EP 623- 40 Years of Law with Don Schlapprizzi Part Two

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

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 Eric ve

Erich Vieth:

Welcome to another episode of The Jury is Out. I’m Erich Vieth.

John Simon:

I’m John Simon

Erich Vieth:

and Don Schlapprizzi . Welcome back to the podcast for part two.

Don Schlapprizzi :

Well, thank you. It’s been a pleasure and I anticipate this half will be even better.

John Simon:

So Don, what are some of the things, the biggest changes that you’ve seen in the practice in the last two, three decades?

Don Schlapprizzi :

Well, one of the things that occurred, which I think has unfortunately hurt our profession was I think was the Bates case by the United States Supreme Court that gave the right to attorneys the right to free speech amendment that in it’s really destroyed the profession. It may be the business when the prospect of getting back behind or opposing advertising overwhelmingly went the other way and the organization don’t allow advertising. Well, you can see what’s going on today. You have national firms claiming they’re the biggest and the strongest and the smartest and all they have is numbers. You have the TV and the radio and the billboards. They’re just rampant and it’s not, the focus is not on the quality of your work and what you can accomplish and the individuality of your clients. It isn’t. It’s a money grab and unfortunately you guys try cases, you know how jurors feel about

John Simon:

It. Yeah, that good. They don’t react well to that.

Don Schlapprizzi :

Right. And actually what they’re doing is what I would’ve been disbarred for that is solicitation of clients. There’s one national, I listen the other day and he said, you have your lawyer, you don’t like ’em, you fire, but call us is actually effectively a second contract, which is, and so they do everything to talk about the money and not what their skills are, how they’re going to finesse a particular evidentiary problem. So it is a major change in professionalism I’ll say. And that of course is a little more than two or three decades ago. And then I think with the tort reform, and they refer to it as tort reform and all the money that went into attempts to eliminate the trial by jury. Fortunately some it was avoided, but that was another major change I think in our profession and how it’s practiced.

Erich Vieth:

If you were in charge of drawing up new laws about advertising, attorney advertising, how would you draw that line between the right to let people know you exist and you’re an attorney and you’re available to take cases versus trying to keep it professional and civil?

Don Schlapprizzi :

Well, I would severely curtail the media availability. And the reason I say that is what professional benefits do you get from somebody who calls you on the phone or does anything that would be a solicitation? What benefit is that to the client If you want to have a volume business and crank ’em through the system that way, how is that benefiting the individual client? So if it’s supposed to be fair that the individual who has been harmed or hurt to select somebody, shouldn’t they not do that on the basis of a reputation, so to speak, as opposed to just somebody clanking a bell and saying, be sure you get ahold of us. So I don’t know if I have a plan of it, but I would severely curtail the tv. You look at the tv, you’re watching a ball every, so you get five commercials for somebody to come call us for an injury.

John Simon:

And the interesting thing, none of ’em lose.

Don Schlapprizzi :

None

John Simon:

Of ’em lose. I want to see a billboard that says we lose every once in a while on the billboard.

Don Schlapprizzi :

How about the no fee? No fee guaranteed. That’s false advertising, no fee guaranteed that you won’t have to pay anything no matter what. There’s false advertising. So I would certainly eliminate false advertising and somehow curtail the availability of somebody to pay a million dollars on commercials versus the choice of people to pick a law firm that has credentials.

John Simon:

I think I drive in on Highway 44 and I think half of the billboards are, we win. It’s not just let’s everybody’s thought, man,

Erich Vieth:

I suspect that it is a struggle, I think for a lot of firms that you think there’s an economy of scale, we get bigger and maybe national and we can handle things more efficiently and share resources and all that. But there’s something awfully nice about a traditional small firm and it seems like, and it is not just lawyers, I think every business, when you get bigger, it changes the character of the place. It becomes less easy to know each other in your own office and things like that.

