Latest / Unscripted Direct / Episode 161 - "A Blank Check to Feed My Family" (plus, TOC strategies revealed)

Transcript

Episode 161 - "A Blank Check to Feed My Family" (plus, TOC strategies revealed) · Unscripted Direct

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_06: Unscripted Direct is brought to you by Walkup, Melodia, Kelly, and Schoenberger.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_06: Based in San Francisco, but with cases all over the country, Walkup is one of the most respected plaintiff's personal injury and wrongful death law firm.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_07: The attorneys at Walk Up are passionate about trying cases and some of our cases have come from our listeners.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_07: If someone reaches out to you with a case, we're happy to see how it can help out.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_06: We thank Walk Up for supporting this podcast and our trial advocacy community.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_06: Welcome to Unscripted Direct.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_06: I'm Spencer Falke from Berkeley Long.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_06: I'm Justin Bernstein, UCLA.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_06: This week we have results from three competitions, all on the East Coast.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_06: We have a coach's round table from Tournament of Champions.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_06: We have got interviews with two program directors who've never been on the show before, and we've got two fun mailbag questions.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_06: But first, Spencer, how are you doing?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_07: I'm doing well.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_07: I'm uh well traveled of late, I would say.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_07: Where in the world is Spencer Ponkey?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_07: I'm back home.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_07: Back home, uh Universal Headquarters, Northern California headquarters.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_07: Um can you be more specific about where you are at this moment?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, I'm in the closet actually, which I've not been recording in the closet that much lately.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_07: So enjoy the excellent sound quality.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_06: Well welcome home.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_07: It feels good to be amongst the uh textiles.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, as I like to say, you sound better next to a sweater.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_07: You always do say that.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_07: I guess it makes more sense.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_07: Uh so where have you been traveling?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_07: I was in Alaska this weekend.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_07: The first time in Alaska.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_07: That's where I was.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_07: What were you doing?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_07: Knocking doors, baby.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_07: You may have noticed it got an election going.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_07: So which cities in Alaska are you in?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, only one, Anchorage.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_07: Uh it's a big state, it turns out.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_07: Uh yeah.
• 1:35
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_07: Flying into Alaska, flying into Anchorage at least, was like you're just in this ocean of mountains, just as far as you might it it feels to this humble Nebraskan like the sand hills of Nebraska were just hills as far as you could possibly see, except for it's mountains, huge mountains, as far as you can possibly see.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_06: So it was the you know, door to door were those far walks from home to home, or are they right next door?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_06: Tell me about the the actual foot travel.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_07: The turf is we would say.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_07: Uh yeah, yeah.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_07: Um we got 1,200 doors, by the way, on 23 different turfs in 60 hours, which is pretty awesome.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_07: Um you personally did 1200 doors?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_07: No, me and my team have four.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_07: So I did about 300.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_06: That's a lot of doors.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, my like you, yeah.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_07: My my knuckles are numb uh and uh bruised.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_07: Um wide variety, you know, wide variety.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_07: Some of the turfs was really nice homes, kind of up in the foothills of the mountains, and some, you know, uh y are in homes where, you know, like I just like such a great reminder of the many challenges of making your way on this this planet and and in this country, and um counting your blessings is is a major, major thing results for me knocking doors.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_06: What was the weather like?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_07: Cold.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_07: Um it was sort of rainy and a little bit snowy.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_07: Um but you know, it was close to freezing in the morning and it got kind of warmer like in the mid-30s, middle of the day.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_07: Uh it was yeah, it was it was chillier than California.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_06: What do you now know about Alaska you did not know before?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_07: I don't wanna I mean I I guess I have various things, I think, but I I think that the I think I I think the the the implications of it being very cold there are a little bit more clear to me.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_07: Um one interesting example was if you want to buy coffee, you know, like say you need a quick break from from knocking doors, like the vast majority, at least as far as I could tell, not a perfect sample, etc., of of the coffee shops there are like drive-through little coffee shacks, basically.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_07: And I guess that's just I was like, why is this the case?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_07: And it's because like it's cold and people don't want to get out of their cars.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_07: And so like it's hard to find like a coffee shop you can just go into.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_07: Similarly, the apartment buildings, very frequently, even the small ones are like interior access only, which is ch tough for a door knocker, of course.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_07: But it's just like you just get a sense that oh, also a small thing is like lots of people had little little um foam cones they would put on the hose bibs, you know, on the on the uh little faucets on the outside of their houses to s protect them.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_07: It's just like you just get this sense like winter is coming and it is cold.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_07: That's meant to protect those hose bibs from from freezing.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_07: It's just like, man, imagine being here in January, February.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_07: I bet it is it's dark and cold.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_07: So I don't know the implications of it being cold.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_07: Knew it was cold, hadn't thought about the implications.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_06: I think that's one of the reasons people listen to the show to get insights like Alaska cold.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_06: But the way it plays out isn't it?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_06: No, actually that that is very interesting.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_06: All right, I know you knocked 300 doors.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_06: Any highlights you want to share?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_07: There were many great doors, but one I will not forget.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_07: Uh uh it was a door of uh six folks.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_07: Uh I walked up the steps and uh I was knocking the door, and um I knew that uh one of the people I was looking for was Camellia.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_07: Uh didn't know too much about her, and you know, knock on the door and somebody comes to the door and I ask, and it happens to be Camellia.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_07: She's very nice, she's jovial.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_07: She's uh a grandma, it appears to me.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_07: Uh she's she's come from the kitchen and um she's very she's sweet, you know, she smiles and um we start having a nice conversation.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_07: I can hear kind of kids, it sounds like grandkids bouncing around upstairs.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_07: And um and I say, Well, Camille, how you how are you voting in the election?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_07: She says, Well, I'm voting for Mary Peltola.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_07: And I said, Well, that's that's great.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_07: Um, how about and I list off the other total of six people in the house and you know, list them.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_07: She's like, and she says, Oh yeah, we're we're all voting for Mary.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, except for Chiara, she's not registered.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_07: And I look through the list, I'm like, Well, I got checking through my data on the app and everything, and double checking and looking into it, and I'm like, wait a minute, I think Chiara is registered, actually.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_07: Like, looks like in September of 2025.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_07: And Camellia's kind of thinking out loud, she's like, Oh, that's when she got her ID.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_07: And Chiara then materialized at the top of the stairs, like from the living room.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_07: And I can tell that's obviously who it who it is.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_07: She's listening intently, and I'm like, Chiara?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_07: And she goes, Yeah.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_07: I'm like, you get to vote.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_07: And she she just says, Yes, and she like throws her arms up in the air, and I just bounded down the stairs after wishing them well, knowing that you know, that was that one was special.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_06: So you're like ball, you're like ballot clause.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_07: That's so good.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_07: That's so good.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_06: That's such a a heartwarming story.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_07: Oh man, it felt so good.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_07: Things like that, things like that.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_06: Anyway, thank you.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_06: Have you ever encountered one where you're like, you get to vote, and they're like, yeah, and then you find out they're gonna vote not the way you want.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_07: People are no, not really, because you know, I'm pretty open about who I'm there to knock doors for.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_07: And even people who don't want to tell you who they're gonna vote for, you can tell.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_07: Like they're like, I'm I'm not gonna tell you who I'm gonna vote for, but I hope you have a really nice day, and it's so I'm glad you're out here knocking doors, and good for you, and thank you.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_07: You know, I'm like, get I get the right so no, you could tell before before before then uh which which way they're swinging.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_06: What is the rudest thing that somebody said to you when you've been door knocking?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_07: Oh all kinds of uh all kinds of vitriol and ridiculous crap.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_07: And I mean I've done this for like 15 years, so yeah.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_07: Uh you know, I'm I'm this is one of the strengths of my memory is um I just I don't I don't remember the bad stuff very well.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_07: Uh even whether it's a door or a spat with a friend or I just I can't hang on.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_07: I just it doesn't stick in my mind very well.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_07: So I just dispatch that stuff and and uh and hold the stuff that makes me feel good.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_06: That that that is very glass Fall.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_06: I like that.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_06: Well, we're not gonna have election results for a couple weeks, but we do have some results from other things right now.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, Justin, I think it's time for the break.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_07: All right, let's start off with results from the Syracuse National Trial Competition.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_07: Our semifinalists were Loyola and Stetson finalist, American, and the winner, Drexel, their third tournament win of the season.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_07: Congratulations.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_06: We head to Connecticut for Quinnipine's criminal trial competition, semifinalists, Maryland and Boston College.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_06: Finalist was Wake Forest, and the winner, Texas.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_06: Nice.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_07: We finished on Long Island, New York, where Hofstrap hosted the tournament of champions.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_06: Can I can I add something, Spencer?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_06: I suppose you can.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_06: I I mentioned to my team in the update email that we were in Long Island.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_06: My mother corrected me and said, on Long Island.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_06: So you got it right or I got it wrong.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_07: I thought she'd say on Long Island.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_07: Um, all right.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_07: Uh our semifinalists were Baylor and Maryland, finalist Harvard, and winner UCLA.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_07: I've heard of them.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_07: They've been to TOC eight times, reached the final round seven times, and won it five times.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_07: That is stunning.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_07: Great work, Justin.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_07: Excellent job, ruins.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_06: I appreciate that.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_06: And Spencer, you're being humble.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, you omitted that your Berkeley squad won the professionalism award.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_06: You also had uh you were one, I think, one point away from making the semifinals with eight wins.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_06: And big congrats to your 2-L, Jenny Jang, for winning one of the best advocate awards.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_06: I've known Jenny since she was in high school.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_06: She's talented, smart, kind, and I'll admit I'm jealous that she chose Berkeley over UCLA.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_06: So congrats to Berkeley and Go Bears.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_06: That's very sweet of you.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_07: Very proud of the team uh and great job by all of them, including Jenny.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_07: Uh I'm so proud of them that we stole that professionalism award away from Judge and everybody else, man.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_07: Right?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_07: Isn't that sweet?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_07: We just totally took it from him.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_06: Really sounds like you're in the professionalism spirit right there.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_06: That that's that's what you do.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_06: Just just brag about the professionalism award.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_07: I couldn't help myself.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_06: No, no.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, you know, when they go low, you go lower.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_06: You know, lower, yeah.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_07: All right.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_07: Well, that's not all from TOC.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_07: Justin, you want to have a little bit of a debrief, as I understand it.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, so this segment was inspired by uh my flight home from the competition.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_06: I was watching some poker videos on YouTube, and the ones I found particularly helpful were watching people who uh had done well explain how they did it.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_06: And they didn't just talk in in theory, they walked through actual hands.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_06: And I remembered that we'd done that a couple times in the show where we had successful coaches come on and explain how they approached the case.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_06: So I invited two very successful coaches to talk about how they approached this case.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_07: Robert Little and Judge Roberts.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_06: We welcome back to the show Baylor's Robert Little and Cumberland's Judge Roberts.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_06: How are you guys doing?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_06: Good, thanks.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_06: How are you?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_06: I'm home.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_04: I'm doing fantastic and also home.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_06: Well, it was great to see you both at the competition and thank you for for coming on.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_06: We'll start with with Robert.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, congratulations on making the semifinals.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_04: Congratulations to you for winning uh the entire competition.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_04: But yes, it was a great weekend for us, and uh, we were very, very pleased with the outcome.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_04: So wish we could made it there for the final to give you an update, but uh but had a great weekend and really were proud of the kids.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_04: So really, really happy.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_06: Um did they realize before they got to New York that they were gonna be in Long Island, not in Manhattan?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_04: They did know it, um, but I'm not sure any of them had been to Long Island, and therefore I don't think they were quite ready for uh suburbia to be part of their weekend.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_04: I think they were thinking about the tall city, the tall buildings and bodegas and you know uh Sabaros on every corner.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um uh but instead they got 25 minute long Uber rides just to go to a restaurant.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but uh we were very happy.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_04: They just kept commenting on how it looked like a little bit ridier version of Waco, to which I thought, y'all been in Waco, right?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so it was unclear to me if they knew what they were talking about, but they were a little bit culture shocked, yes.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_06: Uh that's the first time I've ever heard somebody say, Oh, I'm on Long Island, it's just like Texas.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_04: I also found it to be a confusing comment, but you know, I can't there's no accounting for my children.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_06: So you know what they say, everything's bigger on Long Island.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_06: Uh Judge, uh, how are you doing?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Doing good, thanks.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Doing good.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Congratulations to you and UCLA for winning, and to uh Robert and Baylor for the semifinals, and um to my kids for having the opportunity to go to Manhattan on Sunday when we weren't.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_06: Now, I I don't want to rub salt in the wound, but um you didn't win the professionalism award.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_06: Right, right.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_06: So did those students take it hard when you told them they were no longer allowed to compete for Cumberland?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what I told them was that we were going to Long Island, we were being hosted by Hofstra, and so they did their best to act like Jared, and this is the results we got.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_06: Right, right.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_06: So I yeah, the teams may have had a different expectation.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_06: There's a college tournament where instead of being the spirit of Amta for the most professional team, they had the spirit of New York for the least professional team.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_06: Good.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_06: There you go.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_06: I like it.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_06: Uh so you know, are you gonna implement any you know programmatic changes after you know coming up a little short in the professionalism category?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_06: Like what what's what who's who's losing their job?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think we're gonna implement flogging.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I should say congrats to your team as well.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_06: Your team, even though they were a young team, I think half your team was two elves.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, uh, they went to tournament of champions and came out with a winning record again.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was very proud of them.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Very proud of them.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: We were we were very close, but uh no cigar.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_04: I like the judge.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sorry, not to interrupt this.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_04: I like the judge lost the professionalism award to uh a bunch of hippies from Berkeley, and his response was corporal punishment, right?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_04: That maybe going the that made you going the wrong way, is all I'm saying.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I think they're externally professional.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_06: I'm not sure they're internally professional.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's how you get those good manners, right?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my mama and her switch scared the manners into me.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_06: Wow.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_06: All right, moving right along.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_06: Uh let's talk about the case balance.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, this was a great case written by uh Matt.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_06: You you call him Woodham?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_06: Woodham.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_06: Uh Matt Woodham wrote a great case.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_06: Uh we talked about it last week on the show, and I think the case balance numbers were different than what we all expected.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_06: Uh before we went, what would you have guessed the case balance numbers are gonna be, Judge?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was gonna be a slight defense lane, um uh at most uh 45-55, but thought it would be closer into that, um, something like a 47-53, something like that.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_04: Robert?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I thought it was a defense case kind of in the same way Judge said I would have guessed 55-45, mostly because I would have said the quality of the teens will balance it a little bit, right?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_04: If the rounds are good enough, then sometimes it the it doesn't come out as much.