2017 in Review: The Mailbag Episode

Episode Notes

Transcript

Lawyer 2 Lawyer – Law Podcasts and Legal News

2017 in Review: The Mailbag Episode

12/27/2017

[Music]

J. Craig Williams: Somebody I read recently called 2017 the Year of the Lie and that makes our President untrustworthy, which in turn makes our country untrustworthy, and on a world stage where we are perhaps no longer the dominant power, but certainly among the dominant powers now, I think it is — it does us all a disservice.

Bob Ambrogi: I think that things are going to get hot or hotter with Mueller and Trump is going to get more and more worried, and there’s going to be some kind of a showdown there where Trump is going to try and get him out of there and we are going to see a real kind of a constitutional showdown; it could go right to the Supreme Court.

[Music]

Intro: Welcome to the award-winning podcast Lawyer 2 Lawyer with J. Craig Williams and Robert Ambrogi, bringing you the latest legal news and observations with the leading experts in the legal profession. You are listening to Legal Talk Network.

[Music]

J. Craig Williams: Welcome to Lawyer 2 Lawyer on the Legal Talk Network. I am Craig Williams coming to you from Southern California. I write a legal blog called May it Please the Court and I wrote a Christmas book for children called The Sled.

Bob Ambrogi: Wait a minute, you have a Christmas book for children, I never heard about this, but congratulations Craig.

J. Craig Williams: I wrote it for my grandchildren.

Bob Ambrogi: Good for you.

J. Craig Williams: Yeah, got published.

Bob Ambrogi: Good for you. And I am Bob Ambrogi, out of Massachusetts, where I do not write children’s book, but I do write a blog called LawSites and also co-host another Legal Talk Network program called Law Technology Now along with Monica Bay.

J. Craig Williams: And Bob, before we introduce today’s topic we would like to thank our sponsors Clio and Litéra

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Bob Ambrogi: Well, Craig, it’s been quite a year with the Mueller investigations, sexual misconduct allegations, the Take a Knee movement, DACA, censorship, hate speech, the Equifax breach, devastation of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, and any number of legal stories, thanks to President Trump. I think he gave us fodder for any numbers of shows this past year, but this past year has been anything but boring for sure.

J. Craig Williams: Yeah, no kidding, but today on Lawyer 2 Lawyer we are going to take a look at the year in review. We are going to reach into our Mailbag and collect some questions from our audience and colleagues and in addition, talk about the show, the law and, oh my God, even us.

Bob Ambrogi: That we are going to do and I guess we are going to slightly be interviewed here, because to help us ask questions from our Mailbag we have our longtime Producer of Lawyer 2 Lawyer Kate Nutting joining us.

Kate, welcome to the show.

Kate Nutting: Absolute thrill to be here with you guys.

Bob Ambrogi: Is this the first time you have actually been on the show as a guest?

Kate Nutting: It’s true. I have been kind of pushed off for years. I am the woman behind the curtain I guess you say.

Bob Ambrogi: Except we hear you in the commercials.

Kate Nutting: Yes, yeah, it’s like my voice from 2005, but I will take it, I will take it.

Bob Ambrogi: You have been producing our show for how long, what year did you start?

Kate Nutting: I started with Lu Ann Reeb back in 2005 and I think up till about 2000 — my goodness 2012 maybe, I can’t even remember, and then I came back just a couple of years ago, so I love it.

Bob Ambrogi: So almost as long as we have been doing the show.

Kate Nutting: Yes. And I want to take this time to thank you two, along with our fabulous staff, just for years and years of fun. You guys are so interesting. You are great interviewers. I have learned so much from you, both of you about the law, about life, so I just want to start off the show by saying that and just to extend my gratitude to the both of you.

Bob Ambrogi: Well, I think we can just stop right there, call it a wrap. Good show everybody. See you next time.

J. Craig Williams: Yeah, it’s almost like Howard’s turn having Kate on the show for the first time.

Kate Nutting: There you go. There you go.

Bob Ambrogi: All right, I will try and figure that one out. But actually Kate, hey, let me just say the same about you, because what our listeners don’t know or some of them have started to figure it out is that you do all the work. Craig and I just show up, but you do all the work in terms of lining up the guests and getting the shows all lined up and helping us pin down the topics and everything else, and it’s a lot of work. It’s surprisingly a lot of work and you do a great job, so I really appreciate everything you have done for us.

