Georgianne Walker, Trial Attorney & Partner at May Oberfell Lorber, LLP, joins Bill Kanasky, Jr., Ph.D. to discuss changes she has seen in litigation over the past couple of years. Georgianne talks about how her firm manages the volume of trial work with the logjam of trials taking place. Bill and Georgianne discuss the challenge of hiring, training, and retaining younger associates and how Georgianne’s firm manages their associates and lateral hires. Georgianne shares how she works with difficult plaintiff attorneys and how she prepares witnesses for situations where opposing counsel might be acting up during their deposition. Bill and Georgianne discuss AI in legal and different ways they are seeing AI being used and not being used. Lastly, Georgianne provides a breakdown on a med mal case she recently worked on.
Full Episode Transcript
[00:14] Bill Welcome to another edition of the Litigation Psychology Podcast brought to you by Courtroom Sciences. I am Dr. Bill Kanasky here with a very special guest, uh, attorney, uh, dear friend for life, uh, trial attorney Georgianne Walker in the Hoosier State of Indiana. How, how are things in the Hoosier State?
[00:38] Georgianne Great. It’s a beautiful spring day.
[00:40] Bill Not uh, no snow in May?
[00:43] Georgianne No, it was cold this morning, but the sun’s shining—the sun is shining now.
[00:48] Bill Outstanding. Outstanding. Now, Georgianne, you were you were on the podcast back in the day. Um, way back in the day before I had this cool backdrop, studio like I was doing these uh on my back porch. Uh, and I think that was even like during COVID. Um, what a mess that was. But thank you for participating before and now now we’re the big time. Now we’re the big time. So, come back. Can’t wait for your updates. Got a bunch of uh questions for you. Now, I know you work um on a lot of medical malpractice and some other things, too. What has been your um you know, now that I guess COVID’s like officially over, right? And I know that kind of once we started coming back from COVID I know that there was a log jam in the court system with trials and everybody was kind of going crazy chaotically trying to handle all the work. And now that we’re fully back kind of what are some of the main changes you’ve seen um in litigation particularly in med mal um really like over the last year, year and a half that we’ve kind of been back uh going full speed and has anything changed with your interaction with the plaintiffs’ bar uh in that regard as well.
[02:04] Georgianne Well um I like the fact that we’re getting back to in-person depositions. Yeah, sometimes attorneys still do things via Zoom, but I like to be there in person for sure. Uh, I’ve noticed that a lot of mediations are still being held via Zoom, which sometimes is convenient when parties are in different cities, but I still think that if you really want to make headway, whether it’s a deposition or a mediation, you should be there in person. Um, so that’s one thing I’m really happy about. But what I am not so happy about is that all of the trials that got continued are stacked, stacked, stacked.
[02:37] Bill Yeah.
[02:39] Georgianne Um, and that is stressful.
[02:41] Bill Yeah.
[02:42] Georgianne Um, and I do understand from the plaintiff’s bar perspective, you know, if if it’s a case that didn’t settle and they want to get to trial, I get it. But, you know, they can be a little pushy sometimes about that and it’s like, whoa, I only have seven days in the week. So, doing the best I can here.
[03:00] Bill So, how, not just you personally, but like as a firm, how have you dealt with the the log jam? Because I mean I’m dealing because every call I get particularly in the last year. I’ve worked on more trials in the last year man it’s just trial trial trial trial trial. I mean a lot of them settle but you know how it is working up uh to trial. How what has the firm what has the firm done to to deal with such a log jam and also maintain your your sanity at the same time if that’s even possible?
[03:32] Georgianne Um well as for your first question we are blessed with an amazing team of associates and included in that are not only people that have come along since they joined us as a law clerk but also we’ve had some amazing lateral hires in the last couple of years um really brought on some great talent that can step in and help us um more senior attorneys who are tend to be the the lead trial counsel on on cases. Um, you know, I just try to stay on top of it. I work a lot as we all do.
[04:03] Bill Yeah.
[04:04] Georgianne And that’s how I keep my sanity really is just stay making sure that I’m staying on top of everything.
[04:10] Bill Have you seen any changes uh again since COVID back up to full speed um and how the bench, how judges are handling things? Have they been sympathetic towards the log jam or just like nope you’re going to you’re going to somehow figure it out like kind of almost pressuring parties to settle how how how the the judge has been handling this.
[04:31] Georgianne It depends on the judge and the county. I mean I’ve had just in the last week I’ve had one judge that you know pushing us do something or we’re going to trial. Um squeeze in these depositions that you didn’t get dates for for two years. You’ll figure it out. And then another one who was um just this morning awesome to work with about continuing the trial.
