Episode 15: From Judge to Plaintiff's Attorney: Career Changes and Trial Strategies with Dax Lopez

In this episode, host and personal injury attorney Darl Champion is joined by Dax Lopez, former State Court of DeKalb County judge, now a plaintiff's attorney and mediator.

Join us for a discussion of Dax's experience as a judge, his nomination to the federal bench, and his successful plaintiff's cases. Dax also offers advice to plaintiff's attorneys, emphasizing the importance of the discovery process, understanding the jurors’ perspective, and the power of narrative and telling your client’s story.

→ Connect with Dax here.

Watch this and other Championing Justice episodes on YouTube: Championing Justice video episodes

Additional Resources:

Learn more about The Champion Firm, Personal Injury Attorneys, P.C. here.

Learn more about Georgia tort law cases and topics here.

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Transcript

Thank you for tuning in to the Championing Justice Podcast.

My name is Darl Champion.

I'm the founder and owner of the Champion Firm.

We are a personal injury law firm based in Marietta, Georgia, just right outside Atlanta.

I'm honored to have Dax Lopez as our guest for this month's episode.

Thanks for joining us, Dax.

Thanks, Darl.

So Dax has a very interesting background.

He was a judge for a number of years.

He is now a plaintiff's attorney and mediator.

So I'm really interested to hear his perspective as somebody who has been on a variety of sides, right?

I mean, so you've been on the bench, you've seen it from that perspective, you've seen it as a mediator, you've seen it on the plaintiff's side, and then of course, before becoming a judge, you worked at a larger firm here in the Atlanta area.

So I'm interested to hear what kind of advice you have.

But before we get started, tell us a little bit about your background, where you grew up, went to law school.

Great.

Well, thank you for having me.

This is a great honor.

I was born in Puerto rico.

So I'm originally from Puerto rico and I lived there until six years old.

And my family then came, what I call the mainland.

We moved to Augusta, Georgia in 1981.

And I know this is going to be shocking to you and your listeners.

It was not a mecca diversity in 1981.

We were the only Hispanic family in the neighborhood and no one would talk to us.

Like none of the white neighbors, none of the black neighbors.

It was kind of like we were on a little island.

So I didn't speak English at the time.

We certainly didn't speak Southern.

So the y'alls and the honeys and the sweethearts and things that kind of come with colloquial speaking were kind of foreign to us.

But I moved around to nine different states after that.

I've lived all over the South, some places in the North.

But we always kind of kept coming back to Georgia.

So Georgia was kind of a stopping point several times.

And I actually ended up going to high school here in Georgia, McEachern High School in Cobb County in West Cobb.

And then my parents were from Puerto rico.

In Puerto rico, you go to the college that's in your town.

It's not really, there's not really a, let me look at what the best school is.

It's just there's a college in my town and that's where I'm gonna go.

So they really had no advice for me.

And I really didn't know what I was interested in doing.

But I wanted to go to a good school.

I knew that.

And so someone suggested I look at Vanderbilt and I did.

And I loved it.

And so I ended up going to Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.

And because I had moved around so much as a child, I ultimately decided to stay in Nashville and go to law school there as well.

So I did all seven years in Nashville.

And that point, again, sort of at a crossroads, my family kept moving to different places while I was in college.

So I went and clerked in Puerto rico for a couple of years for a federal district court judge, which was great because I got to go back to my, you know, where I was born.

I got to spend time with my family that I hadn't seen while I was growing up.

I kind of got to immerse myself back in my culture, which was wonderful, a good experience.

And I got to work for a great-

Did you do it for one year or two years?

I did it like a year and a half.

It was kind of this weird, it was supposed to be a two year clerkship, but I also had a lot of school debt.

And so I kind of talked my judge into letting me do it.

Yeah, seven years of Vanderbilt will do that.

Yeah, so it got expensive.

And so my judge was nice enough to let me do sort of a hybrid year and a half, and so I could go and start making a little bit of money.

So then I came to Atlanta and worked for Holland Night for a few years on the defense side.

Yeah, what kind of cases were you handling there?

So I was put on the product liability team.

So at that time, this was early 2000s.

If you'll recall, there were two really big recalls in the product world at that time.

It was the Ford Explorer, and then it was the Firestone tires that were on the Ford Explorer.

They were original equipment tires.

So I was on the Firestone team at Holland Night.

So we handle hundreds and hundreds of tire cases.

So that's kind of prompted my love for product liability cases, which I still enjoy doing today.

Was there for a few years.

We kind of cleared out all those tire cases and it kind of died down a little bit.

And then I kind of started looking around and all the older partners were either retiring and all the young partners were leaving.

I was like, ooh, I need to figure something out.

So I went to a smaller firm, which was an offshoot of Paul Hastings.

It was Ashrafie's and Hill.

Yeah, great firm.

Went to work with William Hill, who I still to this day believe is probably the best trial lawyer I've ever worked with or ever seen live.

So I learned to try cases with Hill, which was awesome.

So we tried mesothelioma cases.

We tried employment cases.

We did a little bit of everything.

That was there for a few years.

And then I went to a small firm in Buckhead, Fultz Martin.

So interestingly, Ashrafie's and Hill and the firm I went to in Buckhead, Fultz Martin, are no longer in existence.

So I don't know if that had to do with me.

Maybe it was you leaving that caused them to implode.

I was the glue holding them together.

But I went to Fultz Martin for a few years just to kind of build a practice.

I had more rate flexibility at Fultz Martin.

So if you're a young senior associate trying to build your book of business, you kind of need that sometimes.

That's harder at hauling a night, right?

It's much harder.

If you're not bringing in a Fortune 500 company, it's much harder to bring in those mid-level or smaller companies.

So that was great for a few years.

And I was very blessed and fortunate to work with great lawyers along the way.

And that, I think, helped shape me as a lawyer for sure.

But then around 2009, a good friend of mine and mentor in the Hispanic community, he's always been Tony Del Campo, Judge Del Campo at the time.

He became a judge the year I moved to Georgia in 2002.

We became friends pretty quickly.

We served on similar boards.

The Hispanic community in Georgia is not huge, particularly in the professional rankings areas.

There's just not a huge group of folks, especially back then.

So Tony became a mentor, and we're really excited that he was the first Hispanic judge in the history of Georgia, which is crazy, in 2002, having our first Hispanic judge.

And so we kind of kept in touch, and he gave me a call one day.

I was the president of the Hispanic Bar at the time, and he had been a former president.

And so he calls me and says, hey, I'm on the short list to be elevated to the federal bench.

The Obama administration is looking for some diversity, and I might be the first Hispanic federal judge.

And I was like, that's wonderful.

That's great.

What do I need to do to help you?

He's like, well, I'm more concerned about my spot in state court.

There will be no Hispanic judges in state court.

So I really would like somebody to put in for my position.

And I was like, okay, well, who do you want me to call?

I'm happy to do whatever you need me to do.

He's like, well, I was really hoping you'd do it.

And at the time, I was like 32 years old.

Had you thought about being a judge at that time?

