EP 626- Attorney and Professor Peter Dunne Part One

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 Erich Vith.

Erich Vieth:

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

Tim Cronin:

I’m Tim Cronin.

John Simon:

I’m John Simon.

Erich Vieth:

We’re here with Peter Dunne. Welcome.

Peter Dunne:

And I’m Peter Dunne. Yeah, thank you.

Erich Vieth:

Peter, welcome,

John Simon:

Welcome, welcome. Good

Peter Dunne:

To have you here. Great to be here. And of course, I’ve listened to so many of these. I can’t claim to have heard every- So you’re

John Simon:

The one.

Peter Dunne:

I can’t claim to have heard everyone, but I’ve listened to a lot of them and they’re always entertaining and worthwhile and informative. So why you asked me to be here is really the question worth asking.

Tim Cronin:

Peter, why don’t you give our listeners kind of a short synopsis of your legal career. And I think you mentioned you started off in the PD’s office getting to try cases and how is

Peter Dunne:

It- Yeah. Well, that’ll be a short discussion, that’s for sure. So I went to law school at the University of Missouri, and of course my father was a lawyer. My older brother was a lawyer, and I went to law school with no real clear idea. Many of the people in law school have a very clear idea about what they want to do with their degree, and many others do not. And I was one of those. And so we did trial add my third year, and I think talk about getting A’s, I think it was the only A I ever got in law school. And I said, “Maybe that would be okay.” So I didn’t have a job. I was ready to take the bar. I had an interview with Bill Shaw at the St. Louis County Public Defender’s Office and talk about coincidences. He had been a law school classmate of my father’s and in 1948 at St. Louis U.

So I walk in and of course the first thing he says, “Peter, how’s your father?” And I, “Well, he’s fine, sir. Thank you. ” And he goes, “Out look, okay, you’re Jerry Dunn son. No problem. If we have a spot here when you pass the bar, you can have it. ” I said, “Okay.” So the day I passed the bar, I called him and he goes, “Great, come in Monday.” And I started there.

John Simon:

Wow.

Peter Dunne:

So I was there two years, tried 25 jury trials in 18 months. I was in the juvenile division for six months. And I won the very first jury trial I had and then lost 23 in a row before I won the last jury trial I had and then left and I went to the old firm.

John Simon:

That’s perfect. You start strong and end

Peter Dunne:

Strong, right? Yeah. Well, we know how important that is, primacy and recency. But then I went to the old firm and I basically had that job ever since from 1985 until now. So what’s that? 40 years. Seems like a long time when I sit here and say that.

Tim Cronin:

You and John have been teaching trial ed too together at Slow for how many years now?

John Simon:

We never really come to a number. Do you know? Is it 20 years? Well, it’s not that long, but it’s

Tim Cronin:

Over 10. It’s at least 10 because you did trial. You doing trial at one still into 2009 or 2010 because I was in your class and then shortly after that switch to trial at two. 10 or 12 years,

Peter Dunne:

Right? Yeah. And I did that too. I was trial ed one for a year. But again, talk about St. Louis and being a small town. The university professor that runs all that, Tom Stewart is married to my cousin. That’s how you get a job like that. You could either be like John or you could be married to the

John Simon:

Professor’s cousin. Was Tom a year ahead? I think Tom was a year ahead of me at SLU, I think. Was he? Was he? I don’t know. I don’t know. But I have had cases, not too many. I had one case against … Tom was local counsel in one case that we had, but what a great guy. Multi-piece wheel case. Yeah. He’s very smart. Well,

Peter Dunne:

What a career. I mean, he was partners with Jim Holland for a while and then handled some very important cases and had some fabulous successes. And I assume he transitioned into teaching the same reason my father did was to get free tuition for his children. My dad sent six kids to college on St. Louis. He was Dime because of that.

John Simon:

What years was he at Sloop?

Peter Dunne:

Well, he started when I was in high school. It would’ve been 72. But prior to that, they had the night program and he taught the night program. And he did that when he was with the Federal Reserve Bank. And then in the classroom upon 10 or 12, where we teach that trial ed class, you go back through the deans that I know because of him, and it goes all the way back to Norm McDonough, who was Dean when he got hired. When was that? 1948 or something. And so he taught in the night school and then transitioned to the day program when I was in high school. And he was there another 20 plus years. So a whole generation of St. Louis university lawyers. And again, when I was in college and people heard that my father taught there, it was like, “Oh, well, what’s he like?

