118. Litigating Legends: Lessons Learned from the Nation's Leading Trial Attorneys

And I reached a point one day where a lawyer from Florida said to me, "It was David Lippman." David said to me, "Linear, how many cases did you have to try before you realize you just need to be yourself?" Welcome to a special episode of the Game Changing Attorney podcast featuring some of the most elite trial attorneys in the nation. When 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 in 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." 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 with just $500 to my name and has grown to over 8 figures in revenue over the last few years, earning a spot on the Inc. 500 list 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 countries 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 recognized trucking attorney Joe Fried, founder of the linear law firm Mark Leneer, Hall of Fame trial attorney Mike Papantonio, founding partner at Clagged and Sykes Sean Clagged and renowned trial attorney Randy McGinn. So if you're going to be a great trial lawyer, you have to become a master storyteller and you do that by first being a student of storytelling. That's coming up on the Game Changing Attorney podcast. To kick things off, we revisit the conversation I had with Joe Fried, founding partner at Fried Goldberg. Over the course of his career, Joe's tried cases in over 35 states and has achieved over 700 million invertex and settlements. But what motivated Joe to become an attorney in the first place? Sitting in a courtroom, to me, was like sitting in a hallowed place. It was a place that even as I was a police officer starting when I was 19 years old, so it's pretty young. But even at a very young age, I felt that important things happened here. And I also saw with my own two eyes that justice is not equal at all. Justice is not blind at all. And despite the affirmation that it will be, it's not. And one of the big difference makers is the lawyer. And so I saw that as the place that I should go, that place that I could make a difference. I had an older sister who was an attorney at the time, and she helped me make that decision. And I had a judge who pulled me up one day, asked me to come talk to him and told me in chambers, kind of like, what are you doing? Do you want to do more? Not that law enforcement isn't a noble thing to do because it is. But that was the way it all started. And so I went to law school. I did well. I'd always been a good student. I came out, did my clerkship. That was the real motivation for the transition. It sounds like you could have hyper-specialized in a number of different areas. You could have done a lot of good in a number of different places. I am curious as to what led you down trucking in particular. Well, first of all, I did not have a lot of trucking experience at that time. And I really was, I was floating around trying to decide what to do. I took some business cases. I took a fair labor standards at case. I took a case against a broker in a real estate deal. I mean, at the time, there was also a lot of tort reform talk. I didn't know what was going to happen in the industry. And then for a couple of weeks leading up to a particular night, everything that it felt like everywhere I turned, it was trucking. I even got, you know, I'd turn on the TV and there was, you know, a truck wreck. I would look in the paper and there's a truck wreck. And, you know, everywhere I looked, it was trucking. I even got on an airplane and somebody had left a copy of a publication called Transportation Topics, which I still, I'm a subscriber to now. And it was open to a truck safety article, you know, in the seat back pocket in front of me. And I'm like, really? I mean, somebody's trying to tell me something here. And so within a few nights of that, that airplane ride, I was tossing and turning in bed. And it was well after midnight. And the internal dialogue for me was, it's time to figure out what you're going to be when you grow up. And you know, it's got to be specialized, but what's it supposed to be? Well, I think something saying, saying to me, I'm supposed to do this trucking thing. I don't know, you know, trucking is different than auto products and, and med mal because people are happy to send you the product case. They're happy to send you the med mal case because of the cost and the risk of those cases. People look at truck cases as kind of a gem case and they're not going to need to refer the case, but they're not really specialists and neither am I. I mean, I wonder if there is enough to dig into to really make this a specialty onto itself. And long and short of it is about three o'clock in the morning, I decided that I was going to be, I was going to be a truck accident lawyer. And at the time, you know, I know now lawyers look around and they see ads everywhere. Everybody's a truck lawyer. At the time, people laughed at me. I mean, the next day I went in early in the morning, literally, I was the first time I was energized in a long time. I went in, I was waiting for my vet at that time staff of one person to come in who left with me for my old firm. So I could tell her what my, you know, midlife crisis moment was or what I was thinking. And I was taking myself off of all these boards that I was, had been put on. I was sending messages to people who were on these product boards that I was on for the fuel fed fire work that I had been doing. And I had gotten some notoriety and gotten put on some national boards. And I was writing to them. I went to sleep last night on auto products lawyer. I woke up this morning. I'm a truck accident lawyer. And people who were up that early were responding to me saying, what did you drink last night, man? I mean, first of all, you've got this incredible practice where, you know, you're making a lot of money. And you're just going to stop doing that. You're going to stop just like a dime. And my response was, yeah, I'm already stopped. It's done. That's in the past. And so about 815 that morning, the phone rings. And you got to understand this. I had no trucking cases when this decision was made. I pick up the phone. I'm in my new little office, which is little, I'm renting space from a good friend of mine, all on my own at the time. And this lady