Navigating Innovation and Ethics: The Future of Law in Montana – 2026 ALPS Bar Leaders Retreat

Episode Notes

Transcript

John Mudd [00:00:00 – 00:00:26]

Have we really priced a lot of people out of the ability to hire a lawyer to help them with their basic services? And how do we fix that? Well, that that goes to our overall obligation to the system and to to to the Constitution here in the United States. So I think my message is don’t panic. You know, go go back to your basics, and I think in the basics we can find the principles that will help us go forward.

Marc Raco [00:00:26 – 00:01:10]

Welcome to another great. Welcome to The Great Conversation on location in Missoula, Montana, at the Alps Insurance Retreat for Bar Leaders. I’m Marc Raco, and I’m sure happy you’re here because we have an incredible conversation ahead of us with a dynamic professional. That’s John Mudd. John is the Executive Director and General Counsel for the State Bar of Montana. John is a 5th-generation Montanan. He is a graduate of the University of Montana School of Law. Senate and Executive Counsel for the Montana Commissioner of Securities and Insurance.

Marc Raco [00:01:10 – 00:01:33]

He’s a national speaker on legal ethics, attorney wellness, and professionalism, and he serves on numerous legal and civic boards. What a privilege to speak with him. John, welcome. It’s so great to have you here, obviously in Missoula, Montana, at ALPS Retreat for Bar Leaders. How’s it going so far for you?

John Mudd [00:01:33 – 00:01:33]

Where do you—

Marc Raco [00:01:35 – 00:01:37]

Where are you actually located in Montana?

John Mudd [00:01:37 – 00:02:01]

Well, Mark, first of all, it’s great to have you here, and thanks for joining us in my hometown of Missoula, as well as Alps’s hometown. I— we are based out of Helena. I actually happen to live in Missoula. Helena is about 120 miles to the east. That’s the state capital. So the bar office is there. I’m here and bounce back and forth.

Marc Raco [00:02:01 – 00:02:04]

But Thank goodness for innovation and the ability to work remotely, right?

John Mudd [00:02:04 – 00:02:07]

Absolutely. The pandemic was, was a good thing for me.

Marc Raco [00:02:07 – 00:02:08]

Oh, no.

John Mudd [00:02:09 – 00:02:11]

In terms of the technology.

Marc Raco [00:02:11 – 00:02:12]

No, I hear you.

John Mudd [00:02:12 – 00:02:42]

It really kind of changed the way we do everything. We’re totally hybrid with our operation and probably 2 or 3 days a week in the office for most people. And then, and then remote. So, yeah, all joking aside, it was that technology change. I think like many law firms and other bar organizations was really changed the game for us. So, so it’s allowed me to be in my hometown and also be where we are located.

Marc Raco [00:02:43 – 00:03:20]

So now you are, you know, we talk about circumstances creating new innovations and ways of working. There are a lot of new types of innovations in technology happening now, AI certainly being one of them that’s driving a lot of change. You know, as a— you’re a Reasonably prolific speaker, and you serve on a lot of legal and civic boards. How are you finding the rapid changes in innovation, technology, and even the application of AI to be driving the things you’re talking about and the changes that you’re seeing?

John Mudd [00:03:20 – 00:04:23]

Well, that’s a great question, Marc. I think the— I see 3 major things all happening at the same time. Number one, there has been for some time this sort of growing Polarization in our society and a distrust of institutions, which I think is you know some healthy skepticism, but it’s kind of gone beyond that. We also have in the legal profession an accessibility problem in terms of people can’t access courts; they can’t access lawyers. It’s very challenging either to go it alone or to be able to afford to pay a lawyer, and that’s a reality we’re confronting in sort of the access to justice. Space. And into that sort of soup of inaccessibility and skepticism comes in AI. And I think that that is driving some things in ways that I’m not sure we fully understand yet.

