EP 714 – Fines, Fees, and Civil Rights Part 2

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer [00:00:02 – 00:00:18]

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.

Erich Vieth [00:00:20 – 00:00:24]

Welcome to another episode of the Jury Is Out. I’m Erich Veith.

John Simon [00:00:24 – 00:00:25]

I’m John Simon.

Erich Vieth [00:00:25 – 00:00:27]

We’re back with Brendan Roediger. Welcome back.

Brendan Roediger [00:00:27 – 00:00:28]

Thank you.

Erich Vieth [00:00:28 – 00:00:33]

Happy to be here in the civil practice case. We’re dealing with a simulated case.

Brendan Roediger [00:00:33 – 00:00:34]

Yeah.

Erich Vieth [00:00:34 – 00:00:52]

John, we’ve mentioned credibility like 80,000 times in this podcast, but you want to get that right and well and always and never mess that up and be able to say you don’t know and you don’t know, but hopefully you don’t say you don’t know much. Hopefully you can be prepared and lead these people to a path that might affect them for the rest of their lives.

Brendan Roediger [00:00:53 – 00:01:40]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For civil practice in particular. And so civil practice is a class where we take a fake case from client intake to the eve of trial in a semester. And there’s a large lecture group and then small sort of labs in which the students get to do depositions and do written discovery and do all of these things. And what I love about it is I came from an incredibly privileged background, but not a background with lawyers. And so when I came to law school, I felt completely overmatched initially. And then you start hearing this, we’re going to teach you how to think like a lawyer. And so now I’m thinking, not only are these people smarter than me, but they have a different way of thinking that I don’t even have access to.

Brendan Roediger [00:01:40 – 00:02:08]

And everything is mysterious. And so even when I would do well early in law school, I wasn’t sure why I’d done well. And when I did poorly, I wasn’t sure why I did poorly. And I still think that for more than half of our students, that’s the experience. Now, some of our students have parents who are lawyers, and they have a little bit of an advantage. But civil practice is the class where the light bulbs go off and they go, oh, that isn’t magic. You just didn’t explain it well. Right.

Brendan Roediger [00:02:08 – 00:02:18]

I unders. I’m smart enough for this. And you’ve seen that. You’ve seen that every semester where the student time. The student who thought they couldn’t do it went, that’s all that is.

Erich Vieth [00:02:18 – 00:03:18]

And it’s a class where all these disparate things that they’re learning in every other class Maybe the rules of procedure, the rules of evidence, the ethics rules, probably about 10 or 10 other things that there’s a moment where you very cleverly put something in the facts of the case. Like a witness will ask the attorney who’s interviewing the witness, hey, can you handle my divorce case too? And you’re watching it sail over. Very realistic. Some of them go, I don’t like this. I don’t know what to say about it, but I don’t like it. And others will just freeze. And others will look at me like, what am I supposed to do? And then that’s the moment where you can talk abstract all you want in a classroom, but that moment is an illustration of these principles, right?

Brendan Roediger [00:03:18 – 00:03:22]

Or the client, the client who says, would it help you if I said X?

John Simon [00:03:22 – 00:03:23]

Yes.

Erich Vieth [00:03:23 – 00:03:23]

Yeah.

Brendan Roediger [00:03:23 – 00:03:25]

And the student goes, oh, boy.

Erich Vieth [00:03:27 – 00:03:46]

So it sticks. I think that’s how we learn best is we have the fact that, you know, here’s what’s happening right now. And then those abstract principles and you figure out, okay, how do they apply here? And all of a sudden, bang. And you’re right, it’s that epiphany. And half the kids will go, oh, I get it now. I get why that rule is even there.

