Would Esther Perel Beat a Judge in Mediation?

Big thoughts, quick talk, flip facts, tick talk, level up your mind. All right, welcome back to another episode of anatomy of conflict. Today is going to be rude because I have Danny. Oh, that who I spoken to once before we had a little chat and was really interesting. And I was like, hmm, you should talk on the podcast. So Danny, welcome. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Should be fun. Yeah, for sure. So the podcast is about conflict and, um, I think the opening question for you back around like, how do you, so here's my background for your former litigator, um, not current litigator question mark, but helping people avoid litigate litigation. Is that the gist? Pretty close. I think if once a litigator, you can kind of never stop being one, um, your brain just goes that way, goes there all the time. Um, I am trying to stay out of the courtroom as much as possible these days and keep my clients out of the courtroom. So that much is very much accurate. So. So yeah, the podcast is anatomy of conflict. So I'm curious for you. Um, what have you learned in 20 years plus or minus of being in the thick of conflict through litigation? And I, I guess it's not like maybe the way to tell us about that is to tell us about what you've done and why you've done it. But like, what have you learned? What are the, like, could you frame up? What did I learn about conflict? Like what did I learn about how people in the legal system move or how the legal system moves? What is your like, what, what have you, what do you know now that you didn't 20 years ago about the game of so called, of litigation and the law? How do you see it differently? What, yeah, what's your, is a wizard word? Does a wizard mean that you have wisdom? Is that a thing? I hope I have some wisdom after 20 years. I think, you know, I think that your question is really well kind of addressed with, um, a story that I was thinking about this morning when I was thinking about, um, jumping on this, um, podcast with you and talking about conflict and it's from when I was a first year attorney. I started my career at White and Case in the Miami office and, um, one of our clients was a household name. You know, we had big corporate clients at the firm and, um, my client was in a contract dispute with one of its vendors. And under the contract, my client was owed money. It was indisputable, right? Under the contract, under the law of my client wins. Okay. And even under the contract, they were entitled to get their attorney fees as well, including an interest on the unpaid amount. So it looks like a great case for litigation, right? Because you got the contract on your side, you got the law on your side, you got a right to have attorney fees, you've got interest. And then the amount that was owed was pretty substantial. I will say, as a first year associate, ready to like fight the, fight the good battle on, on behalf of my client, I was shocked when my client decided they didn't want to litigate. They wanted to preserve the relationship with this vendor. The vendor had been one of their, um, vendors for many, many years. And it was the relationship that was more important than the dollar that was at issue. Um, and so I remember just being like, wait, what? Like you were going to win this one. Like you're in the right. I was so focused on what was right under the law. And under the contract that I was missing the whole piece about the preservation of a relationship that was important for the company. And, um, and so that case ended up settling for far less than even just what was owed, right? But it was a really great lesson for me to learn that even if you have all of the, all of the pieces are lining up in your favor for litigation, that there are times when that doesn't make sense, um, from a relationship perspective, um, from a kind of business perspective, right? Because litigation is such a disruptor and it requires a lot of resources, both in terms of the business people's time and money, um, upfront, right? So it was a, it was a great lesson for me. Um, I think I came out of that and then adding on the next 20 years of my practice, I learned that most litigation should never actually escalate to that point. And I will die on that hill. Mm hmm. Yeah, that's a cool thesis. And, um, why is it, why is it like you say, I won't die on the hill, which means it's kind of like a hot take, right? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's certainly controversial for a litigator to say, right? Because like that's a litigator's bread and butter, um, and I'm actively working against my self-interest, right? As a law firm owner, um, but I, I truly believe that most litigation should never get to the point where a lawsuit is filed. Um, it really is just such a drain on resources, not just money, but your business is time, right? Um, it's such a distraction. Um, so what is, you don't start? What is? What is the, what is the exception to the role? So if no stuff shouldn't litigate or shouldn't be litigated, what is the stuff that should, like what's the subset of stuff that you dis time? Like sure, this was the case is that litigation was appropriate for or best suited for. Yeah. So that's a really great question. I love it. I think there are times when, um, a marker needs to be thrown down, right? Like there's a law that's, um, really important to a particular industry or a business and they need clarification around the application of that law to their business. And let's