EP 608- Against The Odds with Katie St. John

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer (00:01)
Welcome to The Jury is Out, a podcast for trial attorneys who want to sharpen their skills and better serve their clients. Your co-hosts are John Simon, founder of the Simon Law Firm, Tim Cronin, personal injury trial attorney at the Simon Law Firm, and St. Louis attorney, Erich Vieth.

TIm Cronin (00:19)

back to another episode of The Jury is Out. I’m Tim Cronin and we are back continuing our talk with Kate’s law firm. have Dave, Kate’s back here with us. Dave, welcome again. And now we have your colleague, Katie St. John, who is joining us. The lovely, wonderful Katie, we’re happy to have you. as well. And Katie, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Dave Cates (00:32)
Thanks, Tim, for having me. I appreciate it.

Katie St. John (00:41)
Thanks for having me.

Yes.

So I am born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. I went to St. Louis University Law School, graduated in 2020 during the pandemic. So that was an interesting time to graduate, but prior to graduating, did clerk here at the Simon Law Firm, learned a lot of great stuff, did a little bit of defense work, and then joined Dave in 2022. And we’ve been at it since then.

TIm Cronin (01:13)
three full years.

Katie St. John (01:15)
Yeah, it’s a big deal.

Dave Cates (01:17)
It is a big deal. She’s never lasted that long anymore.

Katie St. John (01:20)
That’s

true, it’s true.

TIm Cronin (01:21)
Cool.

We have a plaque up for Katie as best law clerk we’ve ever had.

Katie St. John (01:28)
Where’s my plaque? Maybe for three years I’ll get something nice. In the mail.

TIm Cronin (01:31)
We don’t actually.

Dave Cates (01:32)
It’s in my ear.

TIm Cronin (01:35)
So Katie, we talked about some of the other things we’ve worked on with you guys before some of the cases Dave and I have talked to each other about or worked on before you joined his practice. And we talked about our recent Whitfield case in our order. But what I was hoping to focus on is a trial you guys just had that as I admitted on our last session, I ⁓ bluntly told Dave he was going to lose. So I was wrong. ⁓ Very impressive victory.

And Katie, it was your first trial. You were with us at the Whitfield trial, but you didn’t get the opportunity to do any witnesses or anything. But you were you. You and Dave tried this case together pretty equally, I think.

Katie St. John (02:18)
Yes, this was my first jury trial. So Dave and I did a bench trial together, but this was my first jury.

TIm Cronin (02:22)
Can the two of you just tell us a little bit about what the case was? Sure.

Dave Cates (02:28)
Happy to. So we represented a family. There was a gentleman named Dustin Woodside. He was 38 years old in 2018 and he unfortunately suffered a relapse on methamphetamine and became suicidal. And he and his wife drove from Pinckneyville all the way to Gateway to try and get him help for that. And our theory of the case was that Gateway did not give him the help that he needed.

Basically discharged him after a few hours and unfortunately Dustin went home and killed him

TIm Cronin (03:04)
Very sad. And just by the description of the case, I think most people recognize kind of some complications and problems with trying to get money from a jury. It was also, it was in Madison County, Illinois. I’m not aware of a plaintiff’s verdict in a MedMal case in Madison County in a long time. When’s the last one you know about before this case?

Dave Cates (03:26)
From

what we were told from the folks in the courthouse, it’s been 14 years since there’s been.

TIm Cronin (03:32)
I thought it was like seven. It’s been 14. Yeah, I’ve had I’ve had one or two cases in Madco. I was able to get resolved, but the defense attorneys liked to remind me repeatedly that there had not been a plaintiff’s met malpurgic there. The Chamber of Commerce has done a good job of souring the jury panel.

Dave Cates (03:52)
I’m pretty sure and I’ll let Katie speak for herself, but I’m pretty sure we were also told very similar things about, you know, and it wasn’t just you who called us crazy. So, you know, you’re in good company.

TIm Cronin (04:06)
So

what did you can you kind of explain what each of you did at the trial? Katie, you did opening, right? Dave, did you do did you do what here?

Katie St. John (04:12)
I did, and was my first opening statement.

Dave Cates (04:16)
I did the voir dire. We were very, very lucky. One of the things that Katie and I talked about probably more than she would like to remember at this point was how difficult of a veneer it was going to be. And, you know, we approached Judge Sarah Smith early on and said, you know, your honor, we understand that typically jury selection is not a two day process, but we really would like to have extra time so that we can talk about.

