Mike Bassett, Senior Partner of The Bassett Law Firm, joins the podcast to talk about his new book “The Man in the Ditch”. Mike shares with Dr. Bill Kanasky what “The Ditch” is and what inspired the book, which is described as a story about undeserved privilege, unlimited potential, hard work, and hustle. A story about self-inflicted wounds, hubris, insecurity, shame, and abandonment. Mike also talks about the challenges and emotions of being a trial attorney and the opportunities that come from failure. Bill and Mike share their perspectives on Millennial attorneys and the difference in their perspectives about failure when compared to older generations. Mike tells the story of failure behind the book and how although The Ditch is a place we don’t wish to end up, how it can be an opportunity for us all.
Full Episode Transcript
[00:05] Bill Welcome to another edition of the Litigation Psychology Podcast. I’m Dr. Bill Kanasky. This podcast is brought to you by Courtroom Sciences. Go to courtroomsciences.com. A bunch of great stuff on the Courtroom Sciences website. Uh, frequent flyer this morning, but for a very different reason than usual, Mr. Mike Bassett. Mike, good morning. How are you doing in Dallas this morning?
[00:29] Mike Doctor, good morning. It… I think it’s only going to be like 174 here today, so we’re excited. Summer in Texas.
[00:39] Bill See, in Florida it’s only going to be 95. It’s just… it’s a little moist here.
[00:43] Mike It’s a little moist, yeah. You beat us on humidity every day.
[00:46] Bill Yes, we do. Um, Mike, despite our tech troubles this morning, I’m glad we finally got this thing kicked off. The reason for this podcast, uh, is really to introduce and hopefully promote, um, your new book. I am happy to call you not only friend and colleague, but now author. How does it feel to be an author?
[01:07] Mike You know, I think it may still be sinking in. Um, it still feels weird. Like, when you said “author,” that it still sort of doesn’t quite fit yet. It’s humbling, to say the least.
[01:18] Bill Mike, I have actually, uh—and it was long ago—uh, I have authored two books. So if you want to do a deep dive on, uh, Amazon or one of those sites, you’ll… you’ll certainly find those. They’re not… they’re not what you think they are.
[01:31] Mike All right, now I’m making a note. I’m gonna look.
[01:36] Bill So, so author-to-author we can talk about that. Um, but I think that you’ll like… you’ll like what I wrote. Well, the one thing you’re gonna like—I don’t think the youth, I don’t think the youth, uh, football, uh, coaching, uh, playbook is gonna help you out. But the other… the other one actually may help you, may help your staff. Um, Mike, the title of the book is called The Man in the Ditch. And I was thinking this morning, the title is not The Man in the Hole, it’s not The Man in the Abyss, it’s the… it’s the Man in the Ditch. Did you know by definitions that all ditches are man-made?
[02:11] Mike I did not.
[02:12] Bill Yeah, there may… I found a certain irony to that, that you chose the word “ditch.” And all ditches, by definition, are man-made. Um, tell us, what—without giving us too much information about the, the book and the story, which we’ll talk a little bit about, we’ll give some hints—what is “the ditch”?
[02:34] Mike You know, I think that ditch is a place that you find yourself Bill in life. Some ditches are deeper than others. Uh, many of them are self-made ditches. Some are made for you and you’re pushed in them. But for me, the ditch was a place I found myself because of a series of bad decisions and faulty world views. That was the ditch for me.
[02:56] Bill And this… this is from this incident you’re talking about from 2002?
[03:03] Mike Everything went down in 2001 and then everything blew up in 2002.
[03:08] Bill So this is a story about redemption. Um, and I want… I want to get into it here, but let me, let me, let me, let me, let me back up. This had to be an extraordinarily, um, mentally challenging time for you.
[03:27] Mike That’s like saying Tom Brady’s just a quarterback. Yeah, absolutely. Sucked. And it was one of those things, Bill, where the wound would just about heal and someone would come along and just not only rip off the scab, but squeeze lemon juice and rub salt in it.
