Richard McKelvie — Better Call (Saul) Richard

Hey everyone, I'm Rohan, and I'm Collette. Welcome back to another episode of Hey You. Today we welcome Judge Richard McKelvie, former Assistant United States Attorney, Judge for the State of Utah, and now Professor at the SJ Queenie University of Utah College of Law. Richard spoke on his journey through law, from his beginnings here in Utah to persecuting federal drug offenses, violent crimes, and criminal gangs, and cases involving trafficking and stolen cultural artifacts. This is Hey You. My name is Richard McKelvie. I am a recently retired third district court judge here in Utah, retired on May 31st, so now I am a senior judge, so I still have judicial authority and will still do work with the judiciary, and also intend to do some arbitration and mediation. Congratulations on your time and again, thank you. What initially inspired you to pursue a career in law, and how did your education shape your professional journey? I think we can all look back on our education and see people who had an incredibly outsized influence on it. When I grew up in Ogden, and I went to Central Junior High School, while I was there, my ninth grade English teacher was approached by the Ogden High School Debate Coach and asked for her recommendations for students to enter in the debate program as sophomores. Up until then, it was only a junior and senior thing, and so she recommended me, and he asked each English teacher to pick one student. I don't remember why she picked me, but she recommended me to be on the debate team, so I got into the debate team as a sophomore going into high school and discovered that I had both a passion and a real talent for public speaking. I became interested in law enforcement somewhere along the way because I had an older brother who was a police officer in Fairbanks, Alaska, and so as my high school career started to develop, and I looked at different elective classes and everything, I started looking at law enforcement type stuff and just lost stuff, and coupled that with the debate, it just became a pretty natural pathway that by the time I graduated from high school, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a prosecutor. My highest ambition was to be a deputy Weaver County attorney. I haven't made it yet, but you're still open. Fair enough, and I mean, you've had to go through a lot of work to get there, you know, you've had to go through law school, so I just want to ask you what your experience was like in law school, you know, what advice you would give to students currently navigating their legal studies. And I'm in a pretty good position to be able to do that because not only that I go to law school, but I've been teaching at the law school for the last two years, and I have a daughter who went to the law school recently. A lot of it just depends on what you're after, it's a very, very competitive field right now. When I went to law school as I indicated earlier, I had a different interest than a lot of other people did. I mean, most of the people in my class, quite frankly, were interested in getting the highest paying, most successful job they could understandable as why people go to school. My charter was different, and I realized that I didn't have to be like number one in my class in order to get hired at the county attorney's office. I started working there as a law clerk. It was pretty clear to me I was going to get a job upon graduation, and I want to suggest that I was lazy or anything like that, but you do realize when you're in school, how hard you have to work in order to achieve a certain order of success, right? And so knowing what my intended career path was, I decided to let everybody else fight out those, you know, that top 10% law review and stuff like that. So my daughter did completely different path. She graduated number one in her class, and she's working as a very successful lawyer in one of the most prestigious law firms in the country. So it depends on what you're after, but you have to recognize the fact that in order to achieve a certain degree of success, you have to be willing to just put a lot of work into it. So everybody who gets into law school is smart enough to be there, you know? I mean, there's no, there's no tricks to getting into law school, right? And so when you're competing against people, you're competing against people who are equally able. And so one of the ways that you're going to set yourself apart is just the amount of work that you're willing to put into it. So your career included various pivots from county attorney to federal prosecutor and then to judge, how did you navigate these transitions and what factors did you consider when making these career moves? The first job obviously was easy. I mean, that was the job I wanted. That was the job I honestly at the time thought I would be in for my entire career. I thought I would probably work at the Salt Lake County attorney's office for four years and then retire. About eight years into it, there was a guy who worked with me, who saw my potential, and he had had some experience at the U.S. attorney's office, and his wife had worked there. And he became aware of a program that was hiring some attorneys through the state attorney general's office to do a limited time prosecution program at the AG's office for drug prosecution. That was a really big thing in the late 1980s, you know, the war on drug. And so he talked me into applying for this position and I was hired onto that and I became cross designated as a specialist assistant U.S. attorney, came to know