From Prosecutor to Defense Attorney: Our Story

00:00:17:24 – 00:00:40:15

Welcome to this week’s edition of Now We Defend. Yet again. I am not TL. Last three weeks have been a little bit rough for attendance here on the Now We Defend podcast. We’ve been two out of three for the last three weeks here. Yeah, TL is once again out of town this week. I was out last week, so it’s just Justin and I again.

00:00:40:15 – 00:01:02:07

And so we’re we’re going to we’re going to cause a little bit of mayhem here with the, the podcast today. Yeah. So Justin and I had talked about this and we wanted to kind of keep it light this week again. And we have we’ve talked about this before and just as an idea for an episode. So the intention was always kind of to do this.

00:01:02:07 – 00:01:39:10

But with TL being gone, we figured we would keep things pretty late today and we would just kind of talk a little bit generally about like the legal profession, what got us into law, how we ended up kind of where we are here at at Kearney Law and give a little bit of a backstory about ourselves. I know TL probably wants to do this as well at some point, so we’ll have to maybe do like an addendum or something to this episode to give you a little bit of insight into into him and his perspective as well, because we’ve it or not, I mean, the stuff that we’ve been through shapes us as attorneys.

00:01:39:12 – 00:02:02:08

Absolutely. So everything that brought us to this point influences the way that we look at cases, the way that we talk to people, the way that we talk to officers, to opposing counsel, judges, all of that. So it is relevant. It’s not necessarily like we’re the most interesting people in the world. That’s not why we’re doing this. Most people maybe won’t even care about this episode.

00:02:02:10 – 00:02:20:27

But we’ll try to keep it a little bit interesting and tell some stories along the way this week so that we have, you know, a little bit of a picture about who we are kind of as people and how that that shapes us as attorneys. So, Justin, why don’t you lead us off here? So when did you go to law school specifically?

00:02:20:28 – 00:02:44:13

Yep. So started law school in 2016. Weidner Commonwealth, where honestly, a lot of attorneys in this area, central PA and I think a decent portion of Pennsylvania as a whole, you go to law school. That’s where I went. I did go there too. I think he did. You know, I really don’t not sure feel like for some reason he went to like temple or something.

00:02:44:15 – 00:03:04:21

You know, he’s he’s a, he’s, you know, one of those overachieving types. No, I think for me, you know, picking Weiner was was an easy choice. I’m from northeast PA, so about an hour and a half, two hours north of here. And it was close to home. And I wanted something where I could be close to home.

00:03:04:21 – 00:03:31:13

I went to Bloomsburg for undergrad, which was like 45 minutes from where I grew up. So I wanted something close to home because I’m pretty close to my family. And I mean, they gave me a decent amount of scholarship money. And it’s a small school, as we know. And I just think that environment, because of how rigorous and stressful law school can be, being close to home and also having, you know, smaller classes and just a smaller campus was something that was important to me.

00:03:31:13 – 00:03:49:28

So and so, I mean, you mentioned that you went to undergrad in Bloomsburg before going to law school. What were you I mean, did you go right from high school to to undergrad and then to law school, or did you? So I graduated from Blum in 2014 and then took two years off and essentially wasn’t sure what I was going to do.

00:03:50:01 – 00:04:07:28

I did criminal justice as a major in undergrad, which honestly pretty useless for most things. I mean, I don’t want to say useless, but you know, you are kind of constrained to what you can use that for it. Obviously. You know, you can go do a number of other things, but I did work in a secure juvenile facility like right out of college.

00:04:07:29 – 00:04:28:00

And I was, you know, a 22 skinny white kid dealing with kids that were 16 through, I think it went up to 21 from Philly, Baltimore that obviously they’re in a secure youth facility. So pretty serious stuff. And it took a while to get some respect there. But then also just I was working overnights. There’s mandatory overtime and there’s just too much.

00:04:28:02 – 00:04:48:14

So I kind of bounced around. I worked in restaurants my entire life from the time I was 14 until I graduated law school. So I went back to the restaurant industry, and I worked there all through law school whenever I would go home. But yeah, really, it came down to the fact that about two years after I graduated, I had no idea what I was going to do.

00:04:48:16 – 00:05:11:27

Law school had always been in the back of my mind, and my dad kind of kicked me in the but a little bit to like, get my stuff together. And that’s ultimately how I ended up there. It’s I think it’s amazing because there’s some parts of your story that kind of line up with, with my path to, to law school because, I mean, the decision ultimately to go to law school, it was made by me and it was made by you.

00:05:11:27 – 00:05:34:13

But there were people around us. Yes, that were kind of like, you should do that. Yeah. And that was that was the same thing with me. I mean, I went from high school to undergrad, and I was a terrible student in undergrad and really in high school, too. I didn’t try very hard. I was never really focused on studies.

00:05:34:13 – 00:05:55:16

So I definitely underperformed in undergrad, in high school because I just didn’t try. I was the kind of person, I think, that always was able to apply minimal effort and still get like B pluses. And so I just skated. And so I’m always embarrassed whenever people tell me like or like I meet somebody and they’re like, oh yeah, do you remember me from high school or college?

00:05:55:16 – 00:06:20:16

I’m always like, oh no. Like, those were not my proudest days, I don’t think. And so, like, I had wasted a lot of time in undergrad and I felt coming out of undergrad, I felt like I really hadn’t made the most of the time. So at the time, the military was really appealing to me. I had a lot of relatives that had served in the military, and I was particularly close with my grandfather.

00:06:20:19 – 00:06:44:01

He was a World War II veteran. I had talked a lot with him about his military experiences, and so from undergrad, I actually enlisted in the Navy, was not an officer. And that was a common question that I that I got and I did five years active duty, and there were a lot of things that contributed to my decision to leave the military.

00:06:44:01 – 00:07:06:08

I had never really planned on making a full on career out of it, but I got to a point where I kind of just didn’t like being in the military anymore, and it had served its purpose. I had come in, I, I took studies very seriously, had leadership roles very, very early on in my career, picked up rank very quickly.

00:07:06:10 – 00:07:31:04

I ended up advancing to E-5 within two years of my of my enlistment, which is which was very on at the time. It was very rare, especially with some of the advancement rates at the time. And I got married, and I remember with the Navy and the Marines, it’s not the same as deploying with like Air Force or Army, Army, Air Force.

00:07:31:04 – 00:07:48:07

For the most part, they deploy when there’s a need, they go out. But with the Navy and the Marines, they’re constantly deploying because the Navy is no good if it’s sitting in home port the whole time. So it has to be out in order to actually be useful. So we were on like a 12 month rotation. We would deploy every 12 months.

00:07:48:07 – 00:08:14:19

We’d spend 12 months at home, and then we would deploy somewhere, and my battalion would deploy all over the world. And the first three years of my marriage, I spent probably 16 months of that deployed. I was there for the birth of my first child and got to spend maybe like 8 or 9 months with her, and then from nine months until she was about a year and a half, I was gone.

00:08:14:20 – 00:08:36:06

Yeah. And I remember that reunion when I came home from that deployment because it was like she she thought I was a complete stranger. Yeah. And so that was that was weird. I mean, she didn’t see me as her dad. I think for a long time after I got back from that deployment, it took a long time for us to kind of like rebuild that, that relationship a little bit.

00:08:36:06 – 00:08:55:12

So that was when I started kind of like, I don’t think I’m going to stay. Yeah. And then there were some other things at the time I was really motivated. I wanted to do like challenge programs at various points I had in my military career. I had been training with like Special Warfare guys, and so I was kind of like one last ditch effort at that.

00:08:55:12 – 00:09:17:01

I started trying to apply for like a dive program, and I remember that I qualified in all of the areas, and I was about to submit my dive package. And the dive medical officer who clears you for dive school wouldn’t sign off on my package because there was some kind of anomaly during one of like, the MRIs or whatever.

00:09:17:01 – 00:09:37:08

And they they kind of diagnosed me with asthma. They didn’t actually diagnose me with asthma, but they were concerned that it was a factor. And so the dive medical officer wouldn’t sign off on my package. And so that kind of killed any shot I had of doing anything like special. And that that was like a big blow.

00:09:37:08 – 00:10:01:07

And it was at that point, like with being away from family and my kids and stuff, that I was kind of starting to be like, I don’t know that I really want to do this anymore. Anyway, I kind of lost some of the drive for that. And then there was some drama at the end not to drag this out too long, but there was some drama at the end where, so we had two dates that are significant for your, like, your enlistment contract.

00:10:01:07 – 00:10:29:16

There’s the end of your active obligated service, which is the end of your contract. And then there’s your rotation date. And my end of my contract was July of 2019. My rotation date, which is when I would have switched units, was in April of 2019. So it was before the end of my contract. And that was a luxury at the time, because I would get to see what other duty stations there were and I could decide if I like it, I’ll re-enlist, but a lot of people were doing that.

00:10:29:16 – 00:10:50:19

So at the time, the Navy had issues with what they called gap billets, where people were going and filling new roles. They were filling orders, and then they were leaving and the Navy wouldn’t be able to replace them while those orders were active. So they came out with an instruction that allowed them to extend your rotation date to match your contract date.

00:10:50:20 – 00:11:09:22

Gotcha. So I found this out because none of my leadership really had the guts to come and tell me that I was being extended. They were they were kind of shady about it. And that was another thing. This is where it all kind of I was like, I’m done with you people. They extended me without telling me.

00:11:09:22 – 00:11:31:24

And then I found out because I had friends in admin who told me and then the details once I started confronting leadership about it. Then they told me about it, and I was really upset with them because it kind of messed with, obviously what I thought was going to happen with my career. And then when I got back into homeport, I had a really, really dreadful experience with my chain of command.