Everything from suicide to drugs and all of that stuff that was super important to our case. And Judge Smith was wonderful and let us have that time that we needed.

TIm Cronin (04:54)
Johnny Simon and I have tried a few years ago, a attempted suicide case where our client survived, but had burns all over her body. tried to, she lit herself on fire and she had preexisting psychiatric diagnosis, but not a drug problem. And the voir dire was so important. I didn’t think we could win that case. I think we got very fortunate that we did, but you had to add on top a client who had a meth issue.

and intentionally hurt themselves and succeeded and you’re asking for money for that, which is just such one of those is a big enough hurdle. Two of them I thought seemed insurmountable, which is why I’m so impressed by you guys as a result. How did you address it in what dear just straight head on.

Dave Cates (05:40)
Yeah. So, mean, one of the very first questions I asked them was who here thinks substance abuse is a addiction? Who here thinks it’s a mental disease? Who here thinks that this is a moral failing on behalf of this person? And in fact, I mean, you knew I was going to ask those questions because you and I talked about how we were going to address that. ⁓ And it was it really got the conversation started with the jury and they were very, very honest with us about

you know, their thoughts and I thought that was super helpful. And then I will also say a feather in Katie’s cap was from the, from the minute she started opening, she tied it into the conversation I was having with them and Veneer and she made Dustin Woodside a human being. And, that, I mean, that was super important and crucial that they connected with our client from the beginning of the case.

TIm Cronin (06:36)
So how many people, how big of a veneer did you get?

Katie St. John (06:40)
is like 80. 79 or 80.

TIm Cronin (06:42)
Yeah.

How many people raised their hand and ultimately admitted because of the meth issue or the suicide or both just flat out? Yeah, I’m just not. I’m not giving money in that situation. That’s just it. Nothing else matters. Yeah, well, at least they told you, though, right?

Dave Cates (06:55)
more than we would have liked to have seen.

Katie St. John (07:00)
And it was something that it did take a little bit of further questioning and digging from Dave to get people to really voice their true opinion about that. But eventually we did get some people who were honest with us that it was going to be problematic for them.

TIm Cronin (07:19)
So then day three, Katie, you started opening. Yes. How’d you, so did you tweak it based on what you were hearing from the panel during voir dire and kind of change it, change it a little bit.

Katie St. John (07:31)
So the Woodside case was one of the very first cases that I started working on when I joined Dave’s firm. Written discovery had just been completed when I started there. So I knew from an early on after looking at the case that this was going to be crucially important for us to be able to tell the jury who Dustin was, separate and apart from his addiction with methamphetamine. And so having the family fill in and really kind of be his voice.

and tell his story was going to be important. And so when it came time to write my opening and I knew that that was going to be a central theme of my opening was just who he was as a person. And Dave had kind of previewed that when he was doing the jury selection. 40 minutes.

TIm Cronin (08:13)
How long was your opening?

Were you nervous? You practiced it several times.

Katie St. John (08:18)
I

did practice and I would say that like I was more so just a little bit, you know, it’s just something I had never done before. So of course there were some nerves, but because I knew the case forwards and backwards and I was so comfortable with all of the facts and the evidence and our witnesses, I really thought I would be more nervous actually. But there’s something that I learned when I clerked here and I don’t remember which attorney had told me and I worked with with Kevin and Pat, but just the importance of

being the most prepared person in the room when you go to something. I’ll give you credit. I’ll give you credit. And so taking that, that’s something that when I heard that I was like, yeah, that’s so good. And if you, if you know, that’s something every single time when I was working on this case, I just was always the most prepared. I just knew what these people were going to say. I knew what the evidence was. And so that was very helpful for me. I think in terms of managing my nerves.

TIm Cronin (08:50)
They always say

You know, so I still get nervous before every trial. And I think most seasoned trial attorneys do until the first time I get up and I start talking to the jury. And then within 10 seconds, my nerves are fine. And I remember, I know this file backwards and forwards, et cetera. So Dave had to step out. So we’re going to continue talking about the case with Katie as the voice for their clients. How long was the trial?

Katie St. John (09:37)
It was maybe like eight trial days. Seven right. We, yeah, well we, got a verdict on Thursday night. Yeah.