John Mudd [00:04:23 – 00:05:23]

There’s great opportunities with it, but at the same time, there are some real challenges. And I think I’ve talked to members of the judiciary who have said, well, this is great. I can finally make more sense of some pro se pleadings. It’s easier to understand what someone is saying because they’re getting some help from AI. The flip side, I’ve heard judges say this is not good because they’re filing briefs that have hallucinations and they’re filing many of them now in cases over and over. So I think the jury’s still out, so to speak, on how that’s going to affect the the judicial system and sort of the broader systemic issues with this sort of soup of 3 things really coming together, I think, all at the same time. On the flip side, or the other side of that too, is the profession itself. And there, I think the innovations are pretty remarkable.

John Mudd [00:05:23 – 00:06:41]

I was talking to a colleague yesterday who’s in private practice who was just talking about how rapidly his practice has changed with the advent of, of AI and the changes in the last year alone and the evolution of various practice management systems and research systems. And so, you know, I think it could really make a solo like this person was and like I was at one point in my career, far more productive and able to be more competitive. And we have a lot of solos and small firms just like there are in the United States. Montana, we have a lot of space where that’s the only type of law firm. So in our sort of bar area E, we call it, which is eastern Montana, there’s 75,000 square miles in that part of the state, and there are 123 lawyers to cover that. And almost all of them are either in government practice in small towns or they are in individual practice. Well, something like AI can be, you know, a force multiplier in those kinds of regions where we have these legal deserts. So I think there’s a lot going on right now all at the same time.

John Mudd [00:06:41 – 00:06:50]

And of course, that creates both fear and it creates challenges, but also, I think, a lot of opportunities for the profession.

Marc Raco [00:06:51 – 00:07:25]

Much of what a lot of areas of law do is very procedural, and there isn’t a lot of reference to case law necessarily, and it’s What happens is a lot of people won’t touch, let’s say, a piece of small corporate litigation or a $75,000 potential judgment is just not worth it for all the work that goes into it. But integrating AI into a lot of those processes means you could take that case for a smaller judgment, $50,000, even $25,000, which is very meaningful to the plaintiff.

John Mudd [00:07:25 – 00:07:26]

Crazy.

Marc Raco [00:07:26 – 00:07:55]

and can be worthwhile to the attorney, which means you can do a, you know, potentially a larger bulk of business in a shorter period of time and take cases you wouldn’t otherwise be able to. And that’s not interfering to the, quote, expertise you’re bringing to the table, because so much of what some attorneys do in addition to their legal expertise is, is just sort of operational, administrative in large part. So, so that was the argument that was made. What is your take on that?

John Mudd [00:07:55 – 00:09:00]

I think that’s a sound argument. You know, when I left a firm to go out on my own and sort of pursue a dream of my building my own practice, and it was me and a desk and a laptop and a cell phone. And at that point in time, there weren’t these kinds of tools. So to your point, I was having to not only litigate the cases and I was a general civil litigation attorney, I was also having to do all the administrative piece. And when you look at the synergy in these new products between intake, billing, and also research, and also sort of administrative stuff, production of routine pleadings and those kinds of things, I think it will potentially allow them to take more cases and cases they wouldn’t normally take. So I think that that’s from the access to justice side of things, the potential to do more of that. Type of procedural work with sort of AI’s assistance does free up your time to do other things. And you’re not giving away your judgment.

John Mudd [00:09:00 – 00:09:26]

You know, ultimately, your judgment as a lawyer about what, what sort of, to use a medical term, what procedure do we use here? What’s the, what’s the treatment plan? That’s still going to be with the lawyer. But a lot of this other stuff really does take a lot of lawyers’ time. And particularly when you’re, you know, a small-town lawyer or a solo practitioner in a big city, Being able to offload some of that stuff, I think, is huge.

Marc Raco [00:09:26 – 00:09:45]

You know, you think about the reason you talk about your inspiration of becoming an attorney. It’s— there’s usually 2 reasons, right? Either someone wants— they want to work around justice and the access to justice, or they want to make a lot of money or some combination of the 2. Right. And some of these innovations are enabling more of both.

John Mudd [00:09:46 – 00:10:07]

I think that’s right. And you say to yourself when you’re in that small practice, I didn’t go to law school to do all this stuff I’m having to do because I’m having to be a little bit of everything. Um, and I think in a lot of, a lot of parts of America, not just Montana, that’s a reality for small-town, uh, lawyers or again solos in a larger operation.