say there's a kind of a perfect test like scenario, um, that's presenting as litigation. I think that is an absolutely appropriate, um, opportunity, honestly, to get kind of clarity around the law, um, and if the business is resourced and, you know, motivated to, to see through litigation so that you could actually make law, right? Whether it's through a summary judgment or getting all the way to trial and getting an opinion. Um, that is an error. That is one kind of litigation that I think makes sense, right? Um, particularly if it's a new law that hasn't really been interpreted in, in the real world, right? Because we have all these laws that are on the books, but not all of them have been, um, put to a practical test, right? Um, so that's an instance where I think that it makes sense to litigate. But it's really important that it's not one of these kind of bad facts makes bad law kind of situations, right? I'm sure you remember that from law school, um, because then you, I would end up doing more harm probably than good for your interest, right? Um, I think there are times when, when, um, a point needs to be made, right? Um, like let's say it's an IP enforcement issue and you really need to show the market that you're going to enforce your brand, right? And you're going to aggressively enforce it. Um, I think that makes sense to litigate potentially, um, especially if the other side is infringing with abandoned and has no intention of, of stopping. Um, because that sentence is signal to the market, right? If you let that pass, if you let that infringement keep going on, you're sending a signal to the market that anyone and everyone can, can infringe on your brand and you're not going to do anything about it. So that might be, um, another instance where, where that, um, where litigation makes sense or at least bringing a lawsuit as leverage to bring them to the table to stop the infringement and come up with a settlement, right? Okay. So wait, let's take the latter case, the leverage to the table bit because, um, and let's let's like restrict this, this conversation scope just to, uh, business conflict or commercial conflict. And do you think that, uh, how do I ask this question? I mean, I guess, uh, how does mediation play into, to your experience with litigation? What percentage of cases have been used? And I guess my, like, the, the connection I'm trying to make is, um, There's like, I've seen a frustration amongst litigators to mediate because they're like, we're, we're, we're well trained lawyers, we're smart, we're well educated, we're well experienced, we know our facts, we know the law. We've made our best offer already, get you mail, like we've said what we're like, here's the deal. Like here's what we think her case is where it's blah, blah. Why would, and we were ready to take them, try it, like we're confident, we're not, we're, we didn't just like arrive in law yesterday, right? Like, um, which makes sense to me, like all makes sense. So their thought is like litigation is necessary. Period. It is not, what did you say? Like your thesis is like, in most cases, it's not necessary, right? So, um, what are they missing in their math equation from their perspective? Like are they overconfident? confident? No, I don't I don't think they're overconfined. I think well, they could be certainly some lawyers certainly can be, right? I think first of all, a lot of litigate, a lot of judges or courts like they require mediation before something would get to trial, right? Like kind of like, I mean, we just saw it with Blake and Baldoni, right? Like, they just said like a week before before trial and there was a mandatory mediation in that case. I think this isn't an answer to your question. I fully, I fully appreciate that. But I, the question I want to answer is that I actually, I think mediation can be a really fantastic tool for parties that are litigated in active litigation against each other. And I, and one of the reasons is because, you know, as an attorney representing a party, I'm supposed to be zealously advocating for that client, right? And the opposing party is doing the same thing. A mediator comes in and they're a neutral party, right? Like they're going to beat up on both sides, which is something that a lot of lawyers don't necessarily feel particularly comfortable beating up on their own client, right? Like sure, we have those, you know, very frank conversations with our client that, pay look like these are the weaknesses in your case. But coming from a third party, a neutral mediator, sometimes that message just lands actually lands, right? Well, it's taken more seriously. I think when they hear from somebody else that's not been living the dispute like their lawyers have and they have, it lands differently. And when they hear the weaknesses in their case and the strengths in the other side, and also a mediator who hasn't been living the case might see something that neither side has really thought of or finds more important than either side has really considered to be particularly important, right? And so I think that can be particularly valuable. I think there's a frustration among litigators that you like correctly point out that not all mediators are created equal. I'm just going to say they're not, right? Like they don't do the homework before the mediation. And it ends up being a waste of everyone's time. That's super frustrating for the lawyers or the clients, probably even more frustrating for the lawyers who then have to go like, talk to their clients