Latest / Unscripted Direct / Episode 157 - Corruption

Transcript

Episode 157 - Corruption · Unscripted Direct

0:00
SPEAKER_04: Unscripted Direct is brought to you by Walk Up, Melodia, Kelly, and Schoenberger.
0:05
SPEAKER_04: Based in San Francisco, but with cases all over the country, Walk Up is one of the most respected plaintiff's personal injury and wrongful death law frames.
0:12
SPEAKER_05: The attorneys at Walk Up are passionate about trying cases, and some of our cases have come from our listeners.
0:16
SPEAKER_05: If someone reaches out to you with the case, we're happy to see how we can help out.
0:19
SPEAKER_05: We thank Walkup for supporting this podcast and our trial advocacy community.
0:28
SPEAKER_04: Welcome to Unscripted Direct.
0:30
SPEAKER_05: I'm Spencer Polkey from Berkeley Law.
0:32
SPEAKER_04: I'm Justin Bernstein, UCLA.
0:34
SPEAKER_04: This week, we have results from two competitions.
0:36
SPEAKER_04: We previewed the largest trial competition of the semester.
0:39
SPEAKER_04: We have an interview with St.
0:40
SPEAKER_04: Mary's new assistant director, Megan Diyich.
0:42
SPEAKER_04: I hope I didn't mispronounce your name.
0:43
SPEAKER_04: Sorry, Megan.
0:44
SPEAKER_04: We have an interview with newly appointed judge Joe Perini Abbott, the director of Lewis and Clark's program.
0:48
SPEAKER_04: An interview with Florida International's H.T.
0:50
SPEAKER_04: Smith, who has spoken out against corruption involving the selection of his own law school dean.
0:55
SPEAKER_04: But first, Spencer, we need to talk about a different kind of corruption.
0:59
SPEAKER_05: Yes, indeed, a pernicious form of corruption.
1:03
SPEAKER_05: I think you might be talking about the feed spot rankings.
1:05
SPEAKER_05: Is that right?
1:06
SPEAKER_05: I certainly am.
1:07
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
1:07
SPEAKER_05: Remind the audience what are the feed spot rankings?
1:10
SPEAKER_05: We don't often talk about it.
1:11
SPEAKER_05: We rarely talk about it.
1:12
SPEAKER_05: We've almost never talked about it.
1:13
SPEAKER_05: But we haven't talked about it in months.
1:17
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's right.
1:18
SPEAKER_04: Uh they're an internet ranking of podcasts, and one category is top podcasts for law students.
1:25
SPEAKER_05: That sounds like an important one.
1:26
SPEAKER_04: Um, what criteria do they use?
1:29
SPEAKER_04: We have absolutely no idea.
1:31
SPEAKER_04: Total black box black box, zero transparency, no clue.
1:34
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, sounds like the gavel rankings, right?
1:36
SPEAKER_05: Without the prestige and the profanity.
1:40
SPEAKER_05: Um, all right.
1:42
SPEAKER_05: So uh remind us, how many podcasts does FeedSpot rank?
1:46
SPEAKER_04: Great question.
1:47
SPEAKER_04: And that is one of the things that makes the Feed Spock rankings so impressive.
1:51
SPEAKER_04: They'll sometimes say, we're gonna rank the top 45, but some for some reason only list 40.
1:56
SPEAKER_04: And then they'll say, we're gonna list the top 38, but only list 36.
1:58
SPEAKER_04: That's how exclusive they are.
2:00
SPEAKER_05: So exclusive.
2:01
SPEAKER_05: Like like offer up a certain number, it's less than that.
2:04
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
2:04
SPEAKER_05: Um, how much uh did we respect these feed spot rankings?
2:08
SPEAKER_05: And how much should we talk about it relative to how much we we taught we respect them?
2:12
SPEAKER_04: Um, I would say that our level of respect um really depended on how they were ranking us at the time.
2:18
SPEAKER_04: Like when we were 37th, we mostly made fun of them.
2:21
SPEAKER_04: Um when we rose to fourth, uh, privately we made fun of them, but we publicly treated them like they were the Nobel Prize Committee.
2:27
SPEAKER_05: Um and how much do we respect them right now?
2:31
SPEAKER_05: I'm curious.
2:32
SPEAKER_04: Not as much.
2:33
SPEAKER_04: Why not?
2:34
SPEAKER_04: Uh we're no longer ranked.
2:37
SPEAKER_04: What?
2:37
SPEAKER_04: What?
2:38
SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
2:39
SPEAKER_04: I that that is the appropriate level of outrage.
2:41
SPEAKER_05: Unbelievable.
2:42
SPEAKER_04: You know, anybody who says that only UCLA has the actors is is is wrong because this guy knew that and he sounds like he just learned.
2:49
SPEAKER_04: Spencer, that is remarkable.
2:51
SPEAKER_04: Uh remind me not great.
2:52
SPEAKER_04: Remind me not to play poker with you.
2:54
SPEAKER_04: Uh so here's what happened.
2:56
SPEAKER_04: We fell from top five to to top nothing overnight.
3:01
SPEAKER_05: That is um it's certainly not a product of our efforts, Justin.
3:05
SPEAKER_05: I think the show is every bit of what it's always has been.
3:08
SPEAKER_05: So how is that possible?
3:09
SPEAKER_04: Well, I emailed them to find out.
3:11
SPEAKER_04: Um, I think I said, what the no, I didn't say that.
3:14
SPEAKER_04: I said, hey, please please explain.
3:16
SPEAKER_04: And they said this this this entire email, quote, our policy has changed, and we now feature podcasts through our paid subscription plans.
3:27
SPEAKER_05: Um, little tangent here.
3:29
SPEAKER_05: Um I was just on another podcast being interviewed about flash trials, and um, these guys were um they're lawyers from uh you know, long time ago uh alumni of Loyola, and they send their congratulations to you and your victory.
3:42
SPEAKER_05: Um, but they were curious how they could make sure you don't win next year.
3:45
SPEAKER_05: Um and I said, Yeah, we we we we actually accept sponsorships of our of our competition.
3:49
SPEAKER_05: So it's sort of a similar kind of vibe, you know?
3:51
SPEAKER_04: I like that.
3:53
SPEAKER_05: Got a little get a bidding more going on.
3:55
SPEAKER_05: Okay, so uh this is a travesty, and we're not gonna stand for it.
3:59
SPEAKER_05: So, what should we do?
4:00
SPEAKER_05: I've given this a lot of thought.
4:01
SPEAKER_05: I think we have three simple options.
4:03
SPEAKER_05: Holy crap, there's the fingers right there, folks.
4:05
SPEAKER_05: Whoa, whoa.
4:06
SPEAKER_05: We should go to video.
4:07
SPEAKER_05: This is great.
4:08
SPEAKER_04: Simple option number one.
4:10
SPEAKER_04: We can do a GoFundMe.
4:12
SPEAKER_04: Tell people to stop donating to their favorite charities and start donating to us.
4:16
SPEAKER_05: That's great.
4:16
SPEAKER_05: We probably would need to promise that every dollar we got from that would you know go to FeedSpot, they would be deserving, of course.
4:22
SPEAKER_05: We want to make sure that all of the dollars get there, right?
4:24
SPEAKER_04: We can promise, we can promise, absolutely, that some of the money will go toward that eventually.
4:33
SPEAKER_05: Okay, okay, all right.
4:35
SPEAKER_05: Uh uh second finger.
4:37
SPEAKER_05: Let's go to the second finger.
4:38
SPEAKER_05: What's our what's our second option?
4:39
SPEAKER_04: Simple option number two.
4:41
SPEAKER_04: If we get Adam and Jared to start ranking legal podcasts, I I can see it right now.
4:45
SPEAKER_04: Adam's gonna tell everyone that every podcast is equal, and Jared will tell everyone to go ep themselves.
4:53
SPEAKER_05: Okay, that's a strong one.
4:54
SPEAKER_05: That's a definitely a strong option uh as well.
4:57
SPEAKER_05: Um, just out of curiosity, though, what what's the third?
5:00
SPEAKER_04: Which brings me to the third and final simple option Walk Up Melodia.
5:05
SPEAKER_04: Spencer, just imagine we thank Walk Up for supporting this podcast and our trial Epicus Community and our new subscription-based feed spot ranking.
5:13
SPEAKER_05: It would be hilarious to do that and also just be totally transparent about it, too.
5:19
SPEAKER_05: Two steps forward and two steps back.
5:22
SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, uh sure.
5:24
SPEAKER_05: Let me run that up the flagpole and um and and and uh we'll we'll we'll figure out if that's a possibility.
5:30
SPEAKER_05: Those were three options, each simple.
5:34
SPEAKER_05: Um I don't know if they're gonna work though.
5:36
SPEAKER_05: I don't know if they're gonna work.
5:38
SPEAKER_04: You don't know which one's gonna work?
5:40
SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, yeah, yes, that's fair to say.
5:43
SPEAKER_04: I mean, if you just want to sponsor it personally, we could we could try for the first time ever, fourth finger.
5:49
SPEAKER_05: We we've tried, right?
5:52
SPEAKER_05: I said we should take this guy out to dinner or something, you know, and uh you know, we've yeah, and that that never materialized.
5:58
SPEAKER_05: So now that it's so quid pro quo, it's so kind of clear.
6:03
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
6:05
SPEAKER_05: Man, thanks, thanks, Justin.
6:07
SPEAKER_05: And I know you did that not for the content of it, but on the principle, and I appreciate that.
6:12
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's right.
6:12
SPEAKER_05: Well, if you ask me, those rankings are broken.
6:15
SPEAKER_05: But you know what else, Justin?
6:16
SPEAKER_04: Uh what else, Spencer?
6:18
SPEAKER_05: I think we should break something up straight up in the training.
6:22
SPEAKER_05: I gotta get those keeping it.
6:23
SPEAKER_04: Keep it in, keep it in, Sam.
6:27
SPEAKER_05: Uh well, Justin, that's not the only thing broken around here.
6:30
SPEAKER_05: You know what?
6:30
SPEAKER_03: It's time for the break.
6:38
SPEAKER_04: We start in Texas with the best in Texas.
6:41
SPEAKER_04: I'd love to tease my Texas friends about this competition because it's a trial competition with no witnesses, no closing argument, and they act like it's a Super Bowl.
6:48
SPEAKER_04: But I have to admit, it's actually a very impressive competition.
6:51
SPEAKER_04: One of the only events with Voidire, VorDire! I was gonna say Vor Dire.
6:55
SPEAKER_04: Come on.
6:55
SPEAKER_04: Vor Dire.
6:56
SPEAKER_04: And every round has a real judge presiding and two at a two abono members as evaluators.
7:00
SPEAKER_04: So we will go to the results.
7:02
SPEAKER_04: The runner-up was Texas Southern, continuing their excellent start to the year, and the winner for the second year in a row, Texas.