I clerked for a federal judge.

And at Holland Night, at Holland Night, Susan Edline was there.

She's now state court judge at Fulton.

Sarah Doyle is there.

She's now appeals court judge here in Georgia.

I had worked with all these folks who'd ascended to the bench, and at no point had it ever crossed my mind to be a judge.

So Tony was like, you know, I think you'd do a great job.

I think you'd be great.

I was like, man, I'd never considered, especially at 32 years old, you're still trying to figure out how to be a good lawyer.

And he's like, well, I was 32 when I took the bench, and you know, I've done pretty well.

So that kind of planted that seed, and I started thinking about it.

But then he wasn't elevated, so there was no position open.

But now I really want to be a judge.

Yeah, right?

Because it's like, you didn't get it, right?

You're like, I want it now.

All right, and so he's like, well, let's start thinking for the future.

So I kind of forgot about it for a little while.

So about a year and a half went by, and Tony called me again and said, hey, one of my colleagues is about to step down.

No one knows, but it'll be an appointment to the governor, so you need to start talking to who you need to talk, talking to.

And so I was like, all right.

So that is even a funny story.

So back then, it's not like this anymore, they would send, it wasn't in the Fulton Daily like it is now.

If there's an opening, it's usually in the Fulton Daily.

People know about it.

There's press releases and all kinds of stuff.

Back then, they just sent like an email to everyone who had an office, with the state bar, if your office was listed in that county, you would get an email.

But I lived in DeKalb, but worked in Fulton, so I never got that email.

And so when the position became available, I never received notice, no one told me.

And so Tony calls me, it was July 2nd.

It was a Friday afternoon of a long weekend.

And he's like, hey, the list came out with nominations, and your name's not on here.

I was like, what do you mean the list came out?

I didn't even know nominations were open.

And he's like, yeah, they were open.

They closed yesterday and the applications are due Tuesday.

And I was like, holy cow.

So Mike Bowers was the head of the JNC back then.

So I called his office and luckily he's a workhorse and he was not gone for the long weekend.

And so I got him on the phone and he's like, I'll let you self nominate.

You can nominate today, but your application is now due Tuesday.

So I'll send it to you.

So I spent the whole weekend working on my application, which is a very long application, turned it in and then kind of went through the process and everyone told me there was a state senator, a Republican state senator who put in and everyone was like, he's gonna get it.

I mean, he's connected to the governor's office and he's done a lot of things for the governor.

I was like, all right, I'll go through the process and if I get far enough in the process, maybe I'll interview with the governor and I can be on the radar for the next one.

But I'll tell you, I'll give Sonny Perdue a lot of credit.

I made the short list, I interviewed the governor and at the time, I belonged to an organization, a Hispanic organization that had sued the state of Georgia and the governor on some voting rights issues.

We had just-

Did that come up in the interview?

First question.

First and only question, I believe, the governor asked me because he had his executive council, now Justice Peterson was executive council Nels Peterson at the time.

But I walk in and he looks at my CV and he says, I see that you're on the board of Galeo.

I was like, I am.

He's like, y'all just sued me.

I was like, we did.

He's like, were you in the room when you decided to sue me?

I was like, I was.

He's like, okay, no more questions.

And he's like, he asked me one other question.

He did, like Nels asked me a bunch of questions and then the governor comes back.

He's like, he was very sensitive.

He had appointed several people in DeKalb who had lost election.

And so he was very sensitive to that.

So he's like, well, you know, if I were to appoint you, how would you win essentially your first election?

And I said, well, governor, I'm a Puerto Rican Jew.

Most people think I'm a Democrat.

And so I am a Democrat now.

I was not at the time.

It's famously known that at the time I wasn't in the Republican Party.

But yes, I am a Democrat now.

But it was interesting.

He was like he was very, very aware of that.

And I was like, yeah.

And so he laughed.

And next thing I know, I'm getting appointed to the bench.

So I guess it overcame the fact that I sued him.

So you get appointed.

And how long were you in the DeKalb State Court bench?

Eleven years.

And in DeKalb County, are you trying civil and misdemeanor criminal?

Correct.

So I was my very first year on the bench.

My division tried more criminal cases than any other division in DeKalb.

And I thought that was normal.

My solicitor had an award named after him because he tried 22 criminal cases that year, which I thought was just normal.

Apparently was very abnormal for one solicitor to try that many in a calendar year.

But yeah, so we were a very active bench and moving cases pretty quickly.

And just for anybody listening outside the state of Georgia, our court system is superior court.

Every county has a superior court.

Not every county has a state court.

That's correct.

The more, I think there's like a population cutoff, right?

Yeah, to help the superior courts who are absolutely backlogs, they'll create a state court in those counties.

So your superior court is going to be in counties that have a state court, your superior court is going to handle your felony criminal, your divorce, and then just all civil stuff.

Yep, real estate, equity.

State court is where a lot of plaintiffs' lawyers file here.

For a variety of reasons.

Now, there's some counties where that might be different, depending on who the judge is there.

Maybe a backlog in state court, you might think you get a quicker date in superior court.

Obviously, we've got the statute with Marta in Fulton County that says you got to sue Fulton Superior Court, which is just kind of interesting.

But so when you're trying cases in DeKalb State Court, you're seeing two types.

You're seeing misdemeanor criminal and civil.

When you started seeing people trying tort cases, personal injury cases, what was your, like, had you had any experience, a lot of experience with trying tort cases on the, as an attorney?

Not really.

I mean, we, I did a lot of product work, but very few of those actually made it to trials, as you might imagine, particularly on a recall case.

And you're at a big firm, you're one member of a huge team.

That's right.

So, no, we, I hadn't personally tried, I'd done some mesothelioma cases.

We had tried some of those, but very few.

So, no, most of the trials I had had were employment-related or small matters or business litigation, condemnation cases.

I tried a few of those.

So, yeah, this is the first time, you know, we're doing, like, you know, day in and day out.

And the bread and butter of the state court is correct.

Small car wreck, you know, less than $50,000 in damages.

And that is the bread and butter of the state court system in the metro area.

We had great MedMal cases and, you know, bigger cases, but those are fewer and far between.

Obviously, the lawyers in those cases tend to get along pretty well.

So, you don't really see them until trial.

And, you know, very few of those cases get tried.

Although there was one year where I, in a calendar year, I tried six MedMals, which is a lot.

And there's a lot of MedMals trying to calendar year.

But again, we just kept cases moving.

But yeah, so these little car wreck cases, so I finally just sort of instituted a system where I could try one a day.

And I was trying four car wrecks a week for a period of time.

And so, you know, there was two or three witness cases.

Now everyone comes in, it's like, we need four hours for Vardir, and Judge, we can't do it in a day.

I was like, look, you've got three witnesses, and we're gonna do Vardir in an hour.

You get 30 minutes, you get 30 minutes.

You know, y'all can agree to a six-person panel, but they never did.

There was always 12 people, but I was like, you got 30 minutes to ask your questions, and we're gonna get this case rocking and rolling.

