Year in Review: A Look Back at the Episodes of 2018

Episode Notes

Transcript

State Bar of Texas Podcast

Year in Review: A Look Back at the Episodes of 2018

12/27/2018

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Intro: Welcome to the State Bar of Texas Podcast, your monthly source for conversations and curated content to improve your law practice, with your host Rocky Dhir.

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Rocky Dhir: Hi and welcome to the December 2018 edition of the State Bar of Texas Podcast. This podcast launched in June of this year and boy, what a journey it’s been. With the help of our friends at the Legal Talk Network, we have covered so many topics with a wide array of fascinating speakers and co-hosts.

December is also a time when many people think about their resolutions for the following year. Here at the podcast we resolve to continue bringing you quality content, the type of content that will improve your life and your practice.

So what’s your resolution? Maybe to help you along we should look back at some key moments from this past year. Listen carefully. Perhaps reviewing just a few highlights will inspire your 2019.

In one of our first episodes I talked with Anthony Graves, a man who spent nearly two decades in prison, 12 of those on death row for multiple homicides he did not commit. Anthony, who was exonerated and released in 2010, talked about his experience from the unbelievable moment that he was taken to jail, to the courtroom, where he thinks things should have been done differently.

We ended our discussion with Anthony sharing what he does now to fight for criminal justice reform.

Anthony Graves: To play with the facts so loosely that it led to my wrongful conviction.

Rocky Dhir: And at trial, did Robert Carter ultimately testify against you even though he barely knew you and you guys really had no dealings on the night of August 18, 1992, did he get up and ultimately testify against you?

Anthony Graves: He ultimately testified against me, because what we didn’t know is that they had brought Mr. Carter back the night before trial. They brought him back.

Rocky Dhir: Prepping him for his testimony, right?

Anthony Graves: For his testimony. Mr. Carter was refusing to testify because he said Mr. Graves is innocent, innocent. So they said they are going to take a polygraph test of him. They never asked him any questions about Mr. Graves. They asked him about his wife and then they said well, you know, you failed the polygraph.

So there is no statute of limitations on capital murder, we are going after your wife. So that’s when Mr. Carter decided I will give you all what you all want. We didn’t know that Mr. Carter was back there refusing to testify on the grounds that I was actually innocent. We found this out 10 years later.

Rocky Dhir: So this was not disclosed to you or your attorneys that on the eve of his trial Robert Carter had effectively confessed to the prosecution that you had nothing to do with this case and that he was effectively wrongfully accusing you?

Anthony Graves: And come to find out that was about the umpteenth time he had confessed this. The night that he initially lied, throughout when they had him in jail, and the night before and the morning that he was scheduled to testify during the trial, he was refusing on the ground that he said this man is innocent.

Rocky Dhir: Now Anthony, did you ever get a chance to talk to Robert face to face and ask him, hey, you know, why are you fingering me for this crime? Did you ever get that answer from him? Do we know? It just seems odd for somebody to point to somebody they hardly know.

Anthony Graves: Well, let me just say this. It might seem odd, but when you are in custody and you have been interrogated by law enforcement who has made up their mind that you are guilty and they are not hearing nothing else, it’s very intimidating. So I don’t blame anyone for saying what they said in those moments because it’s very intimidating. But the fact of the matter is, he did come back and correct the record the same night and that’s the part they didn’t want to hear.

Now, did I ever talk to him about, I would say 10 years later we were on death row together and they had put us on the same part and they had put us in the same rec group, and my neighbor had told me, hit on the wall and said, hey man, I think they got that dude in the rec group. I said what dude? He said that dude that lied on you.

The next morning we went out to the rec group. They brought him out to the rec group and he was out there before me. When I walked through the gate, I walked right up to him, and by the time I got halfway to him, he said, man, I just want to apologize to you and your family for lying on you. And I said to him, I said, man, I don’t even want to know why you lied, because whatever reason you lied, I would rather for you to tell either my attorney or the press or the state. All I am going to tell you is this, you and I can’t be in the same rec group together. I forgive you, but that’s for me and that allows me to move forward, but we can’t be in the same group. Do you understand that?

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He said, yeah, I understand that man and I know how you feel. I apologize to you. And he walked over to the gate and he told the officer, officer, I need to get out of this rec group because I lied on that man in trial, and the officer opened up the door and let him get out and I have never see him again.

Rocky Dhir: And how did you keep your composure? Now, this is something that’s not necessarily in any of the articles that we have read, so this is something — at least for me, I am learning first time talking to you, which is very, very interesting.

