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Reading the Room: How Elite Trial Lawyers Select Jurors, with Jeff Mitchell · Coopers' Code

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You know, I sue hospitals and, you know, so I'm suing people
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that save lives for a living, right?
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And so you've got 150 potential jurors sitting in the courtroom.
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You've got to really kind of read people quickly because the
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bias effect, I think, is a little bit more intense.
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And it would be in a typical garden variety Pi case because
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of the people I'm calling into court right there.
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People love doctors. People love nurses.
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Picking a jury to meet you, Showtime.
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It's the most important part of what we as trial lawyers do.
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And that's what I get most excited about.
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And I I pour myself the most intensely into You can have a
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great case and you get a bad jury, you're in trouble.
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Howdy, and welcome to the show. Cooper's Code focuses on legal
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issues and notable practitioners, distilling wisdom
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so we all achieve the best results for our clients.
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I'm Miles Cooper, I'm very excited for this conversation
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with the iconic Jeff Mitchell of Mitchell Leeds LLP.
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California's two largest medical malpractice verdicts is record
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verdicts in three counties also is.
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But the real measure isn't the verdicts, it's what they
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represent for the families who trusted him with the cases that
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forever changed their lives. Mitchell's peers have taken
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notice, earning him trial over the year from the San Francisco
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Trialers Association. In a profession where most
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attorneys handle a few major cases in their careers, Mutual
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has tried and resolved approximately $500 million in
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malpractice claims. In our conversation, we
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discussed courtroom moments, his path to success, and the wisdom
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he's learned along the way. So sit back and enjoy this
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wide-ranging conversation with the iconic Jeff Mitchell.
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Welcome to the show. Thank you, Miles.
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In conversations like this, I usually like to start a little
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bit with how you found yourself in the law in the first place.
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It's a quite a story. I, I grew up in one of the, in
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Long Beach, which is, you know, the biggest suburb in Los
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Angeles County. My father was an auto body
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painter. So he was kind of grew up
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around, you know, primer and lacquer and all that.
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And so he was a high school dropout, kind of a hitch hike
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from Punxsutawney, PA, to Pasadena when he was 14.
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Got a job, went to high school for a year or so, got a job
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building circuit Breakers at the Jet Propulsion Lab.
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Met my mother on the beach. I think my mom's from Long
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Beach. Neither of them were educated.
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No one in my extended family really was.
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Actually, I think I was the first person in my extended
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family to go to college. I was kind of a, you know,
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fairly intelligent but poor high school student.
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I was very good at the stuff that I liked.
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To go to high school in in Long Beach, then, yeah.
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Yeah, and so I was good at the stuff I liked and horrible at
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the stuff that I didn't. I wouldn't go to class, but I
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knew I was bright. I had a good memory.
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I remember that I was a jock, so I played every sport I could
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possibly play. What sports?
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Wrestling, football and track. I wrestled from first grade all
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the way through high school. I spent a number of years in
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South Lake Tahoe. There was kind of a point in my
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childhood and my parents got a wild hair and moved to Tahoe.
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For some unknown reason, it's not the best place in the world
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to be an auto body painter when it's too cold and snows for half
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the year and moved back down South.
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When I got out of high school, I really didn't know what I wanted
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to do. Kind of went to Cal State and
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flitted around at Long Beach City College and then back to
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Cal State. And I'm still living at home.
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I think it was 19. And my parents were just a mess.
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They were, you know, both pretty addicted to different drugs.
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They didn't set a good example. Are they still around?
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Yes, and I never just come in and walking in the room one day
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and I thought I do not want to be like them.
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We never went on vacation. They never motivated my brother
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and sister and I to do anything. And I just remember one day
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thinking I have to get out of here.
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And I suddenly when I got to college, I realized I liked
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school and I maybe because I was a late bloomer, I don't really
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know. But I moved out, got an
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apartment, I waited tables all the way through college, did
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quite well. I loved it, got great grades,
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really fell in love with school and learning.
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I read voraciously, but I still didn't know what I wanted to do
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after college. Thought about becoming a cop.
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Actually, if you could imagine me as a cop would be
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frightening, but. I I, I can imagine you as a cop.
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Yeah, so I remember applying to the CHP Academy, getting in, and
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then realizing that I had to move to Sacramento for six or
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nine months. And no offense to my dear
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friends in Sacramento, but I didn't want to go there.
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So I got out of school. I toyed with the idea of going
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into sales and in fact got a job selling wine for a while.
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So I got sent to France for several months and learned the
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wine business, which was quite interesting.
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It was like going to chemistry class and geography and history
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all at the same time. I've worked in that field for a
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little bit. Then I thought about getting a
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PhD, political science and philosophy.
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I have two bachelor's degrees, but I think I wanted to get a
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PhD in philosophy, actually. And I loved studying the
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philosophy of language. So like Ludwig Wittgenstein and
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Bertrand Russell and Heidegger and Kant and all this.
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I don't know why I was so into it, but I thought about getting
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a PhD in philosophy. And I remember talking to one of
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my college professors that I'd written a senior thesis for, and
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he said, you know, don't waste your time getting a PhD.
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No one in the world cares about what you write, especially in
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philosophy. I kind of looking back on it, I
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disagree. But he said go to law school, he
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can do whatever you want. So I applied to law school and
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that's kind of how I got in and started rolling.
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There are a few things you said that I want to follow up on.
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There's some common threads that I see with some of the more
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brilliant trial lawyers, and that is sometimes what I would
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describe. Is it a rough background or a
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background where the parents? Definitely didn't have means and
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so a a striver mentality and also work in the service
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industry. Sure.
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How do you feel those informed your progress, if at all?
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I think both of them did. I think that I've done pretty
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well as a lawyer because I'm actually a really hard worker
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and my parents were not, I had grandparents that were very
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influential in my life, my maternal grandparents,
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particularly my grandmother who was my best friend and my
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grandfather who has worked like a deep dyed on the phone at 86
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years old working. And so I got a lot of that
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drive, I think from them kind of indirectly.
