Say “Yes” to Leadership: A Conversation with Dana and Keith Cutler

Episode Notes

Transcript

Keith A. Cutler:

10 years ago, you probably couldn’t find a lawyer who didn’t agree that the rule of law was paramount to our society. And it’s like, hello, yes, this is of importance. It’s not a partisan issue, it’s not a political issue. This is the very foundation of our democracy.

Amanda Arriaga:

Welcome to the first episode of Leading theBar, brought to you by the National Conference of Bar Presidents. I’m your host, Amanda Arriaga, chair of the 21st Century Lawyer Committee. For those of you who are not familiar, the National Conference of Bar Presidents or NCBP is the organization that has been empowering, connecting and inspiring bar leaders and organizations for 75 years. I’m thrilled to introduce our guests for our first episode. Dana and Keith Cutler are lawyers, leaders, TV judges, and love to give back to the legal community and the community at large. Dana Tippin Cutler is a graduate of Spelman College and the University of Missouri, Kansas City Law School. She was the first black woman elected as Missouri Bar president where she created the Courageous Collaboration Program, bringing lawyers together to discuss implicit bias and unintentional judgment. Keith Cutler is a graduate of Morehouse College and the University of Missouri, Kansas City Law School.

He is past president of the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association and past president of the Jackson County Bar Association. Together the Cutlers are frequent presenters on topics such as bar leadership, motivating your board members, identifying anti-biased behaviors and microaggressions, and move their partnership to the screen. In the Courtroom shows couples court with the Cutlers and now Cutler’s court where they help couples facing relationship issues every weekday. They have each one, a variety of legal awards and our daytime and nominees. I could list off every accomplishment, but I would rather spend time with you getting to hear from them. We couldn’t have anyone more qualified today to talk about solving problems and working with people in general. Welcome, Dana and Keith. Thanks y’all so much for being here.

Keith A. Cutler:

Thank you for inviting us.

Amanda Arriaga:

Absolutely, of course. And I want to start off with the question, as lawyers, we have so much to do already getting involved in a bar association is not on everyone’s mind. Why did you want to not only get involved, but also lead your bar association? And Dana, let’s start with you.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

So I think it’s kind of twofold for me. My father’s a lawyer and one of the things he talked about was you always have to give back to your legal community. You have to give back to the courts that support us. And so it was kind of a genetic, if you will, piece to it. And then of course, we as lawyers are, at least in Missouri, and I think this is probably generally our rules, our ethical rules encourage us to be involved and support what we do, not just from behind our desk, but in front of our desk and out in the public. But the question of leadership I think is sort of, that was an accident. And I tell people all the time, if you show up at a meeting and say, yes, you’re on your way, that’s all you have to do. And sometimes you don’t even have to say yes, you can make a suggestion and you’re on your way. So I think that’s kind of what happened with theBar leadership. I kept showing up and I kept saying yes. And then the rest is the proverbial history. But it’s been great and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Amanda Arriaga:

So if you want to be president of your bar association, just say yes.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Yes. And I’m afraid I said it out loud here, so I don’t know what I’m saying yes to here, but yes, that’s the right answer.

Amanda Arriaga:

We’re calling you.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Okay.

Amanda Arriaga:

Now, Keith, did you have a similar path or a different path?

Keith A. Cutler:

It’s a similar path, but when we came through, I mean we’ve been practicing now for over 35 years. So when we first became lawyers, it was the thing, if you were part of a profession, you joined the professional organization. If you were a lawyer, you joined theBar Association. If you were a doctor, you joined the medical association. If you were an engineer, you joined the Professional engineer society. That’s just what you did. And so it wasn’t like an agonizing decision, well, should I join theBar Association? Should I not? It is that’s what you did. So that’s how I initially got involved with theBar Association. It’s similar to what Dana said in that most people that I know that became bar presidents did not have this journey desire at the beginning to be bar president. They started, they got active, they enjoyed the people, they enjoyed the process, and next thing you knew they were being put in the rotation and then you just work your way up to president. And so that seems to be how it works. It’s really not an ambition thing. It is if you stick around long enough, if you do good work, somebody’s going to put you on the path of leadership and you can’t stop it.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Yeah.