So you meet Robert Carter on death row 10 years after you have been wrongfully convicted based on his testimony. A testimony that it sounds like was perjured testimony, was untrue. So you are meeting him in the rec yard, how did you not just — how did you not deck him? I mean, most of us would have wanted to just take a huge wild swing at him and beat him to within an inch of his life. What inside of you kept you calm?

Anthony Graves: Well, first of all, let me just correct you and say that it doesn’t sound like perjury; it was ruled perjury by the Fifth District Court of Appeals. In fact, it was perjured testimony.

Now, how I kept my cool was at that time this whole case had become bigger than me. This case definitely had become bigger than me. It wasn’t me anymore and I had already discovered that, the lies, the manipulations, the games that they played to make this man lie on me wasn’t really about him. It was about a system that was broken. And I wanted to stay focused on being able to advocate for that in terms of just being upset because they made a man lie on me that they knew was lying.

The system should not allow a man to just lie on you who don’t know you and you lose your life and your freedom. So it was 06:36 to me that just ride the car. It was about a system that had failed to protect me when I was innocent.

Rocky Dhir: Up next, one of my favorite episodes was recorded from the home of lexicographer, author and attorney Bryan Garner. You might know him from Black’s Law Dictionary, but he has written more than 20 books, two of them with his dear friend, US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

In this discussion, Bryan talked about his passion for the minutiae of legal writing and his close friendship with Justice Scalia.

Rocky Dhir: So before we wrap up, I wanted to give you a chance to maybe talk a bit about what you think — looking back, what do you think Justice Scalia’s legacy will be? How will history remember him?

Bryan A. Garner: Well, I do think he is the most misunderstood judge in modern times and probably one of the most misunderstood people in public life. His great legacy is going to be textualism.

As Justice Kagan has said, we are all textualists now. All serious judges pay — I say that, it’s not actually true, I mean until recently Judge Posner of course was on the bench and he said he is anything but a textualist and he is a consequentialist.

But there are three approaches to statutory interpretation or the interpretation of any kind of legal instrument, contract, will, whatever it might be. The three major approaches are textualism, meaning we pay very close attention to the words, the syntax and we look at dictionaries because we want to know what the ordinary meaning of words is. So textualists are very close analysts of words, grammar, syntax.

Rocky Dhir: Is it strict interpretationist? That’s different, okay.

Bryan A. Garner: No, no, no, it’s a fair reading. So Justice Scalia would disclaim being a strict constructionist. Strict has traditionally meant in legal circles narrowed, a very narrow construction.

Anyway, he was the quintessential textualist. A very small part of textualism is originalism, which simply means we also want to know what the words meant at the time of enactment. Now, that’s pretty uncontroversial except when it comes to constitutional interpretation. Anyway, textualism is one approach.

The second is purposivism. And a purposivist says, don’t tell me too much about what the words are and the syntax and grammar. What was Congress trying to do when they enacted this statute, broadly speaking, what were they trying to do? And purposivism allows judges to go around or behind the words of a legal instrument to get a desired result that they think Congress would have wanted or whoever the drafters were.

The third approach is consequentialism, and the consequentialist is not looking back to what Congress intended, but looking forward to what is the best result I can reach, regardless of the word. It’s like don’t talk to me about words and grammar and syntax; I want to know what is the best result, what is the best clause I can put on the law despite what the words say. So that’s consequentialism.

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There are actually very few judges who will openly say they are a consequentialist. There are more judges; Justice Breyer is probably our quintessential purposivist today. But I think Scalia’s great legacy is that textualism has made great advances, that judges everywhere, of any political background tend to pay very close heed to the words, and it’s a great legacy to have.

Rocky Dhir: As many of us know, the legal profession is not immune to addiction and unfortunately, some of our colleagues will struggle with it during their careers. In this episode I was joined by co-host Bree Buchanan, the Former Director of the Texas Lawyers’ Assistance Program and our guest Brian Cuban, a Dallas-based author and attorney who experienced alcohol and cocaine addiction firsthand.

Together, we discussed addiction, depression and how people have made it through those challenging times.

So, Bree, you have been in recovery for nine years, and Brian, for you, it’s been 11?

Brian Cuban: 11 years, yes.

Rocky Dhir: Do you remember the day when you started your recovery?

Brian Cuban: Yes, I do. It was my second trip to a psychiatric facility here in Dallas, Texas, after my girlfriend at that time and now wife, came in, and we had only been dating a short time and found me lying in bed with cocaine and alcohol and drugs scattered around the room.

