Latest / When Killers Get Caught with Brittany Ransom / Neama Rahmani protected corporations, prosecuted cartels and now he fights for the little guy

Transcript

Neama Rahmani protected corporations, prosecuted cartels and now he fights for the little guy · When Killers Get Caught with Brittany Ransom

0:32
Hey. Everybody and see your killer
0:40
country. My name is Brittany Ransom and
0:42
this is When Killers Get Caught, a podcast devoted to deep dives
0:45
into the killers we love to learn about.
0:46
But in season three we've been taken one-on-one with people who
0:49
are closely linked to crime where have been affected by
0:52
their connection to the justice system.
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And today we have the opportunity to talk to someone
0:56
who is prosecuted over 1000 criminals as a former federal
0:59
prosecutor who work with the FBI.
1:01
His name is Nema Romani. He's currently the president and
1:04
cofounder of West Coast Trial Lawyers in Los Angeles, CA.
1:07
And if you're a big fan of watching news coverage or crime
1:10
TV, there's a chance you've probably seen him already
1:13
commentating on the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial, Britney
1:16
Spears Conservatorship, Court TV, pretty much every major news
1:20
station. And most recently, I recognized
1:23
NEMA based on him talking about one of his entertainment cases
1:26
right now. I'm really excited to have you
1:28
here today and talk about your life and your experiences over
1:31
the last 20 years. Welcome to the podcast Emma
1:35
Brittany. Thank you so much for having me.
1:37
What a great introduction I'm super excited to be on.
1:40
So I have to ask you about this because it's huge news in my
1:43
circle. I'm a plus size lady and so I've
1:45
been all about the body positivity and love over the
1:49
many years and you are representing.
1:53
Several of Lizzo's former dancers, and that's a huge deal.
1:56
Among me and my friends. I actually read a Deadline
1:59
article about you like a week or two ago where you said I've
2:03
prosecuted drug cartels, so we have no plan to back down.
2:07
And then you said let's see if Singer can actually try a case
2:11
in the courtroom instead of the media.
2:16
I'm laughing because, you know, I always try to keep a
2:19
professional. I like Marty.
2:22
We've litigated cases in the past.
2:24
We have other cases together. Right now he's representing one
2:29
of Olivia Wilde or Jason Sudeikis, maybe both.
2:32
We're representing one of their former employees with nanny.
2:34
So, you know, often times it's a small legal community.
2:37
We go up against the same people.
2:40
But what I would say is Lizzo, Lizzo, her spokespeople and her
2:45
lawyer, they're taking a very aggressive, frankly mean stance
2:51
against our clients. And we have four of them calling
2:54
them all liars, saying none of this happened.
2:56
You know, when we filed this case, I thought it'd go in one
2:59
or two ways. I thought that, you know, Liz
3:01
would come out, maybe apologize that she's made some mistakes.
3:05
You know, we're not perfect. You know, we'll do things better
3:08
going forward. But she's denying that any of
3:10
this happened and calling our clients liars.
3:13
What do you think about that? She put out.
3:18
I was surprised. Yeah.
3:19
I thought it was very tone deaf. Victim shaming, You know, you're
3:22
talking about, you know, she's all about positivity and
3:26
advocating for a woman and plus size woman and a woman of color.
3:30
But these are our clients, right?
3:32
And she's calling them all liars.
3:34
So I was surprised. I thought she would take a
3:39
different approach. Right.
3:40
We've seen celebrities recently when they messed up.
3:44
Look at, you know, Ashton Kutcher and Mira Kunis, right?
3:48
They wrote letters of support for Danny Masterson.
3:50
They came out and apologized. You know, we saw Drew Barry.
3:54
Right across the ticket line, you know, she apologized.
3:57
You know, that's what I was expecting.
3:59
But you know, sometimes look people, they double down in
4:03
their lives and it's a narcissism or whatever the case
4:06
may be. But it was a surprising
4:08
reaction. Well, now you've also got the
4:09
scary word countersuit, because that for that scares me.
4:12
I mean, what do you say to your clients when you hear from this
4:16
huge name in media? We're coming after you next.
4:20
Well, look, they have to win first and I have no, I have no,
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I have no problem trying this case because you know, I believe
4:26
our clients. I believe their stories.
4:28
I think, you know, jurors are gonna like them and believe them
4:31
as well. And I think this is going to be
4:33
exposed and more and more people are coming forward.
4:36
There's people who have said they want to be witnesses.
4:40
There's people that have claims, but maybe they're outside the
4:41
statute of limitations, but they can talk about some of this
4:44
conduct and there's gonna be more clients as well.
4:46
I mean, you're going to see, Brittany, this isn't the end.
4:49
Usually when people you know mistreat others, it's not just
4:52
one or two or three. That tends to be who they are.
4:56
And I think people are starting to understand that the Lizo you
4:58
see when the cameras are rolling is not the Lizo the employer.
5:03
That people that I actually had to work with her, what they
5:07
experienced was very different. Well, you've got a lot of
5:08
experience, I guess with like dealing with celebrities now
5:11
it's a it's a small frame for me because I'm just a little
5:14
influencer. But I've come in contact with
5:16
people and they're like, wow, you're really nice.
5:18
And I'm like most people aren't. Apparently not.
5:21
Apparently a lot of people are really terrible in Hollywood,
5:24
and I had no idea. Do you experience.
5:27
Yeah, that's unfortunate, you know, And it's, yeah, it's
5:31
unfortunately people in positions of power, sometimes
5:35
you misuse that power and instead of, you know, bringing
5:39
others up with them, they kick them down.
5:41
And I'm not saying it's just limited to one particular case
5:45
or client, but this is a problem in Hollywood and you know, for
5:49
many years it was rich, old, white, right.
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But it's not limited to that. You know, there are people who
5:56
don't fall in that category and they engage in misconduct
6:00
because they think they can, because they think that frankly,
6:04
their employees should be happy to be there, to be happy to
6:07
have. A job, right?
6:08
What an amazing opportunity you got to be on that TV show that
6:11
won an Emmy. Exactly.
6:13
You know, you're on Lizzo's reality TV show and you know,
6:17
like I said, these are these are dancers that probably wouldn't
6:20
have had an opportunity elsewhere in Hollywood.
6:23
And that's something that they've admitted Lizzo gave them
6:26
their chance and that's why they're so heartbroken to be
6:28
treated the way they were. Right.
6:29
Well, one of the things you mentioned to me in our private
6:32
chat is that your firm only accepts about 5 to 10% of the
6:36
cases that come across your desk.
6:38
And you said you have about 25 lawyers there.
