Latest / Unscripted Direct / Episode 155 - Mock Trial the Movie

Transcript

Episode 155 - Mock Trial the Movie · Unscripted Direct

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: Unscripted Direct is brought to you by Waccup, Melodia, Kelly, and Schoenberger, based in San Francisco, but with cases all over the country.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_04: Walk-up is one of the most respected plaintiffs' personal injury and wrongful death law firms.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Want to get all the specialties.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: The attorneys of Walk-Up are passed about trying cases, and some of our cases have come from our listeners.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: If someone reaches out to you with a case, we're happy to see how we can help out.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_04: We thank Walkup for supporting this podcast and our trial advocacy community.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to Unscripted Direct.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_04: I'm Spencer Paul from Berkeley Wall.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_04: I'm Justin Bernstein, UCLA.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_04: This week we have results from the first three national tournaments of the season, a preview of Berkeley's national flash trial competition, an interview with Star Trial Lawyer Mark Mandel, who has funded the new Mandel Trial Advocacy Program at Roger Williams in Rhode Island, and we have an interview with the writers and director of Mock Trial the Movie.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_04: But first, Spencer, where are we having dinner tomorrow?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: Shoot, shoot.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't chose the place.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um how nice should it be?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's a working dinner, but it's Justin.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't care how nice it is.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: How tasty should it be?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_04: Very, okay, very tasty.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: Should it be like a Spencer Ambiance or like a working ambiance?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think we're going for?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_04: I think you should choose the ambiance, uh, but but make sure uh your wife uh approves of the food.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, yeah.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, good.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_04: Tina Tina Tina has excellent taste in food.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um I admittedly I don't have a reservation yet, but I will.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: It is a Tuesday, and that will that will not be hard at all uh to get a place that's that'll be agreeable to us.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, so sorry about that.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: You would have chosen it like a month ago, but I'm excited to see you.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think it is the opposite.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_04: Like if you say you're coming down for a consult and we're getting together, I I will not only like spend way too much time thinking about where we're gonna go, I'll bombard you with questions like, hey, do you feel like the and I've gotten better because now I realize if I asked you questions, it just leads to worse outcomes.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_04: Uh like I remember when I met you up in the in, I think it was Portland, I'd like to pick three restaurants and I let you choose.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_04: And you're like, how about instead we eat in a hotel?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, that that is what happened.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_04: That's definitely what happened.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_04: That's for sure what happened.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_04: The nines.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_04: And that that is the last time I asked you for your boat.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_04: Now I just say, hey, we're going here, and you're like, this is great.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: Little did we know we'd be sitting in like uh sort of embassy suites-ish, um, you know, uh atrium area, indoors, outdoors, outdoors, indoors, fake outdoors, indoors.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_04: You say little did we know, like as if it happened to us, you chose where we went.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_04: You turned down three great ideas to put us in like a motel six embassy suites lobby.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, the food wasn't bad, but nonetheless.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: It was pretty good stake, actually.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: But it was the ambiance was not what I was going for.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: I should have looked ahead of time, you know?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_04: We're we're relied on someone who did for to fill everybody in.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_04: I'm going over San Francisco tomorrow uh because we're working on a case you have set for trial.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Me and Valerie Rose, two golden bears set for trial.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Go bears.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Go bears.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: Go bears.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, it's gonna be great to see you.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um you're getting in in the late afternoon, mid-afternoon?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, don't you usually teach in the afternoon?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_04: So this is part of your your plan.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_04: You scheduled our meeting for a time you knew I had class.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, you know, one of the ways you're trying to defeat us is you figure, you know, reduce our amount of education.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_04: So I have to reschedule the class, maybe have it on online.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: It is, it's it's that is I've taken the long route uh in trying to beat you.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but slowly but surely I think we're gonna get there.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, it's it's great.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, so okay, cool.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: I will see you tomorrow, which will be two days ago by the time people listen to this, which is great.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but looking forward to seeing you in the past.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um but talking about seeing you in in the present, you're looking great.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: You got this uh freshly starched shirt on, uh cleanly shaven.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um your skin tone is is sort of just buying.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's vibrant.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's what's what's going on.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, last week you were having a professional headshot doing headshots.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's headshot season.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh in what, about five, ten minutes?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Is that when you're gonna get over there and do the headshot?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_04: I well, I knew that I was recording with you, so I had a little bit of uh uh a gap.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, but I I don't plan to lie to the photographer um like some people might.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: Why is such a strong characterization, really?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_04: I agree.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_04: I agree.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_04: Let's let's talk about uh what you have coming up this weekend because it is the weekend of the national flash trial competition.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_04: Are you excited?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_04: I am very excited, very excited.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_04: Now, who is helping you run it this year, or maybe I should put it differently, who is running it this year?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so it is the supporters of blue and gold trial advocacy, the nonprofit we formed a few years ago to simplify our dealings with the complicated bureaucracy of our beloved university.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's go Paris.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's the board of the SBGTA.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: That is it just rolls off the tongue.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: It really does.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: It really does.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, that is Jenna Forster, Chris Brown, Darren Kickiolu, and Jordan Fraboni.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: And and and me.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm also on that.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_04: I'm glad you remembered.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so this is year five of Flash.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_04: Uh are you thinking about using like fast and furious titles?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_04: Like this one's called Flash Five.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I've said I've been floating, I've been sort of uh spitballing, workshopping that around uh our meetings, and it hasn't hasn't taken off, unfortunately.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: I like it myself.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: The Flash and the Furious.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's next year, but yeah.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so what is different in year five?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's remarkably similar to how we've done in the past.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's small little tweaks uh here and there.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it it it's it's it's largely similar.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh um, you know, it's changed a little bit over time.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's gotten a little bit bigger, technology's changed a little bit, but the the the the bottom line fundamentals are it's it's it's the same same thing.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_04: So I think it is sort of stunning how little it has changed from year one to year five.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_04: Like looking over the rules, looking over the schedule, the location.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's basically the same every year.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's a testament to how much thought you guys put in in year one.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_04: Like it's really clear that you you wanted this to be a very specific kind of event, not just in terms of the fact that the competition itself is different because they're flash trials, but everything about it was really well thought out.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm glad that, you know, if it's not broke, don't fix it.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I guess part of it is like it is such an unusual format um that uh I feel like it does benefit from other stability, you know, like stability in location and schedule and you know the experience you're gonna have there.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because if there were too many moving parts um beyond the format itself, the 45 minutes to one hour prep time, I think that could be that could be harder to to accept.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_04: What new schools are you excited to welcome?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm excited to welcome all of our new schools, actually.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they are Chapman uh and UC Davis are joining us this year.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: And Loyola is back um after a hiatus.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: We're very excited to have him back.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_04: Very cool.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_04: Uh for anybody who hasn't been to Flash, one of the cool parts is that because it's such a rush, literally, to uh to prepare, all the fact patterns are handed out at the same time uh to all the teams.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_04: They're in manila envelopes, and often the Berkeley folks will have some fun uh dressing up in character uh for whatever is related to the fact pattern.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_04: For example, I think I've seen you all in in in Doctor gear and like scrubs, yeah uh so or pirate pirate attire for your piracy case.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_04: So what absurd um outfits are we looking forward to this year?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm actually eager to find out.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Chris Brown heads this up uh and he's promised there is a shirt for every fact pattern.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I really so I am um uh I'm hopeful that it's all uh I'm sure it's all in good taste.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: It must be.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh why why wouldn't it be?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so we'll see.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_04: Now there's there's six rounds.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_04: Which of the fact patterns did you write?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I love I love that.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I I looked at um of them.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I didn't write any of them.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_04: Oh.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_04: So okay.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_04: Uh what's what's the question from Office Space?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_04: What what would you say you do here?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_04: That's that's right.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_04: Uh well, teasing aside, uh, I've had multiple people this fall tell me they're using your fact patterns as training.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_04: And it makes total sense because they're short.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_04: They've got enough there to uh train students on all the aspects of trial without sort of overwhelming them.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_04: They're all about 25 to 30 pages.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_04: So uh you guys making it public is very, very cool because that's that's six cases a year.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_04: Now 24 cases out there.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_04: That's awesome.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we and that's one of the best parts about this, which I didn't we didn't really anticipate.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: But the number of schools who have asked to use the fact patterns and not just to prep for flash or to you know consider applying, but just for their own training purposes has been just like just warms my little trial advocacy heart, uh, as I say.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then also there's a Boda that's been using it for their own flash trial program uh as well out here uh on the West Coast.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so to see the format be useful to folks is that's that feels good, and we really are happy about that.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_04: Well, we have talked about the upcoming competition, but we would be reminisced if we did not talk about the past competitions.