00:11:31:24 – 00:11:53:25

At the time, I really didn’t like any of them. They were all kind of jerks. And I remember, sitting down at one point, what had happened was they extended my rotation date past my contract date. So they actually, I think, exceeded the instruction. They went and took my rotation date instead of being in April. They extended it towards the end of the year in 2019.

00:11:53:25 – 00:12:25:13

And they did that because they wanted me to serve another deployment with the unit. They didn’t talk to me about this. I would have potentially agreed to do it voluntarily if they had given me the option, but there was no dialog there. So their attitude was like, we’re telling you to do it up yours. And so when I got back into home port, they sat me down and a bunch of these leaders who I really didn’t have any respect for because they were all kind of jerks to me, sat me down and they slid what we call page 13 across the table, which is like a statement of understanding.

00:12:25:19 – 00:12:48:24

It’s like a contract. And they slid this across the table and they were like, we’re extending your contract date. So they wanted after they moved my rotation date past my contract date, they wanted to move my contract date to my rotation to match my rotation date. And they could only do this with your consent. Yeah. I just slipped the paper back, and I was like, I’m not signing that.

00:12:48:25 – 00:13:07:16

I’m done. And then they started kind of trying to coerce me saying, because I had already been approved to re-enlist. At that point, they were basically telling me if I didn’t sign the document, that my re-enlist would essentially be denied. So I was like, you know, I’m done with you guys and same as you, dude, I like I didn’t really have a plan at that point.

00:13:07:16 – 00:13:24:13

I knew that it was it would be okay. A lot of people, when they’re getting out of the military, they’re afraid to get out of the military because they don’t really know what they’ll do. Yeah, I knew that I had other skills, and I had gotten to a point where I believed the Navy needed me more than I needed the Navy, so I knew it would be all right.

00:13:24:13 – 00:13:45:07

But my wife is the one who started pushing me to go to law school. And so I took the Lsat while I was still in the military and then applied to a bunch of places, got accepted a bunch of places, and the same as you. Weidner made sense. We had family up in this area. We were expecting a second child at the time, so my family was was a good support system for us up here.

00:13:45:07 – 00:14:01:25

So we chose to come to Weidner so that we could save a little bit of money. And, you know, we’d have some support from our family too. So when you went to law school, you said you went there. It was 2016. So 2016 to 2019. You were there. You graduated in 2019. It went. So when did you take the bar?

00:14:01:26 – 00:14:23:25

So I took the bar in July of that year, and I feel like I don’t know what it’s like now because they’ve changed, like the Uber, all that kind of stuff. It’s like a universal bar exam. Now, I don’t know what your experience was like, but I think it was my two year that summer, the graduating class had a terrible bar passage rate.

00:14:23:26 – 00:14:45:12

Yeah. So we ended up getting the like, bar programs. What is it like? There’s Themis, Barbary, Barbary, all that for like, free. Wow. It ended up working out. But when I was in law school again, I don’t know if this was just how I interpreted it or if it was what they were really preaching was like the essays, the essays, the essays.

00:14:45:12 – 00:15:02:14

That’s the hard part, right? And then I spent a lot of time studying for the essays, didn’t really spend enough time studying for the multiple choice, and it bit me in the ass I ended up missing. What do you need to 72, I think, at the time to pass. Yeah, I think I had a 270, so I missed my two points.

00:15:02:14 – 00:15:30:27

So I was like, oh man, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m like, am I going to be doing like Uber or something? Like, it’s going to be a while until I get to the next one was in February of 2020, right before Covid and that December. December 2019. I did up getting a clerkship down in Franklin County with a judge judge sponsor shout out him he that that ended up making me a much better attorney in the long run than I ever could have imagined.

00:15:30:27 – 00:15:55:12

But that December, right before I started, that my grandmother passed away and my grandfather on my mom’s side passed away. So it kind of took me out of the mindset of like studying a lot, and you can’t defer the bar exam and it’s like 800 bucks. So I went to take it again, did not feel like my mind was in it or my head was in it, and I missed it by five points.

00:15:55:13 – 00:16:13:14

I got like a two. You actually see it twice. I didn’t know that about you. Yeah. So that’s a scary position to be in. It was there’s tons of statistics about that. Like about how, you know, your odds of passing go down each time you take it. And part of it is just like you said, because you don’t have like you don’t have a stream of revenue.

00:16:13:14 – 00:16:34:08

A lot of times that it’s an expensive test to fail, and a lot of people go in to the bar exam and they have conditional job offers, and I know they’re making money and stuff. And then it’s like when you when you miss out on the bar exam, you’re certified, you know, like basically a contingent license to practice law in Pennsylvania is revoked.

00:16:34:09 – 00:16:57:00

Yeah. And then it’s you’re kind of limited. You could get a job at a defense attorney, as a defense attorney in some places, or like a, like a prosecutor or public defender or something, and essentially practice law while your bar results are pending. Yes. But if you fail the bar exam, then it’s revoked, which kind of sucks because like New York, for example, I think you can do that and you can fail the bar up to three times before they’ll revoke you.

00:16:57:01 – 00:17:21:12

And I mean, that would have been awesome because I was at the Yorkshire’s office pending bar results, and then I didn’t pass that first one. So luckily, like I said, I got that clerkship, which was a lifesaver not only for income, but like I said, I mean, it really did make me a much better attorney in the long run, but also it gave me the flexibility to be still ingrained in the law and learning things while also studying.

00:17:21:12 – 00:17:39:04

And I will say the third time when I took it, it was Covid, so it was virtual, which to be honest, I think really helped me because when you’re I don’t know where you took it, but I took it in Philly the first two times at the convention center. And like, everybody’s clacking away on the computer like there’s noise, there’s people getting up.

00:17:39:04 – 00:18:02:03

It’s so bright. So I think that was also like a detriment just for like the type of test taker I am. So when I took it that third time, I was so confident going into it because I did probably 8000 to 10,000 multiple choice practice questions like I felt 2 or 3 weeks before that exam, that every practice test I was taking, I was doing really, really well.

00:18:02:03 – 00:18:21:20

And like they were just certain questions. And that was the thing with the multiple choice. And I was just talking to somebody about this recently, like, there’s four answers and they’re all technically correct, but you have to pick the best one, right? Which is not that easy sometimes. But doing all those practice questions really helped me. And then the essays and I had done this for the second one as well.

00:18:21:20 – 00:18:53:09

But I really focused a lot harder on the essays this third time, in the sense that I went back and pulled every essay question they asked in the last six years, whatever they had on the website. And there are certain topics that are just so big and broad that they ask them, like every other test. But then for some of the smaller stuff like biz or or federal income tax, etc., those questions like they usually only ask them like once because they’re not terribly big areas for the bar exam.

00:18:53:09 – 00:19:10:22

So I was able to cut out like some like we’ll say, for contracts, like my outline of the law I knew I needed to know was probably like 80 some pages. And that’s with, you know, not double space stacks, just bullet points. And I probably cut that down to 30 just by taking out stuff I knew I didn’t need to study because it wouldn’t be on there.

00:19:10:24 – 00:19:39:09

Right. So yeah, I passed with flying colors a third time. So third time’s a charm. But I think the amount of people out there that get frustrated not passing the first time, like I’ve two, two friends that I was pretty close with in law school that failed at the first time and just never took it again. And I mean, they’re doing other things, but for me, it was like I worked so hard to get through law school, spent all that money like I wanted a law like so for, I mean, and for me, like, we we relocated from across the country.

00:19:39:10 – 00:20:01:12

Yeah. Here at law school. So and we, we lived on a fixed income. I was going to school on the GI Bill. We lived off the housing allowance. I would work part time. My wife would work part time as she was allowed to, as she was able to. We were like way below the poverty line. So, I mean, we cut a lot of stuff out of our budget just to skim through law school.

00:20:01:16 – 00:20:18:26

And so, I mean, the whole gamble there was like, we got to get this right the first time, otherwise we’re going to be in a bind. So, I mean, I came into it and I was like, I can’t fail this test. So I studied really vigorously and I was working at a firm I was interning at a firm at the time.

00:20:18:26 – 00:20:37:14

And I remember, I remember, I mean, in the costs associated with this is crazy. I mean, like, you know, the books for law school, the the bar prep material. That’s awesome that they gave that to you for free because that’s like two grand at least. And I know, like, if you send like the books back at the end, you get like a refund order.

00:20:37:14 – 00:20:56:00

I just kept it. Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t worth it to me at the point, like, you know, an extra 200 bucks wasn’t pennies, really. I mean, it’s every bit counts, but. Yeah, and I remember so I mean, there’s the cost for the bar prep stuff, which is a racket in and of itself, because if you fail, you’re going to have to pay that again so that you have material to study from next time.

00:20:56:01 – 00:21:13:20

Yeah, there’s free material out there, but it is really lacking. And so it is rigged in such a way that you almost have to pay a ton of money in order to even have a real shot at the thing. And then, you know, the fees for the exam itself are costly. The fees then for the character and fitness and the application to the bar.

00:21:13:22 – 00:21:32:20

What is it? The bar examiners, all that stuff is expensive. Go down to Philly gas, hotel, hotel, that stuff. So I was fortunate I passed it my first time. I actually hand wrote my bar exam. There were probably like six of us. That hand wrote them. Everybody else, like you said, type in around. They might be able to read it.

00:21:32:26 – 00:21:51:16

Yeah. And I mean, you’re at a disadvantage handwriting because you can’t get as much out as what people can type. But if you’re precise with what you write, then you can get the points where you need them. And I was able to get I was able to to get a passing score just off of handwriting. I think that’s a big thing too, with the essays.

