Episode #85 – From Law Enforcement to Attorney

Justin Ratley, Attorney with Munsch Hardt in Houston, TX, joins the podcast to talk about his background in military intelligence and federal law enforcement prior to going to law school to become an attorney. Justin discusses with Dr. Steve Wood how his experience in law enforcement has influenced his work as an attorney, including how he approaches interviewing witnesses at deposition and how its different than his experience in an interrogation room. Justin shares what he learned in his transition from law enforcement to a practicing attorney and how he brings extra value in his work with his clients, which include industrial companies, such as oil & gas, as well as insurance. Lastly, Justin gives his advice for younger attorneys in preparing for deposition.

Full Episode Transcript

[0:05] Steve Welcome to Litigation Psychology Podcast, brought to you by Courtroom Sciences Inc. I am Dr. Steve Wood. And yeah, in my career I talked to a lot of different attorneys and i get to hear a lot of cool stories from them about their experiences and what led them into the legal field. And every once in a while you hear a story where you say, “man that’s, that’s awesome. That’s, that’s a really cool background.” And it just so happens that i invited on one of those said attorneys who has a very cool background: Justin Ratley from Munsch Hardt in Houston. Justin, how are you?

[0:40] Justin I’m doing great. How are you doing today, man?

[0:42] Steve Good, good, good. Good to see you. It’s been a while since i’ve seen you. We worked together a little while ago, um, but great to see your face, great to have you on the podcast. So thanks for coming on.

[0:51] Justin I’m glad to be here. Thanks for the invite.

[0:52] Steve And you know, just, just to give the listeners a background, you know, as, as i teed you up, can you let them know what is it that you have as your background that led you to into be an attorney? What did you do prior to and, uh, in your previous life, as we would say?

[1:10] Justin Yeah, uh, no, i’m happy to talk about it. No, so, uh, before i went to law school, um, you know, i spent about a decade in military intelligence and federal law enforcement. And so i’ve done tactical intelligence collections overseas and in afghanistan, and then i did federal law enforcement and i’ve worked everywhere actually in law enforcement from afghanistan and hawaii, colorado, and d.c.

[1:37] Steve Very cool. And i know that we’ve talked before that the skills and the experiences that you had in those have transferred over to an attorney. But at the same time, i know that you bring to the table some different experiences based upon your background that help you. So can you talk a little bit about that? Like what, what it is that you have been able to bring over and how you’ve seen it to help you when it comes to interviewing witnesses or getting ready for depositions or trial or anything of that nature?

[2:08] Justin Yeah, no, i’m glad. Um, so i think kind of from the very high level issues, right? I mean, you learn a different type of analysis doing intelligence stuff and working in law enforcement. You learn how to kind of quickly sift through large amounts of data and actually, you know, make it useful. And so i, i think that was very helpful. But um, you know, kind of more in, in, in the lane you and i’ve worked together with, you know, on, on depositions, there’s a lot of similarities between, you know, depositions and what we do in interviewing interrogation. Both, you know, in, in both of my, my backgrounds—i’ll probably won’t spend much time talking about the intel side—but you know, the law enforcement side, um, there’s a lot of similarities.

[2:50] Steve Okay. And you know, i guess do you ever find yourself slipping into a law enforcement mode when you’re, when you’re given these depositions? Or how do you, how do you make that demarcation, separation from “okay, i’m an attorney now” versus being in law enforcement?

[3:05] Justin You know, i actually, I think um, i think it really just kind of, i get into that mode where there’s not like the law enforcement mode, it’s just that, that interviewing mode, uh, when i get in the deposition. So i think sometimes i tend to not do depositions like a normal attorney, and i’ll ask a lot of questions that would be faux pas in the normal world, but it’s because i’ve already gotten the rapport established and the cadence, the tempo. And so i can ask an open-ended question knowing what the answer is going to be, and i don’t have to zero it in as a leading question.

[3:39] Steve I think that’s a good point. And like i said, when we worked together, i did notice that was one of the things that when you worked with witnesses, it was a lot easier to have that rapport because you had it naturally. Whereas sometimes it comes forced to some others to try to develop the rapport and it just seems, you know, it seems like witnesses might be on guard because they’re not sure whether or not you’re just trying to chat them up, you know, what your angle is. But you have a very kind of fluid ability to build rapport with witnesses, which i think helps you probably in, in your day-to-day activities.

