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How Two Married Lawyers Tried a Case Together, with Mike Laurenson & Mollie Burks · Coopers' Code

• 0:00
  When I'm not in trial, but she is.
• 0:02
  I mean, I got to be a part of it, right?
• 0:04
  I mean, you know, we're lucky. We're lucky to get to trial.
• 0:08
  Yeah, sometimes I've been blessed and I've had 3-4 trials
• 0:11
  in a year, but then the following year you'll have zero,
• 0:14
  right? It's so cyclical.
• 0:16
  Yeah. And you can never know.
• 0:17
  And so, gosh, if somebody's going to trial, I need to be a
• 0:21
  part of that. You know it, it gets my juices
• 0:24
  flowing. Bigger lesson, more important
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  thing for a a young female lawyer to hear who hasn't had
• 0:34
  children yet, who is concerned about what that looks like.
• 0:39
  And it's absolutely achievable. It's all absolutely achievable.
• 0:43
  And it's been the greatest, greatest blessing of my life.
• 0:47
  That was always fun with our kids growing up.
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  They were like, well now do you get a whole bunch of money when
• 0:52
  you. Nope, our clients do it same.
• 0:55
  Yeah, same salary you don't get. You just won this case.
• 1:00
  You don't get anything extra. Nope, just my salary.
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  The kids could never, they could never understand that.
• 1:06
  So they're going to be plaintiff slurs.
• 1:08
  Yeah, I'm sure the plaintiff's lawyer job sounded a lot, a lot
• 1:13
  better. Than.
• 1:14
  Them a lot. Better than them.
• 1:15
  Howdy, and welcome to the show. Cooper's Code focuses on legal
• 1:19
  issues and notable practitioners, distilling wisdom
• 1:22
  so we all achieve the best results for our clients.
• 1:25
  I'm Miles Cooper and I'm very excited for this conversation
• 1:28
  with Employment Defense World's power couple, Foley Burks and
• 1:31
  Michael Lorenson. What I'm hearing and and it's
• 1:35
  it's neat to hear, is that one can have a successful practice
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  and be a successful parent. 100%.
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  Definitely, We put a lot of emphasis on the family stuff and
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  it does take obviously a partnership.
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  You, you really have to, you know, back each other up and be
• 1:54
  willing to do anything that needs doing.
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  And the the case that we tried together was in San Francisco,
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  so we could both get back by 7:00, even though we're trying a
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  case together we could get. Home, I think that's a perfect
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  segue into talking about the trial that you did together here
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  in San Francisco. Tell us a little bit about that
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  case and then then I want to get down into kind of the mechanics
• 2:14
  of what it was like to to try a case together.
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  Sure, absolutely. So our client, it was an
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  employment case, but a little bit of a of a hybrid employment
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  case. The plaintiff in that case had
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  sold his business, smaller business to our client who was a
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  marketing company and as part of that acquisition they also
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  offered him employment at the company.
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  During the acquisition, the due diligence, there was some
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  financing issues for the soon to be plaintiff employee and then
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  plaintiff and the company gave him alone that he had to sign a
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  promissory note. It was all in connection with,
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  with the sale of his business. He came to work for our client.
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  He did not perform at all. His employment was terminated
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  for that reason and then he filed A lawsuit that included an
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  age discrimination claim, a breach of contract, wrongful
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  termination and our client filed a cross complaint for his
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  failure to repay this loan and. It was Molly's case and I had
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  been, you know, helping her with it like we do.
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  We talk and I help and I'm really good at the graphics and
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  the PowerPoint and stuff. And so we and, and helping with
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  ideas and themes. And so we, I was familiar with
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  the case and I don't know, maybe there just came a point where
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  you just like you should, you should try it with me.
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  I was like, OK, but I need to be first share and your second
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  share was like, OK, I promise. And so I, you know, formally
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  joined the team and we like I always do with all of my trials,
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  it we, I, you know, divvy up responsibilities with the person
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  I'm trying the case with. So she's knows the case and the
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  client and the facts better. So she's going to do opening and
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  she's got these witnesses and I've got the plaintiff and these
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  witnesses and I'm going to do closing and pick the jury.
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  And so we have our responsibilities and that helps.
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  And then, you know, being being pretty siloed about those
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  responsibilities. I mean, we're bouncing ideas off
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  one another. But you know, I'm not in her
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  witness preps. She's not in my witness preps.