00:21:51:18 – 00:22:09:24

Again, I know it’s changed so much and I have no idea what it’s like, like nowadays, but, I mean, I guess it wasn’t that long ago. What 2019, 20, 26 or 7 years long enough though? I mean, it’s going on a decade now. Well, and a lot of stuff has changed. But like I said, I just remember being in law school and they’re always harping like the essays, essays, essays.

00:22:09:25 – 00:22:28:01

And I really wish that I had just focused a little bit different. That’s the hardest part. But I think that’s why they focus on so much because because like, anybody can go in and guess, you know, one of four answers. Anybody can do that part, whether you’re right or not. It’s a separate question. But then writing the essays is totally different.

00:22:28:03 – 00:22:47:18

So that’s the part that I think requires the most skill. When I did it, it was the UB, like you said. So you have like a professional test kind of thing, which is where like you write a motion or, or whatever, and then you have six, I think, essay questions, and then you have 200 multiple choice questions. And I saw a lot of statistics that showed.

00:22:47:18 – 00:23:23:08

So for depending on your bar prep program, if you get 75%, if you do 75% of the material, your odds of passing the bar skyrocket. But I also saw some bar prep material out there that was talking about how if you just do a ton of the questions like you did, that increases your odds too. And I think I’ve seen I’ve heard some people say that like, and this is for like anyone who’s about to take the bar exam, if you if you do like over 2000 multiple choice practice questions and you do maybe six practice essays for each of the subjects.

00:23:23:12 – 00:23:45:15

It’s very rare to have somebody fail with that level of preparation coming into the bar exam. Assuming you’ve worked through the bar material, the prep material to very rare that somebody fails the bar exam with that level of preparation because you just you get to a point where you’ve seen so many different questions. Yeah. And with the multiple choice, like there’s only so many ways they can ask questions, especially depending on the topic.

00:23:45:15 – 00:24:09:24

And I did what you did to where I looked at the frequency of certain topics. And I also looked at the history. What years were these topics appearing? And I predicted and I was pretty accurate. I mean, I predicted a property question and it was on a property question. Was there criminal law, which I don’t think there was a strictly criminal law question, but there was a constitutional question, civil procedure and some other stuff.

00:24:09:24 – 00:24:27:06

And I mean, I was prepared for those questions because I was like, okay, it’s been a few years since we’ve seen these particular topics. That’s exactly what I sure enough, there on the bar exam. Yeah. And like I said, there’s so many, not so many, but there’s a few topics or different types of law that don’t make it onto every bar exam for the essays.

00:24:27:06 – 00:24:46:15

Like I said, like federal income tax. I fear what the other ones are. There’s a couple like weird niche ones that really secured transactions. Yeah like Wills, some of those. So I had a will question on mine. It was weird. It was like a weird question. Whatever they asked in the previous two bar exams, I literally didn’t even look at.

00:24:46:15 – 00:25:05:16

Right. And it ended up working out. Like I said, I cut out probably 60% of the material that I would need to study if I just was studying everything by doing that. And like I said, with the multiple choice, you do enough. There’s only so many ways they can ask certain questions. And you really just, I think, figure out what they’re looking for.

00:25:05:18 – 00:25:23:12

Right? So yeah, and I mean, they you know, you’re gambling obviously because like, they could throw a curveball and they could they could do a question that’s the same as last year or whatever. But there’s also like they’re not going to do that in most cases. Because if the answer just appeared, they know that that information is going to be shared.

00:25:23:12 – 00:25:42:25

Yeah. The people who pass a bar exam or five years ago are less likely to give answers or whatever to people, you know what I mean that are taking it now. You just you move on. So once you pass the bar exam, then you were still clerking for this judge in Franklin County. Yep. So what’d you do after after that?

00:25:42:26 – 00:26:05:19

Went to a private firm up in Harrisburg and did a criminal defense. I did some phase and stuff, too, but it was mostly criminal defense. Was there about two years. Luckily got to work with some some pretty good people there that were definitely a lot more experience than me. And my first, you know, attorney job. It can be scary and difficult.

00:26:05:19 – 00:26:26:00

And I mean, I still get this every once in a while. It doesn’t happen as much anymore, but it still happens. You know, that imposter syndrome, it’s like by really doing this, like I remember my first trial, I’d watch trials, I’d say through trials. I’d done, you know, numerous preliminary hearings, like full hearings, suppression hearings, habeas, all that.

00:26:26:00 – 00:26:52:10

But the first jury trial was was scary. And it was up in up in Mifflin County. And I’m not going to go too much into this one. But the guy was charged with, I think it was six, six felonies, two ones, two F2 and two f threes. And I got a not guilty on everything. And I’ll never forget like that day going into court.

00:26:52:12 – 00:27:11:25

And I’m like if I can make it through jury selection and opening I think I’m okay. And there were a few surprises that popped up and I’ll save this one for another episode. But the look on this guy’s face and I fully believe he was innocent. And honestly, throughout the trial, it was very apparent that he wasn’t innocent and was falsely accused of numerous things.

00:27:11:25 – 00:27:35:02

And he was innocent or was not. He was. He was and he had been through. So Mifflin County is a pretty small county. I think they have one, maybe two people in the public defender’s office, maybe three people in the DA’s office. It’s two judges, pretty rural. And this jury, like they just saw right through what the alleged victims were trying to say here.

00:27:35:02 – 00:27:58:06

And again, I’ll never forget the look on that guy’s face when he was not guilty. But again, he had been through three attorneys prior to me, two public defenders, conflict counsel. And then he ended up calling me. And like I said, I sat down with this guy, and from day one I was like, I believe you. He had documentation to back up certain things in certain dates where people said things happened in certain locations.

00:27:58:06 – 00:28:13:04

And again, through that trial, like the witnesses were. I remember this. The one question I had was like, okay, well, where are you living at the time? And they said this whatever address was. And I was like, well, I had a I have a photo of you at this address, which is another address they were living at, and they’re like, oh, okay.

00:28:13:06 – 00:28:30:13

And then they made some sort of allegation. I was like, well, when did it happen? She’s like, I don’t remember. I’m like, okay, well was it warm or cold apple I don’t know. Was it summer? Was it fall. Was it winter I don’t know. So like it just kind of kept falling apart. But that first that first win was, was amazing.

00:28:30:13 – 00:28:48:08

And I’ll never forget to look on that guy’s face. He was so happy and I felt great, like I that was I think the moment and I had been practicing for just over a year at that point, that I think was the point where I was like, okay, I can really do this. And I think I just really started to gain a lot more confidence.

00:28:48:10 – 00:29:11:12

And it was at that point that I was like, I want to do more trials. Yeah, trials are a whole different beast, man. They’re definitely, definitely something else. And I know a lot of attorneys that don’t like trials don’t want to do them. Don’t, you know, they see them as kind of like a to much work or a waste of time, but with the right case, I mean, trials are great.

00:29:11:13 – 00:29:30:08

Yeah. And I when I came out of law school, I went to work for the DA’s office in Dauphin County, and I was there for a couple of years. And at first, I mean, you don’t really have when you’re when you just jump into the job, you get stuff that’s listed for trial, but you don’t have a lot of stuff on the trial list.

00:29:30:09 – 00:29:56:28

And so people were giving me cases, and almost always the case they were given me was a case that was kind of a train wreck. They didn’t want to try. And so like the first couple of cases I tried were, were kind of messy cases like the one, the first one I did was a pro se defendant who was very difficult, very belligerent, very like he was not he was not a good defendant.

00:29:57:03 – 00:30:22:19

He would have been difficult, I think, for a defense attorney to represent in a trial because he was just so obstinate. Yeah. And it was a case where the victim was also a hostile witness, and there were a whole bunch of legal issues. I mean, there were questions about spoiling, spoliation of evidence, which we’ve talked about before. There was certain footage that existed from the Housing Authority that was being introduced, and it was only like a fragment of the overall footage.

00:30:22:24 – 00:30:42:10

And so, I mean, like this was a case that when I went into it prepping, I thought really probably only going to have three witnesses, but we ended up having like 6 or 7 witnesses testified. It always works out that it was trial ended up being, I think, four days long, and the jury hated everybody but me in the case.

00:30:42:12 – 00:31:03:24

Like I talked with one of them afterwards and they they said they they could see the defendant’s body language at the table. They didn’t like him. They, you know, I introduced prison calls against this guy at trial because there was some really damning stuff that was in the prison calls. So I introduced those. They didn’t like the victim because they they could see right through her, like you said.

00:31:03:24 – 00:31:36:12

They could tell she was protecting him. Yeah. And I also was being supervised by an older attorney who was on his way to retirement. And so he was very checked out. But, I mean, this guy, I’ll never forget it. I mean, he was sitting beside me at the table on his phone. Entire time the jury hated that. And like, at one point, I was pretty upset with him because the jury’s reading the verdict and the judge is doing some, like, post-trial stuff with us, and his phone is going off like the ESPN denim and denim and is going off.

00:31:36:13 – 00:31:56:20

Yeah, that’s at the table. Yeah. That’s bad. And I was just like, please get this guy out of here. But so I mean, that was a guilty straight through. And my record in Dauphin was pretty good. I mean, I won pretty much every case. I don’t I think I got one straight not guilty verdict and the rest were all guilty.

00:31:56:20 – 00:32:18:00

And I had one case where it was like a split verdict. Yeah. But I mean, I did really well in trial in York, and, and that is due to, like you said. I mean, I credit just like you did the attorneys that I learned from, I learned from attorneys in Dauphin County who have been prosecutors longer than I’ve ever been than I’ve been alive.