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_04: Spencer, for the first time this year, it's time for the break.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, we have the first results for the year.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: They come from first chair, and there were three different sites.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_04: In Atlanta, the professionalism award goes to Houston.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_04: The best judge awards go to Sidney Kraft from Campbell and Judge Weams from Houston.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_04: The semifinalists were Campbell and Mercer.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_04: Finalist was Houston a great weekend for the Cougars, and the winner was Texas Southern.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_04: Congratulations to Tim Adams.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_04: We moved to Philadelphia the other East Coast site.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_04: Professionalism Award was a tie between Cumberland and Hofstra.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_04: Not only did Hofstra win the Professionals Award, they were as professional as Cumberland.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_04: I think that's somehow even more impressive.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_04: Uh the best judge awards go to Dan Telly from Baylor and Judge Roberts from Cumberland.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_04: The semifinalists were Baylor and Cumberland, so they were good at judging, they were good at coaching.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_04: The finalist was St.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_04: Thomas of Florida.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_04: We're gonna have an interview later this season with their director, and the winner for the second year in a row, Drexel.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go out west to California.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: The professionalism award went to Chapman.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: The best judges were Donnie Anderson from Ohio Northern, Calista Macaulay from Chapman as well.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: Semifinalists were UC Berkeley and Denver.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: The finalist was Chapman and the winner, UCLA.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: Congratulations.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_04: I especially want to thank our hosts.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Atlanta was hosted by Georgia State and Paige Worman, Philly by Drexel and Phil Pascarello, and California John Bishop and Chapman.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_04: I also want to thank our case author for the West Coast case, that was Judge Roberts.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_04: And I've got to say, there's two advocates I was hearing rave things about.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Robert Ellis from Tim's Tech Southern team.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_04: After a great 2-0 year, he's even uh more dominant as a 3-0.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_04: And Cora Kirschbaum, we had the pleasure of scrimmaging Chapman.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_04: She was best advocate in California, the highest ranks of any site this year.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_04: So watch out for Cora.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, wait a minute.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Are you already talking about the new shining stars of this season?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that'll be part of the story of the season.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's right, Spencer.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh one of us at least likes to talk about students.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: At least one of us.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: I I concur.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_04: Well, we are really excited for uh our interview this week.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_04: It's with Mark Mandel, a star trial lawyer in Rhode Island.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: He is a star trial lawyer uh and well known in the trial advocacy community for uh his framing the case, his uh his theory of how you should approach framing cases.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm excited to hear this.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and we wanted to talk to him not just because of his work as a lawyer, but also now as an educator, because uh after teaching for a long time, he is getting even more involved with Roger Williams.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_04: His donation has allowed them to create the Mandel Trial Advocacy Program.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_04: They're in search of a new director.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_04: You've probably seen that on the listserv.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_04: And we had a chance to chat with him about what it is they're building at Roger Williams.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Mark Mandel.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_04: Our guest is Superstar Trial Lawyer, Mark Mandel.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_04: He founded the law firm of Mandel, Basclair Mandel.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_04: He focuses his practice on catastrophic personal injury cases, wrongful death cases, liquor liability cases, and medical negligence cases.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_04: He's won more million dollar verdicts than any lawyer in Rhode Island history.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_04: He's won more$10 million verdicts than any lawyer in Rhode Island history.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_04: He led the litigation that resulted in a$176 million award for his clients.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_04: Mark's a fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, past president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, now known as AAJ, the American Association of Justice.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_04: Mark, when did you realize you wanted to be a trial lawyer?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh God.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: My mom, God rest her soul, was a graduated law school.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I knew I wanted to be a lawyer.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: I used to love Abraham Lincoln when I was in grammar school, middle school.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess uh all all my life of which I had any consciousness of what was going on, I wanted to be a traveler.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know people didn't like justice, really love justice?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_04: Did you know what kind of traveler you wanted to be, whether it was criminal or civil, and which which side of the aisle?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um initially I didn't know there were different sides.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I just knew I wanted to be a lawyer to begin with.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think you know, I've always loved people, really enjoyed uh advocating for justice when I was in college, went to the University of Alabama, and for a northern, you know, liberal Jewish guy, that was a big difference than growing up here in Providence.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I'd say in college, uh and then in law school that became uh very refined to plaintiff's catastrophic PI work.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_04: How long have you been practicing law trying cases?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Over 51 years.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_04: And you're still active doing it before we started recording.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_04: You said that you got a trial notice this morning.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I I did get just uh actually several trial notices and in a big case that I'm working uh in.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'm still active.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: I still work every day, you know.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I love what I do.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: So uh and uh Beauclair is my wife, and Mandel in the name of our firm is my son, one of our sons.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that's great.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I uh we have eight-person family firm, you know, and uh so I get to hang out with my wife and my son every day.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_04: That's lovely.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect for me.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_04: So when you're practicing 50 years, 50 years in the courtroom, what are some things that are harder now that you're older, but also some things that you think you do better now that you're older?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, I think um what's harder now um is that the practice generally is more uh sophisticated technologically, um cognitively, intellectually.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um I like that actually.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it's harder.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: When I started, you didn't know who the other side's expert was going to be until ten days before trial.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And same for them.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And all you found out then was that person's name.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um now, like we do expert depositions in Rhode Island and I handle cases in other states too, but usually with expert depositions, that has changed the dynamic a lot.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: So uh there's much more work to do on every case.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe that's it.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but on the other hand, what have what's easier about it is that um I don't think age brings wisdom, and I'm not saying I have any wisdom, but if you think about how to do things and why you're doing it, and you really work at learning that, um, you gain consciousness over the years.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not saying I have consciousness, but I know a lot more about what I'm doing now than I did when I had no idea what I was doing when I first started.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: How would you describe your style in the courtroom?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not crazy aggressive.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's not me.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: My style is to use um my awareness, my what what what I understand about the facts of the case and uh to think quickly how to deal with answers or situations as they arise.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I try to be as gentlemanly as I can be.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I can be, I'm always I always try to be strong, uh, but and sometimes if a witness is just absolutely lying in my mind, yeah.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I'm human, I get more aggressive, but I always try to understand that it's not about me, it's about what I'm doing.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it it is about me in the sense that juries, if they like and respect me, are much more likely to say to themselves, well, if if Mr.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Mandel's saying that and doing this, there's likely something here.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: But that's only if I act professionally, if if I put on the right proof, and if I understand why, how why I'm doing it.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_04: What is your favorite courtroom war story or or stories?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, uh I think probably the best way to answer that is I've tried many different kinds of cases, not just catastrophic personal injury cases, not just malpractice cases, not just products cases.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I actually tried a reapportionment case.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and when I got the call from a former governor, would I represent his nephew, who was uh a state senator in a re in a reapportionment case, my my first response was all I know is you know Reynolds versus Sims, Baker versus Carr, what they what you learn in law school.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I had no idea about reapportionment.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I wasn't sure I was the guy.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I did it and uh and we won.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, it was a great victory at the time.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I I had to learn reapportionment law.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it was the first time in Rhode Island computers were used in the courtroom in any way because you had all those that data on computer printouts and stuff.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: But it was uh they actually, and our Supreme Court affirmed it.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: It would that reapportionment plan, state Senate reapportionment plan, was struck down as not just violation of one person, one vote, not just a political gerrymander, but it also was racially discriminatory.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: So for all three of the worst things that can happen in a plan.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that was it's it's the breadth of the kinds of cases I've tried.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in terms of the cases I usually try, which are catastrophic personal injury, it was a case where I represented a fellow who had a brain injury that was misdiagnosed over two days by 11 different healthcare professionals in a hospital here in Providence, and he uh cognitively uh was very significantly injured, yeah.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh terrible injury.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he when he talked, he talked in a garbled way.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: You could you really couldn't understand him.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: I could, because I spent so much time with him.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: My direct examination of him was a highlight of my career.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: It only lasted 45 minutes, but um without going into the details of the direct, since we have a limited period of time, the jurors were crying.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: I I had tears in my eyes.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it wasn't just that it was sympathetic, it was so raw and real.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and um so I would say that.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_04: In addition to trying cases, you've helped teach other lawyers how to try cases.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_04: You published a book called Case Framing, and then a few years later, advanced case framing.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_04: What is the case framing method?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, okay, so um I'm I'm that person who doesn't like to do something that I don't understand why I'm doing it.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've always been that way, but it's more now, and it's gotten more.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when I started practicing law, I there there were some great lawyers, but there was there wasn't a universal consistent method, a model.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just like when you ask cross-examination, don't ask why with the why question.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually disagree with that, but but the point is it was rudimentary.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: What I call the urban legends that have always existed about how to try a case.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: So case framing is the result of my life of trial works experience, trial and error, um, about how to prepare and try a case.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: It literally, everything about what you do to everything, Justin, about what you do to prepare and try a case fits within case framing.