Latest / The Scene Projects / Don Worley on Law, Entertainment, and Balancing Creative Ventures

Transcript

Don Worley on Law, Entertainment, and Balancing Creative Ventures · The Scene Projects

• 0:02
  This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
• 0:06
  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
• 0:11
  from across the Midwest.
• 0:14
  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
• 0:28
  Welcome in to another exciting episode of Real Biz.
• 0:31
  I am your host, Bubba Starts, and with me today is actor turned attorney, Don Worley.
• 0:37
  Don, welcome to the show.
• 0:38
  Thank you, bubba.
• 0:39
  Appreciate it.
• 0:40
  Yeah.
• 0:41
  This is gonna be a fun conversation.
• 0:43
  I think you have a pretty unique lived experience.
• 0:45
  So, we don't have to go all the way back to the beginning, but, we'd love to get a little bit
• 0:50
  of your backstory off the top here, and then we'll pick it up with everything you're doing
• 0:54
  now.
• 0:55
  Sure.
• 0:57
  You know, I I know your podcast has a lot of comedians and artists on it, that's what I what
• 1:03
  I was and actually maybe still am.
• 1:05
  But I studied theater and actually have an undergraduate degree in theater and was an
• 1:09
  actor and and was a stand up comic, you know, making my $600 a weekend and all I could drink
• 1:16
  across the country doing thirty, forty five minute shows as a stand up comic.
• 1:21
  And just thought, how could I use these skills to help people and make a little bit more
• 1:26
  money?
• 1:26
  And that's what led me to law school.
• 1:28
  And I went to law school, and now I sort of now I do both.
• 1:32
  I'm a lawyer with a nationwide law firm representing clients all across the nation with
• 1:38
  really good lawyers working for me, but I also, I don't do stand up really anymore, but I do
• 1:43
  acting and I have a TV show about being a lawyer, power of attorney, and had the chance
• 1:48
  to do several movies late late lately.
• 1:51
  So you can be both.
• 1:55
  And I think that, we all kinda have that lived as you you know, in your twenties.
• 2:02
  I was songwriter, musician.
• 2:04
  So I've lived that stage life.
• 2:05
  Right?
• 2:06
  Making the money and the all you can drink and being in the party scene, and it works for a
• 2:10
  while, and it's a lot of fun.
• 2:12
  And, eventually, the shine kinda wears off on it, and we all find ourselves going, well, what
• 2:16
  the hell are we gonna do now?
• 2:18
  And for you, the turn to law, I'm interested in, like, what kinda led you down.
• 2:24
  Is there, like, lawyers in your family?
• 2:26
  Is there just something that intrigued you about it in general?
• 2:29
  Maybe it was some run ins with, like, entertainment lawyers and things in your
• 2:33
  career.
• 2:34
  I'm really interested in how that really started.
• 2:38
  Well, I had, I guess, I had a few a couple of run ins with lawyers.
• 2:43
  Me too, Don.
• 2:46
  And, you know, one specific time, it's been so long ago, but I was jury duty.
• 2:53
  And it was you know, they one side wanted me and the other side didn't want me.
• 2:57
  So I was my head was spinning with the lawyers jockeying proposition, asking me questions in
• 3:04
  front of the judge.
• 3:04
  One trying to disqualify me and one trying to rehabilitate me to keep me and my head was
• 3:10
  spinning.
• 3:10
  And then another one was just I had a traffic accident that wasn't my fault, but the city
• 3:17
  attorney had my head spinning asking me a bunch of questions, you know, like simple ones.
• 3:22
  Like, if you'd been going slower, would it have happened?
• 3:24
  I'm like, well, if I wasn't driving, it wouldn't happen.
• 3:27
  But, but I lost representing myself and then which you never should do anyway.
• 3:32
  But, yeah, I guess those experience just made me curious about being a lawyer to not let that
• 3:39
  ever happen to me again.
• 3:43
  No.
• 3:43
  Often, our our lives are all, you know, tied to our personal experiences.
• 3:49
  Right?
• 3:50
  And to make a career change as sudden and as drastic as that and maybe not so drastic, and
• 3:55
  we're gonna kinda cover that, you know, later in the talk as well with what you're doing now
• 4:00
  to help other attorneys and kind of doing training, essentially with them.
• 4:05
  But was it kind of being on the stand and being a little stumped and feeling a little, a little
• 4:13
  lost and trying to understand where this person's coming from that's absolutely trying
• 4:18
  to tie you in knots to convict you or to disqualify you and just not wanting to feel
• 4:24
  that way.