” I said, “Well, he’s known as an easy grader,” is what I heard. So everybody wanted to know he had some sort of insight in how they could butter him up. I said, “I’m the last one you want to ask about that.

Erich Vieth:

” I took his jurors prudence class. This is back in the late ’70s and he’s a real character to say the least. And I expected nothing less of you. And I haven’t had an extended conversation with you till

Peter Dunne:

Now. Do you guys know each other?

Erich Vieth:

We met somewhere.

Peter Dunne:

We’ve met through the years. Erich’s law practice is a tiny bit different than mine. And so we would maybe encounter each other across the table. But obviously I know of him because again, another guy who’s very prominent and whose career has all these important highlights in it, again, making me wonder what I’m doing sitting here talking with you. Insight and knowledge. We’re gaining insight and knowledge. Well, we’re all for two, but you get three strikes. So we’ll see if I can find one that works.

Erich Vieth:

So we’re talking about teaching. We’re all adjuncts and all at St. Louis. All of us are teaching at Slough, all four. Give us your 10,000 foot view, your favorite parts of teaching and your least favorite.

Peter Dunne:

Boy, of course, when all this first started, I can remember it was 2003 because speaking of my dad, it was the year he died. And friends of mine are on the faculty at the Webster University Legal Studies Program. And one of them came to me and said, “You know what? I bet you’d be good at this. Would you mind teaching a class for our night program?” And I said, “Okay, I guess if you think so. ” So I started doing that and I did that for 10 years before Tom Stewart asked would I join the group at St. Louis U. So I had that as a background and it was really rewarding. I mean, the thing that I like about it best are the students. The students are great. You try to help them along and encourage them and say, “No, you can do it.

” And the undergrad students at Webster, many of them are older and some of them have ambition to go to law school. And I would say, “You absolutely should do that. You certainly are smart enough. Look around. Okay. You’re smart enough to do it. ” And if you don’t do it, you’ll say, “Okay, three years from now, what am I going to be? Am I going to be a law school graduate or am I just going to be when I am right now?” And you could do that. It’s like, when’s the best day to plant a tree 10 years ago? Okay, what’s the next best day? Today is the next best day. So I really like the kids. What don’t I like about it? It doesn’t pay well enough. That’s the only thing I guess. Can we get $18 or something?

Tim Cronin:

I

Peter Dunne:

Think it’s $2,000. It’s 2,000. The trial ed class is great for grading because it’s just one grade, end of the year. John and I confer about the students and say, “Here’s where I think they kind of rank top to bottom.” But in the undergrad, you have assignments and papers. And yeah, that’s a drag.

Erich Vieth:

I do civil practice. So we have a lot of assignments and there are 12 or 14 grades that go along and go into the mix.

Peter Dunne:

And

Erich Vieth:

You mentioned before we started, there’s people occasionally that complain about a grade and I consciously think, “Well, I’ve got to make sure I document this in case they come in and question it. ” And it’s my least favorite part of the course. No,

Peter Dunne:

There’s no question.

John Simon:

We’ve told students that the grade isn’t the important thing that it’s what you learn. And of course, if somebody had told me that when I was in law school, I would have said, “That’s bullshit.” Easy for you to say.

Peter Dunne:

When I’m applying for a job, they’re looking at the grade. Oh, wow. No, great. It’s a necessary evil. I actually referred to it that way in communication we had with our students a week or two ago that, look, we have to do it. And I think they know they’re in competition with each other, but the TriLet students, they’re all type A high achieving types. So some come in and one of your colleagues, Jareded was one of these, he comes Jared Waldorf, he comes in at a very high level of ability and achievement and he stayed there and I’m sure he’s achieving great things today. He’s doing a good job.

John Simon:

He’s doing great here.

Peter Dunne:

But other students, and these are the ones I think we admire, are the ones who come in a little uncertain, who are a little bit unsure of themselves, that need more positive reinforcement and encouragement. And the ones that improve as the year goes along, I’m more impressed with them because

Tim Cronin:

The

Peter Dunne:

Good students, you can’t tell them a thing. They know it already. But the students that you empower a little, I enjoy that.