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now you might say that's pretty ambitious to say that, Mark.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I came up with a whole bunch of different ways to try cases, not not many, but some over the years.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I would try cases using them, I would lecture on them, but I always found holes in them.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so when I came up with case framing over the last 10, 12 years, um, I haven't found any holes yet.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: And my friends, it's now used all across the country by many, many lawyers and friends and new friends, uh, I'd consult with, done it hundreds of times about how to prepare and try their cases, and they report back they're getting verdicts and bigger verdicts than ever before using it.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's got three parts uh case frames, which are the heart and soul of your case, and you can have more than one in a case, but only one overall case frame.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Two, and I'll give you one example of that.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Two, uh, I just can't get over issues, and I'll give you one example of that.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And three, the echoes that should exist all throughout trial.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that was always the hole I found in the other ways is what happened between opening and closing.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: How do you what what do you do that jurors just and obviously want to know what happened, and that's what We have spent all our time over years doing, uh using medical.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what happened.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: But what they really wanted is why what happened happened.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that question was never answered for me by anybody ever over the years, other than once in a while anecdotally in a case.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: But there's so case framing explains not just what to do, but why we're doing it.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why it's caught on.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it's got an interesting uh market in the sense that there are so many really talented lawyers but didn't have the model.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are so many ongoing new lawyers that didn't have the experience, didn't have the confidence of knowing their talent, and didn't have a model.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think case framing helps them.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: So one example of overall case frames, uh, and this is how I first got awareness of case frames.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like the word theme, I don't use the word theme.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think if you use the word theme repeatedly to me, I might develop a tick.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's such a an awful word, but everybody uses it, and they use it because they don't have a better word.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: A theme is a vanilla, nondescript, meaningless word.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: What I use is frame, and it's so much more palpable.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: What I what I advocate in case framing is that every single thing we do at trial should palpably feel like it's right.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we should be doing.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_04: Mark, can you give me an example of a case frame from a case you worked on?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: I can give you well, everybody's got to do their job.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: So if everybody so do your job is an overall case frame.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that applies to many different cases because it it's it explains why what happened happened.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: This person didn't do his or her job.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: The way I came I I became aware of case frames is the actually the O.J.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Simpson criminal trial.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if you ask people what the overall case frame of that is, many people will say Johnny Cochran's brilliant one-liner.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um they may say police misconduct, yeah, Mark Furman was racist.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: They may say rush to judgment, yeah, that's what happened.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: But those aren't overall case frames.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: An overall case frame is the heart and soul of your case, it's got it's a virtually universally applicable principle or conduct, and it's gotta fit the facts of your case.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: So how many people do you know who tried on a bloody glove that shrunk when it dried that it didn't fit on their hand?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know one.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: That is not what I would call a universally applicable principle, right?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um Mark, someone may have been a racist, but not everybody's a racist, right?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And wrongful accusation, I mean, and excuse me, rush to judgment.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, not everybody's had a rush to judgment, right?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I started thinking, those are what I call I just can't get over issues.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Issues that you just can't get over will drive your verdict, will drive people's decision making.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when you think about it, Justin, when you listen to people in your day-to-day life and you think I just can't get over this or that, you will be surprised how many times you hear people use that phrase.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And what they're and that's why I like frame and I just can't get over.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can feel palpably and I just can't get over issues.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: All right, like if it doesn't fit, you must acquit.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a theme.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can palpably feel it.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: So in OJ Simpson's case, if you take those I just can't get over issues and you look for the collective thread that runs between them, how they're united, that's how you determine the case frame, the overall case frame and secondary frames, it's wrongful accusation.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's what happened in that.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that's why he got acquitted.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: If a glove doesn't fit, there was a wrongful accusation.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: If there's a rush to judgment, there will be a wrongful accusation.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: If there's a racist police officer, there will be a wrongful accusation.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody, you Justin, I promise you, have been wrongfully accused of something.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: It may be your mother or father said, You ate that cookie, not your brother.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, I ate it.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_04: No, no, I ate the cookie.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you admit you're an honest guy.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: But so that was a proper accusation.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm saying to you is no matter how small, the person who's accused doesn't like it.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: They don't like it.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that's an example of a an an overall case frame.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's when you take the IGS can't get over issues in a case and give them, see what connects in it.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_04: Can I can I play devil's advocate for a second?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can do anything you want, sure.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_04: So uh you said that the the better case frame for the OJ defense is less uh it doesn't fit, you must acquit, less rush to judgment, which is the theme in their opening.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_04: But a better one would be wrongful accusation.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_04: Couldn't somebody say, well, Mark, that's the defense or the case frame for any criminal defense where you're saying it wasn't you or you're saying it wasn't your guy.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um if you're not asserting an affirmative defense, I mean, isn't that basically another way of saying innocence?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's not at all.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because what an overall case frame does, which is what an IGS can't get over issue does, the reason you just can't get over it is they right they go deep inside you, you, the listener, and strike it strikes a responsive court.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: There was a book written by a guy named Anthony Schwartz, who was a political commentator.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was 1964.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was called the responsive court.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if you hear Donald Trump say, uh, make America great again, that's his frame to strike a responsive court.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: When he talks about cancel culture, that's his frame to strike a responsive court.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: It may apply to numerous cases, just like do your job, just like know your limits.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: If a surgeon does something because she didn't know her limits, that's your overall case frame, and everybody knows you've got to know your limits.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: The fact it may apply in not just one case, but multiple cases, doesn't mean it's not an overall case frame.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: It just means what you're looking for is that thing that is virtually universally applicable and understood.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Know your limits, do your job.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a loving mother would never do that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Could be anything, cover-up, betrayal, you know, but they all have issues.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can accuse somebody of betrayal, but you better be right.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because on that jury where there may be people who have been betrayed, right, there there are also people who are accused of betrayal.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because it takes two to have a betrayal.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you might be talking betrayal, betrayal, betrayal, and you might be angering that juror who also was accused of betrayal by his wife, by whoever.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you only use that frame if it fits 100%.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it's you look, you just need to learn it before you use it and then practice it.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because the more you practice it, the more you'll be aware of the ideas can't get over issues, the case frames.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: All of it, trust me, I work so hard.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Every word in both of my books is meant to be and is, I believe, ethical, professional, and straightforward.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's no anything else to that, but I explain using neuroscience, using decision science, using intuition, using my experience, putting trying to put it all together.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that's it's the best I could do.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_04: And um, the best you can do has worked out very, very well for you and your clients.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_04: Mark, I want to ask you about the new Mendel Center for Trial Advocacy.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_04: Earlier this year, you pledged four million dollars to Roger Williams Law School in Rhode Island for the creation of the Mendel Trial Advocacy Center.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_04: So I want to ask you about this both because it's going to be part of our trial advocacy education community and because some of our listeners might be interested in applying for the job as director.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_04: So, first, why?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_04: Uh you talked about why earlier.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_04: Why donate to create this program?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I absolutely, honestly love the law.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I I absolutely honestly love what I do.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I my friends, some of my friends said to me, why don't you wait till you retire to write the books?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then it couldn't be used against you.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: And look, I believe we're all in this together.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I came up with these awarenesses.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to share them.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I was raised to understand the importance of giving back.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: I believe Ann Frank's words that the only true measure of our wealth is by what we give, not what we have at the end.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so all of that combined, I I deeply admire uh the dean of our law school.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's a creator, he's an innovative fellow, and I thought he would be responsive to this, and and he is, and he very much believes in it now.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so uh I want there to be you look, people say, do you think there are too many lawyers?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: My answer is there are never too many good lawyers.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And my goal is to help create uh and empower young law students to become good lawyers.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_04: Why trial lawyers in particular?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, obviously that that is your background, that's where you've been extremely successful.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_04: Why did you want to center for trial advocacy in Rhode Island when there are fewer trials now than there used to be?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, two different issues.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh okay, uh I don't mean this to be melodramatic, so I apologize if it sounds that way.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a trial lawyer.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Look, a long time ago, what I do for a living and who I am as a person became the same thing.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a job to me.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: I I absolutely believe in what I do as a human being.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm a I'm an old guy now.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm still doing.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it and this is not an easy way to make a living.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like being a catcher in baseball has been doing it for 50 years in terms of the the wear and tear on your being.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why now that there are so few trials?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: That just puts a premium on the fact that the trials that are tried are done the right way.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the bottom line is look, I don't know what you're passionate about.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: I assume it's being the best person you could educating your students and sharing wisdom.