Don Schlapprizzi :

Yeah, that’s right. Each firm ought to be able to operate as efficiently as possible, whether that’s with 50 lawyers or 10 lawyers or your guy’s office, John or six, as long as they, I think you’re pointing out is they work well together and can give the best possible relief for the client. We lose track in a sense of what not every client we represent, but the overwhelming majority have suffered a severe problem and they need to be represented wholeheartedly and not just be a number and move that case. So I could get the other case on the docket or something like that. So

Erich Vieth:

I had a mediation, I won’t name names, but the attorney for the plaintiff, it was a trademark case and the attorney looked out the window and pointed to their big high rise and said, I’m from the firm of blah, blah, blah. We have 300 lawyers. And then I’ll contrast it with Tony Simon on a podcast and asked him, how important is it that you have many? He said, well, there can only be one lawyer at a time talking

Don Schlapprizzi :

Good observation. Yeah,

John Simon:

I had a case recently and I counted I think 28 lawyers on the other side of the case and I was thinking about, and it was like crazy handing notes and everybody shuffling stuff around and I was just entertained when the trial wasn’t going, just watching everybody, all that, all the activity. I had my notepad and another

Don Schlapprizzi :

Lawyer. Most of these, you get these cases, the defendants have a local cow, so they have one from out of town and we’ve been trying to get onsite inspection and there’s one case explosion type thing. And when one of the local guys said, I can make it, the guy out of town says, I can’t make it. And when you have multiple parties, you never can get it done. Actually, we’re not going to have an inspection until next February or March. And they stopped doing this about five months ago. So yeah, I know the feeling. Why does the judge say, wait a minute, why don’t one of you guys pick this task and the other so we don’t have to satisfy you both for everything that has to be

John Simon:

Done? Yeah, I had, and there’s a lawyer that in town I know very well. I’m good friends with him. He said the defense firm does med mail defense. I had a couple cases with him and we’re trying to get a case set and a younger associate shows up from his office and says his calendar’s filled for the next 22 months or something. I said, judge, they’ve got 80 lawyers over there, 90. If we did that, we never get to trial on the cases.

Don Schlapprizzi :

That’s a fact.

John Simon:

So that’s the thing, it’s so hard. It’s so hard nowadays, get a setting and hold a setting. And I remember when post COVID, I was on one of the committees that was trying to figure out to advise the court what would be the best way to remove the backlog to catch up, so to speak, with a lot of the cases. And they were moving the criminal cases first. And as you remember, the civil ones were backed up and they talked about mediations and I said, I don’t think a mediation. I said, if you want to know what moves cases is trial settings a meaningful trial setting. I said, if you get a trial setting and you hold their feet to the fire, I mean we know 95%, probably more than 95% of those cases get resolved. But you can’t get the attention of, I think a lot of the defense defendants, the insurance companies, whatever. It’s funny, when you’re a week before trial, all of a sudden they start looking closer at the case. It’s like an awakening. And Don, I quit doing demands. I don’t do demands at all in cases unless there’s some strategic reason to do it because I never, whatever the defense has trained me over the years that they’re never going to pay you what they need to pay until if they do, until you’re in the Courtroom.

And I don’t make demands when they ask me, I won’t make a demand. I just move forward. And

Don Schlapprizzi :

That’s a great

John Simon:

Thought. If they’re not willing to pay it. Then

Don Schlapprizzi :

Another thing that’s happened is the proliferation motion for summary judgment.

John Simon:

Oh man.

Don Schlapprizzi :

And how when this case management orders, they’re all stacked against those things immediately before trial because they want to take your interest away and your efforts away from the trial and the preparation, everything to do one of those ridiculous summary judgment. So you know what that’s like. It’s a burden of material facts and ones that are undisputed. And then the rman rule of rule 74, and that’s been in the last couple of decades, almost every case, no matter what

John Simon:

They file a motion for summary judgment. I remember they started filing in auto cases intersectional collision. They’re filing a motion for summary judgment.

Erich Vieth:

Right. Well, I had to defend one where the judge started in a federal case, started talking about the credibility of witnesses on a summary judgment. And so I think some parties are hearing that maybe there’s some judges that are less interested in wedding. Maybe they think the case has a bad smell. Maybe it’s something that doesn’t sound so convincing.

And

So my experience, at least on some civil rights cases is that some of the judges are entertaining more of these summary judgments.

