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First off, let’s kill all the lawyers. I’m David Heffernan, I’ve been practicing personal injury law here in Miami and South Florida for nearly three decades. The goal behind this broadcast is to bring in other lawyers in varying fields and experiences to kind of maybe one by one start to take them off that kill list. And, and we can prove Shakespeare wasn’t right in the 15th century, when he said it and everybody laughed about it. But my guest this morning, the only difficulty might be I think we can get him off the list. But he’s a guy I know who oftentimes wanted to kill many lawyers, generally opposing counsel, but this morning, I’m really happy to introduce a very close friend of mine. Excellent, excellent lawyer. Andy Haffa.

Thanks for having me on.

So yeah, we’re not going to ask you to take any lawyers off the list. Because I know, given you’re passionate about your practice, and I will get into that. There’s been times I’ve might have heard you out or a few things about killing other lawyers. So, we’re going to try to table that and keep this more on the civil side of things.

You and I’ve had many conversations about going back to trial by combat and how much better I would feel. And as badly as I would like to avoid being on anybody’s hit list. I unfortunately, I found my way too many. And so as hard as you’re going to work today, I don’t know how successful you’re going to be brother.

All right. Well, I’m up for the test. So, let’s see what we can do to get Andy off this list. Let’s go back first and just talk about so you’re a Miami native, correct?

Well, basically, I we I’ve been here ever since I’m two I was born. My dad was in medical school in Richmond. And he when he moved down here for training, that’s when I became a Florida native.

Got it. Okay. So now though, tell me because your dad comes down here, very, very prominent surgeon knows me. Well, he’s seen my insides. So, I got to give him credit for that as he took my appendix out, but Chief of Staff at Baptist I mean, many, many accolades, and just a top notch, top notch surgeon, great guy, and you go to law school. So where was where was that shift? And was there ever an interest in medical school?

There still is. I was I was teaching at the middle school Medical School last night, believe it or not, okay. I ended up going to law school because my dad, who as you said, as a surgeon told me, he wouldn’t do it again. And I took the L SATs and the MCAT. That’s the test to get into medical school within a month of each other. And still, to this day, I entertained dreams of being a doctor. That’s what I was always wanted to do. And I know I would have been a hell of a surgeon, that’s for sure.

No, no doubt about it. And but it’s interesting because you go into law, and then followed by both of your brothers, Sam and Greg go into law who both have thriving careers. And we might have to get them on here. It might be easier to get off the list and you but we’ll work on it. On those two so you get into the practice law. The other interesting thing about you so you and I go back three decades, because graduate, I always know how long you’ve been practicing. Because I got to figure out how long I have came out together, law clerk to different places together. But you’re a little bit of a rarity in that. You went to a firm right out of law school. Grossman, a Roth at the time now Grossman Roth, yeah, often Cohen. But you’ve stayed there, the duration, you know, lawyers tend to start here, get a little experience here, kind of move and move around. So talk about that journey, because I think it’s pretty fascinating that you’ve stayed there the whole time. And obviously, tremendous, tremendous firm. You know, nothing but great things to say about Stuart and Neil and everybody in that firm. And so you’re a great, great fit and a great asset to that firm. But how is it that you wound up staying in the same place for 30 years?

So I was blessed to have found Stuart and Neal, and they took a shot on me how and why I don’t know. But my goal when I started with them was to learn how the best  firm I could find thought so I could go back and defend physicians. I lived through a couple of lawsuits that I felt were unjustified. And so I figured if I could learn from the best plaintiffs firms, I could then jump back to the defense and defend these dogs. And when I saw the cases that Stuart Neal had, it was mind blowing. And I would bring this stuff home and talk to my dad. And he was shocked at the horrific care that existed then and unfortunately continues to exist in South Florida. And so I found my niche and I think we’re able to make Florida a better place by hopefully forcing physicians to practice better and safer medicine. And so that’s really sort of overshadowed my entire journey at Grossman Roth, and I feel as though I’ve, you know, sacrificed blood, sweat and tears there for 30 years. And when I started, we were for lawyers, we’re now up to 12. And it’s amazing the cases we’ve seen, the people we’ve touched and the lives that we hopefully have changed for the better. Well, let’s