Amanda Arriaga:

So most lawyers know about their local bar association or their state of Bar Association. Not everyone knows about NCBP. How did y’all come to find NCBP and want to get involved with that?

Keith A. Cutler:

I think we first got involved with NCBP because we were asked to speak and present at one of the meetings, either an annual meeting or a mid-year meeting. And so as we got involved in that process and we spoke and the people were nice, and we came back to subsequent meetings, and I think Dana was on the board for a minute. And so that’s kind of how we initially got involved. She may correct my recollection, as she often does, I am, but that’s how I kind of remember it.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Actually, my introduction to NCBP was on my path in the rotation to be president. And it was after the riots in Ferguson and we had this seminar or panel discussion, and I was on that discussion. But our state bar, it was very important to them for leadership to be involved with NCBP and keep our fingers on the pulse, what was going on from a national perspective. And being from Missouri, the state bar for Missouri is a member of the Southern Conference of our presidents, and we funnel through NCBP. So that’s how I got involved. And I think he got dragged along because he was my better half. So here we are.

Keith A. Cutler:

So I wasn’t wrong. It started with a presentation.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

No, you weren’t wrong from that standpoint. Nope. Okay. One point for me. Alright. A half a point.

Amanda Arriaga:

Oh, we’ll keep score. All right. Tick marks.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

That was a half a point then, Amanda.

Amanda Arriaga:

Okay. Okay, I got it. So what’s interesting about being a bar president specifically is that the people you’re leading are lawyers full of their own opinions, full of their own brilliant ideas. We’ve all got them. So what was the biggest challenge that you faced when you were bar president and how did you face it?

Dana Tippin Cutler:

The largest issue I was facing was an aging infrastructure. Our technology. When we had the technology audit done, the auditors came back and said, this is being held together by duct tape at this point. And so making sure that we were putting in place the money and the hardware so that we could provide appropriate, just appropriate, not even stellar service to our members. And so figuring that out and investing in that and making sure that that got carried through. And the other two pieces were having a strategic approach to future initiatives because for a long time, every president came in with his or her own agenda and they would change it up. And so we had some programs that were on the books. No one had done anything with it. They were outdated. It wasn’t an issue anymore. So cleaning all that up and then having a strategic process for how we would decide to do new initiatives.

Were they on track? Were they in scope and all of those things. That was the second big issue. And the third was I wanted bar staff to have what they needed to be amazing. And so going to them and saying, what do we need to put in place for your department so you can do all the things? And those things weren’t sexy, but they were important so that our bar could really function and function well. And I’m okay with that as my legacy. I know that within three years of that, we were in the pandemic. And had we not made that technology investment, I don’t know how theBar could have done what it did because we could barely get emails going. So to have to function completely in an E format would’ve been impossible. Of course, we didn’t see the pandemic coming, but that’s the thing that I’m proud of. And those were the toughest things that I had to deal with that year.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, I think you must have more than one legacy that you left because you came in focusing on governance and strategic planning, which not everybody does because it’s not fun, but it’s very important. But then you also, while solving that problem, created the courageous Collaboration project. So it sounds like you did things that you started with the needs to have and then you were able to create the program that you wanted to have.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

That is a really accurate description. That was just the icing on the cake, if you will, and that people were receptive and that it seemed to give people an opportunity to talk about our relationships in a different way.

It is something that I am very pleased to have been a part of, but more importantly that I live in a state where lawyers generally want our legal profession to be a thing. We can rally around and know that it’s doing what it’s supposed to do, and then lawyers are doing what they’re supposed to do, and judges are fair and impartial. Most of us want that. And we want our communities to know the courts are reliable, the rule of law is real. You can rely on what we’re saying to you that’s important. And to have courageous collaborations be part of that conversation, it is gratifying.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, we thank you for what you do.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Thank you.

Amanda Arriaga:

Keith, you have been bar president two different times at two different organizations. Do you have a particular challenge that you faced and were able to overcome? And would you like to talk to us about how you solved it?