John Simon:

I think that’s been the case for a long time. That’s been the case for at least 20 years. It’s like even in a med mal case where you have an expert and they’ll move for a motion for summary judgment. I don’t know many people who are filing cases that you have no evidence to support your client. I mean, at least there’s a financial incentive if you’re doing it on a contingency to have, I was talking to, I was at Wash UA couple of weeks ago, and this was really interesting, I don’t know if you knew it, but they have a plaintiff’s law organization and they have a chapter at Wash U and it’s starting around the country on campus. It’s always the big defense firms that come in and hire the best and the brightest, so to speak. And there were 40 or 50 students there. I, I was asked to give a presentation who were interested in coming out of school doing plaintiff stuff, and I was talking about the benefits of it and my whole point was it’s really a value issue or a philosophical issue in large part because what do you want to be doing? And I told him, I said, if you’re on the defense side, you’re going to be on the wrong side of the issue most of the time. I’m not saying that you don’t need to defend, but

There aren’t many people out there filing cases where nobody’s hurt or nobody’s done anything wrong. But I was really pleasantly surprised at the interest afterwards, they were coming and answering questions and stuff

And the biggest thing I told them was, you get to represent a person, people, families who really need your help or are counting on you and the path to learning, the path to actually trying cases, as we all know it. A big firm is you could be there 15 years and you’re going to be sitting watching second chair or third chair where if you’re doing the plaintiff stuff, I think by necessity it’s easier. You’re going to learn more quicker, you’re going to get to do more stuff, you’re going to get to do depositions quicker. But I was really impressed and happy to see that there’s growing interest in doing the plaintiff stuff, what we do.

Don Schlapprizzi :

You said Washington University

John Simon:

Is a program. Washoe had a program.

Don Schlapprizzi :

How’s it entitled? What’s

John Simon:

It’s the Plaintiff’s law Association, plaintiff’s law Student Plaintiff’s Law Association. And the president of it of the local chapter contacted me by email and asked me to come and speak. And I said, absolutely. And it was kind of neat because I did both. I started out doing defense stuff at a firm for five years. Eric, you did both, you did defense stuff and you did plaintiff

Erich Vieth:

Stuff. I did defense work when cases were smaller and I think within a week of being hired, they had me sitting in depositions. But I know that’s not as common anymore. You got to get that experience and I wonder where people are going to get it. We had a guest on our podcast, Charla Aldis

You,

She’s one of the preeminent attorneys in the country. She got her start and she was out of law school. She’s looking for how to get experience. She started taking traffic ticket cases and she said they referred to her as the traffic ticket queen of whatever county at one point because she was always in the Courtroom. And she credits that as giving herself Courtroom composure and ability to talk to witnesses, police officers and judges. And I think that’s a critical component of what we all need in order to get the jitters as much as possible gone. And so you’re focused on

John Simon:

The issues. So Don, you’ve been doing this since 1960. Yes. And here we are in 2025 and you’ve seen more and done more than anybody around mostly. Let me ask you this, for those everybody listening, what’s some good advice that you would give? Not just younger lawyers, but lawyers my age, anybody’s

Don Schlapprizzi :

Age. I think that in the work we do, those understand the merit of the case of the individual who has been wronged. And I think it is a matter of attempting to appreciate what you can do for people. I think it’s a Christian attitude, how you should help other people. And in the work we do, it’s an assessment, an appreciation of knowing what you can do and to honor be honorable in doing that because the people who we represent really have no voice in pursuing matters that has to do with the legal system. So I think the advice is that you need to be true to the ethics and true to the desire to be of help to other people. We work every day and when there’s a lot of mundane things, we do this. And so we somehow lose the love, if you will, of the work and the people who need help, kind of just a frequent reassessment of what you do.

And me personally, I just have always had a, I learned it, love for the work we do. And I don’t want to detract from lawyers those on the other side of the table who defend these things because I think there’s honor there as well. It’s just a matter of appreciate the system. We have a rights to trial by jury and we don’t want to have these taken away from us. And that’s how I feel about it, that there should be a rejuvenation, feeling good about yourself of what we do and by that honor of the system. And I wouldn’t want to say too, one thing that I didn’t mention about the female side of the profession, I’ll tell you that I early on didn’t think that women would be effective trial lawyers and actually tried to dissuade one young woman for doing it, saying Why was I wrong? I was so wrong about that because I have learned about the talents and effectiveness of female trial lawyers and they are terrific. I now know my daughter is one of them. I’m sure you feel that way about your own daughter, but nationally as well as regionally, there are some wonderfully talented, equally talented women as there are men. Trying to case that, that’s another thing was my bad judgment early on in my career, but I did want to mention that I think that has been a major turnaround in our practice

John Simon:

For the better.

