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Paving Diverse Paths in Law and Leadership · The Lawtino™

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Latino Podcast, where we discuss the intersection of law and our Latino communities with legal, political, and community leaders and visionaries.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get started.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, John Gomez.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here with my co-host Jessica Lujan.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: This program is brought to you by Gomez Trial Attorneys, a national um Latino-owned and operated personal injuries, civil rights, and employment litigation firm.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: Today we have kind of a special program for you.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm going to turn it over to our host, Jessica Luhon.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Jessica, thanks, John.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: So now it's my turn to torture you with some questions.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Just kidding, not torture.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I just thought, you know, people are listening to these podcasts.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're sponsored by GTA.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're the CEO and founder of GTA.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: So people are going to want to know who you are.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what today is about.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And uh let's start at the beginning.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, growing up.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: How is it that you became interested in the law?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so um my dad was in the Navy, and so I was a Navy brat.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, which is um there's a big naval hub kind of around there.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was born in Portsmouth Naval Hospital.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the family, we moved out here to San Diego, which is also a large kind of naval, you know, um place.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then back to Georgia, down to Florida for a little bit, back to Virginia, and then back out here where my dad basically um had his, he retired from the Navy.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I lived in San Diego since I was like 11.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's a lot of moving around.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, like um it's it's an interesting thing, you know, growing up if your um parents are like deployed, like my dad would go on a lot of cruises, so they'd be gone for like 12, 14, you know, 16 months, which uh, you know, is hard, uh, but you know, you get to learn, you get to meet a lot of people.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: So you uh since a young age, you kind of become used to meeting people from all sorts of backgrounds and just uh being flexible and uh learn how to interact with individuals who might not be, you know, like yourself.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, would you agree with that?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, even so, like my parents split up then when I was like 12.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so then I was just living with my mom who was a single mom, and we would bounce around a lot just within San Diego.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so changed a lot.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: I went to three different high schools.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, all of them like pretty different, sort of ethnically and culturally.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I got to meet a lot of uh different kinds of people.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and what part of San Diego?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh first I, you know, we were down in South Bay, so Chula Vista, I went to Hilltop Junior High School and high school, and then we went to uh kind of uh Spring Valley Lemon Grove, Mount Miguel High School, and then I graduated from El Come Valley High School uh here in town.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you think that impacted, you know, your your life and the things that you wanted to do growing up?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, were you you know excited to get out of San Diego?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: What were your aspirations?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, honestly, like at the time I graduated from high school, all I wanted to do is play college football.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so I didn't have like you know great, you know, aspirations beyond that.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I gotten hurt as a high school senior, and so basically limped around, like I missed the first couple of games, and I limped around for the rest of the season.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so I started at junior college, uh, Girl Spawn Junior College, um, playing football there.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then you know, I went over to San Diego State to play football, got hurt during spring football, and then I learned that there was a school called USD, the University of San Diego, that had a football team.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know this.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, all respect to the Toreros now.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I went over there and that's where I finished up and played football.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh you finished up, you played football, and what what were your plans after that?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, like I I didn't really know I was gonna be a businessman of some kind, you know.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: I just wanted to um, you know, do okay and stuff.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'd studied uh business, but um I had a roommate before my senior year of college who was in law school.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: So this guy's name is Mike Antonasio.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: He's like a famous, he's a very well-known, well-regarded lawyer today um with Cooley.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: He was my roommate and he was working um at a law firm as a summer associate at the time.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: And they would like, he would, he would come home, you know, fairly he was making a lot of money from my perspective, and he would had a pretty good life, they treated him pretty good.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they would have all these activities.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: We were on the softball team.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just looked at that and I go, oh wow, that looks like a good life right there.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so I emulated my friend uh Mike, um, who at the time was going to Stanford Law School and decided that I would try to, you know, take the LSAT and apply to different law schools.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Just from one day to the next, you're just what I'm gonna do.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: I just got lucky, you know.