Latest / Justice Team Podcast / Managing a Legal Practice from Two Continents with Mohamad Ahamad
Transcript
- 0:02Welcome to this episode of the Justice Team Podcast on the Justice Team Network,
- 0:06where we give practical advice to lawyers.
- 0:08I'm your host, Bob Simon, and we are honored today to have Muhammad Ahmed
- 0:11coming to us from Southern California, live from Los Angeles, who also
- 0:16practices in Atlanta, some other states.
- 0:18He has a bi coastal practice.
- 0:19He also lives internationally and sometimes the United States, sometimes
- 0:23other places, which we'll talk about how to do all those things.
- 0:26And also being an amazing trial lawyer, I know he's a finalist this
- 0:29year for Trialer of the Year for the biggest plaintiff bar organization.
- 0:34Mo, thanks for coming on the show.
- 0:35Thanks for having me.
- 0:36Um, first of all, what, what, what's this shirt you're wearing?
- 0:39I thought it was a hot dog cart, but what is this?
- 0:40Yeah, A lot of people
- 0:40think it's a hot dog cart.
- 0:42This is actually a, uh, Jerusalem bread cart.
- 0:45So if you, I live in Jerusalem, part-time, and they have these ancient bread ovens,
- 0:52uh, like hundreds of years old, if not a thousand years old, where they cook.
- 0:55Uh, they bake bread every day in the morning.
- 0:58My father in law and my wife are obsessed with this type of bread.
- 1:00It's like sesame bread I'm not really a big fan, but it's it's tasty.
- 1:04So she got me this cool shirt in Jerusalem.
- 1:07So
- 1:08nice So yeah, that's talk.
- 1:09Let's jump into that then.
- 1:10I mean, I know your wife and kids are in Jerusalem You're
- 1:13here in Southern, California.
- 1:15Sometimes Georgia.
- 1:15What's that like man?
- 1:18It's fun in a way because you you get to go to Jerusalem and
- 1:21Jerusalem is it's it's a city.
- 1:24That's locked in time You Yeah, like when you're there, if there were no
- 1:27cars, you would feel like you're back, you know, from the ancient times.
- 1:32And there's actually some villages in Jerusalem and Israel and Palestine where
- 1:35you actually can experience what it was like back in the time of Jesus, where you
- 1:40have like the, and if you go to Nazareth, you get the, there's like a Christian
- 1:43village and they do this, they, they kind of, it's like a museum, but you really
- 1:47feel like you're back in the old day.
- 1:49They do all of press by hand and they have like donkeys and stuff like that.
- 1:52So it's a throwback time.
- 1:54So, It's a throwback to time and it's also fun, you know, but it's also you
- 1:59also miss your kids, you know So it's been about two years now not the two year mark.
- 2:03That's when it really started being tough Being away from the kids for so long.
- 2:08Yeah, I just saw a missed call from my kids elementary school
- 2:11I know there's a problem.
- 2:12So I text my wife and say They just called me.
- 2:16It's likely our seven year old that's causing problems in school.
- 2:19Do your kids ever cause problems in Jerusalem?
- 2:21You have younger kids too, right?
- 2:23You have twins?
- 2:24Yeah, no, they're nine and seven now.
- 2:26But my older kid always causes problems in Jerusalem.
- 2:30He got caught with a vape at school.
- 2:34Sounds very
- 2:34familiar to what I just got.
- 2:35Yeah, my
- 2:36wife, freaking out, and I don't really care.
- 2:38I'm like, whatever, where did he get it?
- 2:39You know, that's funny.
- 2:41Um, their kids, they'll, they'll do crazy things.
- 2:43My younger kid, he, he initially had problems with the school,
- 2:48but then he became like the fan favorite at the school.
- 2:51And so my wife will go pick him up and he'll make everybody
- 2:54stop the game when he's leaving.
- 2:56And then my wife would be like, no, you can't be a dictator.
- 2:59And the teacher would be like, no, no, he, we call him the director.
- 3:02Like,
- 3:03so how do you like, I mean, how do you realistically do this?
- 3:07You have a litigation and trial practice.
- 3:10And you guys do some complicated case.
