EP 1007 – Advocacy in Action: Building a Purpose-Driven Law Firm Part 1

Episode Notes

Transcript

Elizabeth McNulty (00:05)
Welcome to Heels 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. Welcome back to another episode of Heels in the Courtroom. I’m Elizabeth McNulty and I’m joined by Liz Lenivy, Katie St. John, Mary Simon, and we’re so happy to have guests, Krystal Weigl and Olivia Weigl of Weigl Law. Welcome,

Krystal Weigl (00:28)
Thank you. Thanks so much for having us in today.

Elizabeth McNulty (00:31)
So for those of you who might not be familiar, I will give you a little rundown of Krystal and Olivia. Krystal is a litigator and managing partner of the Weigl Law Team. With a robust background and complex commercial litigation, Krystal represents both large corporations and individual clients with equal dedication. Her corporate practice spans intellectual property, entity formation and dissolution, and commercial real estate, while her individual representation

as range from civil rights, product liability, and pharmaceutical drug and device liability. Olivia serves as practice manager, bringing an operational and leadership perspective that keeps the engine running behind the scenes. With a background in education and a keen interest in operational efficiency, Olivia excels in managing the multifaceted aspects of law firm administration. Her journey from the classroom to the courtroom reflects her passion for advocacy through education and her commitment to her community.

Thank you guys so much for coming on the podcast today. Krystal, can you tell us those who aren’t familiar with your firm, how would you describe kind of the heart or ethos of it?

Olivia Weigl (01:27)
Thanks for having us.

Krystal Weigl (01:38)
Biggest questions up front. ⁓ Yeah. So when I started up the firm, I’d always, you people would ask what kind of practice areas we manage, who we represent, how we handle things. And for a long time, I didn’t really know how to describe that because as you all know, civil litigation spans so many practice areas. So I just started saying what I believe to be true and what absolutely is the case now that we represent good people and we fight for good causes.

Mary Simon (01:40)
It gets easier from here.

Krystal Weigl (02:07)
And no matter how much experience I have in law and how many years I’ve been litigating, I go back to that all the time because the work that we do is very much about the people we represent and the types of causes that we want to fight for.

Elizabeth McNulty (02:24)
I love that. Olivia, can you kind of tell us a little bit about how you got to working in a law firm? I think you were a teacher before.

Olivia Weigl (02:32)
Yes, I was a high school biology teacher for five years at Riverview Gardens in North County, St. Louis. So I went to SLU for undergrad. I really wanted to help people. I didn’t know how and Teach for America reached out. I got accepted to the program. That’s a two-year commitment and I loved it. So I stayed on for five years and during that five years, COVID happened. And during that five years, Krystal decided to open her own law firm.

became obvious that that was not what I wanted to do. But I think you mentioned you use the word advocacy when you introduced me and that’s really something that I find I’m passionate about. And so I wanted to do something that still had that lens on it. And so Chris asked me to come over and do some organizational things. That’s really my bread and butter is operations organization. And I hopped on over and I think it’s been like.

Elizabeth McNulty (03:23)
Congrats. So what does it mean to both of you to own and run a law firm as women leaders in today’s legal landscape?

Krystal Weigl (03:30)
more and more all the time.

Mary Simon (03:32)
Yeah.

Krystal Weigl (03:34)
It does. We were actually talking about this on the drive over just ⁓ how loaded of a sentiment that can be at times. Easy example, we do a lot of work in discrimination. So we represent people that are dealing with civil rights violations and also separate from that represent a lot of business owners. Many of those business owners happen to be women. It comes up all the time in so many different ways. And for me, it’s kind of carve out the area.

and in some ways follow the path that has been already laid in front of us by so many great women litigators and women business owners and leaders. And in other ways, it’s like, hey, here’s another way that we show up and that makes space for all of the other women that identify with similar issues, have similar lived experiences. Elivina, we’re joking on the way over about this. I got a ⁓ very, very ugly email from a male counterpart ⁓ regarding a knot.

at all serious discovery dispute that we were having at eight in the morning yesterday. And ⁓ he had said something in closing about, you know, it’s a good faith letter that he was responding to, relatively routine issues. And he closed off his email with, in spite of your rantings, you have no basis in fact for your claims. It happens all the time, right? So it’s like, you’re so…

Sometimes I kind of forget like, yeah, I’m a lawyer first, right? And I happen to be female. And then on, I would say like on a daily basis, there’s just this little reminder of you’re lady lawyer.

Olivia Weigl (05:15)
Especially coming from education, which is a female dominated field, I would say that’s something that kind of snuck up on me because in my professional career, there were very few men that were teaching with me.

Mary Simon (05:28)
that’s interesting. Like thinking about that dynamic of coming into the legal profession from a more traditionally female dominated career and then having emails like that where you’re like, yeah, you know, it happens. Wasn’t really expecting it at 8 a.m. this morning, but.

Krystal Weigl (05:46)
⁓

God. I mean, just absurd stuff too. We went through a very heavy trial cycle in December and January, which should not have happened. I don’t think I’ll live through another December like that. ⁓ We were there and Olivia brought up the examples to opposing counsel. One of the week long trials that we had in December was a sex discrimination case. And our client was a female alleging, you know,

discrimination based on the fact that she was a female in a male-dominated field, not ours, but another one. And Olivia was reminding me of the actions of opposing counsel in that case that were just so, so outrageously sexist. And there’s no other word to put on it.

