165. Litigating Leaders: Lessons Learned from the Nation's Leading Trial Attorneys

[MUSIC] >> The true champion is always behind. And I believe that. You gotta keep going in life. >> Welcome to a special edition episode of the Game Change Attorney podcast featuring some of the most elite attorneys in the nation. >> Winning is not a marathon, it's a sprint, and never ends, and that's what it takes. [MUSIC] >> I'm Michael Mogul, founder and CEO of Crisp, the nation's number one law from growth company. I've built my business through practice, not theory. Crisp started which is $500 to my name and has grown to over eight figures in revenue over the last few years. Earning a spot on the Inc. 500 lists of the fastest growing private companies in America. Our approach has been to take everything we've learned about generating massive growth within our own organization and help the country's most ambitious and committed law firm owners do the same for theirs. In each episode of this podcast, I sit down with innovative market leaders from the legal industry and beyond to learn from those who thrive in the face of adversity, challenge the status quo and define what it means to be a true game changer. Today, we're looking back at our conversations with the founder of the linear law firm Mark Leneer, renowned environmental attorney and bestselling author Robert Bilott, the founding partner of Panachean Boyle Brian Panache and legendary civil rights attorney Ben Crom. >> I was taught and you speak truth to power. Even when it's controversial or it's unpopular, even when it's dangerous, you speak truth to power because we got these legal educations and shame on us if we don't use those educations to try to make the world a better place. >> That's coming up on the Game Changing Attorney podcast. [MUSIC] >> Before we begin today's episode, I want to remind you that we aren't beholden to any sponsors or run any ads on this podcast. This allows us to present all of our episodes raw and unfiltered. I'm not going to push any made-to-order meal services on you or try to save you any money on your car insurance. That being said, I have one small request. If you receive any value from this podcast, please give it a five-star review. Pay the fee so we can keep this podcast free. To kick things off, we revisit the conversation I had with a man who needs no introduction. That's right, I'm talking about the one and only Mark Leneer with over 20 billion invertex over the course of his career, he credits his success to his unwavering values and commitment to justice. During our conversation, Mark shared how he finds balance between being a chameleon in the courtroom while remaining authentic. >> I think the more we know and understand ourselves, the more honest we'll be with ourselves. And I think it translates in front of a jury because juries, especially the younger jurors, but all jurors, seek authenticity. I mean, don't we all seek that? I can be on your podcast, Michael, and I can give fake answers and people could sniff that out. And once they do, they discount everything else that I say. Or I can try to be authentic to who I am, try to be genuine. And in the process, people may not agree with everything I say. But they'll at least respect the fact that I'm trying to give them what I believe to be the truth. And so one of the hardest parts for me as a trial lawyer is, let me take a step back and give you some insight as to how this developed with me. When I was young, we moved around all the time. My dad worked for the railroad in the business end of the railroad and he got transferred often. So I was born in Dallas. I'm Texas. I moved to Fort Worth. I moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, then to New Orleans, Louisiana, then to Abelene, Texas, Memphis, Tennessee, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Rochester, New York, Lubbock, Texas, all by middle school. And when you move around that much, you're constantly making new friends. You're learning new ways to talk. When I was in second grade in Memphis, Tennessee, I'd talk like a Memphis, Tennessee kid with a southern accent and y'all and everything else. But then in the middle of that year, it had moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I had a teacher who was in sense that I would use the word y'all. And a teacher who didn't like me say in vegetable because it was vegetable. And I would get in trouble in class if I didn't say things the way she wanted them said. You learn to become almost chameleon like in the way you deal with different cultures and different aspects of things. Now that's been a big boon to me as a trial lawyer. I have no trouble going to New York and trying cases. I tried many cases in New Jersey, California. You know, coast to coast, north and south, Midwest, you name it. I'll go anywhere and I do fine fitting into that. But the negative to it is you have a tendency, or at least I have a tendency, to imitate the people around me. I have trouble talking to someone who speaks with a Hispanic accent without almost subconsciously putting a Hispanic accent into my voice. And so I worked for one lawyer for a while who was really, really successful and really good. And I thought, man, this guy's amazing. But he was also inherently a rather brush if not downright mean person. And so when he would interact with people in a courtroom he did it in a brush if not downright mean way. And so my work with him would give me a tendency to try to imitate or emulate that same thing. And yet I'm not really a brush downright mean person. I tend to be the opposite end of that pendulum swing. I hope and I believe. And so it came across inauthentic to my actual nature. And I had to realize and I reached a point one day where a lawyer from Florida said to me, it was David Lippmann. David said to me, linear, how many cases did you have to try? Before you realize you just need to be yourself. And I said, David, I can remember exactly when I turned that corner because there came a time where it was no longer be the chameleon imitating those that are successful. It was rather learn their tools and what makes them successful but integrate them into who you are as a person. Be authentic to who you are. And that authenticity will pass the smell test with your audience. Be they jurors or be they a church congregation. People think Mark Winnie are they think this is a great storyteller, you know, without a doubt. And I mean that truly as a compliment. Were you always a good storyteller or you believe that that's something that developed over time? Well, I think to some degree I came by that honestly. My mom was an amazing storyteller. When I was growing up as a kid, you'd always have your friends over. And I'd have friends over for a slumber party, you know, third grade big thing to do. Well, my friends quickly learned mom could cook and mom could tell stories. So whenever they came over, I'd want to go out and play baseball or throw the football or play basketball. And they were like, now let's just eat your mom's cookies and have her tell stories. When I was a young man