- 3:12I mean, you, you do a lot of electric shock, burn injury cases.
- 3:16And then, I mean, I've seen the verdicts you've had, you know, eight figures, high
- 3:19eight figures on these types of cases.
- 3:21How are you able to, I mean, literally be what are they?
- 3:2512, 11, 12 hours ahead in Jerusalem from Yeah, there are
- 3:2810 hours ahead in Jerusalem.
- 3:29So I work on American times.
- 3:31So when I'm in Jerusalem, I go to sleep at five in the morning, six in the morning.
- 3:35Sometimes I'll go to the ancient mosque, the Aqsa, the famous mosque at
- 3:39like five in the morning, pray, come home and I'll fall asleep at like 6am.
- 3:44And then I'll wake up at like one or 2pm there, spend some time
- 3:47with the family, and then begin my work day at like six or 7pm there.
- 3:52Wow.
- 3:53And then I'll stay up all night.
- 3:55You know, because if you sleep, you can't really sleep So I stay on American time.
- 4:01And that's how I make it work.
- 4:02But
- 4:02so the, but you, how you still get family time in though, before the, your quote
- 4:06unquote workday starts back in America.
- 4:08Mm.
- 4:08Yeah.
- 4:09So like you get four or five hours of family time, which is realistically,
- 4:12that's what happens here, right?
- 4:13If you go to work early, you come home at six or seven, and then you spend
- 4:17two or three hours with the kids and the wife, and then you go to sleep.
- 4:20So it's kind of the same thing.
- 4:22Obviously the, you know, the wife would prefer that I worked on Jerusalem
- 4:25time, but I just work on American time.
- 4:27And with, with COVID you can take depots.
- 4:30I mean, do you have
- 4:31any problems taking remote depositions from there?
- 4:33No, never.
- 4:35I mean, sometimes there's like sirens and shit going off, but
- 4:37like other than that, no, you know, it's pretty, it's pretty chill.
- 4:42And then what happens, you know, I mean, what's it like though?
- 4:44Realistically, you have multiple, multiple week trials.
- 4:47I know you had one in Northern California earlier this year.
- 4:50I mean, how are you able to do that?
- 4:52That's easier, right?
- 4:53Because the family's not here.
- 4:55So I spent six, it was last year we spent six weeks in Monterey.
- 4:59And, you know, my business partner was flying home with his family, my
- 5:02associate was flying home to spend time with his wife, I didn't have that.
- 5:06So in a way it kind of makes it easier when you don't have the family to
- 5:09go home to, you just have trials.
- 5:12So I stayed up there the whole time.
- 5:14Wow.
- 5:14You know, so in that way it made it easier.
- 5:17And then a month after that my friend got stuck in a crazy small case in
- 5:20Georgia and was like freaking out like hey, I talked shit to the adjuster and
- 5:23I can't try a case, can you help me?
- 5:25So we flew, I flew from Tel Aviv to Atlanta and we tried a case, you know?
- 5:29Yeah, you have an office in Atlanta as well.
- 5:31Yeah,
- 5:32and so that, so that, that's kind of fun and also stressful.
- 5:35You know, where you're calling and you're like, dude, are they
- 5:37really not gonna pay the 25, 000?
- 5:38And he's like, yeah, they just offered 10, 000.
- 5:41So fly down.
- 5:42So it's like, alright, jump on a flight, fly down.
- 5:44But what was cool about that?
- 5:46Cases they actually paid for my flight Even though it's not a recoverable cost
- 5:50He he just included it in the cost memo and they got scared because we got over
- 5:53the policy limit And so they just paid everything attorneys fees costs Everything
- 5:58well, thank you state farmer all state whoever it was for
- 6:00paying for your trip to tel aviv.
- 6:01It was progressive Yeah progressive.
- 6:03Yeah, you're also a very progressive guy.
- 6:05So look at that.
- 6:06We tied it in.
- 6:07Well, no, so The the I I do say this all the time as a trial lawyer The only
- 6:11thing now that I physically need to be in person for these days You Or the trials.
- 6:15Yes.
- 6:16Yeah.