6:40
So how do you decide? Because I'm sure there's a lot
6:43
of people knocking on your door. Yeah, we get hundreds of calls
6:46
every day and we can only accept the small number because, well,
6:51
for a few reasons, we only want to take righteous cases.
6:53
You know, we're we don't want to take cases that we can't help
6:56
people or or cases that we can't win.
6:59
I like to be honest with my clients.
7:01
And the other is there's different types of firms.
7:03
Some firms will sign a bunch of clients, maybe send some demand
7:06
letters and you know they might drop the case if they don't get
7:10
paid. Wow.
7:11
When we take a case, we anticipate taking it all the way
7:15
to trial. That's how we think.
7:18
So, you know, when I meet with the client that says they've
7:22
been mistreated by their employer, I tell them honestly,
7:25
we may have to try this case. We're going to prepare the case
7:27
to go to trial. Now, not that many cases go to
7:29
trial. Oftentimes the defendants
7:32
settle. The clients may not want to tell
7:36
their story, you know, in a very public way at trial.
7:39
But you know, the reason, you know, I told Lizo's lawyers to
7:43
bring it and let's try the case is, you know, I have clients who
7:47
have been very open about telling their story, and they're
7:49
happy to do so in a courtroom. Not all clients feel the same
7:53
way. So now that Lizzo is saying that
7:56
she wants to try the case, I'm thinking, great, we're going to
7:59
have a trial and the entire world can decide who's telling
8:02
the. Truth, right?
8:03
Because I could tell you, Brittany.
8:04
With a settlement, sorry, sorry, when I was going.
8:06
To say with a settlement, doesn't that mean it can be
8:08
closed? Yeah, it's all confidential and
8:11
usually there's a payment in exchange for non disparagement
8:15
or confidentiality. That's oftentimes how these
8:17
work. So when you have the opportunity
8:19
to go all the way to trial as a lawyer, that's something that
8:23
you look forward to. That's why you went to law
8:24
school. So, you know, there might be
8:26
some lawyers that want to settle.
8:27
They're afraid of trial. But you know, Liz, they're
8:31
talking to the wrong person. I mean, I love trying cases.
8:34
Look, I like trials so much. I go on TV almost every day and
8:38
I'm doing commentary and other people.
8:40
So don't you think I would like to?
8:42
I would like to try my own case. Yeah.
8:44
And my other thing is like, since some of these people like
8:46
Liz, a huge media personality, I mean, what kind of Internet hate
8:52
or even things mailed to your office, things like that.
8:55
Do you get that from your work? Yeah, I do.
8:59
Yeah. I could tell you that most of
9:01
the the folks who have been covering the Lizzo case, I mean
9:04
there's been some nasty things said publicly, but most people
9:07
haven't taken that personally, fortunately.
9:10
Like it's all business, right. Everyone's entitled to someone
9:13
to advocate on their behalf. I would say the, the, the most
9:17
hate I get is from covering the Donald Trump case.
9:21
I mean, it's just, and when I say case because I mean, case
9:24
says right, Is it. Yeah, he's got 4 criminal cases
9:27
in the middle of a civil trial right now.
9:29
So obviously, look, he's a big story and I'm a legal
9:34
commentator. So I'm going to be talking about
9:36
his cases and I'm going to say it like it is.
9:38
It's not political. And I'm not saying he's going to
9:40
win or lose the presidential election.
9:43
I stay in my lane, but I'm going to be talking about the cases.
9:45
And there's some people that refused to believe that there's
9:48
the possibility that the former president committed a crime or
9:51
committed multiple crimes. So that's usually where I get
9:54
most of my kind of hate mail. It's related to the political
9:58
cases that I cover. Now, Speaking of the Lizo case,
10:01
you said her people said they want to go to trial, you want to
10:05
go to trial. So reasonably, when do you think
10:08
we might actually get to see this go to trial?
10:11
Well, I think Lizo's team, they might be talking about of both
10:14
sides of their mouth. And the reason is they didn't,
10:17
you know, we demanded a jury trial.
10:18
They agreed to a jury trial, but they filed an answer and they're
10:22
trying to get this case moved into a private arbitration.
10:25
So, yeah, obviously we're going to oppose that because we think
10:28
that the public has a right to know and I believe in our jury
10:31
system, but they're going to try to, you know, hide this away,
10:35
have some secret private arbitration handle this.
10:40
So we'll see if we do get that trial.
10:42
I think that's going to be one of the big issues in.
10:44
The case, Well, we chatted about what you're doing right now,
10:48
talking about Trump, dealing with Liz and a couple other
10:50
cases. But I do want to tell our
10:52
listeners about kind of where you came from.
10:54
And one of the the big things in your bio is you went to UCLA,
10:57
you graduated from Harvard Law at 22 years old, makes you one
11:01
of the youngest graduates in 200 years.
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And then you got recruited into this massive law firm.
11:07
Can you kind of explain what life was like for you at that
11:10
moment? So when I went to law school,
11:13
it's kind of like the movie in the firm.
11:14
These big law firms show up and they recruit you and they offer
11:19
you a lot of money. I mean, I was, you know, a law
11:23
student. I was 20 years old.
11:24
I was making more money than I could possibly dream of.
11:27
So I ended up going after law school in one of these firms
11:30
that was a lawyer firm, massive firm.
11:32
At the time, it was the largest law firm in Los Angeles.
11:34
I don't know where things are right now.
11:37
And, you know, you end up representing corporations that
11:41
have a lot of money. So my clients were Disney and
11:46
Marriott and, you know, huge company.
11:50
But yeah, but you're defending them.
11:53
You're defending them oftentimes against the little guy or a
11:57
smaller company. And, you know, ultimately we
12:01
were hired by the Catholic Church to represent them in the
12:03
sex abuse cases. And, you know, I hated it.
12:07
That's not why I went to law school.
12:08
And that was sort of the motivation for me to leave.
12:11
I always wanted to be a prosecutor and become a judge.
12:14
That was always my career goal. So, you know, I was looking to,
12:19
you know, leave, join the government, and the opportunity
12:22
came up for me to join the Department of Justice, the US
12:24
Attorney's office. But, you know, I didn't have the
12:27
best experience working at what we call big law, the huge
12:31
corporations, just because I did not like representing those
12:35
types of clients. I like helping people and, you
12:39
know, pursuing justice. And that's something I was able
12:41
to do as a. Prosecutor OK, that's definitely
12:43
your next step, your federal prosecutor in San Diego.
12:47
There's got to be two way different worlds.
12:50
Oh, completely. The way I describe it is when I
12:53
was working at the big firm, miserable every day except the
12:57
twice a month I got paid. When I was a prosecutor, I was
13:01
happy every day. Except that's why someone like,
13:04
oh, no. So took a huge, huge pay cut.