and we've got a son followed by four daughters, our two oldest daughters were close enough in age and their personalities were such that they would bicker and argue and fight like crazy. And it just really drove me to wits in because as like, "Ah, Mercy, I'm going to have them in the car every day. I would drive them to school. It would be 30 minutes of them fusing and fighting in the back seat while I'm driving them. And I thought, how am I going to get out of this? How am I going to fix this?" And the solution for me was to tell them a story. And every year I would tell them a story. And I say every year because it would take a year for me to finish. It would be 30 minutes. I would start the story as they got in the car. They would listen to it carefully. I would tell them the story. And then right as they're getting out of the car, I'd have it at a cliffhanger position. Dad, tell us what now you got to get out. I'll finish it tomorrow. So the next day they'd get in the car for me to drive them in the morning. Dad, remember, here's where we were in the story. Now tell us. And I'd resolve the cliffhanger, but I'd continue on in the story to get to another cliffhanger right at the time we were pulling up to school. So I basically spent two or three years telling my kids a story every morning for 30 minutes, trying to keep the attention of a second and third grade daughter. And if you can tell stories every day for two years to keep the attention of an elementary school kid, then you'll learn and cultivate the ability to tell stories in no time. So let's shift gears to the trials aspect. And with some of these, you know, the opposition you've been going up against, like a Johnson and Johnson, for example, do you get nervous, you know, walking into a courtroom when you're facing, let's say, a Johnson and Johnson? No, I don't get nervous. I get excited. You know, it's really interesting. And this, this again, is part of how I try a case from out of my faith. You know, I'm in there because I think this where God wants me to be at that clarity of purpose you were talking about before. I think this is what I'm supposed to do. I think I'm in here, you know, David wasn't nervous when he was picking up the stones and he was about to fight Goliath, even though Goliath was a giant that had frightened the rest of Israel. David's attitude was, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he's going to taunt the armies of God, this guy's of fool?" He picks up the stones and the rest of its history we use David and Goliath as an apt illustration in all aspects of culture today. So I kind of get excited. It's kind of like, "I can't wait to do this." And it's really interesting because generally I think a lot of the defense lawyers I've been against don't have that same level of excitement. I think they do tend to have nerves. And I can't tell you how many cases where I've gone up to, I'm knowing we've got a packed courtroom, knowing that opening statements are about to be given to not just a packed courtroom, but to a lot of media that are present, newspapers, even TV cameras, etc. And I'll walk up to the other side before the jury comes in. And I'll stick my hand out there and shake my hands and say, "Guys, in a great honor that we get to do this, can you believe we've got this chance to do this today? I want to wish you guys the very best in this." And, you know, if we don't pause before these moments and recognize we're getting to do something few people get to do and we don't zealously relish this moment, then heaven help us. So, so enjoy it, guys. I'll see you at the other side. And they're like, "Uh, uh, uh, uh, gee, uh, uh, uh, uh, yeah, I guess." And it's almost intimidating to some of them because they're so nervous about this. And I seem to just be, I mean, I feel like I've got to day at the beach. This is just a cruel chance to do something really fun. When you're on top, along with great success, often comes a giant target on your back. As the saying goes, everyone wants to take down the king. And many attorneys see winning in court against the great Mark Leneer as the ultimate achievement. But Mark isn't faced. In fact, he welcomes the challenge. I've been in cases before where people have said, you know, I'm going to be the one I'm taking you out. And they seem to be trying it just for that. And I love those opportunities because that means that their focus is not where it should be. Their focus ought to be on the truth and getting to the truth in front of the jury. Instead, their focus is on taking me down. So I lost the case one time to this fella. And there are a variety of reasons I lost the case. And he actually posted on his website at a big international firm, I beat Mark Leneer. And I mean, these are people who have lawyers that clerked for the Supreme Court of the United States. And they put that on their page or have handled all of these things. And he's just got on there. I beat Mark Leneer one time, 11 years ago. And I'm like, oh, gee, really? So he gets in to try another case against me and he's tired by the company because he's quote the Mark Leneer killer. And we go in and we try the case. And the jury returns a verdict of $4.69 billion. One of the reporters who wrote up the trial said to me afterwards, they said, yeah, the defense lawyer was saying that he's beaten you before. And so now y'all are one in one. And I kind of laughed and I said, yeah, I guess that's one way to see it. I just see it differently. And she said, how do you see it? I said, I see it every time I try a case against him. I went on average $2.3 billion. And laughed about it. But anybody who's going to hold themselves out as I'm the Mark Leneer killer, that's not the focus. That's not what it should be. And so I count that as a good thing for me. That helps me. So in what that verdict that you mentioned, so I think it was in July of 2018 that was the $4.69 billion verdict. I think it was the largest verdict in the country that year. I mean, I have to ask, what was that day like? That was a good day. That was a real good day. It's on appeal, obviously. And we'll see what happens on appeal. But the thing about that case was it was a monumental issue that had not been tried before. And we believe that Johnson and Johnson baby powder had asbestos in it. And that that asbestos had caused the ovarian cancer in our 22 plaintiffs. I still believe that today. And it was the start of a chain of events that led ultimately to Johnson and Johnson several months ago or six weeks ago pulling that talcum baby powder off of the shelves in America and Canada and saying they will not sell it anymore. I think that saves countless lives into the future. And it's a huge thing. And when I talk to the jury, one of the things that I talked to the jury about, their actual damages in that case wound up being actual damages of right at, I don't know, 500 million or 600 700 million for actual damages. But on the punitive damages, I said, you got a chance to make a statement here. And this is like a volume control on a stereo. The higher you dial it, the louder it will be. And