Cliff Atkinson

Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 67, with Cliff Atkinson

Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 66, with Jim Leach

Eric Fong

Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 65, with Eric Fong

Adrian Baca

About Adrian BacaAdrian Baca is a Los Angeles criminal defense attorney. His law firm defends California clients against a full range of felony criminal charges including violent crimes, sex crimes, drug offenses, and federal crimes. The firm also assist clients with post-conviction matters.About the CaseAdrian Baca established trust with Reggie and used psychodrama techniques to understand how the victim shot himself. In a risky move, Mr. Baca called Reggie to the stand where he admitted to being a gang member, to a manslaughter conviction, and to other offenses. During the trial, they recreated the incident in front of the jurors.Adrian ends with how he tries to protect those people who feel they aren’t a part of the larger community and who need help.Other Episodes of Trial Lawyer TalkTo listen to other episodes of Trial Lawyer Talk and hear from the best trial lawyers in the country, go here.Transcript of Episode 64, with Adrian BacaScott Glovsky:   Welcome to Trial Lawyer Talk. I’m Scott Glovsky. I’m your host for this podcast, where we speak with some of the best trial lawyers, who are telling great stories from cases that had a profound impact on them. Today, we have another great episode, so let’s get going.I feel very fortunate to be sitting with Adrian Baca. Adrian is a wonderful criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles who wins cases that nobody should win. I know he wins them with skill, creativity and dedication. Adrian, thanks for being with us.Adrian Baca:       Thank you for the invitation and the kind words, Scott.Scott Glovsky:   Adrian, can you share with us the story of a case that had a profound impact on you?Adrian Baca:       The story that had a profound impact on me actually has a catchy headline. It was a subject of an article in Rolling Stone Magazine. It’s, “How I killed my way out of prison.” It became a retrial. It came to me, and I realized this case was symbolic, in a lot of ways, wrongful conviction, a man who was out suing the police, now he was going to go back to prison. It had a lot of twists and turns.Scott Glovsky:   Wow. Please tell us.Adrian Baca:       Well, it was a case I was actually appointed on. He went to trial after he got out of prison for a murder he didn’t commit. He was looking at the death penalty. He got involved, and they accused him of another shooting. It went to trial. He was charged with mayhem and a gang allegation. He was looking at life. One of the best attorneys in Los Angeles hung at nine to three. I was covering the court in Compton and Los Angeles, and the judge appointed me.Initially, when Mr. Cole met me, very standoffish. “You’re not going to be my attorney.” I just knew, something about this case, that we had a connection and a karma. I knew that I was going to go to trial on his case. He didn’t know it yet, but I knew it.Scott Glovsky:   How did you know it?Adrian Baca:       I think by just sensing things. Sometimes you have an intuition about destinies interchanging and paths crossing with somebody. I just knew. I knew it. In the core of my bones, I knew. I knew that it was going to be a big, giant case, because I received boxes and boxes of discovery.Scott Glovsky:   How did you start?Adrian Baca:       I started by accepting my client’s reluctance to have me as an attorney. I told him I was going to be an attorney until I heard otherwise. The court appointed me. I started working on the case and going through the transcripts of the trial.Then I started meeting with my client a little more. We started establishing a relationship of trust. I introduced him to some of the techniques we used at the Trial Lawyers College, reversing roles, setting scenes, being there for him all the time.Understand, this man had been in prison for a murder he didn’t commit for 20 years. He was looking at the death penalty. He was out of custody now, and he was potentially looking at 5, 10 million dollars. His co-defendant settled for 8 million.Everybody in his life had disappointed him, his family, the police who set him up, in prison, the brutality of prison. He had to kill somebody inside of the prison who was going to kill him. It was a horrible condition, the kind that you would imagine in one of the most typical prison movies. It was like that.So it was establishing trust. Me being there, me meeting on his terms, and just reinforcing and gaining one piece of trust at a time.Scott Glovsky:   What happened next?Adrian Baca:       What happened next is we went to trial quicker than I thought. I started meeting with my client a lot more and doing scene reenactments. It was a shooting case, and I had to understand. Essentially what we’re saying is the victim shot himself.Scott Glovsky:   That sounds like a plausible defense.Adrian Baca:       Well, it was scary. My feeling was I was … The first attorney didn’t put his client on the stand. I know Gerry Spence says typically he doesn’t do that, but I always prepare every case like my client is going to take the stand.So we prepared and we prepared. We did scene reenactments in my office. Some of them actually became quite harrowing for me, where I realized that my client was decompensating a bit and was mixing up roles, because he had some post-traumatic stress that he didn’t deal with. I pulled back. We don’t ever want to become a psychodramatist.Scott Glovsky:   Can you tell us what happened?Adrian Baca:       Well, what happened is we redid the scene. He became so animated that he relived the scene, and I could see it in his eyes. He started reverting to like he was in prison. I feared for my safety. I looked at my desk and I thought, “Where are those