13:07
Yeah. To pursue justice.
13:10
And it it was awesome. You know, we were on the border.
13:13
This was, you know what I thought at the time, it's still,
13:16
it's still continuing. But this was the heyday of drug
13:20
cartel violence, so we're dealing with drug and human
13:23
trafficking cases. It was awesome.
13:25
I loved it. Amazing job.
13:28
But then I had a couple kids and then so I did.
13:32
I stopped doing the DOJ work. I went to the city of LA did you
13:39
know, public corruption and government ethics, campaign
13:41
finance, election law work for a while And ultimately started my
13:45
own firm. Because, you know, I sort of
13:49
reached a crossroads where I couldn't work for the government
13:51
anymore just because I had two young kids and childcare costs a
13:56
lot. My wife's a lawyer for foster
13:58
kids, so 2 government lawyers and two small kids living in LA
14:02
which couldn't really make ends meet financially.
14:04
Now, with the work that you did for, you know, as a federal
14:09
prosecutor in San Diego, I spend my, like most of my time
14:14
researching the kind of cases that you've prosecuted.
14:17
And some of them are really intense.
14:19
There have been times that I stepped away from my computer
14:22
and was just like I need a break.
14:25
I don't want to see any more crime scene photos.
14:28
I don't want to read anything else from these people.
14:31
So I guess my, my my big question is how to use stomach.
14:34
The things that are heinous that were part of that job.
14:38
Like it was hard. I mean, there were certain
14:40
things that I absolutely hated doing.
14:43
I did not like child porn cases and I didn't like sexual abuse
14:48
of minors cases. I just Crimes involving children
14:51
are just really hard and handled some of those cases I didn't
14:55
like. Those are the.
14:55
Ones that affect me the most, too.
14:57
I mean, you're dealing with child victims.
14:59
I mean, what's worse than a kid that's been the victim of a
15:02
crime? Yeah, you know, but when you're
15:04
dealing with other types of violence, like some people hate
15:06
it, some people didn't like amassing onto drugs or
15:10
trafficked people or, you know, the violence that accompanies
15:14
all that. But, you know, I liked it.
15:16
It was interesting. I was working with great agents,
15:19
federal agents, right. So look at FBI or Gea or customs
15:23
or Border Patrol. And, you know, we were, we were
15:26
keeping the American people safe.
15:28
So certainly a lot better than defending corporations.
15:31
Absolutely loved it. Greatest job in the world.
15:35
If it wasn't for finances, I'd probably still be doing that or
15:37
be sitting on the bench as a judge somewhere.
15:42
Let's talk about, I guess, some of your really big cases from
15:45
that time period. I mean, obviously the huge one
15:47
is you helped take somebody off of the America's Most Wanted
15:51
list. Yeah, so this was someone who
15:54
was a murderer, drug kingpin here in California.
16:00
And you know, he was involved in a drug related murder, fled to
16:04
Mexico. So we spent some time looking
16:07
for him and through the help of, you know, cooperators, it took a
16:12
long time, years We were able to identify where he was in Mexico,
16:18
literally at a map we're able to go in there and arrest him.
16:22
So spent a lot of time working on this case, was really proud
16:25
of the work that we did, kind of flipping folks and ultimately we
16:30
were able to get one of the more dangerous men in the United
16:35
States and Mexico and put him behind bars.
16:38
I mean, that's a major. Yeah.
16:40
The other thing was, I noticed that when you were the director
16:42
of enforcement for the LA City Ethics Commission, they said
16:46
that you got some of the highest fines in years in terms of, I
16:54
guess, finding corruption. Yeah.
16:56
So, you know, I loved being a prosecutor.
16:59
You know, when when I put the department justice work away, I
17:04
ended up being the enforcement director of the city of LA, the
17:06
Ethics Commission. So that's basically a watchdog
17:09
that oversees the mayor, all the elected officials, high level
17:13
employees of the city of LA And you know, I was able to oversee
17:19
a couple big elections, Eric Garcetti's election, I mean,
17:23
this was, this was a while ago and you know, we would
17:28
investigate these candidates, we'd investigate these elected
17:30
officials and we'd go after them.
17:34
So it could be an administrative action.
17:36
It was criminal. We work with the DA's office to
17:39
prosecute them. And really so turned out after I
17:42
left that city of Lai mean, anyone that lives in LA or is
17:46
familiar with it, it has had such a problem with corruption.
17:49
You're talking about council members, multiple under
17:52
indictment, going to prison for years, taking bribes.
17:57
I mean, it's really bad and it continues to get worse.
18:00
So I did sort of learn and understand, you know, that
18:05
political side of things and how much really, if you kind of look
18:11
behind the curtain, how dirty it really is.
18:13
I remember a case gosh this was had to have been like early 2
18:17
the aughts so, but I remember was specifically a police
18:22
station. There was a woman who was like
18:25
the like a 911 operator and her daughter was a prostitute, which
18:29
I don't think she knew at the time, but apparently.
18:32
Almost all of the police officers who worked in that
18:36
district had seen her, and she was a minor.
18:39
And I just remember like a lot of people lost their jobs and
18:43
then they picked a new police chief and then that one lost
18:46
their job too. Like, is that what we're talking
18:49
about, those kinds of cases or even worse?
18:51
Yeah. So when you're dealing with that
18:53
type of corruption, we've gone after a lot of, you know what we
18:58
think I respect for law enforcement, former prosecutor.
19:01
But I mean, there's some law enforcement types that should
19:05
pay a lot of money or even be behind bars, right?
19:08
I mean, I believe no one is above the law.
19:10
I don't care if you're a police officer, you're a president,
19:14
you're a former president, you're a president's son.
19:16
I think the law should apply to everyone.
19:19
You know, when I was doing the ethics work for the city of Lai,
19:23
oversaw all the politicians, there was a separate police
19:27
Commission that oversaw Ltd. So that was kind of stuff I was
19:32
dealing with, you know, the mayor, deputy mayor, city
19:35
attorney, controller, all the City Council members.
19:39
So anyone that was kind of in that world was under my
19:42
supervision. The police was a whole nother
19:44
Commission with someone just like me that was overseeing them
19:47
on that stuff, definitely. Needed somebody like you in my
19:49
state because in our capital we had an entire slew of
19:53
politicians who were just using money for random things.
19:58
You know, got to love that. Unfortunately, the tail as all
20:01
this time, you know there's power and it can be corrupting
20:04
here and around the world, so I don't know what the answer is.
20:07
Why people in town of 50,000 need a private jet anywhere?