[4:11] Justin Yeah, no, i appreciate that. Yeah, i, you know, a lot of the things that kind of link up between, you know, your, your law enforcement interviews, um, and how you do it for, for depositions. You know, i think things that people don’t think about is, is kind of that, the timing and the tempo. You know, one of the things that you can control a lot more in an interview and interrogation is, uh, is your spacing to the person. You lose that in a deposition; there’s, you know, a big massive table between you. But, you know, you, you learn a lot, you know, through about a thousand interviews and interrogations, how to, you know, how to put pressure without using um, without being demanding. You provide pressure by closing the space, or when someone’s getting really frazzled, you give them more space. Um, you know, closing those distances, um, you know, is helpful, and you lose that in a deposition. You also obviously having another attorney in there that’s watching everything you say and who’s been through, you know, 500 or so depositions as well. So yeah.

[5:10] Steve So that definitely, definitely changes the dynamic a little bit versus, you know, you being alone in an actual interrogation room. So that’s, that’s an interesting point that i hadn’t thought about until you just mentioned it. But you know, one of the things as you know, we’ve—so i guess the question becomes—did you transition, you know, after having this experience in, in your previous law enforcement and intelligence and then moved to be an attorney, what were kind of the initial, you know, i guess roadblocks that you had as you were moving from one to career to the next, and then how is it that you overcame them?

[5:46] Justin You know, it’s, it’s not really with the attorney tasks. Um, it’s, it’s the business development side of it for sure was, was the biggest challenge for me in an adaptation. I mean, when i worked in my prior life, i didn’t have to go find my work, right? It found me. There was, there was always an abundance to do and i didn’t have to go find it, right? Um, i think one of the things you kind of learn in this world is even, you know, taking out, you know, your actual outside the firm clients, you, you’ve got to kind of build that reputation within your firm to get the kind of work you want to work on, so you don’t kind of get stuck on the jobs you don’t want to do, right? And so, um, you know, and i think that, that, that’s a new concept for me; it’s not something i had to deal with beforehand. Um, and so initially, you know, you do it by just getting, being the most prepared person in the room on any file, right? I mean, i can’t tell you how many hours of non-billable time i’ve spent learning the technology or learning what the business did on my own, knowing that i’ve got a meeting the next day so that i can ask informed and relevant questions. Um, and so i, i would do that and that, that helped me kind of build internally, you know, that, that, uh, that base with the partners that i was working on. And so i, i was able to get busy with the work i wanted to do instead of getting busy with just what was left. And i think that’s, that’s very important. If you, you want to control what you do, just do at least a few things well.

[7:19] Steve Speaking of that, how did you find kind of your niche that you do? You know, can you give the listeners kind of what your area that you you actually are engaged with as an attorney and then kind of how is it that you found that area, that niche, you know, that you selected?

[7:34] Justin Yeah, so i would say i’ve kind of got two areas that i spend a lot of focus on. One is i do a lot of work with industrial clients. Um, you know, people in oil and gas and, you know, developing technologies for oil and gas. And i think what, what i enjoy about that is i, i probably was supposed to be an engineer, um, and, and i missed my calling. And i, i like digging into how these technologies work, how the, you know, how these vessels function, you know, whatever the operation is that, you know, it’s kind of at the heart. And sometimes i’m in those for personal injury cases, sometimes it’s a contract dispute. You know, there’s a variety of reasons that i’ll be involved in these cases, but at the crux of the ones that i, that are really help, that i enjoy, where there’s some function of equipment that it’s crucial to understand that. And that’s, that’s where, you know, i think kind of digging in and my investigation background before, i want to learn how all that functions so i can see what’s what went right and what went wrong. And then it’s almost a competition in my brain between me and the experts to figure it out first. And then on the other side of it, uh, was actually an area i just kind of got thrown into. And in my, in my prior firm, we did a lot of insurance coverage work. And so i, i got very familiar with how to read insurance policies and um, i’ve decided that there’s, there’s definitely there’s some fun in the puzzle of how to piece these insurance policies together to make sure that you’ve got, you know, people into coverage. And that works well with a lot of my industrial clients who need to make sure that they have insurance coverage for whatever we’re doing at the end of the day.