the individuals in that office, including the U.S. attorney at the time who was Debenson, and he took an immediate liking to me for whatever reason and again recognized that I had some real skills as a trial lawyer and so they offered me a permanent job and I spent the next 25 years in my career as a federal prosecutor. And again, I probably would have stayed for the next 10 years, but the primary reason that I went to law school and did the things that I did is because I wanted to be a trial lawyer. Right. And that was an opportunity to trial out of cases until it wasn't. And what happened is in the last, on the last 15 or 20 years, the dynamics in the criminal justice system have changed a lot. And most cases now are resolved through plea bargaining, you see, so it was in 1996. I tried 12 felony jury trials. That's a lot. I mean, that's for sure, by any standard, that's a lot. In the last five years I was there, I only tried five cases, an average of one a year. And I wanted to get back into the courtroom. And I realized that a judicial appointment would be a great way to do that. And so I figured I'd take a shot at applying for it and Judge Herbert appointed me second time that I applied. He didn't I didn't get the first one, but I got the second one. So that's where I was from June 1st of 2014 until this now. That's amazing. I mean, I'm glad you had these people in your life, you know, who recognized your potential and saw that you had characteristics that could take you into another position that you initially didn't foresee for yourself. And honestly, being in these places with all of these highly talented people and just having all of this work, it can be stressful and it can be very demanding. So what advice would you have for students trying to balance these responsibilities with their personal life? And also, how do you help them foresee situations that they might not be in? I think that you have to actively pursue interests outside of school and outside of law. It's the career that just consumes people. Yeah. And there's a couple of reasons for that. Number one, like I say, it's really hard. And number two, and this is where my job differed from, like my daughter's job, for example, almost all law jobs, the economic incentive to work is incredible, right? I mean, it's just unlike almost any business that you are in, you eat what you kill, basically. I mean, you know, the more you work, the more hours you build, the more money you make. And as long as that business is there and available, it's pretty tempting to just, you know, work 12, 14 hours a day, whatever, six days a week, whatever it takes to bring all that money in it. And it's great if you get a degree in a good paying job, but, you know, otherwise a cabirro problem, so to get back to your original question, for me, I discovered a passion for distance running in law school. I never, I never ran a step. I never did any of that kind of stuff. It was not a very active person. And a friend that I was in school with said, like, hey, you know, let's just go down a little early and we started running at the field house. We'd run a mile and we'd think that we were, you know, all that. And, you know, I developed an ability to run further and faster and, you know, before you knew it, I was running marathons, but you have to have something physical. I mean, otherwise you just go crazy. And I'm sure as a student, it's very important to keep that motivation to keep you going through law school, because I mean, it's very hard. It's a lot of long hours and you kind of have to have goals, whether that be getting your dream job or to graduate or graduating at the top of your class. What is your approach to setting an achiever? both short-term and long-term and can you share any techniques that have helped you downchild? Yeah, I think for me, it was just a matter of getting to the right places, applying for the right jobs, being fortunate enough to get them, and just having a really good understanding of exactly what it's going to take to achieve what you want to achieve, right? I mean, you use running as an example. There's plenty of research out there. You know, you're an idiot. If you just show up on the morning of a marathon and decide you're going to run, and you're an idiot, if you start training for it without any kind of guidance or direction, which is, you know, a guess like, well, maybe if I go out and run five miles a day for three weeks, you need to seek out information, whether it be from people who know or just the amount of information that young people have available to you today, contrasted with what was available when I was your age. You have to be able to kind of have a sense for what it is you want to achieve. Well, I'm glad you mentioned sourcing information as much as you can. I'll stop people to help you. So how would, how did you approach this in your early career and what advice would you have for students? I think that one of the most important things that I did as a prosecutor was to try to develop a relationship and rapport with defense lawyers. And there's a lot of prosecutors who have this kind of mindset that the other side is the enemy, especially as I indicated at a vast majority of criminal cases are resolved by plea agreement. In order to do that, you have to negotiate with the other side, right? And you can't do that if you're at odds with them all the time. You have to develop some kind of a good relationship, but there has to be, there has to be a level of trust there. And I know a lot of defense attorneys who don't trust very many prosecutors. And