Tim Cronin:

So this semester I had, I told you guys before we got started, I have one student who I think is going to win the Lon Hocker in 10 years. And the first class, I started the same way you started when I had trial with you, John, give a five-minute speech about whatever you want. And he was just like owned to the room and was comfortable and funny and interacting and good eye contact. And he stayed at that high level and I was like struggling to find things to give him advice about like, step away from the podium a little bit more. Or once you’ve got him on the ropes, don’t kick them because you can stop. But the ones who in the first class I was like, “Oh, oh no, they need to do transactional law.” They all grew a lot. And by the time they were done, they can competently- So what you’re

John Simon:

Saying there was some actual benefit of taking

Tim Cronin:

Your class. It seems like it. And I will remember those ones more because I was concerned in the beginning and they put in the hard work and listened and did the prep. And by the end I was like, “Okay, if you keep putting in the hard work, I think you could be trial lawyers.”

John Simon:

You know what I like about the class, you were talking about what you like the best about it is watching not just the improvement. The improvement’s probably top of the list, but how the different personalities that don’t really matter, you know how each person, you could have somebody that’s a little more quiet and then somebody else who’s bouncing off the walls, somebody who are a little louder, more animated and they each could- Be effective in their own ways. Exactly, exactly. And we tell them that. I mean, Peter, you tell them that all the time that-

Peter Dunne:

Every year and probably more than once I say, this says to me again how many different ways there are to do a good job. And we also stress for them that they have to be themselves, find what’s really, really effective within themselves. Because if you try to imitate John, you’ll be a poor version of John, but you have to be yourself or you’ll never convince anyone of what you’re trying to convince him

Erich Vieth:

Of. When we teach depositions, we’re also teaching how to object and there’s the soft-spoken people in the room. So I have this exercise where I say, “Okay, your turn to object.” Objection. I said, “You got to go louder and to try it again louder.” You got to stop the room. And it’s funny to see a soft-spoken person go, “Oh, I guess I got to almost shout.”

Peter Dunne:

Well, I used to tell him, “You got to stand up. Okay, stand up and sing out so we can all hear it. ” Objection.

John Simon:

And a little more credibility with the judge. I mean, if you stand up and go, “Objection.” Like you’re not sure about it? I’m sorry, did you say something? Nobody else will be.

Tim Cronin:

That’s funny. So John and I, in one of the case, John and I tried together last year in Illinois, we tried with a younger lawyer here, Nathan, and he started at the firm like a month or two before. He did defense work for three or four years before and he clerked here and took you guys’ trial class. Not

Peter Dunne:

Unredeemable despite that.

Tim Cronin:

It’s a great benefit.

John Simon:

A former

Tim Cronin:

Defense attorney. And he actually took you guys’ trial at two class, Nathan Pearlmutter.

Peter Dunne:

Oh yeah.

Tim Cronin:

He did a great job. And so we tried that case with him and Nathan was supposed to have four witnesses at the trial and one by one they were medically unavailable. So we had to use their depo. But he got to do one witness and I think the jury remembers Nathan more than John or I. You know the story I’m going to tell. So Nathan asked the question of this witness and there’s an objection to hearsay and it totally called for hearsay. And before the judge could rule, Nathan standing right by the jury and he just looked down and went, “Sustained.” And the judge laughed, the jury laughed and the judge went, “Well, yes.” And the whole jury was immediately endeared to him and he went, “This is my first witness.” And then the rest of his exams-That’s the only witness he did. And he

John Simon:

Was literally 60 seconds in. Hearsay. Sustained. Well, yes. Save

Peter Dunne:

Time a little, I guess, if you rule on your own objections.

Tim Cronin:

It was good, but no, he did a great job and the rest of his exam was good and the jury endeared to him right away because he was being himself.

Erich Vieth:

There’s something magic about teaching. We call it teaching, but there’s this loop where you’re learning too by teaching. And I think it has to do sometimes with you say something, and this happens outside of the courtroom too for me in my personal life. I’ll say something out loud and I go, “Did I just say that? ” That’s something I’ve been thinking, but when I hear myself say it, it sounds different and actually somewhat persuasive, but I’m learning things by talking. Does that resonate with you?