with a kind of a far off voice starts to talk to me and she said, is this Joe free? And I said, yes, ma'am, how can I help you? And she said, at 3 o'clock this morning, my husband was killed. And I said, I'm so sorry to hear that. What happened? And she said, I don't know. But I don't know what happened. But I know that he got hit by a truck. And I thought, really? I mean, this is some weird stuff, man. This is almost like, did I cause this? No, I hope I didn't cause it. But that's kind of the thought I had. And I said, well, how did you know to call me? And she said, I don't really know how I have your name. And she called me. I mean, I don't know if somebody in law enforcement gave her my name. I don't know if, I mean, at the time, I probably had a website, but I certainly wasn't a trucking website. And of course, I said, well, don't talk to anybody else. I'm on my way to come see you. And right about that time, one staff person came in and I said, we're now a trucking firm. That's what all we're doing. And I'm on my way to sign up our first client. But from the moment I made the call to do this, I blew up the other bridges. You can imagine I continued to get phone calls for product cases that would have been a million, multi-million dollar product cases. I turned them down instead. And I didn't have many cases. Instead what I did is I took a lot of steps to become a real expert subject matter expert in trucking, studying the regulations, studying the training, studying what does it mean to be a CDL driver. All the things that I now go around the country and try to teach other lawyers about and started to develop. It was the early stages of developing what I now believe to be best practices and that I teach about all of the country. It's been an amazing thing and it really feels like I'm doing the work that I'm supposed to be doing. So that's absolutely incredible to me. In the sense that there's really a few things that play here. One, you just decided to become the trucking lawyer and then the following day you were. And it seems like many attorney's struggle in the sense of they say, well, I don't know if I could be the trucking lawyer yet or the MedMal lawyer would have you. You essentially burnt the ships and made that commitment now. What's fascinating to me about that is you mentioned that when you started, you didn't have any trucking cases. So I imagine that probably took a great degree of commitment and maybe even confidence in knowing that you would be okay. but I guess what was going through your head at that time when it said that you're turning everything else away and you don't have any trucking cases but you know that that's the path you want to go down. I'll be honest with you, I was scared to death. I mean that's the truth is I was you know the more we spend time getting to know each other the more you'll see that fear has driven so many things in my life and directionally what I've done. But I was scared. That's about the time I looked to become a partner with Michael Goldberg and at the time Buck Rogers and they had trucking experience. They had worked together on trucking defense at Dennis Corrie in Atlanta at the time. In fact that's how they met and I came to them and we had decided we were going to sort of team up as a firm and I went to them and I said I think we should market ourselves as the truck lawyers and their response which was the world's response at the time is we won't get enough business. It's too narrow. People will stop thinking about us for other things and we'll end up triviling up into a nothingness and and I said okay well you know I mean I'll do it myself then if you don't want to do it I'll market just me in that direction but ultimately they trusted in the vision and they they delved into it and you know they already had a lot more expertise than I did and we started from the beginning to at the time more than brand ourselves we had to first teach the world that this was a subspecialty if you will that this is not just a marketing ploy to get trucking cases that there was enough substance enough difference between handling trucking cases and handling auto cases that the world needed people who were specialists in this area and while we were doing that we were branding ourselves into the leadership of that sort of new space if you will and I think that that timing is important because I think that as we were doing this there was a lot of there was at least some other hyper specialization starting where you would see people if there were already people doing just med mal there became more people for instance starting to focus on nursing home cases and becoming really true specialists in nursing home and you know there were a few things like that the idea of hyper specialization was in its infancy I think it still is in its infancy because if you compare us lawyers the legal field to for instance the medical field where you see what specialization is there and you ask yourself are we really doing anybody any favors pretending to be generalists you know where my leaning is if you enjoyed hearing about Joe's story and want to learn how to become a hyper specialized market leader and never have to worry about where your next case is coming from that you don't want to miss out on your opportunity to see Joe freed and live it in person at the game changer summit this November join him as well as a lineup of top tier attorneys and keynote speakers on the field and Mercedes Benz football stadium in Atlanta Georgia at the number one law firm growth conference on earth and since you're a supporter of this podcast I'll hook you up simply use promo code podcast when you purchase your tickets at crisp summit dot com CR ISP summit dot com to receive a special discount that's code podcast I look forward to seeing you there next up we're revisiting my conversation with a man who needs no introduction that's right I'm talking about the one and only mark linear as one of the most acclaimed trial lawyers on the planet his landmark verdicts have totaled in the tens of billions so how did mark become the legal legend he is today when I started out I was originally as it started as a defense lawyer I was at this massive firm at the time it was called full bright and jowarsky now it's norton rose full bright but I think I