scissors? I’m going to have to stab him to defend myself.”Scott Glovsky:   Can you go in role as him at that moment?Adrian Baca:       I was angry. I’m angry, Baca. I’m angry. Where’s my money at? Where’s my money at? You motherfucker. Baca, where’s my money?Reggie, I’m not your civil attorney.Baca motherfucker, I got screwed out of that money. I got screwed out of that money, Baca. Where’s my money, Baca?He’s looking at me. I can see his eyes are … He’s in the role. He’s not playing the role. He is that person at that time. He’s mixing me up with the civil attorney, and he’s mad because he feels he’s going to be cheated $3 million.He’s putting his hands in the front of his pants. He’s coming at me. He’s looking hard. This is an admitted Hoover gang member. The Hoover gang is a pretty bad gang. I knew that I had to be very, very careful and very affirming. I am not your civil attorney. I am not your civil attorney. I am not your civil attorney.Scott Glovsky:   What was your soliloquy at that moment?Adrian Baca:       My soliloquy was I was looking for the scissors. This is going to be a bad incident that I took something on that exploded in my face. But at the same time, I understood his pain. I became like an empath, and I took his pain, and I allowed him to … I trusted him, even though it was some mistrust for my safety, I was worried, but I took his pain. I knew that it was something that he had to get over. In hindsight, we should have had a trained psychodramatist.Scott Glovsky:   How does that scene end?Adrian Baca:       It ended with him calming down, meaning his breath was calm, his manner was calm. I brought in four or five people, people who work adjacent to me, that have helped me. I said, “We’re going to do it again.”I think he had gone through the scene enough, and we had a time crunch, that we did it, and it was much more … Without the violence or the fear, we went through it, and it was very powerful. So we had gotten over that period of fear.After that, what I did is, I run the local working group in Los Angeles, I brought him to the group. We had 20 attorneys, 20 attorneys. We worked on his case. We did scene reenactments. We had him … I put him on the stand for direct examination. Patrick McLean, who’s a TLC graduate helped. Suzie Mindlin helped. A lot of attorneys helped. At the end, he understood he had been socialized about to be honest and to be vulnerable.So when it came to the trial, after five weeks, the judge thought I was going to rest. She said, “Mr. Baca, are you going to rest?” I said, “No, Your Honor, I’m waiting for a ruling from the court of appeals to keep this evidence out.” She said, “Call your witness.” I said, “Can we wait until 12:00?” “Call your witness.”I called Reggie Cole to the stand. We did the scene in front of the jury. The judge had trusted me. I was upright with her. We fought a bit, but she let me get Reggie off the stand. So we got Reggie off the stand, then we reenacted it. He threw me around a bit. I could look at the jurors, and they had a look of horror in their eye. They were fearful for me, because he was throwing me around, and we were making noise. I said, “Reggie, was it like this?” He goes, “No. It was four times as violent.”I think by putting him on the stand, it humanized him. By showing the tussling and the wrestling, the jury could clearly see how the tussling of the gun pointed the barrel of the gun down and hit him in the leg.Scott Glovsky:   You’re saying the alleged victim, or the other person involved …Adrian Baca:       Right. It was our testimony that the victim brought out the gun, and that there was a struggle over the gun. They both had their hand over the gun. As they were tussling over the gun, the barrel of the gun pointed down, and at that point, one of them pulled the trigger, and that shot the victim in the leg.The interesting part of the case is not every case ends gloriously. It turned out, after five weeks and five days of deliberation, the prosecutor, unbeknownst to me, went behind my back and talked to the prior lawyer, and offered him a deal of time served, while the jury was deliberating. At that point, my client had settled his wrongful conviction case for, I think, $5 million. He said, “Baca, I’m going to take the plea of time served.”We brought the jury out, and I asked them, “What is your vote?” It was 11 to one. I looked at one guy and I said, “You were the one.” It was the foreman who was holding out for guilt. We had 11 jurors, mostly … One African American woman whose son had been shot, who I left on, a lot of Anglo school teachers from Long Beach who knew nothing about gangs.Afterwards, the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen, they stayed in the jury box while we talked to them about what was going on, and how much they appreciated the case, and how much they appreciated Reggie. It was very interesting.I realized in hindsight that I did leave one juror on who I had that same instinct, but I left on. He was the juror that held out. I think he felt a little bit guilty, and maybe he would have come around, or maybe it would have been another hung jury.But afterwards we, the jurors and myself and Reggie met outside of the court. We took selfies together. We became Facebook friends. Reggie’s become Facebook friends with him, and then Reggie’s agreed to go out as part of this plea, no jail time, to go out with the prosecutor and to talk about gangs and gang intervention.So Reggie’s free of the gangs. He can’t come back into the neighborhood. I’m worried about him sometimes, that he doesn’t do it. But I think it’s a heroic story of a man who was going to go back to prison again for life, after he got out of prison when he was in there for life, and then looking at the death penalty.Scott Glovsky:   Wow. What impact did this case have on Adrian Baca?Adrian Baca:       Trust, trust myself. I didn’t sabotage myself. I was sick. I was