Olivia Weigl (06:29)
I can’t remember the exact quote, but I remember Krystal looked at me and she goes, that’s a good thing to say in the middle of a sex discrimination case.

Mary Simon (06:38)
you

Krystal Weigl (06:39)
I was actually quoting the judge’s clerk because prior to the incident Olivia was describing earlier in the week, opposing counsel had said something to another woman that was there quoting directly. He said, calm down lady. And then the judge’s clerk, who’s a female, who’s very capable law clerk, very talented attorney, she had said, that’s a great thing to say during a sex discrimination case.

So then I just kept repeating that every time something absurd came up.

Mary Simon (07:09)
Oh my gosh.

Krystal Weigl (07:11)
I mean, you you all deal with it too. It’s a thing that, you know, for the most part, talented attorneys, don’t lean into the, I’m going to talk to you differently because you’re a female attorney. The ones that get petty about it, I’m like, ⁓ probably not very good at your job.

Mary Simon (07:27)
Right. Right. But it’s an interesting thing to point out, Olivia, you mentioning that like you may notice things as well, because I’ve had this experience where this happened years ago, but I was constantly being cut off by an older male attorney who he had had his chance to speak and then it was my opportunity to speak. And then he was like, oh, that’s a really good point. Well, now I have something to say. And I’m like, OK, well, you mean, you had your turn. But I just like I let it roll off because, you get used to it. And I actually had another man.

pull me aside and say, it was not until I watched Trump and Hillary debate that I realized how often men cut women off. And now it’s all I see, that’s how many years ago it was, but now it’s all I see. And he’s like, how do you deal with, how do you not lose it all the time? And it’s because if I lost it all the time, that’s all I would do, that’s all of my energy would just be going into responding.

to morons and I don’t have the time for it and frankly, I don’t wanna bother with it. So you just kind of like learn to move past it. But I do love like the, I guess the irony of the situation of this particular attorney saying it. And I’m really grateful that that clerk called it out. And I guarantee that clerk went and said something to the judge. I know that clerk went and said something to her judge about it. So Krystal, I feel like we ask this of our guests often, but like why law? Like what brought you into the legal field?

Krystal Weigl (08:51)
It would have been.

Olivia Weigl (08:53)
school.

Krystal Weigl (08:54)
Actually, my start of the week report from Professor Bears in the 90s. Yeah, I only knew one attorney when I was growing up and I didn’t know him well, but he was like the only person I knew who wore a suit and who was able to articulate problems that other people were experiencing in a way that, a lot of times I just felt completely, completely helpless. so watching the way that this person like kind of moved through conversations and

Mary Simon (08:59)
You

Krystal Weigl (09:23)
was able to do something with somebody else’s pain that worked towards getting rid of it. And they did that by talking. I mean, that was like the only thing I’m good at.

Olivia and I and our brother who is also at our firm. We grew up in South County here in St. Louis. Our dad’s parents immigrated over here in 1956. And you see a lot when you grow up in the dead middle, like right in the middle of the classes, right? Like we had a very comfortable upbringing, blue collar family, right? And so when things get serious or scary or wrong, the courthouse feels like a place that is a foreign planet, but it’s one of the only places where you get justice.

There’s a huge draw for me in being able to speak that language, being able to translate when people aren’t able to. I think it was like right after my fourth birthday. I was like, that’s f—

Krystal Weigl (10:14)
Yeah.

Mary Simon (10:16)
You

knew yourself at a very young age.

Krystal Weigl (10:20)
If you met my daughter who’s now four.

Mary Simon (10:24)
What do you want to you know, you want to be right, you know, you want to major in

Krystal Weigl (10:27)
100%. I always, because she’ll ask me every morning, every single morning when I’m still home when she wakes up, she’ll go, know, do I have to go to school today? And I’m like, yes, you have to go to school. It’s good for your head. Learn how to do new stuff. Do you have to go to work? Yes, I have to go to work. I go to work to make sure that people get treated fairly. It’s a really important reason to go to work. And I have to go to work to pay for your school. And so now she’s gotten in the habit of saying, you know, when I grow up, I’m going to make sure people play fair.

Mary Simon (10:50)
you

Krystal Weigl (10:56)
I’m gonna go work with you, which I’m sure Mary can appreciate.

Mary Simon (11:01)
Yeah,

my four year old currently wants to be an ice cream lady. ⁓ I So that’s what she wants to be when she grows up. And I said, me too. And she’s like, are grown up. And I’m like, no, I’m not grown up yet. But yeah, I have those conversations with her too. And something that I really like about it is I appreciate those conversations, whatever way they go with my daughter, because she truly believes, and I love that she believes this, is that she can be anything.

And so she, I mean, you guys have seen her, she’s come to this office so often in the last months, because I have two kids and anytime that I have my, almost eight month old, it’s easier. It gives the nanny a little bit of a break. If I can bring the four year old with me, but she’ll run around the office all the time. She’s actually starting to understand all the hallways and where they go, but she will say things like, do you get to see the judge today? You know, and it’s just fun to have any of that land in her brain in a place where

even if she’s thinking about it for like five seconds, I’m like, my gosh, she knows what I do, you know, because she’ll say, I know you’re a lawyer. And right now she wants to be an ice cream lady. I don’t really know what that all entails, but I’m all for it if that’s what she wants to do. But yeah, I love those moments where you feel good about going and doing your job when you’ve got the little four year old cheerleader being like, you’re to see the judge. I’m like, yeah, I got to go. And then it’s like we high five and.