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_04: But um, so that would have been my guess, a defense case in the nature of 55%, something like that.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_06: You guys are way closer than I was because I would have guessed a slight plaintiff case because even though I thought the defense had the stronger arguments on the merits, I thought the plaintiff had a more fun presentation.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_06: I was very, very wrong.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I think the final tally was 25 wins for the defense and 10 for the plaintiff.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_06: Uh so that's like around 29% or something like that.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I I bring it up because I think it's really hard to assess case balance before we actually try the case and actually do the competition.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_06: Looking back, what what do you think the lessons are uh as we all try to write cases in the future, uh, with the benefit of hindsight, where do you think the case went imbalanced and and what can we learn from it?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_06: We'll start with Robert.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I think first thing to say is I and I agree with your comment a second ago, it was a good case.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I don't take anything away from Matt uh drafting the case because there was so much to do.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_04: And I think the thing we got caught up in as coaches was we looked at it and we said, there's really good stuff for every direct, there's really good stuff for every cross, they're gonna there were interesting things to do with the witnesses, there were good exhibits, like everything you want in a case file is in this case file.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_04: And so I think that on the front end, Matt worked really hard on, and I think it was very clear from the I think every coach would have told you before the trials, this is a good case.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_04: And I still believe that to be true.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_04: I think it was a good case.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_04: And I I I agree with you.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_06: And that's another slide at Matt.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna use this case in class.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_06: I think it's great.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_06: And we worked really hard on the theories because it required it.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_06: It was it was a hard case and a good case.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_04: And it's funny because that's where my next comment goes, is I think um your gut instinct or your gut reaction maybe is is important.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_04: So I remember when we first started trying this case or work on this case, and the first time, first few times we did openings, and you do a plaintiff's opening, defense opening.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_04: And every single time it happened, the defense opening was I immediately bought, right?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_04: Like immediately.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_04: And so we worked so much harder on our plaintiff's theory because the defense theory just was right there, right?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_04: And to me was um, and we made some changes in the defense theory over the course of the thing, or the you know, way we talked about it, but it was immediate and made total sense.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_04: And the question that lingered with me from the first time I heard it was, why didn't she put on her seatbelt?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_04: And I didn't think that was impossible to overcome.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_04: It turns out it almost was impossible to overcome.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_04: And it was almost like it was so obvious that we all moved past it to do all the other things that we needed to do to get the case ready.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_04: But that one fundamental question was so detrimental to everything that it was almost impossible to overcome.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_04: And so I think that's one of those things where maybe in case drafting, you have to think about how ingrained is this in your brain, right?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_04: As a just society, societal principle, right?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like put on your seatbelt, you know, and maybe it was we need to spend more time talking about golf carts.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_04: And I mean, you know, there's lots of reasons it could be true, but I just when I look back now, I think to myself, those first couple of times I read the openings and I was immediately like the defense case is so easy and it makes so much sense and it's so obvious.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_04: Well, maybe it was so obvious to everybody who heard it for the first time, right?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_04: Like the first time you heard it as a judge, you were just like, Yeah, that makes sense.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_04: So that's where I'd end up.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_04: Judge?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that ingrained uh idea and concept.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like my defense closer had a line in her clothes where she would say, you know, what's the first thing you do when you get in a car and put your seatbelt on?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's muscle memory, right?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's also uh psychological memory, right?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: That it's hard, it was harder to overcome that for people listening to it for their first time as scores, I think, than it was for us as we're getting through it.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're looking at things like Robert said, we're looking at the directs and the crosses, and everybody's got something to do.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can tell when something's gonna be unbalanced when you see, okay, the fourth witness has nothing to say for either side, you know, or or there's no cross there or whatever.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so the the psychological component of something like this, I think, was easy for us to be blinded by and and therefore uh not realize that it could have this serious of an impact uh on on the balance of the case.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, I agree with you guys.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was a great case, thought it was a fun case.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was one of the more interesting cases in terms of the variety of ways people could approach it, um, specifically on the plaintiff's side.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um but uh I just did not see the imbalance coming as strongly as it did.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I mean, to give you an idea of how much I misread it, I was thinking that, you know, if we ever got a choice, I'd want to go plaintiff.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_06: And I was like, how do we win on defense?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_06: Uh we spent so much more time on our defense because we struggled with it.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I guess we overestimated the power of the plaintiff argument saying, okay, she didn't have her seatbelt on, she was intoxicated.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_06: You wanted intoxicated passengers, you can't now blame her.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_06: But judges were like, no, we can still blame her.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_06: Um I think the other takeaway I have from this as I think about writing case in the future is the video.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_06: Video was great.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_06: So for those who didn't see the case, there's a video of the accident in the parking lot where the young woman falls out of the golf cart, hits her head, and she falls out like a sack of potato.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_06: She looks intoxicated, there's clearly no seatbelt.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_06: And I think most people's first reaction is, oh, she was drunk.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, she made a mistake, she did something wrong.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_06: And the golf cart was not being driven in any strange way, or at least it wasn't to my eyes when I first watched the video.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_06: And one challenge is as you're trying to build a case for the plaintiff, it's very hard to undo what you see with your own eyes that first time because it just doesn't look like bad driving.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_06: So that's tough.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_06: Um, but before we get into how each of our teams dealt with uh those issues as coaches, I I think we I shouldn't have buried the lead.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_06: Uh this was a not just a tournament on Long Island, this is a tournament on Long Island hosted by Jared Rosenblatt.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_06: So uh, you know, last week Spencer was talking about Jared uh mellowing, and you know, now he's down to a seven out of ten and on on the Jared scale.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_06: So I'm gonna name something that happened at the tournament, and I want you to tell me how how many Jared's this gets out of 10.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, you know, 10 is full Jared.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_06: Uh one is well, it's not Jared.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_06: Um all right.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_06: So number one, uh, the amount of uh colorful language during the welcome ceremony.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_06: Uh Judge?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh, it was it had to be at least nine Jared's, right?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_06: Uh Robert wasn't there, but he just heard about it.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_04: I did it.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_04: I and I would say, I would say based on what I heard, I would go at least I would actually say eight Jared's.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_04: And I say that only because I think if Jared achieves a nine and certainly a ten, then um I I assume some people probably would have not come back for Friday.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_04: So I think maybe I'm gonna go with eight Jared's.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_06: So I I had some students who didn't know him, and and they said he's really funny, but how come he's cursing so much?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, uh, second one, uh Jared's uh statement about dietary restrictions during the welcome ceremony.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_06: Judge is already laughing.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Absolute Tim Jared's right there.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_06: Um what he said was uh, I don't care if you have dietary restrictions.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_06: This is what we ordered.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_06: Uh you could let me know if you want to that you have a dietary restriction.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_06: Quote, I don't care.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_04: I'm going 10 because you slightly mischaracterized that.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_04: He did not actually say this is what we've already ordered.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_04: They hadn't ordered it yet.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_04: That's true before us to fill out, which means all you could have just put a gluten-free option or whatever, but Jared's response was I'm not sure with that.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_04: So I don't care.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_04: These are the four sandwiches you can pick from, and I don't care if you have a problem with them.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, it's a 10 Jared.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_04: That's an all that's full Jared, the most Jared's.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_06: Also, not only did he give you four options, I think two of the options were turkey and turkey and cheese.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_06: So we're really not dealing with a lot of options.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_04: By the way, I want to point out that uh Justin sent a thank you email to the entire tournament for TOC, wherein it he said the line, there was always food, um, as though Jared had done a great job, which Jared did do a great job running the tournament, but I read that line, I could not figure out how sarcastic you were being and whether or not anybody got the joke.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_04: So I mean there was food, simply not for those of us who could not eat or those people who could not eat certain things.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_04: No food for you.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_06: So uh that was unintended humor, but I'm I'm glad that's glad that you found it funny.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_06: Uh all right.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_06: Third one, uh, his announcement of the individual awards.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_06: Robert, do you want to describe the the way the chair decided to announce the individual words?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I think there's two things.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um, number one, his very adorable son, Jakey, was standing up with him and wanted to hand out what were referred to as the hammers, which are the actual gavels, but he but Jakey called them hammers, which I thought was cute as I'll get out.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_04: But whatever.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: Amount of cussing he did during the welcome reception, he was doubling down on that during the award ceremony while his child was standing uh two feet away from him the entire time.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so that was entertaining.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_04: And then Jared randomly announced, I'm gonna start, we're gonna give out the individual awards, starting with the best advocate.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_04: So he gave the best advocate out and then went down to the second, third, fourth, and fifth place advocates to determine.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_04: I've never seen anyone do it like this in the entire history of the time I've been judging, or what coaching.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um so I found it to be an incredibly Jared move.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, you're the best, you're not, you're more not, you're you're also more not, and you are the least not of the best.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_06: So right, you were the worst of the outstanding advocates.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the last person is the worst of the outstanding advocates.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_04: Congratulations.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_06: All right, so Jared square out of 10.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, uh it's off the scale for me.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_04: I'm giving it 12.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_04: I've never seen anybody else do it, which he's a he's a he's a thought leader, um, he's a demand guard.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_04: So I mean, I think you know, we've got to give him, I'm giving it 12 Jared's on that one.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_04: Judge?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sick of the 10 because to get off the scale, he really needed to, at the conclusion of you're the the worst of the outstanding advocates, say to the rest of you, the rest of the students, and the rest of you suck.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: If he had said that, he's off the scale, Jared.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_06: Robert and I had a bet about whether Jared contemplated announcing the world worst advocate, the lowest ranking advocate.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And why would he contemplate it?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_06: He said that he didn't, but then he seemed disappointed in himself.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_06: Last one, uh, the way that Jared uh shared the results of individual rounds with the coaches.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_06: And I should give some preface here, he had a results link to send out, which he would eventually send that included all the scores on a spreadsheet.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_06: So everybody could see exactly what the results were, but that wasn't how he informed people of the results.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_06: Uh Judge, how did he tell people whether they'd won or lost the round?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: He walked around the courthouse and if he saw a coach, he walked up to him, pointed at him, and said, You lost.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: You won.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Purely off the scale 12 Jared's for that uh announcement manner.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_06: And it wasn't like he was doing it in private, like, hey, let me let me tell you.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_06: Oh no, he the two people were conversing.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, go ahead, Robert.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_04: It was across the hallway, right?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_04: It was like he was literally just pointing, like, you know, Ben Garmo and be like, hey, Ben, you won.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_04: Moving on.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_04: Walk away.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_06: It was just like it was just uh the worst, I think, was he said to one person, you got smoked.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_06: Uh Jared.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um great job.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, he really did a great job.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_06: He was great.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_06: And it's amazing what he gets away with because like other people, they they start the round five minutes late.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_06: People are like, oh, they're late.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_06: He did not have an announced start time for round two.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_06: Round two started after round one.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_06: Like that would that was the announcement, and people were like, okay.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_04: But I think the key was, I mean, there this is not to be too serious for a second because I do think Jared's hilarious and awesome, but the tournament was he did all the things that coaches actually care about well, right?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_04: It was we had lots of judges.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_04: They were good judges, they were and they were there, and the round started.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_04: At a time when you could tell they were hustling, right?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_04: He had lots of students around to help, and Jared was always running around, he was always wrangling people.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it wasn't one of those tournaments where you felt like nothing was happening, it was just he was working really hard to get everything done, and it was really, really but also freaking hilarious.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_04: He failed to mention the part where he announced the professionals award only after announcing the two teams that are the the two lowest professionalism scores for the tournament, which I found very entertaining as well.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_04: That was pretty good.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_06: Uh and then when he announced the result in the finals, he announced the winner, and then he goes, Oh, yeah, also thank you to the judges and uh these are the two teams.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, he's the best.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_06: Um, both of you served on the protest committee.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_06: Uh we had a uh a bet going in about how many protests there were gonna be.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_06: Uh what was the line, Robert?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_04: Over under two and a half was the line, I believe.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_06: And how many protests were there?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_06: Just one.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_06: Some close calls, but just one.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_06: Close calls.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_06: Uh and yet I think we all heard about lots of griping about invention that didn't lead to protests.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, Judge, what do you make of that?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_06: The amount of of invention we heard about, um, but at the same time the lack of protests.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I hope meet and confer and discretion calming down on some things, because some of the stuff I heard people complaining about, I did not think was protest worthy.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think that there was some discussion among the coaches and some resolution.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And A, that I guess that wasn't as bad as I thought it was, and and desire not to protest at that point.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_04: Robert?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I mean, I think it's a couple of things.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_04: One is I think uh TOC is one of those tournaments where um a lot of us have very good professional relationships with some of the people who are at the tournament.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I mean I'll I'll talk to it.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_04: We had an issue in the fourth round with in a round we were in, um, and the coach for the other team uh uh who I won't mention just because I don't know if they want to be involved, but like me and him have known each other for a long time.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_04: I like him a lot.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_04: You know, he likes me a lot.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_04: I think we have a lot of faith in each other in terms of um what we do and how we coach and what we expect of our kids.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_04: And so we talked about the issue and ultimately, you know, he decided um it's not worth protesting, and I uh respect that a lot.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_04: And so, you know, I think that the the conversation um that you can have with somebody you have that relationship with is really helpful.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_04: That the second thing I'll say is I think there's, and maybe other people wouldn't consider this a problem, I think it's something of an issue, which is we all also know if you protest the fact invention, the very next question is gonna be, well, what did you do about it?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_04: And then the next question is gonna be, did you use enclosing?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_04: And then the next question is gonna be something else.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_04: And so I think there's been a lot of evidence that when you protest fact invention, if they just made up a fact, that's not gonna be enough.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_04: There has to be some uh something that happened as a result of that that was detrimental to your kids.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_04: So if you make up a fact, you really suffer no consequences if it doesn't come back up.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad, but I think it does discourage people from protesting just because there was a fact in it.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_04: You know, so there's a lot of conversations like such and such team was against us, and they answer this question and that's made up.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_04: Well, did you protest?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_04: Well, no, because ultimately it's not that big a deal.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_04: Well, either it matters or it doesn't matter.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_04: And on some level, I think we haven't answered the question that question yet.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_06: Robert, you mentioned teams working it out or coaches working it out.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_06: Our teams met in round three, and you and I talked after the round.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, I mean, you came, there was a witness issue on our end um with how we were answering a question, and there was a a redirect answer or question and answer on y'all's end.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_04: And I think um a lot of it in the case of our students, it wasn't coached, and I think that's you know, me and you obviously having a relationship with each other.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_04: And then I think also I think a lot of it was it was a big round.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_04: It was a 2020 round between the at the time, one and two seeds in the tournament.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_04: And I think um I think they felt it was competitive, and I think they got competitive, and I think that that can cause those things a little bit, and I think that's good, right?