EP 705: Secrets to Longevity, Sanity, and Success in Law

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 back to a new episode of The Jury Is Out. I’m Erich Vieth.

John Simon:

I’m John Simon, and we’re missing Tim Cronin today. I gave him the day off.

Erich Vieth:

And another problem, he’s not old enough, I think, because we’ve been struggling with what to call this. This episode sprung from an article that you handed me by Jimmy Holleran.

John Simon:

Wonderful man, wonderful attorney, dear friend. And he sent me about Jim passed away this year. And so I was going through my post office mail and I opened it up and it was a letter from Jim. He was cleaning out his office. He was retiring. And he sent me a presentation, a typed version of a presentation he had done for the bar. And it was five secrets for surviving 30 years of law practice with your sanity and a sense of humor. And I’ve had it ever since. And it’s really cool. I mean, some of the stuff in there is … It’s uplifting. It really is. It’s a really cool presentation that he did.

Erich Vieth:

This is a tough profession. This is why this is an important topic. It grinds some people up. They fall by the wayside. Some people decide it’s not for them. So surviving is really the word because there’s a lot of people that maybe are not happy. There’s a lot of drug addiction. There’s divorces, a lot of stress in this profession. So it’s good to focus on whatever we call them secrets for surviving and thriving, a difficult profession. Not everybody does it, but those who do have some tips to pass on to those who are in the

Middle of it or about to jump into it. I know so many

John Simon:

People who have quit doing what we do at different stages, five years, 10 years, three years, two years. What’s your experience?

Erich Vieth:

You can’t help but notice. I’ve been in it longer than you, John. As you know, I’ve been in it for 45 years. When I tell my students I graduated from this same school that I’m teaching at in 1981, they look at me like I got three eyes. But there is something that happens along the way where you start noticing people, some of them retiring voluntarily and happily, and others maybe not able to focus as well, or maybe their memory is not as good, or maybe they are not as in good health. And then of course, every so often, too often, we notice an obituary where somebody is no longer here. So it happens. So it is a matter of survival. But I like to put thrive in there too, because it’s not just a matter of surviving it. It would be better to thrive in this occupation.

John Simon:

So one of the things that makes it even more difficult, I think, is if you do what we do, trying cases, you win or you lose. There’s no in between. And it’s a very public issue. I mean, you go into a courtroom and you get a verdict. If you lose the case, everybody knows about it, not just people in your family or people at the office or your coworkers. They publish results. And so there’s all of this pressure. And I see that with attorneys all the time. It doesn’t matter how old are you, new attorneys, older attorneys. It’s the whole idea of defining yourself as a lawyer based upon the result in some case. Yeah,

Erich Vieth:

You’re almost all on the record. Even your written briefs, your communications with your clients and writing, whatever, we’re documenting every step along the way. It’s like you’re on a tightwire in a circus and everything could be retraced back. And when things don’t go right, someone can take a look at that and do that diagnostic and say, “Oh, what went wrong here?”

John Simon:

And the other thing too is it is hyper competitive. It’s very, very competitive. It’s always been, and it’s just the nature of the profession. And you need to be ready, you need to be prepared. And think about this, we’re professionals, professional athletes, the competition that they face. Look at those careers. Some of them are three years, five years, rarely is it more than 10 years. And we are doing this competitive work for decades, and it does take a toll. I mean, there’s no question it takes a toll. But back to what I was saying earlier, I think the first point or the first, whatever you want to call it, suggestion point, tip maybe. Don’t ride the emotional rollercoaster. Don’t define success on a weekly basis, on a daily basis with one case. Separate your identity from the outcomes in your cases. Winning a case doesn’t make you a genius.

Losing a case doesn’t make you incompetent. You got to take it with … The way I like to look at it is, was I prepared? Did I give it good effort? It’s not the results because you cannot control the results in any case. You can’t control how a judge is going to rule on any issue or on emotion.You’ve got to remove yourself from the result and you need to start focusing more on what you can control, what you can control and what you can do. And a lot of that comes down to preparation. The cases that we work on, we have them for two or three years. We develop a really strong bond with our clients, a good relationship. And you think of the work and the effort and all of these things that you put into it. And not just that, it isn’t you.