00:32:18:02 – 00:32:42:10

I mean, their knowledge was incredible. I remember the first case, one of the first trials I actually watched, was the prosecutor was a chief deputy in Dauphin who isn’t there anymore. And he was trying. It was a murder. It was a felony murder case in Harrisburg. I think it was a murder that had taken place up in Reservoir Park where they.

00:32:42:13 – 00:33:02:01

This guy was with a buddy and they were going to buy weed. I know what you’re talking about. And they arranged to have the guy robbed. Yeah, well, the robber killed him. Yeah. Shot him and stuffed him in a trunk or whatever. Left him in Reservoir Park. And I watched this prosecutor in that trial. Watched that trial. And I was like, dang, man, I want to be a prosecutor.

00:33:02:02 – 00:33:23:13

Yeah. This guy, this guy is awesome. Absolutely. And, you know, I liked it for a long time. And then, you know, I went to York after that. My trial record was not as good there. People used to give me crap about that. I blamed the case as I got, I truly do. I mean, I had a I inherited a caseload where there was a lot of messy stuff there on the trial list.

00:33:23:13 – 00:33:43:15

And I tried so many misdemeanors in York County compared to what I did in Dauphin County. Most of what I did in Dauphin County were even, like low grade felonies. But in New York, I had a lot of these misdemeanor cases that just wouldn’t go away. And I lost a bunch of them. Yeah, well, it makes it difficult to with, with those types of cases where, like, you know, people just don’t want to plea, right?

00:33:43:16 – 00:34:16:07

Like, there’s no resolving it. Why would you. Yeah. And for me, you know, the reason I ended up leaving the first firm I was at, I just I just wasn’t happy there. I wouldn’t say I was, like, overworked, but I definitely was burnt out. Yeah, just a number of things just didn’t mesh well. And I feel like if you’re doing private work, especially in, like, smaller firms, like, if you don’t have a good environment or you don’t, you know, like how things are going, it makes it really hard to like, go to work every day and be your best self.

00:34:16:07 – 00:34:47:23

And I really I tried to leave once and it ended up not working out, so I stuck around a little bit longer than I I’d initially planned. But then since I had interned briefly in York before I took the bar, I was down here for for a summary appeal and ended up running into someone went to law school with and, you know, found out that they had some open positions because when I first finished clerking, I wanted to go to the DA’s office, but they didn’t have any positions open.

00:34:47:28 – 00:35:07:01

And funny thing about that is I went in for an interview and they’re like, hey, like probably have something to open up soon. But I was already on my way out of the clerkship. I needed a job two weeks after I started at the firm. They’re like, hey, we have a spot. And I felt, you know, at that point, looking back on it now, I should have left and just went to the DA’s office.

00:35:07:02 – 00:35:29:27

Really. But, you know, everything happens for a reason. And I didn’t want to burn any bridges that soon. And ultimately, you know, doing the fence before going to the DA’s office really helped me when I got there, because when I was a defense attorney and, you know, was working with prosecutors across central PA, for the most part, I didn’t have any issues and everybody’s pretty good.

00:35:29:28 – 00:35:55:09

But I definitely found some things about prosecutors that I didn’t like. Right. So when I went to the DA’s office, I tried to not do those things as a prosecutor, and I think that made my life a lot easier. And I was able to resolve a lot of cases, try a lot of cases. And going into the DA’s office in New York after leaving the first firm, I think I probably did about six trials at that first firm.

00:35:55:12 – 00:36:15:23

Some were good, some were bad just because there was no case. My favorite one I was telling you about this, I think yesterday or the day before this one I’ll tell I did. Guy third offense DUI in Lancaster County. He was older, had some health issues, was a veteran. Really just didn’t want to go to state prison.

00:36:16:00 – 00:36:33:21

His mom was elderly. She was in the area and wanted to essentially saying county so she could visit him and they wouldn’t give it to him, wouldn’t give him, wouldn’t give him County wouldn’t agree to any type of like split sentence. So basically what I told him, I was like, I mean, what they’re offering you state prison. If we go to trial, it’s the same.

00:36:33:22 – 00:36:57:09

You’re going to get the same thing, right? You might as well, you know, go for it. So there was one issue with this case that when we were trying it, there was a portion of the and I will say this guy was guilty of sin. I mean, he was clearly intoxicated, pretty drunk actually. Where they pulled him over, there was a Burger King entrance just off like a two lane highway or road, whatever you want to call it.

00:36:57:09 – 00:37:13:07

Kind of like 30, but two lanes. And he pulled into, like off to the side of the road and then stops in the entrance of the Burger King so no one could get in or out of the parking lot. That was that was the first red flag. It was a refusal. He refused. He fell asleep in the back of the police car like four different times.

00:37:13:08 – 00:37:33:03

Just kept asking like, would you pull me over for, would you pull me over for couldn’t do fields. So we go through this whole thing and there’s a portion of the ember that the officer and another officer that showed up get into the the police car and they shut the audio off. And at that time, I had no idea what they were talking about.

00:37:33:04 – 00:37:46:24

Turns out, when I learned this in the second trial, because it was a hung jury, which I’ll get you in a minute. They were talking about his previous DUIs. They didn’t want to, but I think you were talking about this on the last time. It was like two weeks ago. I think he had mentioned this story on the episode.

00:37:46:25 – 00:38:01:28

Yeah, I forgot because I don’t remember. We we’ve talked about this a couple of times. So you actually had to try that case twice. Yeah, it was a hung jury. And the funniest thing was when they came back, I mean, we were there. It was we went into a second day and the jury went out at like 9:00 and didn’t hear anything.

00:38:01:28 – 00:38:18:01

It was like lunchtime judge calls the jury and they’re like, you know, we’re still debating. They got him lunch. I go to lunch, my guy goes to lunch. We come back at like 130, didn’t hear anything. It was probably closer to 4:00. Finally they had come back. Actually I’m sorry. They came back right after lunch and said they’re hung.

00:38:18:02 – 00:38:38:14

Judge sends them back out. So I’m just like, how are they hung? You know, like in my head I’m like, this is crazy. And I told my guy, I’m like, this might be good for you. So anyway, they go back out, they bring them back in. It’s like 4:00, 430. And the judge that we had at the time, I think she might be retired now, my understanding was that she didn’t like to keep people late, so she brings them in.

00:38:38:14 – 00:38:58:03

It’s like for 430 and she’s like, where are you guys at? Like, you’re gonna reach a verdict. They’re like, no, we’re deadlocked. Absolutely. Like no one’s changing their mind. So she declared a mistrial, hung jury. And again, in my head, I’m like, this is insane. Yeah. So that’s rough. They ended up retrying him about two months later, but about two weeks after that, I get a call at the office and it was our receptionist.

00:38:58:04 – 00:39:12:09

She’s like, hey, this woman that was a juror in your trial in Lancaster is on the phone. She wants to talk with you. And I was like, oh man, am I going to get, like, reamed out by this person? Or like, I had no idea what it was about. Well, this lady, she’s like, yeah, I was the only holdout.

00:39:12:09 – 00:39:30:14

I’m like, can you tell me why? She’s like, well, my dad had 60 UIs and I just couldn’t convict him. I felt really bad and I was like, okay, wonderful. So essentially now knowing that was the reason when we went into the retrial and then I found out again, one of the things that they were talking about was his previous DUIs.

00:39:30:14 – 00:39:45:04

I basically told him I was like, you should just enter a plea at this point. Like, we can go through it again. But I’m telling you at this, at this point, the the Da could ask for more than the minimum. You know, they didn’t. But he did go to state prison. But yeah, that was that was my favorite hung jury.

00:39:45:06 – 00:40:02:19

And that’s what we talked about I think in a couple episodes ago where we talked about like jurors that just decide they’re going to nullify, you know, like they’re not really helping anybody because that guy, I mean, they’re going to convict him. They’re just dragging it out. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, like in cases like that it’s not ideal.

00:40:02:20 – 00:40:19:06

And did you actually try the case the second time okay. Yeah. Yeah. And they convicted him that time. Oh yeah I think the jury was out like 45 minutes. Yeah. That’s that’s rough. And obviously everything that I attacked on cross the first time they cleaned up. Yeah. You know what I mean. So like. Yeah I mean your trial strategy has been given away.

00:40:19:07 – 00:40:45:12

Yeah. For a hung, if you get a hung jury and trial as a defense attorney like it just you’re at such a big disadvantage going into that second trial because now the prosecution knows exactly what your arguments are, what? You know, you thought the weak points were. And I had another hung jury. I was sitting second chair, observing or supervising one of the newer attorneys that was in the DA’s office a couple of years ago.

00:40:45:12 – 00:41:10:07

And it was like a domestic case, kind of with theft of cell phones. But they owned businesses together. And property. It was it was kind of a mess. And I was a little surprised that it was a hung jury. The first time I thought it would have been a split verdict, but it was hung whatever. And then because the defendant actually lived down in North Carolina, it kind of sat for a while, and then we try to bring it in for trial.

00:41:10:10 – 00:41:31:07

We had some logistical issues. And then so we set it for a date certain. And on the retrial, that prosecutor that initially handled it, she had left the office. So I took it over because I was familiar with it and the victim liked me. And honestly, it was a good case. And it really just came down to, how do we frame this?

00:41:31:09 – 00:41:47:08

So obviously, again, being the prosecutor, I was like, I get a second bite at the apple. I know what their issues were. I cleaned all that up and it was a straight guilty. They were out, you know, again, 45 minutes an hour. So you had a hung jury as a defense attorney and a hung jury as a prosecutor?