TIm Cronin (09:40)
See what like halfway into the second

Well, because you had what do you have today?

So how did you guys split up the witnesses and split up the rest of the trial?

Katie St. John (09:51)
So because I had done all of, I had defended all the depositions with the family and had worked, I was their primary contact throughout the case. I took all the family. So his son Austin was the, is the representative of the estate. And then his mother Julie testified, Dustin’s mother Julie, Dustin’s little sister Haley testified, and then his widow Jennifer testified. And then I did two…

hospital employees that were, one was involved in the care, one was the ER nurse. did her cross. And then the other one was the administrator of the behavioral health. And so she was more of like a policy witness. She wasn’t a fact witness, wasn’t there during his care involved. And then Dave did, ⁓ the actual ER doctor, she had testified via deposition evidence. So you just played it? So we played hers, yes. So I did in terms of designating all that testimony and getting all that, that was me. And then Dave took Dr. Bansal, which was the…

TIm Cronin (10:50)
designations.

Katie St. John (10:51)
Well, Tim, I know you guys have already discussed Whitfield, but that was a project that you gave me during Whitfield. So I’m pretty good at that.

TIm Cronin (10:59)
That is terrible. Thank you for doing that.

Katie St. John (11:01)
Yeah,

so that doesn’t bother me anymore. And then Dave took the four experts. We had two and they had two.

TIm Cronin (11:06)
So Katie, that’s for your first jury trial. mean, trial by fire, did a lot of it. How did you guys carry forward? mean, you have to deal with the math and the nature of asking for money from someone else because someone decided to end their own life, not just in jury selection and opening. How did you carry forward dealing with those problems throughout trial with the family and then also with trying to turn it?

Katie St. John (11:13)
Yeah. Yep.

TIm Cronin (11:36)
against the providers who have an obligation to those people.

Katie St. John (11:41)
Yeah, so with the family, was, and they really are, I mean, they’re just like really great people. They’re hardworking, honest, loyal people. And they were able to tell the jury all about who Dustin was as a son, as a father, as a brother. ⁓ also his boss testified. I took his boss. And that was big because that, you know, the defense was trying to portray Dustin as somebody who had

serious meth addiction and and we didn’t deny that he used meth but it was certainly not something that prevented him from he was a you know He showed up at work every day. He was a present father He and so although meth, you know methamphetamine was a problem in his life. It’s not something it didn’t define it did not define him at all

TIm Cronin (12:25)
And so you’re trying to, I imagine, it sounds like, you know, this isn’t somebody who they may want to try to paint this as somebody who is not a valuable member of this society. And that’s not true.

Katie St. John (12:37)
Yes, that’s absolutely. I mean, that was in our mind, that was the crux of their defense. because in this case, there was like less than, there was 32 pages of medical records.

TIm Cronin (12:50)
Yeah,

I remember it’s not normal for a med mal.

Katie St. John (12:53)
No, but it just it didn’t allow them to really make arguments to the jury that they did so much for this man and he still, you know, went home and I’m just like, really? Yeah, exactly. And so that’s what it came down to in my mind. Dustin, when he came to the ER, he was honest. He said, use methamphetamine. I relapsed. Yeah. And it was scaring him. And he was he was so honest with all of his symptoms, all of his everything. And he was there for help.

TIm Cronin (13:03)
Wave the 30.

As I understand it, there was an ER physician and then there was also an offsite psychiatrist and part of it was the psychiatrist really makes the final recommendation of whether to admit or hold or what to do. And so you had kind of two different physicians that you were kind of pitting against each other and each of them were giving kind of contradictory stories about when they talk to each other. Can you tell me a little bit about what was the liability really about vis-a-vis each and combined with each other?

Katie St. John (13:48)
Yes. from the ER doctors perspective and kind of the ER nurse, so Gateway Regional has a behavioral health wing in the hospital.

TIm Cronin (14:01)
precisely to evaluate patients like this, including patients like.

Katie St. John (14:04)
Yes. And that’s something that we can kind of get in. They claim that they don’t treat patients at well in 2018 at the time, they did not treat patients who had substance abuse. But if a patient had substance abuse and mental health, then they would treat them. So that was also big part of their defense is that this guy didn’t have a mental health issue. just had. And they were saying it was just because of meth. So but that’s kind of yes. Right.