(00:05:02)

Kate Nutting: You guys are too kind and we have a great staff in Adam Camras, we have Laurence Colletti, Adam Lockwood, Kelsey Johnson, Samantha Cole. We have a big staff and they are all amazing. So today I get to interview you, which is the fun part.

J. Craig Williams: So does that mean we have to turn the mic over to you now, Kate?

Kate Nutting: Yes, you are going to, right now. And what we did is we gathered some questions from colleagues, co-host, friends and came up with a list of questions and I am going to start it off.

Bob Ambrogi: I am just glad to know we have friends.

Kate Nutting: You do have friends, and they adore you, and they love what you do. Hey, it’s good to have friends in the law.

So I am going to start my first question and let’s start with Craig on this one. Our first question is from Law Technology Now host Monica Bay. Monica actually wrote a piece titled The Weinstein Effect: The Power Of The Sun. Her question is, with the outstanding number of women who are standing up to sexual molesters, usually high-level men, how will this change the legal community? Will we finally see equal pay and opportunities for women and other people who are not white, straight men?

Craig, you take that question.

J. Craig Williams: Well, it’s an embarrassment I think to the legal industry that we are so far behind the rest of the country and we are the ones fighting for the rest of the country to equalize things. Was it Bob, you said that something like 8 in a 1,000 partners in Boston are African-American, is that an accurate —

Bob Ambrogi: It’s roughly like that, yeah. I was actually just trying to remember that number myself, but yeah, about that.

J. Craig Williams: So I think we are behind on the civil rights as if it didn’t even occur in many cases and I think it’s a terrible embarrassment to the legal industry that we are so far behind. I don’t know that women are ever going to catch up, not in my lifetime. I hate to be pessimistic about it, but we are so far behind I don’t see it catching up.

Kate Nutting: Bob, what are your thoughts on that?

Bob Ambrogi: Unfortunately, I kind of share Craig’s pessimism about this. I think that — I have heard people say we are at a moment with regard to sexual harassment in the workplace and perhaps gender equality in the workplace; it’s clearly much more than a moment. We are clearly at a point where there is really dramatic change I think going on.

I think that one thing that’s clear is that women, whether in the law or really in any job, are going to be less likely to put up with sexual harassment and more likely to out it when it happens. But does that mean we are also going to suddenly achieve broader equality in pay and opportunities for women in the legal profession, I really worry that that’s not going to happen. Law firms have been just really, really slow to change.

When President Obama was elected President I started getting excited and thinking we are finally seeing the end of racism in this country and it turned out that sure wasn’t the case.

So I think this is a major, major moment for women’s rights and equality in the workplace, but it’s not like everything is going to change overnight, it’s going to be many years to come.

Kate Nutting: Got you. Now, Dennis Kennedy is a friend of all of ours here, co-host of The Kennedy-Mighell Report. His question to the both of you was, what podcast or podcasts would you recommend that new listeners start with and longtime listeners go back and give a re-listen? Bob, let’s start with you.

Bob Ambrogi: And I am assuming he just means in general. I mean he is not talking about our podcast, but just in general.

Kate Nutting: In general.

Bob Ambrogi: I mean, I think if you have never listened to a podcast before the best way to get introduced to the medium is to go back and listen to the Serial Podcast from 2014, which was the series that sort of tracked the accusations against, well, somebody who was in fact convicted of a murder and kind of re-tracked whether that conviction was fair and appropriate.

Or another one from — a little bit more recently called S-Town; S standing for shit, for Shit Town, but both of those podcasts were just really great examples of what this medium can be, I think.

In legal, if you are just starting in legal, any of the Legal Talk Network programs of course I would recommend. Another really good one, just started a second season, it’s called More Perfect, from the producers of Radiolab, WNYC, and I know a lot of people know Elie Mystal from Above the Law is one of the contributing editors to that podcast and do a great job of kind of taking the Radiolab approach to a show, if you have ever heard that on MPR and applying it to Supreme Court cases and a really interesting show.

Kate Nutting: Right. Craig, what would you recommend?