20:11
You don't need that life. Yeah, I don't understand that at
20:13
all. Yeah, no, definitely.
20:15
Not but like you said, you take a huge risk and you open your
20:18
own firm. You want to switch gears
20:19
entirely to personal law. Got to be scary, but you said
20:26
that you needed to. Kind of do better for your
20:28
family. What's that look like?
20:31
Yeah. So my wife and I, when basically
20:35
we couldn't afford to both work for the government, we sat down
20:39
one day and she told me that one of us needs to get a real job
20:43
and that one of us is me. So my real job, that means go
20:46
back to the private sector and make money.
20:48
Actually, I'm gonna be honest. I almost went back to the farm.
20:52
They're talking about coming back.
20:54
And you know, there was a, there was a lot of money involved.
20:58
And you know, fortunately at the time, my current partner's name
21:03
is Allen. He actually recruited me at a
21:04
law school. He was a young attorney at the
21:07
time at the same firm, big law, young attorney.
21:10
He recruited me at a law school and he left a few years after I
21:13
joined. And he started his own firm,
21:15
small firm. He teamed up with the public
21:17
defender, buddy of his. He was doing everything, family,
21:19
law, immigration, criminal, whatever came through the door,
21:22
the more and more he started doing plaintiffs work.
21:24
So employment, personal entry, representing people are saying
21:26
bad it happened to them and doing like contingency, which
21:29
means wasn't charged an hourly or retainer, just a percentage
21:32
of what he recovered. So it happened that at the time
21:36
that I was looking to go back, he approached me and he
21:39
convinced me to start a new firm with them.
21:42
He's like, listen, don't go back.
21:44
You're not going to like defending corporations.
21:46
You're not like defending criminals.
21:48
We can represent the victims. We could represent plaintiffs.
21:51
And I said, I'm like, why would I do that?
21:54
I'm not going to be that guy on some billboard or bus bench.
21:56
That's just not me. It's like, no, it's not going to
21:58
be like that. You're going to be helping
22:00
people. It's like being a prosecutor but
22:02
actually getting paid. And that kind of goes back to
22:04
that 510%. We have the luxury now of
22:07
choosing our clients, choosing our cases.
22:09
If I don't feel it's a righteous case, I'm not going to take it
22:12
With plenty of business. You can, you know, refer them to
22:16
other lawyers or refer them to the local Bar Association.
22:20
We'll help them out. But unless I personally believe
22:23
in the case, and if I think it's a just case worth pursuing, I'm
22:26
not going to take it. OK, one of my things that I've
22:30
been doing lately is I like your LinkedIn posts and you, I kind
22:37
of scroll through and I'm like, look at all this stuff they're
22:39
doing. This is awesome.
22:42
I saw that it said that, you know, I'm a nerd.
22:44
What can I say? That's the best kind of people.
22:47
I mean, gosh, there are so many. Like you sued Charlie Sheen.
22:52
That was another big one. We we, we.
22:55
That was, yeah. He had Liz's lawyer.
22:58
So. No, No Way.
23:00
And Marty Singer two, yeah, he had singer, yeah.
23:03
So Singer represented Sheen on that one.
23:05
So yeah, like I said, he's someone that, you know, I've
23:08
dealt with. And again, sometimes it gets,
23:11
you know, like I always try to keep it professional, but on the
23:13
other hand, I want to protect my clients, you know, both in the
23:17
courtroom and in the media. So like, so hopefully we can we
23:22
can keep things professional. But yeah, I mean, I've dealt
23:25
with Marty and his team before, so.
23:27
And then there was the case where you represented female
23:30
inmates who've been assaulted by a sheriff's deputy while in
23:33
police custody. Yes, so we've done that.
23:36
We've done a lot of sexual assault cases.
23:40
We've done a lot of police misconduct cases, civil rights
23:44
cases, death cases where officers have killed someone.
23:47
So I mean, what we've done a lot.
23:50
You know, I've sued the Department of Justice, my former
23:53
employer, for race discrimination I need.
23:55
To know about that one, yeah. So I mean, we sued.
23:59
It was. It was someone that was
24:02
retaliated against because, you know, the allegations were, he's
24:06
retaliated against because his wife was Latina.
24:09
And, you know, at the time there were some allegations of racism
24:13
at the US Attorney's office of the Department of Justice.
24:15
So he sided with the victims of race discrimination.
24:22
And his supervisors changed his review, put a letter of
24:25
reprimand in his file for no reason.
24:29
So when I said prostitute Carta, I didn't sue the Department of
24:33
Justice. You know, we sued.
24:36
You know, we file, we're litigating, and then you know,
24:40
we won the Department of Justice.
24:41
They took it all back. They took a lot of reprimand,
24:43
back changes, evaluation, everything to what it was
24:46
before, before the retaliation. They paid for all our costs,
24:49
everything. So what?
24:50
Happens for that guy though, at that point.
24:53
I mean, you don't feel comfortable working there
24:55
anymore, but you know what I think now they know.
24:58
Look, if they mess with him again, just cuz he's a white
25:02
guy, doesn't mean that. But he's a lawyer himself, that
25:05
he's not gonna lawyer up and he's gonna fight back.
25:08
So if we feel that there's a case, that's a righteous case.
25:11
I don't care who it is, who the defendant is, We are gonna
25:14
represent the victim because that's what we do.
25:17
One of your reset posts on LinkedIn that I really like.
25:21
We should post about Kanye West or correction.
25:24
Yay, twist it up. You and ya are because of the
25:30
multiple cases that you had against him or, you know,
25:34
defending people who worked for him.
25:36
Yeah, I spent a lot of time litigating against Lay Yay or
25:42
Kanye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West.
25:45
So we represent several of the teachers of the Donda Academy
25:50
that he founded, folks that he recruited and ultimately fired
25:56
because they stood up for the students.
25:59
You know, if you kind of read the allegations and the
26:02
complaint, Kanye didn't like windows, Kids were eating on the
26:05
floor or eating sushi. And the teacher said, whoa, this
26:08
isn't right, this isn't safe. It was exposed to electrical
26:11
wire. And when they complained, you
26:12
know, he would just fire. The thing is, we also represent.
26:15
We're mandated reporters. We have to say things if we
26:18
think kids are in danger. It's kind of part of the job.
26:21
Oh, absolutely. I mean, as you know, teachers,
26:24
doctors, I mean, you have to report any safety issue and the
26:28
allegation of abuse. So, you know, we're fortunate to
26:31
be representing those former employees of Kanye and Donda, we
26:38
have another employee of his that was, you know, kind of a
26:43
contractor, security guard that we recently filed, not a
26:49
teacher. A different case.