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  We're kind of getting ready. And then, you know,
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  professionally she had, she kept Burke's as her last name.
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  So I'm Lorenson, she's Burke's Judge Olmer doesn't know any
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  better that we're married. Nobody knows that we're married.
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  We don't tell anybody jury juror doesn't jurors don't know that
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  we're married. And and we, we did it and it
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  was, you know, it really actually wasn't that bad.
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  There was only literally like 1 moment the Friday before trial
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  call when I was working on something that I was responsible
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  for and she was prepping a really key witness.
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  And she came into my office, you know, 4:30 Friday afternoon very
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  upset that this guy just wasn't going to cut it.
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  It wasn't going to be ready. He'd worked with them so many
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  prior times and all these hours today and it's just not going to
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  be there. And she's, I don't know if she's
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  crying, but. She's she's you.
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  Know teary and I was like what are you doing and I literally
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  said to her I said to her if you were trying this case we're with
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  Mike Lucy or Steve Ronk would you be in their office crying
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  about your witness No, you can't be in my office crying about
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  your this this is your witness it's your problem.
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  I got something I'm working on here.
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  You got to go deal with this problem.
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  And you know, to her credit, she was like, you're right, and I
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  will, and went and did it. And of course, the guy ended up
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  killing it. He did great, he did.
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  Great. And you know, not only did we
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  defense the plaintiff claims, but and it may have been kind of
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  low hanging fruit, but we prevailed on our cross complaint
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  on the promissory note and recovered $200,000 which is it
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  doesn't really happen in our line of work.
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  We don't employment defense attorneys, we don't get
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  affirmative relief. We're happy to defense the case
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  and that was always fun with our kids growing up.
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  They were like, well now do you get a whole bunch of money when
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  you. Nope.
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  Our clients do same. Yeah, same salary you don't get.
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  You just won this case. You don't get anything extra.
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  Nope, just my salary. The kids could never, they could
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  never understand that. So they're going to be plaintiff
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  slurs. Yeah, I'm sure the plaintiff's
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  lawyer job sounded a lot, a lot better than them.
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  A lot better than them. So they get millions of dollars
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  and they divide it up, but you win.
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  You just get a pat on the back, Yeah.
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  For anyone who is in that situation, whether it's married
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  or or very close in in other ways, do you have
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  recommendations on on ways that that it worked best for you?
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  So I think we were fortunate having gone into this trial,
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  Gordon Reece has at least our employment practice group, I can
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  say this with confidence has we have an approach to how we staff
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  cases and it's pretty consistent.
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  I mean, even coming up from Los Angeles, the way that, the way
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  that I saw the San Francisco employment group in the same
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  firm approach staffing, case staffing and how to approach
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  trial was very, very similar to how I was taught and raised.
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  And so Mike and I both in thinking about the trial, how
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  you know how the roles, what you do, how the roles breakdown
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  your, your division of responsibility.
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  We, we both were raised in that same way.
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  So that that was kind of the baseline.
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  And if you don't have that, you want to make sure that that is
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  very clearly outlined ahead of time it so that everyone
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  understands what their expectations are.
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  I think it's definitely worthwhile to sit down and have
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  a conversation with someone that you're close with that you're
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  about to try a case with about the potential for high emotions
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  to kind of bleed into your professional, what you're trying
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  to do professionally and, and how can we build in some
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  safeguards to prevent that? We didn't have that conversation
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  ahead of time, but it made absolute perfect sense to me
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  when Mike said if I were Steve Ronk right now, this would not
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  be happening. It it clicked in my head, but
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  that would have been an obvious conversation to have ahead of
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  time, right? That would be my advice.
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  I can't add anything to that. That's what we did and that
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  worked great. More broadly, as far as your
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  trial practices are concerned, are there certain elements of
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  trial where, you know, like, I absolutely love this part and I
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  always want to do this, or the contrary, where, you know, this
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  part is not my favorite and I'd rather, you know, my partner or
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  someone else handle this piece of trial.
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  I love openings. I love it the way that we both
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  approach openings is this is all about the theme of your case
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  like it. There's so much preparation that
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  goes into building your opening the theme and you know, if
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  you're able to use graphics, sometimes you can't, but it and
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  how you tie that, all of your evidence that will come out, the
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  story that how you look at your because this is again, how we
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  both do this. Develop your direct examination
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  outline and make sure that you're opening that you're
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  building also corresponds with that.