you can make a statement that will resonate throughout this courtroom. Or you can make a statement that will be heard throughout this courthouse. You can make a statement that all of St. Louis will hear. You can make a statement that all of Missouri can hear. Or you can choose right now at this moment, you have the power to make a statement that will be heard throughout the United States of America and around the world. I said, Johnson and Johnson doesn't have their stroke in here. They don't have their president in here. They don't have the chairman of the board in here. But I promise you, those people are in a board room in New Jersey. And they will have their cell phones on. And they are going to want to hear what you have to tell them. And that phone call will come in. And if you write this small, there will be champagne corks popping in the board room at J&J. But if you write this correctly, they're going to set down their phones and say, oh my goodness, we cannot continue to do business this way. How do we change what we're about and become good corporate citizens? That's the power you've got. And so when the jury came back, I was overjoyed and thrilled. First and foremost, because I had 22 women, five or six of whom had already died since that point in time, three more have died from their cancer. I had these women who had invested their heart and their soul and their life in trying to get justice on this. And it was a thrilling moment for them. I had a team who had worked so hard in this case, it was a thrilling moment for them. And then the jury had become so invested in it. It was a thrilling moment for them and a chance to finally, after months, get to talk to the jury where they could talk back and not just sit on the other side of the bar. So that was a code act moment, if you will. That was a really special time for me. Next up, we're revisiting my conversation with Robert Belmont, renowned environmental attorney and best-selling author, his groundbreaking work, which inspired the Hollywood blockbuster Dark Waters and the documentary The Double We Know, exposed the shocking truth behind one of the most notorious cases in class action history. As we revisit his epic journey, let's hear Robert's first-hand account on that faithful day, October 9, 1998, when a phone call from Earl Tenet set in motion a battle against a corporate giant that would span two decades. You know, I had spent the first eight years or so of my career helping our corporate clients, doing a lot of work for big chemical companies all across the country at super fun clean-up sites. That was something that was really taking up a lot of time in the early 90s. You know, there were companies that were being dragged in to massive, multi-million dollar clean-ups all across the country under the super fun law. And so a lot of, that's what I was doing most of the days. We're helping our clients get permits to emit things into the air, into the water, into landfills. And then one day I was sitting in my office and they got a call and this man on the other end of the line starts telling me all about cows dying on his property. And I need to help him. And frankly, I was about to hang up. I wasn't sure how this gentleman got my name while he was calling me. This is definitely not something, you know, that I did. And it was at that point he said, "Well, I got your name from your grandmother." And so I really kind of paused and listened and tried to figure out why. Why was he getting my name from my grandmother? What was the connection here? And what I soon found out was that he was raising cows on property outside of Parker'sburg, West Virginia. And that just so happened to be the town where my mom and her entire family had grown up. And my dad was in the military. So we moved around a lot, but we typically would come back to Parker'sburg for family holidays for birthday. So I had spent a lot of time there and really kind of saw it as one of my hometowns, so to speak. So when I heard that this guy was calling from Parker'sburg, I immediately understood that connection and what he told me was he was having this problem with his cows dying. just dropping dead and he had been trying to get lawyers there locally to talk to him but was having all kinds of trouble. So he had been talking to his neighbor who happened to have been on the phone with my grandmother that day. And the neighbor was longtime friends with my grandmother who said, "Hey, my grandson is an environmental lawyer." Up in Cincinnati, I'm sure he can help you. So that's how that connection came to be. And so when I heard that, I said, "Okay, you know, I'm happy to listen to what your issue is." Bring up whatever information you have. He claimed he had videotapes and photographs. I just needed to look at what he had. And once I saw that, I'd see the problem. So we invited him up. That was back 22 years ago. I remember what we were agreeing about this in the book and even seeing in the movie. And one of the things that still I'd love to ask you about is just like, given the type of law that you guys were practicing and the fact that it was corporate defense, I'd still would love to know, how did you get your partners on board with this, with even taking on a rules case? Well, you know, when we first sat down and you know, the tenants came to our offices back in 1998, it just so happened that the head of our environmental practice group was walking down the hall and saw this gentleman whose name was Mr. Tenet and his wife with their boxes. And I invited him in and said, "Hey, Tom, you know, want to look at these videos? Maybe you can help out with this issue." And he did. He came in and sat down. So I had the head of our environmental group looking at these video tapes and photographs with me. And as we were looking at this, we thought, you know, hey, this is something we could help these folks out with. This is a landfill. This is something coming out of a landfill, some white foaming water. This is what I did every day. This, you know, I helped companies get permits to run landfills. And it seemed like a fairly straightforward case. You know, here was somebody complaining about white foam coming out of a landfill that was permitted by the state of West Virginia. Certainly we could pull the permits. Do what I typically did for our corporate clients, figure out what was there, maybe at above permitted levels, or maybe there were some regulated material that was being discharged too high. We could get to the bottom of that pretty quickly. It seemed like a rather straightforward narrow case. And after all, this was a family friend. So, you know, when we initially took it on, we had no idea, you know, that this would actually lead us to discovering that this was a problem that went far beyond that one family in one farm, that it was something that affected almost the entire planet. It seems confounding that something like this could happen. After all, isn't this the reason why the EPA exists? I wanted to hear Roberts take on the factors that allowed so many harmful chemicals to go unregulated for so long. Something