Peter Dunne:

You’re talking about daily life there and that’s very important part of it. I think that when you’re encountering the world, so to speak, you better be learning from it. Unfortunately, we’re living in a day and age where people seem closed-minded more than ever and our political leaders are absolutely not interested in learning anything. But how do you grow as a person if you’re not doing that? I don’t know. But as a lawyer, that’s your laboratory sort of trying to connect with people and figuring out what is it you’re saying that actually has the ring of genuineness and truth about it as opposed to bullshit, which there’s a lot of.

Tim Cronin:

Erich, I remember you and John Campbell who used to be here, you did a seminar one year about how you guys would sit and talk through issues. And that’s usually how you’d figure out your theory or figure out your answers. Some people like working remotely or hybrid. I prefer coming into the office because I’m not really able to crystallize my thoughts about how I want to argue something or strategize with something until I’m talking to one of my colleagues about the issues and then I’ll suddenly say it in a way and I’ll be like, “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out how to say.” And I’m not as good at it just quietly sitting and thinking by myself. I have to talk through it. Everybody has different ways that they figure stuff out. And

Erich Vieth:

Sometimes it doesn’t come early. I know I’ve been working with John. John would come into my office at 9:00 the day before a trial and say something that sounded convincing to me. I’m thinking, “That sounds good.” And then he talks himself out of it. I know you, John. I do that all the time. You think out loud. And then you thought, I got to redo the case. It was the night before you had an important change in the case by talking it out.

Peter Dunne:

COVID was a terrible thing in a lot of ways, but one of the ways that it was bad was that away from the office, you don’t get the benefit of any collegiality, instruction, sharing thoughts and information and instructing younger lawyers. Nobody gets out of law school fully aware and capable of being an effective lawyer. You learn that after and you learn it, I think, and I’m lucky and I know John’s the same way. We had the benefit of people, older lawyers, people above us, mentors who told us, “Look, there’s a right way and the wrong way and that there’s things you absolutely do not do. ” And you have to pass that on because another thing we tell the students is that your credibility is everything. And if you lose that, it’s impossible to get it back. And you’re building that among your colleagues. It starts in law school and you’re constantly reinforcing that.

And with the court, you want the judge to look at you as the person who is being straight with them. You tell them a holding in a case is what it is and they look it up. And I’ve had judges say to me, “I’ll never believe a word that guy says because they misrepresented something either in the record or in the holding of a case or something.” And I’m like, “Well, I hardly ever read the cases, so I’m really not subject to that kind of criticism.” But I do want to be the guy that they know is not misleading them.

John Simon:

So Peter, that reminds me of a case that Tim was talking about earlier. We had a judge who was very fair but strict. I mean, you had to be on time and he just jumped on you if things weren’t- Just so. Yeah, he was a rule follower and everything had to be in line.

Tim Cronin:

He read every single case that got cited, every rule. And so you- He was a stickler. I respected him a

John Simon:

Lot. He scared me at first. I’m like, holy cow, this guy’s pretty intense. Be

Tim Cronin:

Careful what

John Simon:

You say, right? Look, he was just like, “Here’s how it’s going to work and here’s what we’re going to do. ” And very late in the case, about a month before trial, we had some kind of motion. It was a second pretrial. Second pretrial. We were

Tim Cronin:

Trying to continue our trial and the

John Simon:

Procedural- And so we’re on a Zoom and there are 10 lawyers on the Zoom screen with the judge and we’ve been dealing with him for a good two years, year and a half. And the first thing he says is, “Well, before we start, I would like to know this brief, the defendant’s brief that was filed, who wrote it? ” And everybody who laid eyes on it before it was filed. Oops. And we were like, “Oh man.” Oh, even I was nervous. I was going, “Women,” and he’s talking about their brief. And then finally, nobody said anything. Nobody on the screen, there’s all these defense attorneys said anything and Tim goes, “Well, Your Honor, they all signed it. ” Yeah. They’re all on the signature

Peter Dunne:

Block.