Marc Raco [00:10:07 – 00:10:26]

So speaking of, speaking of solos and not just about technology innovation, AI, but what, what do you have to say on where things are going in terms of the trends of the, the professional satisfaction and well-being amongst solos as as well as, you know, even larger firms?

John Mudd [00:10:26 – 00:10:28]

Yeah, that’s a good— that’s a good question.

Marc Raco [00:10:29 – 00:10:35]

I feel like there’s so many forces at work right now, maybe more forces than many attorneys have had to deal with in the past.

John Mudd [00:10:36 – 00:11:41]

I think there’s— and the sense that at least among some, not everybody, but among some people, that sort of the judiciary is under attack, the profession’s under attack. I’ve got this AI thing coming in. I mean, again, it’s the same you know, sort of a triumvirate of stuff happening. I was involved with— I was on the board of the Institute for Well-Being and Law, which was sort of an offshoot of the large practice, a large study and task force on well-being many, I guess, many years ago now, probably about 10 years ago. I think that one of the things that happened is there was a lot of focus that I was seeing in the profession on those issues. Particularly coming off that task force report. This would have been 2018, 2019. Then we had the pandemic and sort of all of the focus went to how are we going to keep courts open? How are we going to keep people healthy? Remote work became a huge, you know, development for firms.

John Mudd [00:11:43 – 00:12:39]

And I think it could have been and maybe it was in some ways a real good thing for well-being. But then it created all sort of tension of people not being in the office, a loss of sort of collaborative work. We went through that at the bar where we were all out of the office for a long time. So, you know, I think nationally, I hate to say this, but I think a little bit of the spotlight went off of some of those issues in terms of focus at the, at the bar level or maybe even at the national level. And then you sort of had all this stuff going on with the rule of law that’s sort of taken precedence. So I worry a little bit that we’re losing sight on some of that stuff because I don’t think the statistics have gotten any better. We see with our LAP program, that’s gotten busier over the last couple of years. So that’s not slowing down on the lawyer assistance end of things.

John Mudd [00:12:39 – 00:13:05]

If anything, I think we’re seeing an uptick in that. We’re seeing an uptick in discipline cases in Montana and trying to just keep up with that through our Office of Discipline Counsel. So, you know, I don’t have a crystal ball to tell you where it’s going, but I do have a sense from what I’m seeing that we’re not making the progress that maybe we hope to make in the years after that, the task force.

Marc Raco [00:13:05 – 00:13:20]

So based on that, and you’ve kind of touched on this, what would you say your view of what the members’ views is about their own career outlook and maybe even the direction they will probably take their professions?

John Mudd [00:13:21 – 00:14:12]

Yeah, I think there is some hesitancy about where all this is going. In fact, the fellow I was telling about that I was talking to yesterday about AI said, I hate to sort of be the doomsayer, but I worry about what this is going to do to the profession, even though right now he’s saying this is a great force multiplier for me. What is that going to do? I remember when e-discovery came in, I was sort of just getting started in kind of the early to mid-2000s, and we were getting more and more electronic discovery. And I— there were a lot of older attorneys at that point, or more seasoned attorneys, I guess you could say, who were like, I don’t want to learn it, I’m out. I think there are a number of attorneys who are saying with AI I don’t want to have anything to do with this.

Marc Raco [00:14:12 – 00:14:48]

There are ethical considerations for a lot of people too, both in the application for their clients, but also just personal ethical obligations. I saw, not to get off topic, but I saw New York just passed a law the other day that no data centers will be built in New York. And assuming that that law, that stands, That’s the beginning of other states probably following suit. And what does this do to limit a resource that an entire profession might start wrapping itself around as a way of doing business?

John Mudd [00:14:48 – 00:15:22]

Yeah, that’s a great question and a great point. I mean, what is this long-term, what is the long-term prognosis for AI? I tend to view it, and maybe I don’t wanna be Pollyannish about it, but I think it’s much more going to be a tool for lawyers than it’s going to be something that’s going to replace lawyers. You know, I think I look back, there was a time when cell phones were, you know, just sort of coming in. And of course, everybody’s running their practice on their cell phone or can if they’re using some of this technology.

Marc Raco [00:15:22 – 00:15:24]

And look at the resistance to even the internet when it came out.