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like um, you know, being a lawyer is probably my highest calling.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I could do anything as good as what I do now.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so I feel like for whatever reason, you know, God kind of showed me that path in a weird way.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I so I'm grateful for that.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, a lot of people who end up at Yale Law School, I'm sure, you know, planned for it for a very, very long time.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: They had mentors, they had guidance.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you don't get to Yale Law School just, you know, on a whim.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you feel about that?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a huge accomplishment.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, I feel um, again, you know, I feel like for whatever reason, I had done well in college.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I played football, obviously, all through, um, you know, did well academically.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, I took DellSat.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't have enough money for a course, but I would just like take, you know, practice test, practice test, practice test.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember like I was scoring at a pretty good, you know, level.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so kind of thought I knew where I would get in.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so then I show up, I do the actual tests, and and I was working that summer as a waiter when I got my I it was like in the mail I got my results.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so I went out like to this um with I was working kind of by the beach.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we went out to these rocks, me and uh a young lady that I was working with, we were gonna open it together, and I had a bottle of tequila and a bottle of um bourbon.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and I was either gonna celebrate or be sad, and I opened it and like I did really, really well.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: The best I'd ever done.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I knew I could go wherever I wanted, so we had tequila.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say, okay, was it tequila for celebrating?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: We had tequila.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: And the funny thing is, you know, like you said, you know, a lot of these kids have mentors or whatever.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was so naive that I did not know they ranked the law schools.
• 8:07
  unknown: Yeah.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so I asked my my buddy from Stanford um where I should go, and he told me, for whatever reason, he told me to go to Harvard.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I accepted to Harvard because I got in there, and then I ran into this kid over at my college USD who had a US News World Report ranking, you know, of the law schools.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: I looked at it and Harvard was like eight that year or whatever.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: And Yale was one.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, wait, I got into Yale.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so then I found out they had an admitted college weekend.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so I went back and then I reneged on, they told me you gotta come here.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so I reneged on Harvard and went to Yale.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's crazy.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: I love I mean you talk about, you know, just how naive you were.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I personally, you know, I feel the same way.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of things in my life, I feel they just happened because they were meant to be.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: So do you share that sentiment and um you know, it's just that naivety, but just kind of trusting the process and it's led you to where you are.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, very much.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I feel like, you know, like um God put me through some rough things at various points of my life, but at the same time, like he put like really nice things in front of me.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and and I feel like, you know, it's kind of his hand kind of working on me and my life, and so you just gotta have faith and uh that it's all gonna turn out good.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, it has for sure.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: So far.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you're now CEO of Gomez Trial Attorneys, and I mean, sometimes just listening to your stories at the all hands meetings or when you talk about all these, you know, cases you've had.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh do you have some of you know some favorite stories, some favorite cases, just you know, something that sticks out that you're just like, wow, you know, I did that in my career.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, you know, I think um like I I have a number of you know good memories from work that I've done and we've done here.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, I think we represented the um family of a runaway Lexus that happened here in in San Diego with uh CHB officer and his family.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, that uh case really started this big Toyota recall.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: It was a very big deal.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: Very international news coverage, national, you know, uh we went to Congress for testimony.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, uh handling that case is definitely a highlight.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh also just a great family.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we tried uh to verdict one of the very first defective hip cases in the country.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: There were like 50,000 of these cases, and our client um was dying, so we filed a preference motion and we were able to move his case to the front of the line, um, tried that case.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that was a hugely important case.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, just had a lot of um, you know, good, uh meaningful results um as part of the work we've done here.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you're talking about a case, a hip case that potentially could have impacted and affected 50,000 people who were part of that class.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I think it I think it was helpful to settling, you know, a lot of those cases.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just in San Diego.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: I remember when I started here, uh you had just finished a trial in a different state, I believe Washington, maybe.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know, I quickly learned you don't just do cases here.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: You're you really are all over the nation.