Olivia Weigl (12:28)
Krystal’s daughter has definitely caught on to that when she plays. You know, she plays house and everything. But the other day we were playing. I think she just called it Judge, but she was. She was obviously in a courtroom and she said that she made really good arguments and the judge told her she won and he gave her a birthday cake. Wow.

Mary Simon (12:47)
Oh, I wish it went down that way. I was going to say, don’t think a judge has ever given me a birthday.

Krystal Weigl (12:52)
I love that about her.

Mary Simon (12:54)
funny.

Elizabeth McNulty (12:55)
I

a three year old girl as well and kind of in the same line. It just reminded me when you said, you know, you have to go to work to pay for your school. My daughter the other day had her iPad and she wanted me to buy her a game and it was Saturday and she’s like, are you going to go to work today? And I was like, well, it’s Saturday, so I don’t have to. She’s like, well, I need some money for this game.

Mary Simon (13:14)
Yeah, she’s like see you mom and she

Elizabeth McNulty (13:18)
⁓

I had a five week trial that I tried with Tim Cronin and I think it seemed like the longest, it was the longest trial in my life, but also in her life. So if she knows I’m going to trial, she’s like, is this a really long one or not that long one?

Mary Simon (13:30)
Yeah.

She’s like, how many nights did he outweigh?

Elizabeth McNulty (13:33)
You’re going to.

She likes to get an idea of that, so it is.

Mary Simon (13:38)
Yeah, that’s great.

Elizabeth McNulty (13:40)
The other thing I was thinking about when you listening to you two talk was I have a brother who works here right now too. He’s in law school. He’s getting ready to graduate. But I was so nervous. He worked with me at my prior firm and then he came over here with me. But I remember when he was like, I’m the only other lawyer in our family. So we have nothing, no one else to kind of go off of. And he moved from Louisiana here to go to SLU. So he like knew no one. And he was like, do you think I could just like shadow you at your firm? And I was like so nervous because I’m like.

Mary Simon (14:07)
I mean, I would love to help you, but like this doesn’t go well. Like you’re my brother and like, I don’t know. like.

Elizabeth McNulty (14:14)
What was that transition like for

working together?

Olivia Weigl (14:17)
We’ve been working together our entire lives. Our dad has his own heating and air conditioning business. So it was never really an option. You were part of that family industry growing up. we’ve been working together for a long time, us and our brother and our dad and our grandpa.

Krystal Weigl (14:35)
Yeah, it’s funny because, you know, we do a lot of construction litigation and our grandparents, when they came over here in the 50s, they started up this heating and air conditioning business because air conditioning was like a brand new thing in the 60s. They started that up. And I think it was just like a hobby for my grandpa for a while because he also like made shoes and did a whole bunch of other things. And that became kind of the family business. And just this past year, my dad

has started talking about the fact that he might retire. But there’s so much in it because we, know, three decades of the three of us working together, knowing what it means to work together, knowing, you know, what work requires of everybody, no matter what mood you’re in. And then also, you know, having that be so focused around construction for so long. Now we do that with construction litigation. Just kind of a neat, serendipitous structure that was already ingrained in us very early on.

Elizabeth McNulty (15:28)
So with that kind of background and always being around a family business, did you always envision yourself running your own firm?

Krystal Weigl (15:35)
I would say that the main takeaway that I had from growing up in a small family business in St. Louis, starting about the time I was 18, was that I was never, ever, ever going to come back to St. Louis. And I would never, ever run my own business. And I had no intention of doing that. It was almost an impulsive decision. Felt that way at the time, three years ago. There were a lot of stars aligning at the same time, but I had been doing so much.

of what it would look like to start your own firm, that it was a very natural jump and it was kind of like an overnight decision that had taken place over the decade beforehand. Yeah, I had no interest in doing this. I like litigation. I am comfortable and confident in the courtroom to the extent any one person can actually be confident in a courtroom. ⁓ I enjoy that form of advocacy and that’s kind of what got me through law school.

But the business side of it, ⁓ my god. I mean, ask Angela Lewis how many times Olivia and I have called her.

Mary Simon (16:39)
You ⁓

Krystal Weigl (16:41)
Angela.

Olivia Weigl (16:42)
hell, what do we do?

Mary Simon (16:44)
And for those who don’t know, Angela basically keeps the lights on here, right? She keeps everything running here. She’s a fantastic administrator for our firm. So I’m really glad to hear that you guys are able to utilize her in that way. And I know how excited she is to always, you know, to help others. Just for those who may not be familiar with what office practice manager, like what your role looks like within a firm, can you explain to us a little bit about your day-to-day office?

Krystal Weigl (17:11)
operations.

Olivia Weigl (17:11)
I would say ⁓ my day is never the same and it’s never how I planned out on my calendar. But I feel sometimes a lot of times like a safety net. So I am an administrator. do billing. I do client intake. ⁓ Anything else to keep the lights on. I pay bills as well. And then I manage the practice, right? And so I kind of have a hold on where every case in our firm is.