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  I think for someone who's a control freak, that is the part
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  of trial that you have the most control over.
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  So it just really speaks to me. And I love Closings.
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  I love doing the graphics. I love coming up, you know, so
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  much more freedom in closing. So I love coming up with the
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  cute ideas and doing that, you know, doing the cute things with
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  the graphics. And I'm, you know, I think I'm
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  really good at distilling the case and putting the evidence
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  with the jury instructions and the verdict form and delivering
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  it in a, you know, being able to be argumentative.
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  That's, you know, that freedom to be argumentative.
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  I'm just, I'm really comfortable and I'm a very heavy, very firm
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  believer in graphics and you know the case so well by that
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  point. And you, you know, you start
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  putting together those graphics early in the trial.
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  And in fact, the thing I've realized over my, you know,
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  career and all the cases I've tried now is there, there's
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  like, there's a way to do this, You know, there's a way to do an
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  opening, an employment case, there's a way to do a closing.
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  And to the point where, you know, when I sit down to do a
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  closing, the first thing I do is go get the last one and start
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  changing the title and modifying a couple slides because there's
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  so much in common. You know, you want to have the
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  theme in the beginning. You want to, you know, circle
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  back and tell a little bit of story.
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  Then you want to get into the jury instructions and put the
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  other and, and, and a lot of my, you know, we all developed these
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  little gimmicks we have. And you know, one of mine is red
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  herring. I won I've some one time and
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  it's all about we all know it's all about adopting what you
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  learn and it heard from others and stealing it and making it
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  your own. And somewhere, sometime I heard
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  about the red herring story where, you know, in, in old
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  England, they used to train the hunting dogs by dragging a
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  stinky fish across the, the, the Fox's trail.
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  And the little baby hunting dogs would have to learn as they're
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  heading down the Fox's trail, they'd have to learn to ignore
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  the smell of the stinky fish and stay on the Fox's trail.
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  And that's where it was a herring.
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  And that was where red herring came from.
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  And I would suggest to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury
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  that over the past two weeks or so, you've had a lot of stinky
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  fish drug back and forth in front of you trying to distract
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  you from the truth. But like those little baby
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  foxhounds, you need to keep your eye on the truth.
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  And the truth is and, and, and a lot of those things are red
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  herrings to distract, right? And then I have a slide with a
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  picture of a red herring on it. And, and I have the 10 things on
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  there that they did during the trial to trick people.
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  And I phrase them in a way that like, I like, I adopt what the
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  other side is saying. So I phrase it in a way that's
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  almost like devil's advocacy, you know, like it says never put
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  him on a performance improvement plan.
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  Like I use their own phrasing. And I'm like, that's not what
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  this case is about. You know, this isn't a
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  performance case. This was something out.
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  And so our partner, Allison Cabrera texted me and I didn't
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  even know I had forgotten they, that she and Mike Bruno were in
• 14:04
  this trial together. And she texted me and she's
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  like, can you send me your red herring slides?
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  And I went to the last trial and I found them.
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  I sent them and she adopted it to her case and they won.
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  And then I saw her a couple weeks later and she's like, that
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  red herring stuff was amazing. The jury loved that and it was
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  so fun. The thing about the red herring
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  is it's so fun. Yeah, it's so fun.
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  But it's that ability to do anything.
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  I and I really embrace that. I I remember I had a sales case
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  one time that was a salesman who was terminated for not being a
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  good salesperson was not selling enough.
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  And I loved Glengarry Glen Ross and I one of my favorite movies
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  of all time. And I loved Alec Baldwin's ABC
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  always be closing speech right. And so I had my opposing counsel
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  give his, you know, opening statement is closing argument
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  reading from a, you know, flipping pages on a yellow pad,
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  no graphics, no nothing, you know, finishes.
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  And the court judge looks to me, Mr. Lorenzen and I stayed seated
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  and I pressed play. And for the 1st 2 minutes of my
• 15:24
  closing, we watched Alec Baldwin's Always be Closing
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  speech from Glengarry Glen Ross. I didn't even speak before I
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  played it. And then I stood up and you
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  know, that that's what this case is about.
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  He wasn't closing. And the ability to be able to do
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  that and be creative with closing is so much fun.
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  So I really like closing. And then I always pick the jury
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  just because I don't think I'm very good at it.
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  I don't, I think it's hard to be good at.
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  It's probably the hardest thing to do as a trial attorney.