I really try to spend some time exploring in the book, exposure, you know, is how did this happen? How is it that you can have chemicals like this? And it's not just PFOA. Like you mentioned, PFOA is just one chemical in what we now know to be a huge class of these man made chemicals that all share this really odd and unique carbon flooring bond. We call them now PFAS per and poly floro-alcalated substances. There are hundreds, if not thousands of these man made chemicals. PFOA is just one of them in that group. And unfortunately, that whole group has essentially escaped or been under the radar of regulators since they were first invented. And it's because these federal laws focusing on setting up rules for testing chemicals before they come out of the market. Those rules didn't come into play until after these chemicals were already out there and already being used. And this is one reason, for example, that folks pointed to this story in this chemical, PFOA, as one of the prime reasons why that federal law needed to be changed and revamped. In 2016, there were finally changes made to try to beef up those rules, but it took a long time and it took years to get this story out for people to understand this is how this system really works. And there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of chemicals out there that have escaped this entire regulatory process. I want to make sure that people listening really do appreciate because reading the book, I can tell you this 20 year battle, the fact that how long so many aspects of this case had taken the amount of work involved and so on. And in fact, I think even two and a half years after meeting with Earl, there was the famous letter, right? The one in March in 2001, where you guys put together this famous letter, I think it weighed, like each copy was like 12 pounds or so, but this was backing up Earl's theory, right? That there was something in the water, if you could speak to that. Yeah, this was after we had spent a lot of time going through these internal documents from DuPont and I started piecing together what the story about what was known that this chemical was as toxic as it was it presented all these health threats and then not realizing not only where there are thousands of tons of this of sludge containing this chemical in the landfill. And Mr. Tenet was complaining about which helped us resolve that case for him once we figured that out, but we then saw that the chemical was not just in the water these cows were drinking coming out of this landfill. It was in the public drinking water and DuPont had known this going back into the early 1980s. They had been secretly testing the public water and not only was it in the public water in West Virginia and Ohio on both sides of the river. We found in the general population's blood and nobody really was understanding that so looking at all these all this information, putting these documents together, we realized there was a massive public health threat going on that nobody really was even aware of the regulators didn't seem to know that this chemical even existed little alone that it was in water and blood all over the country and the public certainly didn't know so I I felt that we needed to make sure the public and the regulators and the scientific community were alerted to this threat and that's why I put that letter together and very naively at the time thought once we send this letter that attaches all of this information this was March 6 of 2001 that certainly the regulators would swoop in set drinking water standards and guidelines. Yet here we are 20 years later and that still hasn't happened and again that's why as I try to point out in the book and as you see in the film this is why folks are now realizing we have major problems with this entire system in the way chemicals are regulated that even when this information comes out and there's information available. Look how difficult it is to get things actually regulated here in the United States it's a major major concern and I recall in I think in 2004 there was a mediation where there was you know an initial settlement reached but the idea was that there would be a science panel. I would love to ask you need you know that this would lead to a seven year epidemiological study you know I think at the time maybe even still it's more than largest ever done but if you could speak to what the science panel was the purpose of it and what did they actually study. Yeah well you know nobody had really ever done this before so we weren't sure exactly frankly how long it would take or how well it would work but what we had been seeing as we went through all of the documents and went through the legal process with the class action. The arguments became pretty clear that Dupont was making about what the science said even though we were seeing all kinds of animal data that was showing cancer you know their own sciences confirming this chemical caused cancer in rats what we would hear is well yeah but that's animals and in the rodent studies don't have any relevance to humans. Even though that's why you're doing the rodent studies you don't care if the rats getting cancer you're trying to predict whether humans will same thing with the monkeys and the other animals well then we when we started saying well okay well now we have your human studies we have your workers data that's showing problems as well. Ah well but those are highly exposed workers you don't have any data that's telling you what it might do to people drinking it at these trace what they called trace levels even though it was way above their own guideline levels in the water so when we sat down to resolve this case we knew that we had this basic fight going on where Dupont was saying there wasn't enough data to say what this would do to people exposed in this community. And even the human data we did have they said the studies hadn't been big enough there weren't enough people there weren't tens of thousands of people being studied so we couldn't draw valid conclusions so we we came up with this idea to have independent scientists look at all of that data and do whatever new studies were necessary to finally address this issue that there simply wasn't a big enough study there wasn't enough data so to finally do that and we had frankly we had we knew we needed tens of thousands of people so we had this idea to pay class members to come in to provide blood data to provide medical information we had no idea whether people would do that but we ended up getting 69,000 people to participate so you had all that data now going into these scientists who then had a blank check to design whatever studies they needed to confirm this and the amount of data the amount of people participants and the amount of people participating the amount of studies needed it led to an incredibly long process but one that eventually confirmed what we'd been seeing that this chemical presented a serious threat to humans including cancer threat. Such a long process with incredibly high stakes must have taken a toll on Robert personally I asked