And so we have three attorneys right now. Most of the cases are headed by one attorney. And so checking in with them. And then we have another staff member who does, I guess, monthly status letters is what we call them. So we meet with each attorney every month and just kind of get a lowdown on where is this case? happened? If nothing happened, why didn’t it happen? What needs to happen next? And then you update the client on that. Also,

make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. We don’t miss any deadlines.

Mary Simon (18:10)
I

think is so funny is we had our 25th anniversary party last night and one of my cousins came because we just like opened it up to you know the whole Simon family and one of my cousins walked in and was like there’s just one person I have to meet while I’m here and I was like who? She goes Angela. Okay I’ll help you figure out where she is. She’s like because everything I hear about the firm is Angela, Angela, Angela and it’s probably the exact same thing for you and then she’s like this is a great party like who at your firm planned it and I was like

Angela. Of course, I shouldn’t have even asked the question. But it’s like, you know, all the communications, like you are the firm, you know, when you’re talking to people on your outreach and the way you communicate, it’s just there’s so much that ⁓ I’ve told Angela this before for so many different reasons, because you just she’s like the person you go to if you have any issues.

I’m like, ⁓ the computer doesn’t work and I can’t get it fixed and me and the IT person are having trouble. I’ll ask Angela. And it’s like, now she’s an IT person. it’s just, there’s nothing that eventually doesn’t make its way to you.

Olivia Weigl (19:19)
I feel like I wear a lot of different hats and as a teacher I did that too, right? You know, I did a lot of different things throughout the day. So I feel comfortable in the position doing that, being able to catch all these things.

Mary Simon (19:30)
Yeah, and

don’t you find yourself, I had the opportunity to help out in a classroom setting. It was like fifth and sixth graders when I was in, in between college and law school. And it was like the hardest thing because I couldn’t figure out how to explain something in a different way. And I feel like in your position, that skill has to be so helpful to you because you are communicating with so many different people who understand things differently and have different communication styles.

So I just like, do you find that as part of your job too? When you said different hats, you probably are even able to know which voice to put on.

Olivia Weigl (20:08)
I wouldn’t even say that was something I thought of until you brought it up, but teaching, I was in high school, so I did 120 students probably every year and you have various IEPs, various, you know, different levels of reading and I’m teaching photosynthesis, right? So I’m not even teaching them to read, but I do have to try and explain things in different ways. And I communicate with our clients a lot and I enjoy it they have various levels of education as well. And so a lot of people who aren’t in the legal field don’t know what happens when you file a lawsuit and

telling them, you know, we have 30 days to respond to discovery, that doesn’t make sense.

Mary Simon (20:43)
Right, I just feel like anyone who is a law firm office administrator, I’ve even told Dana before, like, I do not envy your job because it has to be so difficult to just wear so many hats. I feel like lawyers will feel stressed or I’ll speak for myself. Like, I can feel stressed if on a given day you’re bopping between, you know, a really difficult deposition and then maybe a hearing and then you have a, you know, a meeting with a client and you’re just like, my gosh, I’ve had to pivot so many times, but that’s every day.

It’s like every hour, every day for you.

Olivia Weigl (21:17)
Enjoy

it.

Krystal Weigl (21:19)
Olivia is almost downplaying, well, she is downplaying the hats that she wears because as soon as she came over to the firm, she was coming up on her fifth year of teaching and it happened to be just again, really serendipitous timing. And we were talking about the firm obviously quite a bit because it was me and my brother and Olivia wasn’t there yet, but she was there really quickly afterwards.

basically told her like, I don’t know how to work the computer. don’t. Yes. Well, actually I never thought Olivia would have been too interested in law. have the same values. have very opposite skill sets, totally opposite personalities on most things.

Olivia Weigl (22:03)
I with that. I’m very math and science brained.

Krystal Weigl (22:08)
Yes,

and I can spell both of those words. And so she did, she came over and but like within three months of being there, she was like, okay, I am going to enroll in paralegal certification courses and I’m going to learn how to be a paralegal. And she did. She has been the practice manager the entire time. But we hired someone to start taking over all her administrative stuff. And that person was like, well, what am I supposed to do? And I was like, I don’t have a clue.

⁓ You know, like, what do I do? And I was like, you have to ask Olivia. So Olivia was not only really deep in the weeds on every discrimination case that we had, she was doing by and large what you would see like first, second year associates in big law doing. ⁓ She was giving me the facts to make the arguments. When we were in trial in December, she was the one coordinating.

with attack. Now I put stuff up on the screen and I walk around and say words. ⁓ But Olivia was the one who was, she would tell him, is the sound bite we’re going to play from this recording. And then she would play it and I would know what she wanted me to say. And there were a couple of times during cross-examination where Olivia was like,

Olivia Weigl (23:19)
This part.

Krystal Weigl (23:23)
And it’s amazing. It’s amazing to have that kind of support. It’s amazing to be able to have that from somebody who can read my mind. She’s definitely wearing all of the hats.