26:50
You know, I was a legal commentator on the Kanye and Kim
26:54
documentary for HBO, so and the part of it's just kind of being
26:57
in LA and around all this small legal community.
27:00
But I've had to spend a lot of time learning about Kanye West
27:05
recently. I maybe more than you ever
27:09
wanted to know, I'm sure. I'm sure you know when it's
27:13
folks like Lizzo and Kanye, usually it's not the first and
27:16
it won't be the last, so. That's sad though, especially
27:20
like people that a lot of people look up to.
27:22
And I know they say, you know, never meet your idols, They'll
27:25
let you down, yada yada. But there's not a, like, the
27:28
whole country's kind of in a crisis right now financially.
27:32
I mean, you see what's going on with the state of the the, the
27:36
country and figuring out our finances.
27:38
That was supposed to be done three months ago.
27:40
But you know what I mean? So like, people want a little
27:42
bit of something good to listen to or hold on to, and then you
27:47
find out that the the person you like or the music you like is
27:50
made by somebody who's. Awful, You know, it's it is sad,
27:55
I agree. But you know, this is really our
27:57
system of justice. So but I'm not going to put
28:01
Kanye West or Liz O in jail. It's not a criminal case, right?
28:05
So when someone harms someone, right, someone sexually harasses
28:08
someone, someone discriminates against their race or their
28:12
medical condition, our civil justice system, all there is, is
28:18
the payment of money damages. That's it.
28:21
There's nothing else I can do to Kanye and Lizzo.
28:24
I can't make Lizzo eat a dirty banana, you know, out of one of
28:30
the, you know, sex show workers in Amsterdam.
28:35
Like some of the things she was making, some of her employees
28:38
do, allegedly. It's just it's not an eye for an
28:40
eye system. All I can do is they can tell
28:44
their story and a jury decides, listen, you've been harmed.
28:46
This is how much I think the harm is worth.
28:48
So people say, oh, this is just about money and you know, some
28:52
money grab like that's the only option that we have.
28:56
If you've been harmed by your employer, if you've been hurt by
29:00
someone, even if the police kill someone you know, if it's an
29:03
accident, you still might be negligent.
29:06
I mean, all you can get is money.
29:08
Now obviously, look, if you're talking about criminal conduct,
29:11
that's an entirely different story.
29:13
But most of these cases that we're talking about, it's just
29:15
not criminal. It's civil and civil.
29:16
The remedy is money. Now you do a lot of commentary.
29:19
So have you heard about this Disney lawsuit that's people are
29:23
talking about right now? Somebody what lawsuit are we
29:27
talking? About this is the one about the
29:28
water slide that the the lady it was.
29:31
Well, OK, so the press is saying.
29:35
You know, it's over a wedgie, but oh, this is a wedgie.
29:39
Wait, I mean, this person had like, their intestines go where
29:43
they weren't supposed to. That's like, yeah, I did.
29:47
I did read about this one. This is just in the past day or
29:50
so. Yeah, I did read about this.
29:52
What I will say is, look, I represented Disney.
29:56
And no, I, I, I I've been on both sides.
29:59
I could say that. Listen, jurors really like
30:02
Disney, at least here in California where I am, they they
30:05
tend to win a lot of the time. So I am not saying that the
30:09
wedgie didn't happen. I'm not saying that the person
30:12
wasn't hurt. They may well be hurt.
30:14
It might be a completely legitimate case.
30:17
But Disney's one of those defendants that jurors like, so
30:22
that's that big case. They go to trial.
30:24
You could better have your experts that are going to
30:26
support what you're saying because the jurors think it's
30:28
just a wedgie. It's not a good case, obviously,
30:30
if there's that abdominal issues, GI issues, I mean if
30:34
there's serious medical problems caused by this and there's a
30:36
failure to warrant, then it is a good case.
30:38
Yeah, as soon as I saw, like the way the media referenced it, I
30:43
mean, my mind went straight back to McDonald's.
30:46
And coffee. And I went.
30:48
That was one of those cases that when I learned what it actually
30:51
was about, I was horrified. Yeah, I mean, people don't
30:55
realize. I mean, that McDonald's coffee
30:57
case, that was serious burns, real serious injuries.
31:01
It's not like, you know, you spilled some coffee and you got,
31:04
you're closed or you got like a dry cleanup.
31:06
I mean, you know, I think the insurance industry and these
31:11
corporate defendants, they have a lot of money and they spend
31:14
it, you know, trying to argue that all these cases are
31:18
frivolous. And look, I'm not saying there
31:19
aren't some frivolous cases. Like people lie, people do
31:22
things for money. We as lawyers try to vet through
31:26
that. And like I said, hopefully
31:27
that's in the 90 plus percent of cases we reject.
31:30
But there are some people that are really, really hurt by
31:34
corporations and their lives are forever changed and they're
31:39
entitled to justice and not, you know, anything less.
31:43
Because I'll tell you this, I mean, Brittany, every single one
31:47
of my clients, every single one, I ended the Case No matter how
31:50
much money they got. They say, you know what, Nima, I
31:53
would give this all back if this never happened.
31:55
I don't feel pain if I don't have to suffer the rest of my
31:57
life. I mean, there's no dollar
31:59
amount. I didn't lose a loved one.
32:01
I don't have to suffer this embarrassment, this harassment,
32:03
this discrimination. So, you know, I would be wary of
32:08
corporations that try to avoid responsibility by trying to
32:11
frame all these clients. That's frivolous.
32:14
Are there any companies that you think do the right thing usually
32:19
like? You could say offhand, like
32:21
these guys usually handle things correctly.
32:23
Yeah, I will say that there are some companies that I've never
32:26
sued. They have really good compliance
32:30
in place, right? But some companies, I sue a lot
32:33
more because they'll just cut corners and they don't care, you
32:37
know, about sexual harassment training and racial sensitivity
32:42
training and kind of doing the right thing that's required by
32:45
the law. You know, same thing with, you
32:47
know, certain insurance companies.
32:48
There's some that, you know, make a claim, they pay the
32:51
claim, you know, and I've never just sue one of their clients
32:56
because they do the right thing. There's some insurance companies
33:00
that will lowball or deny the claims and we got to sue them
33:04
all the time. So it's really kind of a top
33:06
down thing and it depends on the defendant, depends on the
33:08
company. OK, yeah.
33:11
I just, I don't know. I think it's like a regular
33:13
person. It's kind of scary.
33:16
And I know a lot of people just opt to quit or, you know, leave
33:21
a company because the idea of having to get an attorney and do
33:24
what your team would need to do for them just seems.