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  But I'm just again, I'm, I'm comfortable standing in front of
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  people, talking to them, getting them to talk to me.
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  And then I hopefully get enough information out of them that I
• 16:03
  can rely on the rest of my team because I don't trust my own
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  instincts in that regard. Rely on, I involve everyone on
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  the team before I, you know, strike somebody.
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  I get, you know what, this is the one I get all five people to
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  buy in because that's very hard for me to think.
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  I know what, whether they're going to be good or not, but I'm
• 16:25
  good at talking to them and getting information out of them,
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  you know? Did you win the the sales case?
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  I. Didn't you?
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  Did not I? Didn't.
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  That's the greatest thing, greatest slash hardest.
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  I don't know thing about being a trial attorney.
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  Winning a case doesn't necessarily have anything at all
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  to do with being the best trial attorney in the courtroom.
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  You ruined my punchline. I was going to ask if you sent
• 16:50
  sent the plaintiff's lawyer a set of steak knives at the end.
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  But it just. But but this is an important
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  lesson that people should hear. So so.
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  You humble. Well, I, I mean, what I like to
• 17:01
  say in it, it sounds a little braggy, but I mean, it's
• 17:04
  actually, it's true. I mean, I've, I have not lost a
• 17:09
  case. Well, that's not true.
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  I lost a case to Ed Nevin, our colleague in abode of one of the
• 17:14
  most amazing trial attorneys ever.
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  I lost a case to him when I was like a 7th year attorney up in
• 17:20
  Humboldt. And obviously he beat me fair
• 17:23
  and square cuz he's an exceptional attorney.
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  But it it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that the
• 17:31
  other cases that I lost, I was a better trial attorney than the
• 17:36
  other attorney. All my witnesses did better than
• 17:40
  I expected. I kept out all the evidence I
• 17:43
  wanted to keep out. I got in all the evidence I
• 17:45
  wanted to keep in. I was happy at the end and I
• 17:49
  lost. It really keeps you humble.
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  I mean, it keeps you from getting too big for your
• 17:54
  britches. You can think you're some
• 17:56
  amazing trial attorney. It only takes one of those and
• 17:59
  having a dust yourself off and and get back in there, it really
• 18:03
  keeps you humble. It also helps you to be actually
• 18:07
  a better advocate and a better servant to your clients because
• 18:13
  you can explain in very real terms what a jury does and often
• 18:20
  times there is no logic behind what a jury does and that is a
• 18:26
  really important lesson to learn.
• 18:27
  Yeah, I mean, it's it's certainly not something that you
• 18:32
  want to brag about. It's probably not even something
• 18:34
  I should say in this podcast. But like, I've been to Punitive
• 18:39
  Damages Phase 2 three times. There's people in the world that
• 18:44
  are never going to sniff that. I know exactly what to do in
• 18:48
  phase two now. You don't ever want to be in
• 18:50
  Phase 2. Well, we do.
• 18:53
  But I got people throughout the firm calling me when they get a
• 18:57
  lose in phase one because they don't know what the heck's going
• 19:00
  to happen in phase two. And I do and I have.
• 19:03
  I tell them exactly what to do and what what elements of the KC
• 19:07
  to argue and how to handle it and how uncomfortable it's going
• 19:10
  to be. I've been there.
• 19:11
  It's probably the most uncomfortable place you could be
• 19:14
  as a trial attorney. But like you say, to know that,
• 19:17
  to have that experience and that knowledge, it's only going to
• 19:21
  happen if you lose Phase 1. And I think haven't been there.
• 19:25
  Like you say, being able to talk to clients and serve your
• 19:27
  clients better, haven't been there.
• 19:28
  That's important, you know, but it would have been better to
• 19:32
  win, certainly, I'm sure. Since we're on the trial piece,
• 19:39
  and since anyone who knows anything about your history,
• 19:44
  Mike, is going to want to hear about the French Laundry case, I
• 19:47
  feel that now would be an appropriate time.
• 19:49
  It'd be great. It's the kind of case that you
• 19:50
  can dine out on, right? You certainly can.
• 19:54
  It was the certainly the best thing that ever happened to me
• 19:57
  professionally. And again, it only came about
• 20:00
  this was my partner Mike Bruno's case.
• 20:02
  He had had it from inception. And it was a big case and a big
• 20:07
  deal and they wanted many, many millions of dollars that my
• 20:13
  client, the, the, the, the French Laundi, the insurance
• 20:16
  company was, was not going to pay.