Olivia Weigl (23:31)
And she says that and that’s funny. If someone handed me a paper and I had to read it in front of a bunch of strangers, I would not be able to do that. And so I’m handing Krystal these papers and she’s off the cuff and she’s getting ready for closing. And I had printed probably eight copies of this exhibit already this week. gone. All them lost. I bought a mobile printer so I could start printing from the courtroom. OK. She’s getting the exhibits ready for closing. I said, here is a folder.

Krystal Weigl (23:51)
was very-

Olivia Weigl (24:01)
every exhibit you need for closing. I want you to take it and put it on that table right there. Put it there and don’t touch it until closing starts. In the next 10 minutes, it’s lost. ⁓ Turned out it was under someone’s MAI book, but then she gets up there and she gives a 45 minute closing. Right off the cuff. She didn’t need any of the exhibits. That’s her strength.

Mary Simon (24:13)
You

You

Krystal Weigl (24:27)
So

funny.

Mary Simon (24:29)
It’s so interesting because for you, like, you’re a teacher. I had a student in a trial ad class who was a teacher who went to law school and she was like, this makes me so anxious to stand up. And I was like, you have more experience than anyone in this courtroom standing up in front of a group of people. And she’s like, this is just different. And I’m like, OK. But it is. That’s such a good pair. Even just hearing the two of you describe that experience, it’s like you can just feel how you guys are like puzzle pieces.

Krystal Weigl (24:54)
Yeah, I would say, you we’re missing one of the skill sets here is Alfons, our brother, Alfons Weigl III. He was trained as a writer. He was a screenwriter. did comedy through UCLA and then moved to Manhattan. And he came back during the writer’s strike, which was just about a little over three years ago. Yeah. so we were… He doesn’t socialize all that much. He doesn’t go out as much as the Livanna I do anymore. ⁓

Mary Simon (25:17)
so fascinating.

Olivia Weigl (25:23)
if he was here, the podcast would be the exact same.

Mary Simon (25:25)
You

Krystal Weigl (25:27)
Peace.

Olivia Weigl (25:28)
Love him. He’s a great writer. He probably wouldn’t be able to describe it as well.

Krystal Weigl (25:33)
Yes, yeah, he’s an incredibly talented writer. And for me, the hardest thing to get myself to do is to sit down, look at a blank page, get going. But if I pace around his office and say arguments for a while, all of sudden it’s on paper and it’s like, this is, I mean, it’s incredible. And Olivier is the one who makes sure that the way that I speak and the way that he writes gets together on the case theories and that we’ve got an incredible team and it’s kind of…

that foundation of having, like I said, it was like an overnight decision that in that case was about three decades in the making.

Elizabeth McNulty (26:11)
That is, it’s just so crazy to hear you guys talk. I mean, I mentioned my brother. We tried a med mal case. He was obviously like the wall clerk in it, but it was a similar situation where, you know, I’m in trial and my head’s going all over the place and he would come in and know exactly what like I was looking for or tell me how to like, it’s just like, it’s, I was nervous at first, like I said, when he was like, can I work for you? Oh, you might. But now seeing him.

Mary Simon (26:34)
was like, hate.

Elizabeth McNulty (26:40)
And I mean, he’s going to go off on it and start his own career here. So I’ll be sad, but I mean, it’s just, it’s, it’s fun. I love hearing you guys talk about it.

Krystal Weigl (26:48)
It’s incredible because I don’t know a lot about running a law firm. I have been doing it and it’s been going well. But nothing that I have planned is the stuff that went well. Like the stuff that’s gone well just happened. And ⁓ I did want to make one one side amendment. We have been Weigl Law for the last several years. My law partner, Luke Jackson, we did a rebrand and we’re Weigl Jackson now.

And so Luke and I, we grew up together. We went to Oakville together. His wife, Camille, was in my wedding. She’s a very close friend of mine. We graduated together. We’ve known each other for more than half our lives. so that was it, you when people are like, oh, you should think about all these things for partnership. And this is the formula. I’m like, that’s, I’m sure, correct. But there’s nothing, nothing like being on a good team and being supported by the people around you.

Mary Simon (27:37)
You

Krystal Weigl (27:44)
And, know, Elizabeth, when you asked earlier about starting my own firm, that was the main consideration for me because there is a lot of ugliness in this profession. Yeah. And I think there are a lot of people who are in it for motivations that just really don’t speak to me. There’s a million different ways to lawyer, a million different ways to go about running a business and a firm. But the idea of being surrounded by good people and having those kind of support sets.

For me, that’s a non-negotiable. And it makes everything else. We do better, easier, more effective.

Elizabeth McNulty (28:19)
I think obviously being a litigator, advocacy is kind of the main tenet of why we do what we do. And I’m curious to know kind of what does advocacy mean to you and like how do you bring that into your everyday? ⁓

Krystal Weigl (28:31)
Yeah,

yeah. gosh, I mean, it means so much, right? The idea of if we’re talking about how I define it, the idea is, you get the privilege of standing up, speaking up, showing up, and translating into the necessary storyline, the pain of another person. And I’m speaking, you really specifically about Planoff’s work. That’s what we do in Planoff’s work.

and that’s on purpose. So the idea that somebody would trust you with an extremely vulnerable, painful, often traumatic time in their life and allow you to be the voice of that experience, that’s heavy stuff. And I think that that’s like the honor and the privilege that comes along with being an advocate. And there’s a million different ways to advocate the medium that I want so much to continue to trust in.

is the court system and the civil justice system and what it can and should and is supposed to be.