(00:09:55)

J. Craig Williams: I would suggest Your Weekly Constitutional. I think that the country is really lacking in its understanding of the United States Constitution and I see it expressed on social media incorrectly all the time and it seems like I have kind of become a little miniature Con Law professor to some degree, but I really enjoy Your Weekly Constitutional. It’s put out from Montpelier Foundation and they do a great job. I highly recommend it.

Kate Nutting: This question is from Victor Li, host of the ABA’s Legal Rebels Podcast. Based on the lawyers and law professionals you have spoken to, how do they feel about the proposed tax reform package?

J. Craig Williams: Well, I will go first with that one. I think that the general perspective on the tax is that it’s a great benefit to corporations and a great benefit to wealthier individuals and despite what appears to be the promises of the GOP, the GAO says it’s going to affect the middle class more than anything else, and I tend to believe them.

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah. I can’t say I have actually talked to all that many lawyers about it and I certainly have not read through, what is it, a 1,000 pages of the legislation and I wonder how many of our representatives in DC have actually read it all themselves who are voting on it. But yeah, exactly what Craig just said, I mean this is exactly what I would have expected from a Republican administration. It’s a bill that’s going to accelerate income inequality, benefiting the wealthiest people in the country and penalizing middle and lower income people, ultimately, raising taxes on the poor and cutting taxes on the rich. So this particular lawyer isn’t too happy about it.

I guess from what I have kind of seen on social media, I am not really seeing too many fans of this bill. It’s surprising to me that the Republicans are making this such a core of their platform when if they have any hopes of winning reelection.

J. Craig Williams: And the Republicans themselves have generally pointed out that the tax plan provides a 15% cut to top income earners. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that we are not going to decrease our spending, so that 15% has got to be absorbed by somebody else and there’s only a limited amount of people that are left that will be absorbing that cut.

Bob Ambrogi: Right. Well, and it will require cuts in federal spending as well. I mean that’s with the analysis seems to be saying that that’s another problem on this bill is that federal programs are going to have to be cut, and which program is going to get cut, we will have to wait and see.

Kate Nutting: This next one gentlemen is from our old friend, not in age, just Lu Ann Reeb, one of our good friends here. She is the owner of Boston Media Group and the Founder of Legal Talk Network. She has a great question for the two of you, and we will start with Craig. What has made Lawyer 2 Lawyer such a success for 12 years, besides of course two stellar, smart, and charming lawyers as co-hosts.

J. Craig Williams: Well, beyond on that —

Bob Ambrogi: 13 years, it has been 13 years.

J. Craig Williams: It has been 13.

Kate Nutting: Oh, I am sorry, it is 13, I can’t keep track.

J. Craig Williams: Yeah. And I still say, as far as I can tell, we are the longest running podcast on the Internet who are out there.

I think in all honesty, it’s the variety of the guests, it’s the consistency of our production, and really great questions by Bob. I mean, I am kind of just sitting along for the ride here and listening, and I really do agree with you Kate that I learn some phenomenal things from Bob’s questions, especially — I would even have to say Bob, thank you because you have helped me sharpen my questioning of some of my witnesses and even in my depositions, because I think longer about the question that I am asking than I used to, and I really have enjoyed that aspect of your personality and the way that you ask questions can really tell that you were a newspaper editor for a long time.

Kate Nutting: Agreed.

Bob Ambrogi: Thanks Craig, I appreciate that. And of course right back at you in terms of acknowledging that one of the fun things about doing this together has been that you often come at issues from such a different perspective than I do and sometimes your questions take me off-guard, let alone the guests off-guard, because they can really come at an issue from a whole different way and it’s really interesting. But I think in terms of the success of the show and we have already —

J. Craig Williams: That’s a nice way of saying I ask really weird questions.

Bob Ambrogi: No, no, no. No, what I mean is I really appreciate the fact that you bring a different perspective than I have, and I think that’s — there are times when I think it’s difficult having two people hosting a show and then you will come up with some question that I would never have thought to ask and you can just sometimes see some of the guests squirm a little bit in their chairs at the question, and I think that’s a really powerful technique. I think it really works well sometimes to have a kind of good cop, bad cop a little bit sometimes.

(00:14:57)

But I just wanted to say that — and of course the great people at Legal Talk Network, Kate’s great production, and all of that, but I think there’s something to be said for also the professional production, which — when we started out there were certainly other podcasts 13 years ago, but there weren’t all that many, but they tended to be kind of amateurish at that point, people sitting at home, cobbling it together on their home computers, and I think the fact that we started out right from the beginning working with a professional audio production company and have had that benefit all along has kind of made us seem more professional and more legitimate right from the start and that’s been a benefit.