John Mudd [00:15:24 – 00:15:25]

Right, exactly.

Marc Raco [00:15:25 – 00:15:26]

I’m not kidding about this.

John Mudd [00:15:26 – 00:15:27]

Crazy, right?

Marc Raco [00:15:27 – 00:15:27]

Yeah.

John Mudd [00:15:27 – 00:15:54]

We’re not going to use it. Operate without it. Yeah. And the ABA had a— there was an article in the ABA Journal sometimes when I’m speaking, talk about this. It said, you know, cell phones may not be secure. You need to advise your client that you’re speaking on a cell phone and it may not be a secure conversation at the beginning of every cell conversation. Well, today that seems bizarre, and, and most lawyers are probably talking to their clients on cell phones even when they’re in the office. They may—

Marc Raco [00:15:54 – 00:16:09]

But at some point, this is such a part of everyday life. I think— I’m certainly not an attorney, but I would imagine the assumption is this is such common knowledge now Right. At what point is it no longer necessary reasonably to be expected to have to disclaim that?

John Mudd [00:16:09 – 00:16:48]

Right. And I think that’s where we’re going to get with AI. And my sense is this is going to be a tool much like the discovery tools. The generative piece of it is different. But, you know, look, I remember going to my grandfather’s law firm when I was getting ready to graduate from law school and taking a tour of the law firm and looking at their card catalog of all the briefs they had written before. And it was sort of an alphabetized thing. And then they— you could find, well, we did a brief in this case and it’s down in storage down the street. Well, you know, AI provides the ability to build an ecosystem within a firm where you have all of that stuff available.

John Mudd [00:16:48 – 00:17:01]

And so I see it as an evolution of things in that sense that lawyers have, have always sort of done in terms of looking back to earlier work, using that as a basis going forward. And you still have the obligation. You got to read the cases.

Marc Raco [00:17:02 – 00:17:39]

So I think that brings to mind another— we kind of touched on it, but let’s talk about new risks, not just with AI and technology, but what are you seeing across your membership, across the industry, from the people you’re intersecting with in your speaking engagements and your, you know, your civic engagements? And so what are you seeing the perception of new risks and the need for risk management and just the kind of controls and practices that are necessary to be considering right now and how people are thinking about it?

John Mudd [00:17:40 – 00:17:44]

Well, I think just touching on that same issue with AI.

Marc Raco [00:17:45 – 00:17:59]

So you’ve talked about this a number of times in our conversation. Excuse me for interrupting. Clearly this is presence of mind. There’s a reason you’ve talked about it this many times in our conversation because that’s what a lot of people are talking about.

John Mudd [00:17:59 – 00:18:44]

It is. And it’s, it’s really, you know, I’m also our general counsel and I work with our ethics committee. And so it, it is definitely something that everyone’s sort of wrestling with. We have not put out an ethics opinion on it yet. I think the risk that you see, the most public risk is the use of AI with hallucinated cases, right? That, that’s a risk control. Now, that’s a pretty easy thing to control for. Like I said, go back and check the work and read the cases before you file something. Just was a situation here where I had a lawyer who had an associate file something in a kind of contested matter that there, it was a bunch of hallucinated cases and the lawyer was having to file affidavits.

John Mudd [00:18:44 – 00:20:02]

The other lawyer was having to file affidavits. I think that’s a risk, right? That’s not necessarily a malpractice risk, although potentially. So I think AI is getting your arms around what do we have to do? How do we bill fairly for it? When do you have to disclose to your client that it’s being used? When do you have to disclose to the court when it’s being used, which gets into all kinds of sort of work product kind of considerations? I think some of the other things are the sort of the unbundling of professional services or the transformation of the profession in one of two directions. One direction I think is, and we just passed a community, well, we didn’t pass it, the court adopted it, a community justice worker program for Montana. Our board voted voted to support that. And that is going to be based on that community justice worker model that’s being adopted in a variety of states. Alaska was the first to do it, which allows in our justice and city courts, and in fact, some of, in our justice courts, a lot of the judges are not even attorneys. It allows non-attorneys to help in certain kinds of cases only through Montana Legal Services, right? So, but then there’s, variations on that theme, which are getting closer to the medical model of nurse practitioners essentially, right? Or physician assistants.