afterwards and they're really upset that the mediation was a waste of their day, a waste of their money and they're no further along at least that's what they think, right? So I don't know if I if I ever did ultimately come back around to answer your question, but what read how often how often is the how often in your experience is like junk mediation or unprepared mediators? Like how frequent does that occur for you or has it occurred? A number of times I wish it happened the last frequently. And sometimes it might not be that the mediator didn't really prepare, didn't read the party's statements in advance. It might be just that the lawyers really like you kind of need a lawyer, a mediator to really like get the parties like to a middle ground or to at least some kind of common ground. And not all mediators are capable of doing that. And so the best mediators are the ones that can really truly take a middle of the of the road kind of approach, right? And like get both sides to see and realize the risk in continuing with the litigation because that's the thing that's really important is that both sides have to have a fair understanding of what's at risk for each one, right? So you might have a plaintiff who thinks that their case is absolutely going to win, right? Like confident on the law, confident on the facts, but if a mediator can inject just enough risk into that confident plaintiff, that case might be more likely to settle in mediation, right? You have it on the other side too, defendants who are super confident that the plaintiff's case is just going to fall apart, right? But you again, there have to inject enough risk that the defendant has a second thought about proceeding with litigation, right? Because oh, this actually could be much more expensive. And I am more risk than I really appreciated before. So how does the meteor do that? Is it is it subject matter expertise? Or because I'm yeah, I don't want to ask you leading questions. I'll ask you. That is hard of you, right? Like if you have a meteor and you can tell that they have deep experience with this type of dispute, right? Let's say it's a breach of contract. And the mediator has like years and years of experience either litigating or mediating breach of contract, excuse me, know the law, particularly in the jurisdiction where the litigation is filed or going to be filed because some mediation happens right before the litigation is even filed. And they have a credibility in the sense of authority, right? Because then they can point out the weaknesses, right? They can be like, well, the courts in this jurisdiction interpret these types of clauses either very narrowly or very broadly, like you have some risk under under this clause, the way that the contract is written under the case law of this state, right? Or maybe the mediator knows that the judges where the lawsuit is likely to be filed or is filed. Maybe they know that that that judge is particularly harsh on a specific type of dispute, right? Those kinds of things really help the mediator gain credibility with the lawyers and the parties. So let's say the mediator, I'm fascinated by this threat of the conversation. So stir us elsewhere. Let's say the mediator knows nothing about the law and knows nothing about the jurisdiction, knows nothing about the subject matter beyond just like standard human operating system. So no subject matter expertise, no legal expertise, no jurisdictional expertise, no judge expertise, but what the mediator does bring is like the most psychologically astute like John Gottman, Andrew Shebramon, Esther Parall, ability to read the room and understand the emotional landscape. Is that useful? Not useful, less useful than the legal game that you described, like the ability to read the jurisdiction. Have you seen it in operation at all to know? So I will say in my experience, I haven't seen that because right, you, the lawyers for both sides are choosing the mediator, right? And they're usually choosing them from a list of experienced litigators and they're usually choosing them from a list of mediators who have a specific type of experience in a specific area of law, right? Depending on the dispute. What you're describing, I'm being a hundred percent transparent here. I think it's incredibly important to read the room, but I would never hire a mediator who could only read the room, right? And who was only like psychologically adept in the tune to reading people. I would absolutely need a mediator who can do that, but also knows the law and like cold, knows the law cold. Otherwise, they can't effectively beat up on the other sides because they don't know what the weaknesses are, right? And the parties need to know what the weaknesses are in their case because they're so busy at lawyers are too. The lawyers are, you know, focused on the weaknesses of their case, of course, but they're more focused on the strengths, right? And a mediator's not going to go in there and tell a plaintiff what the strengths of her case are. No, the mediator's going to focus on all the things that could go wrong for that plaintiff. And likewise, for the defendant, right? Because they know, the mediators know that the parties are already like focused on their strengths, but they're not, maybe they haven't paid enough attention to the weaknesses, right? It's really that risk and that uncertainty that mediators can inject into the litigation that is really important for moving the parties towards settlement in my experience. Yeah, that checks out. That checks out. Meaning