Keith A. Cutler:

Well, lawyers are interesting people and how you deal with lawyers is you have to deal with them in a unique way. Now, it’s one thing if you’re coming from another profession and all of a sudden you have to lead a bunch of lawyers, you’re not used to how lawyers think. You’re not used to their demands. And that’s one thing for Dana and me. I mean, we’re lawyers. We went to law school, we’ve been lawyers. We know what lawyers are like. We know how to deal with them. And so we didn’t have any problems from that aspect in terms of being bar presidents for my bar year in 2024, we were out of the pandemic, but we still had some remnants of the pandemic. Of course, when the pandemic hit, everything went virtual. And then as we came out of the pandemic in 20 21, 20 22, and even into 2023, we got used to doing things virtually.

And so we had a number of meetings the year before I became president where we’d have a board of 30 people. You have nine people in person and 20, 21 people virtual. I think studies initially said, oh, virtual meetings are great. But at some point, I think the studies began to show they’re just not quite as productive as in-person meetings. So my challenge was to get the board members reengaged to come in-person and to recognize the value of in-person meetings versus virtual meetings. And the second part of that challenge is once you get your board engaged, you’ve got to keep them engaged. You’ve got to give them a reason to come to meetings. They’re not just reviewing reports, not just listening to people, just drone on and on, but give them responsibilities, give them input, give them some reason why they’re taking their valuable time. And a lot of it is billable time to be a part of this organization. And so that was my challenge to make it worth their while. And I think I did that. We had good turnout, we had good attendance at our meetings, and people felt they were more engaged. We did a survey afterwards, after my bar year, and people felt that they had a voice. They felt that they were part of the process. They felt that the time was not being wasted. And as a bar president, that’s about all you can ask for. From your board members,

Amanda Arriaga:

Since you just ended your term, what do you think the biggest issue is facing a bar leader today?

Keith A. Cutler:

The biggest issue facing bar leaders today, and I’ve talked with bar leaders all across the country about this for the last couple of years, it’s a different mindset with younger lawyers. Again, as I mentioned earlier, when we first started practicing law, it was the thing to join theBar Association. That’s what you did. Younger lawyers, now, they don’t have that same sense. They don’t have that same commitment. And I’m not faulting them, I’m not criticizing them. It’s just not the environment that they have grown up in. So you’ve got to, as a bar leader, give people more of a reason to join theBar Association than just it’s what you do. Because people aren’t buying into that. You have people, this generation that’s coming through now, they socialize differently. They are more virtual in nature. They’re on their phones a lot. They do things differently than we did. And so as a bar leader, we’ve got to adapt to that. We can sit back and say, well, they don’t do it like we did it, but they’re doing it. And so if you want younger lawyers, if you want newer lawyers to be a part of your bar organization, you’ve got to meet them where they are. And that’s a challenge sometimes.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

And even with mandatory state bars, we want people to do more than pay their fees. We want them to actually participate and engage and get the benefit of their life experience and work experience so that we can do what we do better, put rules in place, do all the things that we need to do to make sure the profession is growing with its community. Like my better have said, it’s just a different socialization, and it’s not a criticism, but it’s different. So figuring out not being in that generation and trying to figure out how to connect with that generation is a challenge. The whole Gen Z, gen X millennials versus the world, I don’t want to be a part of that conversation, but how do we engage with generations that are just different?

Amanda Arriaga:

Do you think that there’s anything to the idea that there is some controversy about whether bars, whether they’re mandatory, whether they’re a metro, be involved in hot topics? Some of us, back in my day when I was president of the Young Lawyers Association, it was community service. It was CLEs, it was social functions. And now for some bars, there is an attempt to, well, we need to talk about hot topics. We need to respond. We need to make sure that everyone knows how we feel. Since a bar association is made up of many different people with many different opinions, how do you balance that? Is that the role should it be of a person that’s leading a bar association?

Dana Tippin Cutler:

My take particularly in a bar that is a mandatory bar, state bar in particular, our job is as leaders, and this is Dana’s opinion, I’m going to underscore that, is to preserve protect the entity. So I don’t get to share everything. I’m thinking about everything because it may impact preservation and protecting the overall bar. So you get some and you give some, and that’s something you have to give up when you’re a leader, that you don’t get to wax poetic about everything and how you feel about things because it’s a greater cause. If you’re the president of a mandatory bar, you are standing for every single lawyer every time you speak. So you can’t afford to just speak from your space. You’ve got to think about the people that you may be diametrically opposed to personally, but you are speaking for them. And so I think sometimes we forget that leadership is not just me and people just like me.