00:41:47:09 – 00:42:03:13

Yeah. I’ve never had a hung jury before, thank goodness. But like I said, I mean, the the trade off for that is I’ve had some not guilty as a prosecutor which I’ve had everything you know the sun and to be honest with you, like the not guilty that I had as a prosecutor, I mean, there’s always that competitive part of your brain that’s like, man, I lost.

00:42:03:13 – 00:42:24:00

But, you know, looking back on those, I mean, there’s really only one of them to of them that I would say it was the wrong verdict. The rest of them, I think, like I’d get why they said not guilty. Yeah. I had this one case where it was a DUI and the guy didn’t refuse the blood draw, but they had issues.

00:42:24:00 – 00:42:50:06

They stuck him three times with the needle. Yep. Couldn’t get blood. Yeah. So I didn’t have a blood a blood alcohol level, but I had a pretty squared away trooper. He was dre qualified. I mean, he was so Dr’s drug recognition expert. I mean the guy. It was a hard charger and really good on cases. And so I tried this case and the facts of it, he actually had two open DUIs at the time.

00:42:50:12 – 00:43:11:24

The facts were identical. It was the same car, same stretch of road, same hour of the day, same people in the car. I mean, it was two identical DUIs, so I knew I used this what I thought was the stronger of the two as a litmus test, like, can I get a conviction here? And during that trial, I actually demonstrated the SFS, which I would never recommend anyone doing it.

00:43:11:28 – 00:43:28:20

I was young and kind of experimenting with things, and I had tried several DUI jury trials and bench trials up to that point, but this was the only one where I was like, you know what? I’m gonna prove to the jury how easy seats were. I feel like I couldn’t do everybody says that, but that’s not true. I mean, like, I was able to do it.

00:43:28:20 – 00:43:49:24

But the trooper told me after the trial, he was like, dude, the whole time you were doing the one leg stand and I was counting. I was like, praying to myself to, don’t put your foot down and don’t put your foot down, right. So that that was actually a jury. I was out of town. I think we may have had a child even right before that.

00:43:49:25 – 00:44:06:09

We got like five kids. So y’all run together now? And so somebody else in the DA’s office picked that jury. So when I came in to trial. Okay. Yeah. This is the first time I’m meeting the jury that I had nothing to do with picking any of these people. And I saw several of them right off the bat where I was like, dude, I would have struck that person.

00:44:06:09 – 00:44:27:10

I have one like that, too. But they found him not guilty. And so I basically the second one got called in for trial and I was like, I same, same time. I was maybe a month or two later and I went to the chief and I was like, listen, I tried this case with a stronger case, I think, a more dynamic affluent.

00:44:27:13 – 00:44:51:21

And they found him not guilty. This is the exact same set of facts my Afghans good. Yeah, but he was a newer officer at the time. He was on training a newer trooper. And there’s a portion on the body cam after he does the SFS, where the two of them get into the car, him and his field training officer and the field training officers quizzing him, he’s like, okay, so what do you got?

00:44:51:24 – 00:45:09:28

And his response was, I don’t know, man. It’s close. Yeah. And I was just like, that’s game over. Never want to hear that. You know what I mean? Like the trooper is saying that on the recording, and I know that I tried a DUI with basically the exact same facts, and the jury said, no, I hear that as a defense, like reasonable doubt, we’re done.

00:45:09:28 – 00:45:26:00

Yeah. So I was like, can I just withdraw this? And so he pled, I think, to the summary offenses and that was it. But that was that was interesting because that was a little bit of a misadventure from start to finish, really. There was a chance that we were going to try and call an expert for to get HGF admitted.

00:45:26:01 – 00:45:40:28

In that case, it’s a lot of work. It ended up not working out because and honestly, that’s super technical because, I mean, the trooper was like instead of what is it like four seconds? They’re supposed to hold the stimulus at max deviation, I think, I think it’s four. I think I think the expert that I was going to call.

00:45:41:00 – 00:45:58:22

Yeah. Guy named Sitek, Doctor Sitek, he is one of the like the people who invented or like was foundational in that test. He actually it’s time to stop watching. He was like, it was like 3.4 seconds. He’s like, I can’t testify that I can’t testify to this. And I was like, well, I guess that’s the end of that you’re supposed to go out to and then hold it.

00:45:58:24 – 00:46:14:26

Yeah, but it was a it was just like a fraction of a second too quick that he moved. And he was and the expert was like, nah, kill it. Yeah, I well I have a not picking the jury but doing the trial story and I also have an expert one so the not picking the jury it wasn’t a not guilty.

00:46:14:27 – 00:46:38:19

What ended up happening was one of the prosecutors in the DA’s office that I was supervising. She ended up leaving as well. This is a different prosecutor than the other case, but she ended up leaving in like Friday of whatever the week was, was her last day. I don’t even think she was planning on coming in. So Thursday afternoon at like 330 she gets called for trial and she hadn’t done a trial before.

00:46:38:19 – 00:46:59:03

So I think she was pretty nervous. And I was in another trial finishing up. And so she ended up picking this jury, and I ended up talking to her later that night because she was leaving all this, I was just like, I think it was a it was a criminal trespass, M3, criminal trespass. And she basically was like, you know, I just don’t feel comfortable doing this.

00:46:59:03 – 00:47:18:27

So I was like, that is fine. I know you’re essentially leaving. It is what it is like, just leave the file on my desk. I’ll go up and try tomorrow. Oh, I remember this. So luckily. Yeah. Luckily, it was just super simple. Basically, this guy and his girlfriend break up. He lives somewhere with his mom. His mom drives a school bus.

00:47:19:00 – 00:47:44:07

Earlier. Earlier this day, he got served with the PFA by her, and he had claimed that he was driving home and his mom, who was a school bus driver, was coming up the road behind him, and they pulled into their driveway and the ex-girlfriend was up on their porch going through like the mailbox or something. So she claims that didn’t happen at all.

00:47:44:09 – 00:48:04:06

Or she was there, but she wasn’t on the property. I forget exactly what it was, but anyway, put the guy up, he testifies. I’m like, where is her car parked? He goes in the driveway on the property. Okay, where was she? With respect to the mailbox, I think the mailbox was actually out towards the road. And she he said that she was, you know, hands in the mailbox, digging through the mail, whatever.

00:48:04:07 – 00:48:20:01

I’m like, okay. So we get through his. And then his mom was sequestered, obviously. So I put mom up and I basically was like, we’re not going to beat around the bush here. We heard, you know, your son’s version of the events. Do you remember this day? Do you know who the defendant is? You know, what do you recall seeing?

00:48:20:02 – 00:48:39:04

And she was like, well, she was on the road, you know, next to the mailbox. I’m like, where was her car? She goes parked in front of the mailbox, like, okay, was she in the mailbox? No. I was like, no further questions. I was like, judge, can we have a recess? So judge calls the jury out and like, judge, obviously you just heard two contradictory things.

00:48:39:07 – 00:48:56:12

She mom is like, she wasn’t even on the property, basically. So I didn’t just withdraw in the case. Yeah. I was like, I’d rather than get a not guilty, waste everyone’s time. I’m just gonna withdraw this. Yeah, I had a case like that in New York, which was kind of a train wreck because it was a case where, like, I had to take it seriously because there was an allegation that there was a gun involved.

00:48:56:12 – 00:49:18:19

But every witness I put on the stand said something different. I remember that one. There was a victim who was actually very sympathetic towards the defendant, and I think she testified really well. She was sincere, honest, and I think the jury, the jury felt something. I mean, the defendant was crying during her testimony. She was crying. It was like, this is this is a mess.

00:49:18:19 – 00:49:33:08

And it kind of got to a point where I was like, man, what are we kind of doing here? Like if like, there were facts that just I didn’t know, and if I had known them, and I told the defense attorney, if I had known some of this stuff that was going to come out, I would never have put this case in front of a jury.

00:49:33:10 – 00:49:56:19

We would have we would have been trying to cut him a lot more of a break. But every witness said something different. The trooper said one thing the victim got up and contradicted the trooper. The victim actually said on the stand that the like multiple times the troopers mistaken. And I was like, well that’s great. You know, like, okay, so I had three witnesses who all said something different.

00:49:56:21 – 00:50:15:01

The defendant testified and I did my best to cross him, but there really wasn’t a ton that I could cross him with. And that was a not guilty. And I was just like, man, like that was one of the ones I was like, that was probably the right verdict. And if I had known that I would have behaved, I would have I would have handled that case differently.

00:50:15:03 – 00:50:37:14

As a prosecutor, I would never have put that in front of a jury. It was just that that bad. I think we all have those cases to where like like we like I said earlier, you know, hindsight is 2020, right? There’s always things that can come out during trial that you just can’t expect, wouldn’t expect or I mean, the victim lived in another place, so it was hard to do any kind of prep with this victim fact all the way up until jury.

00:50:37:14 – 00:50:57:01

I had done jury selection and didn’t even know if this victim was going to appear for court. We had to delay the start of the trial because I was like, I was we were thinking detectives were going to have to go down and get this person. And so that was a concern. And then, we also had kind of the variable with transportation.

00:50:57:01 – 00:51:13:08

She was like, okay, I have a ride. But I was getting word from her like minute to minute, like, are you on your way? Are you going to be here? Because I’m not I’m not starting this trial and having the jury sworn in and have jeopardy attached. If you’re going to just not show up, because at that point we’re done.

00:51:13:09 – 00:51:30:15

And I think that’s I, I think we’re getting a little bit into the, the episode here, but I think we should at some point talk about kind of like witness issues. Yeah. Victim issues, things like that. I think that might be a good one, but one. Oh go ahead, go ahead. I was going to say, actually now.