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And my younger brother 2 years younger, he's a very hard
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worker. So I, there must have been
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something there in the service industry.
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I mean, I worked at a restaurant for 4 1/2 years in college.
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I worked darn near full time. It was kind of like a Marie
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Callender's kind of place that was kind of very ubiquitous
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around the LA suburbs. And I loved it.
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I worked breakfast, I worked dinner.
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I'd see that, you know, a lot of the people that were the primary
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customer base that were elderly because it was next to a large
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kind of a little city called Leisure World in Seal Beach.
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And probably half the people that the patrons that came in
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there were elderly. And so they would come in and
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want to talk. And I enjoyed every bit of it.
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I all I did in college was go to school and work.
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I didn't pose it in a fraternity.
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I didn't party much. I didn't have time.
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But so but that, you know, you learn how to really relate to
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people. I mean, if you can wait tables
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in a fast-paced restaurant that serves breakfast on the
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weekends, you can do you can stand in front of a jury all day
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long, think on your feet, you know, read the room.
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So I mean, that sort of stuff really informs a lot of how
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I've, I think, acted and done things in my life and my career.
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I could always tell people I'd be a great server.
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Now if the law didn't work out, I can run down to Blvd. or
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Kakari or House of Prime Rib and be perfectly content and I'd
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probably love it. On that front and, and we're
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getting ahead of ourselves, but I, I think it's an appropriate
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time to go into it. You, you talk about reading the
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room and, and I think of one of your many talents being in jury
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selection and being able to evaluate who may be a right fit
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and who may not be. It's not a question.
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It's in essence an opportunity to to unpack that in terms of
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your experience in reading the room in the service and and how
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that informed your approach to jury selection.
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I think they're directly related.
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You know, when you're coming up to a customer waiting on them
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and their family in, in a second, if you're busy, you've
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got to figure out what their particular desires may be, how
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they may treat you, how many they they may treat other
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people. And you know, I've always felt
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and others do. I think I'm very good at picking
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juries. I think it's the most important
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part of what we as trial lawyers do.
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If you, you can take, have a great case, you get a bad jury,
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you're in trouble. And so, you know, I, when I go
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to pick, you know, when I used to work at night on a busy night
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and I was in charge of eight other food servers, which I was,
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you know, it was like Showtime. It's you know, when you got a 2
10:03
hour wait on a Friday night and you've got to manage all these
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complex personalities and figure out who can do what to who and
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how and when. And you know, you don't want
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things to go off the rails. And that's when I try cases.
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Now it's picking a jury to me is Showtime.
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And that's what I get most excited about.
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And I I pour myself the most intensely into other than cross.
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To me, they're the most important parts of trying to
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case successfully. And particularly, you know,
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reading a room. You know, I sue hospitals and,
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you know, so I'm suing people that save lives for a living,
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right? And so you've got 150 potential
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jurors sitting in the courtroom. You've got to really kind of
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read people quickly because the bias of the bias of fact I think
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is a little bit more intense. And it would be in a typical
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garden variety Pi case just because there's, I think we tend
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to see more intense and kind of adhered to biases because of the
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people I'm calling into court right there.
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People love doctors, people love nurses.
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So you really have to, you know, having that background where I
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was just dealing with people all day long, every day in a kind of
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a fast pace environment where, you know, people get cranky when
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their breakfast doesn't come in 15 minutes, right?
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So people need their coffee. You need to know how to kind of
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cut through all that and get, and you know, you're trying to
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make a tip, you're living on tips.
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So you're trying to figure out how to impress those people that
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you've just met often for the first time.
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So I think they're, I think that's served me quite well.
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I normally go through in a semi chronologic fashion.
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I'd love to go into jury selection right now.
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And, and to get there, I, I think we need to talk a little
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bit about some of the cases you've tried and, and, and by
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that, particularly locations. And so I'm just going to hit the
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high points of what I recall. I remember you trying a case up
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in Shasta not once, but twice. And I think this getting a great
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verdict the first time and getting an even better verdict
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the second time that everybody serves and, and as well as a
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huge case in Fresno. I bring these forward because
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not only are you suing doctors and nurses and hospitals who are
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sometimes the largest employer where you're at, you're also
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doing it in what people think of as traditionally RedState or or
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bad locations for plaintiffs. Sure.
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So with that as backdrop, I'd love for you to go into some of
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the considerations and some of the tools that you've used in in
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working with jurors who some of on our on the plaintiff side
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feel are, are, are worse jurors for plaintiffs.
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Yeah. You know, I've never really been
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afraid to go to tough jurisdictions.
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I'm generally of the philosophy if you have a good case, you can
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win it basically anywhere. Yeah, you can lose a good case
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in great places, as we all know. But yeah, I mean, you know,
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those kind of jurisdictions, you have to have a little bit of
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little something extra other than, you know, standard care
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was breached and they're going to dispute that.
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You have to have a little extra additive, I like to say, like
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you'd have to have defendants that are pointing the fingers at
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one another, things like that. Those cases had a lot of that.
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You have to have people that are that you're dealing with on the
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other side that may not be telling the truth.
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You may have to have people on the other side that are taking
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ridiculous positions. And so in all those cases, there
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was another case I got a pretty big verdict on more than a
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decade ago in San Jose. You know, I'm suing, I was suing
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Palo Alto Medical Foundation in Stanford.
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Well, 90% of those jurors are patients of those institutions.
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So you have to really, when you, you know, have cases like those
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in those kinds of jurisdictions, you have to really personalize
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the case and you want the jurors to kind of know early on.
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And I don't want this to happen to me.
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I don't care if you're in Reading or downtown Los Angeles
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or Fresno or Oakland, if you create an environment during
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jury selection where the the potential jurors by the time
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they're sworn in already take that case seriously.
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You've kind of diffused a lot of that inherent kind of
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jurisdictional, cultural, maybe political bias, industrial bias
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until what I really try to do in every case.
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But it's particularly important in those kinds of places.
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You want the jurors to really take you and your case
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seriously. So they know this isn't some
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meritless case, BS case. They know they're severe
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injuries. They know it's a tragic case.