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_04: It's good for our kids to want to be competitive and and have good, tough rounds with each other.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_04: But it was great to be a situation where afterwards we were able to talk and you know it wasn't, it wasn't the conversation was not you know heated in any way or like upset with each other or our kids.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_04: It was me and you just talking about, hey, you know, this happened, you know, let's try to work it out.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_04: And then ultimately, you know, one of our kids was able to sit with your team at dinner that night or and and um, as AJ would say, break a little bread.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_04: And uh, and um, and then I think that's great.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, at the end of the day, uh, I think it's really uh a good thing that we can have what I consider to be professional relationships and model professional relationships for our student, right?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_04: It's okay to have heated uh moments in a trial and then go out in the hallway and shake each other's hands and you know go have a sandwich at each other, which is exactly what happened with the two of us.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_04: And so I think that's a good thing.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_04: And and so I think that's really, really healthy.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_06: I agree.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_06: And I I also want to you know give credit where it's due.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_06: When we when you and I talked, the first thing you said was, oh yeah, she shouldn't have done that.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_06: Oh yeah, so-and-so shouldn't have done that, right?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_06: And like you your reaction was to immediately not just take the high road, but sort of acknowledge the reality, and and I hope we did the same on our end.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_06: But but the the other thing that struck me, and it didn't strike me until later, was I thought about the two things that each team was concerned about.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_06: They were utterly immaterial, right?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_06: Like I don't mean immaterial in a relevant sense.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_06: What I mean is one was self-serving testimony where they would never move the needle, and the other was something that is just fine for the other side, it didn't really hurt them on cross.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_06: And so I think sometimes the students get heated about what feels significant to them and may even be a rule violation.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_06: We could we could debate it, but it doesn't actually make a difference in the outcome of the trial.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_06: The judges certainly wouldn't have clocked it.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_04: I I agree completely, and I think um and again, I think it's where it's good to have those conversations in a with people you trust and people you have confidence in, because I think you can work through them and get to that conclusion um or close to that conclusion.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think I had that thought either at the moment, but I think that was the conversation me and you were having, right?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_04: Because ultimately these are not the moments that decide the outcome of that round.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and so I think that's a good thing to be able to talk through, and and and so I think that all that's very positive.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_04: And I think the fact that it's going on protest is positive because I think it says a lot about the teens originally.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, go ahead, Judge.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, if the coaches have that professionalism, even outside of having the relationship, obviously the relationship makes it even better.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: But when the coaches have that professionalism about them and them carrying themselves, they should not be uh as emotionally charged as the students in the heat of the battle at the moment are, right?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: So there should be some uh buffering, cooling down with the coaches, and coaches obviously should be the ones making the decisions on protesting and talking to one another in a professional way, is a good way to resolve this.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, and I was saying that Judge and I were on the protest committee at the only protest that happened, and the two judges coaches in that situation handled it incredibly well.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_08: They did.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_04: Um the one coach protested, the other coach said, you know, didn't like excuse the conduct.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_04: I think there was a discussion about whether it was right or not, but there wasn't like a it didn't happen or, you know, this is wrong or any of that, and nobody yelled at each other.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_04: It was a conversation.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_04: There was a little bit of back and forth in a very positive manner, and then we made a decision, and both coaches um were very understanding of the decision, and there wasn't any kind of like, you know, mumbling in the corner.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_04: And so I think even that one protest that happened with a penalty associated with it was very professional on all, you know, handled by both coaches.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_04: So I thought it was a really productive weekend on that.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_06: You know, I wanted to follow up on something that you were talking about, Judge, in terms of the coaches making the decision.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_06: Sometimes we'll hear coaches say, you know, I don't know if I agree with the protest, my students really want me to bring it.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_06: What are your thoughts on that?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the coach needs to be the adult and say we're not bringing it.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't let the students make that decision.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the coach needs to be the one making that decision.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Whether they decide to bring it or not, it still should be a coach decision in my book, and not a student decision, especially because uh what I was saying a moment ago with regard to being in the heat of the battle, and and so that obviously um impacts the rational decision making uh when you have uh passion involved.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that that needs to be removed from it.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes coaches need to remove that as well, but uh it should to me always be a decision made by the the coaches and not by the students.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the reasons we have uh rule with TOC that you have to have uh an attorney advisor present and that students are not allowed to discuss any protest or any other matter with the TOC board or the protest committee.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_06: Let's turn to the coaching of the competition, actually getting ready and and picking a theory uh with the case we all talked about.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_06: So uh Judge, do you want to briefly describe the case?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_06: I know we alluded to elements of it, but do you want to describe the case uh for those who don't know?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um so the plaintiff uh calls for a golf cart ride share, uh, which specializes in giving uh rides to uh intoxicated or uh college students or college students who have been drinking, could be adults too, but uh specialize in that.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: They give them rides back to their uh residence or to another bar wherever they're going, you know, in a relatively small area.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um while um on one of those rides, just after getting on the ride, uh the golf cart driver uh starts the ride, makes um a turn, which is considered a U-turn by everyone except the defendant company, uh, in which the passenger falls out and lands on her face on the pavement and gets injured.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the plaintiff could bring a or had three claims and an election form where the plaintiff could decide uh under which claims to to proceed at the trial, but uh failure, excuse me, a negligent hiring, negligent training, negligent supervision, uh three for you could try uh do one or two or three of those under count one.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Count two was negligent uh uh transportation service, negligent discharge of transportation services, which basically means the negligent operation of the golf cart.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: And three was failure to render aid.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you elected to pursue failure to render aid, you had to pursue one on either count one or count two as well.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then the defense had a comparative negligence claim or affirmative defense rather, and um an assumption of the risk affirmatives.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_06: So we'll start on the plaintiff side.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_06: Robert, what was your team's approach?
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_04: Uh she was drunk.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so the young lady was drunk, and they made a deal.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_04: They made a promise.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_04: Their whole entire company, the premise of their company was a promise that if you get drunk, in fact, they encouraged it, that if you drink, uh, we will get you home safe.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_04: And they then had a driver.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_04: So we pursued, we pursued negative negligent supervision, and we didn't do hiring or training, we just did supervision, and then we did negligent discharge services.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_04: And what we said was this driver had two previous incidents.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_04: One, where he chomped to work after drinking and got caught.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and two, where there was a custom review that said he was the best buzzed driver that they ever had.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_04: And they did an investigation that consisted of simply asking the driver, Were you drinking?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_04: where he said no, in a shocking turn offense.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_04: And he they didn't fire him, they didn't suspend him, they let him keep driving.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_04: On the night in question, there was an indication he was out drinking margaritas, and also that he uh he told the plaintiff when he showed up to pick her up, I'm just as drunk as you are.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_04: He passes these off as jokes.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_04: So our claim was uh negative supervision, and they should have fired him for the drink previous drinking.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_04: He was drinking on the night in question, and that caused him to fail to verify she had put her seatbelt on.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_04: And there were seat belts in the golf cart, there were signs telling him to put seat belts on, but he did not actually verify, which is what the company said they were supposed, the driver's supposed to do, that she put her seatbelt on.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_04: And so that that was the mistake he made.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_04: And then he took the turn and she wasn't buckled in, so that's why she fell out.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_04: So that was our I mean, you know, there's a lot more, but that's our basic just spark play in this case.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_06: Judge, uh Robert said he did counts one and two, but not three.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_06: What about Cumberland?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we also did counts one and two and not three, but slightly different with regard to counts one.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh count one, as I mentioned earlier, uh, we also pursued the negligent hiring.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we had negligent hiring, negligent supervision, and uh negligent discharge.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_06: Did you guys argue uh U-turns, uh, Robert?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_06: In other words, one of the uh arguments available to the plaintiff was uh you're not supposed to make a U-turn in a golf cart.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_06: That's against industry standards.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_06: Uh that's part of the reason she fell out.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_04: We said the words, it's like the expert uh witness, we had the witness say U-turns, and we pointed to it and we said this was a U-turn, but it was not a tremendously big part of our case.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_04: The main part of our case was that this driver, the failure to make sure she was wearing a seatbelt and the nature of any turn made it a risk for somebody to get fall out, especially if they were drunk.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_04: And so the key was the verification of the seatbelt.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_04: So we talked about it, but it was not like a big focus far playing this case.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_06: Judge?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, we uh emphasize the U-turn.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're not supposed to make the U-turn as well as the seatbelt and then the combination, right?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: That because you're making a U-turn without making sure your passenger is secured, it makes that more much more dangerous.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_06: So our approach was very similar to to the Baylor-Cumberland approach.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_06: I'd say it was almost identical to Baylor's, except at the very last minute we decided we didn't want to do the U-turn because we didn't think we could prove it.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_06: Basically, we thought our expert was the only person who would say that that's the standard, and we didn't think our expert was very credible on that point.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_06: Um but 98% the same as the the Baylor plaintiff case, heavy on the advertising, heavy on the past drunkenness, and uh light on causation because there isn't much way to prove causation for the plaintiff.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_06: Um So I want to drill down because for people listening that might think, okay, well, how do you get to the those answers?
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, we all ended up at the same place.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_06: Um why did you feel like you had to pursue count one?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_06: And I asked that, Robert, because uh if you can prove count two, negligent uh discharge of transportation transportation services, you've proved your case.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_06: And you probably have to prove that anyway if you're proving count uh count two, you you're sorry, in order to prove count one that they were negligent to trust this driver, that that caused the injury, well you're in essence also having to prove the predicate of count two, which is that the driver then did something bad that night.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_06: So why would you take on, and I say this is devil's advocacy, we did it too, but why would you take on the added burden of proving negligence at the corporate level?
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_04: Well, so it's interesting.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_04: So in Texas, of course, now you wouldn't get two questions.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_04: You'd get one question.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_04: It would just be, was the defendant negligent?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_04: And it'd be the company, and you would be allowed to prove it and any way you wanted to, but they'd wrap it all up in one question because we now have these cases talking about the idea of vicarious liability when you have a direct liability case, they should all be rolled up into one.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_04: You shouldn't get two bytes of the apple.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_04: So it's all just different ways proofing.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_04: Anyways, that aside.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_04: Um, what I realized, or I think I realized, maybe I was wrong, um, since we lost in the Simians on the plant side and lost the on the plant side.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_04: But what I thought was there are lots of ways to try the plant's case, but the only one that was uh this is not the right word, but sexy enough, right?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_04: That was captured enough interest from me was the drinking.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_04: It was the driver's drinking.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_04: And that's an immediate hook that has some pull to it.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_04: And the only way you got to talk about the previous drinking incidents was to do count one.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_04: So I didn't want to just talk about the drinking on the night of because it seems relatively innocuous given that you don't actually have any direct evidence of them drinking on the night of the accident.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_04: So you have to do the previous drinking to make the drinking on the night of matter.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_04: And so you have to do count one to get the previous drinking in, and that then you talk about the night of on count two, and the thought processes, the jury, even though they're probably not allowed to, will tie all that in together and assume he was drinking on the night of.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and also, you know, like at the end of our plaintiff's closing, the last thing we said is make them give him one reason why he wasn't buyered.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_04: Like make them tell you one reason why he was even allowed to drive that night.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_04: Why was he, why do you still have why do you still have a job?
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that helps make the night of stuff worse.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_04: So ultimately it was a decision made not because I necessarily think it's the right legal strategy, necessarily, like in the sense of um would I try it that way in real life if I had infinite time or not infinite time, but a whole week or whatever, maybe not.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_04: But given the immediacy of of the Montrial environment, I think it's a good case, a good way to try it, we wanted something that would capture the attention and could compete with what I think was the defense's um inherent advantage on that.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_04: So that's kind of why we did it.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_06: Judge, how similar was your reasoning in going after count one when you didn't need to, given you you were already arguing count two?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Very similar reasoning.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I would say that the uh the the negligent hiring, training, and supervision, you know, opens up the admissibility of that extra evidence also.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and anytime you've got an opportunity to uh show that pattern in the way you put it here, I think that that enhances the plants case.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons I thought, frankly, that the plants case was you know strong.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think like I said earlier, I thought it'd be closer to uh 45, 55, 47, 53 or something like that.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought that there was some significant evidence to um present that the driver was drinking that night and that that would you know, drinking and driving being that the visceral reaction to that would have a uh more of a profound effect on the balance of the case.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_06: Why didn't you guys pursue uh failure to render aid, count three?
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_06: Couldn't prove it.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so there was no there was only one piece of testimony in the entire packet that said, so to prove it, you would have to be able to prove that the failure to take her to the hospital after the fact, immediately after the fact, made her injuries worse.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um and there was one line in her deposition you could read in where she says, A doctor told me I could have had a brain bleed, and so I should have come right to the hospital.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_04: That didn't say she did have a brain bleed, it just said she could have had a brain bleed.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_04: There's not even proof that she did.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_04: So there's really zero evidence that her injury would have ever gotten or got any worse because of this.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_04: So ultimately there's literally no causation evidence.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so I just don't know how you ever got there, right?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_04: Like when you went for count three, there was just no way to get to the the point where you could actually win count three, in my mind.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree, and uh and I'll add to that that the uh jury charge on count three, just as it was with counts one and two, was uh that it was a substantial factor also, which enhances to me what Robert was saying.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you couldn't you could not certainly I don't think you could get a third render without a substantial factor, but it's certainly not with substantial factor.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_06: Uh what was each of your team's themes, uh or I'm sorry, case frames on the plaintiff's side.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: Our plaintiff's theme was they put the driver behind the wheel, the driver put her on the pavement.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, fun.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_04: A safe ride requires a sober driver.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_06: I like that too.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_06: We said they put a drunk driver behind the wheel.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_06: And then our our sort of I wouldn't call it a sub theme, but the line we would use a lot to sort of tie in the advertising was they gave a drunk passenger a drunk driver.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_06: Um but but very similar to you guys.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_06: All right, let's let's do a little bit on defense.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_06: Um, because I think that more teams had similar theories in defense.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_06: And and I should say on the plaintiff side, we all had the same approach and we'd scrimmaged and we came to the that theory independently.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, I didn't talk to either of you before we scrimmaged.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_06: And so when we scrimmaged and saw the same theory in both of those rounds, I assumed everybody would be arguing something pretty similar.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_06: And we did not say a see a single other team.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_06: We saw three other plaintiffs.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, we did not see any plaintiffs who had the same argument as you guys did.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_04: So it's funny, we scrimmaged, we scrimmaged both of y'all.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_04: And one thing that was I said to my uh uh Chris Reese was coaching with me on his team, and I said to him afterwards, I said, Hey, if you Taylor and Cumberland are doing the same thing we're doing, I feel pretty good about the choices we're making.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_04: And and I didn't mean that, I mean it meant that in a bunch of ways.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_04: One way I meant it was I assumed most people would be doing it that way.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_04: And I guess it turns out that uh once we got the tournament, almost nobody else was doing it that way.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_04: So that's a that's interesting thing.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, we saw a team argue exclusively count one, just the negligent hiring, training, supervision.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_06: We saw a team argue uh exclusively count two, and then we saw a team argue count two plus failure to render aid.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_06: So uh it kept us on our toes.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_06: Let's turn to defense.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_06: Uh there were two affirmative defenses, assumption of risk and comparative fault.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_06: And of course, you didn't need to pursue either.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_06: You could just say we did nothing wrong.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_06: Judge, which one did you uh choose?