[03:45] Bill And I’m sure that went on for a long time, didn’t it?
[03:48] Mike It did. It did for years.
[03:51] Bill And yeah, this is… this is really, uh, a, a terrific story. And again, I, I’ve got… I’m gonna get to it. Do you think that people in your profession—particularly, more specifically trial attorneys—tend to be more susceptible to “the ditch” than other people or other professions?
[04:12] Mike I do. You and I visited about this when we were on the phone the other day. Yeah, my experience has been, and you know, I see the world through… through my lens, but in 34 years of trying lawsuits, I think I have seen that trial lawyers are a different breed to begin with. They’re probably very… I will not say egotistical because that sounds pejorative. Most of them have a very strong ego. And I think that they run oftentimes, can be super focused and then at times maybe not so focused. The adrenaline from trying cases is not unlike going through a firefight. Because you are for three or four days on constant high alert. I mean, you are just running on adrenaline. And you and I have talked, the adrenaline drop after a trial is, is real. I just got done trying a case a week ago, that we got the verdict on a Wednesday afternoon. And Thursday and Friday, if I was running half speed, Bill, that was… that was being generous. So yes, overall, I think a lot of trial lawyers, myself included, are very susceptible to the siren song that can end you up in the ditch.
[05:25] Bill And we’ve talked a lot about mental health, particularly this year. But mental health for attorneys, I think it’s finally getting, I think across the board, it’s actually getting, uh, getting a lot more respect and a lot more attention. But I think you’re, I think this, um… I think this profession, and even if you’re a consultant like me who’s going along on that ride with you, um, you know, from battle to battle, uh, the emotional ups and downs are incredible. I mean, I know I have, um… I was talking to my accountant the other day and she’s, “Yeah, like, you know, two months out of the year, like, my life is crazy.” I go, “Really? That’s funny because, uh, 12 months out of the year, my life is crazy.” So, no, and I certainly have empathy, uh, in, uh, March and April for the, uh, for the accounting, uh, uh, folks out there. But, but I think it’s just not the same. Mike, before we get into the—I want to get that 30,000-foot view of your story—um, talk to me about the importance of failure and professional development.
[06:32] Mike Well, I think without failure, nobody’s going to develop. Nobody learns anything, Bill, when the sun is shining and the clouds are not in the sky and it’s all blue. It’s nice, don’t get me wrong, but you’re not going to grow. I mean, from a physiological perspective, the only way things grow is if they’re broken down and torn apart. And I think that failure is our greatest teacher. It’s a horrible teacher; I wish it didn’t have to be that way. But you look back in your career and I, I can look back on mine: my biggest moments of growth have arisen out of the times that I failed.
[07:08] Bill Agree. Agree, yes. But you had to fail first.
[07:12] Mike I had to. And you can’t be afraid of failure. And otherwise, you just… you… you never get in the batter’s box because you’re afraid of striking out or grounding out or getting hit in the head.
[07:25] Bill Yeah. Yeah. Let’s, um, I’m gonna take a step to the side here and another topic that’s come up a lot—not during this, just, just this podcast, but it’s a very popular, uh, topic, um, uh, just in the legal industry. And there’s two headaches that trial attorneys have right now: millennial jurors and millennial attorneys. Let’s actually talk about millennial attorneys. We could talk about jurors a different time. Millennial attorneys: I’ve heard nothing but complaints about. They see failure very different than the boomers, the gen-xers. There seems to be this, like, you’re almost not allowed… like, failure is unfair. And if, if I fail, then obviously I’ve been cheated or I’ve been misguided, I got, I got screwed. Versus personal responsibility, accountability. And you see a lot of these—again, this is not a popular topic, it’s an important topic, Mike, because it’s affecting everybody that I’ve talked to—is you have this mass of millennial attorneys bouncing around to jobs, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing, either because they fear failure or they failed and they cannot redeem themselves and they don’t want to. They… I just… it’s a weird phenomenon. But you know what I’m talking about, right?