John Simon [00:03:47 – 00:04:42]

It’s so important to go complete the process from beginning to end, so. Because when you’re going through it, you don’t know what the end looks like, you don’t know why you’re doing it. A lot of the stuff, even when we practice, like taking a deposition or you know, whatever, whatever you’re doing, unless you’ve gone to trial and see how you can use it or it’s used against you, you know, you don’t know how to take a deposition. You know, it’s like I remember one of the first trials I had as a brand new lawyer and I had a deposition of. It was an auto case and it was clear liability and I really didn’t pin the defendant down on anything, right? Because it’s clear. I met the guy, he was a nice guy, right? And I went in, was like, okay, great. And then, you know, fast forward about 18 months and I’m in trial and I hear his direct from the other lawyer. And I’m looking at my file, I’m thinking, this is the wrong accident, you know, And I wasn’t able to really cross examine with anything because I didn’t pin them down on anything, you know.

John Simon [00:04:42 – 00:05:01]

And so, well, the next time I was like, okay, you know this. And you were in the car, you actually have a license and you were driving and heading in that direction. But it is. You have to. You have to go through the process. But it’s so cool, like throwing some of those. Those curves in there about, you know, would it be better if I said this? That is just phenomenal.

Erich Vieth [00:05:01 – 00:05:21]

There’s a case where there’s, I guess about seven cases or so that we rotate through them. And one of them’s about a drag race accident. And so this. This happens every time. Someone will ask a witness, what was that finish line? Well marked? Yeah, it was. And then they just go on, okay, good. It’s well marked.

John Simon [00:05:21 – 00:05:23]

We got that in. And.

Erich Vieth [00:05:23 – 00:05:28]

And then at the end of that, I, you know, I start saying, okay, we need to. Let’s go more into that.

Brendan Roediger [00:05:29 – 00:05:29]

What’s that marking?

Erich Vieth [00:05:29 – 00:05:31]

What’s the hungry question?

John Simon [00:05:31 – 00:05:34]

You gotta ask it, then re. Ask it, then confirm it, and then

Brendan Roediger [00:05:34 – 00:05:35]

confirm what you confirmed.

Erich Vieth [00:05:35 – 00:05:37]

And what do you mean, one more.

Brendan Roediger [00:05:38 – 00:05:57]

But that class, the other cool thing about that class is that is the class where people will come up to me after the class is finished and say, that’s my first day or my first A minus. And I like that, right, because it’s a different set of skills and it’s empowering to those students. It’s like, okay, there’s another side. There’s another side that I might be good at.

Erich Vieth [00:05:58 – 00:06:22]

It’s great to watch the quiet ones grow and confidence. They might not get louder, but they get confident. And, you know, every. Every. Every semester, I spend the first class talking about all kinds of things that don’t seem necessarily about law. But I said, you got to get the monkey mind out of, you know, you got to just put that out and do your job. And you got to do it with your personality, what you bring to the table. You can’t try to be someone else.

Brendan Roediger [00:06:22 – 00:06:42]

We both are, so we focus on that. So I start the class by saying, you know, a lot of you are going to think to yourselves, what would a lawyer do in this situation? And some of you are going to think, what would a specific lawyer. What would John Simon do? What would Travis Noble do? What would, you know, somebody do?

Erich Vieth [00:06:42 – 00:06:42]

It’s not.

Brendan Roediger [00:06:42 – 00:06:44]

It’s not going to work.

John Simon [00:06:44 – 00:06:44]

Right.

Brendan Roediger [00:06:44 – 00:06:53]

You got to figure out who you are as a lawyer. You just have to. You have to. It’s not going to work. I’ve watched people pretend to be Travis Noble. It’s terrible.

Erich Vieth [00:06:55 – 00:06:55]

Peter.

John Simon [00:06:55 – 00:07:00]

Peter Dunn and I try the class. Yeah, we. It’s all about being the best version of yourself.

Brendan Roediger [00:07:00 – 00:07:01]

Yes.

John Simon [00:07:01 – 00:07:08]

You know, everybody does it different. You know, I. I Know lawyers who are quiet, quiet, mild mannered and they’re so effective it’s insane.