And so we were charging jurors by 330 most days.

You know, the cases moved pretty quickly.

Every once in a while, we'd get a two-day or three-day.

So when did you get sworn in as a judge, and when did you leave the bench?

So I got sworn in September 23rd of 2010, and I left September 1st of 2021.

So what caused you to leave?

I know this is-

Have I opened a can of worms?

Again, another shock, I'm sure people will be very shocked.

If anybody listening in Georgia probably knows those people that know you.

Yeah, I'm sure you'll be shocked and amazed to hear that judges don't get paid as well as most people think they do.

You know, the Chief Justice, this is crazy, the Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court makes $30,000 to $40,000 less than a first year associate at King & Spalding.

I mean, that is a travesty, in my opinion.

So the way judges get paid in Georgia is there's a state pot of money and then there's county supplements.

If you live in a metro area, you're probably gonna get a larger supplement than if you live in rural Georgia.

So some judges, actually, Superior Court judges in DeKalb, I think, are at $220,000 now, which is great for them, but they still make more than our appellate judges.

So State Court, when I was there, paid sort of $150,000 to the $160,000 range, which is perfectly fine, but not relative to the profession, and certainly not relative to your years of experience.

Sure, yeah.

And you don't get a year.

The people appearing in front of you that you're seeing are making more than a lot more.

Correct, a lot more.

Even the junior attorneys, right?

So that's gotta be frustrating.

And there's no pay raise.

It's not like there's a scheduled pay raise every year.

There's no cost of living adjustment.

You know, I'd have to get a bill passed through the legislature just to get a pay raise, and it happened every five or six years, but you're not keeping with inflation.

And so, I have four kids.

My wife wanted to put some of the kids in private school, and I had kids going to college.

I actually had two kids in college when I left the bench, so I already had two in college and two about to go to private school, and just it wasn't financial feasible anymore.

And then you start realizing, man, there are some not so good lawyers that appear before me that make a lot of money.

Yeah.

And if those guys can make money, I'm pretty sure I can figure this out.

You got nominated to the federal bench, right?

I did, 2015.

2015.

So tell us a little bit about that.

You were a Republican at the time, right?

I was.

And of course, in Georgia, I'm from North Carolina, the judge races are actually partisan.

In Georgia, they're not.

They're nonpartisan.

But your political affiliation does have relevance to who's appointing you.

And so even though Obama was president, the states, it's my understanding, the US senators from each state have a large influence on who gets nominated.

So Georgia had two Republican senators.

You got nominated by Obama to be a federal district court judge in the Northern District of Georgia of Atlanta.

And you didn't get, did you even get up for a vote?

I didn't even get a hearing.

Didn't even get a hearing.

So I was appointed, well, I was nominated in July of 2015.

And so my name had sort of been kicked around since 2012.

Interestingly enough, Senator Isakson, who was one of the senators at the time, who has unfortunately since passed away, great American, great statesman, I'd known him because I'd lobbied his office for immigration reform while I was an attorney, before I became a judge.

So I got to meet him and his staff, and I was a constant, I'd constantly go visit, and we'd have some interesting discussions about immigration reform.

And we ended up hitting it off, and I really enjoyed meeting him and his staff.

And I always, even though he never agreed with me, I always felt like we were heard and had a fair opportunity to go at least have a discussion about our issues.

And so 2012 comes around, and there was an opening in the Norden district.

And so I kind of got a call at the time, and like, hey, we're kind of vetting some folks, and would you be interested?

I was like, yeah, that'd be great.

I'd absolutely be interested in federal judgeship, lifetime appointment, not having to run for election.

I was in the middle of a contentious election at the time, so anything that gets me out of this electoral process works for me.

Lifetime appointment, you would clerk for a federal judge, you know.

So not a bad gig, and they get paid a little bit more than state court judges, so I could make that work.

But ultimately, that position ended up going to now Chief Justice Mike Boggs was the nominee in 2012-2013 time frame.

And we all kind of know what happened, and for your listeners, he went through a very difficult process.

He had been a Democratic state legislator in the early 2000s before he ever became a superior court judge and then a court of appeals judge.

And some of his votes from that time frame kind of came up and became very controversial.

And he had a very difficult road to get confirmed by the US Senate.

And he had a very, very contentious confirmation hearing.

It got very ugly.

And he was accused of lying to senators.

It was horrible.

It was a horrible process.

And he was being maligned in the media, and websites were dedicated to his destruction, and all that good stuff.

And I was like, you know, so I was like, man, maybe I dodged a bullet by not going through the process.

And so I kind of saw him go through the process, and unfortunately he was not confirmed.

I think he would have been an amazing federal judge.

He's been a great chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court.

And your issue was your work with, was it Galeo?

Yeah, Galeo, the same organization that had sued Governor Perdue.

The Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials.

Correct, so I was on the board and that's the same organization that sued Governor Perdue.

So, fast forward a couple of years, we're in early 2015, that spot is still unfilled.

The process flamed out for Judge Boggs and they're looking for a consensus nominee and I get another call.

And so this time, now we have a different senator.

So we have Senator Isaacson is there, but now David Perdue, Governor Perdue's cousin is the US Senator for the State of Georgia.

He's the Junior Senator.

So somebody from his office who had worked with Sonny, with Governor Perdue, calls me and says, hey, would you be interested in this process?

I know you were kind of vetted a few years ago.

I said, no, thank you.

I'm good now.

I've seen what they did to my friend and I do not wish to go through that process, you know, really for my family.

I had small kids and they're like, no, no, no.

You know, we're vetting a couple of people and whatever names we send to the White House are going to be pre-approved.

That's what I was told.

And pre-approved by both senators, meaning if the White House picks your name out of the three that we're sending, you'll be good to go.

It'll be a done deal.

And I was like, you know, so I thought about it for a little while and then my wife sort of said, you know, we've never had a Hispanic federal judge in the history of Georgia.

Like, you know, if not you, who, right?

What are we going to do?

So I was like, okay, I'll do it.

So I put my name in the mix.

I knew there were two other people who were being considered.

And I really thought one of those other two were going to be chosen.

So I was like, it's probably a low risk that I'll be picked.

And next thing I know, let me tell you, the federal process is interesting.

No one tells you anything.

Like they just say, we've sent your name and you hear nothing for months.

And next thing you know, I'm at Disney World with my kids.

And I get a call from my office.

My assistant calls and says, hey, someone from the Department of Justice is trying to get a hold of you.

And at the time, I was working on some access to justice issues involving interpreters.

And I was working with the Department of Justice to develop protocols for courts to use interpreters to make sure that people are getting their day in court and having appropriate interpreters.

And I thought that's what they were calling about.

And so I was like, well, tell him I'll call him back when I get back.

And they're like, no, he's pretty insistent.

He needs to talk to you right away.

So I was like, all right, patch him through.

So they sent him to my cell phone.

And I answer and I'm talking to this guy and he's like, all right, we need you to start working on these questionnaires.

And he's like rattling off about background checks and questionnaires.