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_06: What was your your defense?
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we took the comparative fault.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_06: And not and and also challenged the plaintiff's prima facie case?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_06: Robert?
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_04: We did comparative fault, but in the closing, we essentially just argued for a no.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_04: So we actually never talked about the uh in closing, we never talked about the question on comparative fault and we never talked about the apportionment.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_04: We then argued the plaintiff's responsibility means no causation on our part, and therefore it's in there.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_06: We we had similar arguments, but we acknowledged some level of fault with respect to the seatbelt, saying our driver should have double checked and verified that her seatbelt was on before driving, given the the advertising for uh drunk passengers.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, but we thought it should be minimal responsibility.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_06: We argued, like you guys did, that the the plaintiff's own negligence is what caused this.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, what was your theme on defense, Judge?
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she didn't buckle up.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_06: Love it.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_06: So straightforward.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_06: We considered something similar.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, I like that a lot, Robert.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_04: We we we made that more complicated a little bit.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_04: We said she disregarded the warnings and she didn't buckle up.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_06: We said personal responsibility.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, which it's interesting.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_06: My students, some of them really liked it, some of them were apprehensive, and I think they're like, it's not that sexy, or like it's not that memorable.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_06: I'm like, I think adult jurors are gonna like it.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_06: It's just true, which is sometimes a bit right.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: That would have that was our sub theme, as you referred to your sub theme earlier.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she didn't buckle up and then we talked about personal response.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_06: What was the most unusual or creative theme thing that your team did, Robert?
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, we said she wasn't drunk.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_04: So um on the defense side, are you mean on the defense side or just in general?
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_04: In general.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_06: Uh in either side, most in you can pick more than one, but what are the most interesting things that you guys did or most creative things you did?
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_04: So the two things I think was most interesting was on the defense side.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_04: So we scrimmaged y'all, and then we scrimmaged Cumberland, and this was two weeks for the competition, and then I watched one of my students try the case in a practice court mini trial.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_04: So our students tried when they're pressed court as part of their mini trial process.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_04: And I watched the trial at the end of the trial, the defense team or the end of the openings, the jurors who were fellow students of theirs said they didn't like the way the defense was attacking the plaintiff for being drunk.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_04: And they felt like all the accusations against the plaintiff didn't ring true.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_04: She was just having a good time.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_04: And I remembered reading the plaintiff's deposition the very first time I read it and thinking, oh, this is one of those really lame efforts on the part of the plaintiff to say I wasn't that drunk and this really doesn't work, and nobody will use it.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_04: And so we started, just like everybody, I think most people saying she's really drunk, and therefore that's part of her negligence.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_04: But we then changed a week and a half before the competition and said she wasn't that drunk.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_04: She was, and there's lots of testimony like that.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_04: And so we said she should have understood the warning she was given.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_04: She should have used her C Bub because she was competent and she wasn't that drunk.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_04: And so it created more clash, I think, with the plaintiff's case of she was hammered and therefore they need to take care of her.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um, anyways, really I liked it because it allowed us to use the plaintiff's deposition against the plaintiff.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_04: Like the plaintiff says, I'm not that drunk, says it flat out.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_04: She's asked, Were you drunk?
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_04: And that's why you blacked out, and she says no.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_04: So if the plaintiff stands up and says she was drunk, they're done, they're disagreeing with their own client, um, which I thought was a kind of a unique way to go about it.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_04: The other thing I thought we did that I liked a lot was we did this demo.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_04: We pulled, there was a golf cart, and so we would pull four chairs out in the middle of the courtroom and put them in the middle of the well and walk through the night of with those four chairs, with a witness actually sitting in the chairs, um, which is one of my students came up with that idea, and I thought it was really I didn't like it at first, and then they did it, and I thought it looked good, so we did it on both sides, and I thought it worked pretty well.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, it it sounds a little theatrical for my case, but you know, uh you gotta do what works.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, Judge, what about you?
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_06: Anything unusual?
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't think so.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we we made from the defense perspective, we made her like basically you she planned to get drunk that night.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we went hard after her basically planning to get drunk and therefore going back to her personal responsibility.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think that's actually anything.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_06: And I and I don't know if this was right or not, but we sort of split the baby on those two arguments.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_06: We said that she was uh her she was intoxicated and that led to her falling out of the cart.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_06: You argued like a sober person just can't fall like that.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_06: But we also said that she wasn't too intoxicated to understand the instructions.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_06: And we talked about the fact that she was able to put her leg back in the cart when told to do this, do so.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_06: So if she can follow that instruction, she could have followed the other.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we did the same thing with the leg, but obviously she was listening and could pay attention.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I I was always afraid that we were gonna get called out for talking out of both sides of her mouth.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_06: Um, because it is a little bit of a thin line to walk.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_06: And I think in retrospect, I like your approaches better because you just took a position.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_06: We tried to we tried to have our cake and eat it too.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_04: We debated a bunch, I'll tell you that, because we were going the other way the entire time.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_04: And then I kind of got to the point where I was just like, isn't it way better for us if she was sober the more sober she is?
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_04: And they would have again, I liked it because is the plaintiff really going to get up and say, Look at the video, she's clearly hammered about their own client, right?
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_04: Like, so it's like you put the plaintiff in this really weird position of drunking up their own person, um, which is a weird, I just don't think most plaintiff's teams were ready to do that, right?
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_04: Like they wanted to call her drunk for the benefit of being able to say they need to take care of her, but they weren't really willing to stand up and be like, man, our client got hammered that night, you know?
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_04: And so it was kind of like, would you have would you be willing to do it beyond what you were expecting that happen, I guess.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_06: We had an identical conversation.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_06: I remember we we talked about the fact that even though the first reaction when you read the case is, oh, if she's drunk, that's that's bad for that's that's good for the defense because it's the plaintiff acting irresponsibly.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_06: But if she's stone called sober, the failure to put on a seatbelt becomes even less defensible for the plaintiff.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_06: And ultimately we we still just didn't trust that intuition because we thought there's gonna be judges who don't think deeply enough about it and go, why didn't you ask about the plaintiff being drunk?
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_06: So I I think that yours is the better approach.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_06: We just got gunshy.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think we'll ever know.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_04: I think you know, apparently you could show up and say, We're on the defense side and seatbelts, man, you know, but right.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_06: Uh well I I appreciate you guys coming on and talking about it.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_06: I had I was telling Spencer this uh when I was flying back, I was watching a poker video and it was like not just talking about poker theory, but it was talking to pros who explain how they made decisions in each hand.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_06: And so I love hearing how you guys made the decisions for each of your steps of the theory.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a really interesting conversation.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_04: It's a lot of fun to see you guys out there, a lot of fun to see everybody out there, um, a lot of good teams.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_04: And it's always this was an interesting one because as you say, you know, Justin, between rounds, we all sit outside and heard about what everybody else is doing and different little things.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_04: And some people use this, some people don't use that.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_04: It's always fascinating to hear people's thoughts behind why they do those things and what what caused those choices.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_04: So always a lot of fun to do it.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_06: Well, congrats to you both.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, I'm sorry, Josh.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, coaches will come out and and talk and give you little snippets about what their case is because you didn't draw them, you know, and so they'll talk a little bit, but you don't get into as in-depth uh discussion of it as you do like this after it's all over.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_06: Well, it's great to see you guys uh at the competition and great to connect with you today.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_06: I'll talk to you both soon.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: Good to see you guys.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_06: See y'all later.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_07: Well, Justin, you had a chance to speak with Annie Barry of Vanderbilt uh for the episode today.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_07: I'm excited to hear it.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I've known Annie since before I was really part of the law school community uh when I was coaching Top Gun and coaching one of my um undergrad alums, and they faced a Top Gun that she was extraordinary, and I'm glad to see that she's still involved uh about a decade later.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_06: Here's Annie.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_06: Please introduce yourself to the jury.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_03: Good morning.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_03: My name is Annie Barry.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_03: Annie, what do you do?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_03: I am currently a personal injury attorney with a appointed murder practice on the side.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm also a mock trial coach at Vanderbilt Law School.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_03: Murder practice on the side?
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I still take appointed cases.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_03: I left the public defender's office, but the public defender's office will never leave me.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_03: So I always have to have I always have to have one murder with me.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_06: That is a crazy side hustle.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's fair.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_06: So before we talk about your work, let's talk about uh where you got started.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_06: Where'd you grow up?
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_03: I grew up in Claremont, California, which is Southern California.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's a lovely little town that was an idyllic place to be.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_03: It was fantastic.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_03: And then from there, I went to college uh at Azusa Pacific University in Southern California.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_03: After that, I went off to work for a little bit.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_03: I coached the debate team at Azusa Pacific University, bartended for real money, and figured out what I was gonna do with my life, which I knew it would eventually be law school, but had some growing up and some perspective to get.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_03: And then after that, I went to American, where all of these stars aligned and hooked me up with Liz Bowles and Liz Lippy and gave me the mock trial program, which was an absolute joy.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_03: And then after that, I did a program called Gideon's Promise, where I uh they put young public defenders in the South.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_03: I like to say it as little young Chihuahuas that are gonna go try and do the best that they can.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I got placed in Nashville, Tennessee, uh, where I was a public defender for eight years.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_03: And after that, I moved over here to Bart Durham Injury Law, which is a phenomenal family-owned personal injury firm.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I still have my appointed murder practice, and I've been coaching at Naterville for four years now, five years?
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, well, I think I think you answered uh 12 of my next 14 questions.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_06: So we're off to make it easy.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_06: Uh so Any, you grew up in Southern California and you left.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_06: Why did you decide to leave SoCal to go east?
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_03: The avocados were too big.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_03: It was too much for me to handle.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_03: And so I needed smaller avocados, and so I had to move.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, no, I left because I left Southern California, my family is still there, the weather is beautiful, there's nothing to be mad at there.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_03: But uh, I needed I'm a butterfly.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_03: I need to fly my own wings and be on my own.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I always loved DC and wanted to be in DC for the foreseeable future, and I really loved the idea of flying and going on my own.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_03: I studied abroad for a period of time, and so California was just too small for me.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_03: I needed more.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_06: So you mentioned that you were an American with the Lizes.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_06: Uh how would you describe the difference between Liz Bowles and Liz Lippy?
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, obviously they're very similar people, but how would you describe the difference?
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_03: Oh man.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_03: Liz Lippy is gonna shoot from the hip.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_03: You're never gonna not know exactly what she is thinking, and she is going to tell you immediately what she wants you to do, and she's gonna love you fiercely, and she is going to push you, and she demands excellence at everything that she does, and she has a phenomenal sense of humor and somehow is still a 20-year-old in what is now, I'm assuming, a 30-year-old's body.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and Liz Bowles is just this silent powerhouse with a brain that you could never imagine that is always going to hold your hand and let you know that things will be okay.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_03: But whereas Liz Lippy is going to bite you and make you do what you want, Liz Bowles is solely going to, slowly going to make you realize that you and her want the same thing, but it's not the thing that you wanted in the first place.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like Liz Bowles is gonna get there, but she's gonna make it your idea, which is a phenomenal talent that I've never been able to replicate.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_06: You were a very successful law school advocate.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, you competed at Top Gun, I think, your three-l year.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_06: Is that your three-l year?
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_03: It was, yeah.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_06: And that's that's where you and I met.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, you you faced my student in in round four, I believe, and you were awesome.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, you're very kind.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that was that was so much fun.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_03: It was me, Liz, and Deirdre.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and we just we had a great time.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I think I remember Liz saying at the beginning of that tournament, I don't remember it was to who, um, if I have a student that can't leave my program and try a case under these conditions, then what have I done?
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I was about to go into public defense where this just in, you're not getting perfect fact patterns, you're not getting ideal witnesses, you don't have a closed universe of proof.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so I was really intrigued by the opportunity to do a case in 24 hours and try it against everyone else who wants to do a case in 24 hours.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's a phenomenal tournament.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_03: I was really happy to be there.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'd love to take a student back.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_03: But uh yeah, the goal was always how does this translate into the type of lawyer you want to be?
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_06: So you start in California, you go to law school in Washington, D.C.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_06: How do you end up in Nashville?
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_03: I did a program called Gideon's Promise.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and Gideon's Promise is essentially a matching program that takes a lot of young, young law students that want to be public defenders and it puts them in understaffed and under-resourced offices that the lawyers may not necessarily go to for a lot of reasons, maybe because it's a small office or they're not getting the litigation experience, or the office doesn't have the resources to hire them.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and so this the program partners with law schools that will fund their salary up to a certain period of time or go halves on their salary for a period of time to send that lawyer down there until that office can take them on full time.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_03: As a training program, it was, I believe it was two years where you go back every six months after an intensive, and I you set up a lottery of how many places you'd be willing to go for the off partner offices that are available, and you bid on them and you say, I want this one first, this one number two, this one number three.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I was very lucky that Nashville and I chose each other, and that's how I ended up down here.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_06: I think it's been 11 years, right?
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_03: It has.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_03: It has been 11 years.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_06: So, most important question next time I visit Nashville, where should I eat?
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_03: Everywhere.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_03: There's not a bad place.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'll steer you, I'll steer clear of most of the chains from you, but uh Bolton's hot chicken is gonna be fantastic.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_03: Get off Broadway.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_03: Once you can get off Broadway, you're gonna get most phenomenal food, but it's rich, so slow, slow yourself down.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_06: I I will tell you, I've been once and I love the hot chicken.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, I made a mistake.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_06: So the first night went to one of the two famous hot chicken splaces, went to Prince's, and it was excellent.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_06: And I was like, you know, this isn't that hot.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_06: Like I can handle it.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_06: It was it I mean, it hurt, but like I wasn't in pain.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_06: And the next morning, I went to what is the name of the other one that's super famous?