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: So a nationwide uh, you know, lawyer.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um would you agree with that?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like um my background, like we talked about, I went to Yale, which is a national, you know, law school, obviously.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: I worked at Latham Watkins, very large national firm.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: I was a federal prosecutor.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, yeah, my practice has always been, you know, national in nature.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the cases we do just happen to be here in California, but you know, we'll we'll go to try a good case anywhere.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, that's what I knew about John Gomez when I first started, you know, working here.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: And um, when I was in law school, I always heard the name John Gomez, John Gomez since I went to a local law school.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I did the first time I ever got to meet you was at a La Raza event.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, not just are you a national leader in law, but you are also very involved with the Hispanic community.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell us a little bit about that?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, um, my dad's family um is from Mexico, a lot of them still live there, you know, and I think that in our evolving Latino communities, you know, there are so many different kinds of flavors, and you know, you got first generation, you got second generation, you got half, you know, you got uh people from different parts of the world.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, for me and especially growing up here, it was always a big part of my culture um and self-identity.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so once I got into so like when I went to Yale, I was president of, we called it uh Lhasa, I think a Latino Law Students Association.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and over there we would we would mainly hammer on um administration for admissions.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's really what we were trying to do.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we'd always be like, oh, you know, you gotta let more, you know, of our people in, and we'd hang out with the ballsa.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: There was Balsa there too.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: So we would try and get like the black and the Latino students admitted, like we'd be, and probably sometimes, you know, and as a student, you know, like I don't know if you're just more militant or more like, you know, but like we're pretty militant about those issues, you know.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then I came out here um and you know, had success as a lawyer, and I feel like there have been times, you know, where arguably like I was the most successful trial lawyer in town in this pretty large community with a super successful law firm.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, because of that in in particular and importantly, like I wanted to make a mark, you know, for our community and in our community, like really be a leader, you know, in that community to kind of um, you know, shine excellence upon the work that we all do.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean it's evident, and clearly you haven't stopped.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you have this podcast now, the Latino podcast.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us about it.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why, what's the purpose?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, why is it important to you?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think um I've always been very interested in justice generally in all of its forms.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and I've always had a very soft um place in my heart for the underdog um and you know, communities and people that face particular struggles.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so um so I have that, and then I'm also very interested just in the law, and so you see, basically right now, um Latino communities and people I say are by far the fastest growing you know community here in our country.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like, how is the law going to keep up with that?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: How is the law going to accommodate that?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: How is the law going to change because of that?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you've seen, I think a good case study, probably you could say, um, historically has been the black community has had a lot of, you know, there was the civil rights movement largely, you know, started by a lot of people on the wall up here, black civil rights leaders and justice leaders, and um Supreme Court justices, and you know, um, and like so you see the evolution of the law, the chains of the law, and then you see that how that bleeds over into uh maybe just civil rights issues generally, maybe police, excessive force or policing cases, disparate treatment cases.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and so now, you know, I think we have kind of a more, I'll say maturing of the Latino community.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: We're kind of stepping into our own, right?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, um, we're really uh, especially in certain parts of the country, like by far, you know, the the most powerful future sort of component of a lot of different places.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: So how's the law gonna keep up?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: How's the law gonna adjust?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like, uh, you know, is it are we gonna see more and more legislators, you know, in power, more and more um, you know, lawyers in in positions of power or influence.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so still like it really, especially in the law, it super drags behind.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like the the prevalence of Latinos uh in the law is nowhere near, you know, the number of Latinos in our communities.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so like a lot of the work you're doing right now, you know, like when I was a young militant guy, um, and I continue to support the fight in the cause, is really to increase that diversity of representation um in the judiciary and like in in like elite um legal services.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, and it shows.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, GTA, tell us a little bit about the demographics here, what what things are important to you?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I walk around and there's people from all sorts of backgrounds, so you don't see that everywhere.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I mean to me, um, you know, we are a basically a consumer rights law firm, so we're dealing with consumers.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like here in California, uh, where we do a lot of our work, uh a huge part of that community is Latinos.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we will kind of shamelessly um encourage or recruit or build our team to best and most effectively serve that community, both language and culture-wise, which you talked about during your interview.