the that that I'm speaking about is mediator's job is to um sufficiently bring to light the cost and the risk of not settling right here and right now, basically. Um, and you're, I think you're right, you're right in theory that how can you do that? How can you stay? efficiently understand the risk if you don't have subject matter expertise. Can't you get enough subject matter expertise just like reading the party's pre-mediation? Like if I say everyone gets to submit a hundred pages. You know, like so you can't I can't just say like party A party B says this and you like you're so I need to specifically know. I mean, this yeah, so you think I was a business dispute. I would challenge the mediators ability to do that. Any kind of commercial or IP dispute because a lot, especially in the IP world, a lot of a lot of that dispute really turns on the facts in the application of the law to those specific facts, right? And so they really do need to have a really deep grasp of the law. And I mean, it might be in an area where you know, like strict adherence to the law, whatever is not as important. I'm not a family law lawyer, so I don't want to sit here and say that like it's not as important. But I do know that there's a lot more uniformity among the states, right? Different jurisdictions in family law. And I know that there's a lot of kind of, I don't want to say this the wrong way. But I think there's also a uniformity in like the relief that judges give in family law, right? Like 50, 50 custody. Like, you know, there's a lot of formulas that they follow for child support and alimony, right, that aren't necessarily present in a commercial dispute or an IP dispute. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to, so I'm personally interested in this conversation. Because I believe the opposite. I believe that I believe that it's a worth. I don't, I'm agnostic as the outcome, but I believe it's a worthwhile experiment to put Esther Peral up against the most seasoned commercial indicator and see what damage she could do. And I think, so here, I'm going to screen share and I'm going to describe what I'm screen, what I'm showing for the listeners. So this is Danny's website, oh, debt, a UD, E T T E law, P L L C dot com. And this is the homepage and on the homepage hero, there's the eight one copy, strategic legal counsel first founders who refuse to play small. And then there's the small age to which is expert. And this is what I wanted to focus on. Expert strategy, human connection. And so what you're describing right now is the mediator must have expertise. And the human connection might be all well and good, lovely, fantastic, helpful. But certainly not certainly maybe necessary, but not sufficient. Right. That's right. And in terms of like when it comes to an attorney and representing your client in settlement, your your client has to trust you, right? And you don't just get to that trust by having expertise in a particular subject matter, right? Like my clients trust me because I have given them a reason to trust me, right? Through the way that I talk to them, to through the like the questions that I ask them, the the way that I listen to what they need, right? The strategy that I talk them through, I try to give my clients options, right? And can I go through the pros and cons of each one? And so they come to they come to trust the counsel that I'm giving them. But if I have expertise and no ability to build that trust, they're not why, why would they trust me to settle a case for half of what they're asking for? Or to pay twice what they want to pay, right? Like they're not going to do that. So I have to be able to explain the law to them in a way that they understand, but also build that trust in a human way. Um, that that not all lawyers do or can do. Um, and same with mediators, I do think it's really important for, um, both the attorneys and the parties who are mediating and dispute to be to feel really comfortable with the mediator in terms of comfortable with their expertise, comfortable with, um, with the strategy for the mediation, right? Like comfortable with what the mediator is telling them. If they think that the mediator is just telling them a lot of low to BS, they're not listening. They're checked out. They're not, they're not going to meet. They're not going to settle, right? Like they're not getting any closer, um, to settlement in my experience. Interesting. So I'm trying to like find so. But sorry to interrupt part of how they get that trust is because they, um, they also can see that the mediator has the expertise. Like they have credibility. Do you understand what I'm saying? Like they know they understand the dispute. They understand the challenges of the specific type of dispute from a legal perspective. Um, but they also are able to connect with both parties in a human way, the trust, the credibility, right? Sorry, I didn't need to interrupt you. Yeah. So it's the thesis that, um, you need to have the expert, the local. And maybe this is, maybe this is, um, obvious to everyone. And maybe so how would you talk to me about this? So I, I think that, um, uh, the extra parallel has reached and muscle beyond just psychotherapy within couples, right, which is her traditional domain. And she started to, she's, she's branched out already her work into like a workplace, workplace dynamics, right between just workplace conflict. Um, she doesn't do commercial disputes, but I'm aware of, uh, or maybe she would ask her, uh, Perl, who, like, what is her like