7:09
SPEAKER_04: The best in Texas, Texas.
7:12
SPEAKER_05: Congratulations, folks.
7:13
SPEAKER_05: And I'm looking forward to having uh barbecue with uh Mike Golden on Wednesday, Justin.
7:17
SPEAKER_05: So there.
7:18
SPEAKER_04: Oh, it's nice that he's available for you now.
7:22
SPEAKER_05: In the past, he will have been.
7:23
SPEAKER_05: All right, we head to Philadelphia for Drexel's Battle of the Experts.
7:27
SPEAKER_05: Let's get to the semifinalists.
7:28
SPEAKER_05: They were Loyola and Stetson, finalist South Carolina winner for the seventh year in a row.
7:34
SPEAKER_05: Is that correct?
7:35
SPEAKER_05: Seventh year in a row?
7:36
SPEAKER_05: Holy crap, UCLA.
7:39
SPEAKER_05: Wow.
7:39
SPEAKER_05: Uh well, thank you.
7:40
SPEAKER_04: Uh, on top of the students who won individual awards, we want to shout out three students that my team saw and thought were really, really excellent.
7:47
SPEAKER_04: South Carolina's Chase Robertson.
7:49
SPEAKER_04: He closed in the final round.
7:50
SPEAKER_04: Cannot believe this is his first competition.
7:52
SPEAKER_04: Baylor's Daniela Castillo.
7:54
SPEAKER_04: We saw her in round one, her closing was outstanding.
7:57
SPEAKER_04: And Hofstra's Tyler Cavalier, who many are calling the New York Peter Jones.
8:02
SPEAKER_05: All right, let's uh let's talk future.
8:04
SPEAKER_05: Let's move from past to go to future and uh let's let's preview the all-star bracket challenge.
8:09
SPEAKER_05: Now, uh, Justin, why did you call this the largest fall competition in your very helpful preview at the beginning of this podcast?
8:15
SPEAKER_04: Well, thank you, Spencer.
8:16
SPEAKER_04: Uh I I think there's two competitions that have uh the largest fields.
8:21
SPEAKER_04: One is Premier, it has, I think, about 80 teams this year, but they're all competing at different sites and they don't then compete against each other.
8:27
SPEAKER_04: They're not they're not gonna be one premier champion.
8:29
SPEAKER_04: Each site has its own champion, and that's it.
8:31
SPEAKER_04: One and done because it's for new students.
8:32
SPEAKER_04: Uh, but the largest competition that actually has a single winner is All-Star.
8:36
SPEAKER_04: Uh, we have 64 teams competing this year across the country.
8:39
SPEAKER_05: Wow, I love that.
8:40
SPEAKER_05: Uh, and that takes a lot of doing and a lot of pitching in.
8:43
SPEAKER_05: Who's all helping host this thing?
8:45
SPEAKER_04: Ten different schools are helping to host Cumberland, Lewis and Clark.
8:49
SPEAKER_04: That's I know Ken and Lewis and Clark is one.
8:51
SPEAKER_04: That's one, yeah.
8:52
SPEAKER_04: That's for that's for you, Phil.
8:54
SPEAKER_04: Uh Loyal of Chicago, Mercer, Syracuse, Texas Southern, UMKC, South Carolina, UCLA, and St.
9:03
SPEAKER_04: Mary's, of course.
9:04
SPEAKER_04: I should also give a hat tip to Drexel who helped to write the case.
9:08
SPEAKER_05: Yes, you should, and I'm glad that you did.
9:09
SPEAKER_05: Um, so uh this has been around for a while now.
9:12
SPEAKER_05: All star started in the middle of the pandemic, I believe.
9:15
SPEAKER_05: But is is that right?
9:16
SPEAKER_05: How did it all get started?
9:18
SPEAKER_04: It started in 2020, uh, when the pandemic hit, uh AJ Belita de Luna had the idea of doing something grand and saying, you know, we're not just gonna do something um online that is satisfactory, we want it to be amazing.
9:30
SPEAKER_04: And so he organized a huge competition uh getting hosts involved around the country.
9:35
SPEAKER_04: And after everything returned in person, uh we decided to put it on pause and then bring it back.
9:41
SPEAKER_04: This is the second year of its return.
9:42
SPEAKER_04: So I think this is all-star number five.
9:46
SPEAKER_05: Wow, that is a a lot of all-star.
9:48
SPEAKER_05: I love it.
9:48
SPEAKER_05: Uh okay, I said bracket challenge.
9:50
SPEAKER_05: You said 64 teams.
9:51
SPEAKER_05: How do we winnow it down?
9:53
SPEAKER_05: How do we get one?
9:54
SPEAKER_05: Great questions.
9:55
SPEAKER_05: Oh, thank you.
9:55
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
9:57
SPEAKER_04: Uh so we have our regionals this weekend and next, three regionals this weekend, one next weekend, and each region has 16 teams, and they're gonna each produce two winners of the region that will go on to compete in person at national.
10:11
SPEAKER_04: So these regions are on Zoom, and then the nationals will be eight teams competing in person.
10:17
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
10:17
SPEAKER_05: Uh does that mean each region has what amounts to two brackets within them, two sub brackets, and you get a champion of each, or do you have one bracket and you have a the winner and the finalist both advance?
10:29
SPEAKER_04: Another series of great questions.
10:31
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
10:31
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
10:32
SPEAKER_04: So there'll be four preliminary rounds in each region, and at the end of the four preliminary rounds, the top four teams will advance to a playoff one versus four, winner goes to nationals, two versus three, winner goes to nationals.
10:42
SPEAKER_05: Oh, cool.
10:42
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
10:43
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
10:43
SPEAKER_05: So it is like two mini brackets at the end of the day, which is an awesome way to do it.
10:47
SPEAKER_05: Well done.
10:48
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
10:48
SPEAKER_05: Uh you gotta have a fact pattern to this whole thing.
10:50
SPEAKER_05: So what's a fact pattern?
10:51
SPEAKER_04: So over the summer, uh, Drexel and UCLA co-host a one-on-one college mock trial competition styled after Top Gun.
10:58
SPEAKER_04: Uh, we call it Trial by Combat.
11:00
SPEAKER_04: And we took this year's fact pattern, which was a one-on-one case based on Gone Girl, and styled it into a two-on-two case.
11:07
SPEAKER_04: So this will be the first time anybody's used it as two-on-two.
11:10
SPEAKER_05: Very exciting.
11:11
SPEAKER_05: Uh, I'm excited for some All-Star bracket challenge breakage results soon, aren't you?
11:16
SPEAKER_04: Very much.
11:17
SPEAKER_04: Well, we are very excited to have All-Star this coming weekend next.
11:21
SPEAKER_04: And so this week and next, we're going to be having on some folks associated with the competition.
11:25
SPEAKER_04: I mentioned this tournament was started by AJ at St.
11:28
SPEAKER_04: Mary's, but he now has even more help there uh at his outstanding program.
11:32
SPEAKER_04: Spencer, you had a chance to interview their new assistant director.
11:36
SPEAKER_05: Yes, I had the chance to sit down with Megan Diech.
11:38
SPEAKER_05: It was really great to check back in with her second appearance on the podcast by my account.
11:42
SPEAKER_04: Have a listen.
11:48
SPEAKER_05: Our guest is Megan Dietch, the new assistant director of advocacy for the national team at St.
11:54
SPEAKER_05: Mary's.
11:54
SPEAKER_05: She joins from the University of Houston Law Center, where she directed the ADR competition team through a decade of national championships and other big wins.
12:01
SPEAKER_05: She also won the Syracuse Innovation in Law Award this year for Empathic Edge, an AI platform she built for practicing negotiation, which we discussed on the pod.
12:09
SPEAKER_05: Megan, welcome back.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks for having me, Spencer.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
12:12
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's great to have you.
12:14
SPEAKER_05: So I think more than 10 years in Houston.
12:16
SPEAKER_05: What what made this the right time to make the move?
12:18
SPEAKER_01: So I no longer live in Houston.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's odd.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: I don't live in San Antonio either.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: It's just it is kind of an easier trip for me.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: Um but AJ reminded.
12:28
SPEAKER_05: Where do you live, generally speaking?
12:29
SPEAKER_01: So right now I live in Midland, Texas.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, but and that's my husband works in oil and gas.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: We're actually moving to Dallas.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we'll end up having an apartment, I think, in San Antonio.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: So kind of going back and forth between the two.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:43
SPEAKER_05: Well, you don't want to be too close to AJ.
12:45
SPEAKER_05: So I think that's actually a pretty good strategy.
12:47
SPEAKER_05: Um, sorry, I interrupted you as you were explaining.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, no, you're good.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: You're good.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: So AJ reminds me.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, he said something to me maybe in the last year and uh about, you know, hey, would you want to come and coach for St.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: Mary's?
13:01
SPEAKER_01: Because a few years ago I was looking at moving to San Antonio for work.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: And so we kind of talked about it on and off.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: And he reminded me that we actually first talked about this before COVID, which I just I couldn't believe.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: I was like, wow, so more than six years now.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: And he was like, yeah, so it just took six years to finally make the transition.
13:19
SPEAKER_05: Well, congrats on the new role.
13:21
SPEAKER_05: It is uh gonna be great at St.
13:22
SPEAKER_05: Mary's.
13:23
SPEAKER_05: How does it compare to what you were doing at at uh the University of Houston in terms of role?
13:27
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's definitely different.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: Even when I first started, AJ brought me on um really to coach uh on the DR team.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: They call it NDART's the national dispute resolution team.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then he said, okay, hey, let's go ahead and make you assistant director of advocacy.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: So uh I did used to coach mock trial.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: I was actually a mock trial kid myself.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: So it it's kind of fun to be back in that arena.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Moot court, I've mostly just judged before.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: I I really haven't coached competitions before.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: But I would say from the administrative side, it's it's still pretty much the same.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: It's not as heavy of a lift, I think, just because I really kind of the ADR program at University of Houston did exist before me, but we didn't have boards.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: We had maybe a team of like six students, then we ended up with over 30.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: So, right, there's just like a lot of administrative loads.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: So those are things I'm currently, you know, figuring out and taking over.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: But um, my love of spreadsheets, I think helps.
14:22
SPEAKER_05: Oh, that's gonna help you.
14:23
SPEAKER_05: That that'll get you ahead in life, I will say.
14:25
SPEAKER_05: Um so, so just to be clear for my sake, and so it's clear on the record, it's gotta be gotta be clear on the record, the uh the record of the podcast of some record.
14:34
SPEAKER_05: Um, what's so I mean it was all ADR at Houston, but now you're gonna be supervising all three branches and playing a direct role in all of them, all of them, I take it.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: Yep, that's correct.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm learning from AJ.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'll start teaching.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't going to start teaching there until next year.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: So I just came in coaching.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm assistant director, and now I believe I'll be teaching client counseling in the spring as well.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, so I think it's it's over all three of them.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: They have a board of advocates, which is a little bit different than University of Houston, um, but it's great because we've got, you know, the support of the students as well.