• 20:18
  And, and, and backing it up just so people who are coming in
• 20:21
  midway understand what we're talking about.
• 20:23
  This was a pregnancy discrimination.
• 20:24
  Pregnancy discrimination case, A woman who had worked at Per SE
• 20:29
  in New York, they Thomas chef Keller, Chef Thomas Keller, they
• 20:34
  encourage people to, you know, move around and work at
• 20:39
  different places and come from the Per SE and learn at the
• 20:42
  French Laundry or vice versa. So there's a lot of cross
• 20:46
  pollenization in his restaurants.
• 20:48
  It's encouraged. And this woman was thinking she
• 20:52
  wanted to be in California for some reason or something.
• 20:54
  So she came out here and starched, you know, the
• 20:58
  practiced at the French Laundry and, and thought she had
• 21:02
  received a positive reception and, and thought she was going
• 21:06
  to be able to come work at the French Laundry.
• 21:08
  And, you know, they, they ultimately declined, but they
• 21:14
  did not decline before learning that she was pregnant.
• 21:18
  And so, you know, the obvious argument was that they only
• 21:21
  declined because they learned that she was pregnant.
• 21:23
  And you know what had been said before, and was it promised?
• 21:27
  And, and so this had been Mike Bruno's case from the beginning.
• 21:32
  And again, Mike Bruno was smart enough and comfortable, secure
• 21:39
  enough in his own place in the world to know that he needed
• 21:43
  help. Just so the people really get
• 21:45
  the wisdom on that, and that is that work with good colleagues,
• 21:50
  be willing to let go of your ego and bring people in when it's
• 21:53
  the right time. Absolutely.
• 21:54
  So he here, he's got a case where he's working, he's
• 21:56
  representing the French Laundry and he's his client is Thomas
• 22:00
  Keller. And he could have kept that to
• 22:03
  himself, right? That's a pretty special thing
• 22:06
  that he could have kept to himself.
• 22:08
  But he was big enough and smart enough to know that he could use
• 22:11
  some help. And so he asked me to try it
• 22:14
  with him. And also, you know, willing to
• 22:17
  just kind of let me kind of be like the first chair, you know,
• 22:23
  we were more like Co equals, but you know, do some first chair
• 22:26
  type stuff. And so I joined the case maybe 3
• 22:29
  months before trial and had to learn the case and, and meet
• 22:33
  everybody. But the the Super cool aspect of
• 22:36
  it was because she had been working at Per SE and had, you
• 22:40
  know, come out to the French Laundry, there were a lot of
• 22:42
  witnesses at Per SE. So a month before trial, we went
• 22:46
  back to New York. This must have been challenging
• 22:49
  duty for you, Molly. Yeah.
• 22:51
  Very challenging. We go back to New York so that I
• 22:54
  can meet with and prepare the per SE witnesses who are going
• 22:57
  to come out and testify and try all this or the GM of per SE.
• 23:01
  And you know, and so we're back, you know, we're back behind the
• 23:05
  curtain and per SE and meeting people and, and preparing them
• 23:10
  that day. And so we tried the case, you
• 23:12
  know, a month or two later in Napa, me and Mike Bruno, and
• 23:16
  took most of a month and sitting.
• 23:19
  And, you know, Thomas Keller was in court sitting next to me
• 23:23
  every day. And it was a super hard trial or
• 23:26
  five attorneys on the other side vigorously, vigorously
• 23:32
  advocating for their client. And literally every day was a
• 23:36
  battle. I'm in the hardest experience of
• 23:39
  my life. There was some bad evidence we
• 23:42
  could have, you know, trial went OK.
• 23:45
  But again, it was such a battle that we really didn't know.
• 23:48
  My memory is there was a pretty devastating e-mail.
• 23:50
  So when the GM, who again According to him never intended
• 23:55
  to hire her, found out she was pregnant, he emailed the HR
• 24:02
  blady and said you know something?
• 24:07
  I forget the quote now, but it was something the effect of, you
• 24:10
  know, just found out she's pregnant.
• 24:12
  What are we going to do now or something, you know, and they're
• 24:14
  like smoking gun, you know, I think they probably called it a
• 24:18
  smoking gun and it was bad. And, and so we wouldn't have
• 24:24
  been surprised at all had we lost.