[9:13] Steve So yeah, i think you bring up a good point in this. I’ve heard it from from others as well, and i think it, it’s very important, is the idea that you were saying to learn the technology or learn the space that you’re in, right? If you’re going to be doing trucking, you’re going to want to learn all the aspects of trucking. I’ve even seen now, actually, where some plaintiff attorneys firms are actually sending their attorneys who do trucking to actual truck driving almost school so that they can learn all the ins and outs of the actual truck so they know when they’re, when they’re referring to things in the case, they’re, they’re clear on what they’re referring to. So i think that’s a good point to what you’re saying, is finding that niche, finding that area that you like, and then essentially learning everything you can in that area so that you’re really the go-to expert when it comes to that. Because, you know, you’re already up to speed on the topics and that you can speak the lingo of the actual employees and potential witnesses and all the others that are involved with the case. So i think that’s a, that’s an excellent point.

[10:10] Justin Yeah, that’s actually kind of a, there’s a funny story on something like that for me. I didn’t go to trucking school, but i had a case that was heavily involved with oxygen hazards, right? And i had spent a long time digging into how the technology worked and how these processes functioned and meeting with these, you know, phds and, you know, chemical engineering and everything. And, and by the close to the end of the case, as we were getting ready for expert depositions, um, i got invited to go attend the auction hazard fire risk analysis school. And so i got to sit in this course with all these, you know, designers from boeing and, and the navy and all these engineers, you know, working out these complicated calculations on what metals to use and stuff like that. And, and so i learned all the calculations. It was a lot of fun. I, i completely nerded out for a week with all these guys and people from nasa and everything. It was, it was a lot of fun. And then i went back and it was fun to be, uh, more qualified than the opposing expert.

[11:17] Steve Very cool. Uh, you know, one of the things i want to, i want to wrap up with—we briefly mentioned it, you know, kind of your law enforcement and intelligence experience and that—i guess do you have any kind of suggestions, tips, tricks, any things that you have taken from your law enforcement and moved to deposition that you can let our listeners know that they could potentially use?

[11:37] Justin Yeah, i think probably in, when i’m working with younger attorneys that they want to script out a deposition. Um, when they’re taking a deposition, they’ll, they’ll write out these really long detailed questions in a precise order. And when you’re opposing someone that’s taking those depositions, it’s, it’s pretty easily recognizable that someone’s working from a script. Um, and the problem is they never go to plan, right? I mean, the witness always says something you’re not expecting. And, and if you stick to your script, then you miss out on these really juicy bits of information that you can gather. And so i, i think the the big advice i have for young attorneys is that instead of trying to script out a whole deposition, use, use key points, right? I mean, list your elements with some sub elements in there, you know, if there’s some topics you want to talk about, but, but do it more bullet point style and topical. And then, and then funnel your approach, right? Start broad, ask questions in a broad fashion and then work your way down to the details you want. And then when you’ve exhausted that, move on to the next bullet point.

[12:43] Steve And i think that’s a good point when you talk about scripts because you know when we train witnesses, we talk about it and you know this that essentially we let witnesses know that when opposing councils working from the script, right, the their approach is going to be to throw them off the script. And when opposing counsel gets thrown off the script, then, then they’re in the world of hurt because now they actually have to start earning their paycheck and start having to come up with, with questions on the fly, which becomes really, really difficult as i’m sure you know. So i think that’s a very good point to bring up about not scripting things because as you’ve said, when somebody finds out that it’s scripted, then and you get thrown off, then it goes bad. The deposition goes bad and it becomes ineffective.

[13:24] Justin Right. And, and so it’s always my hope that opposing counsel is following the script…

[13:27] Steve It’s one of your first questions you ask, right? At the very beginning when you walk in: “you got your script with you?”

[13:35] Justin “How many pages is this today?”

[13:39] Steve Well, Justin, i appreciate you coming on. If anybody wants to get a hold of you, has any additional questions for you, wants to talk more with you about any potential cases or your experiences, how do they get ahold of you?

[13:52] Justin So probably the easiest way for me is by email and that’s it: j ratley r-a-t-l-e-y at munsch.com and it’s m-u-n-s-c-h. Uh, and you can get me on my phone too, uh, i think the line is 713-222-4087.

[14:10] Steve Right. I appreciate it, Justin. And if you need to find anything additional, any of these additional podcasts, blogs, we have several things of content, a lot of pieces up on courtroomsciences.com. I can be reached at s wood at courtroomsciences.com. This has been another edition of the Litigation Psychology Podcast brought to you by Courtroom Sciences Inc. Thanks for joining.