It is the whole bar that you’re representing, and you have to give that up. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have an opinion. So if someone would ask me if I was doing a podcast, no, I would not do this, but if you ask me, Dana, personally, how do you feel about X, Y, Z, I could share that. And I would preface it with, this is Dana’s point. I’m not speaking as the leader of whatever that bar is. And so I think it’s really important to know that if you’re standing in leadership, you’re not just leading people who are just like you, who think you, you’re leading everyone. And you need to be mindful of that, that you are speaking in a way that is more neutral so that you can protect. Because what happens is you alienate membership and that’s not what you’re there to do.

In terms of making space though, I think it’s important to make space in your organization for different voices to be heard. And I think that’s been one of the hardest things to do, is to make sure that when you are being inclusive, that you include the voices that may not be the popular voices. I think that’s been a criticism of inclusivity, is that it’s inclusive of people like me and inclusivity is everybody gets to come to the table and be valued, even if we don’t agree because there’s something to be learned in another viewpoint, there’s an opportunity for that. And I think sometimes we forget that.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, I always want to hear Dana’s take, so I appreciate that.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

God bless you.

Amanda Arriaga:

Keith, anything to add?

Keith A. Cutler:

I think the challenge is different for a voluntary bar. The stakes are even higher because I was president of a voluntary bar, and with a mandatory bar, you might get people who decide not to participate in certain events or they don’t come to certain things, but generally speaking, you’re not going to lose members because it’s a mandatory bar with a voluntary bar, it can affect your very bottom line because if people think that you are on some type of political agenda with which they do not agree, then they’re not going to pay their dues. And that affects the bottom line of voluntary bar associations very drastically. But I do agree with Dana that when you are the leader of a bar association, and as I told my board, we are in essentially a fiduciary capacity. And when you’re in a fiduciary capacity, you don’t always get to do what you want to do.

You do what’s best for the person for whom you’re serving in that fiduciary capacity. The lines used to be fairly clear about what a bar association should and should not opine on because everybody kind of agreed to some basic concepts. The scope of basic concepts that everybody agrees with is becoming more narrow and narrow, because 10 years ago, you probably couldn’t find a lawyer who didn’t agree that the rule of law was paramount to our society. Now it seems to be an open question, well, do we need the rule of law is the rule of L jeopardy? And it’s like, hello, yes, this is of importance. It’s not a partisan issue, it’s not a political issue. This is the very foundation of our democracy, but yet that apparently is up for debate. And so what bar associations are allowed to talk about, particularly voluntary bar associations where it was once fairly clear cut, the lines are blurred now.

And so I think a bar association, if you’re not going to stand up for the rule of law, then what are you going to stand up for? If you’re not going to make a statement about protecting the constitution, and I know they’re varying interpretations of what that means, but if you’re not going to stand up for protecting the constitution, what in the world are you going to stand up for? If you’re not going to stand up for treating everyone equally, what are you going to stand up for? What are you waiting on? So that’s kind of my personal take.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

I don’t know how personal it is, Mr. Cutler. It is the question. It is the question that we are asking ourselves. I just did the first draft of a presentation on almost the same thing that I’m doing in June, the third branch of government. Are we here? Are we going to do this? Are we going to support it? Are we going to, it would’ve been unfathomable to think that people would be saying, well, you can’t be a judge if you don’t agree with the other two branches.