We went to Green Oaks Psychiatric where I had been once before when I had become suicidal in 2005 as a result of drugs, alcohol and clinical depression. And so I was standing in that parking lot and in that parking lot I really realized that there wouldn’t be a third trip back to that psychiatric facility because I would be dead.

I realized that I was really close to losing my family because families may love us unconditionally, and we hope they do, but there may be limits on their willingness to watch us destroy our lives and if we are not going to at least try and take that first step into the unknown, into the scary, into recovery, and I realized that I had really reached that point where kind of the gray area between love enablement and recovery had come together and my family had had enough and I didn’t want to lose my family.

My two brothers, Mark and Jeff, I am very close with, my mom and my dad and I didn’t want to lose that. And I had really started to distance from them because I didn’t want them interfering with my drug use and my drinking and all those things. And I don’t know why it was that moment and not say in 2005 where I had to go — when they came in my house and I had a 45 automatic on my nightstand and planned on taking my life, but it was that moment.

And the next day I began my journey and 12 Step, began getting honest with my psychiatrist. I had been lying to my psychiatrist for a couple of years. Well, why would you lie to your psychiatrist, right? Well, shame knows no hourly rate, right? I was ashamed, I wasn’t giving him the truth and I finally started getting honest, and that began my journey into recovery, and since then it’s been a continuous growth process and I am very happy to be 11 years in.

Bree Buchanan: Yeah. And I would say that there is no one who enters recovery is going to forget that moment when they finally reach out and ask for help because it is the most difficult thing to do, to really get humble and really, like Brian was saying, get honest, and be willing to step up. And with what we do at TLAP, we ask people to make a call and ask for help, and it’s really, really difficult, especially for lawyers.

Brian Cuban: And it was difficult for me. TLAP existed then, I didn’t use them. I knew they were —

Rocky Dhir: Why not?

Brian Cuban: I knew they were around, I really didn’t understand it though because there was — I had isolated, I had really lost — I wasn’t interacting with lawyers anymore. I didn’t know what was out there, although I kind of knew they were there, but I really didn’t understand what they were about and none of my colleagues stepped forward at any time to say hey, this is what you might consider, I see you are struggling, which is something I talk about today, our obligation to use our gift of empathy to encourage our colleagues to seek help.

Rocky Dhir: Why is that? I mean for Bree, Brian, either or both of you, why do you think it’s hard for those that are, I guess for lack of a better term, on the periphery of somebody who is suffering from these issues, why is it hard for us to recognize those signs and then step in and intervene?

Brian Cuban: Well, Bree, do you want to — I have my anecdotal experience on that, if Bree wants to jump in.

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Bree Buchanan: Sure. I think it’s really difficult for us when we see a colleague struggling to take the action of stepping forward and asking them how are they doing and can you help, and there are a variety of reasons for that.

One of them is that we think it’s none of our business. We don’t want to embarrass the other person. We don’t want to embarrass ourselves, because still these medical conditions, they are still somewhat stigma and shame-wrapped up that we are afraid to even speak up and have a conversation about this, which is, to me in my mind, just a kind of a crazy situation that we are still dealing with.

And people also, besides that it’s not my business, they are thinking well, I am not an expert, and lawyers, we like to be experts about everything, and so there’s the idea, well, I didn’t go to law school to be able to diagnose this, so who am I to come in and speak up to this person? So those are a couple of things.

And then the idea of, this is messy stuff and it’s painful stuff. The person says, yes, I am suffering from, fill in the blank, then what? We don’t feel competent to handle these issues.

Brian Cuban: And what I have also seen, to add a number four to this, is that we project a response, we project a negative response, we project an angry response, we project a, I am going to sue you for defamation response.

Rocky Dhir: Right.

Bree Buchanan: Right.

Brian Cuban: And so rather than deal with the response, it becomes — the path of least resistance becomes to say — it becomes easiest to just say nothing.

Rocky Dhir: Our discussion with Brian was very raw and honest. I hope you will find it as enlightening as I did. Remember, if you or someone you know needs help, the Texas Lawyers’ Assistance Program is available 24/7 to help attorneys, judges and law students in need of support. Don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and call toll-free 1-800-343-8527, that number again 1-800-343-8527. Your call is 100% confidential.

Or go to tlaphelps.org for additional resources. That website, tlaphelps.org. You could help save a life.   