Brendan Roediger [00:07:09 – 00:07:10]

Everybody leans forward when they talk.

John Simon [00:07:11 – 00:07:37]

But I, I, I had a similar experience a couple years ago when I ran into a former student. I taught him like 15 years earlier. And he came up to me and, and said, you taught me. And I said, yeah, yeah. And, and I said, how’d you do in the class? He goes, it was my only A in law school. And, and he told me, he said, your class was the first time I thought that I could be good at this. And man, my heart just sunk. I was like, wow.

John Simon [00:07:37 – 00:08:02]

Because you’re right, it’s a different skill set. It’s a completely, you know, you get up, you got to have a certain level of smarts, you know, you got to be able to research and, you know. Right. That’s not everything. I mean that there’s a whole different set of skill sets. Dealing with people, reading people, getting along with people, you know, being able to communicate, I mean, that’s the biggest thing, you know, being able to communicate, to persuade, to convey information to another person.

Erich Vieth [00:08:03 – 00:08:03]

Sincerity.

John Simon [00:08:04 – 00:08:06]

Yeah, authenticity. Sincerity.

Erich Vieth [00:08:06 – 00:08:37]

When I came out of law school, I was much different than I am now. And I was really soft spoken. I was a technician, you know, I knew the law, I could write a brief. But I was losing motions. I came to the conclusion I’m losing things, that I should win. And a lot of the people on the other side were coming in loud and on the plaintiff’s side on a motion to compel. Your Honor, my client was dismembered. And I’m thinking, what’s that have to do with this motion to compel? And they were setting it up and it had confidence and panache.

Erich Vieth [00:08:37 – 00:09:04]

And I’m thinking, I gotta, I’m not doing anything wrong. But I think I need to act like it’s important. I think there’s an acting and there’s something about presenting your client’s case as important. And you got to go in ready to be serious. And this matters. It’s not me going through the motions. And this is an academic thing where A plus B equals C. You got to mean it.

John Simon [00:09:04 – 00:09:19]

Yeah. Two plus two doesn’t equal four in the courtroom. Not necessarily. It could be six, could be eight or it could be two. The other thing, the whole other side is knowing your judge. That’s a big deal. I mean, you can’t. Certain judges want to hear something and others don’t want to hear it.

John Simon [00:09:19 – 00:09:20]

And you know, knowing that helps a lot.

Brendan Roediger [00:09:20 – 00:09:38]

And some will let you do the same thing. I was, I was with a lawyer trying a case in a county Nearby that’s not St. Louis City or St. Louis County. The lawyer did a thing, got yelled at. This is my co counsel and he does the thing again and gets yelled at the exact same. There’s no escalation. He did it about 25 times and there was no escalation.

Brendan Roediger [00:09:38 – 00:09:44]

And I said, oh, so you can do that. But you got to know the judge to know that.

John Simon [00:09:44 – 00:09:45]

Yeah.

Erich Vieth [00:09:45 – 00:10:17]

One more thing about the students. I think there’s a lot of them that do feel out of place. They don’t know how am I doing? They’re really wondering, how am I doing? And I don’t think the grade is enough on an assignment. It doesn’t tell you a whole lot. So what I try to do through the course is someone’s struggling out of the classroom. There’s only eight people in the class. How you doing? You know what’s happening. And I thought you did a great job of when you cross examine this or a couple weeks ago, just something to give them a little more confidence.

Erich Vieth [00:10:17 – 00:10:47]

Because I remember how I felt back then, which like, oh, I did the thing and I got a grade, but I don’t know if I have confidence about what I’m going to do next time or could I get better. And there’s only so much time in this course. It’s a great course. I wish I had it when I was in law school. There wasn’t such a thing. But that said, if you only have 12 meetings of the small group, it goes way fast. It’s two, it’s two hours per course. So it’s, you know, 12 times two.