[08:46] Mike You know, I do. And, and we can say “millennial jurors” and we’re not only painting with a brush, we’re painting with a roller at that point. We have got some little millennial attorneys at our office that are just killing it.
[08:58] Bill But that’s great. I agree with you.
[09:00] Mike I agree with you. And here’s what… this is my theory. These people have been trained or thought or raised to view, first off, failure as just not something you do. I mean, it’s just not.
[09:10] Bill Yeah.
[09:13] Mike And if you do fail…
[09:14] Bill Then you get a trophy. You get a trophy if you fail, right?
[09:16] Mike Well, but if you do fail, that means you, the person, are broken.
[09:20] Bill Yeah.
[09:21] Mike Which makes people so damn afraid of failing. Yep. Like you said, the world is working against you. And neither of those things, at least from where I sit being a trial lawyer, neither of those things bode well for this profession.
[09:36] Bill No. No. You’re going to lose in this profession.
[09:41] Mike Dude, you are going to lose and you are going to lose big. Now, sometimes the victories are on bigger stages, sometimes the victories or the, the failures are on bigger stages, and sometimes they’re on small stages. Like I told you, two weeks ago I was in trial, I got my butt beat. Soundly. Soundly. It happens.
[10:03] Bill How do you… how do you mentor younger attorneys to get them to not fear failure when they’re, when they’re probably coming into your system pre-wired to fear failure or reject failure?
[10:18] Mike I try to always put them in situations that make them just a little bit uncomfortable. So, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. Now, I’m not saying throw a young lawyer into something where they’re going to commit malpractice. But, yeah, every day make them do something that is a little bit different. And more importantly, let them watch other lawyers, Bill, get up, you know, to the batter’s box and strike out and then realize it’s okay. It’s okay. We go on.
[10:44] Bill Yeah, I think this is a topic we’re gonna have to keep hitting in the future. Okay, back to the book. Back to the book. Um, I attended your virtual launch party last night. Thank you so much for the invite. That was great. Uh, you got some great questions. If you could do what you did last night—and I believe it was Mark, attorney Mark Perkins—because you’re talking about, you gave this very important speech which I have viewed, you sent me the video, uh, and the speech kind of led to the book. It was really the found… you called it the chassis. The speech was the chassis. Can you, can you tell our viewers, give us the three or four minute kind of mini version of this speech that you gave and, and the, the kind of basic overall story of what happened to you? Because the one thing you said last night that at first shocked me and I was like, “Wow, maybe he’s right,” is you said, “This seems like a wild, crazy story; this probably happens more than you think and no one talks about it.” Why don’t you tell us the story, Mike?
[11:48] Mike So I will tell you the story briefly and then sort of how we evolved from there. So we go back… I believe that, I believe the year was 1994. I’ve been licensed about seven years. I’ve left a very, very prestigious firm here in Dallas, Coles and Thompson, probably one of the top civil defense firms in the state. And I go out with a bunch of folks who have broken off from Coles and Thompson and I get a call from a TPA—you know, third party administrator—that I work for that says, “Listen, we’ve got a new case. Here’s your point of contact at the trucking company. We’ll call him Sam.” So I visit with Sam. We get a case. As you know, Bill, if you do well, sometimes one thing leads to another and leads to another and leads to another. We ended up getting quite a bit of work with Sam. Then, uh, when, uh, my former partner and I split off from that firm and opened our own firm, Sam’s business followed us. He was one of those guys, Bill, that in the trucking world knew everybody and everybody knew him. He was a kingmaker. He was on a lot of boards. His… the companies that he worked for had a lot of business. And you and I both know that trucking litigation—these are big, meaty cases. These are not, you know, little car wreck cases. And so Sam and I hit it off. We became good friends—at least I thought we were—to the point, Bill, to the point where I had him in my home. He broke bread with my family around my kitchen table. He went to mass with my family.
[13:14] Bill That’s amazing.