• 4:25
  I have a like, for me, I've been in that position, and I've actually represented myself
• 4:30
  in one several times in the last couple of years, but, that's basically because I ran out
• 4:35
  of money to pay the attorneys.
• 4:36
  But, the I don't like feeling duped.
• 4:41
  And and I have a feeling that you don't either, Don, and that kinda led you down this path.
• 4:45
  Was it that emotional reaction to it that kinda really inspired you?
• 4:50
  Yeah.
• 4:51
  Because, you know, obviously, I'm a reasonable intelligent person if I was able to go to law
• 4:55
  school and finish it.
• 4:56
  So being a reasonably intelligent person, you really don't like leaving something real
• 5:01
  thinking that you've been duped or, like, you didn't give the you said what you thought were
• 5:06
  the right answers, but somehow it was twisted into something different, and you're not able
• 5:09
  to do anything about it.
• 5:10
  And so maybe the word helpless might come to mind.
• 5:13
  You felt a little helpless unless and someone took advantage of you in in the situation.
• 5:21
  So so, yeah, I think that's that's what motivates a lot of people to do it.
• 5:24
  Not everyone should go to law school, but I just was sort of looking for a career path, if
• 5:30
  you will.
• 5:31
  And I didn't you know, I did the traditional waiter.
• 5:34
  I never did the bartender thing, although that probably would have been a better gig than
• 5:37
  waiter for me.
• 5:38
  But I did the restaurant thing, but that's you know, all artists, and I say all artists, all
• 5:43
  my actor friends, I'm not think musicians do it as much, but they run to, you know, restaurant
• 5:49
  jobs, which is great.
• 5:51
  I love bartenders.
• 5:52
  I love waitress and I love restaurants, but it's not a great really the best job for
• 5:56
  someone in the arts because when you leave to go do a gig, then you gotta come back and try
• 6:01
  to beg for your job back or go work at a different restaurant because you cannot do that
• 6:06
  job and be a musician or a comedian or an actor.
• 6:09
  So it's much better, and I know that things are different now in this world post COVID and but
• 6:16
  there's lots of opportunities for working remotely.
• 6:18
  And, yeah, the job may not be your dream job, and it might even be something as boring as
• 6:23
  data entry.
• 6:24
  No offense to those of you out there that do data entry, but it may not be your thing.
• 6:29
  But your thing is being an artist.
• 6:30
  So it's just a way to make money and pay for your the love of what you're doing.
• 6:35
  So there's a lot better opportunities out there than, that's conducive to the arts other than,
• 6:41
  working in a restaurant where you have to be there every shift.
• 6:46
  No doubt.
• 6:46
  Well, and often, the best shifts conflict with the best gigs.
• 6:50
  Right.
• 6:52
  For sure.
• 6:52
  Yeah.
• 6:52
  I've, you know, lost a few jobs because I had some you know, back when I was going and trying
• 6:57
  to do auditions and be an actor and read read for the small role of, hey.
• 7:02
  Look.
• 7:02
  The plane is landing or whatever.
• 7:04
  And then you you end up being there longer than they tell you.
• 7:08
  You know, you go for it's supposed to be a certain time at 11AM, and then you don't they
• 7:12
  don't read you until 2PM and you're late to your job, you know, and it's just you lose
• 7:17
  another job because you were trying to make it as an actor.
• 7:20
  So, yeah, it's tough if you don't have your own your own gig or an employer that's very
• 7:27
  understanding and lets you work remotely in your own hours, and they don't care whether you
• 7:31
  work from 8AM to 5PM or if you work from 5PM to midnight.
• 7:35
  You know?
• 7:36
  So that's I think that's the key.
• 7:40
  Don, you obviously still have a passion for acting because even through your law career,
• 7:46
  and I know that, I do believe you've been featured on some kind of law shows.
• 7:51
  Correct?
• 7:51
  And now, obviously, with your new show power of attorney, that you have and some other projects
• 7:57
  that you've worked on, is it more fun to be a lawyer or to play one on TV?
• 8:04
  You know, it's it's a lot different because the show's sort of unscripted, but it's not really
• 8:08
  reality.
• 8:09
  It's just more, you know, the process of how we go through things.
• 8:12
  But, yeah, it's obviously very fun to do that, but it's also rewarding to be an attorney.
• 8:17
  It just happened to be I just happened to find a combination of careers that were good for me
• 8:23
  because I enjoy helping people in the process of, you know, the legal process and going
• 8:29
  through the court system and mock trials and stuff as we do on our show power of attorney.