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: That if that's who you are, well, being a trialer is who I am.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I want a trial ad center.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_04: Now I know that in preparing to build the the center and and figure out what the director's gonna do and how it's gonna work.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_04: You've had a chance to talk to some folks in our trial advocacy community.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_04: Um, who have you talked to and what have you learned from them?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh God.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, I I I believe in knowing what I don't know, but I want to understand it and I want to understand why.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I talked to, I think the first person I talked to was Phil Pascarello from Philadelphia.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh his the partners of the firm he used to work in are friends of mine.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I have tremendous respect for them.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: So they told me about Phil.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he was very helpful.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's a uh great guy and very intelligent.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then I uh so what I did was I called friends of mine who I respect, like those two fellows.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then I called a friend of mine who's a just a spectacular trial lawyer in Texas, and he is very, very active in the University of Texas program, trial ad center.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I called Mike Olden and we had a really nice talk, uh, and also another great guy, and he helped me.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then I contacted somebody at Fordham through a friend, and I contacted somebody at University of Illinois, Chicago, all trilad, who through a friend.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh my questions were not just logistical, practical, do you do just trilad competitions?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have classes?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: What's the budget?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, those things that I honestly have no idea what the right answer was.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I'm not saying I know it now, but I know more about it because of these really good people who said been very kind to help me and give me that consciousness.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I also asked, you know, so this is a little, this is, I don't know how different it is.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: My dean says it's unique in a way because it's it's a model, it's a definite methodology that is all integrated.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, uh, but I trust him implicitly, so sure.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: So uh anyway, I asked all those different questions, and what I was so pleased with is they're willing to spend whatever time it took talking to me.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_04: So I those those guys are great.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_04: Um, they've been on our show, they're they're friends of mine.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_04: Phil's a former student, and I think you'll find as you get more into the trial advocacy education community that there are a lot of people who are willing to share.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, just like you said with with your book, you're competitive, but you want to raise the the level across the country.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_04: I think that's the same in our community.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we're competitive with each other um when it comes to trial competitions, but I think everybody is education first and trying to raise the tide for all boats.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_04: So, Mark, I understand that the director application is still open for the Mendel trial occupacy director.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, I think some potential applicants might be listening to this interview.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_04: So, how are you involved in the selection process for the director?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, I I think it's partly because I have such a close relationship with our dean, who I have so much respect for, Craig Bowman.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'm the chair of the advisory committee.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's not my intent to micromanage anything, but you know, I I've I've thought about it a lot.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I am uh we have a hiring committee.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's got some people from the law school, a few lawyers, and a few judges.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: And um we're accepting applications now.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: We've gotten some applications in, and they're really good applications.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that you know, I'm very pleased at the quality of people uh that have applied so far.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: We are looking to please, if somebody in your audience would be interested, it's I believe a very competitive salary structure range.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh the the center, the the foundation of the center in terms of its instructions will be uh using case framing as a model.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you teach and it will be not just competitions, but there'll be class uh class offerings for the students and also there'll be an adjunct part of that for practitioners who want to come be, you know, become more aware.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: People actually out in practice, not just law students.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how big a part that will be, but that's part of our plan anyway.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_04: So what are you looking for in a director?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, obviously the ideal candidate has everything, but are you primarily looking for someone with lots of trial experience or someone with lots of teaching experience or someone with lots of monktal coaching experience?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, what is the priority as you look for somebody who's gonna lead your program?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, all right.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: So first I'm I me personally, because I I I I think I will have some influence on the decision, but I I'm saying just for me, um, number one characteristic is more traits.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I put a very high premium on humility, uh, because without humility, you can never really know the good people around you.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can't know yourself, and you can't learn from your mistakes because you never make mistakes if if you don't have humility.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and also somebody's open-minded.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because um so within the context of the categories you put out, trials trial experience is preferred.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Does it have to be much great a trial experience?
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: But but the open-minded part and the humility part is you, if you've tried a number of cases, you get set in the way you tried them.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this is different.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is a model that's new uh and thankfully now being used across the country by a lot of people.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: But but open-mindedness, but yes, trial experience is a positive.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, teaching, writing, thinking about it is a positive as long as people are open-minded and humble and not, oh, I've learned how to do this.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is the only way to do it, because case framing is different.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then I guess the third thing is the same.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, people teach Mark how to do mock trials.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I would just say, look, some people teach how to do mock how to do mock trials and have never tried a case.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Some people have tried a lot of cases.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Teaching mock trials, there's there is something, there is a an art and a science of teaching, so I totally respect that.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and the impact a good teacher can have on you is is unbelievably beautiful in my mind.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's just gotta be somebody humble and open-minded because this is different.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I need to stress that, you know, it's original and it's different.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_04: We we mentioned mock trials.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_04: Is the Mandel trial uh program and and Roger Williams going to participate in mock trial competitions against other schools?
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that is a primary intention, not just regionally but nationally, uh, over time.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're building that.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Roger Williams already has a trial ad program.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: I taught advanced trial ad there uh as an adjunct for five years in the past.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean that's definitely part of it.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_04: So for anybody who's listening, what is your pitch for why somebody should apply for this job?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow, okay.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it would be easier if you were a trial lawyer who had tried quite a few cases.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one is we've got a great dean.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's not related to that point about being if you tried cases, I'll get to that.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a great dean, dean, Rhode Island's a fabulous place to live.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the salary structure, uh, the range is is strong from talking to other people who have been doing trial ad teaching.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's very strong.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think the other thing is, and again, please, I apologize, forgive me, all right, because I I I mean every word of this, and that's why it still fits with some humility, hopefully, on my part, is I believe this is the way you prepare and try cases.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's never been written about before, uh, the books, and um, I haven't seen the holes in it.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if you if I think that's a plus, I do think that's a plus.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you read my books and you find the holes, will you please call and tell me?
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because I always I'll never stop asking questions and always want to learn.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the model is a positive.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Does that mean Roger Emerson is going to go out and win every competition?
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna go out and win every competition.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we'll be teaching them the right way.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying there's only one right way, but to me, this is the way.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the best I got.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_04: Marcus is an almost lifelong Rhode Islander.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_04: For those of us who've never been to the state, what are some of the best things about Rhode Island?
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, well, we're on the ocean.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, we're not the only state on the ocean, but our nickname is the ocean state.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're one hour from Boston by car, three hours from New York, depending on when you drive by car.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we have a great cultural scene, we have a great restaurant scene.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: It is a, it's as good a place as I know.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I was raised here and I have raised my children here to raise a family, to have a family.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, it's got everything you would want in a in a state.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we got the problems everybody else has too, but we are the smallest state in the country, and so there aren't many degrees of separation here.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: One of the cases I handled was I was co-lead counsel of that station fire case you talked about, the settlement.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and one of the things that it devastated our state.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: 100 people died, and over 300 people were injured, seriously, many of them.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it affected everybody because we don't have that many degrees of separation here between people.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Brown's uh the classic melting pot.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: We have a significant amount of so many different ethnic groups, racial groups.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, to me, that's a that's a wonderful thing now.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: But that's it's just a great place to live.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_04: Mark, thank you for contributing to Trial Pixie Education through your your generosity and through your involvement in the selection process.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_04: And thank you for speaking with me.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's my pleasure.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I asked my friends who I talked to about you, and they all just said you were great.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: You are.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you very much for having me.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_04: Well, thank you so much.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_04: It's very kind.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_04: Uh good luck with the center, and uh I'm sure we'll be in touch.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, take care now.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_04: Bye-bye.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: Good direct examination.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_04: Now, one thing I'm looking forward to as they build their mantra program.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_04: When we have the NTC regional predictions, and Robert always talks about drafting Lewis and Clark, do you think he will talk about drafting Roger and Williams?
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um Probably.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, although it's Roger Williams, right?
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's not Roger and Williams.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I I, you know, I mean I could see him doing that and I would support it.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um have we already confirmed that it's gonna be Robert and Phil again?
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: Or the rubber rubber double rubber?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: Hold on.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I I am confirming right now it's gonna be Robert and Phil back in January.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, sorry everyone.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_04: Uh as if it can be more exciting, uh, we are now turning to our final interview of the week with the writers and director of Mock Trial the Movie.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: Justin's going to Hollywood.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: What go on?