John Simon:

With a broad brush. And so what happened was they went back to a transcript at a hearing in our case and they quoted him as saying something completely the opposite of what he said. They quoted a holding he had in the case. He had in the case. And so they tried to say, “Well,” and nobody really came and said anything- Hold up to it. But what he said was, “But the end of the day, by the end of today, I want a show cause emotion why I shouldn’t hold all of the attorneys in the firm and report you. ” And then after, of course, before the end of the day, one of the lawyers fell on the sword for everybody. It’s all my fault. Nobody else had anything to do with it.

Peter Dunne:

Well, they almost have to admire that. If something goes wrong at the office, okay, I can’t stand it when somebody says, “Well, my secretary this or my paralegal that. ” No, that’s all on me. Oh, I did it. Yeah. Well, that wasn’t available. That’s a whole nother thing. Yeah, that’s next week’s podcast, maybe. But no, I don’t have any patience for that. You take the blame when you, when something happens.

John Simon:

Well, I wasn’t thinking about them. I was thinking about our briefing. Yeah. Right. Am I in

Peter Dunne:

Trouble

John Simon:

Yet?That’s what I

Tim Cronin:

Was

Peter Dunne:

Thinking. Well, I thought you were going to say by the end of the day, they had finally agreed to pay you what you wanted.

Tim Cronin:

We tried the case and then we fought about that thing for much longer, but it’s no longer pending. No, I figured out early on we needed to be meticulous with that judge and we attached everything we cited. And you should be meticulous with every judge. With everything. Yeah. I was thinking, uh-oh. You know what always bothers me is when I see attorneys take a dubious position that the court’s most likely not going to be receptive to and it’s not consistent with the law and older lawyers send their associates up to court like lambs to the slaughter, it drives me absolutely crazy because they’re harming that young lawyer’s reputation. And when I see that happen, I generally try to point out like, “Judge, I think the senior attorney who signed off on this strategy probably should be here and all due respected counsel who had to come up here and argue this motion, it’s wrong.” I try to point out what I think has

John Simon:

Happened. Beginning of my career, the first three or four years, we did a lot of cases. It was all in the city and it was FELA stuff and you had the same judge, as you guys know, ruling on everything. And so we would file the same motions and I did it like three times and lost it, which you can file it and then have it overruled and make your record, but I was told to go up and argue it again-

Tim Cronin:

Strenuously.

John Simon:

… in front of the same judge. And they would look at me like, “Mr. Simon, do you have anybody back there at the office that you can run this by before you … ” Come up

Peter Dunne:

Here again.

John Simon:

And I’m thinking, well, they told me to come up here. And so what I did on my own without telling the people I worked for, because the lawyers were getting pissed off that some lawyers had to come from out of town over in Illinois, and I would call the plaintiff’s lawyer and say, “Hey, look, I know how this is going to go down. Stay at your office. I will go up. I’m not going to argue it again and waste the court’s time. And I just got an order.” But after the third time, I was like, this is rightfully so. I mean, I’m sitting there, didn’t we just rule on that last week?

Peter Dunne:

We got it wrong. What Tim said is exactly what I was talking about. You absolutely cannot ever ask somebody to do something you wouldn’t do yourself. I would never put somebody who works with me in that position. If you’re going to, like you say, fall on your sward, get up there and do it. And hey, that’s part of the … There’s things that happen that aren’t good. You got to own those. Again, you talk about your relationship with opposing counsel, and that’s important too, because this is just the case, okay? There’s going to be another case and hopefully another one after that. And if you establish yourself as a problem, you’re going to be that forever. You got to be the person that, in my view, is willing to acknowledge things that aren’t favorable and trying to get along if you can. And it’s an adversarial system, but that doesn’t mean you’re enemies.

What’s the old Shakespeare quote, “Strive mightily, but eat and drink his friends.” He had it right.

Erich Vieth:

Absolutely. And there’s people not in law who are puzzled by the fact that people on opposite sides of the aisle do eat and drink together. It’s a natural thing when you start doing it.

Peter Dunne:

Well, I’m very lucky. Again, that was the atmosphere that I was brought up in. And the Lawyers Association of St. Louis is a great example of that. Lawyers from both sides of the aisle are active in it. It promotes collegiality and our professionalism and fellowship and laughing at ourselves, laughing at each other. And that’s what the Gridiron Show was all about really, which is by the way, Friday that week. Yeah.