J. Craig Williams: And I would have to throw in a tip of our hat to Scott Hess, who was Lu Ann’s partner in the beginning of Boston Media Group and Scott’s background at WBZ in Boston as a network engineer and TV cameraman and the helicopter repairman extraordinaire. That guy really — he was the one that was responsible for making sure that our microphones were top quality, that we had good recording equipment, good headphones and high end stuff in our offices, so that when we recorded this it sounded really good.

And Legal Talk Network has kept that standard up, and I think that it has helped out significantly. I mean, even before the production, we are still doing sound checks. We are still testing levels. We are still talking to our engineers about, I hear a slight buzz, and there’s a constant attention to that kind of detail, and so as a consequence I think we tend to shine when it comes to audio. There’s just not a whole lot of garbage in the background, it’s great.

Kate Nutting: Great answer Craig. I have one question before we go to break guys. President Trump has basically been the focal point of many of our shows this year. His actions in office have created quite the dialogue. What do you think is the biggest Trump-centric topic to come out of the past year?

Bob Ambrogi: I think what he has done and what he continues to talk about doing regarding immigration, there’s been all sorts of — there have been all sorts of crazy things from my perspective that he has done this year, but some of the decisions he has made have just really, really disrupted people’s lives, broken up families, put fear into people all over this country needlessly, and I think it’s just really too bad.

Kate Nutting: Craig, your thoughts.

J. Craig Williams: I am going to say that it’s the systemic issue of his perpetual sense of lying. I think the New York Times hit it right squarely on the head that — I think they did a comparison between the number of lies that Obama told and the number of lies that President Trump has told, the frequency of the lie, the outrageousness of the lie, the self-centeredness and self-protectiveness of the lie, and just even the narcissist aspect of it.

Somebody I read recently called 2017 the Year of the Lie and that makes our President untrustworthy, which in turn makes our country untrustworthy, and on a world stage where we are perhaps no longer the dominant power, but certainly among the dominant powers now, I think it is — it does us all a disservice. I think it does President Trump a disservice and the government and the entire country and I wish it would stop. I can’t figure out a way to deal with it, because you don’t know what to trust and what not to trust, and when you can’t trust your government, what’s left?

Kate Nutting: Very true.

Bob Ambrogi: Well said. It’s time for a short break so please stay with us. We are going to be back to talk more about the year in review and to take some more questions from our listeners, so stay with us.

[Music]

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[Music]

(00:19:49)

J. Craig Williams: And welcome back to Lawyer 2 Lawyer, I’m Craig Williams and my co-host Bob Ambrogi and with us as our guests — interviewer is Kate Nutting, she is the producer for our Lawyer 2 Lawyer show podcast here on the Legal Talk Network. We have been taking a look back at the past year and highlighting some of our favorite shows and guests and legal topics, and Kate has been questioning us, so we are going to give it right back to her. It’s all yours, Kate.

Kate Nutting: It’s been fun so far. Okay, so we ask this question every year, but it’s always just too good of a question. If someone were to play you in a movie, who would it be and why? Craig, let’s start with you.

J. Craig Williams: Huh, I don’t know, somebody would play me in a movie — Tom Hanks, he seems to be able to play everybody pretty good.

Kate Nutting: He is a great actor. You are right, I just saw him in the ‘Sully’ movie and he was amazing.

J. Craig Williams: Yeah, I can vote for Bob though, what would we do with Rock Hudson in ‘Gun’?

Bob Ambrogi: I go for — the actor who would play me in a movie is the Big Friendly Giant, because one of my nieces said, “you know, you look just like the Big Friendly Giant.”

Kate Nutting: Awe.

Bob Ambrogi: And it wasn’t a compliment, I don’t think.

Kate Nutting: It’s terrible.

Bob Ambrogi: So I’m going with BFG.

Kate Nutting: All right, we love it. Last year you were John Slattery, Bob. What has changed?

Bob Ambrogi: Oh, okay, all right. I’ll go with John Slattery. It’s that silver hair thing. I wanted to be Anderson Cooper but he is not an actor.