• 24:26
  And I did closing and I remember it would it had been in the
• 24:31
  papers that it was going on. And so a lot of folks came up
• 24:35
  from the Bay Area for my closing.
• 24:37
  The courtroom was full and a lot of my colleagues on the
• 24:40
  plaintiffs bar were there and, you know, kind of wave to him
• 24:43
  and for my closing. And and we were lucky enough to
• 24:48
  win. And I'll never forget that
• 24:51
  moment when, when, you know, we get the defense verdict and
• 24:55
  Thomas and I look at each other with tears in our eyes and the
• 24:58
  big bro hugs all around, you know, and it was, it was an
• 25:02
  incredible experience. And my closing argument was
• 25:05
  quoted in, you know, those quotes from my closing in the
• 25:08
  New York Times. And, and for like 6 months after
• 25:12
  there, I couldn't pay, I couldn't pay for dinner anywhere
• 25:16
  in town and went to the French Laundry a couple times.
• 25:19
  And then wouldn't you know it, this was, this was July of 2019
• 25:23
  was a verdict. When you know it, March 2020
• 25:26
  happens, COVID hits, ruins the best professional hookup I've
• 25:31
  ever had in my life, but never been the same again.
• 25:35
  So it was pretty great. And he's a wonderful man by the
• 25:38
  just so lucky to have really gotten to know him personally.
• 25:45
  An extraordinary man. And certainly we only won that
• 25:48
  trial because of his reputation and that community and who he is
• 25:53
  and taking the stand testifying how he did.
• 25:56
  I mean, against that evidence, that's the only explanation I
• 26:00
  can come up with for how we could win.
• 26:01
  That case was the kind of quality human being he is.
• 26:04
  So being able to get to know him was pretty special.
• 26:07
  This is a good opportunity for me to ask you because I've used
• 26:10
  the phrase thinking partner. I presume when Mike is either
• 26:14
  coming home or or calling in that he's bantering about the
• 26:19
  case with you. What role do you play in helping
• 26:23
  him, you know, bring out the best in in what he's doing?
• 26:26
  He will go through his examination questions with me.
• 26:31
  He will perform his opening for me.
• 26:34
  He will show me the graphics. He Mike, he was talking about
• 26:38
  clothing Closings closing argument a little while ago and
• 26:42
  he, he is so creative. That's such a process for him
• 26:49
  that he literally dreams about it.
• 26:50
  He wakes up in the morning and he will have his his closing
• 26:54
  done and he wakes up and he's thought of another slide that
• 26:58
  needs to be added. We talk about every single one
• 27:01
  of these cases. And I will, I will do the same
• 27:05
  with her when she's coming up for trial and, and help her.
• 27:08
  And there's been many times when we've gone on a walk or
• 27:12
  something, a hike, and we're talking about her case and I'm
• 27:15
  having these ideas and we'll come back from this walk and
• 27:21
  I'll sit down and I'll bang out seven slides for her closing in
• 27:27
  45 minutes that I've done on the walk, you know, in her case,
• 27:33
  because it's just, you know, so we, we help each other like
• 27:36
  that. And I just love, I, I really
• 27:39
  love trial. I love talking about trial.
• 27:41
  I love teaching trial stuff. I love helping people with
• 27:45
  trial, of being in trial. And so when I'm not in trial,
• 27:49
  but she is, I mean, I got to be a part of it, right?
• 27:52
  I mean, you know, we're lucky. We're lucky to get to trial.
• 27:56
  Yeah. Sometimes I've been blessed and
• 27:58
  I've had 3-4 trials in a year, but then the following year,
• 28:01
  you'll have zero, right? It's so cyclical.
• 28:04
  Yeah. And you can never know.
• 28:05
  And so, gosh, if somebody's going to trial, I need to be a
• 28:09
  part of that. You know it, it gets my juices
• 28:12
  flowing. Shifting a little bit and, and
• 28:14
  this is the shift back to you, Molly, you earlier on the
• 28:17
  conversation you talked about how you enjoy complex Wagon hour
• 28:22
  and Pega and other cases with that flavor.
• 28:27
  We've seen Mike just now get really passionate about the,
• 28:32
  the, the, some of the work that he's doing.
• 28:34
  What is it about those cases that that drive you?