talk about that a little bit too, because I know and it had to be difficult for you, given that your dad was a physician and a prominent physician, there seems to be sort of, sometimes almost a public image that, well, they’re doctors, and they can’t make mistakes. And I talk to people all the time. And I say, well, listen, they’re professionals. Lawyers are professionals, contractors are professionals. You know, if you if you hire a guy to build your house, and half of it collapses, nobody ever has a hesitation, oh, I’m going to sue that guy. He did it wrong. But when doctors do that, everybody seems a little hesitant to venture into that. And so how was that sort of going back and forth with your dad. And obviously, I mean, I’ve fished with you many times with your dad and lots of other physician friends. And those were the circle friends. So how well was that sort of taken when you first started suing doctors as opposed to defending.

So I think I brought a bit of fresh air to these physicians that felt that way, because they knew, given my background, given my history, given my father, that I was not going to simply throw a cast net, no pun intended, over everybody that had contact with that patient. If you’re going to get sued, it’s because you deserve to get sued. And it was a breach of the standard of care. And they knew that I understood that not every mistake was medical malpractice that was actionable. Not every bad outcome was medical malpractice that was actionable. And so I truly believe then, and I know, I continue that now I bring, I bring an extra level of screening to these cases, and I make sure if I’m going to do it, they should be brought. And these cases are just and righteous. And these doctors deserve to get sued. If they don’t, I don’t want to be part of.

So, let’s talk about that a little bit. Because we both been doing medical malpractice for a long time, the screening process because again, you know, you tell people, if you got hit by a car, we could file a lawsuit today, you know, and be litigating this case, when it is a medical malpractice case, talk about the extent of that screening process and what it has to go through to ensure that it is a meritorious case, first off on your standards, and then the legal standards of what has to be done before you can file a suit.

So, there’s a movie out there, the girl next door that I use this line all the time, you got to make sure that the juice is worth the squeeze. Medical malpractice cases, obviously, are extremely expensive to be brought, you have to have them reviewed by experts in every specialty of the folks that you’re going to sue. So, it’s not uncommon. Before I even know that I have a case that I’ve spent 5060 $100,000 on these cases. So, you’ve got to be very selective in the case of your brand. Obviously, you got to make sure that the damages on the back end, okay, justify spending those kinds of monies on the front, because I will tell you, at the end of the year, firms like yours and mine, we end up spending hundreds of 1000s, if not more dollars, on cases you’ve evaluated, you’ve investigated, and then you determine that there was no breach of the standard of care. And then unfortunately, something bad happened to this patient. But these doctors and health care providers did everything they could to care for these patients and bad things happen. And they do happen in the absence of malpractice. This is this is what we bring to the practice that understanding. And a lot of patients/clients don’t understand just because something bad happened, why they don’t have a case. So I hope I answered your question there, Dave.

No, you did. You did. And I think that’s one of the hardest things sometimes because it does have to be viewed as a business and at times, you have to look at the extent of the damages and what it would cost to bring that forward because it became it can become cost prohibitive for case. And that’s a hard thing to explain to clients at times. But again, even harder sometimes because there is a bad outcome. That doesn’t mean anybody was at fault. Okay, and that’s not an easy decision to get to, nor a cheap one. So let’s shift gears a little bit because I know that’s one component of what you started. And I think really, back when you started Stuart Neil really emphasized in med mal, but that practice is really expanded. Now. While you still do med mal, there’s a lot of other things you’ve gotten into from products liability to other significant cases. So, let’s talk a little bit about what the overall practice had Grossman Roth, you and Cohen consists of now.