15:09
SPEAKER_05: So, what's gonna be the division of labor between you, uh AJ and Jason Goss and of course other folks?
15:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, my goal is to do whatever AJ tells me to do.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: Um whatever he wants me to do, I'm going to do that.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: And as far as coaches, I just don't want to step on anybody's toes.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: For me this year, I see it a lot of like learning, um figuring out if there are differences between like the St.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: Mary's way and the University of Houston way.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that especially where there's like organizational need, like, hey, let's getting get let's get spar set up.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, do we have coaches assigned to watch this spar?
15:44
SPEAKER_01: How are we getting feedback to the students?
15:46
SPEAKER_01: Those sorts of things.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't feel like I'm stepping on people's toes too much there as far as hey, maybe your students should do this in their opening.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm taking a step back there unless it's a team that I'm coaching, which right now I'm just finished coaching one or well, three teams at one competition.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: They were actually at Syracuse.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then other two students are competing uh with Houston this week or yes, this week.
16:09
SPEAKER_05: So you're busy right out of the gates.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: Yep, yep, yep.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: This last weekend we were actually in Austin from Wednesday to Sunday for Texabotas best in Texas.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: So we had the 10 law schools all over Texas where we do a Vor Dyer competition.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: We had over 450 jurors there, and the students get to practice really essentially voard dire and opening statements.
16:30
SPEAKER_05: Nice.
16:30
SPEAKER_05: I know AJ's done a bunch of work on that.
16:32
SPEAKER_05: Um, so in the announcement, I saw a couple things I wanted to ask you about.
16:34
SPEAKER_05: Um, the ABA representation or ABA uh relationship with the mediation competition.
16:40
SPEAKER_05: Um, sounds like that they're backing off.
16:41
SPEAKER_05: I mean, that's that's outside my bailiwick, but I'm curious about that.
16:44
SPEAKER_05: Um, and then there's also mention of a plea bargaining competition.
16:47
SPEAKER_05: But can you just like explain for the you know the trial folks like you know, this this what the issue is with the ABA's involvement in this mediation competition?
16:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: So the ABA annually, we typically have a few different DR competitions.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: We have ABA negotiation and ABA, ABA client counseling.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: Those are both both still happening.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: So ABA negotiation is in the fall, client counseling is in the spring, um, ABA mediation, it's gone back and forth before between like the law student division and the DR section.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: I think it's back with the DR section now.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: And really what happened was our uh ABA rep, Erica Zapeta, she is pregnant and will be out on maternity leave.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: And uh I think everybody pushed, they said, hey, like we we will step in, we need to do something with negotiation and client counseling.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: I I honestly think we all would have said the same thing for mediation as well, had we known, but I think that um the powers that be had decided that it was too much like work, especially with Erica while she's out.
17:47
SPEAKER_05: And so the ABA is taking a step back from the mediation competition that it played that role in.
17:51
SPEAKER_05: Is there are what's happening to fill that void, if anything?
17:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we um basically got a group together to discuss uh an alternative to representation and mediation and and really just replacement, I think, for this year.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: And hopefully, you know, ABA brings it back in future years, but we'll see.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, we discussed actually using what I had created at Houston, which is a triathlon, where you start with the client counseling round.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh the students basically learn from their client or potential client.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: They go into a negotiation round and then they end in a mediation round and then they have an advancing round.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Uh so we met with uh with a number of folks.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: It was a few months ago now.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: I know AJ sent out a survey that was to be submitted by the end of August.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: And I know that AJ and I were going to meet next week actually to talk about, hey, what is the timing of this?
18:40
SPEAKER_01: Um, we did just find out dates for uh ABA client counseling, which were a little bit earlier than normal.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: So that kind of impacts the schedule a little bit.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: But um, hopefully really this week or next week, we should be deciding and sending out, you know, something on the listserv indicating what the replacement will be, if any, which I feel confident that it will be.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm just curious to see if folks were okay with the triathlon or if they just wanted purely mediation.
19:06
SPEAKER_05: Nice.
19:06
SPEAKER_05: I'm glad to see perhaps folks like you stepping up to make that possible.
19:10
SPEAKER_05: Uh, how about the plea bargaining competition?
19:12
SPEAKER_05: What's what's going on there?
19:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: So Todd Berger with Syracuse, Ben Warren with Cumberland, and I had been talking for years about the fact that in DR there's no criminal competition, right?
19:23
SPEAKER_01: Which makes sense.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: And so we've been discussing for years now a plea bargaining negotiation competition.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: We're going to do this in the spring, but we're just beta testing it first.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: It will be virtual and we'll have six schools.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, I think we've got Syracuse, Cumberland, University of Houston, St.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: Mary's, University of San Francisco, and Stetson.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: So we got all six schools finalized last week.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: We'll be meeting later this week to just discuss like finalize the dates for it.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: I think it will be March 2027.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, basically, the way that that would work is the students we're saying kind of similar to Todd Berger's um, he has the transatlantic negotiation competition.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: He allows them to have teams of between two and four students.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: And that's because you could have, let's say you and I could do the first round, and then two more, two other people could do the second round, and then we could do the third round, or you could alternate, but it it allows more students opportunity to get practice in.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: Plus, when you do have competitions like Todd's tank, I think by the end of it, if you get all the way to the finals, it's like eight rounds.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: So you can become pretty exhausted.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: So you can have some relief there.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: We're doing it similar to that.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: We're saying that I think it can be teams of two to four.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, and in each round, it'll basically be two students, two students versus two students.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: Somebody will be the prosecution, somebody will be the defense.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, the first two rounds basically they swap.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: So if you're prosecution round one, you'll be defense round two.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: The third round, we're going to send them sentencing guidelines.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: So this will all be a fake jurisdiction.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, we're gonna give them sentencing guidelines that Todd will be creating, and then they'll negotiate that third round based on those guidelines.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: And then the advancing round, we will throw some sort of unique element or twist into it.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: Um, and we've already had a discussion too about all the kinds of things that we can do, evidentiary-wise, fact-wise, right, to make it more balanced.
21:17
SPEAKER_05: That's great.
21:18
SPEAKER_05: I'm glad you finally got Todd to play any role whatsoever in making a competition.
21:22
SPEAKER_05: This guy, you know, is just doing nothing up there, you know.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: I know, I know.
21:27
SPEAKER_01: Todd, goodness.
21:28
SPEAKER_05: Come on, geez.
21:30
SPEAKER_05: Although I I I, of course, kid, I didn't realize that transatlantic negotiation competition is tank.
21:36
SPEAKER_05: And is that what it's called?
21:37
SPEAKER_05: Like, you know, are you going?
21:38
SPEAKER_05: I'm going to tank.
21:39
SPEAKER_05: Is that what you would call it if you're like on the team?
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Yep, that's what we call it.
21:43
SPEAKER_05: That's awesome.
21:44
SPEAKER_05: That's good branding.
21:45
SPEAKER_05: Um, all right.
21:46
SPEAKER_05: Well, I wanted to finish by asking you about Empathic Edge.
21:49
SPEAKER_05: So this is what we talked about, oh, I don't know, a little earlier this year, uh, and another Syracuse Connection.
21:54
SPEAKER_05: It's what uh won you the Innovation Award.
21:57
SPEAKER_05: Um, just remind us what Empathic Edge is.
22:00
SPEAKER_05: And then to preview my next question, I'm just curious what the status is on it.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, thanks for asking about it.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: So it is an AI role play app that focuses on negotiation training.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: And I say negotiation, it actually also incorporates client counseling and interviewing.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: So basically, a student or user gets to um kind of like role play or spar like we would with our normal practices, but with an LLM.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, the so the AI is the counterpart.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: We also have multi-party, so you could even do like mediation rounds.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so as of right now, uh we have a design partnership going with Lewis and Clark.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: And so one of their clinics is uh using the app, and then we may be getting another clinic of theirs to use it as well.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing a demo this week um for a law firm based out of Houston.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: So they intend to uh prepare their intake team using it.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: So it's really that client counseling aspect.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: I use it in my client counseling class.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: Uh really, that's actually part of their scored client interviews, is they use that.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: So I'll be using that in the spring as well.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: And then um I've also, I know I told Todd I'm creating fact patterns for Syracuse so that they can practice for like ABA negotiation competitions.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: I've done the same with St.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Mary's.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: So when we just competed in uh Todd's NIL or name, image and likeness competition, it was over the weekend in Syracuse.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: I uh created role play scenarios for all of my students so that they could practice even when they didn't have like their partner or a coach to observe them.
23:29
SPEAKER_05: Uh I just gotta ask, and I don't know, had had you started other, well, you're certain your law firm, but I mean, any any uh thing, any other sort of tech related businesses before?
23:38
SPEAKER_05: Or was this your first, first, first one?
23:40
SPEAKER_01: This was my first one, yeah.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: Cause outside of this, I have um yeah, my law firm and then my mediation practice.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: And so, and now I have like a consulting company as well, but that's kind of an offshoot of Empathic Edge.
23:51
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I guess it's just interesting because I my my question is, I just wonder what it's like to be an entrepreneur in the tech space.
23:57
SPEAKER_05: And I understand I I I know you're doing this for a lot of reasons, right?
24:00
SPEAKER_05: Um, I'm sure that's one of them.
24:02
SPEAKER_05: But I'm just wondering what it's like to to be developing uh this entity um that's built on AI in the space of AI, in this reality we live in right now, where I mean it's terrifying, it's crazy, it's amazing.
24:16
SPEAKER_05: Um where two months from now, you know you could get them the amount of change you might have expected in five years before.
24:23
SPEAKER_05: And what's that like to kind of ride that kind of wildly unpredictable wave of how this technology changes under you?
24:30
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's scary, especially because more and more people now use like ChatGPT or Claude.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I use both daily.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, somebody else can figure out how to do this.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: In fact, masterclass, they do their own.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: It's it's different, but you can practice a negotiation, kind of like a difficult conversation with a boss or somebody, and they use different personalities, people like maybe Chris Voss or Mark Cuban.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then you can like call and kind of negotiate.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: I I've tried that out before.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: I will say where ours is just different is that I actually like coach this, teach this.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, I know in competitions what the rubrics are and like the judges' score sheets and ballots.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: And so we fed our LLM to take all of this information.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: So we we started with our programmers, I think over a year ago now.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's been a lot of fine-tuning.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Only recently, I mean, I typically have numerous meetings a week with like our graphic artist as well as our programmers.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: And recently I was like, hey, we just need to like let it sit and see how it works.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: Um, like just continue to use it, let people play around with it, and we're getting feedback now.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: So it's definitely scary.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: I just haven't seen anything yet that um I would say compares to it in terms of the actual like context.