00:51:30:18 – 00:51:43:25

Yeah, I’m going to save that one. One thing that I always liked about Dauphin County was we did a lot of ride alongs. A lot of us did ride alongs with departments that we worked with a lot, and that was something I wanted to do in York County. But it’s not as big down here with the prosecutors to go out and ride alongs.

00:51:43:25 – 00:52:10:20

I mean, I got to do ride alongs with officers multiple times, work details with them. We had people going out with the gang task force. We I went out with cert at least once. I think one time to do, like, a drug serve like a drug warrant. And we ended up finding guns in the house, and that was all really cool to get to see, because that stuff, I mean, it helps you as a prosecutor, but it also helps you as a defense attorney, too, because you get to see how these people operate.

00:52:10:26 – 00:52:35:22

One of the funniest stories I have from a ride along, I was out with an officer, and another officer in the jurisdiction had pulled somebody over for suspicion of DUI. So the officer that I’m riding with and I respond to this call because we actually had it was we had encountered this vehicle earlier in the night. It was a pretty distinctive vehicle, and it was parked in the parking lot of, I think, the Howard Johnson.

00:52:35:25 – 00:52:59:14

Oh, and so we kind of made note the officer and I of just this really nice truck that was sitting in this like really bad hotel, known drug area profiling. Well, I mean, it, it it obviously was. Well, no, I just say burned down now so it’s gone. I just say that because we get those people that are like, you know, I was being profiled or they did something like unconstitutional.

00:52:59:15 – 00:53:28:27

Like, I think people forget that when officers are on patrol, like they are out there right there in the community. Yeah. No, they know where things are at. They know what types of traffic flow there is in places. Parking lots. Like, I had a guy get a DUI out in Lebanon County because he was in a Planet Fitness parking lot or outside of Planet Fitness in a parking lot at like 3 a.m. but it wasn’t one of the 24 hour ones, but there were a few cars there.

00:53:28:27 – 00:53:36:28

But he’d be. The officer basically was able to explain on direct that he.

00:53:37:01 – 00:53:53:21

Essentially patrols the same area, same roads, like he kind of has like a pattern to his patrol. And he’d been doing it for years. And he’s like, that was one of the first times in, you know, 5 or 6 years of doing this, that this guy or this car was parked in the spot, like, people just don’t park there.

00:53:53:27 – 00:54:11:22

So he’s like, I immediately had like a suspicion. And he performed a mirror encounter. And would that lead to a DUI? Well, it’s funny because so the story that I’m telling is kind of like that. We were in that parking lot. We actually did. The officer that I was with did a mirror encounter with a guy who was smoking a blunt at the time, and, and the officer was super chill with him.

00:54:11:22 – 00:54:33:15

He basically just made him throw the blood away and was like, go back into the hotel. So officer was super chill. And we come out because we hear this car has stopped for suspicion of DUI and we go out there and the officer I’m riding with, he’s a canine. So he and I get out of the car, we’re kind of just we’re kind of just watching this thing happen.

00:54:33:16 – 00:54:58:22

And the guy, I’ll never forget this dude. The officer starts trying to put this guy through fields, and the guys like you have any medical conditions? The guys like. Yeah, I got like, a I think he had like a prosthetic leg. So, like, physically not really able to do the walk and turn or one leg stand and the officer’s like okay, I’m about to do like an the and he’s like, do you have any issues with your eyes.

00:54:58:28 – 00:55:18:19

And the dude without missing a beat goes, yeah. And he taps his eye. It’s a glass eye. It’s a glass eye. We can hear that. It was like, ding ding ding ding ding. He tapped it and like the look on the officer’s face when he realized, like, none of this is gonna work now. He was like. He was like, defeated.

00:55:18:20 – 00:55:40:20

He. I remember talking to him and he was like. Like he was just like, well, this was a waste of time because, like, I have nothing here because the guy can’t do any SFS. Yeah. So he’s like, I’m not even going to bother putting him through STS. I’m getting what I think are clues of amphetamine impairment, but like so I was more I was advised him like, you know, well, you could call a doctor, you could do a ride or whatever.

00:55:40:20 – 00:55:59:03

And he he was just so defeated. He was like, I don’t really even feel like doing anything. So he asked the guy for consent to search the guy. Grant’s consent dude had like a plastic cup in his cup holder full of alcohol. The trooper or the officer was so like defeated that he just dumped it and was like, you’re like, go.

00:55:59:06 – 00:56:16:25

I remember he think he was intoxicated, like on on alcohol. No. Like he the this officer was always very good at that. Like he wouldn’t push DUIs if he didn’t see stuff. Yeah. He and I was talking to him about that the open container. And he was like, look, I’m not getting impairment of that. I’m getting what I think is amphetamine impairment.

00:56:17:02 – 00:56:39:01

But I can’t like, you know, I’ve hit a wall here now. And so he just dumped the alcohol was like, you know, I mean, have a good day. Have a good night, man. It was the it was the most bizarre traffic stop I had ever seen, that it was just a comedy of errors because, like, I mean, the guy was probably DUI and we all knew it, but there really was nothing we would have to be able to.

00:56:39:02 – 00:57:01:15

We had a canine. I mean, they could have they could have asked him to do an open air sniff and then maybe you get in the vehicle. But what I mean, to what end? I mean, they already granted consent. The officer was in the car and it was so funny because I, I came over to the passenger side and I’m looking through both doors are open and I think the officer was either in the passenger door in front of me or he was on the driver’s side, and I looked at him.

00:57:01:17 – 00:57:19:18

I could tell his demeanor like he was just over the stop, and I was like, so what do you think? And he was like, yeah, I think I’m about done with this. Yeah. And then like it was done, he kept it. That’s a good man. They just kept extending that stop, you know, guy granting consent to I mean good for the guy.

00:57:19:19 – 00:57:47:00

I mean the guy the guy got lucky and all the right facts were in his favor there. Yeah, well, missing a leg. Missing an eye? Yeah. Officer. Just over it. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it can be tough. You know, there’s definitely those cases where, as a prosecutor, I would get files and be reading the police report, watch the video, and almost immediately, like, after a while, it does take a while to like, really get, I think, a good handle on what’s a good case and what’s not a good case.

00:57:47:03 – 00:58:09:07

And by that, people that don’t do that job or haven’t done that job or aren’t involved in criminal law, I think have a misconception on what good and bad is in a case, because I’ve had cases where, you know, there’s a decent amount of evidence there, but even with a bunch of evidence, there’s still holes or somebody made a mistake.

00:58:09:08 – 00:58:36:07

And I think that’s a pretty big distinction between prosecutors and defense attorneys. That makes defense attorneys who were prosecutors even better is that when we get the case, a lot of times we have a lot more evidence at our our disposal rather than whatever is going to go into trial. And there are some things that we like it that we are aware of that are potentially waiting in the wings that are factors.

00:58:36:07 – 00:59:09:06

But if we have no intention of of introducing those, a trial, like if it’s something that’s not exculpatory, for example, if it’s not a mandatory disclosure, we may be aware of other stuff, but because there’s no serious intention or it wouldn’t be admissible or whatever, it’s not something that necessarily has to be turned over. And so a lot of times the prosecutor has a much bigger view of the case than even the defense attorney, because defense attorneys may not be aware of all the history of interactions with this individual, and law enforcement may not be aware of some of that stuff.

00:59:09:08 – 00:59:24:06

And, you know, as a prosecutor, like you said, you you with all that information, you look at cases sometimes and you can sniff out if you get good at it, this is a good one. I want to try this or this is maybe not a good one. And and that was part of the learning experience with me in in Dauphin.

00:59:24:08 – 00:59:37:21

I had some cases we had we had like a status review at one point with all the chiefs because they were trying to clean up the trial list. So they made us all bring in all our trial cases at one point. And I had a couple cases that I presented to the Chiefs, and I was like, I’m kind of excited about this one, whatever.

00:59:37:21 – 00:59:57:26

And like the one, the one chief was like, yeah, I think he should dump that one. I think I should get rid of that one. And so, you know, like having that. Yeah, that kind of skill, I think makes you a better defense attorney too, because you start to see like, okay, there are because even now I have clients where prosecutor I think is so certain that they got a Loctite case.

00:59:57:27 – 01:00:21:10

Yeah. But I’m not so sure. Yeah. And I’m, I’m not necessarily even trying to be like radically pro defense. I’m looking at it from a prosecutor’s perspective. Yeah. And I think I think that’s one of the benefits. Critical. Yeah. Because we have to be right. And I just had this conversation with somebody the other day, you know, like you just said, just because there’s a ton of stuff out there, you know, evidence I mean it.

01:00:21:15 – 01:00:43:09

One, it may not come in a trial. It may not actually be that helpful or relevant. Really, what it comes down to is being able to look at a case and knowing its value, like just by reading the complaint. Right? And not you can’t always do that. But I do think that that is a very, learned skill that comes just with, with time.

01:00:43:10 – 01:01:04:22

Right? And like I said, my perspective being in the DA’s office, when I would get certain cases, I’d read the complaint and almost immediately know this is a case that is good or this is a case that we’re pleading out. Well, that was something to that. I think it was really good when York made the change and they made this change after I had come there where they were starting to send Das out to prelims.

01:01:04:22 – 01:01:25:28

Yes, that is a fantastic change. I mean, I went to every prelim. There was always a Da at a prelim in Dauphin County. I mean, I’ve probably done hundreds of prelims, if not thousands. I mean, I’ve managed, no doubt, thousands of cases at the preliminary hearing stage. And just and when you’re in central court in Dauphin County, I mean, you’re at the prison.