TIm Cronin (14:22)
suicide

people who were suicidal unless drugs.

Katie St. John (14:30)
Yes, yes. But in terms of the ER doctor, I mean, her testimony and ER nurse was that they come in and they do the medical clearing. They have to make sure there’s no other underlying medical issues going on, heart, lungs, things like that. And at that point, you know, because they’re the ones assessing them in person, they make a call to the psychiatrist if they feel it’s warranted, which in this case, the ER doctor said she did because obviously we know that there was a phone call.

But they also can do, they also can consult behavioral health services who, if you go in through the ER gateway in 2018, behavioral health services and the on-call psychiatrist don’t talk to each other. Yes, but if in 2018, instead of going through the ER, you went in through behavioral health services, then it’s completely different. Then behavioral health services and the psychiatrist do talk to each other. So even though you would have the same patient presenting.

Okay, so that was weird to us. anyways, so in this case, the behavioral health technician who happened to be an RN, she came and did an assessment and it was a scored assessment. It’s a form. She filled it out and scored our client. And he scored high enough based off of their own form that he needed a consultation with the director of the behavioral health services or with a psychiatrist. And then if you looked at the medical records, the phone call

that the ER doctor says, I did consult with a psychiatrist. That’s where the two stories came in.

TIm Cronin (16:00)
Yeah, I thought there was like a he said he said or he said she said.

Katie St. John (16:03)
So the ER physician says, called the psychiatrist. I told him everything. I told him all of Dustin’s symptoms. And the psychiatrist said, she didn’t tell me anything. The phone call lasted 90. We talked about Dustin for 90 seconds. All she said was that he used methamphetamine and wanted to be referred to an outpatient program for drugs.

TIm Cronin (16:28)
So were you able to use the two different stories to say, okay, well, if what you’re saying is true, then they were negligent. And then go to the other one and go, if what you’re saying is true, then they were negligent. So one way or the other.

Katie St. John (16:42)
Yeah. And it also, it presented like in our opinion, huge credibility issues for them just because, then you, you know, even like the nurse was, the nurse said, the ER nurse testified that she had the discharge paperwork drawn up before the ER physician ever talked to the psychiatrist. So it’s like, even if she did a consultation, couldn’t be like a true consultation where you were trying to figure out how to actually treat this patient because you guys made the decision to.

TIm Cronin (17:09)
emotions before they get rid of them. Exactly. And was there something like, ⁓ once he came down from his high, he said he wasn’t suicidal anymore. Yep. ⁓ And so it’s fine. Yep. Well, first of all, were there issues of did you doubt whether that was true? Like, was it that even documented?

Katie St. John (17:28)
it was an issue that presented itself at trial for the first time. And it was the behavioral health service technician, the nurse that was from behavioral health, she testified like in her forms, whenever it said suicidal, it said, she wrote down denies. And so she was saying she was the last person to do like a full blown assessment on the man. She’s saying he denied being suicidal at that time. And that was the last assessment done before they discharged him. But later on in the form,

when it’s asking if he’s hallucinating, if he’s anxious, if he, you know, all these other behaviors that they look at, where she scored him high enough to need a console. She said, well, no, no, no, that form, I wasn’t filling that out based on how he was presenting when I was assessing him. That was based on how he presented when he came in. So now you’ve got, you can’t tell based off of her form, what she’s seeing. So she had so much, so many credibility issues.

TIm Cronin (18:22)
So

paperwork not filled out right, and then they start taking positions about when it was done, and then everybody’s story starts contradicting.

Katie St. John (18:30)
each other.

TIm Cronin (18:34)
all

the time, in medical practice cases.

Katie St. John (18:39)
That was something we were able to focus on in close.

TIm Cronin (18:41)
You know, one of the things I thought is even assuming that had been true, where you have somebody who’s relapsed with a drug addiction problem, when they’re at their lowest, they come in and say, I’m worried I’m going to kill myself. it like how, how much sense does it make to say, ⁓ well, once they came down, they said they’re fine now when you are dealing with somebody who has an addiction problem. And if they leave is likely to use again and be right back in the spot they were. And.

how likely are they to seek help again when they just tried and they got showed?

