EP908- Inspiration from SLU Law School Dean Twinette Johnson

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to Heals in the Courtroom where the trial lawyers of the Simon Law Firm break down what it takes to win in the courtroom and in life.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Heals in the Courtroom. I’m Liz Lenivy, and today I’m joined by Mary Simon, Elizabeth McNulty, Katie St. John, and a very special guest as a double alumni of St. Louis University. We are joined by Slow Law Dean Twinette Johnson. Welcome, Dean Johnson.

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

And thank you so much for being here. We are so excited to be able to talk with you. And please correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you are coming up on your one-year anniversary of being the dean of the Law School.

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Yeah, almost. And I always tell people I’m counting up and not down.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

I love that. It’s great. So for any of our listeners who may not be familiar with you, can you just tell us a little bit about your background, your education, and just of how you got to where you are today?

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Yeah. So I think I have a pretty interesting and maybe fun story about how I ended up here and where I am now. So I always start with, I think almost 33 years ago, starting at St. Louis University as an undergraduate. And so if there are SLU undergrad alums listening, you’ll remember the Ora Flame crew coming to help us in orange shirts. And so I had that too, almost 33 years ago. And that’s where it all started. My mom and I had never been to St. Louis. I am from New Orleans and we really liked St. Louis University. I think my mother was really drawn to the Jesuit mission of the school. And I think she felt some comfort in leaving her 18-year-old in a city that she just didn’t know anything about. And four years later, my mom came back for graduation and we were walking through the quad and I had my gown on because of course you don’t take it off when you finally graduate.

And one of my professors came up to my mom and she said, she’s going to have a wonderful career. Now this particular professor had, she did two classes for me outside of normal class times because I had to work and I could not get to her classes and I needed them to finish my certificate in creative and professional writing. So that professor

Met with me twice a week so that I could have class with her because I could not make the normal class time. And so my experience with St. Louis University is grounded in experiences like that. And I think that’s the reason why I just have kept coming back over the years. And so I went home for law school. I went to Tulane. I graduated there and then I clerked on the Missouri Supreme Court for Judge Dwayne Benton.

I left there and then I went to a law firm in New York to practice bank finance law. And then I left there and I came back to St. Louis, back to St. Louis University. And I started working at the law school as a legal writing professor. I did several things there for eight years, and then I left and went to another law school, stayed there for six years. Then I left and went to another law school in DC. And there I became a law Dean for the first time. And in my first year there, my first permanent year there, I was lured away by St. Louis University School of Law. And here I am. Oh,

Mary Simon:

That’s awesome.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

I call it the arch effect where I feel like people just boomerang back, right?

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Right. And I am a sliw boomeranger for sure.

Mary Simon:

What was that transition like of teaching a legal writing class for so long and then you’re the dean of a school? What is that difference? Do you have a favorite one over the other or you just both like them for different reasons?

Dean Twinette Johnson:

So I did legal writing. And then as I was doing legal writing, I started to do bar preparation work. As I moved around, I taught contracts classes, business classes, secure transactions, intro to commercial paper, all of that is in the same sort of category. But all of that work gave me such a broad view of law schools and how they work.

That deaning seemed like the next thing that I would do. I will tell you though, that I really miss teaching, really miss connecting with students. I mean, if you can recall being in a classroom, it’s one of the most, I think, special educational settings that you can be in. And maybe I’m waxing on a little bit because I’m a professor, but you get to have this special time with your students. You can connect with them and you literally watch them grow in terms of their knowledge and their skills and their … You just watch them grow in a very short time. And it really is one of the most amazing transformations that you could ever be a part of. And I think it’s taken some time for me to see how I can do the same thing as a dean because I think that’s really core and central to who I am.

So which one do I like the best? I like this one. Yeah. I like this one a lot. And I think I like it the best because of scale. I love my relationship and my class with my students, but I can facilitate and be a part of those transformations at a higher level, which means I can reach more people.

Mary Simon:

It’s so interesting to hear you say that. The SLU final trials for the trial ad program are tomorrow. And I taught trial advocacy the last couple of semesters. And I always tell Tom Stewart, I’m like, as long as you’ll have me, I want to keep teaching because it’s such a cool place to be in. And I give the students kind of an individual feedback overall semester memo at the end. And there’s only so many … I was like, I feel like I’m telling them all the same thing, but the message was just, it is crazy for me to see what you were doing on day one versus the last day of class. It’s so cool to witness that. And to be able to do that on a level, having the impact that you can have at an institutional level, it’s scaling that growth to such a bigger audience.