him to pull back the curtain and share what the experience was like. I was incredibly stressful on a number of levels and I addressed that in the book. You see this in the film where as we're waiting, as we're waiting for the scientific process to play out, people continue to be exposed. It's not like that everything stopped. People continue to get sick. People continue to develop disease. I would be contacted all the time about the family members in the community who had died while this process was playing out. So that weighs heavily on you, knowing that you've set up this process in the meantime, people are having real serious complications while they're waiting. And at the same time, you have to think about what was going on in the world during this period of time, 2006 to 2012, massive economic meltdown. The economy was imploding. So to be having a case like this, hanging out there, where we were spending still a lot of time, a lot of expense with scientists trying to track what was happening, what was being published, to make sure the scientists on the science panel were aware of all the data. It was incredibly stressful because nobody knew how this process would play out and whether these people would eventually be able to get the relief they were entitled to. And as this basically turned into a full MDO, the C8 personal injury litigation, I'll talk to me about the decision to bring on board, Mike Papantonio and Gary Douglas to try these cases. When the scientific panel finally completed their work, and by 2012, they had announced that this chemical was, in fact, confirmed to be linked with six different diseases, including kidney cancer and testicular cancer. Now, under our settlement agreement that we negotiated, everybody in that community, the 70,000 people, all of their personal injury claims have been put on hold pending the outcome of this process. Well, once these links had been confirmed, everybody was told, you now have the right to move forward with injury claims. If you have one of these diseases, there are about 3,500 people in that community who came forward claiming that they had one of these diseases and wanted to pursue claims. Those all got consolidated into one multi-district litigation proceeding up in Columbus, Ohio in 2013. And that process was going to move forward to start taking cases to trial. DuPont was still denying that it was responsible or should be held liable for this despite what the scientists had said. And at that point, we knew we needed some of the top trial lawyers in the country to be able to help us present this case to trial and get these cases worked up. And Mike, I had known Mike Papantonio from earlier, and they were the best. And so we brought them in. Mike and the Douglas and London firm came in as well. Some of the best folks that for handling and managing multi-district litigation proceedings and did an absolutely fantastic job in getting these cases prepared in through trials, resulting in all verdicts for the plaintiffs in these first three cases that went to trial. Next up, we're revisiting our conversation with Brian Panish, founding partner of Panish Shamboyle who secured some of the most significant jury verdicts in history. With over 500 verdicts and settlements exceeding $1 million, his achievements are nothing short of remarkable. During our conversation, he shared a candid glimpse into the sacrifices required to reach the level of success he's achieved today. You know, I had kind of a plan when I started out. It must say that my father helped me. My first part of my plan was to go work in a defense firm and try as many cases as I could, take as many deficits as I could, to start working on my skills and going to court as much as I could. I did that for a few years and I won every trial, not bragging. Many of them were very easy. Maybe at times I was tough on the plaintiffs because I wanted to go to trial and get that experience. Then I went to what I thought at the time was known as the top, well, which was known, plan a firm in California that let young guys try cases, hard cases, but they gave them the opportunity. I went to work for a guy who was in charge of the firm who was at the time, president of the California trial lawyers. For that whole year, he was in Sacramento. There was used toward initiatives which I learned through him, a lot about the legislative process, preserving the practice which you never would know about at that stage of my career. And I got to do things on my own and learn and learn from the other lawyers in the firm, which just got into doing it. I lost every case. I thought I could win them, but when I think back, there's no way I was going to win those cases. But I was handling them as if I was winning. I was going to win and I lost and I got rubbed back up and eventually almost three years after being there, little less. I won a big case as a police cover up for a family who's big in the news. And I realized, and one thing Grover says to him Grover, that people that never won, they don't know what it takes. They don't really know, so they don't know what it takes to win. And I know what it takes and I look back at athletics and the givens though, the discipline, the accountability, the efficiency, working on your technique, all of that is a given, but it's the ups and downs. And I like to think of trials. One of my mentors has a young lawyer, we're driving home, we're defending this case. We're going back to the court and he's from Oklahoma. He says, you know, Brian, there's no greater thing feeling in life to drive it back to the office, have a great day in court. He says, but there's no worse thing than drive it back to the office, have it get in your ass kicked and have it a bad game. And what the key is, is to get off that rollercoaster and try to stay in the middle as you go through these highly emotional, intense days in trial. So I think building on that, then I got in the firm where it was a great firm that it changed to a smaller firm, but still in a good size. And I got the opportunity to do more cases, started doing my own and I started to win some big cases and I won a really big case. And then I went some more and eventually I felt that look and I want to do it my way. It's not we didn't agree on everything, but also I wanted to do it my way. So I started my firm with three attorneys and I think within like 12 years we had 35 years. And now we're the same thing though. I'm really into team building, I'm into training of all lawyers working on your skills. We do cross examination seminars in house training to really help the lawyers grow just like in football, whether you're a defensive back or a linebacker every day as part of practice, they call individual sessions of the practice schedule. They're working on those skills that you need to do better and you keep working on them and working on them. And I think lawyers, you know, they watch seminars and they read books, which is good, but I think to actually practically working on those skills. Now in the area of Zoom, I myself did with Roger Dodd extensive cross examination during