Katie St. John (19:14)
Yeah. And that was kind of, you know, they, if you’ve ever, I mean, if you’ve ever been to the ER and they say like, if problems, if your problems continue or get worse, come back and see us type of thing. Yeah. And that’s what the defense focused on. They’re like, look, we told him if it got worse, he could come back. And Dave had done in his closing where he put it together. And I think I even used it when I, when I did the cross of the ER nurse, you know,

why would you expect this man, he drove like over a hundred something miles, like two and a half hours to go to this hospital. He went to this, he passed like 14 other ERs on his way to this one because he knew that they had an on-site behavioral health department wing that could take him. His wife called before there was a bed open. And so they did all of that. And then it’s like, he’s there for a couple of hours and you turn up, you say, all right, you’re good, go ahead.

Why would you expect him to really turn around and come back and say, guys, no, I’m really not good again?

TIm Cronin (20:11)
So did you close and get a verdict the same day or did the jury come back?

Katie St. John (20:17)
Yes. you have to come back? No, so that… Well, the other thing I wanted to say real quick is that we had our psychiatrist expert who was phenomenal. He did so well at explaining all this. This was kind of like your question before about how likely is somebody to come back once they’re shown the door. ⁓ Our psychiatrist expert really broke that down for the jury. And I think that was crucial in us obtaining a verdict in terms of understanding somebody who’s in that headspace when they come and actually admit, like, I need help.

and then they’re not given the help, then it’s all that’s off at that point.

TIm Cronin (20:49)
Yeah, like, why would I go back?

Katie St. John (20:51)
Yeah. But in terms of, we, on that Thursday that we closed, we did a jury instruction conference and then closing. So that was it. So they got the case right around lunchtime. Yep. Got their food. Yes. And then they deliberated for seven hours. Yep. so we were, yes.

TIm Cronin (21:11)
were in the ball game.

They didn’t you didn’t get a bell after five minutes.

Katie St. John (21:15)
right. But we did get a question. Yeah. It was about proximate cause. Yeah.

TIm Cronin (21:20)
Well, because like when somebody commits suicide, it’s well, if somebody wants to do that, let’s say they admitted him, kept him for 30 days to say that they wouldn’t have done it Yeah. What was the question?

Katie St. John (21:30)
Yeah. It

was just, could we, could, cause they had a proximate cause definition in their instructions and they wanted a further.

TIm Cronin (21:38)
a cause, it’s not a defense, that it’s not the only cause.

Katie St. John (21:42)
Yeah, and they wanted they wanted more explanation and the judge wrote back, know, you must be guided by the yeah. Yes, exactly.

TIm Cronin (21:48)
How did you guys address that issue? Because I remember in talking to Dave and I think I talked to you a little bit when you were working on your opening. was like, don’t, that’s the problem. If you get over the hump of the drug issue and you get over the hump of money at all for someone who commits suicide, how do you get over the barrier of somebody legitimately questioning during deliberations that I’m sure defense counsel highlighting?

Who’s to say this person wouldn’t have done it eventually anyway if they wanted to?

Katie St. John (22:22)
Yeah, and I think I mean I fall back on this, but that’s where it was so important for us to tell Dustin’s full story and his family was able to talk about how his wife specifically, I mean she’s a very, very strong woman. She did great for him, but you know, yes he had done methamphetamine in the past, but he had never been at this point. Something was different.

and he was hearing voices, the voices were stronger. The rest of his family never even knew that he used methamphetamine. The only one that knew was his wife because it was just not a common thing for him. But this last time that he did it before he passed, there was something different. And that’s why we really drove that home. This is not something that this man has threatened in the past or has come close to doing. There was no other attempts.

TIm Cronin (23:10)
It’s not like he would disappear. He was homeless and disappeared from his house for months at a time on Bender. How did he end up killing himself?

Katie St. John (23:16)
Yeah. No.

He

hung himself in his garage. He did. And you know, they even, the defense tried to say, well, his wife agreed that he could be discharged. She said she’d watch him. it’s her responsibility. Yeah. And they questioned her on that. And she said she had sat up with him most of the night and he finally said, okay, everything’s going to be okay. Let’s go to bed. And she remembers, I mean, you know, after you sit in the ER,

TIm Cronin (23:22)
Did his wife find him? She did. That is absolutely awful.

Katie St. John (23:47)
all afternoon, you’re up all night. mean, this isn’t extremely emotional for her. She drifted off to sleep and she said when she woke up and he wasn’t next to her, she immediately felt like.