01:01:25:28 – 01:01:46:06

There’s they don’t do it. They don’t do it like Dauphin or your county. No. There’s a lot going on there. There’s like 50 cases scheduled between 9 and 1130 when everybody’s going to break for lunch. You get through them? Yeah. Get through them somehow. And so being able to work bang, bang like that, talk to victims, talk to cops, figure out the information you need.

01:01:46:07 – 01:02:07:01

Talk to defense. Are we taking a hearing? Is there. Am I going to make an offer right here at the prelim? That’s a skill that you develop. And a lot of attorneys in York didn’t get that because they had a specialized unit that was doing prelim. So not everybody was doing prelims. Yeah. Not everybody was going out to the prelims and seeing these cases kind of stank, you know.

01:02:07:03 – 01:02:24:24

Yeah. So I think those of us who had that benefit, I think it’s a good thing, because I’ve even noticed that there are some defense attorneys that haven’t done many prelims. So, like, they don’t really even know how the prelim works. And how do you advise your client in that situation? Like how do you give them good advice about what to do with the prelim?

01:02:24:25 – 01:02:46:07

I mean, if you’re if you’re you’re just going to come in and be like, hey, let’s take a hearing. You’re leaving stuff on the table, potentially. Yeah. And I mean, it’s for me, it’s almost few and far between that I actually think doing a hearing is worth it. Yeah. Because if I’m going to gain something by not doing the hearing and stipulating if it’s good enough, we want to do that live to fight another day.

01:02:46:08 – 01:03:05:19

Yeah. And also there are definitely cases, especially with like victims or difficult witnesses or difficult officers that maybe, you know, don’t want to work with you at the prelim. Yeah, you can take a hearing and, you know, try to get something that day out of, you know, the testimony. But, sometimes just stipulating or waiving and letting some time pass.

01:03:05:20 – 01:03:27:10

Time heals. Time heals. All right. And they also potentially remove it from like if you have an officer who’s really a stickler about a case, I mean, you know, the officer isn’t going to be present downtown for most of those hearings. Yeah. You know what I mean? Well, and also to I think depending on the seriousness of the case, you know, the DA’s are the ones that ultimately have the final approval and that discretion.

01:03:27:12 – 01:03:47:07

They have to consult with victims and stuff. But, you know, they don’t necessarily have to follow lockstep with what the officer is saying. And I know that a lot of prosecutors and I was like this, too. I mean, there were certain things that I would do even if the officer objected or even if the victim objected, but there were certain things that I was not going to do in front of the officer.

01:03:47:07 – 01:04:04:20

And so I would tell the officer, hey, this is what they’re asking. You don’t want to do that, but I’m just telling you right now, this is something that I’m going to give some consideration to, that I’m going to think about doing this. We won’t do it today. Yeah, but I’m I’m telling you right now, I’m probably leaning in that direction because I think there’s a reason for.

01:04:04:21 – 01:04:23:02

Well, I think that was like one of the biggest parts of, of being a successful prosecutor. And then now us being back onto, well, me being back on offense and you being on defense and working with TL, having those conversations when you’re in the DA’s office, even though they’re difficult and officer may not agree, I think they respect it.

01:04:23:03 – 01:04:43:22

Yeah, I know, and it just builds builds that respect and that that that relationship. And there definitely are times where, you know, the officer or trooper may have thought, well, this is this case is solid, right. And then we get it and we’re looking at it from our perspective. And we’re the ones that have to go try it and present that to a jury where, you know, not so much.

01:04:43:25 – 01:05:00:27

And that’s never an easy conversation. You don’t want to, you know, tell somebody like, hey, this case isn’t that hey, good work, but it’s not good enough. Well, yeah. And that’s the thing too. I think just being able to have a conversation with, with the officers about why we don’t feel we can prove it, and I had, I had a couple where, you know, I didn’t think I could prove it.

01:05:00:27 – 01:05:19:00

And the officer was totally not in agreement with that. Right. And it may have gotten a little contentious for a little bit, but I think having multiple conversations about it and just figuring out, okay, this is in a case I want to try, you’re not in agreement with this. What are you in agreement with? And just kind of finding a middle ground.

01:05:19:01 – 01:05:42:16

And when I could do that, absolutely did. But then there were definitely times where I was just like, I got to get rid of this, right? And and I mean, yeah, I’ve had a lot of those conversations too. But I also remember that, you know, with certain officers to you do kind of deal with and it’s the same with victims where you do deal with somebody who maybe is a little too close to the case to really take an objective look at it.

01:05:42:16 – 01:06:02:08

And so you have to kind of bear that in mind to that you’re you’re dealing with somebody who’s invested, even though they’re not really like a party per se, to the case, but they’re invested in the case. Absolutely. And I that was one thing that I always loved about Dauphin County, because once you developed that relationship with the officers, I mean, they’d call you all the time.

01:06:02:08 – 01:06:21:04

And I actually loved that. I loved getting calls from officers because, I mean, they trusted me so I’d have officers calling me. They want me to look at warrants for them, do a sniff test on the warrants. See, does this look good? I’d proofread their warrants. I’d say, hey, you need to change this. Yeah. Here’s like, here’s two things that you put in the warrant.

01:06:21:04 – 01:06:38:28

But I think, like how do you get from A to B? You know, where’s the Nexus. All this stuff, telling them, hey, you made a mistake. I think this is challenging or your dates are wrong or whatever, right? I used to love that they would do that. And we used to get to be a part of guiding them through the investigation from that prosecutorial mindset.

01:06:38:28 – 01:07:10:26

And in York County, I never really had that relationship. They I don’t think it’s incentivized the same way in York County. I was always jealous of the SC unit, to be honest with you, because they do have that relationship with the officers. I think. I, I was very lucky in the last year or so, 2025, being in the courtroom that I was in and having the department said I did, and even before that, the previous courtroom, I was in a lot of guys and a lot of the, you know, officers, troopers, whatever had my my cell phone number.

01:07:10:26 – 01:07:31:21

And I would get calls even after, you know, not working with those departments. There’s I forget what I think. It was a guy from West Manchester. I can’t remember what officer it was. I mean, I wouldn’t name him, but I would get calls from this guy all the time for the unsworn falsification. Like the guns. Yeah. Like when we were talking about that with the forms and be like, hey, I got like 6 or 7 of these things and I sent them over to you.

01:07:31:22 – 01:07:53:25

Take a look. I’m like, yeah, sure. Like I have no issue doing that. I had a, a good a good relationship with the department said I worked with. And I always loved when they called me because I was going to be the one dealing with the cases. So like even when I wasn’t on call, I would try to tell him if I saw him at prelims, whatever, like, hey, you have a question about a case, call me, because I’m going to be the one that has to deal with it.

01:07:54:02 – 01:08:13:09

And that is one thing about your county. I’m sure most counties are like this. There’s, you know, an on call Ada, and when you’re on call, you get calls, you know, all hours of the night basically after hours. And some people would just do things that I would not have done or they would approve charges somewhere where I’m like, I would never have approved this.

01:08:13:09 – 01:08:32:14

Yeah. And I was the one that had to clean up that mess. So that’s why I was trying to, you know, tell the guys and ladies in the departments that I worked with like, hey, if there’s an issue with something or you have a question, just call me. I don’t care what time it is. I mean, if it’s after midnight, I’m probably not going to answer you, but if it’s serious enough that you have to call somebody like that late, they’re probably calling the exact.

01:08:32:16 – 01:08:48:08

But I always liked, you know, having a good relationship with those guys. And I feel like I still do. I see a lot of them out of prelims. And I know TL and you, you know, we all talk to a lot of the officers whenever we can. Yeah. There was a there was an officer that would call me frequently.

01:08:48:08 – 01:09:01:25

And it was funny because he was not one of the jurisdictions that I dealt with, but it just so happened one time that I guess he called into the office or something, and I was the guy that answered, and he just kept calling. He just kept calling me. I gave him my personal number, and so he would just keep calling.

01:09:01:25 – 01:09:26:16

And then he’s doing a training for a new officer. And then that officer keeps calling me, and, you know, and what he told me was, you know, I would call, you know, 2 or 3 days, but I wouldn’t hear anything. Yeah. But when I called, Tammy would answer, so like, that always felt good. And I liked that relationship to now on the defense side because now like we text some of these officers and be like, hey, I represent a guy for this case.

01:09:26:19 – 01:09:44:08

You have some time to talk about it. And dude, we’re getting calls immediately. Like, the officer is not ghosting us. They’re actually calling us to talk through the case and they’re giving us the time of day. So like, that approach, I think, has paid dividends for our clients. Yeah. Here. Yeah. No, I really like that. One of the things, I guess.

01:09:44:09 – 01:10:04:14

What are we at? We’re getting we’re like at an hour. Yeah. We’re out of ten okay. Well I think we could probably wrap it up. What do you think? Or what drew you to criminal law? Like, is that is that what you thought? I meant to ask that question earlier? No. I did a bunch of things in law school.

01:10:04:15 – 01:10:25:21

My opinion, my approach was I’ll take internships pretty much anywhere. I’ll try everything. So I worked in immigration, I did debt collection. I did some other stuff here and there. I did like general practice, which was, you know, doing family law and divorce. That was a nightmare. Never. I’ll never touch any of that stuff again. And so I just kind of played around with it.

01:10:25:21 – 01:10:43:01

And criminal law was one of the subjects in law school that I did well in. It was one of the first subjects I got like an A in and then so that was always just kind of like something in the back of my mind. I think I’m good at this and I don’t mind it. There was some other stuff I thought I would be good at, but never really had any opportunities there.