was like lawyer number 858 and I defended a lot of cases for a lot of businesses and I tried a case one time where I was defending the railroad and looking back at it it was apparent to me that we we were at fault and we owed this money but I thought that through my legal skills I was going to be able to win anyway and really lost any cases at that point in time I tried dozens of cases and dozens and dozens and and I thought you know I'm going to win this I'm going to win the unwinnable case and blah blah blah well I lost the jury returned a verdict for 550,000 it's a case I could have settled for 500,000 I did not settle it I lost the jury returned more money than I could have gotten out of ahead of time and I realized as I was driving myself home that if I had won it would have ruined the lives of a very good family it would have been an injustice and I would have used my skill to bring about something that that really is not a good achievement it's not I mean who wants to say yeah I spent my life creating injustice and and I didn't want to do that and that's when I made a a critical decision that I wanted to go on my own I wanted to pick the cases I wanted to pick and I wanted to represent people that had been wronged and that was one of those corners one of those pivotal moments where you turn and it's a in faith language an Damascus road experience where the scales of your eyes you know kind of fall off and you realize okay I've got a potent weapon here in my life and I need to use it for good mark has gotten to a point in his career where he can carefully pick and choose the cases he takes on but for many attorneys this seems to be more luxury than reality I ask Mark what he would say to attorneys in that position well there's no question that I've reached a point where I've got that luxury of being more careful about what I take but all of us have a responsibility to do right by our talent and to do right by our system now having said that I'm not saying that there aren't just opportunities to defend cases as well even if there is liability if there's liability in a case and the plaintiff is seeking some amount that's an absurd or seemingly greedy amount then there's certainly room to say timeout that's not a just demand I can't settle this case justly and so I need to defend this case and and try to to find a better result so I'm not slamming in some polyanna manner what anyone might do rather I'm saying that we need to be thoughtful and deliberative by the same token we've taken on some cases where frankly I don't think we necessarily we're going to have justice on our side if we win but I didn't expect those cases to be won I'm specifically thinking about cases where some of my younger lawyers simply need trial experience and so we'll take cases where we had one where a prisoner was suing the Texas state prison because he viewed having to eat meals in the same room with people who were of a different color skin violated his religious rights of exclusivity to his skin color now nobody's going to win that case and shouldn't win that case but to give a lawyer a chance to go down and at least argue the summary judgment motion and lose it was the way that lawyer got some courtroom experience and so when she came to me and said I'd like to do this I said well I can't let you stand up in court and and actually defend racism but what I can allow you to do is at least work through this through the summary judgment process and then we'll see what happens from there and so she took it down she lost but she got some valuable experience then there are other cases we've taken where yeah we're probably you know not necessarily this isn't the one that's going to sing and produce the world but it's important for people to develop their skillsets on those cases and so cases can be an educational tool as well so that there's a large scope a big buffet if you will of cases out there and sometimes you can take those cases for different reasons but behind all of it we've got to remember that we carry an awesome arsenal of opportunity and that awesome arsenal of opportunity needs to be used for good holy right just purposes. Mark's made his career on huge landmark cases well many attorneys would land a seven or eight figure verdict and consider the career case mark has numerous eight nine and even ten figure verdicts under his belt so what does mark do that's different how exactly is he getting so many huge verdicts time and time again how we conduct pre-trial discovery with an idea that we're going to try the case is very different than the way I think most people are doing it how we take depositions is very different than the way most people are doing it how we take an expert's deposition and opposing expert very simple I've got a process for doing that that will allow me to send a novice lawyer out for the most important critical expert in the trial and if that novice will follow my five step rule for that deposition it will be everything I need for trying the case uh with so it's a preparation different for us. I've got very certain, stringent, certain rules for how to put on witnesses, for what order to put on witnesses. There are four critical moments in every trial and how you identify those moments and how you handle those moments are absolutely key. There's a whole area of litigation science that's involved not just in jury selection, but it's involved in communication theory and how you present things, how you persuade, how you get people's minds around damages and thoughts like that, how you move people from knowledge to motivation. Those are two different things. Some of this is information, but some of it's also wisdom. I think you probably know the difference between the two, but if you don't, here's an example. Information is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in your fruit salad. You cross that line somewhere, and so I try really hard to teach people not just to know what to do, but to be wise in how they do it. In speaking with numerous successful leaders on this podcast, I found that they all have deep personal clarity about who they are and their purpose. Mark is also an advocate of knowing thyself. How does he 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. I think it translates in front of a jury because juries, especially the younger jurors, but all jurors seek authenticity. 