It’s your client’s life and future depends on what the result is in the case. And so you’ve got all of that kind of built up on it, but in the end, all you’re left with is your effort. Did you give it a good effort? Were you prepared? You can hate losing. Nobody likes losing, but don’t let it define you. And my former partner, Paul Pasanani, and I was with him for 20 years. God bless him. And I don’t know how many times I heard him say this. He’d say, “John, don’t get too high on the highs and don’t get

Too low on the lows.” And that was great advice from Paul. It’s

Erich Vieth:

Wonderful and exhilarating. And the process of representing a client and doing it well and having your client come up and shake your hand afterwards, win or lose. It’s wonderful. It’s an honorable profession. But I think we had to maybe talk about this a little bit that it can also be very challenging to you physically, mentally. And so what our idea was for today is to talk about ways to survive this process, especially when you’re talking about doing it for decades.

John Simon:

Yeah. And I think one of the things too is even though you can disagree without being disagreeable, that’s another good piece of advice I’ve heard multiple times over my career, and I’ve passed that on to other lawyers. What we do is already competitive. There’s a lot of stress and pressure as you’ve indicated, but you don’t need to compound that by arguing and fighting with your opponent all the time about everything. You can be firm, you can be zealously representing your client. You don’t have to get in fights and make things personal. There’s a simple

Erich Vieth:

Trick. When you are about to go into a meeting where there’s a lot of people, the stakes are high, it’s very stressful. The best way in, I’ve seen you do this many times, is just go in and be happy. Just walk into the room, shake hands. How are you doing? Talk to the attorneys you don’t know, get to know them a little bit. There’s magic to that, to actually be working with people you know as opposed to butting heads with strangers.

John Simon:

The other thing is, it’s a great point is getting to know something personally about your opponent. Find out where they grew up, find out a little bit about their family, the kinds of cases that they’re handling. Because once you get to know somebody, it makes it a whole lot harder to be angry and be fighting with them.

Erich Vieth:

It’s like it gives you a buffer. So you’re working at creating this goodwill, and then there will be snags along the way. And I think that comes through to a court and courts, I’m sure, like that, to see attorneys getting along, respecting each other, but fighting hard about the issues.

John Simon:

Judges notice that. You don’t need to be hostile. I will admit some of my opponents make that a lot harder than others. A handful do come to mind over the years. And even with those, we’ve managed to get along enough to get through the case. Think of the times you’ve been in front of a judge and you’re being respectful, you’re waiting for the other person to finish speaking, and they’re all on the attack. And I think judges, looks like anybody else, respond to people who are polite, a little more friendly, straightforward. So it can be a competitive advantage also. So one of the other things I think that helps a lot is stay curious about things. Curiosity prevents cynicism. Keep learning. Every day we’re learning. You’ve been doing this a little bit longer than me and I’ve been doing it a real long time. Every case is different.

Every client is different. No case is exactly like the other one. And I’m always learning about stuff. Depending on the subject matter or the case. And now, especially with all of the information available online, there’s a tremendous amount of information and background with witnesses. When we’re getting ready to take a deposition, this is a profession where you can’t stand still. You got to keep learning and progressing and getting better.

Erich Vieth:

I’m in a solo practice. And so tech is a very interesting thing to me. And I’m always looking for the new way to get better, faster, so that I can focus on what I’d rather be doing. If you can do the work of a paralegal or a secretary, and I can do it in my own office, and I have no employees other than me. So I’m wanting to learn about those things. I think I spend about three or four hours a week making sure that I’m up and do I have my systems configured and are backups working? How can AI help me more? I agree with you 100% that we need to keep getting better and it’s for our benefit. Are you familiar? I’ve heard of the book called Atomic Habits by James Cliff. I have. I’ve heard of it. I’ve not read it. So he’s got an introduction where he talks about if you improve doing whatever you want to do, if you improve 1% each day for a year, and then you assume that compounds, you’re just working at something a little bit.

You get 1% better each day. At the end of the year, you’re 37 times better because it’s compounding. The dark side, the backside is if you get 1% worse at something each day, then you’ll be at zero. You’ll be at zero.That’s an interesting thing to think about. If you can work at something … We have obviously COEs and you go to those and you can learn a particular skill, but there’s a lot of other things. Like you said, YouTube. There’s all kinds of sources of information. You can go to trials, you can watch other attorneys do what they do. You can talk to other attorneys about their strategies. Keep getting better.