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Yeah.

Mary Simon:

Dean, I wanted to follow up with you on your Supreme Court clerkship experience. What was that like? How did you fall into that position?

Dean Twinette Johnson:

It was amazing. I don’t know if any of you have ever met Judge Dwayne Benton. He is an amazing mentor and that’s what he was just like from the very beginning. I remembered when I interviewed with him, sometimes you have to bring a writing sample and I brought my writing sample, but there’s always a question in our minds when we were interviewing, “Are they really these writing examples? Are they really reading these?” And so when I walked into my interview with Judge Benton, we chatted for a little bit and then he pulls out the writing sample and starts asking me about the writing sample. And I thought, thankfully I reread it, but I thought this is pretty cool. And that’s the kind of judge that he was while I was clerking. I enjoyed living in Jefferson City. I had an apartment that was walking distance from the court.

Oh,

Mary Simon:

That’s cool.

Dean Twinette Johnson:

And a judge would take us to all of these places in the area, like these restaurants off the beat, and it was just so fun. But one of the things I really appreciate about him is the way he worked with his clerks. When we would write our memos, a judge would bring us into his office and he would sit with us and mark up the memo with us while we were there, pretty scary the first time. But after a while, I mean, you just grew so much and so quickly with all of that personal attention that he would give us. And it was a phenomenal experience. It really was. I’m so thankful for it.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Kind of going back to what you were talking about, getting to see students grow, I imagine that maybe he got some sort of professional or personal fulfillment out of getting to watch his own clerks develop into better writers and better practitioners. Now, I am so curious because it’s just so outside of what we do and any experience that we’ve had here, but how do you find yourself the dean of a law school? What is that process like?

Dean Twinette Johnson:

I think it definitely has some standard aspects to it of how you become a dean, but I’ll answer that question first in terms of how I became a dean in my mind because I think that’s really important. That’s where it starts. And so whenever I’m talking to people about becoming a dean, I always say to them first thing, and they think I’m going to say something like just super duper specific and like I see pins, they’re ready. And I’m like, know yourself. And everybody just kind of pauses like, I’m like, know yourself. These institutions are varied. They have many constituents. There are professors, there are staff members, there are university folks, there are alums and within each of those categories are differences. And so there are a lot of people and a lot of processes and traditions that you are responsible for. And it’s very easy to get sucked into something and start to try to mimic what other people might want you to be or think you should be.

And so it’s just really important to, I think, first, know who you are. Whatever that work entails for you as an individual, engage in it intentionally and know who you are. There’s always room for growth and everything to have a clear idea of the kind of person you are, and that will help you to find the right school. I have a saying always, a law school should have the dean that it wants and the dean should have the law school that she wants. And if both of those are a positive match, then we can do wonderful things, right? But on the practical side, there is a lot of preparation in terms of learning about the school. The interview process is kind of gauntlet. You do a lot of them. There’s a lot of screening and once you get there, you meet with everybody. I was very thankful for that Slow that I got to meet with everybody.

I met all the folks across campus and the deans, the VPs, I met with the president, I met with the provost, obviously. I spent time on our law school campus. And so it gave the people an opportunity to meet me, but it also gave me an opportunity to meet the people so that we could both end up on the positive side on those two questions. Is this the school the dean wants? Is this the dean the school wants? And so the process can be daunting, but I appreciate a thorough process like that so that we all know we’re making good decisions.

Mary Simon:

So on a practical level, I wanted to ask, what does a day kind of look like for you? And then on a time management or a priority, because you have so many things that are probably thrown at you that are told to you, this is the priority. How do you determine what to stay on task with if you have something on your plate and how do you pivot? How do you even know to do that?

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Yeah, it can be very difficult. And I think that I am still a work in progress because you want to do everything, right? And I want the people who are engaged in this really amazing and wonderful and sometimes arduous enterprise that we are in. And that’s the enterprise of educating students into justice-minded advocates. That’s a big, heavy job. And I want to be as supportive as I can of all the people who are involved in that enterprise. And so it’s really hard to balance some time or prioritize because you want to do that. I think one of the first things that I have to always remember is that balance for me, for me, is a bit of a fiction, right? At this level, I’m like, yeah. And I did hear someone say this at a conference once, and this was a person who had been president of a very large organization and she said, “There is no balance.” It freed me in ways I can’t explain because I thought, “I’ve been looking for her and I can’t find her.