[04:54] Bill Yeah. So, so what I’ve seen I’m going to I’m going to jump right on our outline here. Um what I have seen over the last couple years nationwide with defense firms. It just seems like everybody’s hiring. Everybody’s hiring, you know, to deal with a lot um of the volume, a lot of the the log jam. And you know, one thing I’ve seen across the country with multiple firms, it’s a it’s a major headache is not just how to attract young talent, but how to how to keep them. It seems like, and we’re, trust me, we’re going to talk about the transfer portal in college sports uh be before this podcast is over. That’s going to make me insane because I’m going to go on another rant. I can’t shut up about it. But it’s almost like with associates, it’s almost like the transfer portal. Like you get somebody for a year and like you have to re-recruit them to keep them on your team or they want to bounce around from firm to firm. I’ve seen associates, you know, work at three firms in five years. Um how a how much has a how much of a headache has that been? And number two, um as a as a partner and as a firm, how do you how do you deal with that? And and what do you what do you guys do internally to try to improve retention once you find somebody that’s that’s really talented?
[06:14] Georgianne My dog’s going nuts for some reason. Sorry.
[06:16] Bill It’s okay. I have a dog downstairs that’s the UPS guy is going to be here and that’s going to be that.
[06:22] Georgianne Um well, we really focus a lot on making sure that the culture of our firm allows for people to be um have a really good work life balance. I mean, I know a lot of people say that, but we really do that. We don’t have like there’s no set PTO time for our associates. You’re a professional. We expect you to act like one. We’re going to treat you like one. Uh you can take off as much time as you’d like so long as you’re getting your work done and meeting your requirements and what is expected of you. So, I think that that’s definitely one thing. Also, we make it very clear. Our firm’s been around for a long time. So, you know, I started as a law clerk. We’re not here to just churn work out from you and you don’t have room for advancement. We want you to make partner one day. We want our legacy to be these amazing talented people that we brought along for all of those years. Um we let associates kind of decide what what practice areas they like once they’ve worked, you know, in all of them. And um obviously we don’t want somebody in a practice area that they don’t feel passionate about. So, we just we really do have a great team. They they go out to dinner every other month. It’s on the calendar.
[07:31] Bill Nice.
[07:32] Georgianne Um, the partners pay for it and—
[07:33] Bill Even better.
[07:34] Georgianne They love it. They love it. They look so forward to it. They all talk about it for the days leading up to it.
[07:38] Bill So, and while we’re at it, um, you did this on last podcast and, uh, redundancy is a great thing. Tell us about the firm and, um, your philosophy and the types of cases that you all handle up there in Northern Indiana.
[07:53] Georgianne Um, well, we’re, as far as we know, the oldest law firm in Indiana, established in 1856 and been around continuously since, which is amazing and just a sign of our tradition. Um, and we do we’re really known for litigation, but we also do a lot of transactional work. So, we really do everything except patent work. We don’t have any patent attorneys.
[08:16] Bill Good for you. That that’s a headache in itself.
[08:20] Georgianne Yeah. So, we’re close to the RV industry. We do a lot of work for them.
[08:24] Bill Yes, I’ve worked in a couple of those cases. Those are always interesting. Nothing like a good carbon monoxide case to start your week off.
Okay. So, let’s—Okay, so let let’s let’s really get into it here. I’ve got, I got a spectacular uh outline here. Um let let’s jump to an interesting matter. We’ve had a couple different podcasts on this and I like to hear from different attorneys on how they they they deal with it. So, how do you how do you personally deal with um either plaintiff attorneys, right, your adversary, or maybe um uh a codefendant counsel that’s that’s uh maybe not too pleasant to work with? Um, how do you deal with difficult attorneys as far as communication, getting things done? It’s um I think it’s it’s one of the challenges that I see, you know, across the country and there are some bullies out there. How how how do you deal with those types of attorneys versus I’m sure there’s ones particularly in the plaintiffs’ bar that are much easier to work with than others.
[09:32] Georgianne Of course. Well, I’ll start with the easy one. Thankfully, the codefense attorneys that I work with for the mo—I mean, I can’t think of one example where we we aren’t able to figure it out in some regard.
[09:44] Bill Yeah.
[09:45] Georgianne Um, so but you know, plaintiffs’ attorneys, some of them are bullies. Um, for the most part, I just try to ignore them. Uh, and I know that I’m going to beat them and that’s why this is what my cup says.