TIm Cronin (24:00)
Yeah. So jury comes back. Sounds like like seven o’clock at night. And find out the verdict. Was the whole family still there?

Katie St. John (24:10)
Every, yes, but his little sister was not there. She actually just recently found out she was expecting twins. So yeah, she was, she, the trial days were long for her, but they were there the rest of the trial.

TIm Cronin (24:23)
So tell everybody what the verdict was.

Katie St. John (24:27)
It was for $1.1 million. The hospital.

TIm Cronin (24:30)
percent fault on the defendant

or on the hospital. Was there any so was that the ER doctor or that was the psychiatrist employed by someone else?

Katie St. John (24:39)
No, so there was an agency issue that was brought up, but not for the psychiatrist, but for the ER doctor. But they still, the jury did not find, I mean, from our standpoint, we didn’t have like a special interrogatory on the agency issue specifically, but the jury did not buy the agency issue. So for the hospital, was just its employees and agents. And so we didn’t have them listed out specifically, but presumably it could have been both psychiatrist and ER doctor, one or the other, but.

TIm Cronin (25:09)
It’s a general verdict that one special I recs, is that’s the way it works. The little bit of catharsis I imagine for the family did did the did his widow break down in the room or.

Katie St. John (25:21)
Oh, so she also,

she also wasn’t there. Sorry. She at the trial decided that regardless of what happened with this case, she didn’t want any of the money. She’s recently had, was able to kind of move out of the area and remarry. yes, it did come in. And she, but, but before they can even argue that she flat out said, I don’t want any of this. The only reason why I’m here and I’m telling the story is for his kid. Yeah.

TIm Cronin (25:38)
Did that come in? They tried to argue she didn’t have any damage.

Katie St. John (25:51)
And so I think that that spoke volumes again about her character because she, mean, they crossed her pretty intensely. Yes, I do. And she’s, she’s a strong witness. She was a strong witness and she’s, mean, but so she didn’t want any of, you know, she didn’t want the, she asked me afterwards how it turned out. And I of course told her and she said, I’m, I’m so thankful that this does, you know, something provides a little bit of difference for his son.

TIm Cronin (25:58)
sounds like that backf-

Yeah. So I look very, very impressed. Such a difficult case ⁓ with issues like that. And most people, you know, not a lot of lawyers take on cases like that. And then and then are willing to take him to trial and see it through. I’m like so impressed with both of you for doing it. When was that was a month ago?

Katie St. John (26:32)
Yeah,

February. Right before Valentine’s Day is when we got the verdict.

TIm Cronin (26:35)
So what lessons can you say you can pass on, Katie, not just from maybe this particular trial cases like this, but lessons you learned for, I guess, maybe some members of our audience, younger lawyers that haven’t gotten to try their first case or have but not done as much.

Katie St. John (26:54)
Yeah, I think one of the things that I have realized throughout my few short years practicing is that if you show up at your job and you show whoever you’re working for that you want to be there and you want to do this, this is genuinely what you’re passionate about, then I think you’re afforded more opportunity. That’s also part of that work ethic is something that I developed while working here just because as a clerk you…

There’s so many things that you get to do and see that it helps you just like understand once you beat past the bar what you’re going to be doing in the real world. But being eager, being able to jump in and knowing the case forward and backwards so that regardless of, you know, whoever you’re coming up against on the other side, that you’re not frightened by the amount of experience that they may have that you don’t have. I think as a younger lawyer, I am more hyper aware of that fact.

than other people in the room that I, that maybe it’s something I just take on, but I know that’s something that Dave and I had talked about in terms of credibility wise. I was the only female attorney, you the other side was represent, yes. It helped that we had a female judge, but you know, the only female in the attorney and appeared younger, but having a mentor like Dave who believes in me and backs me up and…

lets me take on an equal role in a trial such as him is huge. So you have to make sure you’re surrounding yourself with the right company that also wants to see you succeed because that’s how you get those types of opportunities.