So, when people ask me what we do, I tell them that we will handle any significant case there is any type of significant catastrophic plane train automobile construction litigation, we’re involved in the surf side collapse. We were involved in the FIU Bridge collapse the Miami Dade Community College garage collapse, we’ve gotten involved in some very significant legal and accounting malpractice cases. We were involved in the citrus canker case, the bank overdraft cases. David’s amazing as society changes and science advances, the stuff that comes up that you could never have dreamed of when you and I graduated law school ancestry.com 23. And me, we’re now having cases that are coming up that you could not have even dreamed up kids that are 1617 years old that apply to these genetics’ companies. And they find out that they’re not they’re not the natural children of their parents, mommy and daddy are not good. They thought they were, you know, yes, they are. They loved them. They raised them, and they treated them as their own. But Mistakes were made way back when parents were having a hard time conceiving. And so, we’re now bringing those kinds of lawsuits against fertility specialists that made those kinds of mistakes. We’ve had other cases involving stem cell malpractice, for example, stem cells are cutting edge science. And they may well hold the cure for many illnesses for which there is no cure, but we’re not there yet. And there are spas and clinics and chiropractors selling this stuff. And right now, it’s no better than snake oil, and people are getting hurt. So, it’s a crazy time in our world. And the types of cases we’re seeing is limitless. And when you think you’ve seen it all, then something else comes walking in the door. Right? So it really is amazing.

It is and you see this transition now. And you see going into lots of different doctors, everybody’s going to rejuvenation medicine, you know, we all want to stay pretty and young and pain free. And you’re right it is there are a lot of things that are I think, good science and good medicine that are heading in that direction. But there’s a lot that there, there almost is no standard of care yet, because people are doing things they shouldn’t be doing.

Yeah, it’s crazy. And the consumers need to be aware, they need to make sure they’re going to quality physicians that are truly engaging in quality standard of care medicine, as opposed to using off label non-FDA approved medications. I got a case now where a lady went in to have some fat, you know, she thought she was going to have some liposuction, and they convinced her into having an injection where they inject basically an enzyme that lives or digests the fat. Well, the stuff they injected her was tainted with bacteria. And basically, it ate away in the back of her arms. And she needed to have the backs of her arms, both amputated. She’s been through 25 different procedures. She has scarring, she basically has to take antibiotics for the rest of her life because she has what’s equivalent to leprosy. And the spa, that did this had an eye doctor as a medical director, and it’s an eye doctor injecting her arms with this stuff. So, it is the wild west right now. It’s just crazy.

And we get we get countless and it’s heartbreaking. The plastic surgery clinics, Miami seems to be sort of the bastion for that. And when you look at them, the formula is really easy. The online presence is amazing. Okay, and tremendous. And then you come down here, and it’s a storefront clinic somewhere, you know, and these people get horribly, horribly butchered, you know, they fly back to the state they’re from, and unfortunately, there’s no coverage on the clinic, there’s no coverage on the doctors and these poor people have just been totally, totally taken advantage of. And it’s a horrible thing to have to deal with. But we get calls almost weekly on those cases. Yeah. And

it’s not going to go away until the FDA and the other licensing bodies take control and they shut them down or somebody goes to jail. That’s not going to stop, you and I are going to continue to stay busy. And the one the one issue I continue to have that I cannot stress enough is how unfair the free kill law is as it relates to the medical malpractice world, right? Obviously, you need to recognize survivor if somebody dies by health care, fraud by a healthcare provider, and there’s no surviving spouse or no child under the age of 25. If that same person was killed in a plane, train or automobile, that family would have a cause of action. But in a malpractice setting by a healthcare provider, there’s nobody, there’s nothing that you can do for them. And they don’t understand why that life is worth less than the malpractice. I think that it is in the general liability setting. It’s not right and it’s not fair.