And I'm like, I'm sorry, what are you talking about?

He's like, well, you know, we're vetting you for the federal bench.

I was like, oh, okay.

So, you know, are you doing a background check on all three of the potential candidates?

He's like, I don't know what you're talking about.

He goes, we only do background checks on the presumptive nominee.

And I was like, what?

He's like, has no one called you?

I was like, no one has called me.

He's like, well, you're the presumptive nominee for this position on the bench.

So we need you to have a background, an FBI background check and all this other stuff.

So I like waving my kids onto Space Mountain while I'm trying to have this call at Disney World.

And so, yeah, so that's, they were like, look, we have a very short timeframe.

We want to get you nominated in the next six weeks, which is an extremely short runway to do the background.

And so I'd like, again, just like July 4th for my state court judgeship, I had to go back to the-

While you're at Disney World.

To the condo and work on my applications at night while my family slept.

And so, yes, I was nominated in July of 2015, four weeks after Donald Trump had announced his run for presidency.

And if you will recall, his kickoff speech in 2015, like it right now, it's not different, is very anti-immigrant.

He accused Mexican immigrants of being rapists and murderers and all kinds of things.

And immigration became the biggest issue in that presidential race.

And my work as a former member of Galeo and someone who had advocated for immigration reform really came to the forefront at that point.

Once I was nominated, I immediately saw a pullback from Senator Perdue.

He immediately jumped on sort of on the Trump train.

And all of a sudden his office started pretending like they didn't know who I was.

And I'm like, wait a minute, let's be clear.

You called me.

So it got really kind of ugly from there.

And then all the anti-immigrant groups started putting up websites against me.

This one little state, you know, this little like district court nomination in Georgia all of a sudden became this national flashpoint for immigration.

And, you know, you can't put this activist judge on the federal bench, he's gonna let all the immigrants into the country.

So I'm like, all right.

So it got pretty ugly from then on.

So you end up getting the nomination, but not getting up for a vote?

Correct.

So I was formally nominated by the president in July of 2015.

So I was actually nominated.

So, you know, where my mentor, Tony, actually never got to the nomination stage, he was sort of informed early on.

Immigration issues kind of killed his nomination too, which is really funny, in kind of ironic way.

And then I was formally nominated, so I was actually a nominee and had to go to DC and meet with the White House.

And you don't actually go to the White House, you go to the OEMB and all that good stuff.

And you go meet with some of the senators and you start talking about some of the issues that they might have against you.

So I went through some of that process.

But again, you're sort of left to your own.

You're left on your own.

Like no one from the White House is really helping you.

No one in the senators office is, you know, you're kind of out there and you're kind of waiting for someone to call you and tell you what the next move is.

And, you know, usually in the process, there's a confirmation hearing.

And that did not happen for me.

And as you will recall, at the end of Obama's term, 2015, 2016, Republicans sort of made this decision not to confirm any more of Obama's nominees to any bench, including Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

So there was about 16 of us that kind of got left in limbo with no hearings.

You know, my issue is a little different than everybody else's, but yeah, there were about 15 or 16 of us that kind of got to that last...

Did you get any satisfaction in David Perdue losing his election because he was on the Trump train?

Let me tell you.

Because that's essentially why he lost.

You know, leaving the bench has been liberating for many reasons, but now I can, you know, before you're on the bench, you can't talk about these things.

You know, this is probably the first time I'm publicly talking about my nomination issues, but yes, it was a wonderful fall.

Let me tell you.

Can we leave this part in the podcast?

Oh, absolutely.

When DeKalb County came in, if you'll remember, DeKalb County is always one of the last counties, and the votes in DeKalb County are usually the last votes to come in.

And when DeKalb County votes came in and put Ossoff over the top to win that election, and Ossoff got bar mitzvahed at the temple that I go to, it was a very nice feeling to see my county sort of be responsible for his political demise.

That's awesome.

It was awesome.

Yeah.

Well, in hindsight now, do you think that that was actually a good thing, that you didn't get appointed to the federal bench?

Are you in a position career-wise where you're like, man, this is so, you mentioned liberating.

This is so much better than if I was a federal judge where I got to do all this stuff.

I'll tell you, I struggled with the decision to go to the federal bench, because I always thought I'd be a state court judge 10, 15 years, and I'd leave the bench at some point because of those financial constraints.

We knew that when I took the bench, we're going to have to sacrifice for a few years while I was on the bench.

So I was never intending to be a lifer.

I mean, again, I was 34 when I became a judge.

It was great when I had small kids, but then your kids start growing up, they start going to college, life starts to get a little more expensive.

So I never thought I was going to be a lifer.

From 30 to 60, 30 years on the bench seemed like a long time.

And I will tell you, I mean, I love the federal judge I clerked for.

He passed away earlier this year.

Great guy, but I think generally speaking, when we look across federal judges, a lot of them are assholes.

Yeah, and if you're a federal judge, I don't think any of you listen to this podcast.

I'm not talking about you.

But seriously, I mean, there's people who have great reputations on the state court bench, and then they become federal judges, and all of a sudden, they just become this curmudgeon, and it's like, what is wrong with you?

You're isolated like you've never been before, right?

You're in this building in downtown, you hardly ever go to this.

By the way, that building looks like a place where justice goes to die.

Die, exactly.

It's so sterile.

And it's named after Richard B.

Russell, who was the death of justice.

I mean, like that guy, I always, I told someone, it's like, if I become federal judge, my first thing is I'm going to try to rename this damn building.

But yeah, no, I struggled with it because I'm a social person.

I like going to events.

I like being around people.

I like having lunch with folks.

The great thing about being a state court judge in DeKalb is you got Decatur Square right there.

Judge Wong and I would walk out to Siam every second day.

I always told the deputies, look, guys, no one's going to try to kill me inside the courthouse.

If Judge Wong and I are going to die, it's going to be on the square at noon at Siam.

We're going to be really easy to find.

But yet, I struggled with the potential isolationism of being a federal judge.

So I really wasn't, and then their retirement system would have required me to be there for 30 plus years before I could retire because it's a really funky system.

It's not, you can do 10 years in retirement full benefits depending on your age, but I was so young that I would have to be there a lot longer.

And so I was like, you know, I'm vesting in 10 years on the state system.

I have options.

So I've been very happy with my decision, and I'm glad it's kind of worked out this way.

One, it's so liberating.

It's, I mean, I can say whatever I want.

You know, I couldn't like my friend's Facebook post sometimes because you get in trouble with the JQC, and now I'm on the JQC, so I'm the one who's like, you know, vigilant on that kind of stuff.

But it is very liberating.

I can say what I want.

I can tell the stories that I want.

I can go where I want, and you know, financially.

Financially, yeah, which is what we're going to talk about next.

It's certainly a lot better.

Tell us a little bit about your practice now.

So your firm, Del Campo, Grayson and Lopez, right?

So Tony Del Campo, who was your mentor, after he left the bench, he became a plaintiff's attorney.

Correct.

Which I love, by the way.