the pandemic school by Zoom with witnesses and everything. Then I took that and I used it in cases and I just continued to practice it over 50 plus depositions or in a pandemic. I mean, as Mark McCormick was a guy that started at CAA, it was a big time agent. He always said the true champion is always behind and I believe that. You got to keep going in life. A winning is not a marathon, it's a sprint and never ends and that's what it takes. It's really fascinating to me because I know a lot of people, especially when they're just getting started, they've got that the Maslow is just a survive. But when you've reached a certain level of success, I think to keep that fire burning and I want to ask in particular, you know, that landmark verdict that you had, $4.9 billion verdict against general motors, I'm just curious, what was that day like and then what happened right after that? Well, you know, that day was 22 years ago last Friday and some people posted some social media and things in the firm and the lawyers that were on the trial team, we had a great team. And I thought back, and I remember it very well, the case was a bifurcated, there's a product liability, high speed impact by a drunk driver, explodes this car, five people, six people, seriously burned. High speed general motors are saying we're meant to stay at the art. We had a lot of great discovery that had been done by other lawyers around the country that helped show that what we claim general motors had to conduct at a cost benefit analysis and determine that the fixed the cars would cost $8.59 and to fight the losses would be cheaper so they'd rather just fight the losses. And that was our claim. So we try the case first phase jury comes back like July 5th for 109 million compensatory damages, which at that day, that was real money, $109 million. But they found 11 to 1 that they malced the pressure of fraud so then we went into the peanut damage phase. Jury goes out, Jury comes back. with this $4.9 billion verdict. I wasn't that shocked, I must say. But then the media just took off. We had a big press conference with all the jurors. It was national at that time. CNN had headline news. Show you how news cycles are. Every 15 minutes, all you would see was me with this young poor African-American girl, a letter, armed burn off her face, just repeating and me saying things like we caught him red-handed and provoked over people. And it played over the world until a week later when JFK crashed and it was wiped off the news. But after that, I started to have more recognition, doing more trials. And I didn't stop with that verdict. It was great. We had to fight it. We had to settle in the case. Clients are doing fine. But that was just kind of the beginning for me. 20-- that was 22 years ago last Friday. And I had won a lot of big cases before that, I would say. But obviously, that one paled in comparison. I just had a great experience being with the trial team. So my friends that I'd been friends with from almost my life. And we really enjoyed it. And we moved on, though. I mean, it was a battle. But we celebrated a little bit. I had my son was born two weeks later. My wife says, of course, you have great timing. And to go back to that, the sacrifices-- this would be my third child. My wife says to me, look, man, you've been in all these trials. You're not here all the time with these other two. So I'm making you go to this refresher baby course on this day. I go sharing a problem. I'll do it. Well, it just so happens that day is the Saturday after the verdict, which is on the front page of our newspaper. My voice feels full. And I'm like, come on. Can I get a pass? As you go, no. And bring back to certificate. Don't leave early. So I was right back to reality within 12 hours of the verdict. It was kind of how I lived my life. So it was fun. It was exhilarating. It did a good thing for those people. But there was a lot more work to be done. It's interesting to me. After a high like that-- because I imagine you must have been extremely proud. I mean, extremely grateful just for that moment in life. Was there any kind of down moment right after that? Just wondering if you could have that type of moment again? You know, I always thought I would never be in like a bigger case. But I didn't worry about it. And I've been other great moments. Maybe not as much money, but just the same. And in my career, if I rank all my verdicts, that wouldn't be my number one verdict. I know we've been talking a lot about the wins, but just for the people listening, because Brian, I imagine that it hasn't always been on the way up. But were there any cases looking back that you really wanted to win, that you thought you'd win, but had to take a painful loss? Well, I think I won every case in the courtroom. So I lost the first three cases. I didn't lose too many cases. I think I had lost two trials in like 17 years. And I was doing a lot of trials. Now, some of the more cases I shouldn't have lost. And what is a loss? A loss could be getting less money. Let's say they offered you $10 million. You got five. You know, that's not really a win. But the Michael Jackson case was a tough case. It's right for six or seven months. And I was a little bit worried like, how am I going to handle losing? Because I knew that was a possibility in every case. And this case was hard. It was fought hard. They were prepared. They did a good job. They had a huge force of lawyers. And the jury came back. I was actually having a medical procedure with propofol ironically. And the jury lost. I went home to the guys came over. We had a beer and we were down. But like the next day, I was OK. I did the best I could. And I did. And it was hard. And with the jury, some of the rulings, whatever you want to use to justify why you lost, we lost. We got beat. They did better. They won. So be it. But it made me realize. And then right after that, although I was doing another trial, helping these lawyers in my firm, we won a big verdict during the Michael Jackson case on a break. But the next trial, I go right into the next trial, wrongful death case. I have a bad feeling about it. It's sure he's out. I entered into his high low agreement. And then I lose that case. So two cases in a row. But I feel good about that one. I knew I had a feeling. It was a hard case. And the client ended up getting money. Let me think. I don't know if I lost any sense then maybe. But losing-- everyone says you learn a lot from losing. I didn't really learn that much. I learned some things. But you're going to lose this to my dad. I would always tell him, I never lost the case. He'd say, well, any learned tells you that they haven't tried very many cases. But it's not like sports where you get a game the next week. We get to get their bad taste. Or in the NBA or majorly baseball the next day, or football week. Here, it could be who knows how long. It could be a pandemic. You don't have a trial for a year. >> For the trialers that are going to be listening to this, and many of them are thinking, man, that must be nice. Look at all the opportunities Brian had. All