Erich Vieth [00:10:47 – 00:10:58]

And there’s eight people in the course. So you only have so many minutes where you get your own reps. But it’s a whole lot better than nothing. A whole lot. And you get to watch the other people do, you know, trying to work

John Simon [00:10:58 – 00:10:59]

through the issues too.

Erich Vieth [00:10:59 – 00:11:22]

But I think it’s a fantastic course and I’m, you know, I’m honored to be part of this. I think I. When I said I’ve known you for about seven years, I referred to when you took over for John Ammon, maybe on that class. Yeah, on that class. It’s a wonderful thing to do to be with the students and see them grow in confidence. They change, you know, from, from week one to week 12. It’s a big difference in a lot of them.

Brendan Roediger [00:11:23 – 00:11:29]

And Erich and I are now alternating the large group part, which I had done for a lot of years. Which means that for the first time, the lecture notes actually got better.

John Simon [00:11:30 – 00:11:33]

So that’s good. Yeah.

Erich Vieth [00:11:33 – 00:11:35]

I looked at yours and I thought,

Brendan Roediger [00:11:35 – 00:11:37]

oh, you improved them. I used everything you wrote.

Erich Vieth [00:11:37 – 00:11:54]

Well, it’s fun to talk to 30 people and then, you know, you don’t know what’s going on in 30 brains. At the same time, you’re just hoping it’s working. And I know you do. Something that’s. I try to emulate is you. You ask questions right in the middle of it. Normally wait for a volunteer though. Right.

Erich Vieth [00:11:54 – 00:11:57]

You don’t pick on someone and say you.

Brendan Roediger [00:11:57 – 00:11:58]

I give them a chance, but then I point.

Erich Vieth [00:11:58 – 00:12:00]

Yeah, yeah, you’ve got to keep it. You know, I just.

Brendan Roediger [00:12:00 – 00:12:01]

I like rhythm.

John Simon [00:12:01 – 00:12:01]

Interesting.

Brendan Roediger [00:12:01 – 00:12:02]

I like rhythm.

Erich Vieth [00:12:02 – 00:12:07]

If it brings it back to law school where you’re thinking, can I just hide in a corner here and something Let the thing.

Brendan Roediger [00:12:07 – 00:12:08]

Yeah. Go.

Erich Vieth [00:12:08 – 00:12:17]

Or not. Could you give an overview of the things that they learn in the class? You know, what, what, what are the basic lessons through the semester in civil practice.

Brendan Roediger [00:12:18 – 00:12:48]

Yeah. So it’s, it’s, you know, I guess it’s not everything, if we’re being honest, but it starts with client first, client meeting. What all is a part of that client meeting? You know, what’s your spiel on confidentiality? How do you explain that to a client? How do you explain a fee structure to a client? Or are you meeting with them for free the first time? All that sort of stuff we go through. After that we do investigation. So pre suit investigation, demand letters. After that we do witness interviews. So we’re talking about online research, we’re

John Simon [00:12:48 – 00:12:51]

talking about students, witnesses for each other.

Brendan Roediger [00:12:51 – 00:12:58]

And so they’re getting, by email, they’re getting a script with a very nasty email that says, you bet. Memorize this script or else. It screws everything up.

Erich Vieth [00:12:58 – 00:12:58]

Yeah.

Brendan Roediger [00:12:58 – 00:13:27]

And so we go from the witness interviews to petitions, responsive pleadings, motions to dismiss, answers, etc. Then written discovery, request to admit, interrogatories and production. Then depositions. They get a little file from their paralegal to answer the written discovery. They get some exhibits for their depositions. They do three depots. And then an expert.

John Simon [00:13:27 – 00:13:29]

Is there a court reporter? Is it recording?

Brendan Roediger [00:13:29 – 00:13:34]

No, no. We should. And I’ve been talking to a couple of court reporters who are willing to do it. And I know you do that, right.

John Simon [00:13:34 – 00:13:35]

For our class.