Elizabeth McNulty (29:36)
think it takes a lot of empathy as well to kind of do what we do, empathize with our clients. Like you said, they’ve gone through something really painful regardless of kind of what it is and we’re helping them deal with that in the best way we can. How do you balance that empathy while also maintaining a level of objectivity that we have to have in order to do our job and run a successful business?

Krystal Weigl (30:00)
I do like that your question kind of assumes that I’m doing that well.

I don’t know how you do it.

Olivia Weigl (30:10)
we are doing it very well. But I will say when I taught, I went through Teach for America. And so I took a lot of secondhand trauma courses just because of the location I was teaching in and the demographics and just the way I was kind of pushed into education. I didn’t get my degree in education. So I went through kind of a boot camp for that as well. And I do use those strategies all the time in what we do as Plaintiff’s Sides work, especially a lot of the

discrimination cases that we bring on. And I think everybody kind of draws that line differently. I know that when Krystal goes home, she has two small children who keep her pretty busy. And I think a lot of times that’s how she does it. She stays busy, but she wears her heart on her sleeve. She hears a good cause and she’s signing it up, you know, before I can even type out the engagement letter. So.

Krystal Weigl (31:03)
One thing that helps is thinking about the people who rely on my judgment, right? So if I’m making a decision about, we’re gonna jump into this fire, okay, we’re going here, there’s six people on our team. And I know and respect and care very deeply about all of the people on our team. And so if I’m not being objective in the sense of like making sound business judgments or making the right call when to settle a case,

then I’m sacrificing the people that are closest to me and the people on my team because I’m being moved by something that calls out to me but doesn’t necessarily make for good advocacy. If I go to someone and I’m like, I think you’ve got a great case and we should go all the way and let’s take it to trial and flip a couple tables on the way, it’s not… I’m doing a disservice, right? And I will say, Olivia mentioned the kids, there is no greater parallel that I could come up with.

between being a good lawyer, being a good business owner, aside from raising children. The kids get upset about anything and everything. ⁓ You cut their sandwich the wrong way and it’s Armageddon. And I hear you, I see you, I understand what you’re dealing with. I know this is a really important sandwich. However, this is the sandwich.

Mary Simon (32:29)
It was the last piece of turkey. I’m sorry it’s not in our hearts.

Krystal Weigl (32:34)
And I’m not even sure that this one is good.

Mary Simon (32:37)
That’s right. I have loved this conversation so much and I feel like having both of you here gives me such a good picture of, you know, what your firm is like and just the effort that you take to take care of the people who work with you too, which is fantastic. I don’t know that much about handling like discrimination cases. You obviously have a really great team in terms of…

supporting one another and bouncing ideas off of each other and you work really well together. What’s like the hardest thing about a discrimination case? Because I would ask something about like the team dynamic or the structure, but more on like case substance. I mean, what is the hardest thing about those cases? Is there one hardest thing? Is it just case dependent?

Krystal Weigl (33:28)
I couple answers for this, but the one that immediately comes to mind, I have to explain, and this maybe answers Elizabeth’s question about objectivity even better than before. I have to explain to people several realities of what a discrimination case is and how the law evaluates and protects actions that are discriminatory.

Mary Simon (33:52)
Interesting. Even hearing you say it that way, I’m like, is it?

Krystal Weigl (33:56)
Yeah.

it’s like, okay, I spent a year and a half in corporate defense and it was like 17 months too long. Luke, my partner, he did seven years in the towers. He was at Brian Cave. He moved over to Lewis Rice. so understanding that we as plaintiffs’ attorneys, particularly and especially in the Eighth Circuit and in Missouri, in discrimination matters, we are not playing the same game.

we are not speaking the same language as opposing counsel. So I have to really not tell the clients everything about how the case works because they don’t know, they don’t care, and it takes a long time to explain that. But I do have to tell them, OK, there’s caps in Missouri. That’s a real thing we have to deal with thanks to a particular demographic of the legislature. Caps is an issue because people don’t really understand that. They don’t know what it is.

I’m not going tell them that they should understand it because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me either. ⁓ But in addition to that, people will come in and they’ll go, this is the bad fact. This is the thing. This is how they know what they did was wrong. And I would say a couple of times a week, I have to have a conversation and I go, I need you to understand or at least hear me when I say that the people who did x behavior do not believe it’s discriminatory. They do not believe that they discriminated.

They do not believe that they’re capable of any ism. You are not going to convince them otherwise. And I say 10 times a week, you know, do not wrestle with pigs. We’re not doing it. We don’t, we don’t roll around in the mud. We’re picking our battles. We’re being strategic. And they have such a hard time with that because like you need to tell the defense attorney that this is the bad thing. And this is how I know they knew what they were doing. And I’m like, listen. Yeah.

Mary Simon (35:48)
These

are hard conversations.