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like, that is important.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's important to me to have um gender diversity like across the board, you know, especially in our lawyers.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's important, you know, to have as much representation of as many communities as we can possibly have, because that's really, you know, most reflective of the community that we serve.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I mean, and I I can attest to that.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I'm I'm very grateful to work at GTA where there are women in leadership positions and, you know, um, we're able to serve our clientele to the best of our abilities.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: And with that, you know, there's also the community service aspect of it.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, at GTA, one of our core values is we improve our communities.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: You're very involved in communities of um people of color.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you host events.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: We recently hosted the Dolores Huerta event.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about your involvement.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us why, you know, events like the Dolores Huerta event are important to you.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I feel like um like why do we do what we do?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think we do what we do to to help improve the lives of the clients who we work for.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: But as importantly to me, uh why we do what we do is to kind of leave a legacy or make an impact upon you know our team members here internally, the community as a whole, you know, non-clients in the community.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so if we host someone like uh Dolores Huerta, like people were inspired by that.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like people were like, it was like the Beatles came, you know.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so you could see on people's faces, like it changed their their life.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was a last-minute thing, and I we you know, some we ran home and changed because we wanted to be presentable for Dolores.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, But I think like there's probably one of the lawyers and non-lawyers that attended and met her that like changed their commitment to doing good things because of that.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so anytime we can affect change like that, like make an influence, make a splash, like really make a splash influence to where it's not just what we do, but it's like this ripple effect, then we always want to be doing that.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and you're so creative.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the ideas you come up with, and I mean, recently you you sent an email that were in TJ.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us a little bit about that.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was I was shocked, but it's exciting, it's awesome.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, what's the purpose with that?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, so um, you know, we are here in San Diego, like at one of the busiest international uh ports of entry in the world.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have like our sort of Tijuana uh San Diego larger metropolis is really a combined community.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and there's a huge number, as you know, of people that cross every day, you know, coming up here for work or for school.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, going, we have like people that work here but live there.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so you know, we want to be in a position to provide service to that part of our community as well.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, we we do have you know a presence um down in Mexico really for um you know, just client uh ease and convenience, you know, like if they're down there.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we have a place they can go, but we want them to know that if they come up here and something happens to them, that we can help them as American lawyers that they know where to look.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and that's that's great because I don't think anyone else really does it.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it just shows how invested you are and how much you really do care about the community and you understand what it's like to live in a border town, right?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm from a border town, see that what is and the dynamics are just so different than any other city.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's uh that's really great.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um talking about, you know, different cities and states, and we're gonna be traveling to Texas, as a matter of fact, uh next week uh to attend the Shades of Mass.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us a little bit about that.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're gonna be a speaker there, you're gonna give a presentation, and you're on the board.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's very, very important to you, so I think our audience should know about it.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so um Shades of Mass is an organization that was started by a couple really uh great lawyers, um, Ben Crump being one of them, um, and my our friend uh Fu, who we're gonna hang out with in Texas being another.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: And basically the premise is um they have these uh multidistrict litigations, these mass tort, these high-level sort of litigations.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: And historically, the leadership of those like massive important cases has been very disproportionately white male.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so um the intent of shades and masks, masks being mass tort, shades being people of color, yeah, is to get you know black and brown lawyers into um positions of leadership within those large litigations because the numbers, again, are just not at all even remotely reflective of the reality of the communities we live in.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of these big litigations, you know, are um a lot of the clients within those are people of color.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, some of these like drugs in particular will adversely affect you know those communities.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think it's a a super valuable, innovative, important movement, you know, like for us, we did like a little local thing here.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we called it Shades of Success, you know, because I think it um, you know, it it it is beyond just mass torts, you know, to us.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um really it should be within every community and and every sort of uh you know legal position.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like there should be, you know, more partners at large law firms, or more you know, leading trial lawyers or whatever it may be, like you know, we should be front and center.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I I love that.