25:44
SPEAKER_05: I know it's it's funny.
25:45
SPEAKER_05: It's like when it becomes easier for everybody everybody to make tools, there's a few options.
25:51
SPEAKER_05: You know, people may make their own tools, um, or they may pick pick amongst the various tools that are out there that are somewhat similar, which I don't know, call me sim a simple human here.
26:01
SPEAKER_05: Um, I hope that perhaps that actually weirdly makes it more human.
26:04
SPEAKER_05: In other words, like, well, this is Megan's, you know, uh tool that she's created in her system.
26:09
SPEAKER_05: I I know her, I know what she does.
26:10
SPEAKER_05: I'm therefore gonna go with that instead of Mark Cuban or or whatever.
26:14
SPEAKER_05: You know, I I I don't know.
26:15
SPEAKER_05: I wonder if there's almost a human part to to the AI that you are using.
26:19
SPEAKER_05: Who knows?
26:20
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I would say another difference too is um we do have like a custom scenario creator.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: So somebody could go in and create their own custom one.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: That's on like the upgraded version, but they have that option.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: So anything that's coming up, you could use it.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: What I've also been doing for any of our design partners, or honestly, just anybody who asks is hey, can you create some scenarios for me?
26:40
SPEAKER_01: Uh, even this firm this week, I think they were like, okay, well, you know, we don't know exactly what we would need.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, I do.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, like I've gone to their website, I know what they handle, I've done personal injury in the past.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: I was like, these are the scenarios that I recommend that I create for you.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: Let's do six right now.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: And then during the partnership, I'll do two more each week.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: And so they they do get things that are fresh.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, and if something comes up and they're like, hey, we have this new client objection, something that our staff needs to deal with, we we get to approach it.
27:09
SPEAKER_05: Well, it's very cool.
27:10
SPEAKER_05: I love checking in to hear how that's going.
27:12
SPEAKER_05: And of course, also congratulations on the new position, Megan.
27:15
SPEAKER_05: Thank you for joining us.
27:17
SPEAKER_05: It's it's great to get to chat with you.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it, Spencer.
27:25
SPEAKER_04: But that's not our only interview related to All-Star Bracket Challenge.
27:29
SPEAKER_04: Uh, we have on Joe Perini Abbott, or as she will be known uh in January, Judge Joe Perini Abbott.
27:36
SPEAKER_05: Indeed, great to have soon-to-be Judge Joe Perini Abbott on the show.
27:45
SPEAKER_05: Please introduce yourself and tell everybody what your title becomes in January.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: So I'm Joe Perini Abbott.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: I am currently the director of the advocacy center at Lewis and Clark.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: And January 4th, I take the bench to become a circuit court judge here in Multnomah County, which is the county that Portland or uh Portland, Oregon is in.
28:04
SPEAKER_05: Well, let's let's talk about that.
28:06
SPEAKER_05: So in May, you won the Multnomah County Circuit Court position five uh position uh on the bench with 64% of the vote against a prosecutor uh who had some time in the DA's office.
28:17
SPEAKER_05: You take the bench on January 4.
28:19
SPEAKER_05: What was it like to run for judge?
28:22
SPEAKER_02: I think I was incredibly unprepared for what it was like to run for office.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: It's something I hadn't thought about ever doing.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: Um, I was encouraged by friends to do it, and uh they quite honestly were like, it'll be easy.
28:37
SPEAKER_02: Um if anyone, if you're ever persuaded to run for something, I think it's an incredible experience.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: There were many things I liked about it, but don't ever listen to someone who tells you that it'll be easy.
28:47
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it fills every gap of time you will you have for it.
28:52
SPEAKER_02: But um but at the end of the day, there was something really magical about being at a farmer's market talking to just average people about why electing judges matters or going to a bike rally and talking to average voters.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: Just it felt like I got to go out and talk to the public about why courts matter in terms of our entire society.
29:11
SPEAKER_02: And that was actually a very fun piece of this whole idea of electing judges that I think we overlook, that there's this just civics education piece that can happen through the election process.
29:22
SPEAKER_05: I have knocked a lot of doors in my time, and that that's one part of it that I love.
29:26
SPEAKER_05: I've never got to do it as a candidate, but I've done it with candidates.
29:30
SPEAKER_05: I remember knocking doors with somebody just outside Sacramento, and her name was Jessica Morse.
29:34
SPEAKER_05: She's incredible.
29:35
SPEAKER_05: Um, and and you know, I'm I'm going down the list, like, here's a door you're supposed to go do in that one and skip these three.
29:40
SPEAKER_05: And she's going to every door.
29:41
SPEAKER_05: And I know that's not terribly efficient, but it's kind of what you're talking about.
29:44
SPEAKER_05: It's like, no, she that she wants to represent this community, all of it.
29:47
SPEAKER_05: Right.
29:48
SPEAKER_05: Just like and and have a conversation with any and everybody.
29:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:50
SPEAKER_02: And as judges, we're nonpartisan.
29:52
SPEAKER_02: It's not like and it's not like I'm gonna bring my politics into the courtroom or or I'm at least gonna do the best I can to check them at the door.
29:59
SPEAKER_02: So why shouldn't I want to talk to every possible voter who's out there?
30:03
SPEAKER_05: I love that.
30:04
SPEAKER_05: Now you spent your whole career in front of judges, federal defender in Milwaukee and then Perkins Cooey and Angelie.
30:10
SPEAKER_05: What made you decide that you wanted to be on the other side of it?
30:13
SPEAKER_05: I mean, what was the aside from your friends suggesting you do it?
30:15
SPEAKER_05: There had to be some instigating reason.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think what I what really drew me to the idea of being especially a state court trial level judge was the size of the impact you can have.
30:29
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, here, especially in academia, but I think in the in the dialogue of the community at large, right?
30:35
SPEAKER_02: We think so much about what's happening at the Supreme Court.
30:37
SPEAKER_02: We spend so much mental energy thinking about that.
30:40
SPEAKER_02: And obviously it's super important and impacts cases everywhere.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: But the truth is, an average Multnomah County judge has about a thousand cases on their docket a year.
30:48
SPEAKER_02: So when you figure every case has two parties, sometimes a lot more, that's 2,000 times a year you get to impact someone's life directly.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: Um, sometimes you may make them happy with the ruling, sometimes not, but whatever you're doing, you can make the scariest day of their life a little less scary by ensuring that your courtroom is welcoming, that they feel heard, that they feel understood.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: And that is just such a massive impact, I think, even beyond what you can have as an attorney taking one case at a time or as a law professor training the next generation.
31:18
SPEAKER_02: It it just seemed like a real opportunity to have direct impact on so many people at once.
31:25
SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
31:26
SPEAKER_05: And a related point is I know that you got uh some endorsements based in part on the fact of your background, uh, being a federal public defender.
31:33
SPEAKER_05: And I think the bench there was prosecutor heavy and somewhere of the view that um having somebody with your background would help to deepen the bench.
31:40
SPEAKER_05: How important is that, do you think, that a bench has folks from all backgrounds, especially on the criminal side?
31:45
SPEAKER_02: I think it's really important that we see people on the bench from all sides, criminal, um, both prosecutor and defense attorneys and civil attorneys.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: I think one thing that's really important that both um, I think in particular, plaintiff's lawyers bring, which I haven't been, but criminal defense lawyers bring, is that understanding of what that one-on-one client representation looks like and an understanding of just how raw of a moment it is for people in the courtroom.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: And I think having deep experience in those one-on-one client moments really can make for a great judge.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: Now, I think there's also a lot of space for needing strong former prosecutors on the bench and civil defense attorneys too.
32:24
SPEAKER_02: But I do think criminal defense and plaintiff's lawyers bring a unique perspective from that real person-centric representation that we've had to do through our careers.
32:34
SPEAKER_05: Well, let's talk about where you're coming from, which is Lewis and Clark and what you built there.
32:39
SPEAKER_05: You arrived in January 23 to build the advocacy center from nothing.
32:43
SPEAKER_05: It was funded by a non-lawyer, a computer forensics expert, done quite well, as I recall.
32:49
SPEAKER_05: Uh, and he wanted the people who are deposing him to be trained a little bit better.
32:52
SPEAKER_05: So uh three and a half years in, um, what exists now that that doesn't then?
32:58
SPEAKER_05: I mean, tell us about what's been built.
32:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we've been building at a fast and furious pace.
33:02
SPEAKER_02: And and candidly, there were there were pieces here, which I was I was coming into a school with already like an incredibly strong clinical department.
33:10
SPEAKER_02: So we had a real deep care for experiential learning.
33:14
SPEAKER_02: Um, but for the most part, our simulate like our triad classes, everything was done by adjuncts and was kind of disparate.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: And so what I was able to do was bring it together.
33:22
SPEAKER_02: And the minute we brought it together, we just realized what a thirst there was from the student body, and we were able to grow.
33:27
SPEAKER_02: I mean, when I started in 2023, we sent four students to the Tyler competition for mock trial every year, and that was it.
33:34
SPEAKER_02: And I think this fall alone, we're going to eight competitions, and I have a team of 26 students, and that's 26 students who made it through a competitive tryout process, right?
33:43
SPEAKER_02: So it's, I mean, just the thirst for it has grown so much among our student bodies.
33:48
SPEAKER_02: And I think we've we're seeing even more respect for it among our alumni.
33:53
SPEAKER_02: Our mock trial team has a hundred percent job placement rate at graduation.
33:57
SPEAKER_02: Um, we've really gotten connected sort of in the national community a lot more than we ever were before.
34:02
SPEAKER_02: Our MOOC courts are doing great.
34:04
SPEAKER_02: We've grown the classes we have.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: We now have an integrated evidence and trial advocacy class.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: We have an appellate advocacy class we didn't have before.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: So we've been really able to just grow offerings, both for competitive teams and seats for students who don't want to be on competitive teams, but to give them courtroom experience, deposition experience, oral advocacy experience across the board.
34:25
SPEAKER_02: Um, I think really strengthening that pipeline to what was already our very strong clinics to make our graduates just really hireable upon graduation, which is obviously the ultimate goal, to make good lawyers on the back end of all of it.
34:38
SPEAKER_05: I mean, the measures of success are multiple and the that success has come, you know, come quickly.
34:44
SPEAKER_05: I mean, in the first season that you're running the program, 24th and Gavel and out at NTC regionals, you uh beat that UCLA team, I think you've heard of them.
34:52
SPEAKER_05: They had a 50 plus 50 plus round uh street internationals.
34:57
SPEAKER_05: You've handled that.
34:58
SPEAKER_05: Has the has have you been surprised at how quickly the program has grown and the success has come?
35:03
SPEAKER_02: I think what I've seen is that um, I mean, I've been very uh obviously I'm very happy with how quickly success has come and how the growth has happened.
35:12
SPEAKER_02: But um I I don't know if I would say I've been surprised, but it's it's been incredible to see this wasn't on my back.