[10:00] Bill Oh, she—So, she’s—So, for those listening on Spotify and Apple, holding up her cup, it says “opposing counsel’s tears.” That’s what she drinks out of.
[10:09] Georgianne I have two of them.
[10:10] Bill You have two of them because there’s so many there’s so many tears that you are causing.
[10:14] Georgianne No, I don’t know. I get frustrated at times because I am such a purist when it comes to like the law and the system and um we’re here for a reason. And if everybody just plays their role, they have candor with the court, which I’ve in the last week noticed missing to say the least. Um, you know, I’m disrespected by older males, in pleadings, on the phone, in emails, in court, but I just ignore them and continue doing my job.
[10:51] Bill Well, you’re you’re not just one of the toughest women I know or toughest attorney, you’re one of the toughest people I know. Um, and I think that’s I think that’s really good, particularly uh in the industry that you’re in. How do you—So, if you’re if you’re defending a—Now, my dog is going nuts. See? Um maybe my dog smells your dog virtually. I don’t know. So, like when you’re defending depositions and you got maybe a plaintiff attorney that’s going, you know, over the top aggressive on your on your witness, are you do you try to keep everything cool or or are you kind of like losing your [__] as well? Uh because that’s that’s distracting to the witness, too. I’ve seen I’ve seen videotapes of counsel screaming at each other puts the witness in a difficult spot. How do you handle those scenarios?
[11:40] Georgianne It depends on the attorney on the other side if I know them or not.
[11:44] Bill Yeah.
[11:45] Georgianne If I know them, I shut that down right away. We’re not doing this today, Mr. So and So or Mrs. So and So. Okay. But if it’s somebody I don’t know, I kind of wait to see if maybe they’re just pounding their chest a little bit.
[12:00] Bill Yeah, trying to make a name for themselves.
[12:04] Georgianne But I would never let let it go on for any significant period of time because I’m there to protect my client.
[12:12] Bill Tell me about uh I think this is really important. Uh and I have these discussions with witnesses. I think it’s important for defense counsel to have this discussion. How do you um educate your witness prior to dep try to warn them about, you know, such things and try to get them to keep their cool because with some of these attorneys, it’s going to happen. And I’ve seen unfortunately kind of unprepared witnesses, you know, see maybe some bickering between attorneys and they go into like fight, flight, freeze because they’re like, “Oh my god, what’s happening?” And that can, you know, cognitively shut them down and then your witness is rattled because of the process of actually the the the attorneys. What types of conversations do you have with witnesses to prepare them for things like that?
[12:56] Georgianne Well, I I tell them that if it happens, we’re going to take a break as long as there isn’t a question pending. That’s the very first thing I would do is take a break, let everybody calm down um and chill out. But more than that, in like true prep for that situation and what types of questions might be asked, I pretend like I’m the other attorney and I come up with an outline and I drill them a couple weeks before their deposition as if I am the other attorney.
[13:21] Bill Yeah. Exposure. Um I just did a pod—you have to expose them to these negative things for them to become resilient to it. You can’t—I see a lot of defense attorneys that just kind of tell their witness, “Yeah, just stay calm. If if they start being aggressive or making faces, just ignore it.” And I’m like, “Yeah, right. It’s not that easy. It’s not that easy.”
[13:42] Georgianne I didn’t know we were going to talk about this, but I have a great story really quick. So, I just had a client who um on a break, you know, I took him in the hall and I said, “Okay, you’re coming across as pretty defensive. Um this isn’t videotaped, but still.” And he was like, “Okay.” And we went back in. He did a great job. We finished the dep. They got absolutely nothing. And afterwards, he says to me, “I need to tell you something.” And I’m like, “Oh my goodness.” Okay. But like, “Was a family member sick or something and you went through this or what?” And he said, “When I get attacked, I immediately fight back because I’ve been in fighting since I was 11 years old.” And I said, “Oh, what kind of fighting?” And he said, “I’m an MMA fighter.” And now that is a piece of information that I would have liked to have had two weeks prior when I—
[14:29] Bill Maybe beforehand.
[14:31] Georgianne Yeah. But it all worked out.