Brendan Roediger [00:13:35 – 00:13:37]

It’s a good idea. Yeah, it’s a very good idea.

John Simon [00:13:37 – 00:13:44]

Because when they get it, you should see their faces when they get it. They’re like going through it. I actually said that and, yeah. Seeing your words in writing for the first.

Brendan Roediger [00:13:44 – 00:13:47]

You know, I let them critique a transcript of mine.

John Simon [00:13:47 – 00:13:48]

Yeah.

Brendan Roediger [00:13:48 – 00:14:02]

Which they have a lot of fun doing. And then we go from depositions to summary judgment, settlement stuff, negotiations, mediation.

John Simon [00:14:02 – 00:14:05]

Yeah. When I started, I didn’t know any of that. Like, zero. Nothing.

John Simon [00:14:06 – 00:14:06]

Yeah.

John Simon [00:14:06 – 00:14:11]

I hadn’t even clerked for a law firm. I worked for an accounting firm through law school. So I showed up like, what’s an interrogatory?

Brendan Roediger [00:14:12 – 00:14:37]

Yeah. And my problem, I not only knew nothing, but I was also afraid to let people know that. So I got myself into trouble because I would go work for. You know, I remember I worked for the great appellate lawyer Michael Gross when I was in law school, and I just hid from him. And he was exactly the sort of person that I should have said, I don’t understand any of this. Can you explain it to me? But I tried to fool him. Now he wasn’t foolable, thank God.

Erich Vieth [00:14:38 – 00:15:03]

So no podcast is complete until we at least mention AI. And I gave a presentation last night for MJ Voss’s class on AI. I’ve given about three of these at St. Louis University. And every time it changes, it’s just changing so fast right now. And I’m setting this up for you to take over. But I said, I love it. I use it.

Erich Vieth [00:15:03 – 00:15:29]

It’s like hiring a brilliant young attorney who is often brilliant and sometimes completely misses out and doesn’t know what he’s doing or she’s doing. I use Claude, the higher version of the $100 a month Claude. I use West, AI co counsel. I use the Deep Search. West has some amazing tools that aren’t called AI, but they’re just getting better and better. I use Grok, and I just. I bounce things around. I use it as a sparring partner.

Erich Vieth [00:15:29 – 00:15:55]

Like, just trying to get my ideas clear. But you gotta be in charge. And my. Here’s where I want you to comment. Please don’t use it for your assignments to make it your own. And I’m worried it’s going to ruin legal education because people are going to find, oh, I can just get through the assignment by just asking an AI to do it for me. And it’s harder and harder to detect who’s doing it. I see papers coming in.

Erich Vieth [00:15:55 – 00:16:01]

Where I go, that’s too perfect. It looks like AI. I don’t know what to do with it. Do I give them a good grade or a bad grade?

Brendan Roediger [00:16:02 – 00:16:39]

It all happened so quickly because, you know, about a year ago, if you would ask me, I would have Said, you know, I’m thinking about changing things, but right now it’s doing C plus work. And you know, if, if some kid wants a C, all right, fine, right. If you want to, if that’s the game that you want to play, you’re robbing yourself of an opportunity. But it just got better so quickly. Protege, the Lexus model got better quickly and then co counsel got even better. And Claude, of course, you know, it’s just, it’s what every lawyer is using around the country. And every day somebody invents some new model. And there are, there are ethical concerns.

Brendan Roediger [00:16:39 – 00:17:14]

I mean, you guys know this better than I do, but there are ethical concerns with using it. But there are also increasingly eth. Concerns with not using it. If it can effectively do a 14 hour job in an hour and a half better than I can. There’s an argument to be made that I need to be, that I need to be doing that. I think the answer in civil practice, and you’re exactly right that civil practice is sort of where it, it hit, is hitting, is that, you know, it’s always been the case that my students were stealing other people’s interrogatories and stealing other people’s requests to produce. And that’s the practice of law.