Don Schlapprizzi :

Absolutely, absolutely. So shame on me for my early attitude,

Erich Vieth:

I couldn’t help but notice on your website that you tried a nine month long environmental case. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? That’s so unusual to try a case for nine months,

Don Schlapprizzi :

And I do think it was the longest civil trial case in our state’s history. It was an agent Orange case antioxidant, you probably know the Agent Orange. That was a governmental push to defoliate Vietnamese forests. And in those days, all the major chemical companies couldn’t make enough of it. And so one of the companies had a plant here in Missouri and they let the virulent component of Agent Orange, which is dioxin, TCDD, dioxin, and they contaminated the Times Beach City, the waste oil company came out to spread their earth or dirt roads. And so let’s gone out for several years. And that got out and they began to find that dioxin was a health hazard. So we’ve represented in that case maybe 1200 people who lived in the community of Times Beach. And of course the chemical companies fought that tooth and tongue and the studies that were out all generated by the chemical companies and all the government.

So you had very little scientific stuff to help you. But that went on for nine months because the way they decided to do the cases was divide, maybe take 10 or 12 cases at a time out of the 12 and hope to get some kind of a pattern. So that case was on behalf of citizens of Times Beach to recover for contamination leading to immune system problems and maybe cancers. And there’s all different types, so they weren’t going to pay. So because we had all the science to go through all the medicine to go through witness after witness after witness, it just took a long time.

It was before Judge Hart patient, man of all patient man, that’s what it was for nine and a half months. And the jury was out and we lost as to some of the plaintiffs, but we settled as to the other chemical companies, and I’ll have it aside there. The one chemical company, Syntex brought their number one man in the company to testify to how honorable and ethical Syntex was and C’s honest. This man was a brilliant man, very impressive guy. But he had forgotten that Syntech had manufactured a baby called Neo oid. I had happened to have a Neo OID case. I still had the cans of the Neo oid. We kept it in a bag because we knew we was sort to brag. And so at the end of his direct examination, he got the soy cans on and set ’em on the table.

He almost passed out because the company was castigated for what they did. No assays that babies were followed off the growth grid and it was absolutely lost everything as far as composure. And at the end of that day, that company paid us, but the other companies did not because they felt like they, because of the problems we had with regard to science and medicine, the support. And because they didn’t want to pay anything. They didn’t want to avoid any responsibility. They went to a jury trial and your verdict, we lost as to those six or eight people. The next case, the next year we had another situation. That one went about nine months, but by reason of our tenacity, I would say they wound up paying everybody in a sense like a class action where they develop a grid and everybody gets so much money. But that was a labor, I would say, of love because it was every day, every day. Sometimes it got off Friday our partner would have to go back to Philadelphia for something, but it could imagine

John Simon:

Nine months,

Don Schlapprizzi :

Go to bed at 11 night and get up at five, get downtown. And so it was quite an experience it took. That is

Erich Vieth:

Incredible. And life goes on for your firm back at the firm while this is going on, right?

Don Schlapprizzi :

Well, I would tell you there was touch and go for that year. Unfortunately had a couple of partners that were responsible and able to keep things afloat because in those days, the money that had to be put up for what you’re in for in terms of expenses and financing it,

John Simon:

It’s a tough business model. I

Don Schlapprizzi :

Can tell you it is. I would not recommend any, have to try a jury case for nine months. It’s tough enough two weeks or three, let alone that length of time. How many of the plaintiffs were deposed? Are we hundreds? Probably a hundred of them were a hundred out of the total. But the trial itself was because you have opponents who know that things are improper, but do it anyway and you’re in a case three months and when are you going to get a mistrial? So we had to constantly fight the potentiality of that happening. And so as I said, they just wanted to elongate the case and there was no opportunity to do anything but try it.

John Simon:

I can’t imagine a nine month case that like you were saying, I was thinking the same thing with the conduct and that you see and deal with them. It’s hard to keep it together. It’s hard to keep it from mistry in two weeks, much less nine

Don Schlapprizzi :

Months. Exactly. Because various factors.

John Simon:

That is amazing.

Erich Vieth:

That is really amazing. So this week I was called by my legal malpractice carrier and the question was, when are you going to retire? I’m 69 and I’m really enjoying what I’m doing. And I said, I don’t have plans, but it seems like more and more people are asking me, okay, when are you going to retire? And I’m wondering what your thoughts are. I know everybody’s got their own decision to make here, but what considerations should a lawyer have when considering what extent to keep practicing as they get into their sixties, seventies and beyond?