[13:15] Mike And so he was also one of those guys that was very involved in his cases. He was incredibly smart and every time there was a big deposition or mediation he would be in town. So we got to work with each other a lot and he trusted his lawyers and let you do what you needed to do. So in 2001, I get a big box at the office and I look and it’s from Sam, which did not surprise me because he was very generous. So I opened the box and there’s all of this swag from the Green Bay Packers. I think they had either been to the Super Bowl or were going to the Super Bowl. And so he had put in signed footballs for my sons, autographed jerseys, Packer jerseys, a couple of prints. Just a lot of neat stuff. So I called him, I said, “Hey man, this is… I really appreciate this.” Again, Bill, this was not a surprise. I mean, this is the guy he was. He says, “Hey, great, I’m so glad you liked it. Did you see I sent you something?” And I said, “No, I mean, I see a bunch of stuff for the boys, but no… but I listen, don’t worry about it because…” He goes “No, there’s something in there for you.” He goes, “There’s some envelopes at the bottom of the box.” So I dig at the bottom of the box because I’m not dug all the way through it, and there’s a couple of envelopes and they have three checks in them. And they’re from the trucking companies for whom he works and they’re made payable to my law firm. But they’re not for cases I’m handling because, like you, I know the cases I’m working on. Yeah. And I said, “Sam, I see these checks are made to us, but these are not to our firm. There’s a mistake.” He goes, “No, no, there’s not a mistake. Those are for you.” And I said, “Well, they’re not… we don’t… these are not cases we have.” He goes, “Here’s what I need you to do. You just run these through your trust account—it’s about 10,000 bucks—and we’ll split it.” And I thought…
[14:59] Bill That’s trouble.
[15:01] Mike “No.” I said, “No, we’re not going to do that.” He goes, “No, I really… that’s what I need you to do. I need you to run through your trust account and… and split them.” And so I knew Sam pretty well—at least I thought I did—and and I knew that sometimes he lived fast and loose. I said, “Sam, do you need money? I mean, if you need 10,000 bucks, I’ll loan it to you if you need it. I mean, if you’re in a bad way.” He goes, “No, I just need you to do that.” So, I’m not… I’m just not going to do that. And so there was a pause, and then a new guy comes on the phone, at least voice-wise. And he says, “Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to have to cash these checks and you’re going to give me the money. And if you don’t, I will tell everybody in the trucking industry that you have lost your… I will pull all of my business and a lot of other business will go with it.”
[15:54] Bill So now you’re like, “Okay, my career versus, you know, hey, doing this.”
[16:01] Mike I mean, at that point, at that point my best memory is that was about a half a million bucks a year in business. And so I cashed the checks.
[16:11] Bill You cashed them.
[16:13] Mike That’s the story. That… that is the story in a nutshell.
[16:17] Bill Yeah. And um, that was a mistake.
[16:22] Mike Um, yeah.
[16:23] Bill And you’ll have to buy the book to read, to read what happened. But what happened was in the end—and maybe it was somewhat of a rocky path—describe the feeling of redemption. Because that’s what the millennial attorney needs to figure out, is that, yeah, well failing sucks, the feeling of redemption could be the greatest feeling in the world.
[16:47] Mike Oh, absolutely. Um, it… you know, I’m not going to even use the word “feeling.” It’s a process. And the process of redemption is still painful because it’s humbling. Because you realize that you cannot, you cannot write yourself out of the ditch without somebody helping you out. I mean, that’s the cold hard truth, Bill. You need to have someone help you get out of the ditch, which means for those of us who are type A personalities, we have to ask for help and allow others to help us. And I don’t know about you, but that’s not something that came easy to me.
[17:20] Bill No, that’s… that’s more difficult. I’m fortunate in learning how to do more and more of that.