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You try to adjourn, Vladir, get the defense lawyer to buy into
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it, which I really try to do, or I try to get the defense lawyers
15:07
to tell the jurors, hey, this is a serious case.
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This isn't some BS case. We have disagreements, but this
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is a tragic, terrible case. So once once you set the table
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like that, that kind of neutralizes a lot of those
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biases. The common thread I think in
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jury selection that that is talked about is whether you are
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selecting a jury or deselecting a jury.
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Do you have a view on that? I tried to do both because
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sometimes, I mean, I'm, I'm primarily of the camp, you're
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trying to select a jury. I mean, I leave doctors on my
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juries. I've left lawyers on my juries.
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I've left a lot of nurses on my juries.
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But you're obviously looking for people that, you know, we get
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them all the time that, you know, I'll get doctors that are
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just hell bent on they're not going to give you a dime no
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matter what. And so I try to use those kinds
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of jurors. I try to kind of run with that
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and make them, you know, you've almost kind of cross examine
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them in front of the rest of the jury to make that position sound
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outlandish where, you know, you ask questions like, well, so
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you're telling me if your spouse, some physician or nurse
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committed malpractice and causing serious injury, you're
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telling me and these other jurors that even under those
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circumstances, you're never going to find against a
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healthcare provider. So you're you're doing a lot of
16:33
different things at once. It's a little bit different when
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you're doing malpractice cases. It just is and everybody
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interfaces with the healthcare system.
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So there's always a lot of ground to cover because we all
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go to the doctor, we all deal with hospitals, We've all known
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people that are sick. So it's you know, it's
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fascinating because it just it's it crosses every aspect of every
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jurors life. So there's a lot to cover.
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Do you use a jury consultant when you do this?
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I do not. I don't think there's a right
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way or wrong way. I don't, I don't think any.
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I could never criticize another trial lawyer for using jury
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consultants. And I I think that if you're a
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good trial lawyer, you should be able to.
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Personally, I, I know a good juror when I see one in one of
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my cases. Do I know everything?
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No. I've lost cases I should have
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won. I've had jurors, I thought it'd
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be great. They weren't, but I personally
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don't. I I just think there's many ways
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to skin a cat. I and plus I have a partner that
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we try every case together. So it's like having another jury
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consultant sitting there with me.
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I trust him, you know, because I know him so well and he knows me
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so well and knows the case so well.
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I think that that's it's not equally valuable, could be more
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valuable than having a jury consultant with you, but I'm not
17:55
critical of anybody who would use them.
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What about questionnaires do you like?
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We, we love them. The problem we run into is, you
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know, and I know all these defensors so well, obviously
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their general knee jerk reaction is if Mitchell wants it, I don't
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So, but we love them. And usually if we get them, a
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lot of judges don't want to hassle with them.
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The smart judges know they save time and you know, so we try to
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get stuff highly tailored to the case.
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We can't do it. We tend to get a vanilla
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question or most judges do that now, but I I do think they're
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valuable. Do you do any focus group work
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before? Yes, we do here and there.
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I think with focus groups, the hard part is it's the outcome is
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only as good as what you put into it.
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So if you've got an incredibly complex malpractice case, it's
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going to take 8 to 10 to 12 weeks to try with 25 retained
18:54
experts and you know, can be complex and a lot of literature
18:57
getting being fought over. It's hard to really compress all
19:02
that into a focus group without being said.
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If there's certain themes you want to test out, certain
19:09
theories and defenses, you want to get a global kind of 35,000
19:14
foot, you know, drone like look at it.
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They're very valuable. You can do them efficiently and
19:19
fairly inexpensively and we've done them.
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I don't. I wouldn't say we do them in
19:23
every case, but there's certain cases they call for it.
19:27
In the jurisdictions that you've been in that that again some of
19:33
us pointers lawyers would consider to be tougher
19:34
jurisdictions, do you find that you're able to get more people
19:37
off for cause because of preconceived biases or is it
19:41
pretty much the same wherever you are?
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I think it's pretty similar. It's the, the art in those
19:47
jurisdictions that are finding the jurors that really are going
19:51
to be biased against you. But you know, there's those
19:52
silent jurors that, you know, they're smart enough to try to
19:56
find a way to get on there and not help your case very much.
19:59
So that's the real art in those jurisdictions because I you, you
20:02
see a lot more of those kinds of people in those jurisdictions
20:06
that would that know how to play the game.
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And so, but I don't see there's like a statistically significant
20:14
difference in the outright, you know?
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Overtly biased jurors from jurisdiction to 1, jurisdiction
20:21
to the other, you see a lot of there's a higher number of
20:24
sneaky jurors in those jurisdictions.
20:27
Are there any, whether whether I call them secrets or special
20:32
things that you have done that you bring to the table that you
20:35
feel are different than what other lawyers do, that you've
20:38
seen or heard about that that make it so that you're better
20:42
able to intuit who might be a good or badger?
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I think what I really try to do, and I did this more when I was
20:48
younger, you know, I was always much younger than all the
20:51
defensors I was trying cases against.
20:53
You know, they were to kind of people.
20:55
You're stereotypical old white guy with a lot of Gray hair and
20:59
I'm this young guy. Not anymore, as we can tell.
21:03
But you know, I really tried to build credit my own credibility
21:07
during Vlad year, right? Where OK when I'm younger, I'm
21:11
not just some punk kid that fell off the turnip truck yesterday.
21:15
I try to invite the jurors to think I'm credible.
21:20
I try to get jurors. I really do this now a lot.
21:24
I really try to get through how serious of a case it is to
21:27
everybody involved, to the physicians, how, how much
21:31
everybody's gone through on both sides of the table and, and how,
21:35
you know, because most of the cases I'm trying to 8 figure
21:38
into the 8 figures, you know, mostly with children, severe
21:42
brain damage, multiple amputations, that kind of stuff.