thesis, I guess her, she's like, um, like one of the foremost psychotherapists, she's a Belgian American, I believe psychotherapist. Um, she's written for like her famous, her most famous work is, um, written 20 years ago, called mating and captivity. And it's about, um, it's about desire and eroticism and how basically like within a relationship, uh, we want, we want to experience erotic desire for our partner. Um, and this, but that requires like the sense of novelty and, um, inner committed long term relationship, like the sense of novelty off, often by definition, it goes down over time. And so we crave novelty, we crave this feeling of, of romantic indices in, in to missy. Um, but that sort of adds with the structure of seemingly at odds with the structure of committed law, term, monogamy. And so how do you sustain both of those things? How do we understand those seemingly competing desires together? Um, she's a badass. She's a badass. She's, uh, um, she's like a polyglot of like speak like eight languages or seven languages. Um, and she's amazing a couple's therapy, right? Just absolutely amazing. She's amazing live. Um, and what she's really good at is like, figuring out what's underneath the surface of whatever the present, conflict presents us. And so she's an example. Believe it take any, any therapist or any like very, very good, like imagine, just create a fictional therapist. Um, but what you're saying is like, it's not sufficient. Like you need to understand like if we're talking about IP of widgets in California or whatever, like I need to understand that to sufficiently understand the risk, to sufficiently inject the risk to sufficiently make the parties think, oh, shit, we should really think twice about this. And I can't, um, I don't know, man. I don't, I think, I think it's tricky because I think you're probably right that you haven't seen it because it's not been done because this is very much, like it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like we think that therefore we're going to demand that. But I just wonder if we ran on an experiment where we had extra prowl or insert your therapist here to be like, cool, I'll do free mediation for parties just to like, we're doing an experiment. Yale Law School is now running an experiment, a litigation, their litigation team is running an experiment where we run masters, masters psychologists and psychotherapists and psychoanalysts as mediators and see who does better in a one-to-one controlled trial experiment versus season mediators. I got to believe every day I'm putting my money with the therapist. I mean, I wouldn't. And can I tell you why? Yeah. My clients want to see the mediator CB. They do. They ask for it, right? They want a mediator who has experience in the specific dispute that they are, um, litigating, right? Both sides. Yeah, the lawyer choose it usually chooses, right? like the lawyers give feedback to the client to say, "Hey, these are the mediators that we can choose from. These are the ones that I think would be best for this." But they send the client the CV, right? Clients, I mean, depending on the client, some are more sophisticated than others, right? And you might have a client who says, "Oh, I understand why you're making that recommendation, but I actually see this in this mediator's experience." And that's what I want for this, just you, I think that's important for this mediation. So, I have never, I've never had a situation where a client would be okay with a mediator who had no experience in a particular type of dispute with a specific type of dispute that they were litigating or facing. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm just chewing on it. So, I do agree with you though that the best mediators are the ones who can also read their room and who are also maybe a little bit more like therapists than anything else. Maybe they lean a little heavier in that side, right? Because that is a really important part of it. They have to know which buttons to push. But you also really understand human behavior and human dynamics to know which buttons to push. So, I think there's a lot behind what you're saying. I think that when it comes to like a commercial or an IP dispute, both the lawyers on each side and the clients are going to be insistent that the mediator have the sufficient expertise in the legal side as well as mediation experience. Let me see if I can add. I think this is a great conversation, particularly because it's not that I disagree. I think that's probably stating it too strongly. I think I'm asking you, you're opinion, because you have the better point of view. It's like asking a basketball player. It's like if I'm a soccer player and I'm asking basketball players, I'm asking about basketball work. It's the same thing. I have my theory, which I think is really awesome. It's great to have an outside perspective. I think that's the only way innovation happens. I think where products, our opinions are products of our perspective environment. So my opinion that a psychotherapist could dominate is like a total outside of perspective. It would be bludgeoned. So I don't think of it as right and wrong. I think of it as you might like, I don't think of it in terms of right and wrong. I think we have different perspectives. I think both deserve to be pushed against. I agree. I agree. I'm really loving this conversation. I think that there are specific types of disputes. I think it works probably potentially really well for a family dispute, because honestly, there are