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_06: Patty B's.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_06: Patty B's.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_06: I think I liked it even more.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_06: And I ordered a little spicier and I could handle it.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_06: But what I did not appreciate was the cumulative impact of late night at one, first thing the next day for the other.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_06: And the cumulative impact on my inside was very bad.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_06: Um without going into detail, I will tell you that is the first and only time in my life I voluntarily used a McDonald's restroom.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_03: Impressive.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you gotta, you've gotta, that's why they give you the bread.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_03: You gotta have it soak up in between.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_03: You gotta give yourself some time.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_03: And also if there's a sneaky heat.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_03: It's so you're you're you're one or two pieces in before you realize that you may have made a mistake once you elevate your heat level.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but yeah, that's why the sides are important.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's a it's a team, team effort there.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I had the sides.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I I I was still in pain.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_06: Uh okay, let's talk about your public defender work.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_06: You were public defender before you were in private practice.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_06: What is your craziest war story as a public defender?
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_03: Oh man.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_03: So I was uh I started out in general sessions, which is our misdemeanor court, and then moved into our criminal court, which is our felonies, and then I spent the majority of my time on the floater team, which is the serious felony trial team, which was a really lovely experience because you kind of get to go around and you're not a line attorney per se, but you're just taking a felonies and above.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_03: So for the most part, I had just really sad cases.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um I had things that were heartbreaking with decisions that are heartbreaking either way.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um you can choose to go to trial and fight for your life, or you can choose to preserve what's left of your life, or you're just doing things that are really painful for a jury to see.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, child rape, child sex abuse cases, or rape cases in general.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's just those are just hard all around.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_03: So I have those stories.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_03: Those are heartbreaking stories, but my favorite stories come from misdemeanor court, which was just when you see the craziest things and the funniest things that would absolutely happen.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_03: So my favorite story is I was young and spry and just out of Top Gun.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I had a gentleman who uh tossed himself in a trash can in an alley and was banging it and banging it and banging it, and he was yelling, I'm trashed, I'm trashed.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_03: And he was cited for public uh essentially public disruption.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, No, he's just he's protesting, he's got a First Amendment right.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_03: He's saying that he's trashed and he's literally in the trash.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't really know what we're doing here if we don't really love that flag that's hanging in the back of the courtroom.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to be here.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_03: So I I love the funny story.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_03: Those those bring me joy.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, just today I asked you how it was going and you told me about uh a client comment to a judge.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, that unfortunately that was pretty common in my life.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_03: I had a I had a client today who uh called the judge a handful of names, all of which are inappropriate to repeat here, uh, because she didn't agree with her and didn't give her money.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_03: And I walked out and was like, Well, I don't really know why we're surprised that the judge didn't give you money when you've called her a handful of names that would have gotten me slapped upside the face.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but this is why judge credibility is important, because that judge did not look at me and say, Miss Barry, what the heck?
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_03: She was like, Miss Barry's gonna can I walk you out now.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I believe those names that she called the judge included comments about the judge's uh parenting quality, her ethnicity, her intelligence, hygiene, you know, all of it.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_03: Correct.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_03: And the substance of the case.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, just a general F this, this is BS.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, uh just weird that it didn't work out for her.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_06: So, on top of your now private practice and your work uh doing murder cases on the side, uh we talk about side dishes, that's a pretty big one.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_06: You also are coaching uh the Vanderbilt team.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_06: How large is the Vanderbilt Law School trial team?
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_03: It is any it depends.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_03: It but it is anywhere between eight to about 20 people uh per given semester.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we compete in three tournaments a year, but that is it is relatively small in terms of from where from where I'm coming from and from where most of these teams are coming from.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_03: We are a small student-run team.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_06: How many coaches do you have?
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's just me.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_03: I am coach, director, admin, HR, all of the above.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_03: Just little old Annie.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_06: You don't have any alumni coaches, just you?
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_03: I have no alumni coaches.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_03: It is just me.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a student run.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_03: So they help coach each other.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'm getting a lot of kids, a lot of students that are coming from Amto and a lot of students that are coming from undergrad uh mock trial programs.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_06: Undergrads, I heard those are the worst.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_06: I do have my feet.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_06: Aren't aren't they all like cheaters and terrible?
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_06: That that's what I've heard.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_03: No, they're not cheaters and terrible, but the I was I was misinformed.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_03: The acting could get toned down from my perspective.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_06: I've heard about the acting.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_06: I've heard about the acting.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_03: Oh man, I uh I thought about giving out little acting awards, but then I realized I didn't have time to do that.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_06: So yeah, we we we don't give out little acting awards, we give out big ones.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_03: God bless, man.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, so it's it's just me um doing all of it.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_03: So they the students do help one another, and I do find that that is helpful with ownership uh of managing your case and managing your time, but it comes it it's very stressful come competition season for me.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_06: Well that has somehow not prevented you from doing extraordinarily well.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_06: Uh the Vanderbilt team has flourished under your leadership, including uh not only uh appearances at Tyler Nationals, but also you guys made the break at Tyler Nationals in what was that, 2022, 2023?
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, we did.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh that was we were octaves?
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_03: I don't remember.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we made the break.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_03: That was a one that was my uh first year over at over at Vanderbilt, and I had a wonderful team that was really, really driven.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_03: And that was before I was a mom or had three jobs.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_03: And so the amount of time we were able to give, but that's very kind.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's I I love my nerds.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_03: They're they're really they're they're wonderful students.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it is it has been fun to be with them for sure.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_06: We saw your team in the quarters, they were excellent.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_06: I think it was a one-point round.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, you guys are really, really good.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_03: That was that was uh that was a fun year, and it was it was I was really, really happy for them to see that their hard work had paid off because hard work doesn't always pay off.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it was really they were phenomenal and your teams are always phenomenal, and it was great to see them.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I was just glad to steal a ballot.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_03: It was great.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I I can't just ask you the questions that I prepared to ask you.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_06: I also have some questions from one of your former coaches.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_06: I've got two questions from Liz Lippy.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_06: Uh shocker.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_06: So she said, Ask her whether I broke my babies.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's from Top Gun.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yes, she absolutely broke her babies.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_03: So after Top Gun, after uh the story is gonna be hilarious.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_03: I blame Baylor.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, after you get cut from Top Gun, you are released into the Why can't I remember the town that Baylor is in?
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_03: Waco.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_03: You are released into Waco, and we all went to Robert's bar, which was hilarious.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_03: I think I laid down on a pool table at one point and yelled at Jaren Carrot Rosenblatt.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and we were walking to get our Uber, and we had been overserved, obviously.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_03: None of it was our fault.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_03: And Liz fell down over a sidewalk that clearly needed to have a have the lawsuit come after it.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_03: And she fell down and broke her phone.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_03: And on her phone was a picture of her twins.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_03: And so you just have this broken screen where she turns to me with those giant Liz lippy eyes, and she says to me, I broke my babies.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_03: And obviously I responded in a most compassionate way, and I said, And she did, she broke her.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_03: Babies.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_06: Uh that was an amazing story.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_06: Annie, I've also been told to ask you about your Russian accent.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes I use to get reservations.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, okay.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_03: Stravutse.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_06: And and this is after you uh criticize the empta acting.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_03: See, but that's just that's been I don't have a whole persona.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_03: I just have a small accent that helps me scare people sometimes.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_06: I I don't have a whole accent.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_06: I I and I don't have a whole personality.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_06: I just change the way I sound, the way I talk, and I have a backstory that I use to my advantage sometimes.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's very it's there's an overacting to it.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_06: I'm I'm telling you, with with these skills and your Southern California roots, I we'd love to have you.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_01: I need some.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_01: What is what's one more job, right?
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_01: What's one more?
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're not in the same region.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_06: Uh Annie, last question for you.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_06: What is your favorite thing that you're good at?
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_06: And your favorite thing even though you're not so good at it.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that makes me sound so egotistical.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_02: I hate this.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_02: My favorite thing that I'm good at.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_03: I like making people laugh for the most part, whether it's clients or judges or students or anybody.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that I'm I'm decent at that.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_03: My favorite thing that I'm not good at would be singing.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_03: Because like it's it's so enjoyable to go to a concert or like have a favorite song with people, and then when you ruin it with your own voice, that's really disappointing.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_03: But the spirit is still there.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_06: That is by far the most common answer the guests on the show give.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_06: I there's something about lawyers uh that they want to sing, but they recognize their their shortfalls.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, I've got a follow-up though.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_06: Uh you said you used to be a bartender.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_06: What was your best drink?
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_06: What what what or it then and now?
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_06: Like what do you make the best?
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I make a great martini.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_03: I make a mean, dirty martini.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I love them.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_06: Gin or vodka?
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_03: Vodka.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_03: Hello.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, of course.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_06: Um tell me, what's what's the secret to a great vodka martini?
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_03: Super tiny ice.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I have I currently have an ice cube holder that is just this these tiny, tiny, little, little, tiny balls.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's similar to the sonic ice, but it's not as breakable.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's like a bunch of really miniature bourbon ice cubes, and that just keeps it nice and cold.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_03: And that the fun trick is if you make those with half water, half olive juice, then you can continue the brininess and it just gets really exciting.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_06: That is very impressive.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_06: I I think that uh I've heard the Frank Sinatra quote about how he liked his martinis.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_06: It's it's lots of vodka or gin, and then you just look at the vermouth.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's fair.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_03: Vermouth is a she's a she's a strong mistress.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_03: So I I like I like her to dance across, but the olives can hang around.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_03: They're welcome to stay.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_06: Annie, thank you for for joining us.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_07: And that's not all, Justin.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_07: You also spoke of Houston LeFrance of St.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_07: Thomas University of Florida.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_06: That's right.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_06: We wanted to have him on for a while.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_06: Uh that program has been consistently good, but in the last year and a half, they've just taken off.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_06: So I wanted to find out what the secret ingredient is down in Florida.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_05: Welcome to Unscripted Direct.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_05: Please introduce yourself to the jury.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_05: All right, my name is Houston Lafrance.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_05: I'm the faculty advisor over at St.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_05: Thomas University College of Law.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_05: And when you're not teaching and coaching, what do you do professionally?
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_05: I have my own uh law firm practicing personal injury and criminal defense along with my partner, uh Louis Colandrino.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_05: Well, let's start at the beginning.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_05: Where'd you grow up?
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_05: Actually, I grew up in Miami, Florida.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, been living in South Florida in some capacity my entire life.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_06: So I I see that you you grew up there, you went to Florida International for college, St.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas, Florida for law school.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_06: Now you're practicing there.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_06: Are you familiar with the phrase Florida man?
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I absolutely am.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_05: But although, to be fair, I think it applies to everything north of West Palm Beach.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_05: That is definitely Florida man country.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, I see.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_06: So you're you're disavowing your your inclusion in the group.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_06: Um for those who don't know, what does Florida man refer to?
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_05: It it there seems to be a Florida man who does Florida things on the Florida news all the time.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I I feel like any story you tell me about someone like let's say had an alligator that they decided to defile.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_05: I wonder where it happened.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_05: It happened in Florida.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_05: I'm thinking of the uh former Gators coach who was allegedly on an alligator.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_05: I'm thinking of that picture when I say that, but it's just that.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_06: So somebody who does crazy things.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, actually, that's a nice way of saying that.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, someone who says crazy things or does crazy things.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_06: You're not you're not denying that Florida man is accurate, you're just saying that it's it's limited geographically to only a portion of Florida.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's that's my answer.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_06: All right, got it.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, what did your parents do while you're growing up?
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_05: Uh my dad owned his own business.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_05: Uh he owned a mortgage company, and my mom used to work for ATT.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_05: And then obviously, once the kid showed up, she was a stay-at-home mom.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_05: What made you want to become a lawyer?
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_05: After undergrad, I you know, I it's it's something that I always wanted to do.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and when I had the opportunity and I took the LSAT, I I just jumped at the opportunity and decided to pursue that.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_05: I thought I was gonna be a transactional lawyer when I started law school, but that changed obviously once I got into law school.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_06: So in law school, you competed for the trial team, right?
• 1:11:16
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_06: I did.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_06: I did.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_06: Was that because your your interest had already changed and you wanted to do trial work, or was your work with the trial team what spurred you to want to do trial work?
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_05: It was the work with the with the trial team.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because I was I was originally on our Mo Court board and I competed in that competition.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't like it.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I very much was not used to somebody cutting me off while I'm trying to talk.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_05: And then I got the opportunity to do our trial team, and I I mean it it it literally is what changed my life.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_05: Like I found the thing that spoke to me.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_05: And, you know, just to go as an aside, but like the gentleman who ran the program at the time, I told him, I said, I said, I don't think you realize what you gave me.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_05: You gave me a blank check to like feed my family and take care of my family, and it's it's been true ever since.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_05: That's incredible.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that competition that I did, uh it it truly was probably one of the most magical things that I've experienced in my life was just being up there giving that closing argument.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, this is amazing, and like people like it.
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_05: It was it was amazing.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_06: So you're saying that mood court is boring and mock trial is transformative.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, yes, it was boring for me.
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_06: Um yeah, no, I I that that's correct.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_06: That's the correct answer.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_06: Uh so which competitions did you do in law school?
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_05: So I did the Nova closing argument um in 2013.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_05: That was the competition that like really like told me this is where I belong.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_05: I did labor law in fall of 2013, and then I did the Chester Bedell competition in 2014.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_06: How large was the St.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas trial team then compared to now?
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_05: I'm pretty sure we had like 18 to 20 people on the team when I started now.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_05: I want to say we're probably I'm gonna give you an estimate because I know the number vacillates a lot, but it's anywhere between 40 and like 50 people on the team now.
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_05: That that's that's just the trial team.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_06: That doesn't include moot court or anything anything else.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's just trial team.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_06: That's huge.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, that's gotta be not only one of the larger trial teams in the country, but as a percentage of the student body, it's huge.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, uh, we we I mean, obviously our success over the last few years have have helped with that, but yeah, it's a it's a big program now.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I want to talk more in a minute about the success of the program and how it's grown, but first I want to talk more about your career.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_06: So after law school, you started as a public defender.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_06: Within two years, you started your own firm.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_06: What gave you the confidence to hang your own shingle just two years out of school?
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_06: And how much of that was related to the fact that you saw your dad uh starting his own business?
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_05: So I I I think implicitly growing up in a household with my dad owning his own business, that probably pay played a large part in it.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_05: But also to just to be candid, I I didn't like the idea that you know someone could control my time.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_05: It's not that I can't follow instructions or be a good, you know, follower or employee.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_05: It's just, you know, if if I'm going to be doing something and have you control my time, I feel like the compensation needed to make sense to me.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_05: So and you know, I look, I've been poor before.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_05: So being poor on my own and being poor as a public defender, I was like, one I control my time and one I don't, I'm okay with giving it a shot because you know, at that point in my life, it was just me and my wife.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_05: So and she supported me going solo, and that that's what I did.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_06: Well, you've done very well.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_06: Uh super lawyers, rising stars twice, national trial lawyers top 40 under 40 three times, National Academy of Criminal Defense Lawyers top 10 under 40.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_06: What is your proudest victory in the courtroom?