- 6:16And you're a living, breathing
- 6:18example
- 6:18of this.
- 6:18Yeah,
- 6:18exactly.
- 6:19I was literally in another country, 10 hours away, flew in, and then
- 6:24within 48 hours I was picking a jury.
- 6:27And since you're staying on American Time, you're not
- 6:30dealing with jet lag or anything?
- 6:31Yeah.
- 6:31No.
- 6:32And then the one thing is that, you know, with points and with status
- 6:36and whatnot, I always get lie flat.
- 6:37And so.
- 6:38Yeah.
- 6:38That makes it easier.
- 6:40I think when you're sleeping on like, I can sleep on the plane the whole time.
- 6:43Wow.
- 6:44Yeah.
- 6:44So walk us through.
- 6:45So we talked about a little bit of the lifestyle stuff.
- 6:48Um, do you have to operate on the same consistent type of systems?
- 6:52I mean, you have Georgia's different practice law than
- 6:55California where you're practicing.
- 6:56So how are you able to, to manage that?
- 6:59I mean, you guys on, on systems or anything like this.
- 7:02Yeah, in terms of
- 7:03like back end systems.
- 7:05Yeah.
- 7:05So what they're, they're very similar.
- 7:07There are certain things that are different.
- 7:09Um, what we try to do is make them the same, right?
- 7:12So for example, in Georgia, you have trial, you have fact depots and trial
- 7:16depots or they're actually distinct.
- 7:18Right.
- 7:18Um, and in California you kind of have that too.
- 7:22Unless it's like a doctor that's unavailable or not.
- 7:24So what we try to do is, is take whatever exception or whatever
- 7:27there is and make them the same.
- 7:29And so for in Georgia, you can, you can do a trial depo, uh, if it's,
- 7:33you know, like the opposing party, you can use that for any purpose.
- 7:36So we convert those into trial depos instead of it being a fact
- 7:39that, but we make that a trial that on California, if the person's.
- 7:42You know, like my Monterey case, everything was more than 150 miles out.
- 7:45So every single depot was a trial depot.
- 7:48And so you, you just try to make everything a trial depot and you
- 7:51take a deposition like it's trial and depots really lead the case, right?
- 7:55There's discovery there's back in discovery motions to compel, to kind
- 7:58of bother them a little bit, but depositions are, are basically trial.
- 8:03And so we try to treat our depots like trial depots, present them like trial
- 8:06depots and use any excuse to make them.
- 8:11Play that trial.
- 8:12All right.
- 8:12So that's that's transition over into your your trial practice litigation
- 8:15practice and you're known for doing Catastrophic injury complex cases.
- 8:19Let's talk about the burn in electric cases.
- 8:21What are some things that I mean a lot of lawyers prefer you cases.
- 8:26Yeah to work on first of all, how do they find you?
- 8:28What's the easiest way for people to find you
- 8:30you just you know email or text?
- 8:33You know, I mean like I I don't know Probably text is
- 8:37better than email, you know,
- 8:38text.
- 8:38Yes.
- 8:39I think I hardly check emails.
- 8:40I check our slack chats on justice HQ.
- 8:42I check my texts and that's about it.
- 8:44Yeah.
- 8:45Yeah.
- 8:45Even a voicemail.
- 8:46Like I'm not gonna, I check my voicemail.
- 8:48I'm like, Oh shit.
- 8:48I got, especially since I'm always traveling.
- 8:50So if I'm on the plane and I get a voicemail, I normally
- 8:53don't check my voicemails.
- 8:54So I just get the
- 8:55transcribed voice because there's no way I'm ever going to listen to it.
- 8:58Yeah.
- 8:58I know you call it.
- 8:58I saw the missed call.
- 9:00You leave a message and if it's transcribed.
- 9:02Um, so.
- 9:03Uh, walk us through what, what we're, what we're missing on these
- 9:07electric shock cases, because a lot of 'em, sometimes they're public
- 9:09entities against Edison or some of the things like, what are we missing?
- 9:12The, the biggest thing people are missing is that, is don't be afraid
- 9:15if the symptoms are delayed, because that's when, you know the client
- 9:19is actually telling the truth is when the symptoms are delayed.