[17:26] Mike As you find this process of redemption really, I think it transforms you if you truly, if you truly work through these mistakes that you make and you come out the other side. Like I say in the book, everybody’s going to end up in the ditch. You will end up in the ditch. Hopefully it’s not as deep as mine, but there were some that were deeper than mine. You can stay in the ditch—you can certainly do that, and you and I know people that do. They fail or something bad happens to them in life. Now, mine was completely self-inflicted, but you know, Bill, it just as easily could have been where I did nothing wrong and, you know, hell, it’s a cancer diagnosis, a family member gets taken too early. And a lot of people stay in the ditch, but I don’t think that’s where you need to be. And then if you come out of the ditch, then really the question is this, Bill: do you come out a bitter, smaller, pissed-off version of yourself—which you can do—or do you come out a better version of yourself? And like I say in the book, the choice is ours. It’s not an easy choice and it’s not easy to do. But I think that’s the one of the greatest gifts we have, is we can say, “You know what, this happened to me. I can’t change that, but boy, what I can control is how I handle it.” And when you go through that process of redemption, I think it makes you a better version of yourself. It makes you more compassionate. Uh, it makes you fearless, dude.
[18:49] Bill Yeah.
[18:51] Mike Yeah. You know, what… what’s the jury going to do to me when I try a case for a client and I lose? Nothing.
[19:00] Bill Yeah. Exactly.
[19:04] Mike It puts… it puts things really in perspective. If you let it.
[19:09] Bill If you let it. What, um… this is a rhetorical question: what class in law school taught you how to deal with situations like these? Or let me guess, there was no class, was there?
[19:20] Mike No. [Laughter]
[19:22] Bill How do, um… and I don’t even know. I mean, because I’m sure this would not be a very popular, um, conference topic at a legal conference. Uh, but this, again, like you said last night, situations like this probably happen all the time—maybe not to the extreme of your situation, maybe more subtle versions. How do you mentor and teach? I’m assuming you tell your young attorneys, “Listen, if you feel something slimy is going on, come to me and tell me,” right? I mean…
[19:57] Mike Absolutely. So first off, there was no class in law school that taught this. Now, they teach you ethics, which is, I mean, important, don’t get me wrong, but it’s… there’s no meat on the bone about the stories. I believe that this is a talk, and this is a topic that needs to happen at all legal conferences. I’m going to be so bold. And law students need to hear this talk because if you’re not exposed to it, when it happens to you, it… you’re shamed. You keep it a secret. You think you’re the only person that’s ever done something this stupid. And so I think that we need to have this discussion more and more. And you say, “You know, well, maybe it didn’t happen as severely as as I did.” Let me tell you, I have heard a couple of stories after giving this talk over a cocktail that I’m like, “Wow.”
[20:47] Bill That probably were never told before your story because people were scared or embarrassed or…
[20:53] Mike Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And yeah, a bunch of “I’ve never told anybody this” or “Nobody knows this happened to me,” on both sides of the docket, friend. On both sides of the docket.
[21:06] Bill It’s really amazing.
[21:10] Mike Yeah, it’s… it’s amazing. But to your point, I think we need to get it out there because then people will come forward. And my goal is to help people before they get to the ditch. And if you end up in the ditch, that’s where you are. But I mean, if I would have not been so bold and arrogant and insecure, I would have made a lot different decisions.
[21:28] Bill Wow. You mentioned—and by the way, I’ve read the whole book cover to cover in one sitting. It was fantastic.
[21:36] Mike Thank you.
[21:37] Bill You mentioned right before this incident with Sam, you had mentioned kind of the glowing pride and confidence you had as an attorney, maybe even to the point of arrogance. And you’ve heard the phrase “pride comes before the fall.” Talk to me about how you have to be careful with pride because it can come back to, uh, bite you.
[22:01] Mike Yeah, so I mean, at this point, I’m a… this all happens… I’m a…
[22:06] Bill You’re a hot shot. You’re a hot shot. Right?