John Mudd [00:20:03 – 00:20:59]

And you’re seeing other states kind of go further with some of that. Arizona’s gone a little bit further. Utah’s gone a little bit further. We were just in New Mexico for the Jackrabbit Bar Conference. New Mexico is looking at going a little bit further on some of those issues. So I think that’s, maybe that’s a It certainly could change sort of the regulatory landscape that’s out there. And then I think some of the things that are happening with non-lawyers taking ownership interest in law firms, and what does that do when private equity gets involved in firm ownership, and where are the ethical duties about that? And so I think there’s a series of things structurally that are really, interesting and are sort of ethically challenging and maybe threats where the more practical, I think, is sort of how do you apply AI and what are the risks of that?

Marc Raco [00:20:59 – 00:21:17]

How are you seeing how that’s going to be impacting everything from, you know, you’ve got a new solo practitioner coming out of the gate. Maybe they’re going to be careful about case law, but they might be using AI to say, hey, what are some ideas with this case of questions I could ask.

John Mudd [00:21:17 – 00:21:17]

Yeah.

Marc Raco [00:21:18 – 00:21:42]

So when they do that and then they lose, have they opened themselves up to a liability and a risk because their education and experience should have allowed them to think of more questions than they were given by AI that informed how they went about it and so forth? So, I mean, this is sort of unfolding in real time, all of these different influences.

John Mudd [00:21:42 – 00:21:42]

Right.

Marc Raco [00:21:42 – 00:21:44]

So, so that was a lot, but what do you think?

John Mudd [00:21:44 – 00:22:10]

No, I think it’s, and that’s a great point. I mean, it’s not just hallucinated cases, it’s I used AI to generate the deposition questions or the trial questions with the expert witness and I didn’t ask the right question. Now, we also know that there were all those form books before that are in the library that lawyers were using to develop their questions then as well. And so part of it is, you know, art, law is, is more art than it is science.

Marc Raco [00:22:11 – 00:22:11]

Sure.

John Mudd [00:22:11 – 00:22:48]

And, you know, you’ve get to be a good artist by painting a lot of bad paintings. And, you know, I think you really do get to be a good lawyer by probably making, you know, hopefully they don’t hurt your clients, but you may look back and say, well, I think I might have done that differently. So it’s an evolutionary sort of profession. And, but I do think, you know, the interesting thing is what are they teaching in the law schools? I was not allowed to learn on Westlaw or Lexis. We had to learn by the books. We had to learn to shepherdize. That was in, 1997. It wasn’t that long ago when I was taking legal research.

John Mudd [00:22:49 – 00:23:53]

And we all sort of joked about it because there were Westlaw terminals all over the, you know, the library. But as first years, we had to learn the old-fashioned way. Now, looking back, that might have been kind of silly because it was right on the end of that era of shepherding by hand, far more beneficial for your clients speed-wise and accuracy to be able to do it online. So I think, you know, the law schools, my sense is, are sort of trying to figure all of this out and what do we train people with. And, and it’s almost like it’s going to take more hands-on skill training for how to use some of this stuff the right way than they would traditionally do in a law school where they were focusing heavily on, on, you know, certain types of curriculum, the sort of the pedagogical piece of it being geared towards You know, torts, contracts, all the typical things versus practice-oriented things. So I, I think that’s an interesting discussion. Of course, the Next Gen Bars exam is getting more towards practice skills. We just adopted that in Montana.

John Mudd [00:23:55 – 00:24:15]

But at the same time, you know, law schools are sort of teaching more to a national curriculum. And, you know, so I think there’s a lot going on. That is, it’s gonna— the next, I think, 5 to 10 years are gonna be real interesting in the profession in terms of how all this shakes out.

Marc Raco [00:24:16 – 00:24:34]

So what would you say is your closing message, if you will? Not for this conversation, but just in general. If you have one message you’re trying to get out there in the coming year across your membership and across all the places that you touch within the profession, what should What’s your primary driving message right now?