35:19
SPEAKER_02: This was on the back of like I sort of showed up and said, let's do this.
35:23
SPEAKER_02: And students and the Portland legal community and other faculty, like people just showed up, right?
35:29
SPEAKER_02: And so when you have that many people excited to do something, it's like I don't want to say success in a is inevitable because it's always a fight for success, right?
35:38
SPEAKER_02: But but it makes it a lot easier and a lot more fun.
35:41
SPEAKER_02: Um, we're just really lucky we're in a place where the legal community cares enough.
35:45
SPEAKER_02: If I start a new mock trial team, I can get a new coach for it.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: Like someone wants to coach it and and good, strong attorneys in the community, right?
35:51
SPEAKER_02: And it's been really incredible to see how I think I think one of the things that's been most incredible is to see how excited our lawyers are that this is happening at Lewis and Clark and finding ways to get involved and show up for our students is really the driver of success we're seeing.
36:06
SPEAKER_05: So what happens with what you and others have built?
36:09
SPEAKER_05: Are you still going to teach and help with the program?
36:12
SPEAKER_05: And who's gonna run the advocacy center now?
36:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we um we put out a job posting this summer and we are interviewing and hopefully by October we'll be in a position to announce who will be taking my place and give us a nice runway to for transition.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: Um and then, you know, my my goal is to I want to be able to fully turn it over this thing to someone.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: I don't want students still coming to me saying they're not doing it the way you would do it, because it's not, it's gonna become their program, right?
36:45
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I I I expect and want to stay involved in coaching forever, but I do also want to make sure that whoever takes my space wants me to do that and feels like they have control of the program and that I'm there as a coach and no, and I'm not this sort of forever shadow over it.
37:03
SPEAKER_05: Uh, does that mean you still get to take part in the annual champagne toast?
37:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean forever.
37:07
SPEAKER_02: I better be invited to the champagne toast forever.
37:10
SPEAKER_02: That's that's my one rule.
37:12
SPEAKER_05: For those who've forgotten, it's it's it's written into the gift agreement from from the donor that there's be an annual champagne toast, which sounds great to me.
37:20
SPEAKER_05: I am curious though, uh, you'd mentioned in the past how you know you you wanted to keep taking federal criminal cases that you were appointed for because you know it's hard to stand in front of students and and tell them how to do something if if you know you're several years out of practice.
37:33
SPEAKER_05: How is that going to translate in your mind when you're on the bench?
37:35
SPEAKER_05: I mean, you're gonna be seeing a lot of trials, but you're not gonna be trying them personally, but you still want to be coaching.
37:39
SPEAKER_05: How do you plan on navigating that?
37:42
SPEAKER_02: I think as a judge, you're in the courtroom every day, you're seeing good and bad advocacy, you're really connected to it still in a in a significantly meaningful way.
37:51
SPEAKER_02: I I know you're not presenting and doing it, but um, I think I think I'm not worried about the credibility as a coach if I'm if I'm not practicing, but I'm but I'm on the bench.
38:02
SPEAKER_02: But I do think it's important to, you know, keep public speaking skills sharp and trying to find places to sort of continue to at least build those skills.
38:12
SPEAKER_02: Um and yeah.
38:14
SPEAKER_05: Got it.
38:14
SPEAKER_05: Let's finish with some fun stuff.
38:15
SPEAKER_05: Uh last time you told us you can crochet the heck out of a blanket, but only in straight lines, and you run half marathons, but slowly any progress on either front.
38:24
SPEAKER_02: Um small progress on the crocheting.
38:27
SPEAKER_02: I can now do a a granny square.
38:30
SPEAKER_02: So like the flowers where you but but not good.
38:32
SPEAKER_02: They're my granny square.
38:34
SPEAKER_02: I am still a very straight line crocheter.
38:36
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
38:36
SPEAKER_03: That's two dimensions.
38:38
SPEAKER_02: Also take up um embroidery, like needle point.
38:41
unknown: Cool.
38:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, really, all of this is just a sign of my own ADHD that needs something to do.
38:46
SPEAKER_02: I need something to do with my hands while I watch TV or do anything else.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: Um no, I am still a very slow runner, but have another half marathon coming up in October.
38:58
SPEAKER_05: So we'll see how the time is.
39:01
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
39:02
SPEAKER_05: All right.
39:02
SPEAKER_05: Uh next, you went on record calling voodoo donuts a little overrated.
39:06
SPEAKER_05: I know you're not supposed to prejudge any of the cases that may come before you, but will that be the position of the court when you're on the bench?
39:11
SPEAKER_02: It's actually it's it's precedent at this point.
39:14
SPEAKER_02: There's a precedential decision.
39:16
SPEAKER_02: I I just bought donuts for all of my 1.0 class that I'm teaching right now, and it was Blue Star, not voodoo.
39:22
SPEAKER_05: Okay, wow.
39:22
SPEAKER_05: That's okay.
39:23
SPEAKER_05: It sounds like precedent.
39:24
SPEAKER_05: And finally, this is your third time on the show.
39:26
SPEAKER_05: After the first one, you posted on LinkedIn that your podcast debut was sadly not a true crime podcast.
39:32
SPEAKER_05: Have your expectations come down, or are we just still disappointing you?
39:36
SPEAKER_02: Um, I love being on this podcast, but I I would like to solve a crime with you, Spencer.
39:42
SPEAKER_05: It would be great.
39:43
SPEAKER_05: It would be great.
39:44
SPEAKER_05: Maybe we will.
39:45
SPEAKER_05: Maybe we will.
39:46
SPEAKER_05: Uh that we'll save that for the next time you're on the pod.
39:48
SPEAKER_05: But Judge Preeny Abbott uh to be, thank you so much for coming on the podcast again.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: Great.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me, Spencer.
40:00
SPEAKER_04: Spencer, that was a fantastic interview.
40:03
SPEAKER_05: Thank you very much.
40:03
SPEAKER_05: It was very nice to do it.
40:04
SPEAKER_04: Uh, you know, I I don't want to have to call out um Judge Joe, but I I feel like our I owe it to our listeners, and I I think I owe it to her, right?
40:12
SPEAKER_05: You know, she's whatever you're gonna do, do it.
40:14
SPEAKER_05: Yep.
40:15
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
40:15
SPEAKER_04: So uh at uh first chair in San Diego, uh John Bishop decided that he had a trivia competition uh the the night before things began.
40:25
SPEAKER_04: And he's like, Oh, Justin wanted me to have a social event and and you know, uh, you know, have some sort of game.
40:29
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, no, I didn't actually need you to do that.
40:32
SPEAKER_04: He's like, no, but I I want to.
40:33
SPEAKER_04: Uh so we had we had a uh a trivia mixer and he did a great job of he wrote all the questions himself, had three rounds of questions, they're really fun.
40:41
SPEAKER_04: Um, and he made sure that the teams were really mixed because uh we wanted everybody to get to know each other.
40:46
SPEAKER_04: So every team had to have two students from different programs and a coach from a third program.
40:51
SPEAKER_04: He said each each team has to be a three-person team.
40:53
SPEAKER_05: That's cool.
40:53
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, really cool.
40:54
SPEAKER_04: And um they had they had the competition and uh we we heard the winning team announced and we looked over and there was Judge Joe Priyan.
41:01
SPEAKER_04: So so congratulations, Judge.
41:03
SPEAKER_04: There we go.
41:04
SPEAKER_04: Victory, yeah.
41:04
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, uh big win, big win.
41:05
SPEAKER_04: And I wish I could stop there.
41:06
SPEAKER_04: I wish I could say, I wish I could say big win.
41:09
SPEAKER_04: Uh, but the the win was a little too big.
41:11
SPEAKER_04: Oh because when I looked over at the table, they had four people.
41:15
SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, yeah.
41:16
SPEAKER_04: Now, one might say they weren't trying to cheat that in fact people came in late and they were just making room so more people could, you know, participate.
41:23
SPEAKER_05: Rules are rules, man.
41:24
SPEAKER_04: You know, right.
41:25
SPEAKER_04: So uh I know we did break earlier uh in the in the episode.
41:29
SPEAKER_04: Um we are not announcing your trivia victory, Judge.
41:32
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I it has it been formally withdrawn.
41:34
SPEAKER_05: I you know.
41:35
SPEAKER_05: Uh yeah, let's do it right now.
41:36
SPEAKER_05: Speaking of yeah, okay, withdrawn, yes, okay.
41:38
SPEAKER_05: Uh let me just say something that's uh a little tangential.
41:41
SPEAKER_05: I was in Michigan this weekend, uh, and uh we went to uh the Chrysler Center, uh, where they play basketball and volleyball.
41:48
SPEAKER_05: Watch some volleyball, it was amazing.
41:50
SPEAKER_05: Looked up in the rafters and saw all the final four banners up there.
41:53
SPEAKER_05: And I was like, wait a minute.
41:55
SPEAKER_05: Um the Fab Five are none of those years.
41:58
SPEAKER_05: And I I remembered that uh the Fab Fives, uh their final four banner was uh taken down, right?
42:05
SPEAKER_05: They uh there's rule infractions that uh got C Web and what Jimmy Key?
42:10
SPEAKER_05: Uh who else is in there, Justin?
42:11
SPEAKER_05: Juan Howard?
42:12
SPEAKER_05: Jalen Rose.
42:13
SPEAKER_05: Jalen Rose.
42:14
SPEAKER_05: Who's the fifth one though?
42:16
SPEAKER_05: Less fab.
42:17
SPEAKER_05: Anyway.
42:18
SPEAKER_04: It's like f Fab Four and a fine fifth.
42:21
SPEAKER_04: Uh I I like the analogy.
42:23
SPEAKER_04: Are you saying that Judge Preney Abbott's uh banner was just taken down?
42:26
SPEAKER_05: Well, is that is it still up?
42:28
SPEAKER_05: I guess that's my point.
42:29
SPEAKER_04: Oh, okay.
42:29
SPEAKER_04: Well, so does that mean that um we need to give a banner to a new winning team?
42:35
SPEAKER_04: The correct winning team?
42:36
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
42:36
SPEAKER_05: I don't know who who got the correct banner from the Fab Four, but Fab Five, but okay.
42:40
SPEAKER_05: Anyway, yeah, yes, we should.
42:42
SPEAKER_05: It's time for the break.
42:46
SPEAKER_05: I I didn't know I was going to do it by myself.
42:48
SPEAKER_05: I think you're doing it by yourself really shows us who's carrying the load on that.
42:51
SPEAKER_05: But anyway, you know, I I just want the bass tones in there too, you know?
42:55
SPEAKER_04: I just I just want the students to be recognized.
42:58
SPEAKER_04: Uh we have from our our our fairly winning team from uh from Lewis and Clark.
43:04
SPEAKER_04: That's right.
43:04
SPEAKER_04: So Judge Pretty Abba tried to take the the right the rightful victory from her own student.