[14:33] Bill No, I think I think that’s interesting because you know we see a lot of witnesses that um and by the way this is far more common. And we’ve talked a lot about this in the podcast and when I speak I talk about this because I think attorneys are so case focused and I always talk about the importance of really truly assessing your witness and talking about not just with their experience with litigation but what about them personally right may make them a good or maybe not so good witness and I’ve seen so many witnesses bring non-litigation issues into the deposition because like you said, you have a family member that’s sick and you’re stressed out. Well, a lot of witnesses don’t tell their attorney that cuz they don’t want to burden them with that. But I think that’s a big deal for the attorney to know because that witness may, you know, may crack under pressure because they don’t have the resources necessary because they’re dealing with some other stressful event. I’ve had witnesses like simultaneously to a dep going through bankruptcies, divorce, right? Um again, uh uh ill illness of of of a loved one. Um all kinds of things going on. So I think it’s really important to dig deeper on your witnesses to see, you know, I always I think it’s important to say, is there anything going on in your personal life that may influence your stress levels or anxiety or anger levels, you know, in this deposition? And then kind of let them open up to you and if they do have um something else going on to, you know, to be aware of that and make sure that they’re they’re handling it. And I’m sure there’s there’s probably been times in your career where you’ve probably purposely bumped the dep date back a couple weeks or something because the witness was struggling with something unrelated to the case, right? I mean, this stuff happens.
[16:26] Georgianne Well, now I’m adding to my list of questions. Are you an MMA fighter?
[16:30] Bill Yeah. Are you an MMA fighter? We had one um um our mutual friend Steve Tyler and I had one uh and Alan Cus was there as well. And we’re working with this witness and we went through the first two hours and like this is not going. She’s a very nice lady. She was a nurse and it’s like nothing sink like nothing is sinking in. Her memory is shot and we’re all looking at each other like like something’s wrong. She’s not she’s not like she’s not following the training. She’s not really like everything’s going wrong. And so, let’s take a break. We take a break. We huddled up. We’re like, we kind of we got to back it up. Like, we’re getting nowhere with this witness. So, we sit down with her. And so, I finally ask, right? This is a while ago. This 10 years ago. I said, “Um, again, anything going on in your personal life that’s distracting? Like do you like you look like frazzled or distracted and we’re just concerned about you as your legal team.” And she goes, “Oh yeah, I was in a major car accident a week ago and had a grade two concussion and really not processing.” We’re like, you couldn’t tell us. You couldn’t tell us that before we started. You need to cancel everything. Like, “Okay, go home. Go to your doctor.” She had a concussion.
[17:53] Georgianne Yeah. how is she supposed to think?
[17:55] Bill She couldn’t think straight and it was just like oh my gosh. So now it’s like you have to ask your witnesses like have you had a head injury like so it’s like you start having the like so the list of things to ask your witness beforehand is now is now growing. But I tell you what if you don’t catch that stuff, it can certainly torpedo testimony. So, the more you get to know the witness, you know, rather than just jumping right into the case, ask them about other things going on and make sure you don’t have any other things that are going to, you know, um, impact the deposition. Because think about that, you’re a defense. You spend all this time with the witness and then they bomb and then afterwards you’re like, “What the hell happened?” Oh, well, you know, this this bankruptcy hearing really threw me off. And you’re going, “What the hell?”
[18:41] Georgianne Yeah. They need to understand how important that day is.
[18:45] Bill Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s crazy. All right, let’s shift gears a little bit. This is a really important topic, not going away anytime soon because it’s in its infancy. Um, you’ve read all the posts on LinkedIn, you’ve probably read some articles. Um, AI is um has made a big splash in the legal industry. Um, some firms are are using it quite aggressively for certain things. Other firms are avoiding it like the plague. Um we have seen several examples in the news where um AI’s made some mistakes and the judge has not been very happy with the attorney you know citing cases and motions in limine that don’t even exist. So, how have you personally what’s the firm’s philosophy? Because I’m sure there’s some ongoing discussions or at least there should be on kind of where is this going because I think it could be a huge help on on one hand obviously the risk is there from an accuracy perspective where you can you know get embarrassed or maybe even get sanctioned for using it the wrong way. And then to the extreme of this, several articles out there, which again I kind of roll my eyes at, but it’s like, you know, AI is gonna eliminate 90% of the legal jobs and like like paralegals are going to be out of work and and and and the attorneys are going to be so more productive with AI. You’re going to have to lay off all your associates because AI is so good. Where are you at on all this? Because it’s it’s you got to get your head around this, right?
[20:20] Georgianne Yeah. Our well our number one priority and concern is the welfare and safekeeping of our clients information. So, if there would be any sort of AI that could be used that would in any way expose us or our clients to that um information getting out anywhere outside of our system. Absolutely not acceptable. Um with that said, we do view AI as a tool so long as it is used appropriately. Like there’s AI within Lexus, so you can’t get that fake case. You know what I mean? Like you’re not just it’s not just on chat GPT. It’s within Lexus. Um so for things like that to maybe help speed along some legal research. Yes. Um we’re not you know using it to write briefs. I my personal philosophy is it is a tool that can be um very useful, but at the end of the day, a licensed human attorney is going to have to review it.