[22:08] Mike Yeah, yeah. I’m a 13-year lawyer. I’m on boards of national organizations. I’ve got some blue-chip clients. I’m, you know, trying cases for clients in other states. Yeah, I mean, I thought I was really high speed, low drag. The problem was, I believed it. Now, don’t get me wrong, you and I both know as a trial lawyer, when you get ready to start picking a jury, you better believe you’re going to win. Otherwise, you’re going to lose for sure. But, you know, I was breathing my own exhaust and I thought that I was really God’s gift and I thought that I—me, Mike Bassett—was the one that was going to carry the load, which was absolutely… [Laughter] Yeah. Yeah.
[22:51] Bill Yeah, well… you live, you learn. Mike, tell our audience where they can find your book. I know you have the website. Uh, is it… is it manintheditch.com?
[23:01] Mike Themanintheditch.com. The website is there. You can order from there. You can get it on Barnes and Noble, you can get it on Target, you can get it on Amazon. There’s also on the website a link where, if you want to invite me to speak in an organization, it’s there. It’ll go to the folks that do that for me and I’m happy to speak because again, the more we talk about this, Bill, I think we can avoid people ending up where I was. I was fortunate. I mean, I came out of the ditch. That could have ended very, very differently. And we know—you and I both know—lawyers or people in our community that run in these circles that take their lives because they end up in the ditch.
[23:41] Bill Yeah. Yeah, and you alluded to that and into the book. So I guess that puts me into the final question. Tell our audience about the role that your wife played in your redemption battle. Because it sounds like without her, you’d be pretty screwed.
[23:57] Mike Oh yeah, dude. I mean, people have said that the title of the book needs to be The Man in the Ditch: The Luckiest Son of a… in the World with a Great Wife. I probably… that that is absolutely true. I mean, she was my constant companion. You know, she was the one that said, “No, you’re going to be a lawyer. This is what you are called to do.” And she stuck with me. Now, and I say in the book, it wasn’t sort of this, um, you know, it’s all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. There were some hard conversations, sure. But she was there the whole way. And that’s one of the things I talk about in this book, is loyalty. And one of the things that is so important to me—even more important than it was before—is loyalty. Because when you are in the ditch, a lot of people tend to just ignore you. There are people that you and I know, that you and I know that we have spoken about—that you don’t know this—that when I went in the ditch, they would not only not return my calls, but they actively went and sought out my work.
[25:01] Bill Amazing. It happens.
[25:04] Mike It happens. Yeah. So but without… no, without Liz, without my wife, I’m a dude sitting on a stoop drinking a 40.
[25:13] Bill Yeah. Yeah, no, I… I understand what you’re saying. Uh, and I really congratulate you and I hope this book’s really successful. Hope you start the speaking tour. Um, now I asked you last night and I didn’t get an answer—and you’ve had all, you’ve had, you’ve had 12 hours to think about this—so when the epic movie comes out, I mean, is it… who’s going to play Mike Bassett? Is it… is it Tom Cruise? Because listen, remember the movie The Firm? It’s kind of a similar… you got a little similar style here and Tom… Tom knocked it out. I’m going Tom Cruise on this. You… I mean, what do you think?
[25:51] Mike You know, I did think about it last night because I told my wife, I said, “Leave it to Kanasky to ask this off-the-wall question.” And you know, I thought about it. And you know who I want to play the movie that will never happen, by the way? Mark Ruffalo.
[26:07] Bill Interesting. Interesting. Good actor.
[26:11] Mike Good actor. Either that or Billy Bob Thornton because he is just too damn weird.
[26:17] Bill He is. He is very strange. He is very, very strange. Well, Mike, thank you so much for being on the podcast. You and I, uh… I’m pretty much… almost talk on a daily basis and I appreciate that. Looking forward to getting… having a very busy fall, uh, with you. Both with, uh, witness trainings, hopefully a couple mock trials here and there, because we got some big battles coming up, don’t we?
[26:41] Mike We do. We do. Thank you very much for having me, Bill. I really appreciate it.
[26:46] Bill No, thank you for coming on. And for our audience, thank you very much for participating in this latest edition of the Litigation Psychology Podcast. We will see you next time.
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