21:47
So I really, really, really, really try more than other
21:50
people I've seen. And I'm not critical of anybody
21:52
else. I just think, I really think
21:53
it's important in my cases to really build credibility more
21:58
not so much of myself anymore, but of my clients in the case
22:02
they have. Because, you know, and I, I
22:04
spent a lot of time in Vladir talking about how much money
22:07
they're going to hear about and how much expensive it is to care
22:10
for these kinds of people. So because that, that way, if
22:13
you see people on the in the in the box and their eyes get blown
22:16
out when they see those or hear those kinds of numbers, you're,
22:21
I'm watching all that. And it's not always verbal.
22:24
It's always a lot of it's, you know, you can sit, see somebody
22:27
get squeamish and they go, whoa, you know.
22:29
So I I really, really emphasize that when I pick juries is
22:33
building credibility of the case where they take it seriously
22:37
from the minute they're sworn in.
22:38
That moment when the judge turns and says, Mr. Mitchell, you may
22:42
have worked here, the jury, do you have any fear or anxiety at
22:47
that moment, given how far you are in your career now?
22:49
Zero. Was that always the case?
22:52
Yes, I, I think a lot of that is I like people.
22:57
I think I'm a little bit of a showman, as we all know.
23:00
I tend to be a gunslinger. I'm very intuitive, so I, I get
23:06
like energized. It's almost like, you know, I
23:09
get a lot more nervous playing golf than I do and I play a lot.
23:14
I, I, I get energized by getting up there in front of people.
23:18
I now I get nervous when the jury's out almost to a fall.
23:24
I drive everybody insane. So it's, it's strange, but then
23:27
you sit there and you poured your guts into a case and you
23:31
want the best for your clients. I, I am a completely a train
23:36
wreck when the jury goes out, I drive everybody nuts.
23:38
I pace over streets. I call everybody I know, but
23:42
being there in front of them not, I think it's the anxiety.
23:46
I don't I I have anxiety awaiting the outcome.
23:50
That makes sense. As we all do.
23:52
Yes, I think I do more than most.
23:55
Have you learned any tools to help you better moderate that,
24:00
or is is it the same as it was when you first started?
24:03
I think, you know, frankly, when I was younger, I drink a lot.
24:06
We'd, we'd and I wasn't the only one, but we would, you know,
24:10
kind of a swage, all that anxiety with alcohol.
24:13
The older I've gotten, I just call people on the phone and you
24:18
try to talk things through and try to learn about what I did or
24:21
didn't do. So I, you know, I'm one of those
24:25
people like listeners, viewers watch football, you know, the
24:30
head coaches are down in the field and they've got headsets
24:34
and they're constantly talking. They're talking to the people up
24:37
in the booth, just talking through things because those, a
24:41
lot of those people are not calling plays.
24:43
They're they've got staff that are calling plays.
24:45
They're talking through things with them to try to anticipate,
24:49
learn, you know, auto correct, you know, strategize.
24:55
So that's kind of how I deal with it now is just talking to
24:57
people. And it's great because I have a
24:58
partner, I love talking to him and we talk every day about
25:00
everything. So I have him and he and I are
25:03
on the headset. Well, so let's go down that path
25:06
then in terms of how you work with the team globally, you're
25:11
not in trial every day, no, about how often a year are you
25:15
in trial these days? Once every year and a half.
25:18
Two years and it's typically when the other side's miss
25:22
evaluated the case. I mean, we, we vet the hell out
25:25
of these cases. And for it to get to trial,
25:28
somebody's probably made a mistake on the other side,
25:31
frankly. And so that, yeah, it doesn't
25:34
happen as often. And I think that's a function of
25:36
how well we vet cases, frankly. So in the time in between when
25:40
you you say you, you, you talk with your partner, your your
25:44
team on a daily basis, how do you strategize?
25:47
How do you work on cases to help make sure that the other side
25:50
sees the light? The way the firm's set up now,
25:52
we've got a pretty robust operation, lot of staff.
25:55
We've really staffed up. We've got a lot bigger.
26:00
I tend to be look at everything at 35,000 feet.
26:03
I, you know, I'm the one kind of looking and I, I kind of focus
26:07
on the bigger cases and, you know, I'm just making sure I'm
26:11
trying to land the planes. I'm kind of trying to put get
26:14
the right experts together. I'm trying to kind of mentor the
26:17
younger lawyers, trying to prioritize certain things over
26:23
others. And then, you know, on some of
26:24
those larger cases, I'm the one that is dealing with the people
26:27
writing the checks, frankly, not that they don't won't talk to
26:31
other people in my office, but you know, there's a certain
26:34
comfort level when you've been dealing with the same people for
26:37
2530 years on these exact kind of cases.
26:41
So I'm the one that's interfacing, trying to make sure
26:44
they have what they need to get the reserves together they need
26:48
or to posture the case in a certain way.
26:50
So I'm really focusing. It's I always say I'm like an
26:53
air traffic controller trying to get a big plane in the air and
26:56
not crash it and land and everybody gets off the plane.
26:59
That's kind of what where I look at my role now and then if you
27:02
know what the case goes to trial, then we'll do it.
27:04
We'll try together as a team. And you know, I'm still even at
27:09
that level. I might be doing picking the
27:10
jury and cross examining a bunch of experts and closing some
27:15
combination thereof. But I'm still looking at 35,000
27:19
feet down. And I think that's a function of
27:22
I've been doing it a long time. A lot of it is I'm not a real
27:25
big detail person. I can when I have to, but that's
27:29
just not my brain doesn't work like that.
27:31
I'm kind of more of a glow. I'm kind of a lot like you and
27:34
more of a kind of global. I just see the world that way.
27:38
And so it's great. I've got a team and I've got a
27:41
partner who's incredible at detail and and so that's why it
27:45
works so well as a group. When you talk about being
27:48
involved in jury selection and cross examinations, it it
27:51
prompts the question for me, what does your cross look like?
27:54
Is your cross cross? Is your cross polite?
27:57
How do you approach a witness? I was taught very young as a
28:01
young malpractice defense lawyer.