She’s missing.” And it’s just this elusive thing that I kept trying to find. And what I realized is that I created, right? I create the space, I create the boundaries, I get to decide, which was very empowering for me. And so I could figure out how I would prioritize things and how I would work things. One of the things that I do is I try to be very transparent with the folks that I work with and I let them know. I try to give them enough heads up to let them know when I’m not going to be available or even when I’m going to be away. Everybody has access to my calendar. They can just look, they can see and they can order their lives accordingly. The other thing that I do is when I tell them I’m not available, I stick to it. That’s important.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Good for you.

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Yeah. But I will say that in this job, I have a to- do list every day, every single day. I never get through it. Something always pops up. And I think that’s part of the flexibility. I want to be a dean that is available. I want to be a dean that’s accessible. And sometimes my list, even if it has things on it that are really important that I get done, this student that has found their way into my office and wants to say, “Hey,” or have a chat with me, I’m going to stop for that because that is now the priority for me because I know that sometimes that’s not an easy thing to do for a student to come up and talk to the dean. And so I think it just depends and it’s that kind of flexibility that I just embrace.

Mary Simon:

Such a great leadership quality. Even just hearing you talk, I’m like, “Absorb it, Mary, at your point as she’s saying and apply it to your

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Life.” I’m a work in progress though. I have to work at this, really. But

Katie St. John:

That goes to your transparency point. Yeah. Awesome to hear that. I am five years out of law school. And so as a young professional, you feel like you want to be available, you want to be hardworking, you want your colleagues to see that you’re hardworking and you’re dedicated, but hearing that from you is just a reminder that it’s important to find your own balance. And I think that’s awesome. What do you love most about being the dean of Slew Law?

Dean Twinette Johnson:

There are a lot of things that I love about being the Dean of this law school. I love that it really is, from my viewpoint, St. Louis’s Law School and other folks may take issue with that, but I’m 10 toes down on it. We are St. Louis’s Law School and that’s more than just a thing to say. I think you can see it. You can see it in our vast alumni network. I can see it in the way that we interact with the community and the way the community interacts with us as a law school institution. And I love it that when I’m in a legal setting, when I am at an event that has to do with the law or anything like that, most of the room is slow law and I just love it. And so that’s one of the things that I’m really excited about when it comes to being the dean of this law school.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

And that was a big part of the reason why I wanted to go to SLU Law, because I went to SLU for undergrad. I was raised in Southern Illinois, so the Metro East, I don’t get to play the high school game, but close enough, the big draw for me was that I knew being a first generation law student and having to build my own network, how important it was knowing that I wanted to practice in St. Louis going to St. Louis University. But the other thing that I loved about SLU undergrad and SLU Law in particular is just the sense of community that it provided. And I mean, it’s so obvious from the interactions I’ve had with you over the last couple of months and then you joining us today, that that is something, clearly a tradition that you are committed to continuing. But Dean, I am curious about what is your … Obviously we’ve got traditions and things we want to continue, but I think you bring a lot of bold innovation and you’ve got a lot of ideas and ways you want to improve the law school.

So I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that. What do you envision for SLU Law?

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Yeah, I do have a lot of ideas. I think it’s becoming sort of a running joke at the law school. I think I overheard someone say to somebody else, “Okay, so I want to talk to you about this because the dean has an idea.” And somebody said, “The dean has a lot of ideas.” And I’m like, “I do. Good.” You know, right? I have a lot of ideas. I think one of the things that I’m working on now really intentionally is helping our community understand a generative AI and large language models. I want us to not be afraid. I want us to tackle it head on. That means understanding some of the ethical implications, but also too, understanding what it could mean for our students in terms of the skillset that they leave the law school with. And I always tell folks, I was a summer associate in the maybe late 90s, mid to late 90s at a law firm, and there was email, but it was this thing that we were all afraid to use and we would make lunch dates over the email, right?

We did not send documents. Oh,

Mary Simon:

Interesting.

Dean Twinette Johnson:

I mean, we couldn’t, but we had emails. So instead of walking down the hall to say, “Would you like to go to lunch?” It was like, “Type it out. Would you like to go to lunch or send on the email?” But if I had to get documents to clients, I would have to print them out. If it were several folks who needed the documents, I’d have to copy them and then I’d have to either get them to a courier or to the FedEx by the deadline so they could get them the next day. And we were, I mean, built for that time, right? And we had whole rooms, folks who did that work, right? I mean, there was a room for faxing,

Elizabeth McNulty:

That’s

Dean Twinette Johnson:

It. There was a room for copying, a vast room. By the time I came back as an associate, we were sending things by email because we put the disclaimer on the bottom.