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: Mock Trial the Movie.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_04: Well, had you had you heard that there was Mock Trial the movie?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um I feel bad.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not really on the social channels, so whatever efforts they were undertaking, which I know have no doubt were exceptionally good, did not reach me.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: So no.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_04: When I heard that there was something called Mock Trial the Movie, I just assumed it was you know, you steal it, you steal it scrimmage.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's that's basically and you edit those, you keep those, you watch those holidays.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so it's we're all actors.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's okay.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_04: But actually, there is a mock trial the movie coming out uh from some really established writers and actors uh from the interrupt teams across the country.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_04: So we're excited to have them on our our uh our uh uh our uh it's not every day that we talk about our own IMDb pages and Wikipedia pages.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_04: Jeff McKell is an actress, comedian, singer, writer, and director.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_04: She was trained at the famous Upright Citizens Brigade, one of the uh more prestigious improv training and performances in the country.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_04: She's appeared on Modern Family and the Goldberg, who made a cleaner.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_04: Zach Reno is an actor, comedian, singer, and writer.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_04: He's been on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and together they're a musical comedy duo.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_04: They host a popular podcast called Off Book, and they regularly perform on the comedy streamer dropout.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_04: Jess and Zach, welcome to Unscripted Direct.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_05: Hi.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_05: It's just so funny because I'm also from Upright Intelligence Brigade, and Jessica also is on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: So in many ways, Zach and I overlap in about as uh many directions as you can think.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, the Venn diagrams are close to uh close to a circle.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_05: Not a circle, but they're close to a circle.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_05: Jess, what was your role with Mock Trial the movie?
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um so with this movie, I am the co-writer with Zach, the co-star with Zach, and one more different hat, I directed the movie as well.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_04: Now, if you were the director and the actor, was that was that hard to direct yourself?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_04: Did you take direction well from yourself?
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was challenging.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: It was also the first time I ever directed a feature, so I was learning a lot of lessons.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: And because the movie was uh relying heavily on improvisation, um it was helpful for me to have the map of the movie in my mind that I could not only direct other people in a scene, but also sort of lead the scene as the actor as well.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew where the scene needed to needed to get to.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I could both, as the performer and the director, kind of have eyes on like, okay, great, you got the ins essential information out.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's gonna match up now.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: And let's work towards an out.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: Or um, depending on who I was acting in the scene with, sometimes if I felt like uh it wasn't gonna mess up the flow, I could be like, okay, can we stop?
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: We say this again, we say that faster.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know if I directed myself ever audibly.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you said that what that one that one huge fight where you were like, Jessica, you gotta go for it.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_05: And then you were the actor and you were like, I don't know if I can get there.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_05: And then as the director, you're like, You gotta get there, and then you got there.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: You saw that.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_05: Uh yeah, I know it's supposed to be private, but I'm very perceptive.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: So embarrassing.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_05: Zach, what was your role?
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, I mean, like like Jess said, I was uh mostly just an actor in it.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_05: We we did co-write it together, but because Jess and I are pretty like divide and conquer with our many career things that we do, Jessica did the full like outline and most of the scripting in this movie that happened.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_05: I did like a couple scenes, but um most of you know, because it was improvised, uh, it really became more and more our movie as like we did individual scenes.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_05: That is true also of the our incredible cast, many of whom were improvisers as well.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_05: And um, some of our younger actors were not, but we made them all do improvised scenes in their auditions and they crushed it.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_05: So there is a ton in this movie that just does not exist in the script form, and then a fair amount that does.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_05: What is the movie about exactly?
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I know it's in the title, Mock Trial the Movie, but what's the basic plot?
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's right there on the tin.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: The the basic plot is Zach and I play former best friends who had a falling out when our team uh crashed and burned in the finals, and we've grown, uh, we've grown estranged.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: He stayed at our high school, or he returned to our high school and taught, teaches there, and is coaching the team, which has dwindled in its power and size.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I have moved back to town, and the principal has asked me to help revitalize the program.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it's about uh putting the program back on the road to its former glory, but also putting our friendship back together.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's a sports movie, but the sport is mock trial.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_04: I love that.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_04: So I want to talk about how you came to create a movie about mock trial.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_04: Zach, what is your experience with mock trial?
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I did mock trial in high school for my junior year.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_05: I was a witness, and then my senior year, I was a prosecuting attorney.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_05: I was much better at being a witness than an attorney.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_05: But hey, we all we live and we learn as we're going.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um, this movie sort of like came to us.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Jess and I have worked together for over a decade now, and somewhat deep into our working relationship, we realized that we had both done mock trial in high school.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_05: And because we're both from California, we did the same program.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_05: And because we're both the same age, we actually did the same cases.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_05: So we're like, oh, Madison Casco.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and that was just um that we ended up doing like a um an improvised musical about mock trial that it currently lives on YouTube.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_05: It's called We Object to Fear.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, it was very popular.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so when we were looking into potential movies to do, we were like, well, this is something that we both uh like and care about and know a fair amount about.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_05: You you did high school mock trial at which high school?
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_05: Um I am San Marcos, San Marcos High School from Santa Barbara.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_04: Now I don't know if you know this.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I'm the Capello director of trial advocacy UCLA.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_04: Barry Capello uh later coached uh the Santa Barbara uh team that you were on.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_04: From Santa Barbara High School or San Marcos High School?
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_04: San Marcos, his son.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_04: Whoa.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_04: His sons went to San Marcos uh and he later coached it.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_05: Whoa.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_05: That makes sense because the coach my coaches, I think, have since left the school, so someone had to step in.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_05: Barry Capello.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, go Royals.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_04: I think there was a coach the so he was an attorney coach.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_04: I want to say there was a teacher coach named Luke.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if that was also after your time.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_05: Uh after my time.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_05: I've been out of high school for some time now, as much as I hate to admit it.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like this yesterday.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_05: Our teacher coach was was um was Mr.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_05: Burroughs.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_05: And then our attorney coaches wait, uh maybe um what was his first name?
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_05: Uh-oh.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_05: I mostly know his last name.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_04: Well, you're you're respectful holding about his last name.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_04: I think he might have been around too, uh, even when I got involved with high school mock trial later.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_04: But uh that's that's a very cool connection.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_04: Jess, what what was your experience with high school mock trial?
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I did mock trial my sophomore junior and senior year.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: All three years I was a defense attorney.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um and my uh and then I did one year of college mock trial at Northwestern, um, where the teams operate like, you know, differently.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how universal this is, but like smaller team where you're gonna play like a witness on one side and a and an attorney on the other side, and the the school is gonna field multiple teams.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, it was great.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: They were both it was it was in I grew up wanting to be an actor, and then I fell in love with mock trial in high school, and I entered college thinking, wait, do I want to be a lawyer?
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: And one year of college mock trial was enough to say, no, I think I just like the performing part of this.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: That extra level of intensity kept uh was what I was like, okay, never mind.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I like being on a team, I like thinking on my feet.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't the deep the deepening of the legal knowledge wasn't lighting my brain up.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: And at the same time, I was like finding the theater department at Northwestern and finding the improv uh teams, and that was lighting my brain up just a little bit more.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_04: There have been countless movies made about trial, countless TV shows about trial.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_04: What made you think that mock trial would be cinematic?
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think we knew that it would be comedically rich, and we were looking to make an ensemble comedy, and I think we both know the great lesson of comedy, but I think maybe all creativity that sp uh the specific is universal, that um niche stories like actually can become more universal.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: And like Zach said, we had this this area that we were like, this is a whole world that we know has a lot of passion, a lot of heart, and we knew it would it would feel relatable to kids who did speech and debate, kids who did model you and kids who cared a lot about theater, kids who cared about anything.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the mock trial specifics we knew would be funny, and we knew like the world we could build around it.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the specifics of of making the trials compelling was occasionally challenging because uh, you know, everything is known.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we don't know like if the per if the person committed the crime or not, but um it's very hard to make like discoveries in um mock trial, especially after you've run the trial once or twice.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um not like most legal dramas where like a new witness shows up who you've never seen before.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, or a late piece of evidence is introduced, which makes it compelling for an audience.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we had to get uh creative about that side of things, but we knew budgetarily that we could make a small scrappy mockumentary and that um we didn't know anything about dog shows, but Best in Show was like a is a great example.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's a movie that we love.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: Another example of how the specifics become universal, and then we wanted to end the movie by having their final trial feel as like as like a 90s courtroom drama as we could feel because that's how it felt when I was in high school to like step into those courtrooms.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: It felt like huge and larger than life, and like the stakes really were life and death.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_04: You referred to the style as mockumentary.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_04: Did anybody on set ever call it a mock mockumentary?
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think they maybe just emphasize it.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're maybe just like we're making a mockumentary.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, that is better.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_04: So let's talk about the making of it.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um, when you were writing the script, how'd you balance writing for an audience of people who knew nothing about mock trial?
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_04: I assume that you wanted to have people watch it who didn't already love mock trial, uh, with making sure that the people who did know mock trial, nerds like me and maybe some of the people listening, uh, would would also enjoy it because you know that if people love something and then they see it on screen, they're like, that's not how it goes.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_04: How'd you balance those two audiences?