28:04
You win your case, cases and depositions, expert tempos and
28:08
the way you do that is you go after people not in a
28:15
unprofessional way, but you know, I'm not there to get
28:18
information. I know all the I know what I I
28:21
know the case. I know the medicine.
28:23
I'm trying to get concessions and ambitions that I can stand
28:26
up in front of a jury in opening statements say they're experts
28:29
going to say ABC and D and that carries.
28:32
I have the same approach and trial I am.
28:35
They're trying to dismantle their defense at every possible
28:40
juncture. So in other words, I asked very
28:43
direct, precise questions and you know, and I am able to do
28:48
that because I'm you asking those very same questions in the
28:51
deposition. I'm not one of those lawyers
28:54
that he says tell me your opinions and the basis of your
28:56
opinions and I leave. I will sit there for 678 hours
29:01
until you give me what I want. Having the right cases lends
29:05
itself to that approach. If you've got a cruddy case,
29:10
it's harder to do, but if you have a good case and if the
29:13
witness isn't completely off the rocker, you're going to get a
29:17
lot you can use. So if you get it in a
29:19
deposition, it's a lot easier to, it's much easier to get it
29:22
at trial. And, you know, and jurors, you
29:26
know, I found when I really fervently cross examine an
29:35
expert there, they they get up on the edge of their seat the
29:38
next time another one hits a stand.
29:40
That's almost they, they like the show.
29:42
They like that kind of aha, Perry Mason moment.
29:47
And I try to keep them engaged and I'm trying to by doing that,
29:50
bringing them with me where they're going.
29:52
Yeah, You know, why do you think that?
29:54
I mean, that's, that's ridiculous.
29:56
So I, I, I'm pretty aggressive and I, and I, I think part of it
30:02
is I have AI really don't like it when people are BS and me or
30:06
anybody else, I tend to be a very blunt, direct person.
30:10
And I really don't like when people are beating around the
30:12
Bush. And I, I, I try to get jurors to
30:15
come along on that jury with that journey with me.
30:18
Are you politely aggressive or aggressively aggressive?
30:21
I think I, I generally tend to be polite and somewhat humorous,
30:25
but sometimes when I'm mad, I get hot and, and most of the
30:29
time it's worked. Sometimes I'm sure it hasn't,
30:32
but I, I kind of can't help myself when somebody's BS and
30:37
me, I'm going to get hot. But I've had, you know, I try
30:40
the case. Two or three years ago, one of
30:42
the experts against me was probably the finest in the world
30:45
in this little particular nerd world we were talking about.
30:50
And he was so smart and so charming.
30:52
I kind of laughed along with him and tried to take the, you know,
30:56
I said, well, I'm not going to make the jury hate me.
30:59
So I was aggressive, but in a humorous way.
31:03
So that's once again reading the room, reading the witness.
31:05
Some witnesses you can get away with being very aggressive.
31:08
Other witnesses you can't. And so you have to know the
31:10
difference. So it's it's worked well, but
31:13
you have to be able to read that room and read that witness.
31:16
One of the things I remember Bill Veen saying to me is is you
31:19
can't hate them before the jury hates them.
31:22
And if and if you do, then the jury will not come with you.
31:24
Yeah, I agree 100%. Going back to law school, we we,
31:32
we tended to down jury selection, did a lot of trial
31:34
stuff. Where did you go to law school?
31:37
What did you like about it? Yeah, I went to California
31:39
Western school lots downtown San Diego.
31:41
It's kind of an old private independent, not university
31:44
related, just been around forever and it kind of
31:47
manufacturers the the bench and bar in San Diego.
31:50
It's a nice little regional law school and I went there because
31:54
I loved San Diego like the school.
31:58
I loved law school because it was the first time in my life I
32:01
didn't have to work my butt off. I borrowed money.
32:03
So to me, that was my college experience was I was living in
32:06
La Jolla and I had a young wife that was in Graduate School at
32:09
the time, and I had no money and loved every minute of it.
32:14
I had no idea what kind of law I wanted to go into or if I in
32:17
fact would go into the law, but I loved every minute of it.
32:22
I, it was funny as the, the subject in law school that I
32:26
thought was I just didn't like. And I, in fact, I think it was
32:29
the worst grade I got was torts. And I'm a tort lawyer.
32:32
And I, I remember really, really loving anything related to
32:36
constitutional law, whether it was con law or, you know,
32:42
criminal procedure. Lot of it's, you know,
32:44
constitutional in nature, Some of the some of the evidence.
32:49
I was really, I kind of was going back to college where I
32:52
thought, God, I love history and politics and that kind of thing.
32:57
So that, yeah, I enjoyed it. I, you know, I got into reading
33:01
a lot of like long literature and I had a professor that
33:03
taught a class called long literature and I loved him.
33:05
I had a criminal procedure and he was kind of this esoteric
33:08
academic Oberlin College guy. And I remember just sitting here
33:13
talking to him and I played golf for them.
33:15
And I just was, I became kind of a closeted intellectual, even
33:19
though I'm not. So I, I loved every bit of it.
33:23
Had no idea what I wanted to do but I loved it.
33:26
With the interest that you now have in in trial and and that
33:29
engagement with people, did being ADA or a public defender
33:33
ever recall to you? So I have a friend from law
33:36
school. He was a couple years ahead of
33:37
me. He's now a, he's a presiding
33:40
judge of the Torrance Branch, LA County Superior Court.
33:44
And I don't remember how we met, but he was, I think we probably
33:46
met there. He's a couple years ahead of me.
33:48
He's a guy named Alan Honeycutt, very fine man, fine judge.
33:52
And he was from the same neck of the woods as I was.
33:55
And he said, hey, I'm going to get hired as a deputy city
33:57
attorney. You want my clerk job that I had
34:01
in law school and I I can hook you up.
34:03
And I went in there and they hired me.
34:06
I was working at the Redondo Beach City Attorney's office and
34:09
I got a job there in the first year they had me holed up in the
34:12
law library. We're getting memos, memos for
34:15
City Council members. But then the second and third
34:17
years I had, they had me in court.