The 2018 State Bar annual meeting gave me the opportunity to meet Sally Pretorius, the current President of the Texas Young Lawyers Association. In this episode, Sally joined me as a co-host and together we talked to Kendyl Hanks and Kristen Vander-Plas, two of the Co-Founders of the Twitter handle @LadyLawyerDiary, which spawned the #LadyLawyerDiaries.

Kendyl and Kristin discussed how their forum provides a community for women to find support, express issues and seek inspiration through the work of others doing great things.

Sally Pretorius: One of the things that I thought was pretty cool and Rocky and I were talking about this a little bit offline, but I was just so impressed I think that now a lot of the issues that women face are very much like seeking that mentorship and encouraging women and there is that thing that’s like, a true friend doesn’t — by supporting another woman, you fix your friend’s tiara, you don’t tell everybody that you fixed her tiara.

And so like all of those kind of quotes and on your — just looking at the feed, you guys do so much supporting of other women and I thought that that was just so impressive. You have some law students who are up here just saying, just got out of my first exam, this was hard and just to see the support, the outpouring of support on here I think is just amazing, because that might not be available to some of these women in their own personal life.

So did you guys kind of see that coming from this or was this just something that sort of naturally progressed from sharing issues?

Kristen Vander-Plas: I think this is something that it’s gotten a lot bigger than I expected it to. I think those of us who knew each other personally and had sort of formed a friendship just among the few of us, we had tried to be very supportive and obviously be mentoring and speaking as a young lawyer. Kendyl and Rachel and some of the others got a lot of questions from me for advice.

But seeing it really take off in a way that, like you said Sally, is encouraging the profession as a whole, encouraging people and really trying to shine a spotlight on women in really any profession, but in particular the legal profession who are doing great things and how encouraging that is.

But also on the flip side of that, sometimes it’s actually encouraging to realize that you have connected with someone who is having the same struggles that you are and that kind of imposter syndrome, feeling alone in whatever it is that you are dealing with and realizing, not only other people willing to have your back and support you, but there are people going through that exact same thing.

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And Twitter and social media as a whole, it can have such a negative effect, but in things like this it can connect me and Kendyl and people who live in DC and San Francisco and UNC professors and realize oh, we can all talk and we can all support each other in that way and it’s just been really exciting to see it explode, and at least hopefully people getting the same thing out of it that we did with our core group, but just magnified on a completely different level.

Rocky Dhir: So, Kendyl, Kristen, you guys have both alluded to the fact that you had a relationship for a number of years, and I guess Lady Lawyer Diaries has kind of helped that blossom even further, but have any of these interactions either through the hashtag or via the Twitter handle, have they turned into — in other words, has #LadyLawyerDiaries, the hashtag and/or the Twitter handle, have those spawned offline friendships that kind of go beyond social media for some of these women?

Kendyl Hanks: Absolutely. And I laugh because I should clarify I met Kristen through Twitter.

Rocky Dhir: Oh.

Kendyl Hanks: We were both here in Austin at the time and I am a practicing appellate attorney, she was clerking at the Texas Supreme Court and Lady Lawyer Diaries, Rachel Gurvich was — all of us are in some ways sort of connected to another hashtag called #AppellateTwitter, which is also very popular in Texas. It’s a hashtag that folks talk about appellate practice and cases and grammar, and all of that stuff. And Kristen and I intersected in that community before Lady Lawyer Diaries really blew up. And so this is maybe a year-and-a-half ago or so.

Rocky Dhir: Okay.

Kendyl Hanks: And Kristen is so wonderful about bringing people together and she loves to take selfies with lawyers from around the country and so when I argued a case at the Texas Supreme Court, she came — as I was leaving the courthouse, she came running down the steps, she is like, no way you are leaving without a selfie. And so, that was actually the first time I met Kristen and I wouldn’t have known her had it not been for this community that was already growing on the Internet.

And for personal friendships, I mean, all of us consider each other personal friends and have given and needed support from each other in more ways than I could ever describe.

I just took a road trip once with a friend who is also here in Austin, who is one of the women we do this with and she and I wouldn’t have met, we met through this as well and she and I took a road trip up to Taos and we stopped in Lubbock to see Kristen, who just had surgery. So, yeah, absolutely, it’s led to some really incredible friendships.

Rocky Dhir: I’d wager that not many of you know that Texas has its own Twitter laureate. I’ll never forget my wide-ranging conversation with Judge Don Willett of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In addition to sharing some tips for using social media, he also discussed the role judges should play in our judicial system, and the importance of educating the public about their government.