Krystal Weigl (35:50)
Well,

it touches at the very heart of people’s identity, The protected classes, we practice in Missouri and Illinois, diametrically different jurisdictions, a circuit completely opposite of the Seventh Circuit in all regards on the discrimination front. I routinely have to tell people this, right? Because I’m like, if your discrimination took place 10 miles that way, we’re talking about a different thing. But the protected classes are race, gender, national, origin, these things that are…

at the heart of someone’s existence, right? And people know when they’ve experienced discrimination. They know. They don’t understand that in litigation, other people aren’t going to accept that that’s what happened and why it happened. And so I’m translating these two things constantly. Unfortunately, very, by and large, I could name on one hand the opposing counsel that I don’t feel like I have a

competent professional working relationship with. I can kind of speak their language. They can kind of speak my language. But the fact that you can tell this, everybody wants to go to trial. That is what people come at me with. Well, I called you because you guys do trial. This is a great case for trial. It’s open and shut.

 

Mary Simon (37:09)
Let’s

set it for next month.

Krystal Weigl (37:10)
Yes,

right. And so I have to be like, okay, listen, I tell people all the time. Charlie Chaplin comes from Kerry, Ireland, right? That’s where his family was from. He comes over to the United States, very successful actor. Head of his career, he goes back, he enters a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest, he comes in third place in his hometown. And I tell people like on a weekly basis, I’m like, there are Charlie Chaplin judges in our courthouses. There are Charlie Chaplin jurors in the jury box.

We are not automatically going to trial.

Elizabeth McNulty (37:44)
I had just had like really one case that I dealt with at my old firm that was a racial discrimination case. It was one of the most challenging things that I had to do. I felt like I would prepare for these depositions and I would be like, have all these documents, like how are they going to look me in the face and tell me that this wasn’t racist, right? And then I would get in the deposition and they would, and I was like.

Olivia Weigl (38:05)
Okay, well.

Mary Simon (38:05)
You know?

Elizabeth McNulty (38:07)
And

then I’d go back to my clients and I had 10 clients, but it was all from the same company. And it’s almost like, and I’m sure you both have experience with this, but I felt like, how do I now tell them the documents that we all sat around and agreed were so bad and the comments they made so egregious? How do I now tell them that every single person, all 20 people I had to post looked me in the face and was like, yeah, no.

not racist, you know? And then it’s like me being a white female. I mean, I think being a female was helpful in a situation, but being, you know, Caucasian, and I’m explaining this to a group of African-American employees, you don’t want to seem like disingenuous or like you’re, you know, agreeing with the other side. I mean, how do you deal with that?

Krystal Weigl (38:59)
I tell people from the beginning, think setting expectations is really powerful, really important stuff. I remind people often that our legislators, at least in this state, are not passing laws that protect them and that when they’re concerned about things like tort form and caps, they should call their legislators and be more involved. I set the expectation at the outset that these cases are extremely difficult. They get harder and harder all the time. I tell them, you know, I know that what you experienced is real.

I know this is the most important sandwich that you have ever eaten for lunch. I believe you. hear you. I see you. I cannot guarantee that any of this is going to resonate at the agency level or in the courthouse. Because don’t forget, we have agency prerequisites before we can even file a lawsuit, right? And I tell them, listen to me, I know that what you experienced was discriminatory. I believe you. That’s why I signed your case, right?

They will never believe that or accept that because otherwise it probably wouldn’t have happened. And also, I remind people, like, we don’t need to convince them. We’re not selling this to the bad actor. We’re not even selling this to the corporate defense counsel. They have a different set of rules that they play by. having those conversations on repeat, which I do often, I mean, constantly, we’re telling people,

Olivia Weigl (40:24)
I feel like we’ve had a handful of clients probably more than that come in and say, well, this isn’t about the money. Understood. And the only remedy we have is to get money. Right. And so to explain that and then have it, have them understand it and also understand that, you know, it’s not going to make everything right. You’re not going to be made whole.

from this is really difficult. Those conversations are always really, really difficult. And some clients, eventually it settles in and they’re like, okay, let’s do this. Get some money because I was wrong in this way. And that’s the only recourse we have right now with the judicial system. And other clients, it never hits.

Krystal Weigl (41:09)
I also never, I never tell clients numbers. I just don’t. When I need authority to settle, of course I’m having those conversations, but before, like we mediate a lot of these because one, the EEOC typically pushes that. ⁓ When the EEOC, at least before this year, the EEOC is a different agency now, but they push that. And so you mediate, you see, like, can we settle this? You know, because time is money and getting money now is more important if it’s the right amount.

than playing this out and leaving it to the fates. So we do. I think that it’s a mistake to always go the settlement route. I think you all know as well as I do that that’s just not good practice. That’s not good lawyering. But figuring out if there’s a viable settlement on the table is important. I rarely even talk to clients about dollar amounts until we’re in mediation. Because sometimes you can lean on the mediator with that. And it’s like one of the first questions people ask. like, so how much is my case worth? Well, from the…

17 minutes that we’ve been talking. I don’t have a calculator for that. yeah, just that, know, and so like you just consistently walk through these narratives with people about, know that what you’re saying is your real experience. I know that. I believe you. That’s why we’re working together. That is not what the civil justice system is asking us to make decisions about right now.

Mary Simon (42:11)
you

That’s something that I’ve been thinking a lot about. I’ve had a number of very difficult mediations in medical malpractice, which medical malpractice cases for the similar reasons of like tort reform and caps, like we’re already up against a lot. And then frankly, just walking into a courtroom, I have to imagine it’s similar to employment discrimination where people have to think this would never happen to me. This doesn’t happen. These things just don’t happen because if we accept that they happen to other people, we then have to accept that they could happen to us or our loved ones. I think we’re starting 10 feet behind already, but.