33:28
Financially impossible for regular people and lawyers are
33:33
so expensive. You know, when I was doing
33:36
defense work, you know, the monthly bills were sometimes
33:38
millions of dollars a month, not to say our cases would be that
33:42
much. But lawyers, even the cheapest
33:45
lawyers are going to cost you thousands of dollars.
33:47
And that's just the bottom line. You know, minimum, minimum start
33:50
going to trial 10s earning hundreds of thousands of
33:52
dollars. So you know what we do is we
33:57
don't charge anything upfront. We're only paid if we win.
34:00
So we have an, we have an interest in the case and if
34:02
there's any cost, court costs, experts, everything, we advance
34:05
all that. So we accept your case.
34:07
You're not going to pay anything out of pocket if we lose, Well,
34:10
we'll lose once in a while, rarely, but we lose.
34:13
We absorb all the costs. The client will never ever be
34:16
out of pocket. They don't have to pay us for
34:18
attorney fees. And if we win, then we get paid
34:20
and you know, the costs are repaid, but we advance
34:23
everything. So you know, I I tell folks that
34:27
obviously crying a lawyer is an important choice, but at least
34:31
if you're hiring us, the finances aren't something that
34:35
you have to worry about because it's a no risk situation to you.
34:41
Now, since you deal a lot with people who are working, do you
34:45
have advice for people who who might find themself in that
34:50
position? Like you feel like you're
34:52
layered. It's your job.
34:54
Did something that they shouldn't have, whether it be
34:57
discrimination, you know, violence, anything like that,
35:00
Yeah. My number one advice in any type
35:04
of case is contact a lawyer, most of them in our space, they
35:10
will offer a free consultation. OK, trying to handle a case on
35:14
your own. It can be a Fender Bender.
35:17
It can be a workplace issue dog, but it's the worst thing you
35:20
could do, you know, just like, I don't know, I'm not gonna go fix
35:24
my own car, You know, I'm not gonna go, you know, clean my own
35:28
teeth. And you know, it's just, I
35:30
think, a mistake. People try to handle these
35:31
claims on their own. Look, I get it.
35:33
People don't like lawyers as a distrust of lawyers, but we
35:36
really kind of want to make, and the reason I do a lot of what I
35:38
do, the commentary and the social media, is I want to make
35:41
a law understandable. I want to make it accessible,
35:44
and I want people to pick up the phone, you know, if there's an
35:47
issue. Because a lot of the problems we
35:49
see are employers or companies, insurance or otherwise, that
35:53
take advantage of people, whether they're not represented.
35:54
So that's my number one advice. Talk to a lawyer.
35:57
My #2 is if there is an issue at work, you know, you got to
36:03
document it. You know, you got to report it
36:05
to HR. A lot of the claims are based on
36:08
notice, right? So something's going on behind
36:10
the scenes. Someone's being racist,
36:12
someone's actually harassing you, you know?
36:14
And the complaint doesn't happen, or it's verbal.
36:19
It's not the same as a written complaint.
36:20
So those are my two pieces of advice.
36:22
Consult the lawyer and make sure everything's in writing.
36:25
All right. Now, I want to pivot a little
36:28
bit because one of the things that I think both you and I care
36:32
a lot about are wrongful imprisonment in the United
36:36
States. And I definitely would like to
36:39
talk to someone about that. Yeah.
36:41
I mean, obviously as a prosecutor, my greatest
36:43
nightmare was to put an innocent person in jail.
36:46
I was a big believer in Justice Blackstone's theory, and he was
36:54
a a judge way back in the UK many years ago.
36:57
But he said that it's better that 10 guilty men go free than
37:01
one innocent person suffer. And obviously it was olden days.
37:05
So they're talking about men. But, you know, if I had any
37:08
doubt in my mind about a defendant's guilt or innocence,
37:12
I would not prosecute that person.
37:15
Now, I'm not saying all prosecutors are the same.
37:17
And innocent people are convicted in this country all
37:21
the time. And there's guilty people that
37:23
get away and there's guilty people that say they're innocent
37:26
when they're not innocent. So, you know, I hope that, you
37:30
know, if there's any prosecutors out there listening or law
37:32
enforcement types and they have any doubt, listen, just do the
37:35
right thing. It's better to let the person go
37:38
than to wrongfully convicted innocent person.
37:42
Now, are you connected to any of the organizations that work on
37:46
that right now? Obviously everybody knows the
37:48
Innocence Project, but there's a lot of other ones too.
37:51
Yeah, I mean, they do great work.
37:53
I don't do any criminal work anymore.
37:54
I'm one of the few prosecutors that I don't touch criminal
37:57
offence, so I'm only doing civil plaintiffs work.
38:00
But yeah, I mean, I will represent victims if they've
38:04
been wrongfully accused and exonerated and because the
38:09
police misconduct. So, you know, we do have some
38:13
cases that are like a kind of a criminal component or the D A's
38:17
office is prosecuting, you know, the person who's responsible for
38:24
like a sexual assault or rape or something of that effect.
38:26
But I'm just not doing criminal offense work.
38:28
Because even though those people are innocent, I just like being
38:32
on offense. It's just a personal decision as
38:35
opposed to being on defense. It feels like I think I saw
38:39
something recently that said that something along the lines
38:41
of like only 3% of criminal cases are ever closed and that
38:47
just feels like a real breadth of cases that are criminals are
38:52
just doing things. I mean, how do we get better at
38:57
that number? How do we do better at getting
38:59
more convictions? And not messing up.
39:02
I mean, you're talking. Yeah, you're talking to a former
39:04
prosecutor, right. So, you know, I think a lot of
39:07
people should be prosecuted. I think a lot of cases aren't
39:09
prosecuted. That should be.
39:11
I think if you break the law, you know, you there should be
39:15
some accountability. So if you're talking to someone
39:19
that thinks there should be more prosecutions, I'm on that side
39:24
because I think it's important to keep to, to keep people safe
39:29
and to make sure that perpetrators pay a price for
39:33
what they've done. And I guess I have to ask this
39:35
cuz I feel like it's the same kind of question I would have
39:38
asked my parents. How do you feel about
39:40
executions? It's hard.
39:42
You know. I think on one hand, like I
39:45
said, you never ever, ever wanna execute an innocent person.
39:50
Right. That's like the worst of all.
39:53
And the problem. So, you know, in theory, yeah,
39:58
if someone, like, kills my wife or my kids, I would want them to
40:02
die. You know, the the question is,
40:05
you know, is the death penalty from like a public policy
40:08
reason? So.
40:08
So that's my person, right? You asked me, someone hurts my
40:12
wife and kids. I want them to, you know, not
40:15
life. And no, absolutely.