Erich Vieth [00:17:14 – 00:17:22]

We did that with photocopies back 40 years ago. We had collections of folders where we, you know, copied other people’s stuff.

Brendan Roediger [00:17:22 – 00:17:53]

Isn’t new. Every workplace I’ve ever been to has a little folder where we steal. Now, a part of what I try to do, and I know you try to do, is say, if that’s all we do, things never get better. If we don’t know why a thing is done the way that it’s done and really know why. Not just it was in the, the Brian Cave form folder. But this is why then things never improve. And the truth is that the law is in some ways improving. Right? Like legal writing is improving.

Erich Vieth [00:17:54 – 00:17:54]

Right.

Brendan Roediger [00:17:54 – 00:18:25]

Comes now is going away and we’re getting short sentences that move and you know, rip thing. No, it’s great. Things are, things are moving in some ways in positive direction. So I want my students to know enough about why we do things that they can decide it’s wrong and innovate. That hasn’t changed. That doesn’t change with AI but you’re exactly right. From a grading perspective, I think we’re going to have to start changing the assignments. I mean, I think the assignments are going to have to be okay, like you’re using A.I.

Brendan Roediger [00:18:25 – 00:18:54]

show me what A.I. produced, right? And then you’re redlining it. And for every redlining, for every red line, you’re writing me a memo about why you redlined it the way that you redlined it, and what research you did that led you to make that decision. And you’re just going to have to be like teaching math in college, where you’re grading them, showing their work. If you’re in, if you’re in calculus in college and you have the right answer, your teacher doesn’t care. They want to see the whole thing.

Erich Vieth [00:18:54 – 00:19:03]

I’m tempted to do an exit interview at the end of the. For the final assignment. You come in and you talk to me for a half an hour. Here’s your, here’s your case. Let’s talk about the case.

Brendan Roediger [00:19:04 – 00:19:04]

You’re right there.

Erich Vieth [00:19:04 – 00:19:08]

And you tell me, I would have used AI to do this, and I have to make sure it does this.

Brendan Roediger [00:19:08 – 00:19:10]

Yeah, that works too.

Erich Vieth [00:19:10 – 00:19:13]

And I would love to try something like that. I don’t know if it’s in.

Brendan Roediger [00:19:13 – 00:19:14]

The colleges are back to blue books.

John Simon [00:19:14 – 00:19:15]

Do you believe that?

Erich Vieth [00:19:15 – 00:19:16]

But then you want them to use

Brendan Roediger [00:19:16 – 00:19:19]

AI you know they’re doing blue books.

John Simon [00:19:19 – 00:20:02]

We just had a meeting yesterday and I told the attorneys, if you’re not using it, you need to, you need to be using it because you miss so much. You can do so much more with it. You know, especially we’re under time constraints. When we don’t do things for a trial, it’s because we’re under time constraints. There’s so much to do at the end. And I’ve been using it like, extensively. But you’re right, I look at things and I’ll get something, mostly ideas, thoughts, methods, like issues. And when I put in, for instance, an opening for a case or a cross examination of a witness, sometimes I’ll look at it and go, damn, really, really good.

John Simon [00:20:03 – 00:20:25]

Other times I’ll go, what are they talking? Or it’s just not me, right? You know, it’s not me saying. I can’t see myself saying that. That’s not me. Those words aren’t mine. If you’re practicing law, doing trial work and not using A.I. you won’t be practicing law in two years. You just, you won’t be. Because it’s just, it’s a tremendous, tremendous advantage and asset.

John Simon [00:20:26 – 00:20:51]

The recent case that we tried, we had 14,000 pages of documents that they produced two days before trial started. And we were able to prepare a summary of that, picking it apart in 20 different ways and having our expert take the stand and say, this is what I found in here. This is what I found in here. He reviewed it, but it helped us pull out things that he could look at which we would never have been able to do.