The issue that I have been struggling with in mediation and in prepping my client for mediation is sort of where do I toe the line between being very honest with them and making sure they understand all the real risks of going to trial versus making sure they know that I still believe in them and that I still have confidence. Because the worst thing I think I can do is being very blunt and saying like, this is a real stinker of a case. If they’re offering money, we should probably take it.

⁓ But then it eventually like not being in, which I’ve had that happen before. They never offer more than what the bills are. Like the lien is higher than what they’re offering. can’t accept that, but I have to make sure my client still feels confident walking into trial. And so I don’t know if you’ve got any strategies that you have figured out that work well. Again, I think sometimes like, don’t want to, the caps are not helpful at all. And I think that they’re inherently unconstitutional, but at least in conversations with clients, I say like, look, the,

Jefferson City decided how much your pain and suffering was worth. Sorry, jury of 12 doesn’t get to hear it, but at least we’ve got some numbers that we can throw out there. Then it’s like, how much do they end up coming off of it? But again, it’s such a hard line to walk between being real with the client, but also not wanting to completely shake their faith in you.

Olivia Weigl (44:23)
Well, and I think we have a wide variety of clients. And like I said earlier, you you discuss different topics with them differently depending on how well you know them, how well they understand the legal system, sometimes their education, sometimes their background. And so we do talk to different clients differently about mediation, because some of them will tell me, me right now, there any possibility I could lose at trial? And the answer to that, if they’re asking is.

Yes. Yes. It’s always yes. And some of them don’t ever want to be told that.

Krystal Weigl (44:59)
I think that a lot of it, the trust is critical and it isn’t built in the… It’s almost like the last step. Like if I tell them we need to settle around here and we can’t go to trial, that only matters based on everything I did beforehand because that kind of, you know, like talking around it and the relationship that we have and these things. And I have, I’ve had really difficult clients before, you know, I think we can all say that. But there have been times when I’ve literally had to say,

If you do not feel comfortable following the advice that I’m giving you, then you need to work with a different attorney. That’s not something I can fix for you. I’m confident in the decisions that I’m telling you to follow, but you don’t have to take my word for it. You’re welcome to call another attorney. And I swear every time I have said that, it has been, no, no, no, no, no, no, I believe you.

Olivia Weigl (45:51)
And I think maybe a fallback that I use a lot of times if a client does think we’re losing confidence in the cases, this is a gamble for us. This is a huge gamble. We have put fees in here. We’ve done all these depositions, requested all these transcripts. We spent a lot of time on this. So we would not have this case if we didn’t think it was a good case. I’m telling you that right now. But we’re saying you should settle for this, this, and this. And usually the caps are part of that.

Krystal Weigl (46:21)
Oh, Yeah, talking them through the realities of it.

Mary Simon (46:26)
I’ve gotten a number of, not a huge number, but it’s happened more than once where someone calls me and says, you know, I just talked to XYZ attorney and they told me my case is worth half a million dollars. And I was like, that’s crazy. You should hire them. I wish you nothing but the best. suddenly they’re like, well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Krystal Weigl (46:43)
Well,

and it’s different, you know, the technology plays into it so differently now too, because it’s, there’s a lot of misinformation, but there’s also…

Olivia Weigl (46:53)
Chat GPT, how much is my case worth?

Krystal Weigl (46:55)
Yeah, hire them. They seem like they got it.

Mary Simon (46:59)
Yeah.

Krystal Weigl (47:01)
Yeah, it’s a bit of really for me. It’s it’s very much about the relationship with the clients and some like, all right, are we on good terms? Yeah, then we can walk through this together.

Olivia Weigl (47:11)
And we work a lot to be on good terms with our clients.

Krystal Weigl (47:13)
We spend a lot of time investing in the people. That’s why I always go back to it. Everything is client-centric, right? But that starts from inside the house. If our house is not in order, if our team is not in order, we’re not going to be able to do anything for anybody. Taking care of the people in the house so can pour that back out into the community.

Olivia Weigl (47:33)
Going back to teaching, I had to make friends with 120 high schoolers. My people skills are really good.

Mary Simon (47:42)
you

Elizabeth McNulty (47:44)
This has been such a great conversation about your all’s journeys. So thank you both for sharing not just your professional journeys, but the mindset behind your practice. In part two, we’re going to shift gears a little bit in going behind the scenes into the business side of law, because practicing law is one thing, but running a firm is another entirely. So if you’ve ever wondered what it takes to build something sustainable in this profession, you won’t want to miss our conversation as it continues with Krystal and Olivia.

Until next time, thank you for listening to our episode and we drop episodes every other Wednesday and you can find us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you have any questions or comments, reach out to us at comments at heels in the courtroom.law. Thank you so much. We’ll talk to you next time.

Thanks for listening to Heels in the Courtroom. At the Simon Law Firm, we know that trial success isn’t just about experience. It’s about strategy, resources, and the power of collaboration. That’s why attorneys across the country partner with us to strengthen their cases and deliver justice for their clients. If you’re interested in working with our team of seasoned trial lawyers, call 314-241-2929.

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