40:17
You know, so then the question is okay, Are innocent people
40:20
ever sentenced to death? Is there a racial component
40:25
right? Where?
40:26
Disproportionately black men or put to death or you know, people
40:30
of color are death penalty qualified lawyers getting the
40:36
resources that they need, you know, are jurors considering
40:40
mitigation. So it's really tough, I'd say
40:44
personally all about it, But from a public policy
40:47
perspective, I totally understand why people in states
40:52
like mine, like California, people in the legislature,
40:55
people who are prosecutors, they don't believe in it.
40:59
It's one of those things I I really do understand both sides.
41:02
And the second? It's for public policy and and
41:04
criminal justice reasons. Yeah, I feel like in, you know,
41:07
cases that are the big ones, like, you know, the big serial
41:09
killers from the 70s where they had, you know, just giant piles
41:14
of evidence that could all be, you know, definitively linked,
41:19
totally understand that one, but.
41:22
On the other hand, like you said, I mean, when we know that
41:26
there are people who don't get a fair shake because they're poor
41:29
or they're an immigrant or they're a part of a marginalized
41:33
group, then my my brain goes, this doesn't feel right.
41:38
Yeah. And you really would want it to
41:40
be for the worst of the worst and not just because.
41:45
And again, I'm not saying that anyone's making decisions for
41:49
racially motivated reasons, but I mean, we can talk on the
41:52
Racism is real. You know, implicit biases are
41:55
real. I mean, it would be naive for me
41:58
to ignore all that just so. Yeah, you know, justice is
42:02
colorblind. I wish it was.
42:03
I mean, I'm an Iranian American, even though I was born here,
42:06
I've dealt with racism myself at the Department of Justice.
42:09
So you know, I I understand the arguments on both sides.
42:14
No, I definitely do too. It's just.
42:17
I think it's just, it's always whenever I see these cases pop
42:20
up with someone, you know, 25 years, 20 years, and there was
42:26
absolutely nothing behind it. It just, it just hits my heart.
42:29
Like here's a person who lost a huge chunk of their life and
42:33
there's no restitution for that. Like, what could you give that
42:36
person that would make them happy when you stole a third of
42:40
their life? Yeah.
42:42
If you're talking about the folks that are convicted, you
42:45
know, that are innocent. Yeah.
42:47
I mean it's it's incredibly sad and it's a miscarriage of
42:51
justice and it's just like I said, my nightmare as a
42:54
prosecutor. So far, no one's ever come back
42:57
more than 1000 people and said that they were innocent, thank
43:00
God. Or they said they're innocent,
43:02
but no one's been proven innocent or there's been no kind
43:05
of credible claim of innocence. But no, it's it's a it's a huge
43:09
problem. You know, on the other side.
43:11
Think of all the victims that have lost loved ones and never
43:15
got any cases, have never been solved.
43:17
Yeah. Yeah, Cold case killers.
43:19
And, you know, so it's I wish I had an answer.
43:24
You know, unfortunately as lawyers we're in the business of
43:27
misery. And I cover these murder cases
43:30
every week. You know, different ones,
43:32
terrible, terrible cases. And doesn't make it any easier
43:35
when I hear the victims, you know, the loved ones who could
43:38
understand, they testify how important they're their
43:43
children, their their spouse, their sibling was to them.
43:48
One of the things that I I saw you comment on fairly recently
43:53
was parents of school shooters are getting felony charges now.
44:02
I'm very much for it, honestly. I think.
44:06
Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's something that, you know, I've
44:10
been talking about. You know, obviously there there
44:12
was the biggest case really is the crumbly case in Michigan.
44:14
But you know, there's the case in North Carolina where, you
44:19
know, 6 year old got a gun, the teacher.
44:21
So we're seeing it more and more now.
44:23
Yeah, teacher was shot. And the guy it's so hard to be a
44:26
teacher as is, you know, you're working for not a whole lot of
44:29
money. You're talking to a preschool
44:30
teacher, Neema. I mean, you're doing God's work,
44:36
but it's it's not for a lot of money, so I know.
44:39
Love my students, but I would love a good paycheck.
44:43
Yeah. So to kind of put yourself at
44:46
risk of being shot on top of it, not only preschoolers are going
44:50
to be shooting you, but but, you know, being a teacher is not an
44:54
easy job. So, you know, I think on one
44:57
hand we're seeing a little bit of a shift in prosecutors and
45:01
we've seen this in different types of cases.
45:02
Right. So you know historically
45:04
prosecutors, they're risk averse.
45:06
They don't want to lose. They're expected to win every
45:08
time. That's why for years in this in
45:10
this country, you didn't see police officers prosecuting
45:13
because I'm the Rodney King, right?
45:16
I mean he's the officers are acquitted the first time around
45:20
and the feds retry the case and then I think they get two or the
45:22
four. But I mean, the defense verdict
45:26
rate and police misconduct cases, I mean, defendants would
45:29
win all the time. And prosecutors, I don't like
45:32
losing. I don't like taking tough cases
45:35
or or representing, you know, rape victims, right, Because
45:38
often times it's that, he said. She said.
45:40
So this is a delayed report, but we're seeing a shift right now.
45:43
Prosecutors are being more aggressive.
45:46
They're they're taking on difficult cases if they're
45:50
righteous cases, right. So I think some of it is that.
45:54
But really, in this interview I did with Fox, I think one of the
45:57
big differences we're seeing is just there is a lot more
46:02
evidence right now. So I said, what would Derek
46:05
Chauvin have been prosecuted for George Floyd if the whole world
46:09
didn't catch it on? Yeah.
46:10
There were at least 20 different angles of crime.
46:13
Yeah, maybe not. Yeah, maybe not.
46:16
Maybe be a free man. Right now, I mean, I remember
46:18
and I think in some of these cases.
46:20
Baltimore. Do you remember that case with
46:21
the guy whose neck? What is his name?
46:25
Yeah, I mean, his spine was severed because he wasn't
46:28
properly secured in the back of the vehicle.
46:30
That was a huge case. Yeah.