Keith A. Cutler:

Well, yeah, like attacks on judges 10 years ago, everybody, 99.9% of theBar would be, you can’t attack judges. You have to let them do their jobs. And we have a tripartite form of government nowadays. You’re like, well, if the judges aren’t doing right, maybe you can attack ’em, not physically, but you can attack their process, their right to make a decision. All of that’s up in the air now. And it’s like, no, no, no, no, no. As a bar association, if you’re not going to stand up for our judges because they can’t stand up for themselves a lot of time, they depend on lawyers, they depend on bar associations to do that. If you’re not going to do that as a bar association, close your doors, don’t do something else

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Yesterday.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, and I guess to circle, to put it all back, that is sometimes what NCBP can help with, right? There must be bar presidents that came into their term and they had no idea this is what they would be working on. They thought that they were going to work on their gala, they were going to put on their bench bar day long CLE, and they didn’t know that they had to deal with this issue. And maybe they don’t know how, because nobody that has been the leader of that association before had to do that. Correct. Or because it’s a mandatory bar, and it’s confusing to know what the boundaries are in that state. So NCBP can’t tell you what to do, but you all have given courses and been so generous to share your times on webinars about how you can deal with issues. How do you write a statement? How do you poll the members to determine what the right response should be? So thank you for always having been part of that.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Well, and to me, that’s the heart of NCBP is that you have this resource where somebody has experienced either exactly what you’re going through or so close to it. They can be a guide. And the other part is sometimes you just need somebody else that you can say, I need to talk about this. And it may not be your bar executive director. It may not be even the people you’re serving with, but you want to talk leader to leader to somebody and say, look at here. I got to tell you what’s going on in my world. They have the appropriate distance to be a voice, to be a list, an ear, and to respond. Sometimes that’s just enough to keep you in the game and keep you, as I often would say, tearing your clothes off and running down the street naked, screaming, just having that person through NCBP or those other bar leaders and the fact that the resources are so rich that you can go into and find answers and find solutions and find ideas. That’s why NCBP is so important for state and local bars, voluntary and otherwise, it’s invaluable from that standpoint.

Keith A. Cutler:

One of the other values of NCBP is you realize as a bar leader that what your bar association is going through is not unique. Because sometimes as a bar leader, you’re thinking, okay, why can’t our Bar Association do this? Why aren’t we able to do this? Why aren’t we drawing members in? Why aren’t we? And then when you talk to other bar leaders across the country in NCVP and they tell you, yes, we’re having the same issues. We’re having the same problems, you think, okay, all right. It is not just us. It’s not anything we’re doing wrong. This is a nationwide problem. And you get solutions from them about how they’ve addressed it.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

And not just to be negative, but you also get a lot of joy out of going to NCBP. These are individuals who love the profession, who want to serve the profession. And even if you’re ideologically different, it is a love of the profession that drives them. And sometimes just being able to sit down and break bread together, and I find it refuels me and it restores and reinvigorates, and you’re like, okay, I’m ready to go home and do the work. That is as important as dealing with the problems is finding the joy and the support and the love there that keeps us in the game.

Amanda Arriaga:

So listeners, I hope that you have now been enticed to sign up for NCVP. We’re going to bring you joy and we’ll help you solve your problems. Come join us.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

There you go. Don’t

Amanda Arriaga:

Delay. So now I want to go back to another direction. You all are TV judges, so I should have been calling you Judge Cutler. You have the couples court with the cutlers and now the Cutlers court, which you can find every weekday on your local channels. And I know that y’all are solving relationship issues, but you have relationship issues at work as well with your clients, let’s say. So what advice would you give that you’ve learned through your judicial appointment that you give to our audience that might help them with work?

Keith A. Cutler:

I know people will find this hard to believe, but lawyers are people too. And the same, I know, shocking, right? But the same human emotions that drive non-lawyers, drive lawyers. Now, some people think lawyers have it in overdrive, but the need to express an opinion, the need to be heard, the need to be valued, all of that lawyers have those same needs as non-lawyers. And so when you’re dealing with, first of all, other lawyers, if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t listen to anybody, you don’t play well with others, that’s a problem, whether you’re a lawyer or not. When you’re dealing with clients, it’s kind of the same thing. Clients want to be heard, they want to feel valued. They want to feel like you care. And so we tell people on Cutler’s Court, look, you have to listen to your other person, not just hear them, not just wait for a break in the conversation.