John Simon:

Keep getting better. Erich, when I was a very young lawyer, I think I had been out two years. I was fortunate enough to go to this week-long seminar. It was out of town and it was interactive trial practice where you put on witnesses and got to do closing arguments. And there were older lawyers who were running it. And the first thing they did is they lined us all up. It was a small group and said, “Hey, look, we want to know what your trial experience was. ” And I think at that time I had second chair of two trials. I really didn’t have any trial experience. And one of the lawyers there literally had had 50 or 60 trials and was in this group. And that lawyer who had this crazy amount of experience had the hardest time in this workshop because he wasn’t able to change and adapt.

He had already locked in, as you were saying, with whatever habits he had, and apparently some of them weren’t very good. And me, it was like I came in with a fresh late. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know anything bad. I didn’t know anything good. So you can’t just get stuck in the rut. You got to keep looking and watch other lawyers, see what other lawyers do. Your opponent in the case. If you’re defending a deposition and there’s a good lawyer on the other side, listen to it, figure out, write stuff down. Why was he or she very effective? I used to do that as a young lawyer where I’d go up to the courthouse. In those days, we actually went to the courthouse to file stuff, believe it or not. We’d file stuff or argue a motion. And all the time, I would go to a courtroom where there was a case going on and I would sit there for, and this is when I was supposed to be billing by the hour, I was at a defense firm, and I would sit in a courtroom for an hour or two watching the attorneys.

And I would leave, walk back to the office, and in my head I would be thinking, “Wow, that lawyer wasn’t so good. That other one was terrific.” And I didn’t know why, but I knew there was this gigantic difference between the skill level and it’s learned. I mean, it’s not something you roll out of bed and you’re able to do it. So keep learning, keep getting better. The best way to do that is you can read books. There’s some good advice in a lot of the books that are out there, but there’s no substitute for watching and most importantly doing it yourself.

Erich Vieth:

So that wasn’t obvious when I was a young attorney. Of course, the cases I handled back then are very simple. They were slip and falls and auto crashes. But I think that’s a system that I’ve developed over the years. And I’m glad I did it. And I think it falls well within your category of stay curious and keep learning. One more thing I would offer about keep learning. I know you teach at St. Louis University at law school, and so do I. It’s a great way to learn and to refresh your mind about techniques. There’s nothing like a student asking you how to do something and now you’re explaining it and you’re thinking-

John Simon:

Preparing the handouts and it kind of refreshes. It’s a refresher every class.

Erich Vieth:

And you’re thinking 30 years ago, I might not have known as much as I’m now hearing out of my own mouth. And you don’t know that you know it, but it’s good to periodically revisit those things and

John Simon:

Present it. It’s funny. Peter Dunn and I have taught the same class for about 15 years and we’re always amazed because we use the same one or two trial problems, the trial booklet with the facts of the case in it. And we have a final trial with our students and I think it’s broken into two groups or two groups with two trials. And we’re always amazed because there’s always something new that somebody did or somebody tried or a different approach or a different argument. And so it just shows you the different … There’s multiple, dozens of different ways to get to the same spot, to prove the same point. So one of the things too, and we’re talking about thriving and surviving. And one of the things that I don’t know if it’s a thrive or if it’s a survive, maybe a little bit of both, but don’t take yourself too seriously.

And by that, I mean, you’re going to make mistakes. Everything I’ve learned in this profession, I’ve learned from two sources primarily. Watching other good lawyers do it and doing it myself and screwing it up. And so you’re going to make mistakes. They are inevitable, own them quickly, recognize it was a mistake and move on. Humility reduces stress. And the other thing too, that’s exactly what you need to be doing, not just in life in general, but in front of anybody, in front of a judge, in front of a jury. The jury wants credibility, not perfection. And the wonderful thing, look, I don’t even need to tell you that. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Humility. This is a profession that does that for you. You can be the cockiest person in the world with the biggest ego and you’re going to get whacked one of these days.

I had last year, I had two literally record verdicts in a period of 24 months. I had the two probably biggest verdicts I’ve had and I’ve had the biggest loss, the same 12 months. So again, as my former partner Paul said, “Don’t get too high on the highs, don’t get too low on the

Erich Vieth:

Lows.” They’re always auditioning.

So that’s another way to be humble is the thing. You might not remember what they said, but you remember how you felt about it. Yeah.