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: And Shades of Success was highly successful.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: No fun intended.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was it was a lot of fun.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you plan to continue it, right?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think we'll the ideas we're gonna do, um, and while we're back in Houston, maybe we can talk to some of our colleagues and have them do something similar within their communities.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: But the idea is to do um at least annual and probably bi-annual programs where we're really just bringing that community together, law students, lawyers, uh judges, and leaders to um really promote excellence um and mentoring within those particular communities.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, it's so important.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, having been part of Shades of Success, I saw the law students who were here, the young attorneys who are here.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're so impressionable, they're so excited, they're um, you know, just excited for the future.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um You're a huge role model to so many people, and so many people look up to you, know who you are, etc.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: What message would you share with, you know, young law students of color, um, young first-year attorneys, second-year attorneys of color who are just trying to make their way through what admittedly is, you know, a community that looks different from us?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think um, you know, first piece of advice would be, you know, reach out to people you respect in the community.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like for the most people part, you know, those people are gonna be excited to talk to you and to help you and to support you.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I would reach out, you know, for that guidance.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I was never super good at that as uh a younger person.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: I was like a little probably dysfunctional, you know, because of like some chips on my shoulder, you know, but um, you know, now I recognize the importance of that.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then I would just say also just um be better than everybody else, like outwork everybody else, you know, like commit yourself to excellence.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because like what can they say if you're the best, right?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and like without question, you know, there are young law students and lawyers within every single community you can name that have the ability to be the best.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's great advice.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so here we are, you know, we have a podcast, we're gonna continue with the podcast.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: What can you tell the audience about, you know, sneak peek into other people you're gonna interview?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: Who can we expect?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: What can we expect from the podcast?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so great question.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think um I want to have a lot of lawyers on and you know, lawyers uh from within our community.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um and like so people like the the leaders of the Hispanic National Bar Association, which is you know such a larger, more culturally diverse, you know, and politically diverse, you know, group, um, then maybe we have like you can you can look around, you can go to like a uh La Raz event here in town, and like a very large number of those people um might be of Mexican American or Mexican descent, but you go over to Miami, right?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: Totally different.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: All like hugely South American, Cuban, very Republican.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like within the larger tent of that national community, how do you navigate that as someone like you know running the Hispanic National Bar?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I would like to talk to um lawyers that are active in things like the United Farm Workers, California Rural Legal Assistance, um, you know, uh uh labor unions, yeah, like we were just talking about that, those kinds of change agents.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think legislators, um, because that's law, yeah, you know, I would like to have a lot of those folks on.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then, you know, just like great lawyers, like really good, inspiring lawyers.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd like to have um, you know, I'm hopeful that we can build up enough, you know, catalog that I can get someone like Ben Crump on, who really, you know, has been a change agent for law as it impacts his community um and beyond, you know, and so like kind of take that as a role model for us, you know, about maybe some lessons that he's learned.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's gonna be good.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're gonna have some good people on here.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very exciting.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh any closing remarks?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'd just like to thank you for being such a great member of the firm, uh, for being a leader within our community here.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you've just really stepped up as an excellent lawyer and as a leader, you know, uh, within our kind of San Diego and larger legal and um Latino communities.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: So like I I would suspect, and I it's true, that there's a lot of these young lawyers that are looking up to you right now.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um and um and and I I know like uh I went to your wedding recently, so you're like in a new fun marriage.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: You got a great daughter, you're a great mom.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: So um my closing remarks are all directed with gratitude to you for being my co-host, for going out to Houston with me next week.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, looking forward and um for um being a Notre Dame graduate where I'd love to get one of my kids in one day.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay, I've noticed.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you, John.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's fun.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: We do the good work, so can't complain.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh thank you, Jessica.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, everyone, for another um uh amazing episode of the Latino podcast where we discuss the intersection of law and the Latino communities.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, look forward to um our next episode.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: Please subscribe and uh share with your friends.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Latino podcast.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.