46:33
As I'm a huge believer in body cams for all police officers, I
46:39
like cameras, ever, cameras in the courtroom, Everything should
46:41
be ever, never, never. I mean, it protects the officer,
46:45
protects the public defendants. But you know, kind of going back
46:49
to your question, I think the reason we're seeing these
46:52
prosecutions more and more is because there's just more
46:54
evidence. You know, you have the Crumblies
46:57
buying their get a gun, I think it was for Christmas, right, or
47:01
the holidays, post it, posting it on social, posting on
47:04
Facebook, you know, a 16 year old kid, you know, and so you're
47:09
seeing more evidence in these cases because of social media,
47:13
because of cameras. That really gives prosecutors a
47:15
little bit of of an advantage. I don't think that case we
47:20
prosecuted had there not been so much public information about
47:26
Ethan. You know, the school told the
47:29
parents, hey, he's searching for ammunition on his phone, you
47:32
know, he's drawing. These are kind of terrible
47:35
things, you know. So once the parents are on
47:39
notice, they can't say, well, we didn't know, like, how can we
47:41
responsible? Because normally criminal
47:43
conduct, it's not like civil, like in the civil context, Lizo
47:48
is liable for the misconduct of her employees.
47:52
That's just as a matter of what. You're the boss.
47:53
You're responsible. That's on the civil side,
47:55
criminal. It's all about your own conduct,
47:58
Okay. So like, what did you do?
48:00
And in this particular case, look, the parents were told that
48:04
the son is dangerous. Hey, do you want to get him?
48:05
Do you want to give him some mental health treatment?
48:07
He's just a kid. And they chose to ignore it.
48:09
So the argument is, look, you're playing Russian roulette with
48:12
people's lives and you should be held accountable.
48:14
Yeah, well, I mean, it's the fact that they got called into
48:16
school that morning and then they were like, we're not taking
48:19
him home, just you could have just taken him.
48:22
Home that would have saved 4 people's lives.
48:26
At least that day it would have. And look, if you have a gun,
48:30
it's your responsibility as an adult to keep it locked up.
48:35
Yeah, there's no way Your kid. Yeah, I mean, your kid should be
48:38
like, how many gun deaths there are in this country because kids
48:40
get access to guns. Like how many suicide, forget
48:43
even the accident on the suicide.
48:45
There's so many gun related suicides because kids get access
48:47
to their parents. You know, I'm not saying they
48:50
wouldn't have killed themselves some other way, Maybe they would
48:52
have. But like your job as a parent is
48:55
you have a gun, you got to keep it locked.
48:57
Absolutely. And certainly don't buy your kid
48:59
a gun who buys a 16 year old a gun.
49:01
I mean that's just. I get it.
49:03
People are like, oh, we like to go hunting.
49:05
I'm like, well then this should be a hunting rifle and not a
49:08
pistol. Exactly.
49:10
And it's gonna shoot up with your kid.
49:12
Yeah. And if it's legal, you better
49:15
make sure, like, just like you want to give your kid, you know,
49:19
a bottle of tequila, right? You know, don't give him a gun.
49:22
You know? I mean, the laws exist for a
49:24
reason. You're a parent.
49:25
You got to be responsible. You got to keep those things
49:27
locked up and say. No, I I definitely agree with
49:30
you on so much of that. Well, what I want to say is
49:34
first thank you so much for being here.
49:36
Is there anything that you wanted to to talk about?
49:38
I know you have a book, which you can definitely.
49:41
I do have a book. Yeah, I thank you.
49:45
When I wrote it during the pandemic, I was actually, I got
49:47
to give credits to Nancy Grace. It was we were talking about.
49:50
I forgot what it was another George Ford or Kyle right now.
49:53
It was a commercial. And she's like, meanwhile you've
49:55
done all sorts of crazy things. You work for the big law firms
49:59
and the government and have your own firm.
50:00
You should write a book. And I'm like, you know what?
50:02
I will write a book. So my book is called Harvard to
50:05
Hashtags. But my journey from being a
50:08
Harvard lawyer represents big companies government and now
50:11
just do it every time on social media right with the tick tocks
50:14
with Instagrams. You can check this out at West
50:16
Coast trial Lawyers at Neema Rahmani.
50:18
That's NE AM ARAHMANI. We always do fun things.
50:22
I just shot a couple tick tocks today.
50:25
And the book and the book Harvard hashtag every dollar
50:29
from that book. All the proceeds go to foster
50:31
children at Children's Law Center.
50:33
So it's not a moneymaker. I think foster kids are some of
50:38
the most vulnerable, and they have such a difficult road ahead
50:43
of them, at least here in California.
50:45
And I know this because my wife's in the system within
50:49
three years of turning 18. Within three years, more than
50:52
50% of these foster kids, they end up homeless, trafficked, in
50:57
prison or dead. Actually, they don't have much
50:59
of a chance. One of my best friends.
51:01
He did this for a pretty long time actually, before he moved
51:03
on to getting his masters and his doctorate.
51:05
But his job was specifically to work with kids who are in aging
51:10
out of the foster system, and they, I think, worked with them
51:13
until they were 23. They were trying to get it
51:16
pushed to 24, but essentially helped them get to college or
51:20
wherever they want to go. Help them learn all the things
51:22
that a parent would have taught you.
51:24
I wish there were more organizations like this.
51:26
Across the country because it's so needed.
51:30
It really is. And it's so sad what these kids
51:33
go through so like. Life's hard enough to not have
51:36
anybody in your corner, exactly, without any family support.
51:40
And then you're right. You know a lot of states, you
51:42
know, again, things are changing.
51:43
They're getting, they're getting better and and they're pushing
51:46
it out like some. Some states are even going as
51:48
much as 25, but there's others where it's 18 like you're on
51:52
your own. And what?
51:53
I don't know. I wasn't very responsible at 18.
51:56
I don't know about you. You were heading to Harvard, so
51:59
you might have been a little different from the rest of us.
52:01
No, I mean, I had a lot of support from my parents.
52:04
So I mean, my life would have been completely different if
52:07
they wanted. 18 I was a complete mess.
52:08
I don't know if I would be able to do it by myself.
52:10
So definite respect to your wife for the work that she does
52:13
because thank you, it's really God's work.
52:16
So I'm glad that, you know, even though I went to the private
52:19
sector, you know, she was able to continue doing what she loves
52:22
and representing these kids. Yeah.
52:24
Thank you so much for talking to us tonight.
52:27
And I'm definitely gonna keep looking for you.
52:29
I'm sure I'm gonna keep seeing you on TV now that I have a name
52:33
connected that I smoked to you. Oh, yeah, yeah.
52:37
I mean, I do a lot of it. So I see this guy everywhere.
52:39
But yeah, there's ever a legal case.
52:41
You know me I'm gonna be talking about.
52:43
I don't care. It's entertainment, true crime,
52:44
politics. I'm all about it.
52:46
Or even though in cases we handle.
52:48
Well. I think that brings us to the
52:50
end. Thank you so much for coming to
52:52
speak to us this evening and for the listeners.
52:55
You all have a good weekend. Thanks, Brittany.
52:57
Thanks for having me.