It’s not and it’s as you know, and I mean, it’s been challenged and it’s probably the most difficult conversation I’ve ever had with clients when you get that situation is to say, Listen, there, there may be, you know, a cause of action there, this doctor may have killed your mom or your dad or whoever, but if there’s no spouse, and there’s no minor child, by law, they’ve carved that out and successfully. So, but let’s talk about that a little bit. Because I know I know you and your firm have done it. And it’s every pie lawyer that I know. You know, the goal is, obviously, you know, the first goal is win that case. Okay. But the bigger goal is to bring about change. And if you look, society wise, the change that has come about is often driven by personal injury lawyers. I mean, you look at and I always use an example, the sexual scandal within the Catholic Church. You know, when that first started, oh, it was an American thing. Oh, it was this it was. And it was trial lawyers that kept pushing that and pushing that, and now they pulled back the curtain. And you see what’s been exposed is absolutely horrific. But it’s only because of that change through civil courts, and lawyers to talk about some of the cases you’ve dealt with. I know agriculturally. You’ve been before Congress on things to talk about changes for migrant workers in the fields. Talk about that aspect of your practice and how satisfying that is.

So, the case you’re referencing is Carlito Kandel area. And that little boy now is 17 years old. When he was an infant, I was called out to a Mokulele to try and help this family. He was born to migrant parents that were smuggled into the United States from Mexico. They were basically indentured servants. And they were exposed to pesticides in the tomato fields that were known to cause birth defects. This poor lady gets pregnant, she’s ingesting and sprayed with these pesticides, and the baby’s born with no arms and no legs. And so, when I went out there and met this little boy, he was sitting in a bouncy seat in a trailer park. Living in a one-bedroom trailer, there were 16 people living in this one-bedroom trailer, there were little puppies that had been born in the trailer park that were nipping at this child and he was screaming, and obviously, he had no limbs he couldn’t fight back. And it was that scene, seeing him unable to do anything to defend himself, that made me commit to try and help him. So, I began to look long and hard about what I could do to try to help that child. And I knew I couldn’t sue on behalf of the parents because they were illegal, and immigration would be called. And they were called multiple times through that case, I had, I had to hide these people literally for two years. I couldn’t sue on behalf of the parents, you all said workers compensation laws and immunities that prevented doing something on their behalf. But they could not block the case on behalf of the child. And so that’s what I did, I bought a brought a straight premises liability claim against the owner and controller and operator of the farms to to represent that child as it relates to the pesticides that he was sprayed with through his mother while in utero. And really to get that case changed, we get the case resolved. But more importantly, we changed everything in terms of how these people were treated. Day for decades, we got to see it’s truly modern day slavery. It continues to this day, unfortunately. But they change the labeling, they change the type of pesticides that are being used. And I got to see this child, believe it or not, again, he’s now 17. Last week, he is a thriving junior in high school, he’s a straight A student, he’s got plans to go to college, he wants to be an engineer, we built in my house, we put a trust together. So, the monies will be there to take care of him for the rest of his life. This kid is going to do big things, I just can’t wait to see what he’s going to do. And but for our system, and the work of those of us that are on these kill lists, okay, he wouldn’t have a future and I was I was blessed to have been connected with him. He’s made me a better lawyer and a better person, and I can’t wait to see what he’s going to do.

Yeah, there is no greater satisfaction than seeing the results that you’ve done helping somebody thrive like that. And I’ve got a young girl now who again, nobody thought she’d ever walk talk there, we’re going to put her in a nursing home. She’s walking, she’s talking, she’s functioning, she’s communicating. And she’s getting better every day. And this is, you know, four years ago that this occurred. So, when you see those things, I mean, that to me is the greatest satisfaction is helping those clients that that didn’t have a voice and nobody was going to give them a voice until somebody like you comes along and helps. So, you can see, and I can hear the passion in your voice. You’ve been doing this for 30 years. What keeps you passionate about it, what continues to drive you every day.

When I see a child or a family that’s been wronged and is suffering and is in need. That’s truly what does it and the hope that we can make it safer and better and prevent these things from happening is what drives me. I will tell you, yes, the satisfaction that you and I get from seeing that little girl who’s now walking and talking, or this child who’s going to have a future. It’s so gratifying. But I will also tell you, Dave, and I know you do a lot of teaching, my efforts to get into the medical schools, is my back my back around my behind the scenes approach of trying to make those changes, I told these medical students last night, if I can educate you, and prevent and avoid these cases, from coming through my door, that I know I’ve made a significant change, I want you to think twice before you act, I want you to think twice about how it’s going to affect that patient, and ultimately, that family, and you’re going to be a better doctor, you’re going to avoid getting sued, and patients are not going to be harmed. So, I think it’s a twofold approach that we’re now taking, both in terms of exposing and fighting for those that have been injured. But on the prevention side, I’m getting in the backdoor through the medical schools trying to make it a safer place. And to make these guys, these guys and gals better doctors.