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 off and so I was born in Dallas. I'm Texas. I moved to Fort Worth. I moved to Shreve Port, 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 brash if not downright mean person. And so when he would interact with people in a courtroom, he did it in a brash 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 brash 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. Whether you're trying a major case or growing your law firm, we can all take something away from Mark's advice to live life authentically. Our next guest, television and radio host, best-selling author and senior partner, Levin Papantonio, Mike Papantonio knows this well. In fact, he's grown his law firm by playing to his strengths. I've never been a class action lawyer. I've always been a trial lawyer. I've never forget the moment we were in Atlanta and the breast implant litigation had just taken off. Because I had done asbestos litigation before then, I had co-counsel all of the country that were sending me their breast implant cases. I remember these old guys up on a stage. I won't name the names, but most people who remember this era knew who they were. I got these old guys on the stage. There's 400 people wearing it, landing at some big hotel. And they're telling me what they're going to do with my cases. Because they're class action lawyers. They were mass tort lawyers who were terrible mass tort lawyers who never really were there for the consumer. They were there for themselves. They were there to make big fees and then move on. And I remember the arrogance and the audacity of this character standing up on the stage telling me what I was going to do with my cases and how he was going to handle it. I remember grabbing the mic. I was a kid. I was a kid. But I remember grabbing the mic and saying, "Mr. I don't even know who you are. But it's not going to be anything that you're going to be involved with my cases. There's not going to be a time where you make a decision for me as a trial lawyer what I'm doing with my cases. I'm telling you it was that year and that moment where I decided that I wanted to build out a new reality in the area of trial law. I wanted mass tort lawyers not to be class action lawyers. I wanted mass tort lawyers that wanted to be able to try their own cases and do what a trial lawyer should do and get top dollar for their clients and make it about the client, not about them. We came out of that room and we said there's got we have to make a shift here. And those days are gone and they were gone all the way right after the breast implant litigation. Nothing was ever the same. And so out of that came the building of mass tort's made perfect and the whole notion of putting together talented trial lawyers, talented marketers, talented business minds, talented visionaries all in one room and say how do we continue this notion of taking care of a consumer in a way that's never been done before to where people don't look at us and say yeah Mike, you made a big fee but how much did you, how did you do for your client? Those days are totally gone. And every now then we have to push back, every now and then they try to re-emerge and we have to push back. Actually we're at one of those junctions right now where I feel like I'm having to push back more than I ever have. But that's okay. It's an ongoing element of who we are and what we do. So that was a really decisive shift in the practice of law. And any of those 400 people that were in that room will remember the screaming match between me and the folks up on that stage. And we walked out of there and said we're going to do things differently. So it seems like a lot of these new initiatives arrive out of a dissatisfaction with the status quo. And when we talk about let's say mass towards made perfect. Now this is where we become one of the largest legal events in the entire legal industry. So it seems like when you get involved with something you're not dipping your toe in the water, you're going all in. But how do you find the balance of being able to expand in something new, whether it's a TV show, radio show, a book, the event company because these are not small initiatives. First of all, you have to be willing to jump in. And fear of rejection, Michael, is a very dangerous thing. When I was coming up as a kid, one way I paid for college, for example. Again, that's John Morgan about the days that I would come home after being on the selling books during the summer. John and I were ruined, and I would drive home, having made $30,000, right? In college. And the point being, is that taught me, that taught me a lot. It taught me a door to door selling. You can't be afraid of rejection. You've got to, you have to embrace rejection. You have to say, I'm not afraid that somebody is going to be critical of what I do. I'm not afraid of failure. I'm not fearful of rejection. Mike, I got to tell you something. I did one time, early on as a young lawyer, I wrote a book, it was called In Search of Atticus Finch. And to do the book, I did a series of questionnaires that I sent out all over the country. The response was remarkable. I mean, the turnaround was remarkable. And then I had some really good shrinks. Look at this seven to eight page of questionnaires. And I asked, if I want to talk about something, if I want to talk about what it is that lawyers need to improve, you know what it came up with? It came up with the fear of rejection. The fear of saying, I can try something new. I might fail, but if I fail, you know what? I'm going to turn around and I'm going to get it right the next time. So I've always been impressed with that, because you would think lawyers would be just the opposite. Now, I guess if I were to really analyze it, and I would break it down, you'd find trial lawyers, people who are in trial all the time, obviously they can't be very rejection. But the guy that's out there, the one girl that's out there with a typical kind of practice, and they're just doing what's been handed down to them. The generation before me did it, I have to do it the same way. Mary down the street is doing it like that. Therefore, I have to do it the same way. It is so destructive. It is just remarkably