43:08
SPEAKER_04: Oh uh we have Mave Stargard, incredible performance.
43:11
SPEAKER_04: Uh we have from Stetson, Jacob Reichel, their top gun from last year.
43:16
SPEAKER_05: Wow.
43:16
SPEAKER_04: Amazing, amazing trivia competitor, um, and me.
43:19
SPEAKER_05: I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, yeah.
43:22
SPEAKER_05: I why would this matter so much?
43:25
SPEAKER_05: How could it possibly be that he would know the answers to these questions?
43:28
SPEAKER_04: Well, I knew I knew I knew the answers to the trivia questions too.
43:31
SPEAKER_05: Of course you did, just not as many as Judge Prince Abbott's team did.
43:34
SPEAKER_05: Of course they, you know, they're an extra person helping there.
43:36
SPEAKER_05: Um, but who's who's who's really keeping track anyway?
43:40
SPEAKER_03: Unscripted direct.
43:42
SPEAKER_03: We're keeping track.
43:45
SPEAKER_05: Is that a new catchphrase?
43:47
SPEAKER_05: Like uh yeah, we're keeping track, fair and balanced.
43:50
SPEAKER_05: No, no, we're keeping track.
43:52
SPEAKER_04: I I don't know.
43:53
SPEAKER_04: Uh because you made me do the break by myself.
43:55
SPEAKER_04: So you can do your catchphrase by yourself.
43:57
SPEAKER_04: All right, we got we got we got one more interview.
43:59
SPEAKER_04: Let's keep it going.
44:00
SPEAKER_04: Let's keep it going.
44:01
SPEAKER_04: You had a chance for a very important interview this week.
44:04
SPEAKER_05: Yes, I got to speak with HT Smith from Florida International University about a really important current challenge his school is facing.
44:12
SPEAKER_05: I believe Jules had had uh had talked about this on the listserv and certainly caught my attention.
44:17
SPEAKER_05: And it was a great excuse to get to talk to HT, completely interesting guy who's done a whole bunch of amazing things in civil rights through the years.
44:24
SPEAKER_05: And I'm so tempted to steal more of his time for a longer interview, but this was a fun, a fun short one.
44:29
SPEAKER_04: Here's HT.
44:35
SPEAKER_05: Our guest is HT Smith, founding director of the trial advocacy program at FIU College of Law and a partner in the first black-owned law firm to open its doors in downtown Miami.
44:45
SPEAKER_05: He served as president of the National Bar Association, chaired the Declaration of Rights Committee of Florida's Constitution Revision Commission, and chaired the 11th Circuit's Judicial Nominating Commission.
44:55
SPEAKER_05: The National Law Journal named him one of the top ten litigators in the country.
44:58
SPEAKER_05: The Dade County Bar voted him its top trial lawyer, and he's in the National Bar Association's Hall of Fame, the University of Miami, where he sits on the Board of Trustees as vice chairman, has named a building after him.
45:08
SPEAKER_05: HT, welcome to the podcast.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for inviting me.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm privileged to be here.
45:13
SPEAKER_05: Well, we are honored to have you.
45:15
SPEAKER_05: And the reason that uh we got the idea to ask you onto the podcast was Jules Epstein's uh email to the listserv about the op-ed that you wrote uh about FIU law.
45:26
SPEAKER_05: So let's start with the facts.
45:27
SPEAKER_05: FIU law has an interim dean.
45:30
SPEAKER_05: Who is he?
45:30
SPEAKER_00: The interim dean is Daniel Z.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: Epstein.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: He happens to be uh a civil lawyer for President Donald Trump, and he also happens to be the vice chairman of American America First Legal, and the president is Stephen Miller, who works in the White House.
45:47
SPEAKER_05: So aside from those items, uh what's a brief overview of his legal career prior to becoming FIU's law dean, interim dean?
45:55
SPEAKER_00: Basically, he has been uh involved in litigation, uh been with big law firms, et cetera, been uh working in the White House, et cetera, but he has no connections whatsoever to academia, to fundraising, or any leadership positions in organizations like the military or Fortune 500 Company or s or creating or being part of creating his own company.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: All the kind of attributes uh that you would look for in a leader of a law school.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: I, for one, do not believe that you need to be uh uh in academia to lead a law school.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: I believe a general who leads hundreds of thousands of men and women in in the military, especially in combat, can lead a law school.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: I believe that people who are great in fundraising and leadership in big uh not-for-profit organizations can lead a law school.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: I believe that leaders of Fortune 500 companies can lead a law school.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: However, Epstein has none of those uh qualifications.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: And he was found by the search and screen committee to be woefully unqualified to the extent that he did not even get an interview.
46:59
SPEAKER_05: So this begs the question: how did he get the interim dean job?
47:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, I can tell you that the search committee process uh started off as a normal fair process.
47:11
SPEAKER_00: I happen to be on the search committee for the inaugural dean.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: Florida International is only 23 years old.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: To get some context for that, the oldest law school in Florida is Stetson.
47:22
SPEAKER_00: And Stetson is exactly 100 years older than FIU.
47:27
SPEAKER_00: FIU right now, and I tell my trial team all the time, we're like teenagers.
47:32
SPEAKER_00: We're not even grown yet in terms of the law school and trial team and trial program environment.
47:38
SPEAKER_00: So I was selected to serve on the search committee.
47:41
SPEAKER_00: I had already submitted my uh retirement effective August 12th of this year.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: But I felt it was my duty to serve, and so I served.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: And on the first meeting, I looked around the room and said, Well, I'm I'm really proud to serve on this committee.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: We had six people from the law school, uh including one of those six was the president of the student bar association.
48:01
SPEAKER_00: The chair was a distinguished uh uh chairman of or dean of the medical school, and the other uh five four people were just distinguished members of different colleges: black and white, Jew and Gentile, Hispanic, non-Hispanic, male, female, people on the in the federal society, and people who were in the American Constitution uh society.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: I said, this is going to be wonderful.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: And so we started off.
48:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh the provost uh did what she does all the time and gave us our charge.
48:32
SPEAKER_00: This is what we want you to look for.
48:34
SPEAKER_00: And basically, she wanted us to align the strategic plan of the school in general, the university, FIU.
48:41
SPEAKER_00: We want the law school to be aligned with that.
48:44
SPEAKER_00: And here were the goals for us to reach by 2020 as a law school.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: And so we we started out.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we had a search committee, a search firm, like most uh people do, and uh we got 39 applications.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: And I can tell you, I I was shocked is not too strong a word to see the caliber of deans and military people and leaders who wanted to be dean of our law school.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: We were all saying, hey, the the law school has finally arrived.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so we took those 39 applications, Spencer, and we put had two tiers.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: Tier number one was the 20 people that we thought had some qualifications, and tier number two were the other 19 that put aside.
49:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, I had Daniel Epstein as number 21.
49:32
SPEAKER_00: By the way, at that time I did not know he worked in the White House in Trump's first administration, and I did not know that he had uh he was also vice president of America American First Legal because his application was so woefully unqualified.
49:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he okay, he was a lawyer, he had he had worked in big law firms, so I had him at least in a qualified group, but not I didn't, he wasn't considered seriously.
49:59
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't look further into him.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: We met and we discussed and debated the people who had applied, the applicants, and we came up with 10 that the top 10 that we would interview because we needed to do it over three-day period.
50:15
SPEAKER_00: And out of the top 10, based upon the group that we had, we said, wow, we're gonna get a fantastic uh uh candidate to leave the school because the law school has been on a meteoric rise to the top.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: Right now, nobody knows this.
50:30
SPEAKER_00: FIU, Florida National University College of Law, is the GOAT in bar passage.
50:35
SPEAKER_00: We've been in existence 20 years, and 10 years we've been number one.
50:39
SPEAKER_00: Michael Jordan didn't win 10 championships, Serena Williams didn't win 10 championships, Tiger Woods didn't win 10 championships, so we're the GOAT.
50:47
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, one year we were number one in the nation, Stanford was number two, and we've developed a good trial advocacy program, international law, etc.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: Back to the search.
50:56
SPEAKER_00: And so we bring the 10 candidates in and we we we interview them, and they are just as good or better than the paperwork.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: Very good in terms of their presence.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: The things we teach for trial advocacy, those are that's how we want people to be able to message, be the messenger for the school.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: We selected three.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: It was tough, but we finally settled on three because based upon the strategic plan of the university, the focus would be uh artificial intelligence, uh international, and we're Florida International.
51:28
SPEAKER_00: We definitely should be a leader international.
51:30
SPEAKER_00: And because we were, you know, when I started as an inaugural director of the tribal advocacy program, it was a little tough because I had if you start, we had no alumni, and we had what I would call a survivalist budget.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: And so uh here we have three fantastic people who met that criteria from the charge that we received.
51:55
SPEAKER_00: And so we all gave the the provost the three recommendations and we began shaking hands and hugging.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we did a great job.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: And the provost said, Whoa, wait a minute.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: In the history of the school, on rare occasions, there are failed searches.
52:10
SPEAKER_00: And we were looking around the room and we were laughing.
52:13
SPEAKER_00: This one won't fail.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: These are the people we'd have gone out and tried to beg to come here.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: But the provost said, I'll tell you what, will you all agree to stay impaneled as a uh search committee just in the unlikely event there would be a failed search?
52:29
SPEAKER_00: We all said, Yeah, we'll we would do it.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: And so we waited, and a month later we get there's nothing happened.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: We get an email said that the committee has been disbanded.
52:39
SPEAKER_00: I smelled a rat because they asked us to stay.
52:43
SPEAKER_00: We didn't even know that you could do that.
52:45
SPEAKER_00: And then we got uh uh uh an email advising that the president has decided to use her inherent authority to select the next dean without a search committee, without vetting by any other committee or any vetting by the law school faculty.
53:05
SPEAKER_00: Now it's something really stinky that's happening.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: And then after that, the the the president said announced that the new interim denimdan would be a man by the name of Daniel Epstein.
53:20
SPEAKER_00: I had forgot who he was.
53:21
SPEAKER_00: So I said, I've heard that name before.
53:24
SPEAKER_00: I go back to the panel and say, my my papers and said, wait a minute, this was a guy, one of the guys that we we said was unqualified.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: And then I began to research and find out he was President Trump's lawyer in the first term.
53:38
SPEAKER_00: He worked with Stephen Miller and that he had been uh the vice president of Stephen Miller's extreme right-wing MAGA legal organization called America First Legal.
53:50
SPEAKER_00: You do not have to be Sherlock Holmes to be able to figure out how Interim, uh uh Dean Epstein got the position.
53:59
SPEAKER_00: But guess what, Spencer?
54:01
SPEAKER_00: After he got the position, uh Judge Kathleen Williams in the Southern District of Florida issued a scathing opinion in the case that everybody knows about.
54:12
SPEAKER_05: I was gonna ask you about this.