Kate Nutting: Yeah, you are right. We also had a question from our mailbag and this was going to be an audio call but we discovered that our caller had a flip phone, so was unable to send us a voice memo. However, he has a fantastic —

Bob Ambrogi: Are you going to tell us who this caller was?

J. Craig Williams: It’s the editor.

Kate Nutting: It is a host of one of the shows on the Legal Talk Network. He loves music, he is very witty.

Bob Ambrogi: Jared.

Kate Nutting: That’s him.

J. Craig Williams: Jared has a flip-phone?

Kate Nutting: Yes, yes. It’s fascinating, but I just discovered that today. However, he has a fantastic question for both of you.

J. Craig Williams: It’s probably his burner phone because he has to go anonymous a lot.

Kate Nutting: Yeah, maybe that’s why, maybe.

Bob Ambrogi: Because he is such a celebrity people.

Kate Nutting: He is. He’s — okay, this is Jared’s question, my favorite song related The Law is, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” by The Beatles. What’s yours? And please, nothing cheesy like, “I Fought The Law (And The Law Won)” or “Lawyers, Guns and Money.” Let’s go deep on this one.

Bob Ambrogi: All right. I was trying to come up with something that is a little unusual and I’ve got two that I couldn’t decide between, okay? One is, “California Sex Lawyer” by Fountains of Wayne.

Kate Nutting: All right. I know that song.

Bob Ambrogi: Have you heard that song?

Kate Nutting: Yes, great song.

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah, and the other is an old one from folksinger, Tom Paxton called, “One Million Lawyers” in which he sort of paints this nightmare scenario of lawyers growing all across the country. The lyrics say, “Lawyers around every bend in the road. Lawyers in every tree. Lawyers in restaurants. Lawyers in clubs. Lawyers behind every door. Behind windows and potted plants. Shade trees and shrubs. Lawyers on pogo sticks. Lawyers in politics. In ten years we’re going to have one million lawyers. How much can a poor nation stand?”

J. Craig Williams: It’s passed it now; it’s about two-and-a-half million.

Bob Ambrogi: Impressioned, impressioned, everything with the pogo sticks was impressioned.

Kate Nutting: Amazing. And, Craig, what would be your choice?

J. Craig Williams: I’d have to go with Larry Savell’s theme song for Lawyer 2 Lawyer.

Kate Nutting: Yes.

J. Craig Williams: And that of course.

Kate Nutting: Agreed, agreed. And what’s the quote about you, Craig, something with the most fun you can have while wearing a vest, is that?

J. Craig Williams: Yeah, while wearing a vest, yeah.

Kate Nutting: Okay.

J. Craig Williams: That’s it.

Kate Nutting: Fantastic, and Larry is an old friend of ours. He’s fantastic and his holiday album comes out every year, so check that out if you are up there.

Bob Ambrogi: Well, he just came out with a new album but it’s not a holiday one this year but it’s a —

Kate Nutting: Oh.

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah.

Kate Nutting: So, he is great and he has been fantastic to us. Moving on, just a rapid fire as we approach the end of the show but we’ve had so many guests from this whole year. Can you think of your favorite guest to the year, is that a difficult question or —

Bob Ambrogi: I can think about it.

Kate Nutting: Okay.

Bob Ambrogi: I have two — and this one also early in the year we had on Jim Sandman and Linda Klein, the President of the Legal Services Corporation and then President of the American Bar Association, and I just have so much respect for everything both of them have done around the issue of enhancing access to justice in this country.

(00:24:43)

And so, I was just really kind of honored to have them on and enjoyed talking to them. And we put them up high — also, was very impressed. We did the show on Trump’s proposed ban on transgender service members and we had Brynn Tannehill on that show who was a service member who transitioned — left the military in order to transition and who has been speaking and educating around this issue for sometime, and a lot of admiration for her courage and willingness to talk about all that.

Kate Nutting: Craig, what do you think?

J. Craig Williams: I thought that the two gentlemen who were on our Electoral College show, if I remember John Koza and Trent England were some of the most interesting guests we had because it’s such an arcane topic. I had no idea that you could be all of that amped up. Those guys got really excited about their respective issues and what was appropriate, what was not, and I learned so much about the Electoral College at a time when everybody, every four years wonders why we even have it, and then we forget. But it was a great show and they were very active members, so I thought they did a good job.