So many judges go and do the big firm thing, right?

Especially at the appellate level.

He was a plaintiff's lawyer before.

That's right.

He and Kenan Nix were partners before he got on the bench.

He already had a taste of that.

So he gets back to being a plaintiff's attorney.

Did he recruit you to the firm when you were leaving the bench?

He did.

So I tell folks, I just do what Tony tells me to do.

My whole professional career has been at Tony's Del Campo suggestion.

So Tony suggests I be a judge.

I'll be a judge.

Tony suggested, come be a plaintiff's lawyer.

I'll come be a plaintiff's lawyer.

He and I have been talking about it for a long time.

My first five years on the bench were fantastic.

I loved it.

It was amazing.

I couldn't have thought of leaving at any point during that time frame.

But then the last five years got, DeKalb politics were really difficult.

Being a judge in DeKalb, we're starting to get really difficult.

I wasn't enjoying the job.

It's better run for re-election.

I've been contesting a lot of the same things too.

Yeah, and it becomes very rote.

At some point, while I love the Big Mad Mals and product cases and trucking cases, those are few and far between, realistically, about what gets tried.

Those are getting settled most of the time.

But yeah, so I was trying hundreds of car wreck cases.

I was trying-

Hundreds of misdemeanor criminal cases.

Yeah, and you could start doing that stuff in your sleep.

Wasn't being challenged anymore.

Loved the gig, loved my staff.

Wasn't loving being in DeKalb anymore.

The politics surrounding DeKalb were difficult.

My wife became a state rep in DeKalb, had sort of the same issues with the delegation in DeKalb.

And so, I was like, I just wasn't feeling satisfied in my job anymore.

And so Tony and I would always have lunch, and he's like, hey, we're ready for you whenever you're ready to come.

And so one day I was like, make me an offer.

I don't even know what to ask for.

Just you tell me what you're willing to do.

And so they finally made me an offer.

I couldn't refuse equity on all the cases that they had.

And I was like, all right, I can work with that.

And so I was a little, I'll tell you, having been a defense lawyer, when you're a defense lawyer at a big firm, you get a steady paycheck.

Every two weeks, you can count on your paycheck.

You have benefits.

Plans work.

Sometimes there's months no money comes in.

The up and down.

The up and down.

It wasn't like you're responsible for your own benefits.

You're a partner at this firm.

You got to go figure that stuff out.

And so, and it was like right at the end, you know, right COVID, this is 2021.

So like things are starting to open back up, but there hadn't been trials in a while.

Well, the other thing too, I mean, y'all are working on a lot of big cases.

You're not a volume firm.

So that, the highs are higher, the lows are lower, and there's really nothing in between.

That's right.

And you know.

And all our big cases have been stalled because of the pandemic, as you well know.

Like there are no big trials going on.

So we, when I joined, it was kind of the perfect time, but courts were starting to open again, and we started getting, got put on a lot of trial calendars.

And so we're working on big cases, but it all hits at once, right?

So everyone kind of wakes up, lots of motion practice right before trial, you know, getting your experts ready.

And then, you know, friends are calling and asking you to come on their cases and help them out with that kind of stuff.

You know, I have a case in DeKalb.

Can you come help me?

Yeah, absolutely.

That's that's kind of my thing.

Yeah.

Well, it's like now I see a lot of the former Judge Melton, you know, showing up on a lot of.

He's on a couple of my cases.

Yeah.

I mean, you bring him in.

It's like, hey, this is where he's at.

You know, that's right.

He's he's arguing before the bench he used to sit on.

So I get it.

It helps.

You know, you have relationships with the judges, which is always nice.

And, you know, if you help train a couple of them, that's also great.

And you have instant credibility, right?

I mean, and I'm not going to lose that.

That is my 100 percent.

And that's the thing.

Like people, people think that, you know, people may think if they see judge a little bit, oh, this is an unfair advantage.

You're going to be toeing the line even more because you don't want to stick your neck out and do something that gets that judge reversed because then that's the last thing.

Your currency is gone.

That's correct.

And I tell folks, I'm never going to do anything like that.

You can trust.

If you ask me a question, I don't know the answer.

I'm going to tell you.

I'm not going to make it up.

And so, I think that does bring me into credibility.

And I'm also not going to, I know the law.

I know where the line is.

I know how judges think.

So, I don't overreach when I ask for things.

I'm very much a be careful what you ask for because you could create your own reversible error.

And I don't want that.

I will say that I've had some success in trying cases since I left the bench.

Your average plaintiff's verdict is like $40 million.

It's funny because we had you come and speak to the Cobb Trial Lawyers Association.

You had just, and this is the case I want to ask you about, tried the case where it was like $77 million wrongful death verdict, which I want to talk a little bit about.

But I kind of joked with you that your average plaintiff's verdict is $77 million.

One and done.

It's all downhill from here, right?

I mean, it's like you hit a grand slam.

The next one was only $31 million.

So, yeah, it's like, man, you're like $40 million short, right?

So, tell us a little about your first plaintiff's trial and kind of how your experience as a judge helped you.

Tell us about the case and the result you got.

I'd love to hear about it.

Yeah, that was a great case.

And that was one of those.

It was in DeKalb and Natalie Woodward, who was the primary.

High school classmates, right?

You all grew up in Cobb County together, went to high school.

They teach her in high school.

So Natalie and I were friends.

And we actually, it's really funny, a few months before I left the bench, we were at, we were both members of the same community pool.

We have sons the same age, and who hang out and play together.

And so we were at the pool one day, and I sort of hinted to her.

I was like, hey, I'm thinking about making a move.

I'll probably be leaving in the next few months.

Not sure exactly when, but it's coming up.

She's like, when you do, I'm going to call you, because I have a case I want to talk to you about.

I was like, great.

And I sort of forgot that conversation.

And sure enough, within three weeks of me leaving the bench, she calls me up and says, hey, I have this case that I've been working on for five years.

And it was delayed because of the pandemic.

But it's a psychiatric case, medical malpractice case, very, very tough case.

But everyone tells me I'm crazy.

They tell me I'm going to lose.

The mediator told me that it's not worth a whole lot of money.

We've mediated a couple of times.

My partners don't love the case.

No one really loves this case, but I think it's a great case.

Do you mind taking a look at it?

Having come off the bench in DeKalb, it'll be trying to DeKalb.

So I'm like, sure.

So she told me all about it, sent me some of the materials, I reviewed it, and I called her back.

I was like, Natalie, if you can prove half of what I just read, it's worth $50 million.

And she's like, there's silence.

You undervalued the case, right?

Silence on the other side.

And finally she's like, how much?

And I was like, 50 million.

And she goes, you're the only person to have ever told me this case has that kind of value.

Why do you think that?

I was like, well, I think a lot of people think that DeKalb County is a plaintiff's haven.

I don't agree with that.

I think DeKalb County is a fair place to try a case.

If you have a good case with good facts and good damages, a jury in DeKalb will give you appropriate-

You know, it's funny, I say the same thing about judges when they say they're plaintiff friendly.