John Mudd [00:24:37 – 00:25:33]

Well, for me, it’s, you know, look, 4 of the 5 drafters of the Declaration of Independence were trained in the law. And we have— they adopted things going back to the Magna Carta as their ideals. We developed a system of rules and regulations to govern our profession that are rooted in those ideals and those ideas. And they evolved into bar associations, those ideas. They evolved into the rules of professional conduct. And they have been anchored in this idea, at least in the United States, that our democracy sort of depends on those principles and that lawyers have this obligation that’s beyond just helping my client or making a good living. It’s I have an obligation. I take an oath to the Constitution and not many other professions make an oath to the Constitution of the United States.

John Mudd [00:25:33 – 00:26:13]

So when I look at everything that’s going on, I say, okay, when there was a, I think it was Chuck Noll once said about football, when the game gets going really fast, you just slow everything down. And the game is going really fast right now. But I think if we sort of pull back to some of these bedrock principles, Don’t lie to the court. Okay, well, that applies to AI. Keep your clients’ confidences. That applies to AI. Those are the basic principles that really haven’t changed for a long time. And so we’re simply applying those to new technology.

John Mudd [00:26:13 – 00:26:26]

And we’re also addressing, okay, have we really priced a lot of people out of the ability to hire a lawyer to help them with their basic services? And how do we fix that? Well, that goes to our overall obligation to the system.

Marc Raco [00:26:26 – 00:26:26]

Yeah.

John Mudd [00:26:28 – 00:26:46]

and to the Constitution here in the United States. So I think my message is don’t panic. Go back to your basics. And I think in the basics we can find the principles that will help us go forward. So that would be my sort of my pitch.

Marc Raco [00:26:47 – 00:27:06]

That’s it? That’s great. All right. In closing, here we are in beautiful Missoula, Montana. Happens to be the intersection of 5 different mountain ranges, which is a remarkable thing. It’s a beautiful place. And we’re here at the Alps Insurance Retreat for bar leaders.

John Mudd [00:27:06 – 00:27:07]

Yeah.

Marc Raco [00:27:07 – 00:27:30]

So I wanted to ask you, as we think about the intersection of all of the things that are ahead for members of your bar and across the industry, all of the risks, all of the things that we discussed, How is and has been Alps Insurance been a useful and productive partner for you?

John Mudd [00:27:30 – 00:28:24]

It was really founded here in Montana in response to the malpractice crisis and as a risk retention group and a way for lawyers who couldn’t get insurance anywhere on the market. And so it’s been an integral part of really our culture here in Montana and our bar culture since its inception, since Bob Minto sort of got together with a group of people and put this thing together and built this company. And David Bell has taken it, you know, to the next level. Chris Newbold, who’s the COO, is a longtime friend. We were in law school together. So it’s part of our DNA really here. I think one of the things that they have done a good job with over the years is not losing their focus on the profession. You know, they’re an insurance company, but they remain very focused, and I think on small and solo practitioners.

John Mudd [00:28:26 – 00:29:14]

Haven’t tried to be something they’re not. And so that allows them to drive the service towards those, uh, you know, solos, those small practice lawyers, which have been the heart of the organization. And so they’ve really, um, they’ve helped us over the years with a variety of different things. They’re a great partner. They are very involved nationally with the National Association of Bar Executives and You know, the Conference of Bar Presidents and all of those organizations. So they are— they’ve done a good job of remaining engaged with the profession and providing, you know, they still— we have a column every month in our magazine on risk. So they provide those kinds of things. I know they’ve rolled out some interesting programs in the last year or so and they’ve been expanding.

John Mudd [00:29:15 – 00:29:31]

So they are— I think they’re, you know, this isn’t the sales pitch for ALPS. I’ve— even though I’ve known these people forever, they are a lawyer-focused company, and they were my insurer when I was in practice, and they’ve been a great partner for us at the bar.

Marc Raco [00:29:32 – 00:29:33]

And we can quote you on that.

John Mudd [00:29:35 – 00:29:35]

Yes.

Marc Raco [00:29:35 – 00:29:45]

All right, so if somebody isn’t a member of the State Bar of Montana or wants to learn more about it, and, and they need to, how do they connect with the state?