these different trials coming up. And they may not be in that position today. What advice would you give them to really set them up to have those types of opportunities? >> Well, I think there's no reason that you can't have opportunity. You just got to know how do you find it, whether it be go to the government. Do you want to get it be a lawyer, a trial lawyer? We a district attorney, public defender, city attorney. There's opportunities there. Now, you may have to get paid less. My first job, I got 27,000. I was happy. I was living a rent control house at the beach, paying like $200 rent, living my buddy some law school. And we were just working all the time. We didn't care about money. And I wanted to learn. And I think if you're driven by money, you're not going to be successful. And you're not going to enjoy what you're doing. You have to find what you'd like and get good at it. And you're going to do good. >> It really seems like to be the best. It requires a certain level of almost like obsession, if you will, right? So just, oh, it was this level of just always wanting to be better. An insatiability, if you will. Did you find out the case with you? >> Yes. I think as my good friend John Moring was say hungry. And I really believe that. I think part of it's in your DNA. You know, whether you're really rich or really poor, if you really have that, I call it the competitiveness. If you really have that desire, it doesn't matter. It's all about the passion. And when you're trying cases, the jurors know they can see it when you believe it and you're asking for a lot of money. And they can see you believe it and you establish this credibility. You had a lot better chance to get there. >> To round out this line up of litigating legal leaders, we revisit my conversation with Bren Krupp. Renown civil rights attorney in the founder of Ben Krupp Law. He's represented the victims of many of the most high profile lawsuits in history. And as a result, has become a household name. Earning a spot on time's annual list of the top 100 most influential people in the world. And being featured in the Netflix documentary, Civil. Durga conversation asked Ben to speak to the people and experiences that inspired his decision to pursue a career in law. >> You know, my mother and my grandmother had a profound influence on my life. I don't know if you saw the documentary that Netflix had on me, Civil. But it taught a lot about my grandmother, God bless that woman. She was the wisest person I ever met on the face of this earth. Even though she only had an eighth grade education. Because in North Carolina, you quit going to school and you went to Crop Tobacco. But my grandmother understood the importance of education. She took out a newspaper subscription even though she could barely read. And I never forget I was going to the second grade. And every day, after I was finished my homework, my grandmother and I would try to read articles in the newspaper. We would try to sound out the words and figure out the context of the articles about people like Mother Teresa and President Jimmy Carter. And why so died in the piece of code. And what was amazing about that is what my grandmother really was doing was showing me that there was a bigger world out there for me than just lumber to North Carolina. And so my mother worked two jobs as long as I can remember, man. She said life is hard. You make it fair by what you bring to the table. And if you don't bring that into the table, don't expect anybody to let you sit down at the table. She told me education is something to bring to the table. Because once you have it up here, nobody can take it away from you. And she said, and when you get to the table, you may share you try to leave room to help others get to the table. When I made the decision to become a lawyer, it was partly watching them. I went to Brown vs. Board of Education with all the deliberate speed. Finally got to lumber to North Carolina in the late 70s. They bust us little black children from South Lumberton literally across the tracks to North Lumberton to the affluent white communities and whether they had a new school, new technology, new facilities, new books, new everything. And so I remember coming back home one day from school across the tracks and I just observed our neighborhood, you know, you had all the dilapidated buildings and I just remember thinking I wonder why people on our South of town have it so challenging and people on the other South of town seem to have it so accommodating and affluent and better. And I remember my mother saying what a reason we got to go to the new school with the new books and the new facilities and everything was because of Brown versus the Board of Education and an attorney named Thurgood Marsha. And I decided right then at nine years old when I grew up I'm going to become an attorney like Thurgood Marsha and fight to make a better situation for people who live in my community, for people who look like me to have equal opportunity, a better opportunity at the American dream. And from that day to this one, that's what I endeavor to do every day I wake up every day. I never doubt what my mission is when I wake up. It's interesting. I mean that you mentioned some of the trade-offs. You fast forward to present day. I hear that, you know, unfortunately you and your staff, you're getting frequent death threats. You've got critics. I mean, there's all sorts of challenges you have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. You talk about this in the documentary in civil that there's critics that say you play the race car for profit. Some say the single most destructive force in America. I mean, it's just amazing. Like you ever think like just for where you came from, what your life was, the work you're doing today to hear these sort of things and that a deal with these types of challenges. I mean, what's that like for you? I try not to think about it much because I know what my objective is. God bless me with this influence for a reason that I have to use it to help those who have no influence, who have no voice. Fox News said that I'm the most dangerous man in America. And I scratched my head. I said, wow, all I'm trying to do is help black people get equality. What's so dangerous about that? But we have to deal with the threats and it was hard to create to do the documentary over that because I understand the choice I make every day, but I obviously I exposed my wife and family in the documentary. And that was that was a very methodical decision. I had to think about that a lot. I did it essentially because I understood the global bullhorn that Netflix has, you know, almost 300 million people throwing me your homes to be able to speak truth to power is why I did it. But it does come with some risk because people do sick things that I right now represent eight of the 10 families who lost their loved ones to a young white supremacist who went in to Buffalo, New York drove three hours from his own home to come to a black community and kill all those innocent people in that supermarket. And his manifesto in