tired. I knew I had to get in there and fight, and give it everything I had. I wondered if I could. I knew one of the best attorneys in Los Angeles hung it.So for me, it was an affirmation of the Trial Lawyers College techniques that I had practiced and practiced and practiced. I wondered whether they would pay off. They have been paying off, but this was my ultimate test. It was trusting the process, being open, putting a client on the stand, telling the full story, and that the jury could come to the conclusion, one, that he didn’t do it, and two, that there was humanity in him, that he was worthy of love.Even though they’re school teachers in Long Beach, he was a Hoover gang member that was at Calipatria Prison, the worst prison, probably, in California, they were more alike than different. I reached the conclusion that people are just, if you allow them to be just and give them information, and not to be as scared, and to sometimes run towards the danger.Scott Glovsky:   What do you mean by that?Adrian Baca:Well, the first attorney didn’t put him on the stand. My feeling is that I wasn’t there to hang the case. I was there to walk him out of there. So I put him on the stand, where he admitted he was a gang member. We admitted a manslaughter conviction, or he admitted other offenses.My feeling was, as a criminal defense attorney, to not defend the case, but to prosecute the case. It’s much more powerful. I know that there’s a saying at the Trial Lawyers College, if you’re explaining, you’re losing. If you’re defending, you’re losing. So it was getting our story out.Scott Glovsky:   Wow. What’s the hardest part of being a trial lawyer?Adrian Baca:       I’d say to be a very successful trial lawyer, criminal defense, it takes a lot of effort and resources. It is taxing on me. I realize I put so much into my cases that … I don’t have an infinite amount of energy. It depletes my energy. It depletes me. It’s life or death struggles.I’m 56 years old today. I realized that, boy, it takes a lot out of me. So I don’t look forward to going to battle. But once I do, I realize that I have to give it everything I have. It can be taxing. It can be alienating to my family and loved ones, because I’m so involved in defending people.Scott Glovsky:   Adrian, as we sit here on your birthday, and happy birthday …Adrian Baca:       Thanks, Scott.Scott Glovsky:   If the 56-year-old Adrian Baca could talk with the 8-year-old Adrian Baca, what would you tell him?Adrian Baca:       I’d say 8-year-old Adrian Baca was lonely, playful.Scott Glovsky:   I want you to do this in role, as you today.Adrian Baca:       I feel like I miss my father, because my mother and father are divorced. I have three sisters. My mother loves me. My dad loves me, but he only sees me on the weekends. I’m trying to find myself. I feel a little bit outside of the normal, because I’m Mexican living in an Anglo community in a Mexican city of El Paso, Texas. I feel like an outsider.I guess what I would say is that, as a 56-year-old Adrian, that I try to protect those people who also feel not part of the larger part of the community, that need help.Scott Glovsky:   As you today, talking to you as an 8-year-old, go ahead and tell him what you want to tell him.Adrian Baca:       That being lonely sometimes can be beautiful, because you have to go inside of yourself. You have to watch, and you can see how people interact. You’ll grow out of this, but you’ll always be the lonely boy. So the lonely boy will meet a stronger man. Together, I think that you both co-exist.Scott Glovsky:   What would you tell him about what accomplishments he’s going to have in his life?Adrian Baca:       At that point, I would have preferred to say, “Hey, you made it to the major leagues in baseball.” I didn’t imagine I’d be an attorney.I’d say, “Be patient, but you’re going to accomplish more than you thought. Life will be far more interesting than you ever thought. But part of you is never going to grow up. You’re still going to be, in 56-year-old Adrian, in 60-year-old Adrian, you’re a big part of them. That part of Adrian likes to play. He likes to have fun, is very serious, but at heart it will always be 8 years old.”Scott Glovsky:   I would tell 8-year-old, Adrian, that you’re going to save lives. You’re going to help a lot of folks. You’re going to change people’s lives, not just your clients, but their families. You’re going to be successful, respected, accomplished and loved.As I’m talking to 56-year-old Adrian Baca, sitting across this table from me, I’m going to tell you that you are accomplished. You’ve changed lives. You’re changing lives. You’re saving lives. You’re helping people. It’s been my honor to talk to you.Adrian Baca:       I’m glad we sat down, Scott. I didn’t know what to expect, but I appreciate knowing you and looking at your eyes. I didn’t imagine you’d open me up like this, but it feels good to be transparent with you. So thank you, Scott.Scott Glovsky:Thank you, Brother. Thank you for spending the time and sharing your wisdom and great, great story with us.Adrian Baca:       Anytime, Scott.Scott Glovsky:   Thank you for joining us today for Trial Lawyer Talk. If you liked the show, I’d really appreciate if you could give us a good review on iTunes. I’d love to get your feedback. You can reach me www.scottglovsky.com. That’s S-C-O-T-T G-L-O-V-S-K-Y.com. I’d love to hear your feedback.You can also check out the book that I published, called “Fighting Health Insurance Denials: A Primer For Lawyers.” That’s on Amazon. I put the book together based on 20 years of suing health insurance companies for denying medical care to people. It provides a general outline of how to fight health insurance denials.Have a great week. We’ll talk to you in the next episode. The post Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 64, with Adrian Baca appeared first on Law Offices of Scott Glovsky.

Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 64, with Adrian Baca

Genie Harrison

About Genie Harrison Genie Harrison practices law in Los Angeles, CA. Genie Harrison Law Firm represents victims of wrongful termination, sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and other employee rights violations. Ms. Harrison is the President-Elect of CAALA, the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles. CAALA is the country’s largest local association of plaintiffs’ trial attorneys. About this Case Ms. Harrison’s client Tennie was a fire fighter at Fire Station No. 5 in Weschester, CA. Tennie’s captains and coworkers fed him dog food in a racially motivated prank. They knew they would get away with the prank because the fire department did not have a universal process for workplace investigations. After the prank, Tennie didn’t feel safe and went out on leave. When Tennie returned to work, he faced a potentially life-threatening act of discrimination. Just prior to a “flash over” training exercise, someone tampered with his oxygen tank and mask. Tennie lost trust that he would be safe and taken care of by his fire fighting peers. “Trust is so integral and key to being able to function as a fire fighter. Once that trust was completely and irretrievable broken, Tennie could no longer do the job.” Tennie left the department just shy of his retirement and pension. Ms. Harrison tells the story of the case. She uncovered systemic violations, harassment, discrimination, and retaliation across Los Angeles fire stations. She explains that “Tennie broke my heart.” This case helped spark necessary changes in the Los Angeles Fire Department. Ms. Harrison now works together with community groups and civil rights organizations to create systemic change. She said, “When there are committed people who remain focused on what’s right, we can make the change happen and it can be different and it can be substantially, measurably better.” Other Episodes of Trial Lawyer Talk To listen to other episodes of Trial Lawyer Talk and hear from the best trial lawyers in the country, go here. The post Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 63, with Genie Harrison appeared first on Law Offices of Scott Glovsky.

<h3>About Genie Harrison</h3> <p>Genie Harrison practices law in Los Angeles, CA. <a href="https://genieharrisonlaw.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Genie Harrison Law Firm</a> represents victims of wrongful termination, sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and other employee rights violations. Ms. Harrison is the President-Elect of CAALA, the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles. CAALA is the country’s largest local association of plaintiffs’ trial attorneys.</p> <h3>About this Case</h3> <p>Ms. Harrison’s client Tennie was a fire fighter at Fire Station No. 5 in Weschester, CA. Tennie’s captains and coworkers fed him dog food in a racially motivated prank. They knew they would get away with the prank because the fire department did not have a universal process for workplace investigations. After the prank, Tennie didn’t feel safe and went out on leave.</p> <p>When Tennie returned to work, he faced a potentially life-threatening act of discrimination. Just prior to a “flash over” training exercise, someone tampered with his oxygen tank and mask. Tennie lost trust that he would be safe and taken care of by his fire fighting peers. “Trust is so integral and key to being able to function as a fire fighter. Once that trust was completely and irretrievable broken, Tennie could no longer do the job.” Tennie left the department just shy of his retirement and pension.</p> <p>Ms. Harrison tells the story of the case. She uncovered systemic violations, harassment, discrimination, and retaliation across Los Angeles fire stations. She explains that “Tennie broke my heart.” This case helped spark necessary changes in the Los Angeles Fire Department. Ms. Harrison now works together with community groups and civil rights organizations to create systemic change. She said, “When there are committed people who remain focused on what’s right, we can make the change happen and it can be different and it can be substantially, measurably better.”</p> <h3>Other Episodes of Trial Lawyer Talk</h3> <p>To listen to other episodes of Trial Lawyer Talk and hear from the best trial lawyers in the country, go <a href="https://scottglovsky.com/trial-lawyer-talk-podcast/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.</p> <p>The post <a href="https://scottglovsky.com/podcast/genie-harrison/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 63, with Genie Harrison</a> appeared first on <a href="https://scottglovsky.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Law Offices of Scott Glovsky</a>.</p>

Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 63, with Genie Harrison

Don Clarkson

Today, Don discusses what many lawyers around the country know as “Donisms.” “Donisms” are pieces of wisdom that Don uses to help educate lawyers to become better people. And to become better husbands, wives, parents, children and lawyers. In this episode, Don explains the meaning behind several “Donisms.” About Don Clarkson Don Clarkson, owner of Clarkson &amp; Associates, began training in psychodrama at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. in 1961. He attended the Moreno Institute where he trained with Dr. J. L. and Zerka T. Moreno. He is certified as a Trainer-Educator-Practitioner by the American Board of Examiners in Psychodrama, Sociometry and Group Psychotherapy. He was on the faculty of Howard University. During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Don pioneered psychodrama training for trial lawyers through the National College for Criminal Trial Lawyers. “Donisms”  You cannot tell someone else’s story until you know your own story. Listening is like holding another person. (Our greatest tool is our ability to listen.) You need to say something for yourself – regardless of whether it is going to do any good. Our job in life is to recognize the holes in the ground from our childhood or from our past so that we don’t fall into them again. If you can’t talk about something, it’s out of control. (If there is something that bothers you in life, that’s really the direction you need to go.) The place that seems most dangerous is where safety lies. Love is the essential ingredient out of pain. Once you manage to endure the pain and come out of it, you allow yourself to be loved. Our goal in life is to understand who we are, to forgive our parents, and to forgive ourselves. Without pain there’s no growth. People pleasers often don’t get pleased. How we leave each other says how we’ve lived together.  Don ends by sharing how to hold someone and how to say goodbye. He explains, “I make it a purpose not to pat (someone’s back). And I make it a purpose also when I see someone to look at them. When I’m getting ready to leave, I say to myself, this may be the last time in life that I ever see you. So I want to take this moment to feel who you are.”   The post Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 62, with Don Clarkson appeared first on Law Offices of Scott Glovsky.

<p>Today, Don discusses what many lawyers around the country know as “Donisms.” “Donisms” are pieces of wisdom that Don uses to help educate lawyers to become better people. And to become better husbands, wives, parents, children and lawyers. In this episode, Don explains the meaning behind several “Donisms.”</p> <h4>About Don Clarkson</h4> <p>Don Clarkson, owner of Clarkson &amp; Associates, began training in psychodrama at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. in 1961. He attended the Moreno Institute where he trained with Dr. J. L. and Zerka T. Moreno. He is certified as a Trainer-Educator-Practitioner by the American Board of Examiners in Psychodrama, Sociometry and Group Psychotherapy. He was on the faculty of Howard University. During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Don pioneered psychodrama training for trial lawyers through the National College for Criminal Trial Lawyers.</p> <h4>“Donisms”</h4> <ul> <li>You cannot tell someone else’s story until you know your own story.</li> <li>Listening is like holding another person. (Our greatest tool is our ability to listen.)</li> <li>You need to say something for yourself – regardless of whether it is going to do any good.</li> <li>Our job in life is to recognize the holes in the ground from our childhood or from our past so that we don’t fall into them again.</li> <li>If you can’t talk about something, it’s out of control. (If there is something that bothers you in life, that’s really the direction you need to go.)</li> <li>The place that seems most dangerous is where safety lies.</li> <li>Love is the essential ingredient out of pain. Once you manage to endure the pain and come out of it, you allow yourself to be loved.</li> <li>Our goal in life is to understand who we are, to forgive our parents, and to forgive ourselves.</li> <li>Without pain there’s no growth.</li> <li>People pleasers often don’t get pleased.</li> <li>How we leave each other says how we’ve lived together.</li> </ul> <p>Don ends by sharing how to hold someone and how to say goodbye. He explains, “I make it a purpose not to pat (someone’s back). And I make it a purpose also when I see someone to look at them. When I’m getting ready to leave, I say to myself, this may be the last time in life that I ever see you. So I want to take this moment to feel who you are.”</p> <p> </p> <p>The post <a href="https://scottglovsky.com/podcast/don-clarkson/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 62, with Don Clarkson</a> appeared first on <a href="https://scottglovsky.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Law Offices of Scott Glovsky</a>.</p>

Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 62, with Don Clarkson

Marj Russell

Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 61, with Marj Russell

Laura O’Sullivan is a trial and appellate attorney with over 20 years of legal experience. Currently an Assistant Public Defender in the state of Missouri, she previously was an Associate Clinical Professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City School of Law, and held a variety of other positions including at the Midwest Innocence Project. Laura’s specialties include trials, post convictions, criminal and family law, teaching students, and training attorneys, managers, investigators and support staff.During the young man’s trial, several witnesses helped tell the story of his life. The jury’s decision restored Laura’s confidence in the love and openness of people to really listen and to reach a verdict based not just on the incident at hand, but instead on a person’s whole life.Laura discusses how she doesn’t grow bitter and cynical representing clients who sometimes have done terrible things. She shares that often her clients have had difficult childhoods and are suffering from addiction or mental health issues and are facing a system that has failed. She’s learned from her clients that people have different needs, and sometimes a need is to be heard. Her role is not to control, but instead “to do the best (she) can and to help her clients through what is probably one the most difficult times in their lives.”Laura then turns to her work on constitutional challenges in Missouri.  “Missouri’s public defender system is 49th out of the 50 states in terms of funding. So, we have an underfunded and overworked public defender system. We have more clients than we can handle. What we’ve done in Kansas City is to look at our ethical obligations and the constitutional rights of our clients to have an attorney.”  Clients, attorneys, and the ACLU sued various state offices.  An update can be read here.Laura finishes with a story about a client who was a representation of the strength of heart and strength of mind.Transcript of Episode 60, with Laura O’SullivanScott Glovsky:Welcome to Trial Lawyer Talk. I’m Scott Glovsky, and I’m your host for this podcast where we speak with some of the best trial lawyers in the United States. We simply have great lawyers tell great stories from cases that had a profound impact on them. So let’s get started.I’m very glad to be sitting with Laura O’Sullivan, a friend who I’ve known for many years. She’s a wonderful criminal defense lawyer, who practices in Kansas City and is really leading some very important constitutional challenges that we’ll talk about in a bit. Laura, thanks so much for being with us.Laura O’Sullivan:Thank you so much for having me.Scott Glovsky:Laura, can you share with us the story of a case that had a profound impact on you?Laura O’Sullivan:Yeah, actually it’s a recent case that I handled with a client, it was a young man, had been in foster care all of his life and really had a tumultuous childhood and he was charged and we took his case to trial. He was facing some pretty serious and lifelong consequences, and there were allegations of inappropriate behavior with some other children. We fought a valiant fight, I think, on his behalf and the jury ended up returning verdicts of guilty, one of a lesser crime, so of a misdemeanor, and another one of a serious felony.And in Missouri, we got a sentencing phase for people who have no prior convictions. And so we went to that sentencing phase and I will never forget it, because I started that sentencing phase before the jury crying. And telling them that obviously we were devastated by the verdict, but that we saw how long they were out and that we accepted their verdict and that we really hoped that they would listen during this phase to information about his life, and that they would sentence him as an entire person, not just as a result of the acts that they had found him guilty of.And the jury really paid attention and really listened. And we had several witnesses and they went up and they deliberated for a very long time. And they came back in this extremely difficult case with verdicts that really did take into account the information that we provided to them in a very difficult case. And so they ended up sentencing him to the minimum on the felony and within the range on the misdemeanor.My confidence in the love and the openness of people, to really listen and make a determination based on somebody’s whole life was really restored.Scott Glovsky:Let’s deconstruct that a little bit and back up because for you to get there, you must have listened. So take us back to that courtroom when you started crying and how did you get there?Laura O’Sullivan:Well, one way I got there is because I loved my client, and it’s a difficult thing when you’re a public defender getting enough time with your clients. This client happened to be out on bond. And so I was able to count on him to come by my office and to help me really … And he would come by my office and we would spend time together and I got all of his background information. So, the first place is coming from a place of truly loving him and really understanding and listening to his childhood.Scott Glovsky:Well, tell us his story.Laura O’Sullivan:He grew up in a sort of large family, but his family had addiction issues. And so it ended up that he was taken away by the division of family services and he was placed in a group home because he was too old to be adopted. So he had grown up in a super tumultuous family, where the mom and dad are not really there. They’re gone for periods of time and he and his brothers and sisters are fending for themselves as young kids.So then they end up getting taken into foster care or group home, and he never had a family until the very end when he was about 18. He moved in with this family. And for the first time he’s living with this group of people at what he thought was a family, and they really ended up betraying him. And he was the odd man out in this whole family dynamic.So, because of his trauma through his childhood, the way he would react to situations is he would withdraw. He wasn’t the kind of person who would defend himself. He would withdraw within himself and