01:10:43:01 – 01:11:05:04

So it’s always easy. Maybe it’s not always easy, but it’s kind of easy to get a job in a DA’s or a public defender’s office. They’re always looking for people. There’s their high turnover jobs. They’re high stress. Did you think you wanted to do like trials and all that stuff or. Yeah, yeah, I did trial and the Trial Advocacy Honor Society in law school did a few of the trial ad competitions.

01:11:05:06 – 01:11:30:19

Oh, you did like mock trial. Yeah. Okay. We did like the, the it was like a regional competition that we did for we did two years. We did okay in it. But the judges were kind of stacked against us. I think that’s a story for another time. I actually it was one of them was over zoom and I made a boo boo where like, I was kind of badmouthing one of the judges and I sent it to all participants instead of just like the the teammates were trying to have like a team chat.

01:11:30:20 – 01:11:48:16

Yeah. So and then the judge saw it and my parents were actually watching it remotely. They were watching it and they were like when when that came through, we saw her face and it was like, oh, they like, people could see what you. Oh yeah. I mean, it went to everybody in it went to everybody in the call because she was at the end they would do like a hot wash.

01:11:48:18 – 01:12:08:03

I mean, I’ll just tell the the short story here. They would do like feedback. Yeah. Well and she was giving feedback on us where it was like she was criticizing us for not objecting more. And what I said to my teammate was, that seems like a little bit of unfair criticism, because we made several really good objections early on, and she just struck him down.

01:12:08:04 – 01:12:20:24

So like, of course we get to a point and that’s how it is even in real life, if you’re objecting and the judge is not having any of it, you get to a point where you’re like, I’m not going to waste the I’m not going to make the judge mad. Well, or the jury. Right. I’m not going to keep objecting.

01:12:20:27 – 01:12:38:28

And that was exactly where we were at. And I sent that to everybody. And she was kind of upset about that. That’s the thing. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we would probably do an episode on objections at some point. That’s true. Yeah. Okay. So what made you land on criminal law out of any other thing? I ended up interning in the DA’s office in Dauphin County.

01:12:39:01 – 01:12:57:22

What was it? Two year and through, like, three l you were there and Dauphin County? Yeah, it was only a couple hours a week, but I really liked it. And it was interesting. And like I said, I got to see a lot of trials. And when I first went to law school or was thinking about going to law school and was really getting into it, I thought I’d do something with like, business.

01:12:57:22 – 01:13:19:14

And then I had a friend that was in patent law and that stuff just always, I don’t know, like that. It just interested me like patents, technical, it is super tactical. And to really do that and be successful, I think you have to be. It’s pretty fast paced, and I think a lot of bigger firms in bigger cities will do that.

01:13:19:14 – 01:13:39:14

And as I started to make my way through law school and spend time in the DA’s offices and just being at like a smaller school, like I said, I, I love bigger cities. I don’t want to live there. And then just, you know, the technical aspect of it was always interesting to me. But, I knew I wanted to do trials.

01:13:39:14 – 01:13:56:21

Eventually, after sitting through some and seeing that. And I always hated public speaking, hated it, really hated it, my friends. Surprising to me because I have seen you in trial and you’re like, you’re pretty good in trial. Yeah. So my friends always bust me like the first episode we had where I didn’t talk for seven minutes. They’re like, how did you not talk for seven minutes?

01:13:56:26 – 01:14:15:26

So they used to, you know, just tell me that I love to argue and all that. And I think that was always in the back of my mind, like, you know, being a lawyer, whatever. But really, until I went and did it and all through college, like I had to do public speaking, I hated it, even starting law school and like first getting in the DA’s office, like I was so scared to, like, mess up.

01:14:15:26 – 01:14:29:09

I think that’s really what it was. I just had anxiety about it. Yeah, but, you know, after a while got a lot more comfortable with it. And once I did, like I said, that first trial at the at the first firm I worked for, I was like, okay, I can do this. And like I said, that built my confidence.

01:14:29:09 – 01:14:47:27

And I mean, I loved I love being in the DA’s office and doing trials. Yeah, I mean, I think and now that we’re on the defense side, I mean, it’s still in some ways it’s still like the same it’s the same animal, you know, like we’re still in we’re still in the cases, we’re still interacting with officers sometimes even victims.

01:14:48:03 – 01:15:08:13

And a lot of times obviously now it’s prosecutors instead of defense attorneys. So the work is different. But it’s not all that different. You know, and I think is as taxing as the grind is sometimes I do like the I like this this grind that we have. Yeah. You know and the rhythm of criminal cases and stuff do tend to like it.

01:15:08:14 – 01:15:24:26

I bet you I mean, is that kind of where you’re at? You’re. I don’t know that I could see myself really doing anything else I can at this point. Yeah. I think, you know, down the road. Yeah. Maybe down the road and, you know, 20 or 30 years, get a nice cushy job at the state, maybe push some general counsel somewhere, push some paper.

01:15:24:27 – 01:15:49:19

Yeah. Of counsel. Yeah, but no coming over here to work with yell. And you. Obviously, we were pretty good friends in the DA’s office, and we had a lot of fun. And I’ll say that I was. I didn’t like you. Yeah. All right. Well, anyways, I being at a smaller firm and having you guys, you know, to work with every day and practice with obviously it makes it a lot more enjoyable.

01:15:49:20 – 01:16:05:26

Like I said, the first firm I was at, there were some good people, but like I said, the the it just wasn’t the right fit. Right. So in actually decided to leave the DA’s office and come over here with TL. And obviously I was happy when I think we both kind of found out around the same time that he was talking to both of us.

01:16:05:28 – 01:16:32:19

Yeah, but that obviously made it a lot easier of a decision. And, you know, it was a good opportunity. And obviously we know, you know, from working with TL together like he’s a good guy and I think supports us no matter what. And really just kind of gave us that comfort factor where, you know, we felt we could we could leave a solid position and where we were comfortable to try something new and succeed.

01:16:32:26 – 01:16:50:21

So shout out TL. Even though he’s not here. Definitely. I remember having a conversation with you. I remember we were both still thinking about it and I was like, well, I’m not going to go if you I don’t think, yeah, I like, I like tell me if you’re, if you’re not gonna if you’re not seriously considered. I think that’s how it went.

01:16:50:22 – 01:17:09:28

You were sitting at your desk and I snuck into your office, and I was like, you know, tell me right now if you’re not seriously considering it. Because if you’re not considering it, then I’m not going to do it. And you just kind of looked at me and you were like, I’m considering it. Yeah. No. Well, I don’t know if we told this story at all, but like just how we kind of ended up here.

01:17:09:28 – 01:17:45:16

I think that was the whole idea of today. And I know we’ve talked a lot about a lot of random stuff, but, Yeah, no. When TL first approached me to to come work with him and leave the DA’s office, I truly didn’t feel like I was ready. And, you know, I told him that. And the fact that, you know, he wanted both of us to come work with him, and I think he appreciated how we operated as as prosecutors and obviously having, you know, the knowledge that we do and we both tried a decent amount of cases and not that trials everything or what makes you a great attorney, but having that experience and

01:17:45:16 – 01:18:06:14

knowing how to handle certain situations, like we know how to think on our feet and, you know, that’s a huge part of doing criminal law is like we talked about, you know, things just pop up and it’s not always easy to figure stuff out, but being able to remain calm during that. And you know, we see we’ve both seen attorneys just freak out in court and, you know, throw, throw hissy fits and all that.

01:18:06:14 – 01:18:22:02

And I know you tell people, TL tells people, I tell my people, you know, we can go in there and raise hell right off the bat, but that’s that’s not going to get us anywhere, right? There are definitely times where we need to do that if we get to that point, to get to that point. But, you know, we don’t do things just to do things here.

01:18:22:04 – 01:18:43:21

You know, we we operate under the philosophy that we we build relationships with people and we use those relationships to our advantage. And honestly, I just had a conversation with an officer recently where I was like, hey, man, I understand. Like this isn’t the best case for me, but, you know, I got a good kid here, made a mistake, like, can you cut him a break?

01:18:43:22 – 01:19:06:15

Yeah. And he ended up cutting him a break. And that’s another thing, too. People don’t always remember this. Just because we come to an agreement with an officer, a prosecutor, a judge has to take it, right? So that’s something that I’ve been working on. And I feel like I’ve got a good relationship with most of the MDGs, and obviously all the Court of Common Pleas judges know us, but some of the MDGs that I just didn’t frequent in the DA’s office.

01:19:06:16 – 01:19:25:27

Yeah, I love taking cases at those because I get more face time with them. And being here with TL and, you know, the reputation he’s built for himself in the firm goes a long way. And whenever I meet someone new that I didn’t know previously and I tell them I work for TL, they’re usually pretty friendly. Yeah. Dude, that’s.

01:19:25:28 – 01:19:47:14

And it’s crazy that you say that because I’ve had some judges that are talking that like, they’re reassuring our clients in front of us. Yeah, because they know TL and they know us or whatever. And they’re like, they’re they’re like, yeah, you got a really good attorney here, that kind of stuff. So I mean, that is kind of funny how that works because you do develop these, these professional relationships.

01:19:47:20 – 01:20:12:14

Yeah. So yeah, I mean, like you said, it’s been a little bit of a potpourri episode, I guess, but we figured we would do something like this just to, you know, do a little backstory, tell a little bit about ourselves. And again, I mean, it’s a little more personal. We still talked a lot about work and law and cases and stuff, but maybe now you have a little bit more insight into what what made us the way we are, for better or worse.

01:20:12:14 – 01:20:31:15

So this has been another episode of Now We Defend minus TL. Hopefully all three of us will be here next week, but we’ll have to see, like subscribe, comment all that stuff on on Kearney Law. Yep. YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, all that stuff and we’ll see you next time.