John Simon:

So how many performances do you

Peter Dunne:

Have this year?

John Simon:

Tell everybody about The Grid Iron.

Peter Dunne:

Well, The Grit Iron is almost as old as the Lawyers Association itself. It’s 68 years this year. Wow. And it started modestly. It was first called the Gridiron Show and Dance, and it was really just a social occasion. And then there’d be a brief interlude of jokes and standup and silly stuff, but over time it evolved to what it is now, which is a song and dance production with a cast of 30 people written, directed, produced, and performed all by lawyers. And it’ll be in a big ballroom downtown. There are 570 people have paid $150 each to come to this. And that’s the part that baffles me that people will pay that kind of money for this shit, but they do. And I’ve been involved in it for 30 years and it’s just been a whole lot of fun and I enjoy it a lot, obviously.

And I told whoever’s president, “Look, if you think I’m contributing something worthwhile, I’ll keep

John Simon:

Coming.” So you’ve been the director of it or the-

Peter Dunne:

I was the director for 11 years, but boy, thank God I gave that up and now I’m just a number in one more guy in the back row.

John Simon:

Awesome.

Peter Dunne:

Fantastic. But it’s a lot of fun. And I encourage everybody listening that they ought to check it out. And maybe it’s your thing. And people come and they don’t … They come, they like it, but they don’t stay.

John Simon:

Other people- I mean, I’ve gone to a few of them and the ones I’ve gone to, I’ve really enjoyed seeing them and-

Peter Dunne:

Well, we’re going to start making jokes about you. And that’s what- It’s great I’ve been something in the past. If you can’t beat them, join them. That’s what Brian Krupin did. Okay. We were merciless to them for years. And finally, Terry Krupin said enough, I’m going to be in it. I’m going to send people from the office to be in it. And so we’re not as hard on them anymore.

Erich Vieth:

That’s a good way to get people there. Just send an email

Peter Dunne:

Ahead of time. We’re going to be telling jokes about you. Well, and then other people like Bob Blitz is a great example where my wife used to work. He’d say, “Well, yeah, I’d come, but am I in it? Is there a joke about me? ” We’d say, “Well, there is now. We’re going to put one in there just for that. By a table, we’ll put a joke in there about you. ” So anyway, but it’s a lot of fun. And the Lawyers Association does other stuff too that I think is important that gets people together, the memorial service, the picnic, the award of honor. And I’m happy to publish here podcast wise that the association made a just long overdue and epically correct choice in giving that to John Simon this year. So very proud to be associated with that. Well, thank you, Peter. I guess once I got it, I really didn’t care who got it after that, but no.

John Simon:

When I found out, I was thinking, well, they’re scraping the bottom. They’ve run out of candidates. That was

Peter Dunne:

Three years ago that that happened. But no, it’s great and long overdue. And just to be associated with anything that John is part of is a real honor.

John Simon:

Well, Peter, thank you so much. The thing that I wish I had gone, I don’t go anymore hardly as the memorial service. And I went to that religiously maybe for 15, 20 years.

Peter Dunne:

Well, when you work downtown, it’s a little easier.

John Simon:

And part of it, what was really interesting and crazy is when I first started going, I knew a lawyer maybe on the list. And as I got older, like almost everybody on the list, I know or know of.

Peter Dunne:

Well, again, that’s important. And the thing I always, whenever I went to it, I would look at the booklet and whenever there was an entry that said, “Sadly, we don’t have any biographical information about this person.” I told Jim Sussman to send me those names and I’ll write something for him. And I’ve been doing that for four or five years. And some people live lives that are not available on the internet. You just can’t find any.

John Simon:

Imagine

Peter Dunne:

That. Yeah, I know. Others, goodness, there’s quite a lot. Fortunately, somebody edits my remarks. As I recall, there was a judge who passed away and I wrote a biopharmacist and it started, well, perhaps not everyone’s favorite judge, but he cut that out. And I ultimately- I would say that’s good editing. Yeah, I was glad he did because you shouldn’t put stuff like that in writing. So we cut

John Simon:

That. That’s one thing too where people on some of the list services where they’ll ask about a judge and people are banging away. And I’m like, “What are you doing? Stop, stop.” That’s going to get forwarded to you. Stop.