• 8:35
  But, you know, I would say that there's parts of each that you like and parts of each you
• 8:39
  don't like.
• 8:40
  You know, being an actor, you don't like sitting around for six hours waiting for to
• 8:44
  shoot, but that's part of the job too.
• 8:46
  And same with a lawyer, there are some things that are not your favorite, but every job has
• 8:52
  makes it a job.
• 8:55
  I, have spent too much time in my life, in courtrooms on the wrong side of the bench, or,
• 9:03
  you know, in custody battles or divorces and and a lot of time, spent in that room.
• 9:11
  I know the agony of defeat in there better than most being sentenced to a a prison sentence
• 9:18
  that I wasn't expecting, which absolutely crushed me.
• 9:23
  But I've also experienced some modicum of, I don't wanna call it joy, but, you know,
• 9:29
  celebrating a few wins in there.
• 9:31
  Do you find that because you I I mean, you keep bringing it back to, you like helping people.
• 9:37
  Does bringing that kind of joy that you get from acting or telling jokes or do you find
• 9:43
  it's kind of the same thing when you're able to win a big court case and to provide that to a
• 9:47
  client?
• 9:48
  Yeah.
• 9:48
  And I think with as far as going to the courthouse and the courtroom, it's performing
• 9:52
  also.
• 9:52
  You're you're, you know, you have actual true facts you're conveying to a jury instead of,
• 9:59
  you know, a feature film narrative that was written by a screenwriter, you're conveying to
• 10:03
  an audience.
• 10:04
  So it's a little different.
• 10:05
  But but, yeah, you know, your your wins there feel good, and your losses feel bad.
• 10:09
  Just like if you were a comedian, you had a great show, makes you feel good.
• 10:12
  And if you had a horrible show, makes you feel bad.
• 10:14
  So
• 10:17
  Well and the mechanisms of acting and what you're doing in the performance, especially of,
• 10:24
  you know, jury trials and of those or anything that you're doing, you know, in front of a
• 10:28
  judge and stating your case is very performative.
• 10:31
  So I find yourself very uniquely poised to do what you do now, not just with the law firm,
• 10:38
  but I understand that you also work with a a lot of attorneys and kind of training and
• 10:43
  teaching them, how to be better in the courtroom.
• 10:46
  Can you talk about that a little bit?
• 10:48
  Yeah.
• 10:48
  We just work we work with young attorneys, but also they come on the show and we they'd learn
• 10:53
  the process that we do because we, when we're doing the mock trials, we have obviously, we
• 10:58
  have to bring in someone to be the lawyer on the other side because the real defense lawyer
• 11:02
  is not gonna come in and help us figure out a way to beat them.
• 11:06
  So we bring in lawyers, and they they work in the process.
• 11:10
  And they, you know, they work up the case from the other side, and they see the process, and
• 11:15
  they participate in the focus group and sort of a big takeaway of how to focus group their
• 11:20
  cases and do mock trials to know what a a real jury may may do with the case when they get it.
• 11:27
  Now, obviously, a mock trial and these kind of things are no, you know, it's not something
• 11:32
  new.
• 11:32
  They've been doing them probably since the history of law.
• 11:35
  Right?
• 11:36
  But did were you kind of working this before you took it onto the camera then and it was
• 11:43
  like an epiphany with you being from the, you know, film and stage to say, hey.
• 11:48
  This would make a great show.
• 11:51
  Actually, no.
• 11:51
  I have to credit the producer of the TV show.
• 11:53
  We yes.
• 11:54
  The answer is I was already doing it.
• 11:56
  But, I've been approached in my career.
• 11:59
  I guess I was became a lawyer in 1997, so thirty years or so ago.
• 12:05
  But, I've been approached a lot about doing a reality show as a lawyer, but I never thought
• 12:10
  that sounded like a great idea to put your client's personal information out there.
• 12:15
  Now I know judge Judy does it, but that's a little different because either both sides win
• 12:21
  because the show pay it's my understanding the show.
• 12:25
  It's all like a few thousand bucks, you know, that's in in controversy.
• 12:29
  And even if you lose, you win because the show pays the money if you agree to come on and
• 12:35
  touch the It's just TV.
• 12:37
  It's TV.
• 12:38
  Yeah.
• 12:38
  But one of my cases, bringing on the client, it just it never felt comfortable with it.
• 12:43
  So James said, well, why don't we just make an unscripted show about the process, about how
• 12:47
  you do mock trials and just take different cases you've done or weak cases that have been
• 12:52
  handled and how you would do that in a mock trial.