How they

John Simon:

Made you feel.

Erich Vieth:

Yeah. How

John Simon:

They made you feel.

Erich Vieth:

And so being humble is … There’s a lot of things I do think about that humanize … Remember to humanize everybody else in the room. And if somebody’s not having a good day, let’s say they’re looking not fun to be with, you don’t know what they’ve been going through for the last month or year. Yeah.

John Simon:

And I’ll tell you something else too, is whenever I’m taking a deposition in a case, like it’s one of the first one or two depositions where you’re getting to know your opponent a little bit, or even with a witness, especially a lot of times when my opponent is kind of a little rough and not as professional, it doesn’t bother me. It actually kind of makes me happy because I know if that’s what they’re doing and they’re going to be acting like that in front of the judge of the jury, it’s not going to do well for them. Same with a witness. If I take a witness’s deposition and they are just really genuinely nice and honest and truthful, and they’re on the other side, I’m thinking, damn, I am in trouble with this witness because I like them. If I’m taking the other side’s witness and I like them, it’s trouble.

Erich Vieth:

There’s another way to remind myself of that is that I didn’t get here on my own and I get to practice law, lots of interesting things every day. There’s a lot of professions that don’t give you that joy and enthusiasm and intellectual engagement. I am lucky as hell and it’s not because of me. I mean, yeah, I’m part of it, but there’s a whole lot that went into it that I couldn’t have been here without all that.

John Simon:

So one of the things we’re talking about, keep laughing and most importantly, most importantly, be able to laugh at yourself. And things are going to happen that are … You’re going to screw some things up. I can’t tell you, probably I should write all these down altogether. I’ve had so many things happen to me in a case or at trial where it was … I’ve screwed up, but it was funny and I could go and beat myself about it, which I probably did at the time as a young lawyer. I was one of them. I think I said this before on this podcast, it was a small little case. It was a broken arm or hand case and it was in St. Louis County and I was a new lawyer, an elderly guy, a little bit older than I am now. And everybody in my office, everybody in my office said, “Don’t take that case.” He’s okay.

He had his arm in a cast, that was it. And I filed a product liability case and every lawyer I talked to in my office who was way more experienced said, “What in the hell are you doing?” And so I made a demand. That was the demand I made. And I think I made a $15,000 demand. That’s how big of a case it was. And the attorney on the other side, who was a very experienced member of the defense bar, I get my own letter back with a big red pin, my own demand letter and it said no pay on it. Well, that’s all I needed because damn it, I was going to try that case. And so I did and I did it without an expert and I went to trial on it and I called the … It involved a little scooter. It was a scooter for elderly people to get around and it tipped over.

And so anyway, the whole trial took a day and a half. And my star witness was the salesperson at the place that sold this to my client. And I had him on the stand and was getting these great admissions from him. And my client who was sitting next to me was in a wheelchair and the injury didn’t cause him being in the wheelchair. And so I walked back after this stellar kick ass cross examination of this poor salesperson, and I’m walking back to the counsel table and loud enough for everybody in the courtroom to hear my client turns to me and says, “Now, John, if we lose this damn thing, I don’t owe you any money, right?” So anyway, that was funny. I wasn’t laughing at the time, but everybody else in the room was laughing. And as it turns out, I did get a verdict.

I got a $3,500 verdict in that case. And I went back to the office and everybody said, “See, I told you you should not have filed that case.” So again, it was hard for me to laugh at myself then, but another thing that comes to mind is embarrassing, but it’s also funny, you know George Fitzsimmons, and George has been my mentor for years, about 20 years older than me. He’s of counsel here at the firm. And when I first started doing plaintiff’s work in trying cases, George was my mentor. He was down the hall. I’d come in on a Wednesday and I’d have a file on my desk with a Post-it that would say Monday, division three, and that’s I’d go up and try the case. George asked me to take this deposition. And now keep in mind, he was my new boss. I’d only been working for him for about six months.

And it was a cab driver who drove through a stop sign, got broadsided, and it was a terrible case. A woman in the backseat was killed in this accident, and I was taking the cab driver’s deposition. And I thought, wow, that’s really wonderful to George having that much trust and confidence in me to take this deposition, taking the defendant driver’s deposition in this wrongful death case. And I prepared for two days and I took a deposition. It was probably 10 times longer than it needed to be. I knew everything about the man’s history and who his parents were and where he grew up and where he went to high school and where he went to eat for lunch and everything you can imagine. Well, the long and the short of it was there was one thing I didn’t ask him. I didn’t ask the right question and he was blind in his left eye and he was broadsided left.