We found our comfort level with it. We figured it out. I think something similar is going to happen with AI, but I don’t want us still proverbially planning lunch and not using it with its full capabilities. And so we’ve started an exploratory workshop series at the law school where we are really trying to learn about large language models. And so we had a computer science professor from SLU. She came over to the law school just to teach us about what AI is and it was fascinating. Everyone left it with so many questions and they were so excited. We’re going to do another workshop soon about what law firms expect and what they’re doing, not just law firms, but folks engaged in law practice, what they’re thinking about AI. We’re trying to put together information to figure out what our next steps are in terms of our students.

And so I’m really excited about that. But to answer your question on a larger scale, these are the types of things that I want to see our law school engaged in. I think we have a very good, excellent regional reputation, and I want to continue to foster and nurture that, but there are definitely some opportunities for our law school to reach beyond the region. And I want to make sure we’re exploring those and making a footprint in those areas because I think that will be good for us. I think it is the way of the future, and I always want us to be future focused.

Mary Simon:

Law firms, us now, other law firms, we’re all wrapping our heads around AI and how it’s here to stay and let’s figure out how you can use it. I went to a conference a couple months ago and a plaintiff’s attorney put it on and essentially the message was AI is not going to replace lawyers, but lawyers who use AI are going to take the spots of lawyers who don’t use AI or who aren’t proficient in it. I think maybe even a couple classes ago in my trial ed class, I asked the class just at the very end in the last five minutes, “Hey, have any of you guys used AI at all to assist you in putting together your outlines or whatever it is? ” And first it was kind of like dear in headlights of, I don’t know what Professor Simon thinks the right answer.

No, exactly. And in my head I was like, “Oh, I think I just made everyone panic.” And I was like, “Do you guys learn?” I don’t know what the position is at the school, if your professors, other professors talked about it. And they were so quick to say, “Yes, actually.” And one student was like, “I do. I use it. ” And we’re about to have … We were in the courtroom for class and it was before one of the seminars I think was happening either that day and it felt so encouraging. I mean, even to me, I was thinking in my head, the students who are graduating are going to know more about AI and its use and it’s the parameters and its ethics because all of that is going to be built into whether it’s a seminar or a series or someone who’s just knowledgeable about the topic, presenting to the students who are there.

Whereas now, if you’re in practice, you need to go seek that out intentionally if you want to do it. So it’s so encouraging to hear that because it’s going to be one of those things. And maybe sometimes it feels similar of when if we get a new software and it’ll be one attorney here diving into it to then teach the other attorneys. I have a feeling that graduates over the next years, they’re going to be coming into law firms, presenting to the law firms who they’re working for of like, “I actually know a little bit more about this, at least you may have taken more depositions, but here’s a lesson and efficiency that I can bring.” Absolutely. Absolutely. So it’s awesome to hear that.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Dean, I know that being a law student is always very intense from their point of view, but I’d have to imagine it’s especially intense right now, just given everything that’s going on in the world. What kind of advice do you give law students or would you give students starting out?

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Oh, that’s a good question. And it should be, the answer to that should kind of rule off my tongue. I’ve been doing this now for 22 years or something like that. But I think over time I’ve seen some shifts in students in terms of what they’re interested in, how they approach things and what they want to do. I always like to ask law students what their goals are, and I encourage them to think about that, but not to be set in stone with them because you’re going to learn so much in law school, but it’s just helpful to have a sense of what it is you want to do. I also ask them to abstract it out too, because sometimes students will say, “I want to do sports law.” Great. Why? Just tell me why. Why do you want to do sports law? What is it about sports law that draws you?

And hopefully I hear some things that we can attach to and I can say to them, “Well, it might be a good idea maybe to take this course or let me connect you with this professor or even this practitioner that I know because that will help you to continue to grow.” And so I always like them to think about goals. And so that is probably the advice that I would give also too, because I think it just resonates in so many different ways, especially given some of the things that are going on today. I think law students have so many choices about how they are going to show up in the world. And I always want them, I always tell them, “You are adults. I am here to help you. I want you to make good decisions. I want you to make informed decisions. So I am always going to tell you everything I think you need to know in making your decision.” But as you decide the ways in which you would like to exist in society and live, think about your goals.