Judge Don Willett: When I was going through law school I did a Political Science sort of graduate degree at the same time and I have always had a fascination with government, with public service and public policy, and I have spent I guess now 22 of my 25 lawyer years working in one branch of government or another on the state or federal level. So I have got a fascination with government, with how the Constitution divvies up governing powers.

So, those cases, those dealing with kind of building block elemental issues of constitutional architecture, those really jumped out and were of special interest to me and there were plenty of them then and maybe even more regular now in my current docket.

But some of the cases we heard on my former court were important, certainly for what we held, but just as important in my view as a judge is why we held the way we did, how we reached that conclusion, not so much who won, but why.

I remember mentioning how my former court, the Supreme Court is a pretty text-centric court, a court unwilling to revise statutes under the guise of interpreting them. So often even as important as the holding, who eventually prevailed with how we got there methodologically, and methodology is — and you really can’t overstate the importance of how judges decide.

I have a reading list for my incoming law clerks every year. It’s a pretty lengthy reading list, but a lot of it is about judicial decision making, about methodology, about the interpretation of language. Again, that’s sort of the lion’s share of modern day appellate judging.

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So, I have got a really keen interest, not so much in who wins, but why and how and how does the court reason its way to a conclusion. That’s what makes the judiciary, in my view, again the most elegant branch. We are the only branch really expected to explain why we are doing what we are doing. We reason our way methodically, step-by-step to a conclusion, which I find really satisfying intellectually.

Rocky Dhir: Do you think that as lawyers we understand that or do you think when we are approaching a case, be it at the trial level or at the appellate level, do we need to do a better job of sort of focusing on the why, not so much that we win, but why we should win?

Judge Don Willett: No, I think lawyers as a group get that. I think advocates, especially skilled and experienced appellate specialists, they get that consummately. I think the general public often they look at who won a case and who lost a case and then they either cheer it or jeer it based on their own sort of preexisting policy preference, but I think that just sort of maybe betrays a fundamental kind of misperception about the judiciary.

I don’t have a dog in these fights and it doesn’t really matter to me who wins or loses, but I am all about, as best I can, doing my dead level best to apply these principles evenhandedly and impartially. But I think there is a fair bit of kind of civic illiteracy, not just about the judicial branch, but about government from soup to nuts.

We inhabit an age of really staggering specific ignorance. There is a survey done every year around Constitution Day, which is of course in September, and the most recent one found that barely a quarter of all American adults, 26% could correctly name all three branches of government and a full third, 33% could not name even one branch of government.

Rocky Dhir: Wow, okay.

Judge Don Willett: 37% could not name one right guaranteed under the First Amendment. More people can name the three stooges than the three branches of government.

And even a few years ago there was a member of Congress on one of the Sunday news programs who said, yeah, we have got three branches of government, we have a House, and we have a Senate and we have a President. And I am like, come on, man, what about my branch? What my daughter calls the branch with the costumes?

But, Judge Judy, I think just turned 75 and 10% of American college graduate believe that Judge Judy serves on the US Supreme Court.

Rocky Dhir: Oh, good Lord, okay.

Judge Don Willett: And it is one thing not to know dry, sort of arcane factoids like the year the Constitution was signed, right, 1787?

Rocky Dhir: Sure.

Judge Don Willett: But it’s petrifying that so many of our fellow citizens, they flub even the most foundational concepts like separation of powers and checks and balances.

So, I mean, the first three words of the Constitution are We The People, not We The Government, not We The Judges, not We The Subjects, not we the anything else, it’s We The People.

And Justice Brandeis in the last century, I think he put it well. He said, the only title in our democracy superior to that of president is that of citizen. Ultimate authority rests with us, meaning, government is only going to be as great or as responsive as we demand it to be, and this Constitution we have, this exquisite charter of freedom, Madison’s handiwork, it requires fierce defenders and not feeble spectators.

So, I think we have to get back — as a nation, we have to get back into the civic education game. We have to educate young people about our constitutional heritage.

Rocky Dhir: How do we as lawyers do that?

Judge Don Willett: I think lawyers are uniquely suited, given their legal horsepower, given their familiarity day-to-day with the building blocks of how government works, but hopefully, lawyers can be inspired by people like Justice O’Connor. Since leaving the Supreme Court in 2005, she has devoted her life to civic education and she doesn’t pull any punches.