Well, and that’s tremendous. Because you’re right, those changes can have such a big impact. And one of the things I’ve talked to people in the medical profession and they’re terrified, I think sometimes of communication. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten calls, and there’s no malpractice or anything else. But people just wanted answers. Nobody’s talking to them. And again, if those med students and those people in the hospitals and risk management would have communication with these patients, before lawyers got involved, a lot of times that’s going to peace, they just want an answer to a mystery, it’s oftentimes same thing, you know, people come to us first time in a lawsuit, they’ve never been involved in a lawsuit, we’ve got to be able to explain to them, what’s going to happen, not just hey, just sit back, we’re going to take care of this, you’ll be fine. People want that information. And that’s what’s lacking often

can’t the candor be that old school medicine where the doctor would sit down and talk to the family and the patient, listen to what they’re saying. But more importantly, tell them the truth. This is what happened. This is why it happened. If you made a mistake, you come clean people can accept mistakes. Sure, what they can accept is if you make a mistake, and you try and sweep it under the rug, and then something bad happens, and then it becomes a mountain where you’re fighting over this thing. And once the truth comes out, there’s no defending that.

100%. So let’s shift gears a little bit more things. We’ve talked to everybody since we started this show. We’ve, I won’t say we’ve come through a pandemic, because I don’t think we’re there yet. But we’re certainly heading in the right direction. Talk about the impact that COVID has had on your practice, not only the volume and what you do in practice wise, but the nature of how you practice what your firm has done to become more adaptable, because I think there’s a lot of very positive things that have come out of this. To make us better lawyers, there’s been some negative things clearly to but to make us better lawyers, and to make us more efficient at what we do. So what is Grossman Roth, you often call and how did you guys deal with a pandemic and are dealing with it, I guess, still today.

So, I will tell you that the pandemic has made me a more efficient lawyer, if you will, prior to there was so much time wasted running to and from hearings and getting on airplanes to go to expert depositions, and things of that nature, we’re now able to do all of that by zoom like you and I are talking right now. And I don’t think a lot of that is ever going to go back to the way it was I think that’s a big positive. Some of the negatives are, I don’t think there’s any substitute for being in that room with my clients and being able to hug them and console them. When you’re in one of those emotional moments. And it’s going to happen by the nature of the cases we handle in the practices we have. I think that’s what makes you and I are so effective at what we do. We’re empathetic, we’re fathers, we’re husbands we appreciate. We’re humans. And when you see somebody suffering, there is no substitute for being able to give that person a hug, and console them and to stop it as opposed to trying to do that. From long distance. I don’t like that at all. When I’m taking an expert deposition, I also would much rather be in person as opposed to doing it by zoom. Obviously, the COVID has affected our trial practice. I’m desperate to get back into that courtroom. But if we’re doing our job right and thank God we have been the preparation is such that these cases have continued to resolve trials are starting to resume we’re getting trial dates and still keep are resolving, and I’m happy to see that. But I don’t have the control that I used to have, I used to be able to tell a client, when I met them, within 18 months, I’m going to be giving you a hug and wishing you well, your case is going to be over one way or the other. We can’t do that anymore, because everything is so backed up. And lastly, COVID has made me a better person, I think in terms of being around more for my wife and kids and being able to appreciate the hearing the now because prior to COVID, I was like you a million miles a minute airplanes, courtrooms, hearings, on the car, in the car driving to and from Naples constantly. Now I’m home and I’m president and I’m able to enjoy them. And I think that’s been a big plus for