Don Schlapprizzi :

I think if you lose your enthusiasm for work that doesn’t share gratification like it had been earlier for self gratification. Yeah, I think that that’s an individual decision to make. My personally, I never really thought about it. My personal life affected it and my wife died and I had two children. And then I was fortunate, blessed as I have been totally blessed to meet and marry my Debbie and we had the five babies and as I grew up, Craig and Tony and her twin sister and older girl Annie as a lawyer, Emerson and the activities of young kids, what you do with them and their new experiences, new walks of life. It was just that has kept me active and interested and not just what I do. So I think if your life is one that’s exciting to you and you remain enthusiastic, I don’t think there is a year or a time, in my case I’m thinking maybe by the end of this calendar year I would transition where I’ll probably be working less. I don’t think I’ll ever not go to the office. And so long as I feel that I have some benefit to my partners, Tony and Craig, I will stay there. It’s only when you are not on the cutting edge anymore and you’re not interested in the developments that that’s time to bail out. So far that hasn’t happened to me, but I think that’s the point. If the individual you don’t like it anymore, it doesn’t light your fire, then I think that’s the time to go out.

Erich Vieth:

I have some friends who are in the corporate world and they have to, it’s a switch. Either you’re in or you’re out. And it’s a tough decision. And I’m thinking I’m very lucky to be in a profession where you can glide path to maybe somewhat less or a different role. And it’s a real benefit to being a lawyer where you can not leave it completely.

Don Schlapprizzi :

You can change your, and so long as you might have something bring you happiness in that post retirement date, whether that be teaching, mentoring, whether it be whatever it is that would bring you some happiness as your practice is during your active years. All those factors I think on what time you want to hang up your shoes.

John Simon:

That’s great advice. I see lawyers who are phenomenal that are 10, 15, 20 years older than me still practicing. And I think for me was when my kids joined, that gave me more of a long view. And what you were saying, I think as long as I’m helping, as long as I’m adding something to the mix, and I mean to me it sounds like when people ask me, I say, well, I think I’ll keep doing it until I don’t want to do it.

Erich Vieth:

Right. Sure.

John Simon:

It’s funny. Bob Ritter who hired me at my second job, I was starting to do plaintiff stuff and I was at a defense firm for five years and there was an opening I found out about, and a couple hours later I was talking to him in his office

And I was five years out and I was at a very good defense firm making a lot of money. And I talked to him about doing plaintiff stuff. And the thing, as soon as he said it, he didn’t know this because I hadn’t negotiated the salary with him yet, but as soon as he said it, I was like, I’m going to do this. I’m just going to do it. And he said, I’ve been doing this work for whatever 30 years. And he said, there’s been days I’ve been ready to jump out the window, but I’ve never had a boring day at work, never boring. And I had a ton of boring days doing the fed stuff with him. And as soon as I heard that, I could see, like you were just saying down about the enthusiasm. I could see it just talking to him about the work he was doing and he’s telling me about it. And I saw how Enthusi was about it and I wasn’t doing that. And again, I was a younger lawyer there and I was kind of helping and all the other stuff. It’s been an honor, an absolute honor to have you here

And I am telling you it’s wonderful. It’s wonderful to have you come here and share your little bit of what you’ve done with us.

Don Schlapprizzi :

Well, I’m grateful for the invitation. I was looking forward to it. Not sure exactly what contribution I’d be making, but I appreciate it and I can tell that the goal you have with the podcast, it’s going to help the profession, a major method to reach and to confer. So I applaud you for the podcast idea and I thank you for allowing me to share some time with you.

Erich Vieth:

Thank you. Well, this has been another episode of The Jury is Out. I’m Eric ve.

John Simon:

I’m John Simon. We’ll see you next time.

Announcer:

The Jury is Out is brought to you by the Simon Law Firm at the Simon Law Firm pc. We believe in the power of pooling resources in order to create powerful results. We often lend our trial skills and experience to lawyers around the country to achieve better results for their clients. Our attorneys welcome the opportunity to work with you on your case offering vast resources, seasoned litigators, and a sterling reputation. You can contact us at 3 1 4 2 4 1 2 9 2 9. And if you enjoyed the podcast, feel free to share your thoughts with John, Tim and Eric at comments at The Jury is Out law and subscribe today because the best lawyers never stop learning.

Continue Reading