TIm Cronin (28:27)
I remember I was here, I was only out a couple years, but I’d gotten to try a kind of a ridiculous number of cases early on with John. And I think one like my second one I was giving opening the first one I just did a couple witnesses to about two and a half years after being here. I was trying a case out in St. Louis County and as lead counsel, and we had another attorney who’s still here, who’s the same age as me, but it started at a big firm.

and never got to see the inside of a courtroom and just like worked at his computer doing research and writing briefs. And, and it’s one of the reasons he ended up coming here. And he second chaired me in that trial and I did what dear and I like right off the bat, I was like, you should do opening statement. And it was a case he hadn’t worked up. I had worked it up, but he learned the whole file and he did it and did a great job. And I remember we took our, took our break after he gave his opening and

He was nervous, but he came out and he went, there’s just like this fear, I think initially that there’s this vast amount of knowledge procedurally about how everything works at trial. he went, if you know the case, you just kind of just stand up and start saying things and doing it. And I went, that’s pretty much right. If you do something wrong, the other side will let you know and the judge will tell you to stop. And his nervousness just completely went away. And we ended up getting that case resolved. But that’s pretty much it.

You should go observe and try to watch some, but there’s not this super complicated code of every single thing you should and can do at every second. You just kind of stand up and start doing it.

Katie St. John (30:05)
Yeah, and I think that’s something I know you guys talked about Whitfield, but you know, those were the first times I’d ever taken expert depots when you made me do those in the Whitfield. I know we did. But I remember having a lot of conversations with you because even like a depot, I mean, I had done so many fact witnesses and but just for some reason you’re taking an expert deposition and they’re supposed to be the expert. And and so I remember talking to you and, we went over outlines and I

TIm Cronin (30:13)
But we had 26.

Katie St. John (30:34)
shared my outline with you and you said at the end of the day, you told me you have, has to be your style. You’ve got to be comfortable with it. You can read so much. can take part. And I think that is so, if you try to, I am not John Simon, I am not Tim Cronin, I am not Dave Kates, you know? But those are, you know, that you all have your, I mean, even you and Dave, your styles are a little bit different. So finding my voice and that started really in those expert depositions when you had me.

TIm Cronin (30:41)
Yes. Or the jury can tell.

Lucky for you.

Katie St. John (31:03)
when you had me take those, I realized it is so important to be comfortable with the material, but also your style of how you’re going to ask the questions and also not saying, I know.

TIm Cronin (31:14)
I still do it. I

remember that’s the first, you took a break. Yes. And I was listening to the depth when you were doing a great job. And you’re like, how am I doing? I went, you’re doing an awesome job. Before every question, after they answer, you are saying the word OK. And then you ask your question, which is fine. like, and I, after that depokating, the next one I took, I started realizing I was doing it. And then you become obsessed with it. So I probably shouldn’t have said that to you until.

Katie St. John (31:43)
helpful because it’s just one of those things where sometimes you can’t get married to your outliner, you know, because you got to be able to pivot. So, but that was something I kept in mind going forward to when we tried the Woodside case and I was asking questions. I just had to get comfortable with like pausing to actually listen to their answer before I just jumped into my next question. I think, okay, was like a filler for me. But I think having people who are willing to actually be like rock solid mentors and pour into you as a young lawyer is…

Huge.

TIm Cronin (32:13)
I think that expert you took ended up getting excluded from the most important stuff. I also think that at one point during that depo, I was texting you somewhat incessantly over a particular thing that I wanted him to get excluded about. And I believe you may have texted back like, stop it. Yeah. And I did. And then you got the answer and got him out because you’re a very, very talented attorney, Katie. So anything else about?

Katie St. John (32:17)
Yeah.

I got this.

TIm Cronin (32:43)
that case or anything else.

Katie St. John (32:46)
I think the only other thing really is just understanding that obviously being a plaintiffs lawyer, there’s nothing that I could do for this family other than money damages, but you know, they are, this is something that they are going to relive and they have lived every day since. so understanding that it’s a little, it’s a privilege, it’s an honor that these people come to you with their, you know, these

potential cases or whatever happened in their life. And for us, it’s our job. I think that that’s something that when I realized the purpose of all of this and what we’re doing on the plaintiff’s side, it helps you stay motivated because trial fatigue is definitely real. So making sure that you’re in the right place and you’re passionate about what you’re doing and you have great mentors, I think that that’s helpful. Thank you.

TIm Cronin (33:38)
Well said.

So thank you, Katie St. John for coming on and thank you, Dave, who had to step out a little bit ago. But thank you to the Cates law firm for joining us. This has been another episode of The Jury is Out. I’m Tim Cronin and we’ll see you next time.

Katie St. John (33:54)
Thanks.

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