Peter Dunne:

Well, now, I mean, on the defense side of the table, you don’t do that stuff. Okay? The plaintiffs have always done, always have done a better job of sharing information and sharing data and everything else on the rising tide theory that anything that helps them will help me. Okay.

John Simon:

I agree with that. I see that. Yeah. Well,

Peter Dunne:

But on the defense side, no, we’re in competition with that guy over there for files and why would I do anything to help

John Simon:

Him? The other defense firms, we do a lot of that because you get referrals because we’ll handle types of cases. Other peoples won’t, other people won’t. Also, if someone else gets a good order on an issue we have, it helps us. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

Peter Dunne:

The thing I enjoyed about it was that somebody, a friend of mine told me one time, he said, “Yeah, I was on the Mata Liftserve and somebody had a question about you. ” I said, “Really?” And he said, “Yeah.” I said, “For a defense lawyer, he’s not that bad.” I’ve

John Simon:

Been introduced by former attorneys that I’ve worked for and with. I was at a defense firm for five years and still, it would introduce me to somebody like refer in a case and I’d meet at their office and they’d say, “He’s a plaintiff’s lawyer, but he’s a really good guy.” He What kind of introduction is that?

Peter Dunne:

There’s good child molesters, I guess, out there somewhere.

John Simon:

He’s a

Peter Dunne:

Good guy.That’s called Damning with Saint Praise, I suppose is what it is. If you

John Simon:

Have to associate yourself with one of these people, he’s not as bad as.

Peter Dunne:

There’s worse than him. What’s the movie Waking That Divine? And the guy pretends to be his friend because they want the guy who’s dead who won the lottery to nobody know it. And so they’re at the memorial service for the guy who is still alive and they’re talking about him and one of his friends says, “Well, he had his faults,” he said. Okay. Yeah, that’s again, I think you could say that about anybody.

John Simon:

So Peter, did you have any before the grid arm? How did you get involved in it?

Peter Dunne:

Well, like most people who found their way in that direction, I did it to meet girls. Okay. If you’re not gay-

John Simon:

What better reason than

Peter Dunne:

That? That’s the way to do it. So in high school, I did get involved in theatrical productions and then I didn’t do anything in college, but my junior year, a girl I was interested in showed up at the university and she was in the theater program. So I joined it again. So my reasons were not altruistic. They were purely personal. And then the grid iron, I had nothing to do with it. At the old firm, it was not talked about because the bosses at the old firm thought it took people away from the important business of billing. Okay. So they didn’t want anybody involved. Yeah. I

John Simon:

Mean, wasting

Peter Dunne:

Four good hours on a Saturday. But then Judge Maggie Neal was not only Maggie Neill at the time, became president. He said, “Oh, I got this thing. I need you. It’ll hardly take any time at all, ” she said. Well, famous laughs words. So that was the first one I ever saw was the first one I was in. And when was that? 91? Yeah.

Erich Vieth:

What is the time commitment from beginning to the

Peter Dunne:

Show? Well, it depends. I mean, we start rehearsing about six weeks ago, so it’ll be late September, early October. But the problem is if you’re in charge of producing it, you have to have stuff to rehearse. So the writing of it takes place all through the year. And unlike when I first joined, the people who wrote it, Tom Schlafly and others, they didn’t need anybody’s help to write anything. So they didn’t ask you for help and honestly didn’t want your help. So that suited them fine. So they just tell you what you were doing. Today it’s much more collaborative and you really do need people to contribute things because you got to fill up the hour somehow. So you’ll rehearse once or twice a week for five, six weeks, and then this week it’s every night. And then Friday’s the big shoe, as Et Sullivan would say.

Erich Vieth:

Thanks for joining us. We’re going to pause right now and we’ll have you back for another episode.

Peter Dunne:

Thank you.

Erich Vieth:

This has been another episode of The Jury is Out. I’m Erik Fieth. I’m Tim Cronin. 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 314-241-2929. And if you enjoyed the podcast, feel free to share your thoughts with John, Tim, and Erich at [email protected] and subscribe today because the best lawyers never stop learning.

Continue Reading