She says, I think this is a pretty accurate quote, “Knowledge about our government is not handed down through the gene pool”, and she is right. This is not something hardwired into our DNA as Americans, the habits of citizenship. They must be taught and learned anew by every generation, just as you would teach and learn math or reading or foreign language.

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And President Reagan said freedom is never more than one generation from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream, and that’s true. There was a recent survey that asked American adults 10 questions from the U.S. Citizenship Test that is given annually to immigrants every year who want to become Americans. So, a recent survey asked Americans 10 questions from the test.

Rocky Dhir: Do I even want to know?

Judge Don Willett: I don’t think so. Hope you are sitting down. 71% could not identify the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, 63% could not name one of their U.S. senators, 62% could not identify the Governor of their State. And this is sort of my hobbyhorse now and it’s sort of what I speak about most often around the country and I just got to tell people that American citizenship is immeasurably precious, but it is not a spectator sport.

Rocky Dhir: What a fascinating talk with Judge Willett. If you listen to the whole episode you will hear how his mom inspired him by essentially walking to the moon and back. I won’t ruin it for you. Just tune in.

By the way the State Bar’s law-related Education Department provides a broad range of services to help educators teach Texas schoolchildren about civics and the Constitution. There’s clearly a lot of work to do in that area, so perhaps we have another New Year’s resolution right there.

Everyone knows it’s important for lawyers to be professional, but did you know it’s also important for us to have a sense of humor? I sat down with lawyer and Texas Bar Journal Columnist Pamela Buchmeyer at the 2018 State Bar Annual Meeting to discuss the role of humor in the legal profession.

And of course, the conversation turned toward her father and my former boss, the late and the great, Judge Jerry Buchmeyer.

Rocky Dhir: Well, we can do that. Now, the name “Buchmeyer” is pretty familiar to a lot of Texas lawyers, most Texas lawyers. It’s a famous name.

Pamela Buchmeyer: It is in certain circles and I love to go around any courthouse in the State and I will meet someone who remembers my father, remembers him fondly, has got a great story to tell me.

My dad was an active lawyer in Dallas and President of the Dallas Bar Association and active in the State Bar Association and then he was appointed to the Federal Bench by Jimmy Carter.

Rocky Dhir: That’s right. So, let’s talk a little bit about your dad, Jerry Buchmeyer; he is a man near and dear to my heart as well. I actually clerked for your dad.

Pamela Buchmeyer: Yes, you did. You were an outstanding clerk.

Rocky Dhir: You obviously didn’t talk to him much about me because that would probably not be the description that would best have fit me, but I think I kept him laughing, which is good.

Pamela Buchmeyer: You made an outstanding impression —

Rocky Dhir: There we go.

Pamela Buchmeyer: — and you definitely kept him laughing.

Rocky Dhir: Yes, yes, we had a lot of fun.

Pamela Buchmeyer: And you could impersonate him and when you impersonate him, it sounds so much like his voice. And of course, my father is late, he passed away.

Rocky Dhir: He passed away in 2009.

Pamela Buchmeyer: So, to hear his voice, it’s just a delight when you do it.

Rocky Dhir: Hey Pam. How are you? Good to see you. Oh, this is great. Wow, this is a podcast, it’s going out on the air. This is fantastic.

Pamela Buchmeyer: He did some radio spots on behalf of the Texas Bar and he was trying to improve the image of lawyers in the State of Texas and he tried to tell jokes and some people loved it and responded very favorably to it, and some people felt like it sullied the reputation of the legal profession. And dad would respond and I know you would agree with me, Rocky.

Rocky Dhir: Sure.

Pamela Buchmeyer: Is that possible? Is it possible to sully the reputation?

Rocky Dhir: We can’t get any worse. I mean, I think they are giving themselves a little too much credit if they think that we are not already sullied.

So, let’s talk —

So have you decided on a New Year’s resolution yet? Hopefully our year-end review has provided some food for thought, but here’s the great thing about New Year’s resolutions. No wrong answers.

Now here’s something you can do right this very moment. Let us know how you liked our programming for 2018. We want to know what interests you. Do you have a topic suggestion, a guest you want us to consider, let us know and be sure to rate and review us in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. As we end 2018, all of us at the State Bar of Texas and at the Legal Talk Network want to thank you for listening. After all, life is a journey.

We appreciate you tuning in this year and we look forward to continuing our travels together in 2019. Bye for now and Happy Holidays.

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Outro: If you’d like more information about today’s show, please visit legaltalknetwork.com. Go to texasbar.com/podcast. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts and RSS.

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