I'm like, they're just fair.

They're just fair.

They're just fair.

It's just a fair jury.

That's really what they are.

They will just as quickly hurt you if you overreach or lie to them.

I was like, I tell folks, people don't realize in DeKalb County, you don't see the hundreds of defense verdicts.

Those don't make the front page of the Fulton Daily, but then they get one $80 million verdict in DeKalb, $80 million verdict.

Right.

There are probably 100 defense verdicts that came before that.

In the 11 years I was on the bench, I tried probably, I want to say, between 20 and 30 med miles, which is a lot.

I would tell you two of those were plaintiff's verdicts.

That means that the vast majority, over 95% were straight on defense verdicts.

I'm going to start taking less med mile case now.

That's change though.

I think post-COVID is a different world.

Post-COVID is a very different world.

But it was very tough to get a good verdict in a med mile case.

She came from that.

That's what she did.

She's like, you're telling me something I've not ever heard before.

The case is fairly straightforward, but it was very complex in a couple of different ways that I can explain.

But essentially, my young man was 29 years old, had a 10-year history of bipolar disorder and drug addiction.

As you will learn, those two things go hand in hand.

As you start developing the bipolar disorder, which typically happens late teens, early 20s for young men, and that's exactly what happened to my guy, he starts developing these symptoms.

People just think he's acting out.

It's not.

It was a mental condition.

He was a gifted kicker.

He had a scholarship to University of Georgia to be a kicker, Alabama, Tennessee.

He was a real athlete, ended up not being able to go to college because that's kind of when his mental illness manifested and it manifested pretty strongly.

So he was not able to go to college, was not able to have a normal sort of college experience.

He spent the next 10 years in and out of facilities, right?

And he develops this drug addiction because he figured out that marijuana and cocaine level them out.

Whenever he starts feeling manic, those things would help him.

And so he develops a pretty strong drug addiction.

He tried heroin and meth.

He tried all the hard drugs, but kind of landed on marijuana and cocaine.

So for 10 years, his family is sending him in and out of facilities.

And what we now know is that for a very long time, we misunderstood what's called a dual diagnosis.

So he'd go to a facility that would treat bipolar disorder, but not drug addiction.

And then he'd go to a rehab center that would treat the drug addiction, but not the bipolar.

You have to find a facility that can treat both at once.

And so the science and the medicine was sort of developing on this issue while he was going in and out of these facilities.

But clearly he was a motivated person who wanted to get better.

And so he turns 29 years old.

He tells mom, this is the year I want to get really good.

I mean, I want to figure out how to get better.

He had a small child.

He was engaged to get married.

He was not able to hold a job, but it was highly intelligent and was trying to find a way to hold a job.

And so mom and dad were committed to helping him.

And so the next time he had a manic disorder, his long time therapist sends him to Ridgeview.

They lived in North Carolina.

She's like, you need to go to Ridgeview in Atlanta.

So the family drives him to Atlanta, goes to Ridgeview.

Ridgeview figures out the right combination of drugs at the right dosages, how to stabilize them.

For the first time in 10 years, this guy is fully stable with two drugs, lithium and Seroquel, at the right dosages.

And he was having a, he was in the midst of a manic delusional attack when he was at Ridgeview, and they figured it out, and they stabilized for the first time ever.

And so Ridgeview was also treating his drug disorder, but ultimately decided to send him to a facility.

Now that we know we've now stabilized you completely, keep you on your meds, let's send you to a rehab facility.

So that's the defendant in this case with a place called Mar in DeKalb County that dealt primarily with substance abuse disorder.

But they did have a psychiatrist on staff who claims to be an expert on dual diagnoses.

Like you could deal with the psychiatric aspects and these aspects.

So very long story short, the psychiatrist just completely disregarded the mental diagnosis.

He even said in his deposition, I did not believe he was bipolar.

I just thought he was a drug addict.

I mean, he completely disregarded 10 years worth of medical data.

I mean, he'd just come from the psychiatric unit at Ridgeview, never picked up the phone and call the psychiatrist over there and be like, hey, what were you seeing?

Why do you have them on these two drugs?

Why these dosages?

Didn't do any, I mean, literally 40 minute conversation.

You're not really bipolar.

I'm gonna start taking you off your meds and starts taking like, kind of weaning them off and discontinuing those drugs.

Within a week, he had, lithium was completely discontinued.

So what happens is he starts decompense, decompense, uh, compensating very quickly while at the facility.

Psychiatrists doesn't tell anybody anything.

And so all the counselors think he just has a bad attitude.

He's not following the rules.

And so ultimately they discharge him.

Why they, that's the fancy word.

They kicked him out.

They kicked him out of the facility while he had decompensated.

He was in the middle of a manic delusional state when he is thrown into the streets of Atlanta, not, you know, not being from here.

Mom and dad get a call and they're like, can you just hold him, please?

And we'll come get him.

We'll be there in six hours.

And they're like, no, you need to stop coddling him, stop babying him.

We're gonna go ahead and discharge him.

And the dad said, this was undisputed at trial.

If you discharge my son right now, he'll be dead within three days.

And sure enough, less than 72 hours later, this young man in a delusional, psychotic delusional state, stripped down naked, walked out into the middle of I-85 at four o'clock in the morning, laid down in a lane and was run over by three vehicles and just a terrible, terrible death.

So we sued the psychiatrist, the facility, the counselors, we sued everybody.

And we went to trial, it was a 14 day trial.

I told Natalie, the reason I thought this case had such significant value is because in DeKalb County, everyone has dealt with mental illness and drug addiction.

Like there's very few people who have been unaffected by it.

I ran the DUI court in DeKalb County for 11 years, substance abuse court, I dealt with our populations, I know our people really well.

My sister-in-law is bipolar, only by the grace of God has she not had the same issue happen to her.

We've had some close calls.

And so I was like, everyone in DeKalb knows somebody who has drug addiction or mental illness or both.

And so, sure enough, we had a pool of 90 for our trial.

78 of the 90 had bipolar or addiction in their family.

Several of our jurors ended up being former addicts themselves who did AA every day.

Several of our jurors had folks who had ended their lives, family members who had ended their lives because of mental illness.

So it was as good of a jury as you're ever going to get.

So it was a great experience.

The total verdict again, 77 million.

That's up on appeal, right?

It is.

So it's funny.

So we debated what we're going to ask the jurors.

At the end of a 14-day trial, we're like, what are we asking for?

We're about to do our closings.

I was like, now that I told you day 150 million, I've told you all throughout 50 million, we're going to ask for $50 million tomorrow.

We asked for 40 million for the full value of life, 10 million in pain and suffering.

The jurors gave us $65 million, more than we asked for, and then $11 million in attorney's fees and $1 million in punitive.

Excellent.

Great result that you and Natalie got for that family.

It sounds like a horrific case, and one that sounds like it should have settled from the defense side.

We would have settled for half the policy limits in that case.

Can we leave that in?

Yeah, absolutely.

We would have settled for less.