- 9:23And so, so, you know, the defense counsel will tell me like, oh, your client didn't
- 9:26present with all these issues right away.
- 9:28And I go, dude, if he did, he'd be a fraud.
- 9:31You know, unless it's like a super catastrophic case, because you're going
- 9:34to have issues with like seizures six months out, you know, so if the, if the
- 9:39client's presenting with seizures right away, that's abnormal, but, but six months
- 9:44out a year out, that's, that is normal.
- 9:47They don't know because with electrical cases, most people die, right?
- 9:51So if your client survived, it's either not severe or it's super severe and
- 9:55they don't know what to do with it.
- 9:56I mean, how many electrical cases are there?
- 9:58There's probably in history that, that survived a catastrophic electrical shock.
- 10:03And so doctors don't know what they're doing on those issues.
- 10:06Doctors sometimes don't know what they're doing on a neck issue, right?
- 10:09Like trial and error.
- 10:10Yeah.
- 10:11Well, like we, um, we had one electrical shock case where it was so powerful.
- 10:16Guy lost his arm.
- 10:17Yeah,
- 10:17I mean, and you know, there's a I mean, that was one of the most
- 10:20contentious litigations We had and we resolved it for a lot, but it was
- 10:24their hard liability cases, right?
- 10:26Yeah So and I'm sure he had
- 10:28a brain injury too.
- 10:29Yep, but they disputed that and they're like, oh, this is just an arm
- 10:32case That's what they did in mind.
- 10:33This is just so what
- 10:34because these are very In me because a lot of times we have electric shock cases.
- 10:39It's usually a premises case of something.
- 10:40Yeah Right.
- 10:41And then sometimes there's a public entity involved.
- 10:43Yeah.
- 10:44So walk us through the target defendants on these types of cases
- 10:47and what things you're looking for.
- 10:48So the, the target defendants, like you said, it's going to be a public
- 10:51utility, which in California you need a six month notice in Georgia, you need a
- 10:54one year notice or six months depending.
- 10:57You have to file a claim.
- 10:58You have to file a claim.
- 10:59And in, in, in Georgia, they're very slick about that.
- 11:01Like in California, they're more loose with it.
- 11:03But in Georgia, they'll, they'll try to evade service and be like,
- 11:06Oh, you, you served it to my office, but you didn't serve it to my desk.
- 11:09And that, and so it's.
- 11:11And they'll file a motion to dismiss.
- 11:12So whenever there's a public entity involved, you definitely want to get like
- 11:15a high level technical lawyer involved because you can mess those up very easily.
- 11:21Then you also look at like, even if they're not an actual utility,
- 11:25they might be a quasi utility.
- 11:27Like in our case, it was the largest manufacturer of solar panels in the world.
- 11:31And the largest generator of solar power private, you know, so they're
- 11:36effectively a utility, even though they're not officially a utility.
- 11:40And they, they, there's a lot of lobbying involved so they
- 11:42don't get regulated as a utility.
- 11:45Um, and then so you, you, you go to them and you find out, okay, what did you do?
- 11:49And then obviously they try to disclaim liability, blame it on the
- 11:51employee, because workers comp in Georgia and California is a bar.
- 11:55If, if, if the, if you can't sue your own employer, generally speaking.
- 12:00Um, and so that's what you're trying to do.
- 12:02You're trying to find the, the big entity, trying to define what they are.
- 12:07Are they public or private?
- 12:08And depending on what benefits them, they'll define themselves
- 12:11as public or private.
- 12:12If there's an immunity, they'll say, Oh, we're public.
- 12:14If there's no immunity, they'll say, Oh, we're private.
- 12:16That's where
- 12:16you can't trip up and, You got to file the claim form, be safe, you
- 12:21know, yeah, you know, and that's where like a lot of people don't realize is
- 12:25there's a lot of target defendants.
- 12:27It's usually an employee that gets hurt.
- 12:28I mean, every case that I've had is the same way.
- 12:31And do you have that workers comp crossover?
- 12:33Crossover, yep.
- 12:34And a lot of times if you can actually show the employer was negligent,
- 12:38you can get big reduction or get the employee's medical lien waived.