1. And certainly, that’s a huge thing. And I got to give you props, because you go back and you look at the people you surround yourself with. You know, Mark Caron, I can’t partners were longtime friends, same class as you. But I look at Mark, again, still married to his first wife, you know, I’m still married to my first one, you’re still married your first wife, three kids. And I think those things having that continuity and stability in your life. And those values of what’s important, really do translate to being an excellent trial or because what people forget is, you know, it’s attorney slash counselor. And there’s a lot of counseling that goes on in these cases, just like you said, to be able to do it in person is a huge aspect of it. Because this is a, you know, the people that come see us, their lives have been totally disrupted. And they’re never going to be normal again. And we can only normalize them, to the extent that our system helps normalize it via you know, money, benefits and everything else and to change the quality of their life. But anyway, we’re running down on time, you’re a guy that I think we’ve now been able to take off the list because I think people see the passion, the compassion, the empathy, and the desire that you still have, it’s clear to see burns in you 30 years into this, you know, you’re still chomping at the bit to do the same thing every day. And so, Andy, pleasure, love catching up with that. We could do this for a long, long time. But I think I think generally other than opposing counsel, I’ve got you off all those lists. Okay. So, I appreciate it, my friend. Thank you for your efforts. And I hope you’re half right. If I get off one list. You’ve been successful today, brother. Thanks for having me on. There we go. My pleasure. My pleasure. Give my best to the family. That’s another episode of First off, let’s kill all the lawyers. We’ll be back next week. Thanks.

Kaire & Heffernan

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Welcome to another episode of First off, let’s kill all the lawyers. That phrase Shakespeare wrote back in the 15th century that was uttered by Dick the butcher to raucous laughter and applause, which today still people kind of go…. not a bad idea. Although one of the things I love about it  now this show is getting a little bit of traction, I get all these calls from lawyers saying “you know, that was actually a flattering thing”.  I think today, they still might laugh and thinking killing all lawyers is a good start. I’m David Heffernan and I’ve been practicing personal injury law here in South Florida for the past 30 years now, which is scary to think about.

The goal behind these shows, is to bring in lawyers from varying walks of life and fields of practice, and talk about different areas of law, get to know some of these lawyers a little bit and maybe one by one, we’ll just start checking a few of these people off of the kill list. And my guest this morning, and I’m just absolutely thrilled to have because we had dinner with a lot of our classmates last night from the 1991, graduating class at UVM Law School, which is where I met this gentleman. We’ve been friends for 30 years, one of my best friends, and one of the top maritime and Admiralty lawyers in the country. Chip Birthisel.

Thanks, Dave, that’s awfully nice stuff to say.  And I wouldn’t come on before because I didn’t want to be killed.

Well, the goal here today is maybe we get you moved off that list, one at a time. So, one of the things that I think is fascinating about you, and I want to get into what maritime and Admiralty law is, and everything else, and again, that’s, we could spend a week talking about it. But one of the things I think is amazing about you is your story. And I and I want to go back, I want to go way back to a 17-year-old kid that wasn’t quite sure where he was going in life. Was he going to be a dropout surfer? What was he going to do and, and made a pretty critical decision? So, talk about the decision you made at 17. And then I want to talk about the benefits that came out of that.

Well, it’s kind of funny, I at 17, I was dropped out of high school. I didn’t see myself really going anywhere. My parents I was fifth generation Floridian my parents made the mistake to move me to Fort Worth, Texas, which was a long way from the coast that was a young surfer kid lived up in Cocoa Beach, Florida. So, we went out to Texas, I didn’t like it a whole lot, I figured the best way to get out of there would be to join the service. So, I joined the Coast Guard, which actually got me wide goal to go to California and surf and get around the country. Every place there was a coast and surf. And so that’s how I’ve gotten

out now at least we know the motivation was I’ll join somewhere where I can go surf. That was

part of it. The other part of it was that the drummer for my band that I had back then in Texas, we broke up, he went back to Florida because he had some family issues. And so, the band broke up and I had to go and get a real job.

All right, well, we’re going to look at a long-storied career with the Coast Guard. But one of the things I think is amazing is the way you took advantage of the opportunities. So, you’re a near high school dropout. But while you’re in the Coast Guard, you’re afforded the opportunity to get an undergraduate degree.