Brendan Roediger [00:20:52 – 00:21:08]

What I’ll say is I’ve always lived right on the ethical line in terms of whether I have the resources to do the types of cases that I do. Because the clinic is not. This is not a critique of Saint Louis University. There is no clinic that is willing to put in the sort of money that some law firms put into indication.

John Simon [00:21:08 – 00:21:09]

Sure, right.

Brendan Roediger [00:21:09 – 00:21:47]

And so I have to say to clients, I do the very best that I can, but there are limits. I can’t have eight experts. I can’t do certain things. So it used to be terrifying to me to get to 2 terabytes of discovery, to get 3,000 jail phone calls, because what it meant was that late at night I would be listening at three times speed, just sort of desperately trying to make sure I would never do a good job, but I would do sort of enough to know that there wasn’t something really important, but it wasn’t good enough. And now I can have a transcript of those 3,000 phone calls in a day. That’s crazy.

John Simon [00:21:47 – 00:22:22]

And like you said, I mean, like, I have dozens, a dozen cases on it, and I can jump from one to the next. And yeah, we’re about processing information. That’s what we do. We take massive amounts of information and we funnel it into certain categories that fit into theory of law and then try to present it in a persuasive, effective way. Right. That’s what AI does better than anything, is to process information, to organize it, categorize it. And now it’s even to the point where it’s not just, you know, compiling it. It’s really, really good at helping you present it in a persuasive way.

John Simon [00:22:22 – 00:22:53]

You know, the thing that you said was, I can look at something in writing and I can read an opening argument, opening statement or closing argument, or cross examination, and I can look at it. So. And I know why it’s effective. You know, I remember when I first started practicing, I would go up to court all the time and watch when I go up. We used to file motions by hand in those days. And I’d go up there and I’d find a courtroom and watch. And I would sit there for hours and I would watch the lawyers in a case if it was interesting. And I remember coming away with, this lawyer is not so good.

John Simon [00:22:54 – 00:23:35]

This one’s really, really good. And I had no idea why. I had no idea why. And it took a long time working with good lawyers and watching the good ones and talking to them to figure out what works and why it works and why it doesn’t work. And I think the thing that, that, that the younger folks are going to miss out on is, you know, if you don’t know why it’s effective. You know, there are things I get from AI that are technically perfect, but they’re not going to fit with the jury that I have or the judge that I have, or, you know, it’s just not the case for it. I’m not in the right venue. Where does that stuff come in? Right.

John Simon [00:23:35 – 00:24:20]

Being able to cross examine a witness with an outline from AI you know, if you’re not effectively, if you don’t know how to connect with that witness or handle that witness from, from an emotional standpoint, you can take that outline and throw it out the window. You know, I go into depots all the time and, you know, I’ll get one depot where I always test the witness, always test them. Are they going to be hostile or am I going to get some good admissions from them? Half the time my outline’s gone. I’m, I’m reading what they’re saying. You guys know that. And then, you know, you, you’re like, wow, this guy’s really honest, you know, another expert. And I’ll go through. And my, my whole demeanor, my whole approach will change from something confronting the witness to complimenting him.

John Simon [00:24:20 – 00:24:54]

You know, this is really good. And you know, get good rapport with them. And then, you know, I can see the other lawyer also getting terribly upset, you know, because, or, or when you say something in the room and just the facial expression of the lawyer, you know, you got, you know, or some of them are foolish enough to object and notify you when something, when you’re doing something that’s, you know, painful. But I think it’s a great tool. But there’s so much more to what we do. I think every decision we make as human beings is primarily emotional. We don’t make rational decisions. Everything is emotion.

John Simon [00:24:54 – 00:25:05]

Who you married, a house to buy a car, the shoes you’re wearing. Everything is emotional. And we rationalize it later. So I think we’re safe. But I think we need to use it as a tool for what we can use it for.

Brendan Roediger [00:25:05 – 00:25:10]

Well, the more I use it, the less afraid I am that it’s gonna make me obsolete.