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: Very carefully.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_05: And I will say, if you know mock trial and watch this and see it on the screen, you will probably say that is mostly how it goes.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_05: Like, um that was that was my thought watching it.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, well, there you go.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_05: The the trick with any, you know, I don't know, there are there are many sports with which that I do not like I'm not intimately familiar with the rule set, but when you watch a movie like that, like you get the information you need as you need it.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_05: And the trick is not to become like bogged down in the specifics, to make sure that there is an emotional story that is carrying its way through and that the backdrop and the setting uh is specific and accurate, and that your actors know the rules behind what they're saying.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and Jessica did a really good job of making sure that like if a if an actor is doing legalese, it's like in a medical drama, right?
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_05: These actors have to say things all the time, or like uh the that they don't understand, or in Star Trek where they're saying things that literally don't mean anything, but we, the audience, understand uh that they understand.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_05: And hopefully in this case, because mock trial is complicated, but it's not like that complicated.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_05: And it is based in reality.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_05: It's not terribly hard to get people on board, it's just some of the like finer rules that you could sort of have to stop down and be like, okay, for this moment, here's what they're looking for, here's why it's important.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there was like a handful of terms that we were surprised.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we had an earlier cut that we showed to about 25 people for feedback.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say the predominant note was I need a little bit more up top to understand what this is.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: And we like went back in and re-edited.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and luckily being a mockumentary, you have a lot of tools at your disposal where you can put text over black that is like a little bit more clear.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's a small, there's also things that we invented, like, and um, I will say it's an amalgamation of my high school and college experiences.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: So if someone has only done high school or only done college, they might be like, well, I don't understand, that's not how that is, but it's sort of because it's blending both versions.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's also little things like when Zach and I were doing CRF, the points were one to five.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: We know that they are now one to ten, but we were like, we can't change it.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: For us, it's one to five.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: So there's small things like that that maybe younger um mockers might be like, wait, why, you know, but hopefully those are all extremely small and they feel like the spirit of the reality.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, also, pretrial is like a very big part of our high school experience.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a universal mock trial thing, but pretrials in this movie.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: So there's small things like that.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_04: But um So just so everybody knows what they're talking about.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_04: CRF is the Constitutional Rights Foundation, now known as Teaching Democracy.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_04: They run all of high school uh mock trial in California.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_04: When she says pretrial in in college and law school, that either refers to meeting conferring before trial or sort of doing the housekeeping.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_04: But in high school mock trial, that means pretrial argument, motion eliminate on a particular constitutional issue.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_04: So in they don't do that in every state, but in California, there's always a constitutional law argument before we actually try the case.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_05: And it's and it's in reality, it's two kids by themselves with a judge or for half an hour.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing that was funnier to me about pretrial in my experience in high school was that those kids would like at practice, they would be like in a different room down the hall and you'd totally forget they were on the team.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we played the comedic heightening of that, which is that these two characters like are almost ghost-like, and they pop up and you're sort of like startled by them.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: Again, this is a comedy, so we're taking like the truth and we're making it a little, we're turning up the heat a little bit.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_04: The character spot on.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_04: Like I remember when I'd work with high school teams, I'd ask the teacher coach for like a list of the students, and then I'd get there and be one more.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_04: They're like, Oh yeah, we have a pretrial kid.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_04: Like they would just forget about that person.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_04: We forgot about him.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: And at my school, our pre-trialers were always amazing.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like they always scored super high, and they were this like great start to our trials would be like, Well, that's a bunch of points in the bag, that rules.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, I say this with all love and respect, but it it was and it is like so.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's things like that where I'm like, oh, I know there's little things in the weeds that people who love this are gonna find things that differ from their experience with mock trial, but I hope that they see enough of the care of the universality of it.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then there were like things like Zach and I throwing around, oh, that's the side, that side is up that we took for granted that made total sense of like the defense is up or the prosecution.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: We had to hold the hand of the audience a little bit more of like making that clear and saying it a couple more times.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_05: The things that you think are gonna be confusing are actually not the things that you think are gonna be confusing.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_05: The things that are confusing is like, wait, your one school does prosecution and defense?
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_05: Like that's the part that throws.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you do the same trial the whole season.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: That was a couple things that we had to say a couple times.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_04: And you don't care if they're guilty, yeah.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: The verdict doesn't measure like yeah, so a few of those things, but I think the new edit that you know, like the version of the movie that's out, people were like, okay, great.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: And again, like Zach said, you don't want to bog people down, you just want to give them just enough that they can follow and characters that they're rooting for.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so that's yeah, our next our next movie is about hopscotch.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_05: Even more complicated role set.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_04: Perfect.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_04: So how was the the movie funded?
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_04: I imagine that when you came up with the idea for Mantra the movie, Warner Brothers, Columbia Pictures, everybody was lining up.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_04: They did.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_04: They screamed, they screamed us, we turned them all down.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_04: How did you how did you organize that bidding war?
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_01: And decide and ultimately decide, no, thank you.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want your money.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_05: You would rather we'd rather work much harder to raise it ourselves than just take it from you.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: So um uh last summer we ran a Kickstarter campaign, and we've had like a lot of other friends, you know, try to you, Zach and I have been working together and working in Hollywood for like over a decade, and we have developed and sold projects that then don't see the light of day.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: We're lucky enough that we can those help us have a creative career and make our living.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: But this idea was also born out of necessity where Zach and I also normally write musical content, and Hollywood is very afraid of making that.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we were like, okay, let us make one thing that's not musical because it'll be easier to execute and we'll learn a lot and we'll get to make some.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: We'll just get to make something.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: So part of that was in the design of trying to keep the scale of the movie more achievable.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we ran a Kickstarter last summer and uh we raised like two$210,000, which was incredible.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then we attracted a handful of uh additional investors because though this was a small movie that was shot in 10 days over 14.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we uh one of the things I'm proudest of is like it has a cast of almost like 35 people.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of speaking roles, which is a big thing to um coordinate for a first-time director.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I was pretty excited that that was you feel the ensemble of the world.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: You feel how many people this would be this would touch and how many people would be involved.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we got a lot of favors.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: We shot four days at my high school.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like my own like coach, we were in her room.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: Those are photos of me that are still on the wall.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: God bless her.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we had a lot of favors, but we were we were also not trying to cut corners, so it costs what it costs.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um uh so yeah, we had some additional um investors come on and help us get it made.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's both ironic and appropriate that a movie about high school montreal faced the funding challenge of trying to raise money because of course high school montreal teams are always doing the same thing.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um I understand that that you cast some montreal competitors as actors in the movie.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: So going back to my my coach uh shout-outs, uh Sunshine Cavalluzzi, um, and really the Cavalluzzi family, noticed.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_05: This movie is like half made by that family, and it's sort of like blood, sweat, and tears.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: So Sunshine Um and her husband Tony were two of my coaches when I was at El Dorado.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: They still coach the program there.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's grown, I mean, it was already a great program, but they've like grown it to be uh a super reliable program.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they have three children, one of whom was not 18, so he couldn't be in the movie, but otherwise we would have found something for him to do.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_01: So their one son, JD, who competed um uh all four years and um was in the fourth place state champion a state, like they got fourth place in state.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um his closing year.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he plays one of the pre-trialers.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then their daughter, Lucy, who also competed all through high school and now competes, uh, still still competes on the team at Berkeley.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: Go Bears.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_04: Go go Bears.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_04: So a lot of people say that's the best public school in the country.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I be, I mean, I I don't know.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_04: A lot of people say it's the greatest mock trial program in the country.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_05: I've heard that's I've heard I've heard people say that.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_05: I've heard that a lot.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know enough to have an opinion about it, but I've definitely heard a lot of people saying that.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, a lot of people are saying it.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people are saying it.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um Bears.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which is surprised me.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_05: Lucy's great.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she's amazing.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_01: So she, I'm not, um, she plays a lawyer that we compete against, and it's a very pivotal scene.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think real ones know they're like, oh yeah, she's she actually does mock trial.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: She just has a little bit more like command of the language.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_05: Now our the voice, the voice is real.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_05: You hear the legalese come out of her mouth, you're like, oh, she said that uh roughly 1,000 times.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_05: She sounds like a real fake lawyer.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, exactly right.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_04: As opposed to your fake, fake lawyers.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: And ours, you know, our team is meant to be like a scrappy underdog team.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_01: So all of that plays in our favor.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: But so she's she um is called uh, I think El Dorado Defense Attorney is her character name.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very pivotal scene, and she, yeah, throwing my my my high school there.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's everything is just like an Easter egg.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like one of those people who writes their first album and then they're like, I have nothing else to put on another album.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_04: All of my I I have a question about the writing.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_04: So much of it you said is improv, right?