destructive. People get too comfortable. You know, they're doing the same thing the same way. They, you know, I'm handling these comp cases. I'm making a pretty good living. I'm handling this auto case. I'm handling, but what does it really do for your need to brand and you need to expand? How are you different than anyone else? Unless you say, well, let me take at least a chance on one of these. Let me do a project on Zantac. Let me do a project on human trafficking. You see, those are the lawyers when you look at their history. They've had a consistent history of not being fearful of rejection. They've done different things. They've tried to do it a different way. And I keep coming back to the early days of, you know, when John and I were young lawyers, this is what we would talk about all the time, man. What are we doing that's different from everybody else? And so John goes on and he builds this incredible organization throughout America. You mentioned Shunara was on this program. Same kind of thinker, you see. Same kind of thinker. So I think that that's had a big impact on me is saying, I can't be afraid of rejection. I can't be afraid of people saying, gee, Pat, you know, what are you trying to do here? This is really overreaching. I'm just not fearful of that. Now, one of the things you mentioned to me early on, even before we got started, you mentioned the word brand. And sometimes I think attorneys hear brand and say, well, that sounds nice, but I can't really measure it. Why do you believe building a brand is so important? Well, you can measure it, actually. Building a brand is not one thing. You want to hear my brand right now? Documentaries that have been done on projects that we do. Television programs that I've been involved with for 18 years. Relationships with individuals that have been developed for a very long time. The idea of being willing to do more for the other guy than they do for you. This is a very difficult thing for people to get their arms around. My lawyers know this. If I ever find that you haven't treated somebody right, that somebody that's worked with us does not come away with exactly where they think they should be. I tell my lawyers, leave money on the table, take it away from yourself before you take it, always do more from the other guy. That is actually part of our brand. And I think if you asked around, people never been sued. And this law firm is 66 years old. I've been here for 37 years. You realize we've never had a lawsuit about fees. Ever, if there was even the suggestion of it, what we would do is say, well, let's work it out. That's part of a brand. The notion of being out there with new ideas is a brand. The radio message that we did for years that was part of a brand. The idea of taking on things that are outside the norm, that's part of a brand. But all of these things converge. And there's no one thing. You don't brand yourself simply with TV advertisement. It's important. Without TV advertisement, Michael, how do people know that there's a product out there that's going to shut down their liver or cause them to have a stroke? How do they know that? OK, so that's one part of it. But if you're dealing with a lawyer and they're coming to you and they say, Michael, I want you to help brand me. What you have to say is, well, we can't do that with just advertising. The brand has to be a comprehensive picture of what it is that you really stand for. What is that mission statement? And so in describing our mission statement, it is to work outside of the norms to try to do things. Whether it's right now we're launching human trafficking, I'm telling you up front. By the time the project is years down the road, it'll be one of the biggest projects in the country. It's part of our brand is to always be on the cutting edge. And sometimes the cutting edge is a difficult place to hold on to. It's difficult because you're always trying to figure out the issues that there's no template for it. How did we build out opioids? How did we build out tobacco? Started right here in this law firm, you understand? Right here in this law firm. How did we build out tobacco without having any template to do it? Well, it's kind of like walking through a dark room and reaching out and trying to touch a wall. It's not comfortable. We wake up at night and you say, well, what's my next move? It's not comfortable, but it keeps you sharp as an attorney. It keeps you sharp as a person. It makes you better all the way around. You're building a legacy. And the legacy is more than what's been handed down to you. Your legacy is I saved a river. I changed the way this corporation is throwing toxins into a river. I pulled 38, 38 pharmaceuticals off the market because they were hurting people. I got black box warnings on 20 pharmaceuticals. I closed down Wall Street when they were stealing money from mom and pop. I did something about that. And then to me, I always think about it. I've got a daughter that's going to be trying cases with me. And when she says, well, dad, what did you do? I love talking about that. I like to say, well, this is the legacy that I hope that we leave. This is the brand I hope we leave coming back to that word brand. Your brand is your legacy. Next up, we revisit a conversation I had with Sean Claggett. We're now in trial attorney and founding partner at Claggett and Sykes. As a result of his numerous six, seven, and eight-figure verdicts, Sean's become an influential voice in the legal industry and is known as someone who takes on the difficult cases that most attorneys pass on. During our conversation, I asked Sean to elaborate on his approach to leadership. It's funny. I teach law practice management at the law school at UNLV. And I had a guest speaker last week who was a very prominent Med Mal Defense guy who I have a lot of respect for and is very, very good. He's a formidable opponent here in town. And his perception of me was that I worked 25 to 35 hours a week and I make 20 to $30 million a year. I'm like, man, that must be really awful to believe that because that would be very frustrating, when that, if that was true. And as we're going through, I explain, it's weird, but I still work a ton. And at my office, there's not any position in the office. I don't care if it's the receptionist, the runner, File