Who's going to sue the defense lawyers for malpractice?

I think there's a long line.

There's a line of folks who are left out for that.

So, your practice now is exclusively plaintiffs, plus you're mediating.

What would you say your percentage mediating versus handling cases?

Probably do 10%, 15% mediation.

I'm still trying to get in there and try cases.

My partner Tony does a lot more mediations than I do.

But we ended up trying a case together last year, our firm did, and got a $31 million result in a premise liability case.

Brought your average down a little bit.

It did.

From $77.

Well, we didn't ask for $50 on that one, so I think we were okay.

But yes, so I mediate probably 10%, 15% of the time.

I've mediated with you and some others.

I tell folks, since this is not my primary source of revenue, I do it because I enjoy it.

I think I bring a perspective as a former judge and as a trial lawyer that I think has some credibility.

But I can't just tell folks, you can just text me and I'll come, you know, I could give you some dates.

But I don't open a lot of dates on my calendar for mediation, but I kind of leave time for my friends and colleagues that I know well.

What do you like about being a plaintiff's lawyer?

You know, it was an interesting transition.

You know, as you mentioned, we're not a volume firm, so all our cases are wrongful death or catastrophic injury.

We do have some smaller cases, but really few.

The vast majority of our cases are the larger or more complex cases, and a lot of them involve the Hispanic community.

So a lot of my clients are undocumented immigrants, and there's a whole set of challenges that come with representing that community.

You know, a lot of them are scared of the legal process.

They don't want to be part of the process because of their documentation status or their immigration status.

But you know, Tony and I both speak Spanish.

We're culturally proficient.

We're obviously bilingual.

But I wasn't prepared for sort of the emotional aspect of representing individuals who've lost a loved one or who are themselves catastrophically injured, right?

You're sitting with parents who've just lost a child or you're sitting with someone who has a, their life has been completely turned upside down because of a brain injury now that they had that they didn't have before.

We've had some really, really sad cases with brain injuries where we had one client because of the brain injury he sustained, accidentally self-deported himself.

So he did not realize, he didn't understand his immigrant.

He had status, he had TPS, but that only allows you to travel for a very short period of time.

And he went back to his home country of El Salvador and overstayed because he didn't understand the paperwork because of his brain injury and sort of deported himself.

And so he was stuck in El Salvador.

So my firm worked with Senators Ossoff and Warnock and several others to try to get him back into the country.

We had to hire multiple immigration lawyers and because we had to get him back into the country for trial.

Did you get him back?

We did.

Took us two years, though.

It was not as quick.

It's not a quick process, but we were able to get him back in the country in time for his trial.

And because he was back, we were able to resolve the case right before trial.

But yeah, those are the kinds of challenges that we're dealing with.

But, you know, you're working with a population that often is very vulnerable, more so than just normal individuals.

And then they're also dealing with this horrific, whatever the horrific issue is.

And so I wasn't, I had to be, I had to, you know, you're a judge, you're neutral.

You can't get emotionally involved.

And now I am emotionally invested in this person, in their wellbeing and trying to get them better and trying to get them some help.

And, you know, so that transition was interesting and certainly a lot more difficult than I anticipated.

Before we wrap up, I gotta ask you some tips for plaintiffs' attorneys.

So a lot of our listeners are plaintiffs' attorneys.

And we love hearing from not only successful plaintiffs' attorneys, but somebody who has the perspective of being a judge.

What advice do you have?

And this could be anything from working the case up to, you know, discovery, getting issues resolved through your trial presentation.

Yeah, a couple things.

One, we do sort of look at every case as a case that's going to get tried.

And we prepare every case that way.

And I know a lot of lawyers say that, but cases are lost or won in discovery.

I mean, they really are.

You know, as I told Natalie, as I was reading hundreds of pages of depositions, you won this case in those depots.

Like you got everything you needed to present your case and to really box in the other side where they're going to have very little wiggle room.

So really, you know, that's really important, is you can't assume every case is going to settle.

So you got to really think about what's your trial strategy early on in the process because you got to prepare and get that evidence ready.

I also like, you know, this is something I've always done and I do it now.

I ask, as I'm preparing for trial, I ask everybody what their opinion is.

The Uber driver, the checkout lady at the Publix, I'll tell them, hey, here are the facts.

And I try to give them like the best defense version of the case and ask them their point of view.

Because I think as lawyers, sometimes we get so in the weeds that we forget to take that step back and start thinking about a case as a human level and as a lay person.

The defense is the worst of that, by the way.

Yeah, they are worst.

They're in their echo chamber.

Oh, absolutely.

They're not asking the lady at Publix, they're going down the hall and asking the person.

Well, it's so funny you say that because I mediate cases, so I'm in the room with them and I will not say that, but in my head, I'm like, have you all talked to a human being outside of your law firm?

Because human beings are going to see this case very differently and those are the people who are going to occupy those 12 seats in that courtroom.

And this is part of my tips that I'll always tell folks too is, look at, like the number of lawyers who don't look at the jurors during trial is staggering to me.

Jurors give you everything you need to know, whether your evidence is landing, whether they're with you, whether there's a point they're confused about, their body language is a tell all.

Do you recommend, and I've heard some lawyers do this, they bring somebody to like sit in the gallery.

Yeah.

Who can just watch and kind of give you a play by play.

You know, my one little superpower, I tell folks I'm a mediocre trial lawyer on my best day, but I have one superpower is I can tell you what a jury in DeKalb County is going to do.

I can't tell you what Cobb or Gwinnett or Fulton, but you put 12 people in a box in DeKalb County and bring me to your trial.

I'm going to tell you what they're going to do.

And you can ask, we have some mutual friends.

I'm not going to call them out on this podcast, but we have some mutual friends who they tried.

They're very successful plaintiff's lawyers now, and they are incredibly successful, $100 million verdicts.

But when they first tried their first trial as their current firm, they texted me, and they're like, hey, we're about to try this case in Judge Heidrick's courtroom.

Why don't you come watch?

It's our first trial as our newly formed firm.

I was like, awesome, I'll come down.

And so I went downstairs.

It was a car wreck case, and I just watched their opening.

So one of the two of them, the two partners, did his opening, and I left.

And I texted the other guy, and I said, hey, this is a defense verdict, all day, every day.

And he's like, don't tell me this one time.

And he's texting back, he's like, you saw our opening.

You didn't even see the defense opening.

I was like, I've sat and watched the cab juries day in and day out for years, and I'm telling you, this is a defense verdict, just from the openings.

And so he's like, we'll see.

And so next day, I get a text back.

He's like, plainest verdict, booyah!

And I was like, okay, how much?

And he's like, two hundi.

And I was like, 200,000, question mark?

He's like, no, $200.

The verdict was $200.

So he's like, how did you know?

I was like, you know, this is what I do.

I can watch jurors in DeKalb County.

But so I always tell folks, have someone watch the jurors, because the jurors really, their body language-

And if it's in DeKalb County, that person needs to be you.

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

I'll come try a case with you.