[21:20] Bill Yeah.
[21:21] Georgianne And a licensed human attorney is going to have to go argue it to a court unless they start putting robots in there, I guess.
[21:29] Bill I I listen, I I’m hearing robots are on the way.
[21:32] Georgianne Oh, no.
[21:33] Bill Imagine having robot associates. That could be kind of fun.
[21:38] Georgianne No. They all bring something good to the table.
[21:43] Bill Robot judges. There you go. Right? Well, maybe maybe you want a robot judge.
[21:51] Georgianne If we give you all of the accurate information, can you for sure spit out the right decision?
[21:56] Bill There you go. See, it’d be like a new a different type of court, right? You could just go to AI robot court and it just it’s never wrong, right?
[22:06] Georgianne It’d be like an arbitration clause in a contract
[22:08] Bill Exactly. You submit, you submit to the AI robot court. Um yeah, I I think I think by the time that gets here, you and I will be hopefully long gone uh and won’t have to deal with any of those headaches. But I think AI is going to continue to grow. Um, I think that, um, like for example, uh, I met an attorney last week in Atlanta who says, um, his firm is using some, I forget which platform, uh, using AI to, um, upload all of the corporate rep deps from the company. And what the AI does is go through to look for like inconsistencies, consistencies, and use it as a training tool for, you know, for dep prep usually um to make sure everybody’s staying consistent to look over. It’s like volumes and volumes of information that the AI can look at what the corporate rep said, um you know, going years back and so it stays consistent and then shows where some of the hiccups were. Uh I think that’s a creative example. I’ve also, I know plaintiff attorneys are using it to um upload um you know various uh you know corporate rep depositions of of you know the people they’re going up against. Uh I’ve heard other attorneys do it for for example if there’s a popular expert out there to gather all that expert’s um depositions upload them and have the AI break it down on where the strengths are, where the weaknesses, maybe points of vulnerability. It’s kind of endless, right? Uh, you know, what you can do. Um, I think it can, obviously, it’s not going to try a case for you, but I think from maybe just a working a case up and from a preparation standpoint, it can um it can generate some interesting things for you.
[23:53] Georgianne I’ve got one for you. So, I had a deposition and the plaintiff’s attorney asked my client, a radiologist, if he had AI read the films. Well, first of all, when this alleged negligence took place, we weren’t even talking about AI reading X-rays, okay? But I was like, um, yeah. So, then he proceeded to ask the doctor questions that when he had AI read it, they told him is this is what the film says.
[24:29] Bill Yeah.
[24:31] Georgianne That was the first time I’ve seen it.
[24:32] Bill Yeah. And I think more of that’s coming. Um, I think that—
[24:35] Georgianne Well, we should have our witnesses prepared for that because that was also not on my are you an MMA fighter list.
[24:41] Bill Well, yeah. So, like if you if you look at like the use of dash cams and other technology and transportation cases, right? Um, some companies use a lot of that, particularly some of the bigger companies. Smaller, medium companies maybe can’t afford it. But then the questions are like it’s never enough, right? It’s like that. So, a lot of the cross-examination questions are well, you have this technology, but how come you don’t have this other technology, right? And it’s the you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t, and uh so it’s leading into a lot and I I think in healthcare it’s going to be starting being used uh it’s I heard I heard some crazy stats about how accurate it is with X-rays and MRIs and CT scans and maybe it’s used as a backup read. I don’t know. But yeah, so then now as defense counsel, you have to start preparing. You have you’re going to have to learn that technology. I mean, this is going to this is going to get crazy here uh over the coming years because um it’s going to be a whole new area of cross-examination for witnesses that’s never been there before. Yeah. In fact, the one the one I saw in the news yesterday, they’re using uh it’s an AI um card—It’s like a almost looks like the name tag in a hospital name tag. It clips to the name tag. And so, when the physician is communicating with the patient, it’s all recorded and analyzed and goes right into the record to record the entire conversation. So, there’s no documentation screw-ups, stuff like that. Like where the hell’s that going? I mean, it’s kind of scary.
[26:19] Georgianne Yeah.
[26:21] Bill I don’t know. I don’t know. But so, yeah, that’s just going to be something that’s that’s going to be there. Um, couple more questions for you now. Um, we talked early on in the week. Tell us about you have a unique case up there and, you know, in Indiana law like all these different states have, you know, different nuances and stuff like that. Um, let’s kind of do a little case breakdown in the situation that you have and explain to the audience kind of what you had to deal with there.