so he was really a loner. And had some difficulty in those skills of getting along with people. And so it sort of made him an easy target for this allegation. And I think that’s what ended up getting him to my office.But in the sentencing hearing, the other things I learned about him were that when he got out on bond, his therapist from when he was in foster care offered to have him live at his home. And that told me so much about him, about both the therapist and about my client. So, he had that support, he had a job and the people who gave him a job, that couple would have him over for dinner, and they came and testified.And his sister who had really fought for him when she was younger, but well she was too young also. She came in and spent all of her money, including her money for rent to get to court, to be able to be there to testify for him. So, it was an interesting look at a young man’s life, who had this tumultuous past, but also had all of these relationships from people who really loved and cared for him.Scott Glovsky:How do you not become bitter and cynical when you’re spending your life representing lots of folks who’ve done some terrible things?Laura O’Sullivan:I kind of consider those two different questions. So, I often am representing people who, most of the people that I represent have committed some sort of crime. So, the statistics bear out that the majority of my clients have committed some sort of offense and my job is to work with them, to educate them on the system and to come out with, hopefully to help them come to the best possible result for them.And that may mean that they’re not charged correctly. The charge is way too high and really their offense is much less, or it could be that they have things in their life that are, what we call mitigating or there’s good parts about them that they should get credit for, sort of.And so, generally I am there to help the person in front of me. And for the most part, I get along very well with most of my clients. They’re often suffering from some sort of addiction issue or mental health. Those are the two primary issues and they’re rampant. And so, but also I would say there’s a great percentage of the people that I represent that have grown up in, had difficult childhood and really, haven’t had certainly the benefits that I had.The second part is how do I represent people and not become bitter? I think really, I find that to be the more challenging aspect. Because I do get to know my clients, and I do care for them. And when I see a system that I think has failed. So the story I just told you, I don’t agree with their first verdict. But I have to set that aside, so that I can get the best possible results, even though I disagree with their first verdict of guilty.So, that happens and it happens more often than I’d like, but I also have to remember that I’m not in charge. I’m not in charge of this big world. And oftentimes I think I know what the right thing is, but the one thing I have learned is, I don’t always know what the right thing is.And so all I can do is be there to provide the best information to my client who’s it’s their case, not my case. I’m there to guide them and to provide them with the best information to make the decisions that are right for them. And beyond that, we’ve just got to do our best and hope for the best.Scott Glovsky:I think that’s an interesting lesson because as trial lawyers, many of us feel the need to control everything.Laura O’Sullivan:Right.Scott Glovsky:And how have you learned that we can’t control everything?Laura O’Sullivan:I think that it is, because when I realize I’m not in control of everything, I think things turn out better, honestly. And I’ve learned a lot from my clients. And one of the things that I’ve learned from my clients is that, I can’t make their decisions. So, when I was a young lawyer I used to think I knew what was right. Oh, you should take this deal or don’t go to trial.What I realized is that, people have different needs. And so one need of a client may be that they need to tell their story and whatever the outcome they need to be heard, and that maybe more important than the number of years that they get or the outcome. And so it’s been really helpful to me to learn these lessons as I go along the way and hear my client tell me what they need, and that’s I think the most important thing. And then from there what I realize is, control is not real.Scott Glovsky:Say more.Laura O’Sullivan:I think if you think you that you’re in control of something, you really probably are not. None of us are in control, and I certainly don’t have the ability to control jurors or judges or opposing counsel, and certainly my goal should not be to control my client.I think that just gets you into an impossible situation that is incredibly frustrating. And I say that from experience, from having tried to control situations in the past, and in my opinion, it’s much better to just recognize from the get-go that I’m not in control, I’m here to do the best I can and to help my client through what is probably one of the most difficult times in their lives.Scott Glovsky:Speaking of not being in control, I know that you’re doing some amazing work with some constitutional challenges in Missouri. Can you tell us about that?Laura O’Sullivan:Yeah. So, it’s well documented that the Missouri Public Defender System is, I believe it’s 49th out of 50 of the States in terms of funding. And so we have an underfunded and overworked Public Defender System and it’s one of the worst in the country in terms of paying and in terms of overload in cases. And so, what that means is we just have too many clients, we have more clients than we can handle, and what that means is that poor people are not getting the representation that they deserve, number one.But number two, the people who represent poor people are being treated differently than attorneys who graduated from the same law school, maybe ranked above or ranked below that happened to go to a different law firm. And so we have a lot of great people who want to help others who are being treated differently than other attorneys.So, what we’ve done in Kansas City is to look at our ethical obligations and the constitutional rights of our clients to have an attorney. Not a person standing