• 12:54
  And that's that's a great formula.
• 12:56
  So that's how we did it.
• 12:57
  So
• 12:59
  Well and you also have some time as a producer as well.
• 13:03
  Correct?
• 13:04
  Yes.
• 13:04
  I've been produce you know, like I said, I used to try reading for roles, and now I find it
• 13:09
  much with with my experience being a lawyer and what I know about the film industry, I found it
• 13:15
  easier to pick projects that are good for me as an actor and produce those movies and then, you
• 13:21
  know, put in actors that are well known into the movie so that people will actually watch
• 13:25
  it.
• 13:26
  Because if I were the star, they might not watch it.
• 13:29
  So so, yes, I've had instead of hiring an agent and going out and reading for someone other's
• 13:34
  someone else's project, I found it better to produce my own content.
• 13:39
  Interesting.
• 13:40
  So what goes into that?
• 13:41
  I mean, we produce a lot of content, but we're doing it for YouTube, essentially.
• 13:45
  Now we are working on some larger projects.
• 13:48
  But are you just kind of producing on the side of finding the talent, or are you having to
• 13:54
  also find the funding, or is it you're kinda putting in the funding after you found the
• 13:58
  talent from that angle?
• 14:01
  You know, combination of everything.
• 14:03
  I don't actually do the casting.
• 14:05
  There's a casting director I I like to work with, but a casting director is one that knows
• 14:09
  everyone, and they go out and make the offers.
• 14:11
  And, you know, sometimes either yourself or you have to have an investor investor to to put put
• 14:16
  up up some some money money to attach a star to a project before you can then go out and raise
• 14:23
  the money for the entire project, but then you usually can get your money back for doing that.
• 14:28
  So and you get your money different ways.
• 14:30
  I mean, there's different states that have tax credits to shoot a movie in, and you can get
• 14:35
  presales to the foreign markets and the domestic markets and borrow against those
• 14:39
  presales.
• 14:39
  And there's other types of investors that invest in movies for the tax deduction.
• 14:46
  And there's just a there's a lot of ways to go out and do it to put the money together.
• 14:50
  But I basically my main job is putting the money together and finding the right project
• 14:56
  and then hiring the right people.
• 14:59
  How interesting.
• 15:01
  Would love to have a little bit longer conversation off camera with you about those
• 15:04
  things because that's we're we're going from being, you know, podcasters and then YouTubers
• 15:10
  in 2025 to realizing that some of the stuff that we're working on, while we already have
• 15:16
  distribution with Roku and Apple TV and some of the OTT platforms that the the money resides
• 15:23
  with the Hulus and Netflixes of the world and and and possibly taking up to that next level.
• 15:28
  So personally, I'm intrigued, but we don't need to bore them with details.
• 15:32
  Don, where can everybody find out more about you?
• 15:35
  Obviously, the law firm and getting in touch with you for any of our attorney friends that
• 15:40
  may want to be on your show, how they might be able to do so.
• 15:44
  Sure.
• 15:45
  I mean, the website's mcdonaldwhirley.com, but then also Instagram and is it at
• 15:52
  mcdonaldworleypc.
• 15:54
  Mcdonald Worley p c, all one word, and it's Mcdonald like the hamburger chain, not Mcdonald
• 15:58
  like the farmer.
• 16:00
  So it's m c d o n a l d.
• 16:02
  So on the website too, you can contact us on the website, but they can reach out to us on
• 16:09
  the law side.
• 16:11
  Excellent, Don.
• 16:12
  Well, I appreciate you spending some time with me today, giving us some insight into what I
• 16:17
  think is a a very unique life lived by you working in two incredibly competitive
• 16:24
  industries, be the entertainment world and, you know, obviously, in the law world, there's
• 16:31
  probably plenty of lawyers out there, but finding a good one like a comedian sometimes
• 16:36
  can be quite a challenge.
• 16:38
  So I appreciate you spending some time with me today, and I hope that you have a great rest of
• 16:43
  your day.
• 16:44
  Okay.
• 16:45
  Thanks for having me on.
• 16:46
  Appreciate you.
• 16:47
  Bye bye.
• 16:52
  Imagine capturing the raw essence of nature with its infinite color and beauty.
• 17:00
  Now, envision turning that into something truly transformative.
• 17:06
  Pure and easy tea cultivates the goodness of nature's bounty into fuel for your body.
• 17:14
  We are what we drink.
• 17:17
  Pure and easy tea, the pure nourishment your body craves.