54:13
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, what what did she find and and what did the order actually uh say?
54:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this this was the case that President Trump, President Trump's sons and the Trump organization sued the sued the Internal Revenue Service for$100 billion.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: Or was it$10 billion?
54:31
SPEAKER_00: $10 billion.
54:32
SPEAKER_00: $10 billion.
54:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
54:34
SPEAKER_00: $10 billion.
54:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
54:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
54:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, in that case, Epstein was his lawyer.
54:40
SPEAKER_00: Epstein's name was on the complaint, but he did not sign it.
54:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, he did not sign it because uh he probably put his name on it because I'm sure Trump wouldn't pay him if his name wasn't on the complaint.
54:51
SPEAKER_00: But he could not sign it because he was not a member of the Florida bar.
54:54
SPEAKER_00: He was not a member of the Southern District of Florida, and as we lawyers know the term pro Hawk Vichy, he had not gotten permission of the judge, Judge Kathleen Williams, to be a part of the case.
55:05
SPEAKER_00: So without him having any authorization to file this$100 million lawsuit, he gave permission to us to Blanche, who was Trump's former criminal defense attorney, and then acting attorney general to get a 90-day delay in responding to the complaint.
55:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, he didn't have the authority to do that.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: 109 days later, the case was settled for$1.776 billion.
55:34
SPEAKER_00: 35 former judges wrote to Judge Kathleen Williams and said, We've been following this case.
55:39
SPEAKER_00: And as for those of you who watched the uh O.J.
55:42
SPEAKER_00: Simpson case, uh the one one of the witnesses said, something wrong with this.
55:49
SPEAKER_00: And something was very wrong because here are the facts.
55:53
SPEAKER_00: Undisputed.
55:54
SPEAKER_00: The case was settled for$1.776 billion.
55:58
SPEAKER_00: The government never defended.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: There are no motions in the case.
56:02
SPEAKER_00: There are no requests for production of the case or any discovery.
56:06
SPEAKER_00: There are no depositions in the case.
56:08
SPEAKER_00: In 109 days, Epstein was able to get$1.776 billion of taxpayer money for President Trump to have an anti-weapon weaponization fund, which is correctly called a sludge fund.
56:23
SPEAKER_00: But even more than that, the statute of limitations had to run on the case.
56:28
SPEAKER_00: And so the judges, the 35 federal judges, former federal judges, Democrat and Republican, said, Judge Williams, you need to look into this.
56:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, Judge Williams set a hearing for a certain date, let's say a certain date, and said, Explain to me how President Trump can sue the agencies that report to him.
56:48
SPEAKER_00: How is their case in controversy?
56:50
SPEAKER_00: And explain to me these other things.
56:52
SPEAKER_00: Two days before the hearing, Epstein, representing the plaintiffs and Todd Blanche, representing the defendants, signed a settlement agreement, a so-called settlement agreement, and then dismissed the case and said, Judge, you have no jurisdiction.
57:07
SPEAKER_00: We've settled the case.
57:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, the the judges wrote to the judges had done research.
57:13
SPEAKER_00: They wrote and said, hey, normally the case is closed, but if there's a fraud on the court, you can open it up to look in the fraud.
57:19
SPEAKER_00: And that's what she did.
57:21
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, she issued a 56-page page opinion, basically stating one, that the case was filed for uh a purpose that was a wrong uh improper purpose, and that the case was filed to manipulate the judicial process.
57:39
SPEAKER_00: She sanctioned Epstein now on a one-year ban that he cannot practice in the Southern District of Florida.
57:46
SPEAKER_00: The Southern District is located, the law school is located in the Southern District.
57:51
SPEAKER_00: Law students are clerking in the summer for federal judges in the summer district, southern district.
57:57
SPEAKER_00: Law students are clerking for law firms that are practicing in the summer, southern district, and the dean cannot show his face in the courthouse for a year.
58:05
SPEAKER_00: Now, how is it, Spencer, that we in the law school at Florida International are going to instill the core principles of ethics, professionalism, and civility when the dean of the law school, interim dean, is the poster boy for ethical corruption.
58:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that it's possible.
58:25
SPEAKER_05: You've you've you've uh you've pre-saged some of my questions, but I have to ask you one, uh when you learned that Daniel Epstein had been appointed the interim dean after this sort of month hiatus, which was sort of unclear to you why that was even happening, um, and then you had to sort of do your investigative work um uh to figure out why.
58:46
SPEAKER_05: Was there any pre-existing connection between the Trump administration and FIU, or was this like totally out of the blue to you that this would even happen?
58:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh well, it was totally out of the blue, but there has been a hostile takeover of all public universities in Florida by Governor DeSantis.
59:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
59:04
SPEAKER_00: If you look at the presidents of all of the universities uh in Florida, there are people who are politically connected to MAGA or to DeSantis personally.
59:15
SPEAKER_00: And heads of the they were in the legislature.
59:18
SPEAKER_00: They were uh people who were lobbyists uh for the Republican Party.
59:23
SPEAKER_00: There were people who like Epstein, who uh worked in the White House.
59:27
SPEAKER_00: So I wasn't surprised that it was done.
59:30
SPEAKER_00: I was surprised because the process started off fairly, fairly, and it was corrupted in the middle of the process.
59:37
SPEAKER_00: That's what surprised me.
59:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, my alma mater is Florida EM, which is a historically black college, and our president what was uh a person who was uh connected politically uh to DeSantis.
59:51
SPEAKER_00: So we were not surprised about that.
59:53
SPEAKER_00: And so this is awful, really awful.
59:56
SPEAKER_00: And and so I met when I found out about it, I asked for a meeting with the president.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_00: And she surprised me.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_00: She surprised me.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_00: She met with me along with uh the the head of the board, the chairman of the board of trustees and the provost.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_00: And basically, well, I basically you know told them what I told you and said, you know, that you broke my heart because you employing me, basically you would sit.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_00: I thought that meant that you trusted me, that you respected me, that you respected my time, that you respected the fact that I had integrity to make a selection on a recommendation that was based upon merit and not based upon any other considerations.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_00: And then you turn around and take all of the hard work.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm not speaking for anybody else on the other ten people, but you took our hard work and threw it in the trash.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_00: And after telling us that if you did not select one of the three, that you would bring us back and finish the process.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, you not only do you not bring us back, but you don't allow anybody, any entity at the law school or any other place in the university to vet.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_00: And then you told us you trusted us.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_00: We told you Epstein was unqualified, woefully unqualified.
1:01:09
SPEAKER_00: And after the fact, after he was unqualified and you selected him anyway, Judge Kathleen Williams said that he was corrupt.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_00: She sanctioned him pursuant to Rule 11.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_00: And right now, as I sit here talking to you, Madam President, he is banned from practicing law in the Southern District of Florida.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_00: Here, Madam President, where your university is located.
1:01:31
SPEAKER_00: And I ask you to put him on administrative leave.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_00: Anybody else with that hanging over their heads will be placed on administrative leave.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_00: He's appealed to it.
1:01:40
SPEAKER_00: Give him a chance to clear his name.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_00: If he clears his name, then that's that's your decision.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_00: But until then, this is really damaging to the university's reputation.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_00: What was the response that you got?
1:01:51
SPEAKER_00: Her response, well, I've talked to people uh in the community and they think this is a good idea.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_00: Plus, the Miami Herald came out with an article said it's a good idea because he has such great connections with people in Tallahassee, with people in DC, and with big law firms around the country.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_00: And he can probably raise a lot of money.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: My responses were one, he has not, he's at another law school in Florida right now.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_00: He's never raised a dime.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_00: He never raised a dime for the law school that I mean the university.
1:02:23
SPEAKER_00: He's never raised any money for his law school.
1:02:27
SPEAKER_00: He's never, so there's no indication.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you, Madam President, would you hire him in your development department with his resume that he's never raised money before?
1:02:35
SPEAKER_00: Number two, let's assume he can raise a lot of money for the law school.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_00: Let me say to you this, say this to you, Madam President, with great respect.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_00: Money cannot give you a good name.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_00: Money cannot remove the stain and stench from his name and by reference by yours too.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_00: Because you appointed him.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_00: You did not know of the stench of corruption when you appointed him.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_00: You know now.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_00: And you owe it to your high, highly respected and rising law school to put him on administrative leave and not have this stench infect the school because the longer the stench is there, the harder it is to get out the odor.
1:03:15
SPEAKER_05: Now, stench of corruption, that's the name also of the op-ed that you penned in the Miami Herald.
1:03:20
SPEAKER_05: Um, why did you why did you take it to the Herald?
1:03:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, because it's our local newspaper.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_00: It's because it's the paper that most people read.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I also it's also in the Daily Business Review of the Business People and the Lawyers Read.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_00: It's also in the um ABA journal that all the lawyers in America and judges of America read.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_00: It's uh in the obviously I had to put it as a black man, I had to put it in some black period articles too.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_00: The South Florida Times, uh uh it's gonna be in the West Side Gazette and the Miami Times.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_00: Look, I take no pleasure at all at exposing the political interference with the search process, and I take no pleasure in exposing the corruption that a federal judge had identified.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_00: And there's no credibility issues here.
1:04:09
SPEAKER_00: What's in the case, what's in that court file, and what should be, but's not in the case file, is a basis alone for you to conclude that this was collusion between Trump's civil lawyers representing the plaintiffs and Trump's former criminal defense lawyer, acting attorney general representing defendants, who never defended the case.
1:04:32
SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of lawyers that are listening to this right now and who will listen to it in the future.
1:04:37
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had a case, a regular car crash case, that you were able to get a settlement, let's say of$100,000, filing no motions, no discovery, no depositions, nothing.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_00: And he can get$1.776 billion in the and how many of you won a case, got a settlement when you filed after the statute of limitations?
1:04:59
SPEAKER_00: How many of you got a case where you asked for a lot of money and the other side did not defend?
1:05:05
SPEAKER_00: No way.
1:05:06
SPEAKER_00: This is United States of America.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_00: No claim of immunity, no claim of of uh of uh qualified immunity, no claim on the statute of limitations running, no papers filed at all.
1:05:20
SPEAKER_00: If that that's one of the biggest frauds on the court in my time as a lawyer, and that's 53 years.
1:05:27
SPEAKER_05: What's the response been from the university, faculty, students, public to your to your writing?
1:05:33
SPEAKER_00: From the from the uh leadership of the university to cricket's I think they don't they do not know what to do because this is it's obviously wrong and it's even easily provable.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you start off with the fact that you excuse me, sir, excuse me, attorney, you must be the greatest lawyer in the history of the world.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_00: You got$1.776 million dollars without filing a piece of paper in a case where.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: Statute of limitations run without signing the complaint, without getting permission to be in the court.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_00: You got it, you got it.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_00: No other lawyer has been this great.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_00: It's collusion.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_00: It's obvious collusion.