So you can get that zinger in, but you really have to listen and you have to hear what they’re saying. And then you have to try to adapt so that you have a harmonious relationship. The same thing happens when you’re dealing lawyer to lawyer, listen to the other side, hear what they have to say, and work out your difference. When you’re dealing with clients, same thing. Listen to your client, hear what they’re trying to tell you, because the clients don’t always articulate it in legalese. So you have to translate what they’re saying into what their legal issue actually is. And then you help them. You make them feel good about what’s going to happen across the board. I think that’s applicable to any relationship.

Amanda Arriaga:

I want to say that I love that you clarified that we also have human emotions. Nothing has ever sounded more like we might be robots than clarifying. No. We in fact do have human emotions. Dana. Yes. Do you have any advice that you have learned from your Courtroom shows that you would like to give some advice to the audience?

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Oh, I could be here all day with that, but I think there are a couple of things. One, my husband talked about listening and not just hearing. And sometimes lawyers are so ready to, they’re prepared for their argument. They know what they’re going to say and they never hear or listen to what’s being said in the moment. And so sometimes you miss an opportunity to really respond appropriately. And so one of the things that I’ve learned during the show is it’s okay to say, wait a minute. Let me have a moment with that comment you made. Doing that with your clients, when they tell you something, you already have in your mind, oh, this is an employment case. This is what happened. And you never listen to the emotion and some of the other things so that you can respond and be that not just their lawyer and advocate, but their counsel.

That sometimes gets lost in the billable hours and all of the things. And whether those are corporate clients, because while it’s a corporate client, you’re dealing with the people in the corporation. And so I think it has caused me to slow down and go, wait a minute. What are you saying to me? What is underneath that? Being able to do that in your interpersonal relationships with your significant other, your family, your clients, your opposing counsel is a edge. The other is, I think that we don’t put enough emphasis on deciding who we are going to be in relationship. I get to decide who I will be, and I don’t let you and how you respond to me define that. So if you have opposing counsel that’s really nasty and mean, I have a choice, I can respond in turn, or I can be the person that I think I should be or want to be every day.

Getting up and defining who you’re going to be in your relationships sets the tone and resets the tone every single day. I tell people, when you’re with your partner or your significant other, you have to decide who you want to be with them, not let them define how you’re going to be with them. And they’re going to have to respond differently because if you come at them nasty, there’s one set of responses. If you come at them with kindness, that’s going to be a different response. So just those two things, like listening and defining who you’re going to be every single day makes a big difference.

Amanda Arriaga:

It’s interesting when you’ve seen, when people come at you with nastiness and you respond with kindness, they freak out.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

They don’t know

Amanda Arriaga:

They were prepared for a fight.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Yeah,

Keith A. Cutler:

Exactly.

Amanda Arriaga:

So if you say, thank you for sharing that with me, they don’t know what to do. And it can turn the situation so that you can get moving along what you need it to.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Exactly. And that’s just deciding I’m going to be the best, Dana. I’m going to be, I’m going to try to, and I’m not going to let you switch that off.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, you are lawyers, leaders, TV stars, national presenters. What do you do at home? Just to decompress and get out of your head? Do you have any activities or hobbies that you love?

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Yeah, go ahead, Mr. Cutler.

Keith A. Cutler:

I was going to say objection assumes facts, not in evidence that we decompress, that we do all that stuff. But yeah, I think we do. I mean, for example, we like hanging out with our friends. We like traveling. We have a granddaughter that we try to visit on a regular basis in Houston. Dana likes to peddle around the house and do other stuff. I like listening to music. I play the trumpet. So I mean, there are things that we do. I don’t know that it’s a conscious thing. Okay, I need to decompress. I don’t think it gets to that level, but it’s like, okay, we’ll do some things for fun. But in our situation, it’s unique because we practice law together and we have a small family owned law firm. So in addition to being lawyers, we’re business owners. And I don’t know that that shuts off at five o’clock.

So it’s not like, okay, five o’clock we turn it off, we go home and don’t think about it. I mean, we are business partners, so it could be nine 30 at night, and I raised an issue with her that has to do with work or a case that I’m working on. So I don’t know that there’s a formal decompression period, but I think we have a healthy balance. I think our friends will tell you that we don’t always talk about work. We know how to have fun. When I go on vacation, I know how to shut it off.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

He does. Woo. I’m not as good at him as he is. But when we go on vacation, he’s like, what law? What lawyer? I’m not that good.