[26:47] Georgianne Sure. Um, so we have tort reform in Indiana and that means that if you pay a surcharge to be covered by Indiana’s medical malpractice act, um, there is a cap, but you have to be a part of that program. And I had a client who was not, um, it was a surgery center and um, they were not covered under the act. And then there were two codefendants. One was a surgeon who was covered under the act and then um a company who supplies prosthetics was the other defendant and of course that’s not a healthcare provider and therefore they would never even be eligible to be covered under the act. So fast forward the surgeon settles out. So, we no longer have a covered entity or physician healthcare provider um as a defendant. So, we are left with a pure comparative fault case under Indiana’s comparative fault act rather than a contributory negligence case. So, the individual who settled out settled out for a very large sum of money with the surgeon. What I found out when I started really digging in when I got this file was that um well after the surgeon settled out actually was that the jury would never know about that. And not only would the jury never know about that very large number, we did not we would not get a set off for that amount. The Indiana legislature and common law is basically saying, “Yeah, but we have a trade-off for you. You on your verdict form can have the jury allocate fault to you, surgery center, you prosthetic provider, and then the surgeon as a nonparty.” But I don’t like it. And here’s why. Any potential juror would say, “You are asking me to determine how much this patient should get compensated, but you are not telling me that the patient already got a very large sum of money.”
[28:55] Bill Yeah.
[28:56] Georgianne So, if our justice system is here to make people whole, I don’t think that that should be times two. And that was what was going to happen in this case because we there was liability to go around. And so, it’s not, it wasn’t even a case where we were defending on liability. It was just like, okay, you decide who what percentage each entity and person has at fault and then tell us how much it’s worth, but we’re not going to let you know that he already got a lot of money.
[29:21] Bill That’s cra—because that’s that’s crazy because that absolutely influences juror decision-making, right?
[29:28] Georgianne Yeah. And they have a right to know. We are taking a week of their time from their lives, and they are sitting there and then we are not giving them all of the information for them to make that just and fair decision. It’s just frustrating. So, the case settled because you don’t you know we didn’t know what was going to happen. So, double, you know got basically double recovery in my opinion. More than that.
[29:52] Bill Yeah. We—I’ve done that with like, you know, workman’s comp type issues. You don’t know if it’s coming in or not. And it totally changes everything because a jury goes, “Oh, wait a second. Oh, wait. They already have they already had one payday. Well, now that changes everything.” Versus if a jury goes in there and thinks it’s our job to make things whole, but they don’t know that of the whole some percentage already been covered, it’s a different denominator. It changes the math completely.
[30:18] Georgianne Well, and I think that um jurors are bright enough to know that, okay, if we want to put a certain amount of fault on this nonparty, but we still want to back into the amount we want to give the plaintiff, that’re going to do. So, they’ll just inflate the verdict knowing a certain percentage of it’s going to get wiped out. The person still gets that same amount of money that they think they are entitled to. I just didn’t—I don’t know.
[30:44] Bill The damn Hoosier state, I’m telling you.
[30:48] Georgianne I have to do something about that.
[30:50] Bill I know. I know. Okay. Um, let’s get into another topic. I think this is a topic I love to talk about. It does not get talked about enough. Um, you and I um are fitness nuts and um we always have been. And I think any profession in the legal industry um can be unhealthy uh if you if you let it. And I think um exercise is a huge thing. I don’t think I I don’t see nearly enough attorneys uh work out the way they should. How do how do you balance your professional life, your personal life and be able to um I know you’re texting me back and forth on your new exercise plans and stuff like that. I think that’s terrific because I think this I think I think the litigation industry can eat you alive from a health perspective if if you if you don’t be careful and I’ve known several of attorneys in doing this two decades that are no longer with us and had a just terrible unhealthy lifestyle and and just it was everything about the profession and kind of like not putting their personal health as a priority. How how how do you how do you make that happen and what’s your attitude towards that? Because I mean I I’ve seen you and we’ve talked about working out for years and years and years and it’s just I know it’s ingrained in your lifestyle but not it’s not it’s not for everybody in litigation. I think it’s really really important to stay healthy.
[32:19] Georgianne Absolutely. Um well I look at it like this. I dedicated my life to this career and how am I going to be the best lawyer if I’m not the best me? That’s that’s my philosophy on it. So, the better I am, the better employer I am, the better lawyer I am, the better client representative and counselor that I am. So, if there’s days I don’t feel like working out, maybe I just take my dog for a long walk instead. But at least I do something.