1:06:11
SPEAKER_00: But you know, he's Trump's lawyer.
1:06:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, he's Stephen Miller's vice president of America First.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_00: And so uh, you know, I said he was a DEI hire, didn't earn it, you know.
1:06:25
SPEAKER_00: So he's think about it, he's appointed.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_00: Is that any worse than the appointment of Bondi or Patel or Higgs or the president himself?
1:06:37
SPEAKER_00: None of them earned it.
1:06:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Trump earned it in the sense that he won the election.
1:06:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I gotta, I gotta take that back.
1:06:43
SPEAKER_00: He won the election fair and square, even though he will not admit when he lost the election.
1:06:48
SPEAKER_05: So how long will Daniel Epstein be the interim dean, or is interim just like a uh fig's leaf and it's actually just he's the dean?
1:06:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well he well, one of the reasons that I think they appointed him interim dean, because the dean's position was open.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_00: We did not have a search committee for an interim dean.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
1:07:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think they kind of put the fig leaf on, figuring that we know they but they they knew that there was some problems out there with the case, but the judge had not made a decision.
1:07:17
SPEAKER_00: And so they put the fig leaf on because, you know, you can easily remove the fig leaf.
1:07:22
SPEAKER_00: But I think I do not know this.
1:07:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't know whether the White House or Miller or anybody's putting pressure on them.
1:07:29
SPEAKER_00: But I just know that they're in what I call a mega lemma.
1:07:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, we normally deal with D lemma.
1:07:36
SPEAKER_00: A mega lemma is one big hell of a problem.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_00: But for the universe, for the law school and for this fine young law school and for the universe itself, for the president's reputation and the provost's reputation, I hope that they have the courage to do the right thing.
1:07:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, and you know, we're not asking them to do anything that would prevent them from saving face.
1:07:59
SPEAKER_00: We're not saying fire him.
1:08:01
SPEAKER_00: We're not even saying don't pay him, put him on administrative leave, which would happen to anybody else in the law school who was not President Trump's lawyer.
1:08:10
SPEAKER_00: And then give him a chance to clear his name.
1:08:12
SPEAKER_00: Let him get paid.
1:08:14
SPEAKER_00: Clear his name, clear his name, then it's your decision whether the stench has been removed in terms of corruption and he's qualified enough for you.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_00: He's not qualified enough for the search committee, but if qualified enough for you, fine, put him back in there.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_00: So I hope that the president uh will really.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_00: I believe that she look, I put, I've always said she loves the FIU.
1:08:36
SPEAKER_00: She does.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_00: She's a double FIU graduate.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_00: She, her, her children graduated from FIU.
1:08:43
SPEAKER_00: She loves the school.
1:08:44
SPEAKER_00: There's no doubt about that.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying there's pressure on her.
1:08:47
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say that, but I don't think she'd have made this decision without external forces.
1:08:52
SPEAKER_00: And her history has shown she's never done it before.
1:08:56
SPEAKER_05: Well, HT, thank you for joining on the podcast and for speaking truth to power.
1:09:00
SPEAKER_05: Please keep it up.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_05: Your students, your community, and your university are the better for it.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
1:09:05
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me and keep up the good work.
1:09:07
SPEAKER_00: Bye.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_04: Well, that was a great interview.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_05: Oh, thanks.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_04: All right, Spencer, we're gonna turn to our mailbag.
1:09:18
SPEAKER_04: This week's question is potentially contentious.
1:09:21
SPEAKER_05: Ooh, potentially contentious.
1:09:25
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, okay.
1:09:25
SPEAKER_04: You started the episode with pernicious.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_04: Get out of here.
1:09:29
SPEAKER_04: Uh if a school is competing in their own tournament, should their alums ever be allowed to judge their own school's trials?
1:09:37
SPEAKER_05: Spencer?
1:09:38
SPEAKER_05: Ooh.
1:09:39
SPEAKER_05: Ooh.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_05: That is a that is a potentially contentious issue there.
1:09:43
SPEAKER_05: I mean, I think best practice is that you wouldn't compete in your own tournament.
1:09:48
SPEAKER_05: That that is a preferred practice.
1:09:49
SPEAKER_05: I understand that's not the hypothetical.
1:09:51
SPEAKER_05: I'm just laying the groundwork for my further answer.
1:09:53
SPEAKER_05: I I I it's a little like I don't know how you I don't know how the rule could be against that, because if the team is running the competition and they've decided that they are going to compete in it, they can also decide whoever they want is going to judge.
1:10:03
SPEAKER_05: So we would be kind of threading a bit of a needle here.
1:10:06
SPEAKER_05: Um I think if you're hosting the competition and you are having your team compete, you absolutely would not want to have them judged by your own alumni.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_05: I think that would be something you would want to avoid for all reasons, including any appearance of some propriety.
1:10:20
SPEAKER_05: Should it be the rule?
1:10:21
SPEAKER_05: Um again, I don't know how it could be a rule, but I think it is by far a best practice for everybody involved, if indeed the team needs to compete in that competition.
1:10:30
SPEAKER_05: I understand the reasons for that too.
1:10:31
SPEAKER_05: Um so my answer is I don't know how we could make it a rule.
1:10:33
SPEAKER_05: Well, I mean I think it should be one.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_04: In terms of whether we could, presumably that would be the case at a tournament where the school is hosting on behalf of an organization, like on behalf of Tyler or on behalf of AAJ.
1:10:44
SPEAKER_05: Oh, it's broadened out, sure.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_04: Or on behalf of TOC.
1:10:47
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:10:48
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:10:48
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
1:10:49
SPEAKER_05: That should be the rule.
1:10:50
SPEAKER_05: That should be the rule.
1:10:50
SPEAKER_05: I mean, although it's unusual that you would compete in your own NTC regionals if I can continue being annoying about this.
1:10:56
SPEAKER_05: Um, and certainly I've, you know, when we hosted TOC, we didn't compete in it.
1:11:00
SPEAKER_05: And I know that there's reasons why that you can do that now.
1:11:02
SPEAKER_05: But I, but yes, if you're going to, no, I do not think you should allow be allowed to um have your own alumni judge um in the context of one of these open competitions or other competitions you're hosting on behalf of somebody else.
1:11:14
SPEAKER_05: As for your own competition, it'd be a great idea, but can't make the rule.
1:11:17
SPEAKER_05: Long-winded answer, Justin.
1:11:19
SPEAKER_05: I think I covered all the territory.
1:11:20
SPEAKER_05: What did I miss?
1:11:20
SPEAKER_05: You did great.
1:11:21
SPEAKER_04: You did great.
1:11:22
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, thanks.
1:11:22
SPEAKER_04: Uh I I I I agree almost 100%.
1:11:25
SPEAKER_04: I think that in a perfect world, uh, a school would never compete in its own tournament.
1:11:30
SPEAKER_04: Um, I think that because of budgetary constraints, that it's sometimes not possible.
1:11:34
SPEAKER_04: Like I'll speak on behalf of my school.
1:11:36
SPEAKER_04: I mean, one of the reasons why we will host regional sometimes is to save the money from traveling.
1:11:41
SPEAKER_04: Like we just don't have the the budget to go to extra things.
1:11:44
SPEAKER_04: And if we did, we would we would do that.
1:11:46
SPEAKER_04: Um but in a world where a school is going to compete at an event that they are hosting, uh, I think it's really important to make sure that the judge assignment is not just fair, but appears fair.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_04: Because once you once once there's a loss of confidence in in who's judging and the the fairness, then that really reduces the confidence in the outcome.
1:12:07
SPEAKER_04: Um so I I think I would I would say there's different levels of who should never be judging those trials.
1:12:12
SPEAKER_04: I mean, the the inner circle of of people who should not be judging a school's trials are their trial team alums uh of any recent vintage, um probably ever.
1:12:22
SPEAKER_04: Uh and then next next down from that, we're talking recent alums.
1:12:26
SPEAKER_04: Um, and then I I I I wonder though, at the margins, I mean, for example, at Berkeley, suppose you had somebody who graduated in 1995.
1:12:34
SPEAKER_05: Right.
1:12:34
SPEAKER_04: Realistically, that person has no connection with your trial team, right?
1:12:39
SPEAKER_04: They weren't on your trial team.
1:12:40
SPEAKER_04: You probably didn't have a trial team in 1995.
1:12:42
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:12:42
SPEAKER_04: To the extent that anybody was doing trial out classes, they're taught by other people.
1:12:46
SPEAKER_04: There was no sort of clear Berkeley method that was being passed down from generation to generation.
1:12:51
SPEAKER_04: And those folks, to the extent they were doing trial team, it was under completely different leadership, probably had no leadership.
1:12:56
SPEAKER_04: So that's really different than a school with a historical um trial training method.
1:13:02
SPEAKER_04: And I don't mean that those schools are doing anything wrong.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_04: In fact, it's because they're doing so many things well that they have that legacy of technique.
1:13:09
SPEAKER_04: Uh, but I think it's probably different uh depending on the school.
1:13:12
SPEAKER_04: That being said, the safest method is just to try to have no alums if possible on your panel.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_05: Uh I'm looking at the envelope here and it it says JBB from SoCal.
1:13:22
SPEAKER_05: Oh.
1:13:23
SPEAKER_05: Sent this in.
1:13:24
SPEAKER_05: So isn't was it easy to help you to like just talk it through?
1:13:27
SPEAKER_05: I mean, what was the like why you know?
1:13:29
SPEAKER_05: That's kind of weird, right?
1:13:30
SPEAKER_04: That that question was not from me.
1:13:31
SPEAKER_05: Oh, it wasn't.
1:13:32
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
1:13:32
SPEAKER_05: Got it.
1:13:32
SPEAKER_05: Yep, got it.
1:13:34
SPEAKER_05: Yep.
1:13:34
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:13:35
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
1:13:36
SPEAKER_05: Well, whoever, whoever sent it in, thank you very much for that very insightful question.
1:13:40
SPEAKER_05: We appreciate it.
1:13:41
SPEAKER_04: We do.
1:13:42
SPEAKER_04: Good luck to the 48 All-Star teams competing this weekend and 16 competing the weekend after.
1:13:46
SPEAKER_04: Uh, we will see everybody next week.
1:13:48
SPEAKER_05: See you folks.
1:13:48
SPEAKER_05: Good luck.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_05: Unscripted Direct is a production of Justin and Spencer.
1:13:53
SPEAKER_05: We're mixed and edited by the Sam Chase.
1:13:55
SPEAKER_05: If you're not on the lister but want to get our blast email each episode, sign up at www.unscripteddirect.com.
1:14:02
SPEAKER_05: Follow us on social media as follows Instagram.
1:14:05
SPEAKER_05: We're at unscripted direct.
1:14:07
SPEAKER_05: Facebook is facebook.com slash unscripteddirect.
1:14:10
SPEAKER_05: And Twitter is at unscripted.