his own words, he said his objective was to kill as many black people as he could. And so I don't take the death threats for granted. We don't take them lightly at the Ben Cromwell Law firm, but we are unafraid in what we do. And if God forbid, something were to happen, I think there could be no more noble way to sacrifice your life for their fighting for the future of your children. They are worth the fight. And so I get it. My heroes are very good. Life was in constant peril. I mean, I may have it hard, but you know, he had to move every night. When he came to town, all the black people would be excited and happy saying, "Thurgood is coming." And I get that because when I decide to take a case, all the black people get happy. But then you also have these white supremacist people like with Thurgood, the Clujer's clan knew he was coming to town and they were preparing to kill him literally. And so every night, when they found a way to stay, they would cross his burning outside and so forth. And he would have to move in the dark of night just to survive, but he kept showing up. And what an example for us lawyers. Whether black, white, brown, it doesn't matter. You show up for right. I was taught you speak truth of power. Even when it's controversial or it's unpopular, even when it's dangerous, you speak truth of power because we got these legal educations and shame on us if we don't use those educations to try to make the world a better place. And for people who listen to this podcast, whether it's other trial lawyers, their teams, and you know, and beyond, I believe that the majority, if not all, will agree with you. And they want to do more. How do they contribute to this? Because I imagine when you see a black square on Instagram, I don't know how much that's doing. What do you recommend someone does if they're on the side? They don't like the police brutality. They want to not just raise awareness for it, but they want to drive a real change. Yeah, you know, Michael, it's like Dr. King said, we all have a role to play in this struggle for equality and justice. And everybody doesn't have to be on the front lines with me and Reverend Al and the Black Lives Matter activists. We all have a role to play. It's trying to do something to make a difference in your community, to take on a mentee. Somebody who is totally opposite from you. Somebody who has been written off by society, to take them on as a mentee and try to help them be able to achieve their American dream. And to the trial lawyers, you know, you can support scholarship funds to try to make the profession be more diverse. I have at the St. Thomas University College of Law, we have the Ben Crompe Social Justice Center where we focused on giving scholarships to people who will commit to do civil rights work for 10 years after they graduate. And even though you might not do it, contribute to the scholarship fund. And so we have a lot of young people who want to do this type of work. And no, it doesn't pay as much and all this stuff as, you know, a lot of my trial lawyer, lawyer, brotherance. But we can do good and do well at the same time. And so have those young people be able to get through law school to do this civil rights work to fight for wrongfully convicted people to fight for people who are being overcharged and over convicted. Fight for people in these communities that are being exposed to environmental racism on a regular basis. Because the other thing, you can't be a business too. Now I can't help you a lot practice too. I think of these mass torches and such, the people who are often affected, the most are marginalized people of color minority communities. And so when they see you doing these cases of human and civil rights, they say, I remember that person. We should go to them. We said all the advertisements for Camp Le Junin, Taco and Pada. But we remember this law firm in our community, they help represent us. And so it matters. Everybody has a role to play. Just try to do something. Do what Dr. King said in the letter from the Birmingham J.R. He talked about, you can't call yourself a moral person and see evil and look the way. You know, neutrality in the face of evil is a choice. And for those listening that, let's say, there may be an early part of their career and their legal career, they just start their firm. Today, your national firm, from whatever call, you're getting hundreds of not thousands of calls a day today. But that was not always the case. And I remember watching in the documentary that you and Darryl used to call yourself rent lawyers if you could speak to that. Yeah, Michael. You know, we all have a start. And hopefully for the young lawyers listening, it's not where you start, it's where you finish. We did rent, long man. We did anything that will help us pay the rent. And a lot of times that meant doing criminal law. And we got real good at it gave us real good trial skills, which are very beneficial today as we take on some of the largest corporations in the world. And so never ever think, oh, it's just a little criminal case or it's just a little car accident case. Now, this is the case that's gonna help you sharpen your skills to the point where you become habitual. And so you develop hefty habits. So every time you go on a courtroom, you may sure that your acts was very sharp that morning and that you will prepare for the battle when you go in that courtroom. That's what today is about as a young lawyer. You are everything you do is going to accumulate to something to help you for some controversy, some trial, some case that you're gonna have 20 years from that and you're gonna think back to that moment today and say, I'm glad I went through that journey because the real victory is in the journey. And I know people say, well, it's easy for you to say once you've made it. But the real victory is in the journey. One of my greatest heroes, Frederick Douglass, the great Negro abolitionist, he said, without struggle, they can be no progress. And you think about that Jess on his own is profound. But when you think about it, even in a scientific context, for an engine to move, there has to be friction. There has to be some struggle to get progress. And so what you're going through only is helping you to progress in life. I want to give a huge thank you to every guest who's joined me so far this year on the Game Changing Attorney podcast. And I want to thank you for listening to this podcast and for your commitment to learning and growing as a leader. If you found this episode valuable, here are three free ways that I can help you grow your law firm. Number one, download the first chapter of my book, absolutely free at GameChangingAterney.com. Number two, you can shoot me a text at 404-531-7691, and I'll answer any question that you've got for me. And finally, number three, if you can lead this podcast a five-star review, it'll help us gain access to more influential thought leaders and bring their lessons learned here to you. For more information on this episode, see the show notes in your podcast app or visit GameChangingAterney.com. (upbeat music)