next to them that they’ve met once or twice, but to have an attorney who’s investigated the case and who they are able to form a relationship and trust with. And so what we’ve done is we’ve let the court know that as we look at our ethical obligations, our ethical obligations say that we can only as an attorney accept that as many cases as we know we can appropriately handle.And for those other people who the court wants to appoint to us, we have to form a postponement list, where we say, “We want to get to you, but we have too many cases right now.” And so we are doing that because our ethical rules tell us that we have to. It says, “We shall not accept more cases than we can handle.”So, we’re fighting this fight both on individual attorney basis, as well as on that constitutional basis that the client has. And the way that it could impact the attorneys in our office is, we’ve had a couple of attorneys in our system who have been disciplined by the bar for not communicating enough or failing to do something in a sentencing hearing with another person.And in arguing those cases, the Supreme Court said, “We’re not going to treat your attorneys differently. Just because they work for the public defender’s office, they should have the same obligations.” And so what we’re saying to the court is, “Okay. If that’s the way that we should be approaching this, then we need to do this.” And that’s meeting with a lot of resistance by the courts.Scott Glovsky:So what’s the status of the dispute or litigation.Laura O’Sullivan:So, we’re fighting it on multiple tracks or it’s being fought. The track that we are fighting it, there’s a hearing that is scheduled at the end of this month, May 30th I believe, in Kansas City for the presiding judge to hear a pleading that we filed, our office filed saying our office has attorneys that are overloaded, and we want to start a wait list. Okay.Laura O’Sullivan:So that’s a statutory, there’s a statute in place that allows us to try and do that. The other thing that’s happening is the ACLU sued our system and said, “You have too many cases. You’re not representing the clients appropriately.” That case, the Public Defender System and ACLU have come to an agreement and want to sign a consent decree that would allow us to have caseload standards in our system. The Missouri attorney general just filed a motion to intervene. And in there suggests that the public defenders are just trying to work a 40 hour week and they’re just lazy.Scott Glovsky:Wow. Do you think that’ll go up to the Supreme Court?Laura O’Sullivan:So, I don’t know if the federal judge will allow the Missouri attorney general to intervene. So we’ll see that, whether that happens or not. And if it does, I don’t know where that might go. We’re hopeful that they will be allowed to just do the decree and we can … because that case has been pending for a couple of years now. It took a while to get to this point. In terms of the hearing that we have in Kansas City, if the court does not find that we’re overloaded, then I’m sure that we would appeal that.Scott Glovsky:Can you share with us a story of a case where you learned something profound?Laura O’Sullivan:Yeah. What immediately jumped to mind actually has to do with a case that I worked on where a client was exonerated, actually. So I had a client who was in prison for 30 years for a rape, and I got involved and we were able to fund some DNA testing that proved, that not only proved that he did not do it, but actually identified the real perpetrators. And what I learned was, I learned it from my client. And I think it’s the power of forgiveness and the power of moving forward and not looking back.So, this gentleman got out of prison after 30 years, and all he really wanted was to get a job and to get an apartment of his own and live his life in a quiet, unassuming manner. And that’s what he’s doing. And when I see him and I think about some of the problems that I have, he’s such a representation of strength and strength of heart and strength of mind. I think both.Scott Glovsky:What advice do you have for young lawyers out there, and especially public defenders?Laura O’Sullivan:Trust your gut, ask for help and treat people the way you would like to be treated. And I think if you do those things that you will have a really good start. But I think the people who get in trouble here and there are the people who decide they should come into the courtroom thinking and looking and acting like they know everything and that it’s their courtroom and that they’re in charge. And the reality is usually it’s the clerk’s courtroom. They’re the ones who are running it, and you don’t know everything. And so you should show others respect and ask questions and show some humility, and I think that’ll get you a long way, both with court personnel and other attorneys.Scott Glovsky:Laura, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and for the fight, the courageous fight that you’re waging in Missouri, which really is an example for lawyers all over the country to doing what’s ethical and what’s right, despite the pressures and the feeling of fighting the system. And thanks for joining us.Laura O’Sullivan:Thank you. And I would hope that other attorneys that don’t practice criminal law will take a moment to support our efforts, both in Missouri and around the country.Scott Glovsky:Thank you so much.Scott Glovsky:Thank you for joining us today for Trial Lawyer Talk. If you like the show, I’d really appreciate if you could give us a good review on iTunes and I’d love to get your feedback. You can reach me at www.scottglovsky.com. That’s S-C-O-T-T-G-L-O-V-S-K-Y.com and I’d love to hear your feedback.You can also check out the book that I published called Fighting Health Insurance Denials: A Primer for Lawyers that’s on Amazon. I put the book together based on 20 years of suing health insurance companies for denying medical care to people. And it provides a general outline of how to fight health insurance denials. Have a great week and we’ll talk to you in the next episode.The post Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 60, with Laura O’Sullivan appeared first on Law Offices of Scott Glovsky.

Trial Lawyer Talk, Episode 60, with Laura O’Sullivan

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