• 28:39
  Oftentimes wage and hour class action case has the potential to
• 28:46
  to destroy a company. And even if it's a Fortune 500
• 28:50
  companies, some of these cases are still their worst legal
• 28:54
  problem that they're dealing with because of the scale and
• 28:57
  the scope and, and the difficulty in terms of, of, of
• 29:03
  operating a business in the state of California and the
• 29:06
  Labor Code. I very much enjoy, I think this
• 29:10
  is the single most thing about the practice of law that I love
• 29:15
  is helping people with their worst problems.
• 29:19
  I, I like to hold your hand and, you know, walk you through and
• 29:26
  help come up with a solution On the other side of all of this.
• 29:32
  They also need counseling to deal with the problems like the
• 29:35
  practical, you know, how do we practically deal with this aside
• 29:40
  from how are we going to practically deal with the
• 29:43
  litigation? And so I, I get a lot of, I, I
• 29:48
  find a lot of meaning in that. High stakes.
• 29:51
  Very much. Is is that part of the the draw?
• 29:54
  Oh, absolutely, yeah. Yeah, these case, all of them,
• 29:57
  these cases are worth 10 or more, $1,000,000, all of them.
• 30:01
  Yeah, and. In a worst case scenario kind of
• 30:04
  exposure sense 8 Figure 9 Figure.
• 30:10
  Generally when I think of employment, you know, I because
• 30:12
  I come from small world, I think of smaller like the cases that
• 30:16
  you're talking about. Mike, how, how did you end up
• 30:18
  going from what I think of as the old timey employment cases
• 30:22
  to these big higher exposure cases?
• 30:25
  So I think it was a little bit of being in the right place at
• 30:30
  the right time. As an employment lawyer, you
• 30:35
  know, 20 years ago, you learned about the Labor Code, you
• 30:38
  learned about wage claims, because often times your single
• 30:43
  plaintiffs discrimination, wrongful termination case may
• 30:46
  also have some wage claims. And we would also handle
• 30:51
  administrative claims in front of the labor Commissioner's
• 30:54
  Office. So I, I gained that knowledge
• 30:58
  around the Labor Code and how it works.
• 31:00
  And it, it's a, a vast set of it.
• 31:04
  It's a, it's a huge set of laws really, when you compare it to
• 31:07
  other states. And I just became very
• 31:11
  comfortable with that. And in the early, yeah, in the
• 31:14
  early 2000s, PAGA passed originally in 2004.
• 31:17
  And for the first six years up until 2010, PAGA wasn't really
• 31:23
  much of anything. It was kind of like A tag along
• 31:26
  claim and then the, and then there were a couple of big court
• 31:34
  decisions, the California Supreme Court decision and AUS
• 31:38
  Supreme Court decision that dealt with class action waivers.
• 31:42
  And the California Supreme Court said class action waivers don't
• 31:46
  apply to representative actions. And the US Supreme Court said
• 31:51
  class action waivers can be enforceable in an arbitration
• 31:55
  agreement for class claims. And so that resulted in this
• 31:58
  huge spike of pocket litigation. And I just happened to be there
• 32:03
  at that time. It's like gravitating to your
• 32:06
  thing, like, and we're good at, right?
• 32:09
  I mean, just we're exceptional at it and getting your arms
• 32:13
  around those massive cases, getting your arms around the
• 32:16
  data and getting them figured out and resolved.
• 32:20
  And calming people. And liking it and liking.
• 32:21
  People Town. You know, I like, she said.
• 32:23
  I hate them. I hate them.
• 32:25
  I mean, I will if I could never have another, you know, wage in
• 32:29
  our case for the rest of my life, I'd be a I'd be a happy
• 32:32
  man. I get them in and give them all
• 32:34
  to her. I don't, I want my individual
• 32:37
  plaintiff cases with a story. And, you know, I hate these
• 32:41
  things, but she's exceptional at them, you know, and there's way
• 32:46
  more of that work almost out there and way higher rate.
• 32:49
  And, you know, it's way more important to companies than the
• 32:53
  kind of cases that that I defend one person.
• 32:56
  Yeah, You know, yeah. As we come into to kind of the,
• 33:00
  the final pieces of things, I always want to make sure that
• 33:03
  that folks have had an opportunity to share everything
• 33:06
  that they feel is, is is is valuable.
• 33:08
  And I know that packing decades of knowledge into an hour and a
• 33:13
  half space can be, can be very challenging.
• 33:16
  Are there pieces that we haven't touched on that you think it
• 33:19
  would be helpful for our listeners to to hear?
• 33:23
  I really appreciate the opportunity to do this because
• 33:29
  I'm really proud of what we've accomplished together.