so much emotions in human dynamics that are at play there, potentially also for founder disputes, right? In partnership disputes, because a lot of times it's the reputation at the bottom of the dispute, or that's the crux of the dispute, even more so than the legal issues involved. But yeah. Okay. Okay. So one follow up question to this is now imagine that I can instantaneously have subject matter expertise on any subject through AI. Is this a is this like is that? This is like, do you think that that is real? And I guess the general question here is, yeah, I think that's real question, right? Like the idea that I can quickly self educate on any topic. At least like now information is available way easier than it has ever been. Presumably that increases the shortens the the the duration of time it takes to become a subject matter expertise. Can you just like play this forward and see where our arguments intersect where like, okay, so you need subject matter expertise. I see the point. Great. Now I have subject matter expertise, right? Like I just did a bunch of research. But you don't have actual experience in a court. A lot of mediators do, right? They either tried these types of cases or they've been former judges. So the judge like the judge has actually applied the law to these types of disputes, right? I mean, I'm talking in my world of commercial disputes and intellectual property disputes and a lot of the mediators that we use are former judges or attorneys that have been doing this for like X number of years. And look, I'm a big proponent of AI, but I don't you don't get the type of expertise that someone with 20 years of experience, including as a judge applying the law. You just don't get that from reading a chat, chat, dbt output, right? You just don't. There are so different. Well, because there are nuances in the law, right? Like the law is not applied the exact same way every single time. It is dependent on the facts a lot. Like certain facts under under let's say, let's take a group A of facts and apply the Lanamaq to group a, then you have group B of facts, completely different from group a under the group a of facts, the judge would find trademark infringement under group B of facts, the judge would find no trademark infringement. But it's still the same law. It's the facts that are different, right? But then you might have two different judges that find infringement under both a and b sets of facts, right? So it's, there are nuances in the law. Like you have a judge, you have judges who apply the facts and they come up with an opinion and then you get you go and peel it and another in a set of three judges says, I don't really agree with what they said or they said, oh, I do agree, right? So I just think it's the issue is that the laws are not like they're not applied uniformly, right? And I just, I think the nuances is important. I'm going to say this because I want to say it. And again, I don't know who's right or who's wrong. That's less important to me than I think the, these are all like he sees and hypotheses and I also think like they're not personal to me or to you probably. I think they're just like these thoughts exist in the universe and we just happen to be the ones articulated them. So I don't take it as personal or otherwise, but also so in response while you're talking I was like, yeah, I can totally do all of this. I was like, okay, hey, yeah, I can't. AI is still making up cases and saying, right? Like it cannot, it cannot now, maybe at some point, it can, but AI is never going to be in a courtroom. It's never going to be a judge applying a lot of the facts. It's just not. At least not for a few years. Maybe we'll have AI judges in the future. Maybe. But don't you think that all of the case, so case is all digitized, right? And index by third parties like West Long, whoever else now indexes it. And if you can, if part of the expertise is memory, like I think in some ways memory, you're saying is experience, but experience is just a proxy for memory. But how deep your memory is. And I mean, you can see where I'm going. If you can have unlimited memory with unlimited nuance, yes, AI hallucinates, but that's the same thing as saying like, but to me, that's just a wrinkle to be, to be a worked out, right? Like, I can't be worked out though. Can I tell you why? Yeah. Because I can't tell you how many times either when I was a junior associate doing research myself or even myself asking a junior associate to do the research for me, I've said, find a case that says XYZ and bring it to me. And that case, even if it says exactly what I want, the facts are so different that they don't apply. Like, it can be just what we call distinguished, right? So like the other side will say, well, this doesn't apply because the facts are completely different, right? And that requires like judgment, right? And being able to read between the lines of a case, an AI is not reading between the lines yet. Maybe they will at some point, but you do, you, there is not a single case that fits every single fact, right? And some facts might be distinguishable, but they're not particularly important. But again, like, it's usually, it's a human, if you're talking about litigation and we're talking about human judges, it's a human that's applying the law to the facts, not AI, right? And that's not changing anytime soon. Right Yeah, interesting. I'm interested because in my mind. I'm like, okay So what you need said that you need like this is pattern recognition, right because End