clerk, paralegal, legal assistant. I've done every job in this firm out of necessity when I was building it. And so you lead by doing what needs to be done. And people look at your work ethic. They really do. If you're the partner in your firm who's basically packed it in and shows up 15, 20 hours a week, you really think your staff's working hard? You're the example. You're the leader. People see me working. I'm almost always the last one to leave. I'm not usually the first one here because I got to take my kids to school. But I'm always one of the last ones to leave. Use a good short day is 12 hours. And so I think when people see that, they understand that what we do takes time. And you want to be great at it? Then you've got to spend time being great at it. These trial orders that people see they have all the success, they're completely misled. And I'm going to use Joe Freed as an example. Everybody hears Joe Freed's short trial, like his speed trial. Oh, that's perfect. Look, you can get it done and get all $20 million in two days. They have no idea how much time Joe puts in to condense a trial like that. That is one of the greatest skills anybody I've ever seen in my life. I mean, Joe Fried is amazing. But the misconception is that it's easy to do that and that the lazy lawyers thinking, oh, I don't have to work as hard. I can just get this done and it'll be simple. And that's just, it's not true. Doing what we do, the great lawyers, all the great lawyers, I know, Brian Pannas, Mark Linier, Joe Fried, any of those guys. Alex Alvarez, Bob Kelly, it doesn't matter. You around the country. They all work their asses off and they know the case is better than everybody else because they've spent more time with it. You know? And so I think that that common trade is shared between successful leaders and all those guys look at their firms and very successful firms. And Sean, I'm glad you went there because I want to dig in deeper that because for people listening, it's important to really talk about the process because from the outside, I don't know that everybody sees it. Like Joe Fried who you mentioned, you know, and he was on the podcast, he had asked me, hey, you know, hey, Joe, what did it take to become the nation's preeminent trucking lawyer? And he said, well, all I did was just give a presentation. I spoke to lawyers on trucking every week for 10 years straight. You know, every single week for 10 years straight. And when you hear this and again and again and again, you hear about like the commitment necessary, the process that's involved, what do you believe makes for a great trial lawyer? Because I've heard you say things like sometimes it's charisma, sometimes it's preparation. What are some of the things you think make for a great trial lawyer? Right. Well, that's a really good question. You know, I've given this a lot of thought actually over the years because I've taught a lot of people. And there's some people that just have, I call it it, they have it. And just because they have it, doesn't mean they're going to be a great trial lawyer. It just means they have a more likely potential to be a great trial lawyer. So I think there's individuals that just have a natural charisma that people are drawn to them. And they have that personality that people want to be around them. But to be a great trial lawyer, you can't just have that. You have to be extremely detailed oriented to the facts of your case. You have to know all the facts of your case because as a plaintiff lawyer, we only have one chip. You know, and it's a poker term. You've got a chip in a chair. Well, you push that chip in, you're all in. When you go to trial, you're all in on your first chip. And it's the credibility chip. And if you liar, you misrepresent one time, you're done. I mean, that jury's going to hold it against you. And it's bad news. And a lot of the times, not all the times, a lot of the times, it's lack of preparation that creates the appearance of dishonesty and lack of being trustworthy because you say something that you don't know for a fact to be true. And so we spend a ton of time with my office making sure the attorneys know you have to know everything. And that means it requires you to go through every single document. Any document that's in that pre-trial disclosure that the plaintiff or defendant may use you better understand what's in it. And it's takes time. You actually have to read it. I can't tell you how many times I do a lot of consulting. So my days are spent either doing trial, prepping for trial, or consulting other attorneys for trial. That's every day five to six days a week, 12 hours minimum a day. That's what I do. I can't tell you how many times attorneys come in and they have no idea about the facts of their case. They're completely unprepared. And they're coming to us to help them. And I'm like, how do you expect us to help you if you don't even know your facts of your case? And it happens all the time. And it becomes something that is explainable. And here's probably the biggest thing to be in a great trial lawyer. Reduce the number of cases you have. Most plaintiff lawyers have way too many cases in litigation. Our firm average is about eight cases per lawyer, which is about all a lawyer can really do. You get to 10, 12, you're pushing it. The average plaintiff firm, their litigation attorneys, have 150 cases in let good luck. I mean, which of those 150 clients are you going to not screw? Two, three of them maybe. The rest of them, you're just like, oh well, sorry about that. We couldn't actually dig in on your case. It's really an unfair thing to do to those clients. So that's the other thing. I think what makes a great trial or have the time to spend on it. And then something that's really important that I preach to my own attorneys and all my law students is as a lawyer, you are a commodity period. Don't kid yourself. You can invest in yourself as a commodity or you cannot. And I use the analogy of imagine a kid that grows up playing golf. And he works every day. He goes out on the range every day and he practice, practice, practices. And then he goes into high school. He does well, but he practices. Then he gets a full ride to college and continuous practice. And then he finally gets his PGA card. He gets his ticket. He's like, man, I