And that didn’t come out until much later. Fortunately, it didn’t come out at trial. The case ended up getting settled, but the personal attorney for the driver conveyed that information to my boss, George. And George came in and talked to me about it and talked about feeling like shit. I’m like, “What the hell?” And I read that deposition again and I asked, “Do you have prescriptions? Do you wear glasses? Have you gotten your eyes to … ” All these questions other than-

Erich Vieth:

You’re so close.

John Simon:

“Are you blind?” I was dancing all around the question. So again, don’t take yourself too seriously. Learn to laugh at your mistakes. If you’re not laughing at them, you’re going to be crying about them. We’re not perfect. That’s how we learn everybody. There’s not one attorney anywhere. I don’t care who they are that hasn’t made tons of mistakes, that’s part of the process. That’s how we learn. So keep laughing. And the next tip that we have is have fun. Enjoy the intellectual part of the work, satisfaction in doing a good job, engage in the craft, not just the conflict. If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, I got news for you. You’re not going to be around long. If I’m doing something that I think is valuable and satisfying and I’m enjoying doing it, I don’t have any problem working as long as I need to work to get it done.

If I’m doing something that I don’t believe in, something that seems like mind numbing and not important, no, I don’t want to sit in the office 10 hours, 15 hours a day to do that.

Erich Vieth:

I think we obviously need to love doing what we’re doing or else there’s a misalignment and that’s not good. That’s not good for your soul or your body. I mean, whatever you’re doing, ideally you will love doing it. And if you’re in a situation where you’re not liking what you’re doing in the long run, it seems like you ought to change what you’re doing, do something a little different or do it in a different way. And if you find yourself phoning it in on a day-to-day basis, that’s not a good sign. So yeah, in a general way, you should love what you’re doing, but everything I’ve ever done has involved some drudgery, everything. Sometimes you got to write a motion or whatever. My wife has this saying, “Whatever you do, you should do with a happy heart.” And that reminded me of Alan Watts. You gave me a book by Alan Watts.

He talks about the importance of the moment, the moment that’s in front of you. It’s a Zen proverb and it’s called Before Enlightenment, what you do is you chop wood and you carry water. After enlightenment, what you do is you chop wood and you carry water. The tasks never change, but what changes is you, your attitude and your presence. Mundane life keeps happening, but with mindfulness, it stops feeling like drudgery, and it starts feeling like the very point of being alive. And I think that helps me to reframe when it’s these moments where you go, “I’m tired, I’m hungry, I want to do something else, whatever.” If you reframe and like, “I want to do really good. Whatever I’m doing, I want to do

It

John Simon:

Well.” Erich, in talking about living in the moment, it’s a good ending point for our podcast. What I’d like to do is read, and we’ve talked about Jim Holleran, what a great guy and a great inspiration and example for a lot of us. And I just want to read the part of the presentation that he gave me, and part of his presentation, and the name of it was Five Secrets for Surviving 30 Years of Law Practice with your sanity and a sense of humor. And one of the things he talked about was trying to live out each day to the fullest, similar to what you’re talking about. And he says, “You know who can teach you the most about living each day to the fullest, your family dog. Here’s what you can learn from your dog. Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joy ride.

Allow the experience of fresh air and wind in your face to be pure ecstasy. When your loved one comes home, run to greet them. Take naps and exercise regularly, run, romp, and play daily, eat and drink with gusto. Be loyal. Never pretend to be something you are not. When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close and nuzzle them gently. Thrive on attention and let people touch you. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do. On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree. No matter how often you’re scolded, don’t sink into guilt and pout, run back and make friends. Delight in the simple joy of a long walk and when all else fails, beg. So I just think that is terrific advice for all of us, not just practicing law, but general advice for how we live each day.

Erich Vieth:

Be your inner dog.

John Simon:

Be your inner dog. As we started out in the beginning, don’t take it too seriously. Don’t get too high with the highs and don’t get too low with the lows.

Erich Vieth:

All right. Well, that’s been another episode of The Jury is

Out. I’m Erich Vieth. 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