Is this thing you want to do aligning with your goals? If it is, you should go ahead and do it with full information about what you are doing. And if it doesn’t, then maybe rethink that action. I just like to give them the type of advice that creates within themselves the agency to live their lives because I think that’s what we do as attorneys as well. I always tell students, “We’re going to do our level best to teach you everything you need to know, but we will not get there. We will not teach you everything you need to know, but hopefully we equip you with the skills to help you to make the decisions for your clients that are going to be good ones.” I think the same thing applies to them as people. And so that’s where I like to start with advice.

Elizabeth McNulty:

I think that’s great advice. And I think sometimes we can all use that and reflect on our why and what our goals are and if what we’re doing is going to get us there.

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Yeah, absolutely. It’s advice I give to myself sometimes.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Well, I feel like that’s a good segue because sometimes what we like to do when we have a guest on is think about prior episodes we’ve recorded where we try to tackle maybe heavy, but hopefully fun topics and ways to reflect on our lives and our practices. And one of those is actually advice for our younger self. So you kind of check mark that one, that one’s off the list. But one thing that I am curious about, and we recorded this, I think last season, was this idea of what does success mean for you? How do you define success?

Dean Twinette Johnson:

There is this, I’m not going to remember the right name right now, but there is this prayer written by, I think his name was Bishop Outner. I just want to give, at least try to source this as best I can. Very academic you. Yeah. I know. But it was basically about, I think the title was something like a prophets of a work unfinished or something like that. And in the prayer, what he basically says is that you can’t do everything, but you could do something,

Right? And he says, “We’re not master builders, we’re workers.” And that really resonated with me. And I say that a lot of the times when I’m talking to people and like over the decades, over time, my name will just kind of dissipate, right? It’ll be like little dust kernels at some point, but the work that I do, hopefully, the work that I do will have some resonance and it will help somebody who will help somebody else, who will help somebody else, will help somebody else, who will help somebody else. So success for me is really very small and defined, right? It’s in these students who I help to become lawyers, right? They get to do beautiful and wonderful work and that grows, right? It just keeps growing and that’s success. Every time I can graduate a student, every time someone calls me up and says, “I passed the bar.” I’m like, “Okay, and stay licensed, okay?” Because you can do such wonderful and amazing things.

And so that’s success for me, it’s in these students, it’s in each one of them.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

I mean, and even thinking about the ripple effect that has, the number of lives we get to touch each day because of the work and education that we have because of educators like Dean Johnson. So I mean, it truly is a ripple out effect. That is something I had not really thought much about in just terms of how many touches we have each day where our good work will do good within the community and hopefully even further out. Now, Dean, I was listening to another podcast you recorded with, I think the Dean of the Law School in San Antonio.

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Yes. Yes. St. Mary’s Law School. St.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Mary’s Law School. And there was a phrase that you used on that episode, and I love little phrases that I can just sort of pepper throughout my day, throughout my life. But the particular phrase you used on this podcast episode was fueling while you fly. And I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about that, because I’m going to steal that. So I’m hoping you can explain it to me so I make sure I’m not misusing it.

Dean Twinette Johnson:

And I picked that phrase up from another dean. And so it’s not my creation, although I think that in all of these things, we give it our own meanings. But what it has come to mean to me is that we don’t have to sit around and wait for perfection because sometimes it just never comes. Sometimes we have to do things when the situation is less than perfect. The context is less than explained. That plane has to get up in the air. So I got to fly it. But I also have to fuel it while I fly it. And so I think there are lots of things in all of the things we do that can fit into that category. And sometimes that can be scary, right? Whether it’s a career move, whether it’s launching a program, whether it’s a whole host of things. Sometimes I think there is a lot of beauty in looking at how things … And using a trial or a trial period to figure out if it’s going to work.

I also think too, that sometimes whether you want them to or not, things have to go. They just have to go. And leaders have to have the courage to put it up in the air and keep working on it with all the eyes on it, with all the people criticizing, with all the people doing all the things. You have to have the courage to do that. And to believe that there is some value in it, even if eventually the plane has to come down. There has to be some value in that. And we’ve done that. We had to do that with COVID. We had to keep going, although we did not know how or what we were going to go into. We had to do that. And so I don’t think that’s something that’s necessarily foreign to us. It’s certainly not something that’s comfortable for us, right?