- 12:42Yeah.
- 12:43And so in our case, the jury found that they were, that the employer and the
- 12:48employee, my client was negligent or were negligent because both of them, but
- 12:52they were not the substantial factor.
- 12:53So we got a hundred percent liability.
- 12:55And that was worth, you know, the 160, 000 medical lien, you know, like it's
- 13:00like that, that, you know, if they got 10%, it would have reduced the verdict.
- 13:04How do
- 13:05you prove that there was a surge of electricity that came
- 13:07from the public entity and not an employee severing the line?
- 13:11So.
- 13:12So for that, what I would recommend is first, the lawyer needs to kind of become
- 13:16an expert like in my office right now, in my actual physical office, there's
- 13:20a, there's the box that triggered the injury and, uh, and, uh, and another
- 13:27for, for the most re for that case.
- 13:28And for the most recent case that we just settled for five, five and a
- 13:31half, nearly five and a half million.
- 13:33I kind of recreated the incident in my office again.
- 13:36Um, I think the lawyer needs to be able to explain it to.
- 13:41to the jury.
- 13:42So the lawyer needs to be the expert.
- 13:44So for my Monterey case, I was the smartest person in the room on that issue.
- 13:50And the jury kind of learned that right away.
- 13:52Even though I'm not as articulate, I stutter like the defense lawyer was
- 13:56way more articulate, less stuttering, more polished, but he didn't know
- 14:00his ass from his elbow when it came to the to the actual incident.
- 14:04How did you learn this stuff?
- 14:06I physically went to the site.
- 14:07I went to Talk to my client endlessly, talk to other people endlessly.
- 14:11And then, and I recommend you do that early on because then when you start
- 14:15talking to third party witnesses, like we interviewed dozens of third party
- 14:19witnesses, they're skeptical, right?
- 14:22They're like, who is this lawyer?
- 14:23They have their own lawyer cause it's the employer.
- 14:25So they're represented.
- 14:27But as soon as they talked to me for five minutes, even the, the, my,
- 14:31my co, the employer's lawyers were like, dude, this guy knows his shit.
- 14:34And so they all trusted.
- 14:36me.
- 14:37And so they would, they cooperate it.
- 14:39And that's not, that's not always the case, but it took a lot of,
- 14:43uh, time on my part, like to, to understand what was going on.
- 14:46I talked to other lawyers, they helped me understand it.
- 14:49Um, and just workshopping the case.
- 14:51Like I, this, that case was an example of teamwork.
- 14:55Like Justice HQ met with dozens of lawyers and we talked about it.
- 14:59Um, Cala lawyers helped me on Cala, Gary Dordick helped me, um, . Sean Claggett.
- 15:06Mm-Hmm.
- 15:06. You know Claggett.
- 15:07Matt Granda is on JJ hq.
- 15:08Sean Claggett.
- 15:09And Jordan Logan.
- 15:10I spent a whole day with them working on the case.
- 15:13Dan Ambrose from TLU weeks with Dan Ambrose prepping the case.
- 15:17'cause Dan is like a freaking workhorse.
- 15:19So he forced me to work on the case.
- 15:21And then the Jerry Spence College, like, it was literally
- 15:24like a Jerry Spence verdict.
- 15:25There was four of us from the ranch there,
- 15:27you know.
- 15:28Wow.
- 15:28And you, I mean, what it was, how big was the verdict?
- 15:30Four 51 million.
- 15:3151 million.
- 15:32Yeah.
- 15:32And you know.
- 15:34You talked about the labor of love, the stuff that you have
- 15:36to do in the prep to get there.
- 15:37Now, one thing you did was very creative on, and it's very hard to
- 15:40understand, is the damages in this case.
- 15:41Yes.
- 15:42So how did you work up the brain injury, the general damages for an electrocution?
- 15:47So, so the, the way we did, the way we did it is we, um, one thing I don't like
- 15:51to use, I don't like to use lien doctors.
- 15:53And so we used the workers' comp doctors to establish the dam damages
- 15:57and you can usually videotape their depositions Yes.
- 15:59As a treating doctor.