I mean, we-

And I did that in our trial with Natalie.

You know, I had crossed the defendant doctor in our case in chief, and then they obviously called him back in their case.

And so, you know, I was debating whether I should recross him.

And so when he took-

I had crossed him pretty thoroughly and pretty hard in our case.

So when he takes the stand to do the, let me tell you about myself and, you know, all the wonderful things about, you know, what they do in the recs, right?

What, you know, try to engage with the jurors and connect to the jurors, half the jurors physically turned their chairs away from the stand and they were not facing him.

So I turned it out, he was like, I'm not crossing him again.

We're done.

We're good.

She's like, you sure?

I was like, look at the jurors.

They are not listening to the part which, you know, this is the direct.

And I'm looking at the lawyer for the doctor, I'm like, look at the jurors.

They are not listening to him.

And you guys are losing badly.

So, that's one thing I always tell folks.

My third big tip, and I use this one in CLEs, and I learned this in a criminal case.

It was actually a pro se criminal case.

I think as lawyers, we have this tendency to want to, if they say something, we want to rebut it, right?

This tit for tat.

They said something, we need to rebut what they said.

We say something, they want to rebut what we said.

And there's this whole, like, you spend a lot of time, you spend the whole trial, sometimes in the most irrelevant stuff, because you're really just responding to what the other side said or did or whatever.

And this is what I learned watching hundreds of trials, but I learned this from a pro se criminal defendant, and this is a fun story.

So I had this little shoplifting case with a frequent flyer.

This guy was in my courtroom a lot, always for shoplifting and always at Publix.

He loved Publix.

And so Publix knew him well, we knew him well, everyone knew this guy.

And so he walks into a Publix, and sure enough, literally every camera is trained on him.

Like the risk manager is immediately alerted because he's a frequent flyer.

So the risk manager comes out and literally follows him throughout the whole store.

So physically watching him, not through a camera, but physically watching him.

And he is literally just putting stuff in his pockets.

I mean, just, and let me tell you, you can do that.

It is not shoplifting until you actually cross all points of sale and get outside.

So they're not stopping him, he's putting stuff in all his pockets.

He walks into the meat department and stuffs 10 steaks down his pants.

I mean, he's literally, his pants unzips, just steak after steak.

And he's got steaks in his pants, he's got groceries up here, and he kind of waddles out of the store.

All right.

So they wait till he's outside the store, they stop him, bring him back in, they take all the stuff out.

He kind of makes a run for it.

They tackle him and then they call the cops.

So my solicitor, my prosecutor is feeling really confident.

You know, pro se, doesn't even have a lawyer.

I think my prosecutor took the first six.

He's like, give me the first six in the box.

Let's go.

All right.

So this guy did not participate in Bar Deer.

And I was like, all right, let's get started.

He really didn't do an opening.

So, you know, prosecutor calls the risk manager.

Risk manager takes a stand.

Absolutely.

We know Mr.

So-and-so.

All objectionable stuff, but he doesn't object.

We've seen him before.

We know him well.

We know he's come to our store and stolen things in the past, things that should not be said, but again, no objection.

And he's like, yeah, and I watched him physically put all the stuff in his pockets.

We watched him go through all points of sale, and then we stopped him and called the police.

Great.

The defendant gets up and says, I saw there's video cameras all over the store.

The guy's like, yep.

He's like, do you have the video?

And he's like, no.

He's like, where that video at?

And the guy's like, well, I think we recorded over it so we don't have it.

He's like, thank you.

And he sits down.

Okay.

All right.

Police officer takes the stand.

I was called to the store.

They showed me the videos.

I identified the defendant.

Okay.

Again, this is improper.

Should not have, that's not, you're admitting evidence that should not be admitted because you don't have the video.

But anyway, he's like, I saw the videos.

It was the defendant.

I took them and I took them to jail.

Easy.

Defendant gets up and he says, you didn't take me to jail.

Where'd you take me?

The officer's like, you're right.

You were hurt, so I took you to Grady, the hospital, to get some treatment.

He's like, thank you.

And he sits down.

And so he gets up and closing.

He's like, ladies and gentlemen, these people hurt me and they don't want you to see it.

Where'd that video at?

They're hiding something.

And he sits down.

Five minutes later, he is acquitted.

He's acquitted in five minutes.

And so what I started thinking is, wow, what a great lesson, right?

He didn't focus on the prosecutor's evidence.

That's bad for him, you know, right?

He kept that jury trained on his issue, which is the video, where is it?

Why are they hiding it?

Like he created some reasonable doubt by just focusing on his issue.

So I tell lawyers, yes, there's always things you have to rebut.

I mean, there are going to be things that you're definitely going to have to deal with in your case that the other side is going to raise.

But keep the jurors focused on your narrative.

Don't buy into the defense narrative.

Tell them your story.

You know, defense lawyers love to misdirect and tell you all the reasons why your case is bad.

I was like, no, I'm looking at my case.

It's pretty straightforward.

You did this and it killed my client.

And I'm going to keep the jurors focused on what you did.

They want, no, well, your client didn't have a job or he was bipolar or he was addicted or blah, immaterial.

You did this and it killed my client.

And that's going to be my very simple narrative.

And I'm going to have to rebut some things that I know have to work out in my trial.

But they, you know, from opening to close, here's my narrative and I'm going to keep the jurors coming back to all the reasons why they need to find against the defendant, where that video at is as easy as it gets.

That dude asked four questions this whole trial and got acquitted.

Now he got convicted on like the next five.

That's an amazing story, though.

So those are the kinds of things that, you know, I think we sometimes lose sight of.

There's a human side to what we do.

Ask normal people who are not in law and don't do this day in and day out.

Ask for their opinion.

Because, you know, I know a lot of us focus group cases.

Yeah.

This is, I focus group everywhere I go.

I'm at the pool with my friends.

I'm at, you know, people who are non-lawyers.

I call, I have some really conservative friends.

Those are the first people I call.

I'm like, hey, how do you see this case, you know, and we'll talk through it.

And they'll bring up some points.

And I was like, all right, I need to work through those issues and make sure this jury understands.

If I can explain it this way, that even the most conservative juror I can put on my jury is gonna give me something, you know.

And so, I'm always trying to figure out ways to...

If I had 12 conservative jurors on that jury, how do I still win?

And so, you got to understand from lay perspectives what is important to people.

And everyone wants the same thing.

Everyone's safety is an easy, you know, safety and making sure that people are held accountable.

Those are easy things to convey in a certain way.

But so, those are the kinds of things that I focus on.

Well, thank you.

That's a great way to end the podcast episode, by the way, that story, where the video at?

Yeah, that's going to be my mantra for a lot of cases.

So, I can see Lachice in the corner rolling her eyes because she knows I'm going to be saying that all the time now.

Where the video at?

But thank you for joining us, Dax.

It's been a pleasure.

This was a great podcast.

Loved hearing more about your background and your stories and the advice that you had.

To our listeners, thank you for tuning in.

Make sure you subscribe to our podcast so that you can get future episodes.