• 33:32
  It's, you know, I think it, when we started out together, we were
• 33:39
  could barely scrape enough money together to buy a house and
• 33:43
  wouldn't have, wouldn't have been able to buy a house
• 33:46
  together. But for the, I had been in the
• 33:48
  Navy 2025 years ago at that point.
• 33:53
  And my dad goes, what don't you see about a VA loan?
• 33:58
  And I'm like VA loan. I was in the Navy 20 years ago.
• 34:03
  Well, I don't even know what. It turns out I could qualify for
• 34:06
  a VA loan and we could buy $1,000,000 house.
• 34:09
  The interest rate was incredible.
• 34:11
  With a ludicrous interest rate. And so, you know, it was, and
• 34:14
  those first couple years were hard to put our family together.
• 34:19
  I had only raised 2 girls. All of a sudden I, I'm not just
• 34:24
  a stepfather, but I'm a stepfather to a boy, a nine year
• 34:28
  old boy up to that point, I hated all the boys that were at
• 34:32
  my, at my daughter's birthday parties.
• 34:35
  The boys were jerks. I'd hated them.
• 34:37
  And now there's something, I'm a dad to 1 and I have to be a
• 34:40
  stepdad to 1. And so those, those were hard.
• 34:43
  Those first three years were hard, even financially and for
• 34:48
  our family. And we, you know, just worked
• 34:51
  super hard. And I don't know, 12 years
• 34:54
  later, it turned out pretty darn good.
• 34:57
  And we're, I'm just really proud of what we've achieved that
• 35:00
  that's not something your listeners would care about.
• 35:02
  But I just wanted to say that it's not a lesson for anybody
• 35:05
  but I. I think it's a lesson for
• 35:08
  lawyers. I, I truly think it's a lesson
• 35:11
  for lawyers. And I think maybe maybe even a,
• 35:16
  A lesson more important thing for a, a young female lawyer to
• 35:24
  hear who hasn't had children yet, who is concerned about what
• 35:29
  that looks like. And it's absolutely achievable.
• 35:32
  It's all absolutely achievable. And it's been the greatest,
• 35:36
  greatest blessing of my life. What I hear within there is that
• 35:41
  we rise to the occasion and that the two of you, I've done that.
• 35:46
  It's got to be 5050. We talk about having.
• 35:51
  I learned this from my parents, my again, parents, both public
• 35:55
  school teachers and just really great at modeling.
• 35:59
  You know, you are equals and everybody can do anything in
• 36:03
  that household. And, you know, and, and they did
• 36:06
  everything for each other and that and I really felt that way
• 36:10
  and, and it's been very important to us.
• 36:13
  And so I do think like Molly said earlier, neither of us
• 36:18
  would have achieved what we have achieved without having had
• 36:23
  somebody like we each had to help us get there, right?
• 36:26
  You don't, you can't achieve this on your own with somebody
• 36:30
  sitting back home who you don't respect.
• 36:32
  And it's not an equal partner. I mean, you only get to where
• 36:35
  we've gotten and achieve what we've achieved if you're all in
• 36:39
  for the other person. Absolutely.
• 36:42
  One of the things that I'm most proud of as a as a in my life is
• 36:48
  that when my children were at home before they left the house
• 36:53
  and went off to college, that we had a family dinner together
• 36:56
  every night, every weeknight, We would sit down at the table and
• 37:00
  eat together and I would cook. And, you know, often times that
• 37:04
  was something that I put in the slow cooker in the morning
• 37:07
  before we left and then we would have dinner that night.
• 37:11
  But even even that is a perfect example the importance of the
• 37:16
  5050 because I would not have been able to do that if I didn't
• 37:21
  have my dishwasher sous chef here to ensure that that I could
• 37:27
  that I could cook. I want to thank both of you for
• 37:30
  for a comment. It was, it was a real joy to sit
• 37:32
  down with both of you. Thank you, Miles, it was a great
• 37:34
  time. Thank you so much, Miles.
• 37:37
  And thank you for listening today.
• 37:39
  Please e-mail us at podcast at Cooperstown Law with questions,
• 37:41
  comments, feedback and suggestions for who we should
• 37:44
  have on the show. Like what you heard?
• 37:46
  Show us with a colleague and leave us a five star review on
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  our podcast platform of choice. To all of you doing justice out
• 37:51
  there, happy hunting.