judgments, but judgment but judgment here is Yes, there are cases that are distinguished right I remember the little thing But I feel like West law says distinguished like don't they have a little flag in each case that says distinguished or no You and I can't even tell you how many times I have said a case means a certain thing in a brief and then a posting council will be like that case doesn't say that at all Right and like both of us are not necessarily wrong both of us are right right because sometimes I might overstate when a case actually says my reading is a fair reading of it But theirs is also fair to say I'm overstating it right So it happens It happens more times than I can even count right like just two lawyers can read a case completely differently I could read a case as not applying at all to the facts and then I it shows up in opposing counsel's brief and I'm like what That case has nothing to do with this right and then you just have to Hope the judge agrees with you Proposing counsel But they're as they're as they're judge shopping in Civil litigation To the former yeah I mean it's hard right because I give you filing in federal court You get assigned right like in a rotation you got who you get But there certainly is forum shopping right like certain jurisdictions might be more friendly to big business Oh, you know or like Like let's like STNY everybody well mostly will want to be in the STNY There's a really good body of law there for businesses intellectual property The judges are usually very smart know what they're doing and Keep the cases moving along But yeah, there's absolutely forum shopping going on in forum. It's harder to judge shop to be honest because you really do get the look of the draw But there's absolutely forum shopping happening Okay, let's transition hard yeah All sort of so I came across this word. I'll see if I can screenshot. It's called I Trude Jenna. Have you heard of this word? I'll screenshot I I I out trojanic Yeah, I out trojanic it means that like the In medicine like the medicine makes you sicker than the actual thing that you were sick with So it's like I heard it in the context of family court like Family court is designed as a medicine to solve certain family problems But in actuality they make people sicker create more conflict create more strife create more Dismembrment for the family unit. So it's I out trojanic Would you say that This goes back to the work that you're doing right now When we last spoke you were like in some ways I like to consider myself preventative I Think we're like preventative medicine or where we are legal carrier preventative legal care Is that because of the first part of our conversation? Meaning let like you're sufficiently aware of the risks and costs and you're trying to Apprise them just like a mediator would or is it because of this I out trojanic stuff which is like Dude doing this will make you sicker what up sicker Whether that's net investment or whatever Or lit it legit. I think it's both a bit of both honestly because look once a case is filed A lawsuit is filed in court The you kind of lose control of it right now you're on someone else's schedule the judges, right and you are playing by their rules You have to turn over a lot of stuff that if you're if you're kind of negotiating in the beginning You can kind of pick and choose what you are going to or not going to share if you're gonna go if like you're negotiating a settlement, right? Like but once you are in a lawsuit and you have formal discovery that needs to be responded to otherwise you can be sanctioned You don't get to pick and choose anymore, right? Like you if it's relevant or even tangentially relevant under our system of discovery in the United States It has to be turned over and a lot of times that can I agree with the I trojanic point like that can just make things even worse Right because now maybe you're seeing text messages where you're founder college you an A hole or right and like that's not contributing to solving the problem that's making it worse But and so I think it's it's it's kind of a combination of the two also With a lot of especially first time litigants they don't understand or fully appreciate how much time they're going to be spending Mitigating they they kind of think or assume that the lawyers going to be doing most of the work But we don't have all the facts right like we don't they have to help us answer the discovery sometimes they have to verify it right like they have to verify Interrogatory responses meaning they have to sign that all the information is accurate right Contained in the in the interrogatory responses and yeah lawyers like we Have all of our caveats in our objections and all that kind of stuff, but you still have to disclose information right and Documents and it's all expensive Whether AI will make it less expensive in the future I Hopefully It's still incredibly intrusive and very time consuming So two things to wrap up one what's the work you're doing now? How's it going? Who's who are the people who you want to connect with most? What's your plan to find them? Yeah, that's first question What's the work you're doing now? How's it going? Yeah, the work I'm doing now is I look I've been in disputes for 20 years. I Prefer to play I call it play in the the sandbox of early dispute resolution or early conflict resolution before it becomes a litigation or a lawsuit Because I find that that's where I add the value most value to my clients and I really love working with female entrepreneurs