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_06: That's a good one.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_05: I would say the proudest I'm I'm gonna say was a homicide case in 2022, I believe.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it was I I I love that case for the simple fact that when I got brought on to the case, you know, the the the thinking was was, you know, this is an impossible case, it's on camera, there's all this like bad evidence.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_05: And one of the things that I was able to do with my co-counsel was like we took all like the supposed bad facts and made them our good facts, which is kind of hard to do in a criminal case, but like we did it.
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_05: And I just remember how the judge's opinion of like me and the case kind of changed that when we got right to closings, like she went from uh what are you what are you guys talking about to uh I think this might be you know a verdict in favor of you guys.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_05: She didn't say that in those words, but just like her her demeanor towards me changed, and like the courtroom staff pretty much was like, You guys are doing awesome.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_05: Like they're just we we we wouldn't have been able to see this angle that you guys took, and you know, and and I remember we we got the not guilty verdict, and I had the foreman come up to me afterwards and was like, Oh, you know, it was a great job.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_05: He like spoke to me for like an hour.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_05: So like I I'd say that one, just as a pure legal, like put together a case and and kind of do something that everybody thought was difficult, I'd say that one is my property one.
• 1:16:06
  SPEAKER_05: How did you end up getting the job uh teaching and coaching in St.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_05: Thomas?
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um the the prior faculty advisor, uh Michael Mayer, was retiring, and he had asked me if I wanted to take over, and you know, I I told him no.
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_05: I was laying in a hospital bed.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, I was like, I had been in the hospital at that point like a week and a half.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um definitely the last thing I wanted to do was coach, and he kept insisting that I take the job.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember my wife saying to me, you know, I think you should do it, uh, because obviously stress is is what puts you in here.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_05: And she she was on trial team as well.
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_05: So obviously we both had a love for the program.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_05: And I I said no, I didn't want to do it.
• 1:16:53
  SPEAKER_05: I I I remember I mentioned the names of other people who were associated with the program.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_05: And Mike just said to me, He goes, No, it has to be you.
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_05: Uh he's like, get better, but I I want it to be you.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, once he put my name forward to the school, all the deans said yes.
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_05: I think at that point I had only been a lawyer like three years.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um and he asked me to just do one thing.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, look, just take care of the program and you know, learn learn the gig, which I did.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_05: But yeah, it's uh it it definitely wasn't something that I chose.
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_05: I'm glad that I did it because I actually got to help a ton of people, uh, a lot of the students who came through the program.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_05: And one of the things I always say to them is, I'm from this program.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_05: This program helped me be able to feed myself, feed my family, you know, take care of my wife, take care of my kid.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_05: I know that when my kid gets older, he he's not gonna want for anything, and that's all because of stuff that I learned on trial team, because Mike took the time to pour into me, and I try to take the same amount of time and to pour into the other students so they can have the same thing.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_05: Because, you know, I know for as much success as we've had as a program, my KPI for success is are you able to feed your family?
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_05: Did you find a good job?
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_05: You know, are you are you doing right by your clients?
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_05: Like that's that's the KPI that I care about.
• 1:18:13
  SPEAKER_05: And I know, like, you know, that probably isn't what is as publishable, you know, but for me personally, because I am from the program, you know, that that's the thing that I value the most.
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_05: And and I love when my you know former students call me and and tell me about what's going on with their life because I think that's that's my main job, and like the competition stuff is like a byproduct of you know the work that we do with the KPIs that I care about.
• 1:18:40
  SPEAKER_06: So for the last 10 years, you've been the faculty advisor for St.
• 1:18:43
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas's Ma Trial Program.
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_06: How has running your own business very successfully helped you run the trial program very successfully?
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_05: I would say in in running my own business, one of the things I learned very on was policies and procedures, procedures and creating systems for everything because that like makes it easier to run and identify when something is going wrong.
• 1:19:08
  SPEAKER_05: I was able to apply those same principles to St.
• 1:19:10
  SPEAKER_05: Thomas, where we we kind of have a system for everything that we do over there, how we train our students, how we you know prepare for fact patterns, even how we select competitions.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_05: There's a system for that.
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_05: And when something breaks, I guess, or like a result doesn't go the way that we expect, it's easier for me to then like look and see where like the thinking was wrong, or maybe an assumption that was taken was wrong.
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_05: Because I I have the system and I can just go and say, okay, well, we did this the same, we did this the same, this was a little bit different, and I'm able to identify like the thing that was different and hopefully correct it the next go around.
• 1:19:48
  SPEAKER_06: Can you give me an example of a system that you use uh at St.
• 1:19:51
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas that you found to be really effective?
• 1:19:53
  SPEAKER_05: So I'll give you a system for our non-competing uh members.
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_05: So what we try to do is to pair them up in their groups of four, and we try to give them a coach.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_05: So I know that it's gonna be a group of four.
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_05: We're gonna create a uh a WhatsApp chat with them.
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_05: I know that that coach is gonna reach out with availabilities.
• 1:20:13
  SPEAKER_05: That coach is going to give them, like, hey, I need your openings or whatever part that you're doing.
• 1:20:19
  SPEAKER_05: I need that by a certain time that it'll be reviewed.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_05: You know, the the coach will review the parts, they'll meet in person and they'll they'll do practicing.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_05: So I know that all of that that I just described is outlined very clearly so that one practice group isn't different from another, so that there should be continuity across the board.
• 1:20:37
  SPEAKER_05: So, like that's a system that we use um within our program.
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_06: So, how much of your leadership at St.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas is oversight and making sure that everyone else is doing what they should be doing?
• 1:20:47
  SPEAKER_06: All the coaches are coaching the way that they're supposed to, versus actual hands-on coaching and instruction.
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_06: What's what's the what's the pie chart look like?
• 1:20:54
  SPEAKER_05: I I teach our Thursday class for an hour and a half every week.
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_05: During the semester, I do a lot of oversight.
• 1:21:02
  SPEAKER_05: I try not to coach a competition during the semester just because it's it's hard, it's very time consuming.
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but every so often I may have to, or if there is a competition going on, I may come in and you know, I'll I'll observe practices.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_05: I'm I used to be in a group chat, so not anymore.
• 1:21:20
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I'd be in a group chat, so I'd see what the conversations are, have access to their drive, and I can see like how the case is coming together.
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_05: And if something requires me to step in, I'll probably tell the coach, um, you know, simply needs to change.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_05: So if if I had to say during the semester, it's maybe maybe 80, 20, and then during the winter where I'm not teaching, but I can the only competition that I coach for sure is Chester Badell.
• 1:21:46
  SPEAKER_05: That one I'm you know, obviously that's that's like a hundred percent because there's no school uh during that time period for Chester Badell.
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_05: So however that math works out is the answer.
• 1:21:56
  SPEAKER_06: So under your leadership, the program has done exceptionally well.
• 1:21:59
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, national champions at ABA labor, winners of the online national championship, NTC regional champion, NTC national runner-up, invitation at Top Gun.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_06: Last year, number eight in gavel across the entire country.
• 1:22:11
  SPEAKER_06: Congratulations.
• 1:22:12
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you.
• 1:22:12
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, you mentioned that there's about 40 to 50 students in the program at any one time.
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_06: About how many coaches do you have helping you?
• 1:22:18
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I can tell you right now.
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_05: I know this is bad radio, but I have well let me narrate.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_06: He's looking at his phone.
• 1:22:27
  SPEAKER_05: I have 17 coaches, uh, plus about another 10 like volunteer coaches, so 27.
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_05: That's a lot.
• 1:22:37
  SPEAKER_06: That's a lot.
• 1:22:37
  SPEAKER_06: Um I want to talk about last year particular.
• 1:22:40
  SPEAKER_06: It was a magical year for St.
• 1:22:41
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas.
• 1:22:42
  SPEAKER_06: In addition to all of the other competition success, your program was a standout at the national trial competition.
• 1:22:48
  SPEAKER_06: Not only did your team win a very difficult NTC regional with Mercer, Stetson, Georgia, but at nationals, you went undefeated in the prelims, won your quarterfinal, won your semifinal, and played UMKC in a very close final round.
• 1:23:00
  SPEAKER_06: At what point did you know this team was really special?
• 1:23:04
  SPEAKER_05: I would say, I would say during the lead up to the practices, um the the head coach for that competition was my assistant faculty advisor, Jeff James.
• 1:23:15
  SPEAKER_05: And, you know, I I would just see what is being put together.
• 1:23:19
  SPEAKER_05: And uh in most competitions, I'm normally like, you know, a a little bit more, especially with the theorycraft and hey, like it should be this, it should be that.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I I didn't have to say anything.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_05: I think the three coaches that were coaching that competition with those students, I didn't have to do anything.
• 1:23:33
  SPEAKER_05: And it it when they went up there and I I you know I was getting the feedback and I heard that they advanced, I I was like, I was like, wait a minute, this might be um one of those like special weekends.
• 1:23:46
  SPEAKER_05: And it turned out to be one of those special weekends.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_05: I was, I mean, look, to be candid with you, I thought both the teams we sent were were very good, and I was surprised that the other team didn't at least advance.
• 1:23:57
  SPEAKER_05: So, but the team that did advance and win the region, they they were a special group.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um, Juan in particular, he's the one who did Top Gun with us, is uh him and him and Melody are are incredibly special advocates.
• 1:24:08
  SPEAKER_06: And he's coming back this year to compete, right?
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he is.
• 1:24:11
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 1:24:11
  SPEAKER_06: So so everybody better watch out.
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_06: Now, one of our previous guests, Bobby Flowers, uh talked about the fact that you know she had a she had a storied career.
• 1:24:20
  SPEAKER_06: She started Eats.
• 1:24:21
  SPEAKER_06: She's uh was at Stetson when they won the Triple Crown, Tyler Nationals, AAJ Nationals, and Tournament of Champions the same year.
• 1:24:27
  SPEAKER_06: But she said it wasn't a success unless they won the local competition.
• 1:24:30
  SPEAKER_06: Uh in Florida, Chester Bedell.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, how does your school feel?
• 1:24:34
  SPEAKER_06: Is how did the the importance of the Florida competitions compare to how you guys do at national competitions?
• 1:24:40
  SPEAKER_05: I'd say when I when I took over the program, the mandate that I got was to put our students in front of Florida judges and lawyers and in order to get our students the opportunity to get those jobs.
• 1:24:51
  SPEAKER_05: So it it also plays into like why I only coach Chester Bidell because I know institutionally for our program, that's the competition um that the school wants us to do.
• 1:25:02
  SPEAKER_05: So Chester Bidell, FJA, um the last few years we've we've we've kind of been doing really well at that competition.
• 1:25:09
  SPEAKER_05: We won FJ two out of the last three years.
• 1:25:12
  SPEAKER_05: Uh no, we were on a three-peat for Baddell up until this past January, where we didn't uh we we obviously didn't win it.
• 1:25:20
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, our our our state competitions for at least for us institutionally are pretty important.
• 1:25:24
  SPEAKER_05: So your school, St.
• 1:25:26
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas in Florida, is often confused with St.
• 1:25:28
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas in Minnesota.
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_06: I see you you're nodding and smiling.
• 1:25:31
  SPEAKER_06: Uh so we're gonna play a game to see how well you know the difference.
• 1:25:34
  SPEAKER_06: Uh you ready?
• 1:25:35
  SPEAKER_06: I am.
• 1:25:36
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 1:25:36
  SPEAKER_06: So I'm gonna ask you a question.
• 1:25:37
  SPEAKER_06: You just simply tell me, is this your St.
• 1:25:40
  SPEAKER_06: your St.
• 1:25:40
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas or Minnesota St.
• 1:25:41
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas?
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_06: We've got nine questions.
• 1:25:43
  SPEAKER_06: Here we go.
• 1:25:44
  SPEAKER_06: Which St.
• 1:25:45
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas graduated Jose Baez, defense attorney in the Casey Anthony trial?
• 1:25:49
  SPEAKER_06: That would be the Miami St.
• 1:25:51
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas.
• 1:25:51
  SPEAKER_06: That's correct.
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_06: Which St.
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas employed Professor Rachel Moran before she went on to become dean of my law school, UCLA School of Law.
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna say that's Minnesota.
• 1:25:59
  SPEAKER_06: Correct.
• 1:26:00
  SPEAKER_06: Which one has LLM programs in cybersecurity and in intercultural human rights?
• 1:26:06
  SPEAKER_05: That's gonna be the Miami St.
• 1:26:07
  SPEAKER_05: Thomas.
• 1:26:08
  SPEAKER_06: Three for three.
• 1:26:09
  SPEAKER_06: Which one closed during the Great Depression and then later reopened?
• 1:26:12
  SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna say that's the Minnesota St.
• 1:26:14
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas.
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_06: That's right.
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_06: Uh because your St.
• 1:26:17
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas, this isn't this isn't a uh official question, but what year was your St.
• 1:26:21
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas founded?
• 1:26:22
  SPEAKER_06: Was it 1989?
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_06: 1985.
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_06: Uh 1984, close enough.
• 1:26:26
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, 84.
• 1:26:26
  SPEAKER_06: Which St.
• 1:26:27
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas has a center devoted exclusively to ethics?
• 1:26:30
  SPEAKER_06: That's gonna be Minnesota.
• 1:26:31
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, you you sounded a little disappointed.
• 1:26:33
  SPEAKER_06: Um it's it's it's it's hard to compete for the uh the ethics award and the professionalism award when you're not the one with the ethics center.
• 1:26:39
  SPEAKER_06: I know that's hard.
• 1:26:40
  SPEAKER_06: That's hard.
• 1:26:40
  SPEAKER_06: That's true.
• 1:26:41
  SPEAKER_06: Uh it it Cumberland, that is all they teach as one else.
• 1:26:44
  SPEAKER_06: It's just ethics.
• 1:26:45
  SPEAKER_06: Like they don't they don't teach contracts or criminal or torts, it's just ethics.
• 1:26:48
  SPEAKER_06: Six classes all year.
• 1:26:49
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I will say as an aside with with Cumberland, we went against them at uh Top Gun.
• 1:26:54
  SPEAKER_05: That is a well-earned reputation.
• 1:26:57
  SPEAKER_05: That was I and and and I told uh their coach that I was like, that is a well-earned reputation.
• 1:27:02
  SPEAKER_05: They were so polite and professional.
• 1:27:04
  SPEAKER_05: Sorry, but just wanted to say that.
• 1:27:05
  SPEAKER_06: No, I I I agree.
• 1:27:06
  SPEAKER_06: Uh that doesn't that doesn't mean we're gonna stop making fun of them.
• 1:27:09
  SPEAKER_06: Um okay, which St.
• 1:27:10
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas' sports teams are called the Tommies?
• 1:27:13
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, that's Minnesota.