Kate Nutting: We’ve had amazing guests and I agree, all great guests, all great guests.

Now, this is a question from me. “The Verdict” is my favorite movie or film involving lawyers. I was actually a volunteer in Boston. What is your all-time favorite film or show involving lawyers, Bob?

Bob Ambrogi: You know, you stole my answer, I was actually going to say the exact same thing I loved “The Verdict.”

Kate Nutting: Oh sorry.

Bob Ambrogi: The standard answer I would give is “To Kill a Mockingbird” but everybody gives that answer. But again, I knew — I knew Barry Reed who was the Boston lawyer who wrote the novel that that movie was based on, I bet your dad probably knew Barry too.

Kate Nutting: Definitely.

Bob Ambrogi: Your case dad is a lawyer by the way. And it also co-starred Lindsay Crouse who is sort of a neighbor of mine and that she lives up here in Gloucester, she is regular in theater productions up around here and based in Boston and Paul Newman was fantastic in it. So, I’m going to call separate with “The Verdict.”

Kate Nutting: Amazing, amazing film, Craig. Your film, Bob, what do you think?

J. Craig Williams: I was thinking “To Kill a Mockingbird” but I would have to say the “Scopes Monkey Trial” movie.

Kate Nutting: Yup.

J. Craig Williams: The one with the featured Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan; just an accurate movie from the standpoint of what happened. One of the books I’ve written contained a chapter about that trial and I found that movie tremendously interesting because I thought it tracked Mencken’s coverage of it from The Baltimore Sun. I thought it tracked the transcripts that I read very well, and as a trial lawyer, I thought it was accurate about what actually happens in a southern courtroom, I’ve been in a couple, and it’s a lot different than most other courtrooms. It was a well done movie, very educational.

One of those movies you should see in high school, grade school so that you get a – as part of a Social Studies class or History class you get some kind of perspective about how the judicial branch works in the government. Sometimes lawyers, regular everyday lawyers solve constitutional issues.

Kate Nutting: Great answer. I’m going to kind to get heavy towards the end. I know we lightened it up a little but this comes down to the Mueller investigation and President Trump.

So, it’s kind of a two-parter, but I could probably put them together. What do you think we’ll see coming out of the investigation and do you foresee if something does come about? Do you foresee President Trump resigning or being impeached?

J. Craig Williams: Well, I’ll start it out, Bob. And this ties into my earlier answer about the year, the lie. I think that my generalized observation based on a very unscientific poll of just reading the news that most of the time Trump lies, he is trying to blame someone else or hide something, which is fairly typical human nature behavior.

What concerns me is how many times he has denied that there’s been anything to do with Russia and why he is constantly trying to divert attention to it by speaking about it.

So I think if Mueller’s investigation turns out that there was some level of knowledge within his administration even in his sons, in his — perhaps, at his own level about Russian involvement in the election and its interference and its failure to disclose that to the country, I think we may well see some articles of impeachment brought and I think that it may play itself out that that ultimately would happen that Trump would either resign or be impeached for that kind of behavior, but I think a lot of it depends on what Mueller finds.

It’s interesting now that Trump is complaining about emails when — I think that the joke about her emails became the rally cry of the — one of the rallying prices campaign and yet now when somebody hands over his emails, he’s bound to determine to blame somebody for it.

Kate Nutting: True.

(00:29:54)

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah, I think we’re going to find something. I think we’re going to hear something coming out of the Mueller investigation that will suggest some — at least knowledge of — if not complicity in the Russia election tampering. I do think the Trump campaign knew more than anybody’s admitted so far, and certainly, if something more coming, I mean, it’s going to depend what comes out as to whether Trump gets impeached but I would like to take this opportunity to invite President Trump to do the honorable thing and just resign tomorrow and then we won’t have to go through all this.

J. Craig Williams: Right, that’s not going to happen.

Bob Ambrogi: Oh, come on.

J. Craig Williams: There was — I said something like that in law school once, Bob, and I think from top to bottom, from left to right covered up four blackboards, the professor scrolled a note that I’ve never forgotten and he wrote “Hope Springs Eternal.” Because I had said, well, I would hope that the court would do that was right for the poor widow, some stupid comment like that, it sprung that out, but every time some — I hope that springs into my head thinking, “wow.”