and also and growth stage companies smaller companies that you know if a conflict were to escalate into litigation it could be a deal breaker, right? Like it could be like the end of the of the company I never want to see that right As an early founder myself like I want I find litigation to be kind of anti-growth, right? It's it's counter to growth if especially if we're spending business resources on mitigation monetary resources on mitigation. You're not devoting those resources to growing your business, right? So that's where I'm trying to focus my My services I Like I said, I love working with female founders. I love working with early stage founders. I've worked for and with some of the best companies in the world and They have all the resources in the world, right? I have big law training and I want to use my big law training to help The clients that I think can benefit the most from from that, right without the price tag of big law It's going well. I could be this year, but I just I really love helping people and so I am working now on figuring out how how to Hope clients find me Because I think a lot of people when a conflict is developing some people like put their head in the sand, right? Or they just don't they don't really realize that If a loss if they get a demand letter or a cease-and-discipline letter, it's not the end of the world, right? There are potentially many options that they have like for example, I have a small business client who got a trademark cease-and-discipline letter and like was really a source of anxiety for him And what he just needed was to hire somebody who knew how to respond to something like that and get them to back off because My client didn't know it, but the other party has no claim, right? They have no claim, but my client wouldn't know that. He's not a lawyer And so I was able to take a source of anxiety for him and show him that it's not that they give a deal We can get this taken care of There are options, right? I think that's for me the the What I want to do Really what I really want to do is show clients that even if you're hit with a lawsuit There are options, right? Like you can Settle even after you've been hit with a lawsuit you might be able to get out of it without even having to file an answer, right? Without having to go down the rabbit hole of spending a ton of money and doing discovery and all those things so That's where I I like to provide value in the legal cycle of things. What else did you ask me? I was going, it's going well enough. I like I said, I could be better. I could be easier. Oh, that's awesome. I think that's so, so founders should, Hitch female founders should hit you up before the shitheads the fan. They should just reach out to you and say, "Hey, you seem cool. We should have a professional relationship." That's the thing. Now it's a female. Some of my favorite clients are male founders. But I do have a self-spot for female founders given that I am one. But. So check this out. Last question. I heard this on a podcast and I was like, "Man, that's the best question I've ever heard and the trickiest." So, are we ready? Oh, God. What is the kindest thing that someone has ever done for you? The kindest thing that someone has ever done for me? Yeah. This is going to sound really weird. But a friend of mine was having a hard time getting an invoice paid. And she trusted me to handle it for her. And it's going to sound weird because I didn't ask her to pay me. But I needed a win, right? Like my confidence had taken a hit. And I needed a win. And so her trusting me to kind of run with getting her paid. And I did, by the way, in 24 hours. So that was a huge win for me. Like it just felt so good. But it was probably the kindest thing that someone has ever done for me because I just. I needed it so much, right? Like I just. I really needed it. What about you? I think it corresponds to what you're saying. Like for me, like what I thought of first was the first thing that came to my mind was we have this local business by me. I won't name the business, but it's a local business. And when I was first practicing law, he was a client. And he had. I'm not going to say he had no basis, but I like had only been practicing law for a little bit. And I think I told him that or I think he knew that or whatever. And I think he just wanted to do business with me because I was also local and he was local. We're both trying to build something. But I really, really, really, really appreciated it. And I will never forget it. And I tell him I said to the state, like I'm loyal through and through. Like the fact that he trusted me that early on, I knew it meant a lot because legal services aren't expensive, aren't cheap. And he had a pay me money and he paid me before I delivered. And like as a business entrepreneur, just like that was huge. And to me, I parsed that as kindness. He was a client. I was giving him the service, but I parsed that as he gave me a shot and gave me a chance. And I was like, "Do it. I'm going to knock it out of the park. I will always make good." And I think today, if I went and talked to him, he would say that. That was great. It was amazing. It did great. And so that was the same story, right? It was both fresh. People trusting me with their expertise. That's really cool. All right. Thanks guys. Oh, go ahead. One more thing. Go. No, no. Thank you for having me. It was a really great conversation. I enjoyed it. Likewise. That's a pun. See you again. Flip facts. Tick tock. Level up your mind. Every single line.