• 1:27:14
  SPEAKER_06: And you guys, your mascot?
• 1:27:15
  SPEAKER_06: The Bobcat.
• 1:27:16
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 1:27:17
  SPEAKER_06: So the Tommy uh is Tommy the Tomcat, and you guys are the Bobcats.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_06: They're both St.
• 1:27:21
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas' cats.
• 1:27:22
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 1:27:22
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, which one of the St.
• 1:27:23
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas law schools has changed its name twice?
• 1:27:26
  SPEAKER_05: I'm going to say the Miami St.
• 1:27:27
  SPEAKER_05: Thomas.
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_05: What were the names?
• 1:27:29
  SPEAKER_05: That is a good.
• 1:27:30
  SPEAKER_05: I know we were all Ben Crump uh law school.
• 1:27:34
  SPEAKER_05: Was it the I don't I I want to say Thomas More, but I'm not sure if that's uh that was the name.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_05: So I believe it was the St.
• 1:27:41
  SPEAKER_05: Thomas.
• 1:27:42
  SPEAKER_06: So I think it was St.
• 1:27:42
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas at the beginning, then it became Crump, and then it's back to St.
• 1:27:45
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas.
• 1:27:46
  SPEAKER_05: St.
• 1:27:46
  SPEAKER_05: Thomas.
• 1:27:47
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, okay.
• 1:27:47
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, there you go.
• 1:27:49
  SPEAKER_06: So so far you you are seven for seven.
• 1:27:51
  SPEAKER_06: Which St.
• 1:27:52
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas has more students?
• 1:27:54
  SPEAKER_05: I would say, and I'm I'm gonna say the Miami St.
• 1:27:56
  SPEAKER_05: Thomas, only because I heard that these are our biggest classes ever.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_05: Ever, which depending on the data that you have access to, I'm not sure if it's older or more recent.
• 1:28:06
  SPEAKER_05: So I I'd say the Miami St.
• 1:28:08
  SPEAKER_05: Thomas, although this one I'm not as confident on.
• 1:28:10
  SPEAKER_06: I like the hedging.
• 1:28:11
  SPEAKER_06: You're like, oh, it's this one, but if I'm wrong, it's the data you have access to.
• 1:28:15
  SPEAKER_06: Uh you you are correct.
• 1:28:16
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 1:28:17
  SPEAKER_06: Eight for eight.
• 1:28:17
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 1:28:18
  SPEAKER_06: Last one, if you get this one, it's a perfect score.
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_06: Which St.
• 1:28:21
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas unfortunately knocked out both UCLA teams at NT NTC Nationals last year.
• 1:28:26
  SPEAKER_05: That would be uh the Miami St.
• 1:28:28
  SPEAKER_05: Thomas Juan and uh Melody.
• 1:28:31
  SPEAKER_05: Uh yeah, they were like I said they were special that year.
• 1:28:35
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah.
• 1:28:36
  SPEAKER_06: Uh we unfortunately had a front row seat.
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_06: They were excellent.
• 1:28:39
  SPEAKER_06: Nine for nine, 100%.
• 1:28:41
  SPEAKER_06: Congratulations.
• 1:28:42
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, you you know you're St.
• 1:28:43
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas.
• 1:28:43
  SPEAKER_06: I do.
• 1:28:44
  SPEAKER_06: I do.
• 1:28:44
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I need to ask you about some competition results that are are less flattering.
• 1:28:48
  SPEAKER_06: I understand that you're a Florida State football fan.
• 1:28:50
  SPEAKER_05: I am.
• 1:28:50
  SPEAKER_06: I am a Florida State football football fan, unfortunately.
• 1:28:54
  SPEAKER_05: What has the last decade been like for you?
• 1:28:58
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we did have uh we we did have a few good years.
• 1:29:01
  SPEAKER_05: Uh we went undefeated and then proceeded to not make it to the playoffs, and it's been downhill ever since.
• 1:29:09
  SPEAKER_05: So it's uh it's rough.
• 1:29:11
  SPEAKER_05: I can I can say that much.
• 1:29:12
  SPEAKER_05: It's rough.
• 1:29:13
  SPEAKER_06: Are Florida State fans still upset about going undefeated and not making the playoffs?
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_05: I think at this point they would gladly go through that every year than to experience what we've been experiencing uh experiencing with like the last few years where it's just like Saturdays are you know are for family at this point because there's no point watching the games.
• 1:29:32
  SPEAKER_06: All right, let's let's wrap up.
• 1:29:34
  SPEAKER_06: Last question for you What is your favorite thing you're good at and your favorite thing you're not so good at?
• 1:29:39
  SPEAKER_05: My favorite thing that I'm good at is making a good steak.
• 1:29:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I say that because my wife and my kid approve every time I make a steak, they give me approving uh you know, compliments, things that I'm not so good at.
• 1:29:54
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, well, let's pause there.
• 1:29:55
  SPEAKER_05: Uh what are your suggestions for how I can make a better steak?
• 1:29:58
  SPEAKER_05: I have to answer your question with a question.
• 1:30:01
  SPEAKER_05: What is your current steak making method?
• 1:30:03
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 1:30:03
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I put a little uh salt and pepper on each side, more salt and pepper.
• 1:30:08
  SPEAKER_06: I don't love a lot of pepper.
• 1:30:09
  SPEAKER_06: Um get it to room temperature-ish and get the griddle hot, cook it on one side, flip it, uh eat it.
• 1:30:18
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:30:18
  SPEAKER_05: So I will make two suggestions for you.
• 1:30:21
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:30:22
  SPEAKER_05: The salt pepper is a classic.
• 1:30:24
  SPEAKER_05: Always go with that.
• 1:30:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um, if you want, there is a uh there's a seasoning that I use.
• 1:30:29
  SPEAKER_05: It's called the red seasoning.
• 1:30:31
  SPEAKER_05: So you don't even have to use the salt and pepper, you just use this sprinklet on there.
• 1:30:35
  SPEAKER_06: Red's a Stanford color.
• 1:30:36
  SPEAKER_06: Is it?
• 1:30:37
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, okay.
• 1:30:37
  SPEAKER_05: Well, we we can just take off the label off it, and it'll be fine.
• 1:30:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um take seasoning.
• 1:30:42
  SPEAKER_05: All right, go on.
• 1:30:44
  SPEAKER_05: The the way you cook it is fine.
• 1:30:46
  SPEAKER_05: The only add that I would do, it's it's very small, but it it adds such a great little touch.
• 1:30:51
  SPEAKER_05: Get a little sprig of rosemary, get some butter.
• 1:30:53
  SPEAKER_05: If you can make some compound butter a little bit better and baste, you're good to go.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_06: When do I add the butter?
• 1:30:59
  SPEAKER_06: After it's cooked or while it's cooking?
• 1:31:00
  SPEAKER_05: As right right before it's done cooking, you put the put the little knob of butter in there with a sprig of rosemary and you base like the last 30 seconds.
• 1:31:09
  SPEAKER_05: And then you can put the the base.
• 1:31:11
  SPEAKER_05: Once you cut the steak, you can put it on top, and there you go.
• 1:31:14
  SPEAKER_05: It's phenomenal.
• 1:31:15
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, I will try that the next time I do this.
• 1:31:17
  SPEAKER_06: I interrupted you.
• 1:31:18
  SPEAKER_06: Um, what is your favorite thing you're not so good at?
• 1:31:21
  SPEAKER_06: Saying no.
• 1:31:22
  SPEAKER_06: I am.
• 1:31:23
  SPEAKER_06: Give us some examples of times you should have said no that are that are that are fit for broadcast.
• 1:31:27
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, I I I can give you a bunch.
• 1:31:29
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, I I'll I'll stick to trial team.
• 1:31:31
  SPEAKER_05: I have had coaches over the year campaign for their favorites uh you know competition and say, hey, I want to coach this competition, and where I should have probably said, I don't know if this is a great fit, um, and maybe move them somewhere else where they would have been a better fit.
• 1:31:50
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I didn't say no.
• 1:31:51
  SPEAKER_05: I'm I in fact, I never say no.
• 1:31:53
  SPEAKER_05: I think I I think at this point everybody knows that I don't say no because I'm okay with people and me learning whether or not you can do it.
• 1:32:00
  SPEAKER_05: So I should say no more often.
• 1:32:02
  SPEAKER_05: I should say no to students, I should say no to everyone, but I don't because I consider all that information data, and I'm I'm a big data guy.
• 1:32:11
  SPEAKER_06: So yeah, I want to see I want I want to see if I can take advantage of your your weakness here.
• 1:32:17
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, do you want to set up a scrimmage between UCLA and St.
• 1:32:19
  SPEAKER_06: Thomas this year?
• 1:32:21
  SPEAKER_05: How would we go about doing that?
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_05: Uh do it do it over Zoom.
• 1:32:25
  SPEAKER_06: I'd be for that.
• 1:32:26
  SPEAKER_06: Um we can talk learn about which competition.
• 1:32:30
  SPEAKER_06: Can't say no.
• 1:32:31
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:32:32
  SPEAKER_06: This is a lot of fun.
• 1:32:33
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you so much.
• 1:32:34
  SPEAKER_06: It was a pleasure.
• 1:32:35
  SPEAKER_06: Good luck this year.
• 1:32:36
  SPEAKER_06: Mike one.
• 1:32:41
  SPEAKER_06: We turn to our mailbag.
• 1:32:43
  SPEAKER_06: Spencer, we've got two questions this week.
• 1:32:44
  SPEAKER_06: I've already opened them.
• 1:32:45
  SPEAKER_06: You don't need to open the envelopes.
• 1:32:47
  SPEAKER_06: No ceremony.
• 1:32:48
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, got it.
• 1:32:48
  SPEAKER_06: Understood.
• 1:32:49
  SPEAKER_06: Yep.
• 1:32:49
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 1:32:49
  SPEAKER_06: This first question comes from JE in Philadelphia.
• 1:32:52
  SPEAKER_08: Hmm.
• 1:32:53
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_06: This person feels like a real educator because both their questions are educational.
• 1:32:58
  SPEAKER_06: What is your favorite teaching technique you've been doing forever and your favorite teaching technique you only started doing recently?
• 1:33:04
  SPEAKER_06: Hmm.
• 1:33:04
  SPEAKER_06: Fun question.
• 1:33:05
  SPEAKER_06: Spencer?
• 1:33:06
  SPEAKER_07: Teaching?
• 1:33:06
  SPEAKER_06: Uh no.
• 1:33:08
  SPEAKER_07: I'd say um my favorite one, uh, because I just completely enjoy it, uh, is when I'm workshopping with a student, is just, you know, to do like stop start.
• 1:33:18
  SPEAKER_07: You know, I just love the, you know, I may m we may go three sentences or we might go three syllables, or we might not even say any words and stop and rewind and do it try again and try again and make little adjustments, a little adjustments, because you can magnify a little bit more and a little bit more.
• 1:33:34
  SPEAKER_07: And I really feel like students get the sense of it's kind of gives them a bit of a mirror.
• 1:33:38
  SPEAKER_07: Like, here's what I'm seeing, that's you know, and here's how you're changing it by what you're doing at our in our next rep, you know, and again and again and again.
• 1:33:45
  SPEAKER_07: I've always loved doing that.
• 1:33:46
  SPEAKER_07: It's just it's a fun way to interact with a person too, I find.
• 1:33:49
  SPEAKER_07: That's my long time.
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_07: So I I might have teased you a couple times on the show.
• 1:33:53
  SPEAKER_06: Um what?
• 1:33:54
  SPEAKER_06: You know, not not recently.
• 1:33:55
  SPEAKER_07: No.
• 1:33:56
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, but I I want you to cover yours because I have to say something nice about you.
• 1:33:59
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, you were an excellent teacher.
• 1:34:02
  SPEAKER_06: I'd gotten to see you as a trial lawyer and I've known you as a coach, but I hadn't seen you teach until we talked together.
• 1:34:07
  SPEAKER_06: We were working with some trial lawyers getting ready for trial who'd wanted to, in some cases, brush up on their trial skills, in other cases actually learn for the first time those trial skills.
• 1:34:15
  SPEAKER_06: And I remember in particular the way you taught cross, it was outstanding.
• 1:34:18
  SPEAKER_06: And the way you gave uh performance feedback when people were practicing their public speaking skills.
• 1:34:23
  SPEAKER_06: And it was so iterative, patient, supportive, detailed.
• 1:34:27
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, but especially the way you you taught uh how to ask cross questions.
• 1:34:30
  SPEAKER_06: And then it was cool seeing Becca last year.
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_06: I was like, oh wow, she's doing it the way that you do it.
• 1:34:35
  SPEAKER_06: Um you're you're very good.
• 1:34:36
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, that's really sweet of you.
• 1:34:37
  SPEAKER_07: I'm I'm glad I I'm glad I paid you for that.
• 1:34:39
  SPEAKER_07: Um worth it.
• 1:34:41
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:34:41
  SPEAKER_07: Uh, do you want to go with your uh favorite long time one?
• 1:34:43
  SPEAKER_07: Or you want me to hit me with hit you with my short time one?
• 1:34:47
  SPEAKER_06: Sure.
• 1:34:47
  SPEAKER_06: I I think I'll give two for the longtime one.
• 1:34:49
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, one is structural and then one is like super nitpicky, but but I think it's kind of fun.
• 1:34:54
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I always do two questions after somebody performs.
• 1:34:58
  SPEAKER_06: What did they do really well?
• 1:34:58
  SPEAKER_06: What do we like?
• 1:34:59
  SPEAKER_06: That kind of thing, what was what made it effective?
• 1:35:01
  SPEAKER_06: And then what would make it even better?
• 1:35:02
  SPEAKER_06: And the students at some point catch on, usually pretty fast, that I'm gonna do that every time.
• 1:35:07
  SPEAKER_06: And then at some point during the semester, I'll ask them to say, okay, I'll pick one of the students.
• 1:35:10
  SPEAKER_06: Why don't you lead discussion?
• 1:35:11
  SPEAKER_06: And they'll, without me telling them how to do it, they'll sort of do it mockingly or like half-mockingly, like, what did we what did he do really well?
• 1:35:16
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, what did what could have made Susie's performance even better?
• 1:35:19
  SPEAKER_06: But then they actually just start doing it.
• 1:35:20
  SPEAKER_06: And it it really helps.
• 1:35:22
  SPEAKER_06: And I think that sometimes uh you see it on both extremes.
• 1:35:25
  SPEAKER_06: When someone does a great performance, it can be easy to not give them constructive feedback.
• 1:35:29
  SPEAKER_06: And when someone struggles, it can be easy to overlook the things they did well.
• 1:35:32
  SPEAKER_06: And I think it's important to do both.