made it. And then he stops practicing. And a year or two later, he loses his card. He's out and everybody says, what a waste of talent. Well, that example, you're like, no, who would do that? That's crazy. Well, 95% of all lawyers do that. It's exactly what they do. They get their license and then they take CLEs that aren't meaningful. Don't improve themselves. And they're 10 years in and can't lead. They are slightly better than they were 10 years ago, but not subsequently better at any real skill set. And so that's a problem. And so invest in yourself as a commodity, I think, is a huge reality that lawyers need to accept. When you do that, you start to become a great lawyer because as you're learning from other great lawyers, you'll see, hey, that might work for me. That might work for me. And you start putting together a tool test that has all these different tools and some of them will work for you. Some of them, they just won't. They don't fit your personality. And so you end up in a position where you become a better trial lawyer. And then the last thing I will say is to become a great trial lawyer, you got to do focus groups. You got to do lots of focus groups. We don't get into trial nearly enough today to be effective trial lawyers without focus groups. Our firm does probably 200 focus groups a year, you know, four or five a week. I myself do about 100 focus groups a year. I've done over 800 of them over the years. So that's a really critical thing because when you do those focus groups, what's fascinating is the unintended consequence of focus groups is you become really, really good in front of a jury because you necessarily have to because that's what you're doing. That's every focus group you do is like a new panel walking in. And as you do more of them, you become more comfortable, you become authentic. And if you're authentic, your charisma shows. And if you have good charisma and your authentic, you are trustworthy. If people trust you, you do better. As we round up this lineup of mitigating legal leaders, we revisit my conversation earlier this year with high profile trial attorney and senior partner and McGinn, Mantojo, Love and Curry, Randy McGinn. As the first female president of the Inter Circle of Advocates, a group of the top 100 trial attorneys in the country, Randy's built a reputation as a force to be reckoned with both in and out of the courtroom. During our conversation, I asked Randy what separates the good trial lawyers from the great ones. So he or she who tells the best story wins. That's how it works. That's the secret to winning cases. So if you're going to be a great trial lawyer, you have to become a master storyteller. And you do that by first being a student of storytelling. And so if you are watching a movie that has a, you know, that affects you greatly or if you're reading a book that touches you in some way, you need to break down why it is that that book or movie was so effective. And what about it? What about the story was effective? So things like what point of view is the story told from? And what is the most effective point of view? What kind of chronology do they use? Do they tell it from beginning to end? Do they start in the middle? Do they start and then go have a flashback? How did it work? Or did they have two track storytelling? Sort of the jaws way of the movie, right? You hear the music. And you see the little person playing in the water and then you hear the dun dun dun dun. And you don't even see the shark. You just hear the music. Person playing in the water. Dun dun dun. And now you see the fan come up and you're saying, oh my gosh, it's building tension as you see this thing coming to each other. So you see the how effective that was and you say, can I use that in the courtroom to tell a story? Can I say here is the drunk driver slamming it down. Here is our little family getting ready to go to church. Here is a drunk driver having another one. Here is the family coming to church. You tell the story in a way it's building suspense and the jury knows what's going to happen before it ever happens. And so that's what I tell young lawyers is that you've got to learn how to tell stories. And if you're just terrible at it, the best advice I can give people is to sit down with little kids as you know, Michael, because they won't put up with a bad story. [LAUGHS] Whether it's a bad book that you're reading or whatever it is, and read stories to little kids. Because you have to not just tell the story. You have to do the voices, and you have to have the person pop out, and you have to keep their interest. And so it's a great way of learning how to tell stories. And actually, that's my earliest memories are. I was the oldest of five kids in the '50s when they had those cocktail parties. My parents would have cocktail parties. And my job was to stay back there with my brothers and sisters and keep them entertained so they didn't disturb the party. So I would have to tell them stories, and I would make up stories in the back room and tell them all these stories to keep them entertained. So that's how you learn how to do it. You're paying it forward as a female trial attorney yourself to other women as well. And when you're mentoring them, and perhaps even putting out educational content, some of the things that I've seen is you encouraging them to lead into their authenticity. Why has this been a barrier for many? And then why do you encourage that? Because law school messes you up, right? Law school tells you you have-- this is what a lawyer is. You get this lawyer in your head. By the way, it got me, too. When I first started practicing law, there weren't any women lawyers. There were only guys, right? So what you did was you dressed like the guys. So I had a black suit and I had a dark blue suit. And they even had stupid little women ties. I don't know if you remember those little rosette things that were like female versions of ties. I don't know why guys were ties. They're horrible. Anyway, so there I am. And then I put my hair up in a bun, you know, and go into court in this very severe suit. And until I saw myself on TV once, I was working at the DA's office, I saw myself on TV and I said, oh my god, I look like my grandfather. It's horrible. And decided that's not really me at all. And