[32:42] Bill Yeah, that’s something.
[32:44] Georgianne Clears my mind.
[32:46] Bill Now, when you when you do exercise, are you are you a morning person, afternoon, lunch break, evening person? How do you…?
[32:51] Georgianne In the morning. I usually get up and work for an hour or two and then work out and then get on with my day.
[33:01] Bill I think that’s I think that’s terrific. I can’t do I’m not morning guy. I can’t do morning’s awful. Like these people like these people that get up and run and stuff at 5 a.m. or they’re doing the the local spin class at 6:00 a.m. These people—these people are like they’ve got mental issues. I I think really I think they’re crazy. You don’t you don’t do that stuff, do you? Like 6 a.m. stuff?
[33:26] Georgianne Sometimes.
[33:28] Bill That’s nuts.
[33:30] Georgianne Well, I have a gym in my basement, so I don’t have to go.
[33:32] Bill I’m building my man cave. I’m going to send you pictures of that, by the way. It’s—I’m like 80% done. It’s my UNC themed man cave and I got my “I’d rather be in Chapel Hill” shirt on right now. But I think I think that’s the important thing. And then you also do I think this is key. Um because I think resistance training, I think that’s the key to to longevity and if you want to run or cycle that’s good for your heart. I’m not really sure it’s going to put on any any muscle mass. Are you like are you pumping iron?
[34:02] Georgianne Yeah. Yep. As heavy as I can.
[34:07] Bill How do—Let me ask you this another health-related question. How so—Another thing I see as I travel on the road is that attorneys are so busy. I think there’s a tendency to to to not not eat healthy and to eat very quickly. How do you manage your your your meals? Um because I remember back in the day and I still do it now is like I try to cook my own stuff. I have to take it with me. I’ll take it with me. But I think it’s really easy to get sucked into a lot of bad food if you’re really really busy. How do you how do you eat clean?
[34:40] Georgianne That’s funny you say that because the security people at the South Bend airport, you know, my little lunch bag always gets flagged because there’s an ice pack in there and food and they’ll be like, “What do you have today?” I mean, it’s a pretty small airport. So, um, well, I definitely was not eating enough, and I caught myself like I’d have a protein shake, couple eggs, workout, protein shake, and then all of a sudden it’s 7 o’clock at night. Um, so I just started working with like a nutritionist to be honest and I love it. It’s I I’m so busy that I really don’t have time to sit down and plan my meals. She does it for me and all I have to do is buy them and pack them.
[35:16] Bill That’s I think that’s amazing. I wish more attorneys do that.
[35:19] Georgianne I’m eating so much more and I feel so much better.
[35:23] Bill Yeah. And again, obviously not going to mention I have met so many unhealthy attorneys. They don’t, they don’t exercise. It’s constant stress. They’re not sleeping well. They’re eating a bunch of junk food. It’s not the way to go. So, uh hopefully uh you hopefully others at your firm are following your your lead.
[35:43] Georgianne We have a gym there in the building.
[35:45] Bill Yeah I think every law firm should have a a gym somewhere in the building or um I know I know a firm that ready for this. They pay their employees to exercise.
[35:58] Georgianne Oh.
[36:00] Bill And they they carve out an hour a day. They have a gym and they pay you to exercise. You get bonus because I think I think it, like you said, it makes everybody better. You’re the best version of yourself. And um I think it’s the best form of um of of of stress relief. I think it’s fantastic. So, definitely keep up the good work. And to all of our listeners, please um do something. Do something. I mean, even walk if you just want to go on long walks, that’s great. I’ve been on trials where the trial attorney and I the moment trial got out we’d go back to the hotel and walk for 30, 45 minutes like power walk after every trial day just to you know clear our heads and get some good blood flow because I think during trial—there’s a great follow-up question how do you do that during trial with because now it’s like everything’s on the line, you still got to sleep you still got to eat you still want to exercise but now you’re in trial settings obviously maybe you can’t work out as much. But how do you how do you do that during trial?
[37:00] Georgianne I get up at the exact same time every day and I work out. A lot of my trials, I’m living in a hotel, so I use the hotel gym. Um if I’m near home, obviously my gym in my basement, but if I don’t work out during trial, it is bad news bears. I’d rather lose an hour of sleep. But I usually don’t work out the morning of closing because I usually don’t really sleep that night because I’m like I just have to get through closings. If that’s all we have the next day or maybe one witness. Um that’s the day I give myself off, but I also stay up pacing until one o’clock in the morning rehearsing my closing, so, I’m probably getting my steps in.