34:19
And so they used to have, and I don't know if they do anymore,
34:22
State Bar program where you can try cases and argue in court
34:27
under the supervision of of under the supervision of
34:30
licensed lawyers. So they threw me in court.
34:33
I was trying, you know, DUI cases and possession of stolen
34:37
property cases and random misdemeanors.
34:40
And it was one of those a couple cities in LA County that that
34:44
had their own city prosecutor's office and it was Manhattan
34:48
Beach and Redondo. They wouldn't farm everything to
34:51
the DA's office. So, and I was in fact trying
34:53
felony cases. We used to call them wobblers,
34:55
17 BS. And I was doing evidence
34:58
suppression motions and I handled an arraignment calendar
35:01
every Monday by myself and I loved it.
35:04
And so when I was in law school, I, by the time I got out, I
35:07
probably tried 1015 cases and a countless 1538 point fives,
35:12
which are evidence suppression motions and arraignments.
35:16
And I was around a lot of lawyers and you know, I learned
35:19
how to negotiate. I'm dealing with defense lawyers
35:21
trying to cut deals for their clients and criminal cases.
35:24
So I really fell in love with the courtroom.
35:27
I didn't know I'd like it as much as I did until I got there.
35:31
And so when I got out, I was going to, I was offered a job as
35:34
a deputy city attorney, but then they had a financial issue with
35:37
the city, but there was a oil subsidence issue.
35:39
So I was out of a job and the rest is history.
35:43
Does the name Doctor Goddard mean anything to you?
35:46
Well, no. It was a guy named Jerry
35:47
Goddard. He was the city attorney of the
35:49
City of Redondo Beach. He was a teacher at my Redondo
35:53
High. Yeah, he was a teacher.
35:54
So I worked for Jerry Goddard. He was AI think he was a cop at
35:58
one point, yeah. Volunteer sheriff with.
36:02
LA County, Yeah. Yeah.
36:04
And then he was, I think he was the principal of Redondo Union
36:06
High, and he was elected city attorney.
36:09
So I worked. I remember sitting in his office
36:11
being interviewed by him in 1994 something.
36:15
He was kind of an imposing law and order figure, but I loved
36:20
him. And Alan kind of was cut from
36:21
that cloth. And I don't know if he's still
36:23
alive, but yeah, I knew Jerry for a long, long time.
36:27
Small world. Small world indeed.
36:30
So we talked a little bit about how much you like that, that,
36:32
that criminal side of things and, and yet here you are now as
36:36
a medical malpractice. I'll, I'll call you a
36:38
prosecutor. Where did you end up going after
36:41
law school that that then kind of ultimately landed you here?
36:45
So circuitous since I was out of a job.
36:48
So like, you know, it wasn't like I went to Bolt or Stanford
36:51
or something. And I didn't know a lot of
36:54
lawyers, but my best friend from law school, his father was kind
37:01
of the old part of that old guard established white shoe LA
37:07
malpractice defense lawyer, kind of that cadre of lawyers.
37:12
So he's the only guy I knew because I've gone to USC
37:15
football games with them all the way through law school.
37:17
They were big USC people. And I said, hey, I called my
37:20
friend. I said, hey, man, can your dad
37:21
get me a job? He goes on, let me call him and
37:25
I do. He defended doctors and
37:27
hospitals. That's about all I do.
37:29
And he called and said, well, his dad calls me and he says,
37:32
and he's now deceased and he calls me so we can come work for
37:35
me. While I was living in Belmont
37:37
Shore in LA Beach and, you know, living on the beach, having a
37:39
great time and I don't have any money.
37:42
I think I was like, I think I'd gone back to waiting tables, I
37:45
think while I was waiting for bar results.
37:48
And he says, we'll come and work for me while they were out in
37:51
Pomona or upland. And anybody knows anything about
37:54
the geography of Southern California?
37:55
It's a long way and I don't want to do that.
37:58
And I said, well, you know, anybody closer to me?
38:02
And he goes, well, I know a bunch of guys just splitting off
38:04
from a big firm, Century City, and they're going to Manhattan
38:06
Beach and they're very busy. And then he got me an interview
38:10
and I got in there and. Was this Cage Rs office?
38:12
Jim Cage, R. OK.
38:14
Yeah, so I got it. I got hired by Cage R, who's
38:17
still a very dear friend. I ride with K jar.
38:20
OK, He's a very, very close friend of mine and I work for K
38:23
Jar. And so who's one of the finest
38:26
lawyers I've ever known and one of the best human beings in the
38:28
world. And I was there a couple years,
38:31
I think maybe 3. And then my first wife had got a
38:37
job teaching up here. So I had to leave.
38:39
I would have never left because I'm in Southern California, but.
38:43
Yeah, that's pretty idyllic, being in Manhattan Beach.
38:46
Yeah. Well, and I was, you know, I got
38:48
there and I remember I was I was just, you know, lower middle
38:51
class, blue collar kid. I remember walking in there and
38:56
the office was beautiful and K jars beautiful and everybody's
38:59
beautiful. I thought I died and gone to
39:01
heaven. I really made it.
39:02
This is LA law, right? I just remember because I used
39:06
to read verdict Search every week when it would come out and
39:10
print because I wanted to see what what results were like.
39:13
And it was like it was the the Reback Mcandrews Cage R
39:19
periodical because it's just defense verdict after defense
39:22
verdict by that firm. Yeah, so it's funny is to this
39:25
day, I'm the firm's kind of broken up in a couple of pieces,
39:28
but I'm still very close friends with most of those people.
39:32
I have cases against them occasionally.
39:33
And I I tell people all the time, you know, and I've talked
39:38
about mentoring and giving presentations about it.
39:41
They were so busy, I got thrown in.
39:44
They didn't have to, you know, I remember walking into my office
39:48
and there's like 20,000 pages of subpoenaed medical records and
39:53
Cage R walks in and says, summarize these.
39:55
Well, I didn't know what the hell I was looking at.