then started finding a way I could be myself in the courtroom as far as how I dressed and my style. And just had to do it on my own, because there weren't any other women lawyers. I don't wear suits in the courtroom. I think jurors don't like lawyers much, or what they think of as lawyers. And they look in the courtroom for someone who is like them, who speaks in language that they speak, as opposed to legal phraseology and big words, and who looks more like them. So my outside persona is, I don't wear suits. I mean, the truth is, I wear jeans all the time in court. If they'd let me, but they won't let me do that. So what I do is I wear dresses and sweaters. That's what I'm comfortable in. And it looks professional enough, but it doesn't look like a lawyer. It looks like a person. Maybe even one of your school teachers from when you were in grade school, you know. And when they look around for somebody to explain to them what's going on in this very strange environment for them, they look to me and not the guy in the suit. People are looking for somebody else to be that trailblazer, I think, or someone else to be that example or that inspiration. What do you think made that person you? Well, no one is coming to save you. You've got to save yourself, right? Or if you want to do something, it's not like I learned when I was a kid that Prince Charmey is going to come along and sweep me up my feet and make all my dreams come true, right? You want a dream to happen? You've got to make it happen. No one's going to make that happen for you. And so that's what I figured out early on. In fact, Michael, somebody, some older lawyer said, how did you learn? How did you do all this stuff? Did you have a mentor? I'd know. I didn't, because there weren't any. And you just figured out on your own. And of course, you make a lot of mistakes along the way. You try out something and it doesn't work. And when you're a young lawyer, what young lawyers do is they pattern themselves after other lawyers, right? So now that there are some women role models, and as a young lawyer, that's OK. You can try on this person's style and see if it fits you. But if it doesn't, then reject it and find your own personality that works for you. Because something that works for one lawyer is not necessarily going to work for you. But it's OK to try it on and see. And then say, no, no, that's not me. And then try on something else. That's how you figure out who you are when you're a young person. You're not quite sure who you are yet. So I just had to keep doing it because there wasn't anybody to tip a copy. So I just tried different things and see what worked. Well, I think it's doing things your way. And even on that note, I mean, there's practicing law. And then there's running a law firm. I'm curious, what led to the decision to start your own firm? And how would you do things differently? Well, I wouldn't do things differently. But so I started my own practice when I was about five years out. I worked in a big insurance defense firm for my first year to pay off my student loans, to say, oh, I can't be an insurance defense lawyer. Went to the DA's office, was a prosecutor for three years, and then went to a small firm where I got my own cases, where I got about 30 of my own cases. And then said, I want to go out and have my own practice. And I went to my bank, my longtime bank, to this woman loan officer who was sitting across the table for me. And I said, here's my-- look, I've got this business plan. And here's my 30 cases I'm going to take with me. And here's when their money's going to come in. And I was applying for a $10,000 line of credit, which at the time, Michael, seemed like all the money in the world to me. It just seemed like so much money. And practiced my presentation and did all that and gave her all these numbers and things. And this older woman leans across the desk and pats me on the arm and says, honey, I think you better keep working for somebody else for a while. And I said, I think I need a new bank is what I need. And went and found a new bank and got a $10,000 line of credit on my own. And at that time, my daughter was five. And I was a single mother. So it was like, this was craziness. I mean, she probably was right. I probably shouldn't have done it. That's why I say, as soon as somebody says, no, you can't do it. Michael, that's my personality. I say, oh, yeah, huh? Well, just watch this. Watch this. I can do it. And went out and then never looked back. And now have a firm with nine lawyers in it. It's been quite a ride. From the other perspective of the people that were saying no, because there's the expression sometimes when people say that you can't really means they can. But it seems like there's a lot of people that either gave up on their dreams or just never believed those dreams were possible. Do you believe that that was a factor? And then obviously, with your upbringing, you did not feel that way. Well, I don't know. It's kind of sad that people would think, including the saddest thing is, here's this woman loan officer who says to a young woman who has a great dream. No, I'm sorry. I'm going to squash your dream. I don't know if that was bitterness on her part or some bank rule. I don't know who that knows what it was. But there weren't a lot of women-- well, there weren't any women lawyers who had their own firm back then. And so people just can't see the vision. I think they have blinders on. You know, they're so busy looking down at whatever they're working on immediately. They can't look up and see the horizon. And I mean, the whole reason I live in New Mexico is because you can see for hundreds of miles. So you can see not just your future, but you can look back and see where you've been and where you're going. And there are no limits to what you can do. I want to give a huge thank you to every single guest who's joined me so far in the Game Changing Attorney podcast. And I want to thank you, yes, you, for listening to this podcast and your commitment to learning and growing as a leader. [MUSIC PLAYING] 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 GameChangingAttorney.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 leave 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 step or visit GameChanging Attorney.com. [MUSIC PLAYING]