John Mudd [00:29:45 – 00:30:39]

Well, we are, we are mandatory bar, and we would love to have more members, and So we actually do have, you know, we have about 4,200 active members, about 900, close to 1,000 of them are out-of-state members. They can reach out to us. We have admission on motion. And so we’re happy to have folks who are not practicing in Montana now who either wanna carry a license somewhere else or come here. And it’s a great place to practice law. That’s one thing I would say, Mark, You know, Montana, my— we just had a family reunion in this room next door here, actually, this past weekend. And my great-great-grandfather got on a horse in Texas sometime in the 1880s and rode his horse to Montana and built a life here. It’s a great place to build a life.

John Mudd [00:30:40 – 00:31:19]

And we are looking for people to do that. We’re a growing bar, but we’re a growing state And we need more lawyers. So you can reach out to me if anybody wants to think about it. It’s a, you know, 3,200 of those 4,200 are in-state. So it’s basically a big high school. And it’s a great place to practice because of that, because you know the judges personally, you know your colleagues. Nobody gets too far out of line because everybody knows that you’re going to be working with these people over a career of 40 or 50 years, very likely. So it tends to be a very collegial place to practice law.

John Mudd [00:31:19 – 00:31:24]

So that’s my, that’s my sales pitch for, for practicing law in Montana.

Marc Raco [00:31:25 – 00:31:25]

Last question.

John Mudd [00:31:25 – 00:31:26]

Yeah.

Marc Raco [00:31:26 – 00:31:27]

Favorite flavor of ice cream?

John Mudd [00:31:28 – 00:31:35]

Oh, you know, the, well, down the street. So we have, we have Big Dipper Ice Cream.

Marc Raco [00:31:35 – 00:31:36]

I saw that.

John Mudd [00:31:36 – 00:31:50]

And Bill Bay, past president of the American Bar Association, will like it when I say it’s the best ice cream in America. They used to have a cardamom, I think they still do, a cardamom ice cream that is—

Marc Raco [00:31:50 – 00:31:51]

Cardamom.

John Mudd [00:31:51 – 00:32:03]

Cardamom ice cream that, that I, I was a big, a big fan of. And, but yeah, every time Bill is in Missoula, he, he makes sure that he gets to, he gets down to the Big Dipper. So.

Marc Raco [00:32:04 – 00:32:29]

There’s a, thank you. There’s an ice cream brand, I don’t remember what it is, but they had a promotional flavor at one point, which was, macaroni and cheese, might have even been Kraft macaroni and cheese, I don’t remember, ice cream. And we, my wife and I, just wanted to try it so much and we just didn’t get to it. And then every time we go to that place, we go, do you have it yet? Do it. And we found out the other day there’s no plans to return it.

John Mudd [00:32:29 – 00:32:32]

No, that, that’s an interesting, that’s an interesting flavor.

Marc Raco [00:32:32 – 00:32:36]

It’s just disappointing. I mean, I, you know, I, I don’t know if it’s a go-to, but it’s a must-try.

John Mudd [00:32:36 – 00:32:37]

It’s a must-try.

Marc Raco [00:32:37 – 00:32:37]

Exactly.

John Mudd [00:32:37 – 00:32:41]

Well, you got to kind of try And we, in fairness, we have another place called Sweet Peaks, which is a local place.

Marc Raco [00:32:41 – 00:32:42]

I saw that as well.

John Mudd [00:32:42 – 00:32:44]

Yeah, they’re right downtown.

Marc Raco [00:32:44 – 00:32:45]

And oh boy, do they have cardamom?

John Mudd [00:32:45 – 00:32:57]

I don’t know if they have cardamom. They have some interesting flavors there too. So I’m kind of like you. I, I look at stuff and say, well, that sounds interesting. I ought to try it, right? Yeah, that’s right. Only lives too short. Yeah, exactly.

Marc Raco [00:32:57 – 00:33:08]

All right. Well, John Mudd, executive director and general counsel of the State Bar of the great state of Montana. Thank you very much. What a profoundly valuable conversation.

John Mudd [00:33:08 – 00:33:13]

Really? Thanks for having me, Mark. Great to talk to you. And I look forward to doing it again. All right. Thank you.

Marc Raco [00:33:13 – 00:33:13]

Thanks.

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