Keith A. Cutler:

So

Dana Tippin Cutler:

That’s my take on it. My favorite things to do. He’s right. I like to piddle around the house. So I like to garden. I love to cook. And I picked back up Needle point last night, I was doing needle point in bed, and he was like, what are you doing again? And I showed it to him. He’s like, okay, well, she’s back on that kick again. So I am happy being at home. And so doing things, I just got a tricycle. My balance is zero. So I got an e trike. And so I’ve been tootling around the neighborhood on that.

Keith A. Cutler:

Well, let’s call it a three wheeler, because I think people listen, think you’re on some little tricycle.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Yeah, it’s an adult tricycle.

Keith A. Cutler:

Let’s call it for a three wheeler.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

It’s a three. Okay. Mr. Colorer, it’s a three wheeler and it’s fun and I’m enjoying it around. Yeah, but I could really be a homebody. I’m okay with that.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, when y’all are in Houston visiting your granddaughter, come down to Austin and I will help you decompress. We’ll go. We’ll have a meal. We’ll laugh, we’ll cry, we’ll talk and we’ll peddle around.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

We’ll keep it weird. I know this.

Amanda Arriaga:

We’ll keep it weird. Weird. That’s what we do here. Okay, that’s a bet. Yes. No, please come visit me. So for my last question, and I don’t know that lawyers are good at answering this, but if you weren’t a lawyer, what would you be doing?

Keith A. Cutler:

If I were not a lawyer and I was not doing something law adjacent, I mean, I could say, well, I could be a law professor or I could write, so I’m excluding all law. I would probably be a college professor. My undergraduate degree is in physics, and so I would probably be doing something in the sciences, either working for a scientific company or teaching science. Those are probably the two career paths that science would lead me into. There was really never any debate. I wanted to be a lawyer since I was a teenager. There was never any wavering like which way. So that’s been the path. But had I not gone down that path, I think it would’ve been something in the science field. Like I said, either teaching or working at a scientific company doing research in a lab or something like that.

Amanda Arriaga:

Great. Dana, what would you be doing?

Dana Tippin Cutler:

So I wanted to be a lawyer since fourth grade. So this is a challenge, but my parents, my dad’s a lawyer, never encouraged me to be a lawyer. In fact was like, don’t do it. And they were trying to get me to go into theater. I always enjoyed theater and I’ve always been involved in the art. I paint, I draw. And so they were like, go in the fine arts, you love it. So I may have done that theater major or not singing or dancing, not my thing, but something like that. I don’t know, I can’t even think about it. I am like, this has been the life path for so long for me. But I do love theater. I love the arts. And so that may have been where I would’ve ended up. I don’t think I could have taught it, but maybe be involved in it from a career perspective,

Keith A. Cutler:

If I’m hearing you correctly, you’re saying that if you weren’t a lawyer, you’d have a TV show?

Dana Tippin Cutler:

I don’t know. I may have been a producer as opposed to being in front of the camera. I’d have been behind the camera, Mr. Cutler or something like that.

Amanda Arriaga:

I think there’s still time for that. I see that for you.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Okay. Well, speaking into existence, Amanda, I don’t know. We’ll see.

Keith A. Cutler:

Well, we are consulting producers on our show, so we

Amanda Arriaga:

Are,

Keith A. Cutler:

Yeah,

Amanda Arriaga:

You’ve already made your alternative dream come true.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Look at me doing things.

Amanda Arriaga:

And so Keith, I’ll get you a lab coat so that you can live out the science dream.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

There you go.

Amanda Arriaga:

That sounds

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Good. I’m here for it.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, thank you all so much for being here today. I think that our listeners are going to love this conversation. You gave so much good information to them to help them solve their problems, and we appreciate everything you do with NCBP, all that you’ve done to give back to us, and we’ll see you next time.

Dana Tippin Cutler:

Thank you so much, Amanda. Thank you so much. I’ve enjoyed it. Yeah, it’s been fun.

Amanda Arriaga:

Thank you for listening to Leading the Bar. Thank you to the Cutlers. Please subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. To learn more about NCBP, visit cbp.org.

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