Kate Nutting: Yeah, who do you think the next one’s going to be up on on charges? That’s just a follow up to all this potential collision?

J. Craig Williams: I think one of the sons.

Kate Nuttung: Okay.

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah, I do not know.

J. Craig Wiliams: And then the more interesting question, Kate, that you really want to ask is, will he pardon Flynn?

Kate Nutting: Exactly, right.

J. Craig Williams: Because if he pardons Flynn — and it’s an interesting constitutional question whether a president can pardon someone involved in the same crime that he was involved in.

Kate Nutting: Right, right.

J. Craig Williams: I don’t think it’s possible.

Bob Ambrogi: We did a show on that, didn’t we? I think we did a show on that.

J. Craig Williams: What was their —

Bob Ambrogi: We did do a show on that this year.

J. Craig Williams: Yeah.

Kate Nutting: Yeah, lot of Trump shows.

J. Craig Williams: Too many.

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah, I think there’s still more that can come out of our Attorney General sessions too. I think that’s something else to watch, it’s starting to fall into the background a little bit, but there might be more there that we’ve yet to hear.

Kate Nutting: Well, gentlemen, as we wrap this up, I have one final question. This has been an absolute pleasure, it’s been so much fun, but looking ahead, what big legal issues will we see in 2018? Any supreme court cases or the continuation of the investigation? Anything that you can think of, what would you predict?

Bob Ambrogi: I would predict that there’s going to be some kind of a showdown between the administration and Mueller at the special prosecutor. I think that there’s been a lot of talk about whether Trump will fire Mueller, whether the Department of Justice will fire Mueller. I think that things are going to get hot or hotter with Mueller and Trump is going to get more-and-more worried, and there’s going to be some kind of a showdown there where Trump is going to try and get him out of there and we’re going to see a real kind of a constitutional showdown that could go right up to the supreme court.

J. Craig Williams: My biggest fear is that there will be some drama on the world stage involving Russia, China or North Korea. We’re playing with some pretty big players and we’ve got some hands on some pretty big guns at this point, and it’s kind of like looking back at the death of a minor royal-started World War I, I think it was or something like that. I wonder whether or not the announcement of Jerusalem is the Israeli capital is the spark that touched off a larger powder cake that will come to hunt us next year.

Kate Nutting: Very interesting.

Bob Ambrogi: Okay, thank you very much. You did a good job.

Kate Nutting: Thank you.

Bob Ambrogi: We can retire now and just turn the reigns over to you.

Kate Nutting: No, no. You guys do it, you guys are great and if so many great listeners and the community is great, everyone has been great to us, so it’s been a pleasure to join you today.

J. Craig Williams: Thank you, Kate.

Bob Ambrogi: Well, that brings us to the end of our show and it’s not just Kate out there, it’s a — as she said earlier, a whole bunch of people at the Legal Talk Network who make this show possible, and thanks to all them and thanks to everybody who gave us a question, and thanks to everybody who listens to this show, all these 13 plus years; I think there’s a few people out there who probably listened all that time and appreciate all of that. So, if you are one of those people who listens and likes the show, please rate us on Apple Podcast, otherwise, Craig, any final words?

J. Craig Williams: No, well, I know this is a big pessimistic show right before the holiday season, yey. So I hope that everybody has a wonderful holiday season, and Bob, I’m going to pin my hopes on what you said, I hope that 2018 is a much better year than 2017 was.

(00:34:48)

Bob Ambrogi: Did I say that? Uh-oh, yeah, let’s do that, let’s go with that. All right well, thanks a lot. This is Bob Ambrogi, join us next time for another great legal topic. When you want legal, think, Lawyer 2 Lawyer.

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Outro: Thanks for listening to Lawyer 2 Lawyer, produced by the broadcast professionals at Legal Talk Network. Join Jay Craig Williams and Robert Ambrogi for their next podcast, covering the latest legal topic.

Subscribe to the RSS feed on  HYPERLINK “http://www.legaltalknetwork.com” legaltalknetwork.com or in iTunes. The views expressed by the participants of this program are their own, and do not represent the views of nor are they endorsed by Legal Talk Network, its officers, directors, employees, agents, representatives, shareholders, and subsidiaries. None of the content should be considered legal advice. As always, consult a lawyer.

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