- 16:00Exactly.
- 16:01And then what I did is.
- 16:03I used before and after witnesses and I even used the defense
- 16:07witnesses to establish how badass my client was to the project.
- 16:12And I told the jury, I said, look, we're asking for, you know,
- 16:1546 million in damages for Kelly.
- 16:17I said, don't look at the day before the incident.
- 16:19You know, I want you to look 18 months before when this billion dollar project
- 16:23was on death's door and they called Kelly, my client to come save the project.
- 16:29I said, this is how the phone conversation would go 18 months before the incident.
- 16:33Hey, this project is in the hole.
- 16:34We need Kelly.
- 16:36And the CEO says, get Kelly, whatever it costs, get him
- 16:39over there to fix this project.
- 16:41That's a billion dollar project.
- 16:41We need him.
- 16:43And they'd be like, we can't, he's, he's damaged.
- 16:45He's like, what's it going to cost to fix him?
- 16:4646 million.
- 16:47He'll say, write the check.
- 16:48He's worth every penny.
- 16:50I was like, that's how you have to look at it.
- 16:51Don't look at it the day after when he's useless to the company.
- 16:54Look at it when the company needed him the most and he delivered.
- 16:57And that's who he was.
- 16:58Even the defense was like, we all knew who he was.
- 17:00He was a badass.
- 17:02And that's what a lot of lawyers get, you know, they think they have to over
- 17:05expert the case, get a neurologist, a neuropsychologist, and I'm, I'm like
- 17:09you, I think before and after witnesses, and maybe a physiatrist that can piece
- 17:13it all together to meet the standard,
- 17:15and that's all you need.
- 17:16That's it, and that was our main witness, the physiatrist.
- 17:19Which one, if you don't mind saying?
- 17:20Topher
- 17:20Stevenson.
- 17:21Oh,
- 17:21he's awesome.
- 17:22And the
- 17:22reason I like Topher is he actually cares.
- 17:25He met with the client.
- 17:26He legit cares.
- 17:27He was a smoke jumper.
- 17:28So he himself is a badass physically What is a
- 17:31smoke jumper
- 17:32where they like go in and they I believe it's when they go in and they they try
- 17:36to like Uh prevent the uh limit the exposure of the fire So they they get
- 17:40dropped in they get dropped into like a danger site and they freaking she's yeah
- 17:45So he's a legit badass himself So he and my client was a badass so they could
- 17:49relate to each other I couldn't relate to my client my client could Bench more
- 17:53than me even after the injury, right?
- 17:55So I was like, we can't relate to each other, dude.
- 17:57I'm going to do Eve, you know, like, so we're not going to relate,
- 18:00but Topher could relate to him.
- 18:01But Topher is also a bad ass.
- 18:03Yeah.
- 18:03I think physiatrist is the way to go.
- 18:05Treating physician.
- 18:05He gave them, and he didn't even do expensive stuff.
- 18:08He did like this cream.
- 18:09And my client's like, this cream is working.
- 18:10I was like, so we don't need a surgery then, you know, don't
- 18:13be afraid to do less medicine.
- 18:15If the, if the damage is there.
- 18:16And in my case, the damage was clearly there.
- 18:18Anybody with the, Even a blind person could see the damage was there.
- 18:21Right.
- 18:21So, but it was just communicating that story and maximizing the damages.
- 18:25Yeah.
- 18:25So I know, um, I know how, I know how to find you by text or slack adjust
- 18:29HQ and to find you on attorney shared to refer you cases for those that are
- 18:33out there, but how do other folks find you if they want to get educated on.
- 18:36You know how to how to have an international practice and family
- 18:39or to litigate these tough cases.
- 18:41How do they find you?
- 18:41Yeah,
- 18:42just hit me up or my business partner ray Uh rk at kermani lop
- 18:46or ma at kermani lop and you know, we're down to talk to anybody.
- 18:50Thanks Well mo thanks for coming on the show big fan of yours Uh, this is
- 18:54the justice team network justice team podcast and he's the go to for these
- 18:58types of cases Thanks for coming on buddy.
- 18:59Thanks.
- 19:00Thanks, bro