pulled in Auburn was the most incredible thing I’ve seen all year. That is what’s going to kickstart them. And mark it down right now, book it. Call your bookie. Go to MyBookie, do whatever you got to do. Alabama is going to be your National Championship.
All right, last question and this is the one dear to my heart. Steve knows exactly where I’m going, exactly where I’m going. So bit reverse order, Uncle Paulie. And if you say DePaul I’m going to just click you right off of this. You cannot say DePaul. College basketball National Championship this year—who’s going to win it? It’s not DePaul.
[58:14] Paul No. I haven’t watched a single game.
[58:18] Bill I don’t care. I don’t—come on. It’s not Illinois either. You can’t say DePaul or Illinois because…
[58:24] Paul Yeah, it’s not going to say DePaul or Illinois.
[58:27] Bill Don’t say the D-word, don’t do it.
[58:29] Paul I’m not going to say Duke guys. Yeah, I’m not going to—who’s even in the—who are the top 5 right now? I don’t even know.
[58:35] Bill Oh you’re terrible.
[58:43] Paul I don’t know. Let’s go something—uh, something off the wall and say, um, Texas.
[58:52] Bill That, that was truly a pathetic, uh, pathetic pick. Uh, Brad. Brad, where are you going with this? Are you going West? Are you going to West Coast? Guys, wait, wait…
[59:02] Brad Oh yeah, yeah. My 7-0 USC Trojans will beat the Duke Blue Devils in the NCAA finals to win the whole thing. We are ranked—we were ranked 20th couple days ago. I—we’ve won the tournament we played in before. We are the real deal. We will beat UCLA twice this year. UCLA is terrible, they are fake, they are frauds. We’ll be—uh, we made the Sweet 16 last year. We’re a better team this year. Uh, this is the year USC brings home a title in men’s basketball. We’re a basketball school until Lincoln Riley, uh, officially gets the team going.
[59:33] Paul I would just like to put on for the record—now that I’ve had the opportunity to look—Texas is number seven in the nation so um, it’s not completely crazy.
[59:45] Bill Okay, I’m, I’m gonna let that slide. Um, as long as, uh, O.J. Simpson is not attending your games, uh, Brad. I think you may have, you may have, uh, lightning in a ball there. Steve Wood?
[59:58] Steve I don’t know, you know, and it seems like an easy one but I think Gonzaga looks, looks pretty good obviously. Michigan State playing really, really well lately, shooting the lights out the other night. Defense is looking good, gotta—turnovers are atrocious, they need to get better on that. Um, I actually would like to say that I could see them in the Final Four this year. Um, Purdue’s really good too, but I think I’d have to end up going with Gonzaga with all their firepower, as, as easy as it sounds because of how good they are right now. I think they still end up having the weapons to go through to the end.
[1:00:28] Bill I think that’s a great pick. Kanasky—as, as much as I’d like to say the Tar Heels are going to get together, um, first-year coach, got some chemistry problems already. However, we did lay an ass-whooping on Michigan the other night. I loved there. I lost my voice. 20 other thousand people, I can get away with screaming like that. I do that at home and I’m in the doghouse. I’m—I’m in the doghouse for a number of reasons, but, uh, I, I, I can’t go with the Tar Heels this year. My heart tells me yes, but my brain says no. I, I think this is the year Gonzaga delivers. They’ve been there, they know what to do. They got the talent. Okay, maybe Mark Few likes to drink and drive a little bit, you know, give the guy a break. Okay, you know, he’s just, you know, it happens to the best of them. Um, but we’re gonna go Gonzaga as your National Champion.
Uh, Steve, closing, closing thoughts. I want to thank Steve Wood. Steve Wood has gone, uh, really elbow-to-elbow with me on this podcast. It’s a lot of work. We do this every week, sometimes two a week. And, um, thank you, Steve. What—I mean, going forward, I mean, we got to keep this thing going, huh?
[1:01:38] Steve Yeah, we got a, we got a several new, uh, people lined up to come on the podcast. We’re getting a lot of great feedback. As I said on a prior podcast, I appreciate everybody’s listening to us. I appreciate all the feedback. We’re reaching out—if there are attorneys that want to be on the podcast, feel free to reach out to bill.kanasky@courtroomsciences.com. Reach out to me: swood@courtroomsciences.com. We always love having attorneys on, picking their brains like these two yahoos that are out here right now, uh, joining us for our 100th episode. Like I said, near and dear to us. So if you need to, want to come on, we want to look for guests. But no, it’s been great. I think we feel like we’ve gotten a lot of information out, and I think that’s one of the biggest things too: when we hear from people who have listened to the podcast and said, “You know what? I’ve gotten stuff from it. I changed the way I do things now. I look at things differently and I approach things differently.” I think that to me has been the biggest thing that I’ve gotten a lot of gratification out of. So I appreciate you having me on. I appreciate everybody’s going through this.
[1:02:42] Bill This is great. Brad, thank you. Paul, thank you. To our audience, thank you so much. We love doing this. We’re going to keep it up. Thank you. You’ve been through—I mean, episode 100. I think this was—this could be the best one that we’ve ever done. Uh, so thrilled to be doing this. Go to courtroomsciences.com, read our articles, read the blog, you know, keep listening to the podcast. And, uh, on behalf of Dr. Wood, Bill Kanasky checking out. Thank you so much.
Be confident in achieving superior litigation outcomes. CSI has the expertise, track record, and capabilities to help you win.