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_04: So so so how do you manage that as a writer when they're improving?
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I don't know.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_04: You know, in high school, you want your students to stay on script, but you you're a writer here and you are telling your actors to leave the script.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: So exactly.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: We immediately knew we could not expect young actors to improvise mock trial, and we couldn't, we couldn't and didn't want them to improvise plot.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because in any improv training, like that is sort of the area that a scene can go that where it starts to lose its joy and its spark.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, really, um, like a shorthand is like a movie script, uh, every page is a minute typically.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: So if this is a hundred and three, a hundred and four-minute movie, the script would traditionally be about 103 to 105 pages.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: Our script was 78.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it was very scripted in terms of like story.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: We were never just showing up with cameras and saying, like, I wonder what they got up to today.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: We were like, this is the scene where this happens.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_01: And if it was a scene that involved actual mock trial, the scene was scripted.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: Or if it was like a really important story beat, it was scripted.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then we'd usually let the actors have, if if it was outside of a mock trial scene, we'd let them have a run at it where they'd improvise.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then if it was a scene that was just Zach and I, in the script, it would just be a bullet point, which is how like Curb does it.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_01: It would be like Kate and Jake meet in the teacher's lounge and they discuss what they've been up to and why Kate is there.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that would be the version of scripting it because Zach and I have improvised together for, you know, years and years and years, and we know how to do that, and we know how to do that in a way that it's not gonna waste time because time is money when you're on a film set.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what that's what we mean.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: So basically, anytime it's uh people of our peer group, they are making up way more.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_01: And anytime it's someone who's not in our peer group, they they are pretty much to a script.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: Although every young person, every person on like the team improvised some absolute bangers that made that made the cut.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_01: But it's usually that us like helping them and prompting them.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, have another run at that.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe like see what else you might want to toss in.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_05: And there are scenes where it's like Jake and Kate take questions from the class, and when that happens, then like all the questions are those are all improvised.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_05: It's most it's the plot stuff, it's the trial stuff, um, where we there were like rails for them, which they mostly stuck to and then threw in like their own stuff.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_05: Also, all of their interview segments are all improvised.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_01: We just know like what we want to get to and we're letting them kind of cook around.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_01: And they were, and like Zach said, that was an important part of our callback process to cast the young actors.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_01: The actors were over 18 to play high school.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they were all amazing.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but yeah, the the scenes where we're just like getting feedback from a room were really fun, and those were fun to like both be the actor and the director because I'd be like, okay, let's shift camera focusing on this part of the classroom.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, all right, and give us some give us a few more things about this.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that was what's important about each of them having their own clear character game, as we would say in UCB world, is that I could go to each of them and be like, okay, uh, Dariana, who plays Gabby, who's like kind of obsessed with the nitty-gritty of crime, we're like, give us some stuff about how you wish there was a dead body.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then sh we're just giving her the prompt and then she's running with it.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_04: So one part of the movie that couldn't have been improvised, it was just too good, is when someone objects to fact facts being outside the record.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_04: And I love that even in Montreal, the movie, they're fighting over invention of fact.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_01: So this was this was um this while I was outlining the movie, I really wanted a legally blonde my cousin Vinny moment.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_01: But like we were talking about, that is really hard to achieve if all of the stuff is pretty scripted.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, well, unless we're talking about the gray area of how much you can invent, which did I my junior year we won the county championship.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_01: I had a very effective.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's still a real highlight of my life.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, yeah, I can I can channel the feeling very quickly.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure your listeners know that Orange County, very competitive county.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's like winning some small states.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um wow, no follow-up.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_04: Look, I I I used to work in Orange County, and I always felt like Orange County coaches thought it was a really hard county, and they go to states and they'd find out it wasn't that hard.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_04: That counties like Santa Barbara where Zach's from, those are those are tough counties.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but there's not as many teams, right?
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_04: I would say that Orange County is competitive.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_04: I wouldn't say it's strong.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_04: Like in other words, you know, sorry.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_04: Sorry.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_05: This is cool for me.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_05: Now, my team that the year that Jessica's talking about, and by my team, I mean my school, did win state.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_05: However, because my school had a JV and a varsity team.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_05: I was not on that team.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_05: Uh sorry, JV, but congrats to to San Marco State.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, hell yeah.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um but nonetheless, Jess, congratulations on winning county.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's good for you to humble me.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, many, many, many years later.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no problem.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so when we got to state, uh, that whole cross basically got thrown out because someone was like, she's asked, she's uh uh asking questions that are facts outside the record.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it had never Never happened before.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just sort of like, no, I'm asking like simple inferences.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: The officer has already confirmed that this is complete.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_01: They're perfectly capable of saying like what was not or not included.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I was asking pretty safe stuff.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was not going too wild.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, that was like when it when I thought back on that experience, I was like, that is the version of tension in a trial is which way is that judge going to rule?
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, this is reasonable or no, this is not.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is too outside.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_01: And like we've talked about before, we just really wanted to center that in a character.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a character who is better at mock trial than the rest of his team.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we wanted to put on him the decision of maybe if you get away with it, you might score well.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: But is it how the team wants to win?
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's like one of those things about how um we just want the audience, whether they know mock trial or not, to understand, like, okay, by the end, we're just gonna see is Marcus gonna choose his team or himself?
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_01: And can we have these little inventions in the in the gray area that we can see that there can feel like there's a payoff for?
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_04: When you handled uh invention of fact, I was like, oh, you're you're you're talking to a real audience here.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_04: I love that.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_05: That's how you know that like the work was put in.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_04: Now, uh, last question before I ask you where everybody can see the movie.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, I want to focus on some of the overlap between acting and trial advocacy.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_04: What are the similarities you see between training lawyers and training actors?
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_04: Or are they just the same thing?
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a great question.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that there's um there's a lot of just basic ability that is massively, you know, massive overlap.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: Zach and I sometimes we talk to young musical improvisers because that's that other weird whole niche thing that we do and we have to put in our 10,000 hours on.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_01: And every bit of advice we could give them about getting better at song structure or making sure they mix up their variety or following the fun in a song, we ultimately tell them you have to act confident because no one can like you if you don't come off confident.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_01: They can't root for you, they can't relax while they watch you.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_05: So you don't want people to be scared for you when you are talking.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_05: It takes, it takes um, it makes it so much harder to receive whatever information you are trying to give.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_05: So I think for both actors and lawyers, it's like comfortability and confidence in public speaking is like the number one.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_05: Like without it, it's very I mean, you can have all the correct facts, but if you look like you're sweating bullets the whole time, hopefully justice will still find its way through, but it's certainly it's it's not you're not helping your case.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think um what an actor can learn from the other side is like you humans are always pursuing an objective.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's one, you know, popular way to approach acting is to state what your objective is and then have multiple tactics to pursue the objective, which is much like what you're doing in court.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_01: You are just pursuing your objective and you have multiple tactics on how to achieve it.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that neither neither career path is served by like playing at getting that objective.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_01: They are per they are both rewarded for like actually truthfully pursuing it.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in acting, like our one acting teacher of mine told me, like, don't play sad, play trying to be happy.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um you're not just going to play the emotion.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna a human is gonna play either I'm wallowing in this sadness because I want you to feel bad for me, or I'm pursuing things to make myself stop stop crying, stop being unhappy, or I'm getting vengeance because I no longer want to be unhappy, that we're always we're always um pursuing something.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think uh shallow acting, you can spot it if you're like, oh, you're just playing at, you're playing at the music of how this should sound.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: You're not pursuing an objective.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I would say.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_01: An actor could learn from the the uh the attorney side.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_04: Well, it sounds like all attorneys then are doing some acting, some are just better at it.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what that's what I would think.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I'm confident in saying that's correct.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_04: Now I you're both from Southern California.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, you both have an interest in mantra and the law.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_04: If you decide you want to come to law school, uh uh maybe you should come to UCLA.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I think literally last night I was like, I wonder how hard it would be to go to law school for fun.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_01: Quote unquote for fun feels wrong.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_01: That feels like that spot should go to someone who wants to um do something with that, JD.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, when you say for fun, it makes me think you don't know much about 1L.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what that is.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, it's your first year law school.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_04: It's okay.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's intense.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_04: It's intense.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_04: Uh if people want to see the movie, mock trial the movie, how and when and where can they do that?