But it’s not something that’s foreign to us. And so when I say that, I just try to tap into that. It’s also helpful to people as well too, for the team to know. It doesn’t have to be perfectly formed all the time. We might be at a go point.

There may be more to do, but we might be at a go point in this thing. And maybe we don’t get to whatever perfect it is until we actually launch. And it keeps morphing for me, right? But that’s essentially, I think what it means.

Mary Simon:

That’s such an incredible leadership quality. It’s just everything you just said, it just is dripping in what I picture someone who’s just a fantastic leader would do. And it even reminds me, I mean, I don’t know, my dad has probably said this to you all before. I know he certainly said it to me, especially in your first or second year of practice. And it’s just you have endless ideas and you’re strategizing on something and you’re strategizing on something and you’re strategizing on something. And I’d go back and ask him and he’s like, Just make a decision and do it and then see. But it’s nice to hear it from someone in a leadership role because then it instills confidence in the folks who are working with you or collaborating with you on a project to be like, I feel actually more encouraged knowing that the person who’s giving me the direction is telling me, you’ve thought it through, we’ve talked about it, we’ve got an idea, we can’t predict the long-term maybe outcome.

But just using COVID as an example, it’s like the plane’s got to fly. So let’s just take off and see what we can do to

Maintain and figure out when we get to that steady place. I’m going to really remember that because it’s just a fantastic way to think about even progress too.

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s also important for leaders as well that if you’re going to have that mentality, if you’re going to think about things in that way, to create a space that’s safe for things when they don’t work out. That has to be a part of that. Right.

Katie St. John:

Okay. So I just talking about flying, it seems like you’ve been a little off topic, but you’ve mentioned New Orleans, New York, now you’re here in St. Louis and I’m a little bit of a foodie. So some of those places are all where I’ve enjoyed some delicious food out of the places you’ve been. I mean, St. Louis, New Orleans, New York, what’s your favorite?

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Going to get me in trouble. New Orleans has the best food.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

I’m so glad you said that because I went to New Orleans one time a couple years ago and I’ve been desperately trying to get back, but I’m obsessed with the food there. So what’s your favorite New Orleans dish?

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Goodness. Well, I could tell you right now, right now, I want crawfish so much. I was going to get on a plane and go home for two days to eat crawfish. And I said, “Toonet, knock it off, knock it off, knock it off.” But I wanted crawfish because this is the season and I want crawfish so badly, but I don’t know, it’s everything. It’s gumbo. It’s a fee. It’s crawfish bread. It’s everything. I did red beans and rice the other night at home and I was so mad with myself because I was so hungry that I rushed it. I ate it anyway, but I was like, “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind.” But yeah, right now really it’s crawfish. I mean, just like five pounds of boiled crawfish and all the fixings would just make me feel really good. Oh god, get back here to do it.

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. That’s what I want. Sometimes I say I’m hungry and I will say it to people and they’re like, “Yeah, well, get something to eat.” I’m like, “No, I’m hungry. I’m New Orleans hungry. I got to go home so I can get some food.” I will tell you though that I enjoy St. Louis food a lot. It’s not New Orleans food, but it has its own flare and it has its own distinctiveness in ways that I do enjoy St. Louis food. And like you said, I’ve been to New York, I’ve been to DC, lived in those places. And so New Orleans is still number one though.

Katie St. John:

I understand.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

I won’t fight you on that, but I’m glad we got a St. Louis shout out because again, very proud St. Louis, Metro East. Girl, I’m a strong believer. We’re punching above our weight given the size of the city. I think we

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Punch above our way. I think I agree with you. I think I agree with you.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Well, Dean Johnson, thank you so much for joining us for your time. I know how incredibly busy you are and I know that because I had to talk to your assistant to get you scheduled here today and you’re on fire. You just have so much going on. But as a billikin and proud alumni, I am so glad to see the law school in your very capable hands. Thank you. Thank you. You’re doing wonderful things and I can’t wait to see the future and everything that the Law School and your vision for it. So thank you again so much for joining us. Thank

Mary Simon:

You.

Dean Twinette Johnson:

Thank you. Thank you all so much for having me. This has been fun.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

And thank you to our listeners for joining us. Remember, new episodes of Heals in the Courtroom drop every other Wednesday. And if you want to reach out to us, you can contact us at heelsinthecourtroom.Law. Thanks guys. Bye.

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