if they don't trust them, then you end up just fighting against yourself in a lot of unnecessary ways. Exactly. Yeah. And I'm sure with the connections you've made with different people, you were able to learn from their experiences. Can you talk about the role of a mentorship in your life? How should students go about finding and working with a mentor? It's been my experience that mentors have found me. The most recent where I tell you about is it becoming involved in the law school. I did because one of the professors who was up here, I did not have any really relationship with at all. But he knew who I was and he knew of my reputation as a trial lawyer and he was looking for somebody to take over the trial advocacy program. And he tracked me down and asked me if I would do that. And he and I have now become like the best of friends. And he's influencing the next step of my career now because he's really tightly associated with the American Arbitration Association. And that's where business is going to come for me in doing that line of work. So that mentorship is maintained a great test of time. You think that if you're actively seeking out a mentor, what you want to look for is somebody who you admire and who is accessible. Because it's not an easy role to fill, to be a mentor to somebody. For example, the State Bar has a mandatory mentor program now. And there are individuals who list themselves as being available or willing to be mentors so that a young person coming out can contact one of these people. But if you can approach somebody and ask them to be a mentor, you really need to make sure that you're not putting them out. It's something that they're interested in doing that doesn't feel like an obligation or an imposition. Because otherwise the relationship won't be a fruit for one. I mean, it's interesting that you've said that mentors have actually found you rather than you know, you've searched now for them. And it's good that you've created that long-life connection with him. And you've probably received a lot of advice on tips throughout your career. And I usually ask people what advice they received was the best piece of advice I've gone. But I wanted to ask you what is one piece of advice that you believe would have set you back if you did take it. Or if you did take it. If you have the contrary, you could share that too. Anything that actually helped you or pushed you really forward. So when my friend John first pushed me to do this thing with the State, the Attorney General's office. I was recently married. I had two young children and there was no guarantee of what was going to happen after that. And I almost didn't do it because of that. My friend John Soldus and I talked about it. He was pretty good friends with David Yokem who was the county attorney at the time, my boss. And there was a provision in county ordinances that allows somebody who's the head of a county department to grant somebody a leave of absence. And so I went to Dave and asked him if he would give me an 18 month leave of absence so that I could do this job. And he agreed to do it. So that made the difference. And then of course by being involved in you with the US Attorney's office during that period I never ended up going back to the county attorney. But that was there for me. And it was a, it was a real powerful security blanket. Well, your professional journey overall is very inspiring. And I'm sure you learned a lot. I learned a lot. Do you have any last parting words or bits of advice for people that are listening? You know, it's an easy thing for me to say maybe because of the way things worked out for me. I tell people all the time that I'm one of those kids that if you asked them what they wanted to do for a living in high school they told you. And that's what I ended up being. And I enjoyed it every bit as much as I thought I would. So it's easy to say find something you're passionate about and pursue it. But your audience is students. Your audience is people who are involved in the educational community. So presumably they have the necessary resources to pursue things that they're interested in. You know, they're not just here by happenstance. My view is that what you're doing on a day-to-day basis needs to give you some degree of satisfaction beyond a paycheck. And if it doesn't, then if you're smart and ambitious, you're going to be miserable after a while. It's never going to last. So, you know, I mean, try phrase but find something that you love and you'll never work a day in your life. And you have to, you know, find things that, like you said, that you're passionate about and you found things outside of work and outside of school, like distance running and just doing the things that you love knowing when it's too much for you. I think everyone should listen to that. As much as they hear it and as much as they just think it's like a net as a phrase, they will come to learn the true importance of that wind, the future. And, you know, it's important to have a profession. It's important to have a source of income, you know, so that you can live. But it's also important that that source of income does not so consume you that you don't have any goals or objectives or, you know, any fun. Right, yeah, the fun. Yeah. I just think about the phrase, it's no amount of money can ever buy a second of time as true. You know, you have to enjoy the moments that you do have. We want to think Richard Furtis' advice for students interested in law and the amazing stories that he's gained in his career. I'm Clark. And I'm Rohan. And this has been Hey You.