39:58
And so I remember sitting in my office for two weeks on a
40:01
dictaphone and then whatever the work product was and he walks on
40:06
my house and he goes, dude, I can't build a client.
40:08
All this. And I said, dude, I don't know
40:11
what I'm reading. And so they started, you know,
40:15
I'm, they would send me out to take expert depos as a two week
40:18
lawyer. I didn't know what I was doing.
40:20
Did you have any sort of anatomy, medicine, anything in
40:25
your background 00? OK.
40:27
I think the extent of my science training was I took statistics
40:32
in college to get out of math, and I think I might have had a
40:35
really elementary physics class I had to take.
40:38
But no, I had no scientific background and they threw me in
40:42
and somehow I sucked it all up. And, you know, I give a lot.
40:47
I give him and a lot of other people I worked with on the
40:49
defense side credit for that. I just, I think I had the kind
40:52
of brain I sucked things up And, and I, you know, I think that's
40:56
a lesson for younger lawyers really embrace what you don't
40:59
know. You might, you sometimes you'll
41:01
feel like you're inadequate or stupid, but you're not.
41:04
You just got to learn, right? I mean, we have young lawyers at
41:06
work for us that we really try to instill in them hate.
41:11
There's never a dumb question because I asked a lot of them
41:14
when I was a young lawyer and and you, you'd feel like you're
41:18
this small, but it made you made you who you are.
41:21
And so, yeah, yeah, it was it was a great way to learn because
41:25
I was in the firm and tried a lot of cases, had a lot of good
41:28
clients. We had a lot of fun.
41:31
I would wouldn't trade it for the world.
41:33
What shifted? Because it's a again, you're
41:36
you're, you're no longer in Manhattan Beach at some point,
41:38
you, you so I. Needed a job.
41:40
Yeah, I needed a job. So.
41:43
And I didn't have time to look for a job.
41:44
So this is back in the days when we all have those Martindale
41:48
Hubble tech books and you'd sit there and you'd go like by
41:52
geographic area in a practice area and you look OK Well, that
41:55
firm looks like they do this. And at the time when I came up
41:59
here or trying to come up here, the kind of the best firm in
42:04
Northern California as you probably north of Fresno all the
42:07
way to the Oregon border, there's a firm called Anderson,
42:09
Galloway and Mukasey. They were called the Reback
42:11
Hulbert Mckenna's and Cage are of Northern California.
42:14
And I got interviewed there and I happen to get lucky enough to
42:19
be assigned to the managing partner who is I'm still very,
42:23
very close. He was almost like a father
42:25
figure to me to this day. And I worked with Pat Galloway
42:28
for a number of years and learned how to be a great lawyer
42:31
and how to carry myself and how to interrelate with people and
42:35
treat people and think about cases.
42:38
And so that's that was kind of the next step.
42:42
And then how long was it before you shifted over to the plan of
42:44
sign I? Would say it wasn't that long,
42:47
maybe another three or four years, something like that.
42:50
And then, you know, it was funny.
42:52
I was, I, I working with Pat, I was exposed to kind of the
42:55
biggest cases. So, you know, we would get all
42:59
the big stuff from UCSF and the big stuff from Stanford.
43:02
And, and so, you know, I would kind of be dealing with the Rich
43:05
Schoenberger's and the Mike Kelly's and the Paul Maloney's
43:08
and the Jim Boswick's. And so I kind of grew up
43:11
practicing with and on the other side of those people, Cynthia
43:15
Mcguinn, those people. And, and I remember there was AI
43:21
don't know if he's still around with a guy named Gus von
43:23
Bolschwing who ran a, it was a third party administrator and
43:27
they do stuff for Stanford, UCSFUSCKEC, all that stuff.
43:33
And he took a liking to me. And, you know, he basically
43:37
ordered all the defense lawyers around and he took a liking to
43:39
me. And he used to tell me, boy,
43:40
you'd make a really good plaintiff's lawyer.
43:43
And I kind of kept it in the back of my mind.
43:45
And I, I never really thought about why.
43:49
And then I remember, you know, having a bunch of case with Jim
43:51
Boswick and he called me one day and say that, hey, I, you know,
43:54
I want to talk to you. And I kind of talked to him and
43:57
shrugged it off at first because I was so happy where I was.
43:59
And then one day I didn't have kids and thought, you know, if
44:02
I'm going to make a big move, this will be the time to do it.
44:05
And I did it and never looked back.
44:06
And Pat was critical of me at first, but then he later, we
44:12
have talked about it often that it was a good move, but it was a
44:14
kind of AI was the first person that anybody kind of knew of in
44:18
the malpractice bar that had done that up and down the state.
44:22
Now it's kind of become more common.
44:24
But yeah, that was kind of how that all evolved.
44:27
I've always been in the malpractice world.
44:30
I could probably count on one hand how many non malpractice
44:33
cases I've ever handled. My guess is, given the is
44:40
decades an accurate description of the amount of time?
44:43
Decades. OK, the, the decades that you've
44:45
been doing it, that the medicine has come to you because you you
44:50
work on a case that involves this and you you learn it.
44:53
Is that a yes, Mr. Mitchell? Yes, yes, yes, sorry.
44:57
No, no, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm being silly in terms of deposition
45:00
stuff along those lines. Is it all sorts of different
45:03
things or have you ended up with kind of a, a total medical brain
45:08
anatomical mastery or or do you learn something and then dispose
45:13
of it? I have many faults, but one of
45:17
them is not my memory. I have a photographic memory,
45:22
you know, it doesn't mean I'm smart.
45:24
I just remember everything and it served me so well and my
45:29
brain over decades of doing this.
45:34
I, I think, I feel like, I think like a physician.
45:37
I'm looking at every case, the law and what I do is not very
45:41
hard, very simple. There's a couple of statutes you
45:44
have to know. You have to know the evidence
45:46
code obviously to try cases and all those sorts of things.
45:48
But for some reason I just got this gestalt of I think through
45:52
things like a physician. It's like an algorithm decision
45:56
tree. And I've had so many cases and
45:59
the thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of
46:02
cases. You, you've I've seen everything
46:07
multiple times. And although you know, every
46:10
time I say that, then something pops up and allow it.