• 1:35:34
  SPEAKER_06: Uh the smaller one, um, but I think that a sort of a fun one that I learned early on.
• 1:35:39
  SPEAKER_06: This is when I was teaching LSAC classes in law school.
• 1:35:42
  SPEAKER_06: And the first class I ever taught had 121 students in New York.
• 1:35:45
  SPEAKER_06: And it was this huge ballroom in a hotel, and it was intimidating.
• 1:35:48
  SPEAKER_06: But students would often not speak up in class.
• 1:35:51
  SPEAKER_06: And there's a tendency when someone's not speaking loudly to walk to them so you can hear them better.
• 1:35:55
  SPEAKER_06: But what that does is it means that other people can't hear them.
• 1:35:57
  SPEAKER_06: So what I learned is if somebody's not speaking loud enough, walk away from them.
• 1:36:02
  SPEAKER_06: And keep your eye contact, but just back up and go to the other side of the room, and they will naturally speak up to reach you, and that forces them to reach the rest of the class.
• 1:36:09
  SPEAKER_07: That's a nice little technical move there.
• 1:36:10
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:36:11
  SPEAKER_07: Um, since we're flattering each other, and it's not flattery actually, but I just love how you're you're such a, you know, you're Justin Bernstein, people know about you, and uh, you know, you won a tournament here or there, you know, occasionally, and uh wrote some sort of book about this.
• 1:36:25
  SPEAKER_07: And I I love how your reputation is one, but uh where the average person may expect you to be a jerk because you're like exacting and precise and you know have conquered the game, uh some people think.
• 1:36:37
  SPEAKER_07: But quite the opposite.
• 1:36:39
  SPEAKER_07: I just love working with you, whether it's where I'm, you know, I'm consulting with you or I've seen you work with other folks.
• 1:36:44
  SPEAKER_07: You are like the biggest supporter, the biggest cheerleader for whoever's just done their piece to help them get to the next step.
• 1:36:51
  SPEAKER_07: It is, yeah, it's uh undoubtedly a major reason for your success, but uh, it's fun to watch.
• 1:36:57
  SPEAKER_07: And that's very nice.
• 1:36:58
  SPEAKER_07: I'm glad you use your your talents in that way, by the way.
• 1:37:01
  SPEAKER_07: It sounds like you think I've gotten soft.
• 1:37:05
  SPEAKER_07: Okay.
• 1:37:06
  SPEAKER_07: I don't think you're ever hard.
• 1:37:07
  SPEAKER_07: All right, uh yeah.
• 1:37:07
  SPEAKER_06: All right, yeah, yeah.
• 1:37:08
  SPEAKER_06: All right, but we gotta go back to making fun of each other.
• 1:37:10
  SPEAKER_06: All right, what is your favorite teaching technique you've only started doing recently?
• 1:37:13
  SPEAKER_07: Well, um, I stole this one from somebody I know something about Mark Trial.
• 1:37:16
  SPEAKER_07: Um, I lately have been, um, and we were doing this just last night, actually, uh, after a tournament does not go the way that we want it to, to instead of complain about it, um sit back and say what what did the other team or teams do that we did not do that we could do and we could learn from?
• 1:37:36
  SPEAKER_07: Just to just in just to make that make that affirmatively something we're doing.
• 1:37:40
  SPEAKER_07: It's a useful, useful exercise.
• 1:37:42
  SPEAKER_07: That's a good one.
• 1:37:44
  SPEAKER_06: How about you?
• 1:37:44
  SPEAKER_06: Uh this is something that I stole from Adam Schlahe.
• 1:37:47
  SPEAKER_06: Uh at Eats this summer, he did a presentation on how to teach impeachment.
• 1:37:51
  SPEAKER_06: And he said something which when he first said it, I'm like, oh, I don't know about that.
• 1:37:54
  SPEAKER_06: But as he explained it, I realized that it was not just revelatory, but clearly correct.
• 1:37:59
  SPEAKER_06: We're all taught the three C's for cross-examination, right?
• 1:38:02
  SPEAKER_06: Confirm, credit, confront.
• 1:38:04
  SPEAKER_06: Confirm the statement that the witness just made, right?
• 1:38:06
  SPEAKER_06: Lock it in, credit the prior statement so the jury understands it and and understands why they should believe that statement, not the one you're you're about, uh you've just heard on on in trial, and then confront them with a contradiction.
• 1:38:17
  SPEAKER_06: And he pointed out, and I never thought about this, the problem with the three C's, how can students who don't already know how to do this possibly remember the order?
• 1:38:24
  SPEAKER_06: They all start with the same letter.
• 1:38:26
  SPEAKER_06: And it's not it's not intuitively obvious which one you would do first, right?
• 1:38:29
  SPEAKER_06: Especially because you people naturally just want to jump to confront.
• 1:38:32
  SPEAKER_06: And so uh it made me rethink how I teach it.
• 1:38:35
  SPEAKER_06: And so now instead of doing C C C I do ABC, anchor or anchor anchor the the witness to the statement they just made, build up the prior statement, and then confront them with a contradiction.
• 1:38:47
  SPEAKER_06: Anchor, build, confront.
• 1:38:48
  SPEAKER_06: And it's the same principles, but it's way easier for the students to remember the order of ABC than C C C.
• 1:38:54
  SPEAKER_06: So huge credit to Adam, who is also an outstanding teacher.
• 1:38:58
  SPEAKER_06: Uh anybody who has access to the Eats recording from the summer, I would encourage you to check out his teaching demonstration.
• 1:39:04
  SPEAKER_06: It's really good.
• 1:39:05
  SPEAKER_06: Excellent job.
• 1:39:06
  SPEAKER_06: We've got one more mailbag question.
• 1:39:08
  SPEAKER_06: Uh this one comes from AS in Manhattan.
• 1:39:10
  SPEAKER_06: Hmm.
• 1:39:11
  SPEAKER_06: I wonder if there's any relation.
• 1:39:12
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 1:39:13
  SPEAKER_06: Uh AS asks, when are the scripty awards and can voters be influenced?
• 1:39:19
  SPEAKER_06: Wow.
• 1:39:19
  SPEAKER_07: Very direct.
• 1:39:20
  SPEAKER_07: Uh, Spencer?
• 1:39:22
  SPEAKER_07: Well, as the timing, the end of each semester, and I think they can be, I guess I don't know what you mean by influenced.
• 1:39:27
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, I think they can be influenced by, you know, superlative deeds on the circuit, um, you know, doing good things, um, you know, successes.
• 1:39:36
  SPEAKER_07: And probably, you know, there are other versions of influence out there, influence peddling and such, I would assume.
• 1:39:41
  SPEAKER_07: I would have no idea.
• 1:39:42
  SPEAKER_07: I don't know, Jocelyn.
• 1:39:43
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:39:43
  SPEAKER_06: So it's at the end of the semester, like Spencer said, and there's two categories of scripties.
• 1:39:46
  SPEAKER_06: They're the kind that the community can vote on, and there's the kind that we bestow.
• 1:39:50
  SPEAKER_06: Uh so the the kind the community can vote on, I think absolutely the community can be influenced by uh by public service, by hosting things, by winning things, by writing things.
• 1:39:59
  SPEAKER_06: And the ones that we can bestow, those can be influenced too by paying people, bribing people.
• 1:40:04
  SPEAKER_06: Um, you know, I don't want to say you can influence it directly, but I would say direct deposit.
• 1:40:08
  SPEAKER_06: That's pretty good.
• 1:40:10
  SPEAKER_06: Um, you know, uh that your Venmo handle up there, Justin?
• 1:40:13
  SPEAKER_06: That's not our Venmo.
• 1:40:14
  SPEAKER_06: Why would you post that in space?
• 1:40:15
  SPEAKER_06: It's weird.
• 1:40:16
  SPEAKER_06: It the the unscripted uh direct Venmo is at Justin BB.
• 1:40:21
  SPEAKER_06: That's two Bs.
• 1:40:24
  SPEAKER_06: Um, right?
• 1:40:24
  SPEAKER_06: So you know, I'm not I'm not saying that's a guarantee, you know, highest bitter.
• 1:40:28
  SPEAKER_06: Um but uh I but there's other ways to influence us.
• 1:40:31
  SPEAKER_06: For example, you can send us something you think that would be useful in making a decision.
• 1:40:35
  SPEAKER_06: For example, there's a best swag category.
• 1:40:36
  SPEAKER_06: And uh, Spencer, I received in the mail today, oh, it's this is a koozie.
• 1:40:40
  SPEAKER_06: In fact, let's do this QVC UD style, QVC unscripted direct.
• 1:40:43
  SPEAKER_06: I'll hold it up and you can describe it.
• 1:40:45
  SPEAKER_06: What do we have here?
• 1:40:45
  SPEAKER_07: Oh my goodness, this is a green koozie.
• 1:40:48
  SPEAKER_07: It's but it's not just any green koozie.
• 1:40:49
  SPEAKER_07: It's actually uh branded and it says Buffalo Niagara trial competition.
• 1:40:54
  SPEAKER_07: It's got a now, I will say, I'm not so sure what to say about the mascot in the middle.
• 1:40:58
  SPEAKER_07: Um, it looks a bit like a pig with horns and uh probably a probably a buffalo.
• 1:41:04
  unknown: Oh, right.
• 1:41:06
  SPEAKER_06: It does not look like a buffalo at all.
• 1:41:09
  SPEAKER_06: It's it says buffalo right above it, and it totally looks like a buffalo, but that's fine.
• 1:41:13
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 1:41:14
  SPEAKER_06: What's the last thing we got buffalo?
• 1:41:15
  SPEAKER_06: I saw right now, right now.
• 1:41:17
  SPEAKER_06: That's when I see it.
• 1:41:19
  SPEAKER_07: Okay.
• 1:41:19
  SPEAKER_07: Uh next we've got.
• 1:41:21
  SPEAKER_07: Oh my god, why didn't I get all this stuff?
• 1:41:23
  SPEAKER_07: Um, this appears to be a koozie without a bottom.
• 1:41:26
  SPEAKER_07: I don't know what this is.
• 1:41:27
  SPEAKER_07: It's a blue, blue uh insulator.
• 1:41:30
  SPEAKER_07: It says the University of Buffalo, the Advocacy Institute School of Law, Buffalo Niagara trial competition.
• 1:41:35
  SPEAKER_07: That is great.
• 1:41:36
  SPEAKER_07: Um, and it's got a pig on the back of it.
• 1:41:38
  SPEAKER_07: That's so weird.
• 1:41:40
  SPEAKER_07: Jesus.
• 1:41:42
  SPEAKER_07: This is great.
• 1:41:42
  SPEAKER_07: This is really great uh audio.
• 1:41:44
  SPEAKER_07: Nobody's uh ending the episode early.
• 1:41:46
  SPEAKER_07: Uh it's a little pouch.
• 1:41:46
  SPEAKER_07: It's a blue pouch.
• 1:41:47
  SPEAKER_07: If you would describe it, there would be audio.
• 1:41:49
  SPEAKER_07: It's a blue pouch um from Buffalo Niagara's Talk Competition with a zipper on top, black zipper.
• 1:41:54
  SPEAKER_07: It opens out, it's about three inches wide on the inside and pulling out uh earplugs just in case you're working construction and you're in a situation where you need to protect your hearing or you need to sleep late at night.
• 1:42:05
  SPEAKER_07: Or you want to skip or you want to skip this segment.
• 1:42:07
  SPEAKER_07: Okay.
• 1:42:08
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, but wait, there's more.
• 1:42:10
  SPEAKER_07: There's more four, rule of four.
• 1:42:11
  SPEAKER_07: Okay.
• 1:42:12
  SPEAKER_07: This says warrantless searches.
• 1:42:15
  SPEAKER_07: It's a t-shirt.
• 1:42:16
  SPEAKER_07: Uh it's got your front left uh uh breast pocket.
• 1:42:19
  SPEAKER_07: Um yeah, warrantless searches.
• 1:42:21
  SPEAKER_07: Um this looks like a list of um uh tour stops.
• 1:42:25
  SPEAKER_07: I can't quite see the top.
• 1:42:26
  SPEAKER_07: I just see Justin's head, so I can't see what the header or the title would be.
• 1:42:29
  SPEAKER_07: Uh some kind of tour 2026.
• 1:42:31
  SPEAKER_07: Boy.
• 1:42:32
  SPEAKER_07: I think I think these are the locations where the teams came from.
• 1:42:34
  SPEAKER_07: Bang the Gavel Tour 2026.
• 1:42:37
  SPEAKER_06: Like a like a yeah.
• 1:42:38
  SPEAKER_07: Uh we got one more.
• 1:42:39
  SPEAKER_07: Oh my lord.
• 1:42:40
  SPEAKER_07: Oh my, that's right.
• 1:42:41
  SPEAKER_07: It's something flannel.
• 1:42:42
  SPEAKER_07: It's a fl it's is this a this is a pill, this is a blanket.
• 1:42:45
  SPEAKER_07: It is a blue and red and white flannel blanket.
• 1:42:49
  SPEAKER_06: Uh most of us would say red, white, and blue.
• 1:42:51
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know, Spencer.
• 1:42:53
  SPEAKER_07: It is mostly blue.
• 1:42:56
  SPEAKER_07: There are traces of red and little bits of white.
• 1:43:00
  SPEAKER_07: Uh-huh.
• 1:43:00
  SPEAKER_07: Woo!
• 1:43:01
  SPEAKER_06: Patriotism, patriotism, folks.
• 1:43:03
  SPEAKER_06: Uh so if anybody wants to send us swag, anybody wants to send a swag, we will uh talk about your swag on the show as well.
• 1:43:09
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you to Buffalo Niagara for the bribe.
• 1:43:11
  SPEAKER_06: I mean the gift.
• 1:43:12
  SPEAKER_07: Um send it to both of the hosts.
• 1:43:14
  SPEAKER_07: They both appreciate that they both had it.
• 1:43:16
  SPEAKER_07: That worked out perfectly, that they both got it.
• 1:43:18
  SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
• 1:43:18
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 1:43:19
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, thanks every for listening, and we will see you next week.
• 1:43:21
  SPEAKER_06: See folks.
• 1:43:23
  SPEAKER_07: Unscripted Direct is the production of Justin and Spencer.
• 1:43:26
  SPEAKER_07: We're mixed and edited by these damn chains.
• 1:43:28
  SPEAKER_07: If you're not on the list server but want to get our blast email each episode, sign up at www.unscripteddirect.com.
• 1:43:35
  SPEAKER_07: Follow us on social media as follows Instagram or at unscripted direct.
• 1:43:40
  SPEAKER_07: Facebook is facebook.com slash unscripteddirect.
• 1:43:43
  SPEAKER_07: And Twitter is at unscripted at the time.