John Simon [00:25:10 – 00:25:18]

Yeah, yeah. It’s helping us do what we already do. It’s information. It’s helping us deal with our students.

Erich Vieth [00:25:18 – 00:25:38]

It Seems like the expedient moment, like getting through the problem of the moment. It’s like an addictive substance that they can’t resist. I know, but I know that’s not. That’s. That’s running counter to the purpose of them being in that school, which is. I think they need to hurt. Their head needs to hurt sometimes.

John Simon [00:25:38 – 00:25:39]

That’s right.

Erich Vieth [00:25:39 – 00:25:44]

While they’re struggling to figure something out. And I don’t know how to reconcile those things. That’s what I’m scared of.

John Simon [00:25:45 – 00:25:49]

Is anybody ever going to need to know how to do legal research without AI anymore?

Brendan Roediger [00:25:49 – 00:25:54]

That’s the thing is, I mean, knowing stuff is, like, kind of useless knowledge.

John Simon [00:25:54 – 00:25:56]

Knowledge doesn’t have quite the premium that

Brendan Roediger [00:25:56 – 00:26:09]

it has, except that the synthesis of knowledge. Knowledge is how you. In some ways, how you develop your personality. So, you know, I don’t know that. I don’t know that that’s really true. I do worry that these students. So I, you know, emails are all AI now. Every email I get from students.

John Simon [00:26:09 – 00:26:18]

I mean, we each have all. We have all the human knowledge, each of us, in our pocket. All human knowledge in our pocket. Right.

Brendan Roediger [00:26:18 – 00:26:24]

But the knowledge you’ve spent the most time batting around in your head has helped to shape who you are as a human being.

John Simon [00:26:24 – 00:26:24]

True.

Brendan Roediger [00:26:25 – 00:26:30]

Right. The stuff you find the most interesting that you’ve obsessed over at night has created your personality to some extent.

John Simon [00:26:30 – 00:26:31]

Absolutely.

Brendan Roediger [00:26:31 – 00:26:48]

And so I do worry that that will go away. So when I. I’m like, you know, you need your own email tone. I want you to have your. All of us have our own email tone. I don’t want that to go away. You know, I have a sort of informal, try to be funny but never succeed email tone. It’s stupid, but it’s me.

Brendan Roediger [00:26:48 – 00:26:53]

Right, Right. Like, I want. I want people to be individuals.

John Simon [00:26:53 – 00:26:56]

So it’d be interesting to have this conversation 12 months from now.

Erich Vieth [00:26:56 – 00:26:56]

Yeah, I know.

Brendan Roediger [00:26:57 – 00:27:05]

Or three, when I’ve gotten fired and replaced by an AI robot at St. Louis. And you can replay where I said every day, I’m less afraid.

Erich Vieth [00:27:06 – 00:27:13]

Yeah. Well, if we, if we interview an AI instead of you, we’ll at least call it Brendan. Brendan, it’s been great having you here today.

Brendan Roediger [00:27:13 – 00:27:14]

Thank you guys.

Erich Vieth [00:27:14 – 00:27:24]

Covered a lot of ground. Thank you for all the. All the attention to all the topics. I mean, you got a lot going on. It was fun to listen to your stories and hear all your accomplishments.

John Simon [00:27:24 – 00:27:24]

I agree.

Erich Vieth [00:27:25 – 00:27:26]

Thank you for hiring me at the school.

Brendan Roediger [00:27:26 – 00:27:28]

I love that. Oh, thank you, man. You’ve been a lifesaver.

Erich Vieth [00:27:29 – 00:27:32]

So this has been another episode of the Jury Is Out. I’m Erich Vieth.

John Simon [00:27:32 – 00:27:34]

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

John Simon [00:27:38 – 00:28:17]

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 commentshejuryisout Law and subscribe today because the best lawyers never stop learning.

Continue Reading