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Great question.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_01: The most pressing question.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this is much like when you can end a direct by saying, and at after reviewing all the evidence, you are confident in the arrest of.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I uh so October 14th, it's playing on uh multiple screens across the country.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_01: You can go to mocktrialthemovie.com and see if there's a screening near you.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um you can also request if there isn't a screening near you.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're using uh a platform called Gather.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_01: So for some of the um mid-sized cities that we have added to our uh to our screenings, they will only happen if they prove demand.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a great no-risk thing for an indie film like ours.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we don't have to pay the upfront crop uh cost of renting the theater.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_01: But um the screening will only happen if there's a a threshold met.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um, our first release of tickets sold out in like two days.
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I would encourage folks, if they are listening, to not wait for multiple reasons.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_01: One, you don't want to miss your chance to see it in a theater, which we still think is the best way to see it.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Go laugh with people in person.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_01: But also, um, if you're in a smaller city that requested the movie, we need you to um we need you to make it happen uh by demanding it happens.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so don't wait.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Buy your tickets now, October 14th.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then follow um uh Mock Trial Movie on Instagram because we'll have more updates about additional ways you can see it and eventually in uh ways that you can rent it and watch it at home.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_01: But for now, we'd love for you to go see it in person.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Go laugh together.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_04: I'm looking at moctrial movie.com and I see a map of the United States and you've got a bunch of cities that are already uh plan to screen the film.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_04: Do you want to tell us which cities that way some of our listeners from those cities can can make sure to see it?
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_01: So keep an eye out in if you're in the um, you know, your New Yorks and your LAs, we're working on adding additional screens, but those are currently sold out.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_01: But for now, if you live in Atlanta, Denver, Indianapolis, Columbus, Kansas City, Orlando, Charlotte, Nashville, or San Diego, there are tickets available for you to see this film.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Go with your team, go with your coaches, go with your enemies.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Go with your enemies, turn them into friends, uh, go with your buds.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_01: We'd love to have you see it in a theater.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_04: Awesome.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_04: San Diego, San Francisco, all over.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_04: I love it.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's getting out there.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks, guys, and thanks for coming on.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks for having us.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, Justin.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_02: So, how did you actually come across this?
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, did you find it?
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_02: Did somebody reach out to you?
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know these folks?
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_02: What's the deal?
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_04: So I had a chance to get to know them because of my work with the American Mock Shall Association.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_04: I'm the development director, and uh, they'd reached out because they wanted to help promote the film.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_04: They came on uh last year and judged the final round of uh our rookie competition, the rookie rumble.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so I got to know them that way and I thought it'd be great to have them on and support support their new movie.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_02: Oh okay.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_02: Does your affiliation with them have uh give you any opportunity to walk on a red carpet at any point in time, do you think?
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_03: I should have asked them that.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_02: You should have asked them that.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_03: I should have asked them that.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_03: But I don't like red.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's true.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_02: I guess I meant it uh truly meant opportunity to walk on red.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_02: You could, of course, you know, walk around it.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that would be a very principled position.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_02: I would appreciate that.
• 1:13:24
  SPEAKER_04: Or maybe I can be like, I'm stepping on red.
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_04: All right, we we we turn to our mailbag question.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_04: This question comes to us from an anonymous listener in Philadelphia.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_04: Ooh, this is a rough question.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_04: Oh what is your most painful loss as a coach?
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_02: Oh 2009 AAJ Regionals Seattle.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's a long time ago now.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_02: That one really st really sticks with me.
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh in fact, Valerie Rose was on that team.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_02: She is uh, you know, my law partner, and who are working with you on this um focus group and trial for, trial with.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_02: And um, man, we were going to nationals, baby.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_02: We were going to nationals until we lost in the final round uh of semifinals 2-1.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and our our our the the sinking feeling was uh still in my gut.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_02: I can still feel the wind being out of our sails from that.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um so yes, thank you for asking.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Great memory for me.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_02: How about you?
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_04: What m what makes that so painful?
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_04: Was it because you thought the round was gonna go differently or because it was a really important round?
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_04: What uh what made it so painful?
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_02: I was just really I mean, I was a little younger then, um, and so I was at the same age as my students.
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_02: We were really good friends, still are, and uh we wanted to go to nationals.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_02: It was like our thing.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was uh it was uh uh a mission, you know?
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was and at that time our program was much different than it is now, and uh that would have been quite a that would yeah.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that would that was something we'd really hope for.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_02: And um to see it almost fulfilled but not, you know.
• 1:14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so yes, that was my most painful loss as a coach.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Justin, how about you?
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Have you do you have a loss as a coach?
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, we have a good first question.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_04: I I have a lot of losses as a coach.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_04: I I bet I have more losses a coach than you do.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that's an interesting question.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder if it's true.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder if it's true.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_04: Uh the the the most painful losses are I think everyone to coach a college in Montreal.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_04: And it's because it's structured differently.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_04: In law school, it it's never fun to lose, but uh you know, usually you know, we're competing again the next week or two weeks later or something like that.
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_04: And uh when we go to a bunch of tournaments in the spring and a bunch of tournaments in the fall, each individual result doesn't hit quite as hard.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_04: I think it does for the students because it's their competitions they're won.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_04: But as director, uh you know, we've got another one on the horizon.
• 1:15:45
  SPEAKER_04: Um I also I think because of that have a healthier approach.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_04: Like my rule to myself is I only let myself complain about one trial all year.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_04: Um I I don't mean like one tournament, like one trial, I only let myself complain once.
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_04: And uh it's been really cathartic because if if let's say we you know have a rough result in an October competition, I go, Well, do I really want to spend my one trial I'm gonna complain about here in October and we have so many months to go?
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, okay, I guess not.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_04: And then I let it go.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_04: And sometimes I end up not having a trial to complain about the rest of the year.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_04: Um so that is that is more cathartic.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas in college, uh there were some really painful trials.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_04: Uh they were always at nationals, and it's because everything is building up to that.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_04: It's just one big tournament that everything builds to.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_04: Uh the invitationals are just in service of nationals, the same case all year.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_04: So that sort of like everything before April just doesn't uh looms large, and then everything in April is so big.
• 1:16:36
  SPEAKER_04: So there were some rounds at nationals that were devastating, especially if we thought they went the other way or you know, I was too inexperienced to realize why we'd lost.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_04: Um, some of those were were really hard.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_02: I've got a question for you.
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think it's the case that as we get older, um the loss, a loss that's otherwise exactly the same would be less painful as compared to earlier?
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_02: I actually I kind of feel that way.
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like a loss for me in my formative time as a coach like really sticks with me because I was like, you know, being molded much more than um into a coach.
• 1:17:10
  SPEAKER_02: And to have that like part of the DNA that really stays with you.
• 1:17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas now I've got more perspective and that kind of thing.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_04: I agree with you a hundred percent.
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_04: But the losses uh don't hurt nearly as bad, and the wins uh don't feel like like uh you know, like a parade uh the same way when when you're younger, uh or at least when I was younger.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_04: Uh that's probably healthy.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_04: Uh but uh yeah, I I think as we get older, uh uh there's a little more perspective.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh as we get older, there's a little more perspective.
• 1:17:38
  SPEAKER_02: There's some there's some good things about about getting older, you know.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_04: There's some good things there.
• 1:17:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, especially with us both having birthdays coming up.
• 1:17:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 1:17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Very soon.
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_04: Very soon, very soon.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_04: Well, you still have time to get me something.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, likewise.
• 1:17:51
  SPEAKER_04: All right, before we sign off, uh, Spencer, what other podcasts should people be listening to after they finish this episode?
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_04: Because they've got to wait a whole week for the next Unscripted Direct.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_02: You're right.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know what?
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_02: Cause of Action is also launching this week.
• 1:18:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and we're not gonna be dropping it on this feed, so you gotta go find it at Cause of Action anywhere you find podcasts.
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_02: What's Cause of Action?
• 1:18:12
  SPEAKER_02: What's Cause of Action?
• 1:18:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's a podcast dedicated to the plaintiff's side of the V, and it's really great for our students who are interested in getting the plaintiff's side.
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, this week I'm talking to Lori Andris about closing the pay gap.
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_02: She is a superstar uh class action litigator, and she talks about a big case she had against Disney fighting differences in pay between men and women.
• 1:18:32
  SPEAKER_04: Outstanding.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, check it out.
• 1:18:34
  SPEAKER_04: Good luck to everybody competing at Flash Trials this week, and make sure to check out Cause of Action.
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_04: We'll see you all in a week.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_04: See ya folks.
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_02: Unscripted Direct is a production of Justin and Spencer.
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_02: We're mixed and edited by these damn chase.
• 1:18:48
  SPEAKER_02: If you're not on the list server but want to get our blast email each episode, sign up at www.unscripteddirect.com.
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Follow us on social media as follows Instagram or at unscripted direct.
• 1:18:59
  SPEAKER_02: Facebook is Facebook.com slash unscripted direct.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_02: And Twitter is at unscripted.