[37:41] Bill Of course. Okay, let let’s let’s finish this with with a with a rant. Um, Georgianne, you are um an an insanely passionate Hoosiers fan and um we I think we text during pretty much we have a group text going with every basketball game and every football game. The the the the state of college sports I I’m thinking Trump may have to have an executive order. He’s been talking to Nick Saban and some other folks to try to get things under control. It’s completely out of control. And here’s what’s interesting uh for the Indiana Hoosiers. That exact process made your football team from mediocre to to to top 10. And now I’m seeing I never saw to this until this year. I I never heard anybody talk about Indiana football. I never saw an Indiana football shirt. No, no, no. It’s Bobby Knight built the school. It’s a basketball program. And now you got this great coach, you got NIL money, you got everything pouring in. Really, really exciting time to be a Hoosier football fan. And at the same time, you look at basketball, it’s you bring in five new players and then half of them play, half of them don’t. They all make a lot of money, then they all leave and then you don’t make the tournament. It’s like, and North Carolina’s gone through some of the same stuff. It’s really really making me crazy. And has this impacted your enthusiasm. I got to tell you, it’s it’s impacted my enthusiasm towards college sports and that I think that sucks because now it’s it’s not college sports anymore. It’s pro sports.
[39:23] Georgianne Yeah, it has impacted my enthusiasm. I I will say that it has. But you know what has impacted my enthusiasm more is when North Carolina makes it to the tournament because their athletic director is on the selection committee and he’s going to get a seven thousand dollar…
[39:36] Bill Listen, we don’t do conspiracy theories here. Walker, objection. Objection sustained. This is this is that was on the motion in limine list that you just violated. Okay, listen. We squeaked in. He had nothing to do with it. You know the rules. He’s not allowed to be in the room.
[39:56] Georgianne Oh. Uh huh.
[39:57] Bill By the way, by the way, and this is further evidence now that you open up this can of worms. Bubba Cunningham, and by the way, the guy’s named Bubba. You got to love that, right? Bubba Cunningham was also on the committee two years ago when we didn’t get in.
[40:11] Georgianne Oh, he didn’t want to miss his bonus again.
[40:13] Bill I’m just throwing that out there. Can’t believe you torpedoed me on my own on my I think you did this on the last episode, too. You were so pissed. I remember. So, I’m sitting there. We get in. You guys don’t get in. You guys just lit up my phone. Lit up my phone. You guys didn’t talk to me for like a week. You were so angry.
[40:31] Georgianne Oh, well, it’s probably saved me money in the long run because I didn’t make emotional bets.
[40:38] Bill Yes, exactly. Well, it’s a mess. We’ll see where it goes. I don’t know. They need some type of structure for it. Okay, last thing before we conclude here. This I I always kind of like to ask a a going away uh question. I asked this to a guest uh last week. He had a very interesting answer. I’d like to ask you the same exact question um I asked uh the other guest. What can the defense bar do better? What do defense attorneys have to do better at? It’s a wide open question.
[41:12] Georgianne I would like us to do better at not letting these plaintiffs attorneys get away with what they get away with. that would make me happy because I—you know they don’t they don’t give you dates for a year or two then they say jump and you’re supposed to ask how high and it’s frustrating but I think we’re all very busy and we end up not really doing anything about it and they continue to get away with it.
[41:38] Bill How do you do that? Is that like a within the firm kind of attitude and philosophy you have within your firm that you like how how does everybody be on the same page with that?
[41:48] Georgianne I feel like we, you know, maybe as the defense bar, we need to make the judges more aware of what’s going on. And I know they don’t have time for that really, but I don’t have time for the other side of it. And I, like I mentioned earlier, I’ve I’ve seen a lack of candor to the court, you know, outright misrepresentations of facts, um, and a lack of civility. And I would like to see us get that across to the judges more so that maybe they have the tools that they need and the information they need to actually shut these people down. Start sanctioning them. Start excluding their witnesses when they don’t give you dates for two years for a deposition instead of telling you to figure it out 30 days before trial.
[42:33] Bill Yeah. Litigation’s messy.
[42:35] Georgianne It is. But you know.
[42:37] Bill Well, thank you so much for coming on again. Wonderful to see you uh as usual. stick around so we could chat afterwards. To our audience members, audience members, thank you so much. Make sure to leave us a review whether you’re on the YouTube network, Apple, Spotify, whatever platform you listen on. Litigation Psychology Podcast brought to you by Courtroom Sciences. Dr. Bill Kanasky. We’ll see you next time.
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