46:12
Never had that kind of case, right?
46:13
We've all had that happen. And so my brain just, I don't
46:18
know how it happened. I don't have a scientific brain
46:21
per SE, but I think over the years I've just devolved a way
46:24
of thinking about medicine in these cases.
46:26
And I see common themes and common errors and common, you
46:31
know, I can kind of categories every case into different
46:34
patterns of fault. And I think it's just because of
46:38
reps experience and I and I have a good memory, you know, that's
46:43
I don't really know any other way to put it.
46:45
Well, not everyone here is listening is going to be doing
46:47
Med Mao. A lot of them are going to be
46:49
dealing with anatomy. I think of myself as having a a
46:53
lot of understanding of of joints and muscles and ligaments
46:55
and and and brain as well. Different than, you know,
46:59
medical causation. Sure, in that regard.
47:04
Do you have any things that worked well for you as a younger
47:07
lawyer to help you master this information?
47:09
Were there places you went to? Was was there a way that you
47:15
learn the material? Sure.
47:17
Something I still do to this day.
47:20
I was taught as a young lawyer, if you got a case involving, for
47:24
example, there is be condition, well, there's still a condition
47:26
called carnitoris, which is basically excess bilirubin
47:32
builds up and bilirubin is a toxin, it's a poison and it
47:36
builds up to such an extent of it crosses the blood brain
47:39
barrier, it causes a lot of problems, IE blindness,
47:43
deafness, brain damage, etcetera.
47:45
And I remember as a young lawyer having a lot of those cases and
47:49
I would read everything about that condition.
47:53
You know what the bilirubin levels were, why you know,
47:56
phototherapy transfusions. And you read, I'd read the
47:59
literature, I'd figure out who's writing the literature, reading
48:03
what they're writing. So, you know, even a dumb, dumb
48:07
philosophy major, you read enough well sourced material,
48:12
you're going to get a pretty rudimentary decent understanding
48:15
of how the pathophysiology works and treatment works, etcetera.
48:19
And so to this day, I do that on basically every case.
48:24
I work on what we tend to see. I see a ton of birth injury
48:28
cases. I've had it God knows how many
48:30
in my career. I can read fetal monitoring
48:32
strips, not like a perinatologist, but I can read
48:35
them well enough to know if I have a good case or not.
48:38
And so if I get any slightly esoteric area of medicine or
48:43
treatment, because things change, as you know, all the
48:46
time, I'm reading a lot. I spent a lot of time reading
48:50
medical journals and, and you know, I really dive into that
48:54
stuff and, and because this stuff in a lot of particular
48:56
cancer cases and complex neurosurgery, etcetera,
49:01
sometimes fetal surgery, these treatments are evolving rapidly
49:05
and we spend a lot of time reading the material.
49:08
And so my advice to younger lawyers, even if you're not
49:10
doing a bad now, if you have a bike case and somebody ends up
49:13
having a somehow or auto case with an axonal injury and we'll
49:17
read about it, you know, if you've never had that case, read
49:20
about it. There's so much great open
49:22
source material. It doesn't cost a lot of money
49:25
and a lot of it's well written and you know, AI is helpful with
49:28
that kind of stuff. My advice would be read, learn,
49:32
suck it in. In terms of open source
49:34
material, where are you going? Are you going to, you know, pub
49:37
Med? Just straight Google?
49:38
Where do you go when you're? OK, I I start on Google, I'll
49:43
end up at pub Med that and we use a thing called up to date,
49:47
which basically that's what nurses and doctors actually in
49:51
on hospital for use when they need to look something up.
49:54
It's called up to date. It basically breaks down to a
49:57
lot of things, particularly in clinical medicine where it's
49:59
well sourced evidence based stuff.
50:02
You buy a subscription and we do that on every case.
50:06
It's at least a tiny bit esoteric or we might not know
50:09
what know as much as we want to know.
50:12
We go to sources like that and you know, we, we really work
50:15
hard as a law firm doing that. Going back to your switch from
50:19
from defense to plaintiff, I think a lot of people think of a
50:23
defense lawyers job as as poking holes and a plaintiff's lawyer
50:26
job as putting the thing together.
50:28
Or, you know, if you were to do it as like a cops versus
50:31
robbers, that you know, the robber has to come up with the
50:33
heist and that all the cop needs to do is, is come up with one
50:35
way to tear it down, right? How did you find the switch from
50:40
defense lawyer mindset to plaintiff's lawyer mindset?
50:43
Surprisingly easy and I think because I'm not saying it should
50:47
be or always is, but I just think I was nurtured by such
50:51
good lawyers on both sides. I frankly don't have a
50:56
philosophical bent one way or another.
50:59
I can turn around tomorrow and just and be just as effective as
51:02
a defence lawyer as I am in Plano Soar.
51:04
I just, I treat their their intellectual problems and
51:08
problems to be solved. But that's exactly right.
51:11
The defence lawyers in my line of work, they want to complicate
51:15
everything. They'll take a very simple case
51:17
and try to make it as complex as possible because jury's
51:20
generally speaking the more complex it is, the less likely
51:25
it is for them to award your client money.
51:27
Plain as lawyers, what we're trying to do is take something
51:29
that's often very complex and make it simple and put it in a
51:33
narrative in a context that makes sense that they can relate
51:37
to it. So, but that's, which wasn't
51:40
that hard for me. I just think because I was
51:41
around such good lawyers on both sides, I was taught how to
51:44
analyze a case and be an advocate.
51:47
Because if your defense were to be an advocate, there's two
51:50
parts, pure advocacy and the other just as important part.
51:55
And it's same as what we're doing.
51:57
You're a counselor, you're trying to mitigate risk, you're
52:00
trying to advise your client, you're trying to assess the risk
52:03
profile of a case. And so those are A, advocacy
52:07
and, B, being a risk assessor, those are kind of the tenets of
52:12
what I think both sides do if they're effective.
52:16
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52:19
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