Yeah, you know, I got to tell you back then it was a, I joined I wanted to boot I went to boot camp in January of 1975. It’s a different world back then entirely. The military was a was a land of opportunity. I went in as a high school dropout made rate as fast as I possibly could move up, you know, enlisted ranks as fast as I possibly could. So, I started out as an E one. And then I retired 21 years later, as a lieutenant commander with a law degree. So, during that time that I was in, I was able to finish high school number one. Number two, went to University of San Francisco and got an undergraduate degree at night on the VA, then went to Johns Hopkins and got a master’s degree at night on the VA when I was stationed in Washington. And then the Coast Guard selected me for the law program, after I served on a fast patrol boat out of Miami. And, and I went to Miami and that’s where we met.

That’s where we met, and I can’t believe it’s 30 years ago. But was nice to have dinner with a bunch of the boys last night we are blessed to have a core of friends that go back that long. And I mean, we do it, you’re nice enough to come in from Tampa. But we have dinners every three months or so. And it’s just it’s amazing to see those guys.

It really is. It’s hard to believe it’s probably harder for you guys to believe 3030 years have passed than it is for me. I’m a bit I was the oldest guy out of the bunch. And so, I feel it a little more every morning. You guys do, but no, it is it is outstanding.

Alright, so let’s talk about that. So, the Coast Guard gives you an opportunity to get an incredible education. When you finish with law school, what was your commitment then? Because then you go to naval justice, right?

I did the commitment out of law school was five years. In fact, I had some people kind of fight me when I went in, that I didn’t have more time than that coming out of law school to serve in the Coast Guard. Because I only served the five-year commitment before I retired because I decided I wanted to retire at 38. So, I served in a capacity, as you knew, litigating and basically defending kids that were Why say kids, Coast Guard people, I was stationed with a Navy, I’ve defended Coast Guard, Navy and Marine Corps officers and then listed people at courts martial, a whole bunch of them, like hundreds over the years. I also prosecuted some of those. Then I went and I was the Coast Guard’s designated lawyer at justice at the Admiralty and aviation litigation section in Washington, which travelled around the country basically, on the east coast. There’s one on the West Coast as well, but traveled on the east coast and the Gulf Coast doing cases for the United States, typically, oil spill cases and defending the United States where they’re being sued for personal injury, wrongful death, that sort of thing. Usually, the Coast Guard would, you know, if somebody died in a rescue or whatever, they would sue us, right? So,  you know, I did I did that for a couple years, and it was a perfect opportunity to go ahead and, and head out. So, I retired back in 19. I’ve been retired for 25 years now.

More importantly, during that time of prosecuting and defending Did you ever get a general on the stand and say, I want the truth? It’s not quite glamorous.

So tremendous opportunities, you retire a full commission Lieutenant Commander at the ripe old age of 38. And now set up and run your firm which you’re the one of the founding partners of Hamilton Miller and Bertha so let’s talk about now transitioning from sort of the military into now the real world and as I said in the intro, it’s maritime and Admiralty. So, what does that mean?

Admiralty is a body of law that deals with ships and shipping. Primarily, maritime is a broader concept it can also involve environmental and, and a variety of other things that just have to do with the water. So, by the time I retired from the Coast Guard between one of the things I didn’t mention in there is that when I was operational in the Coast Guard, you can’t just typically go be a lawyer, at least you couldn’t back then you can kind of now. But you had to transfer in and out of operational commands, which meant, in my day, since I wasn’t an aviator, that you had to drive ships, which is fun. I mean, so I got to drive ships for years. big ships, little ships, not aircraft carrier writings, but you know, the Atari 200 foot 200 plus and 373 178 foot destroyer, escort class vessels and that sort of thing. So, so I got to really, I grew up on boats as a kid. And then I did the Coast Guard thing for 21 years. So, it was almost like I was training my whole life to become if I was going to be a lawyer to become a maritime lawyer, right? And that’s kind of where I ended up. And it really has helped most of the people that I have associated with in my firm that I have had responsibility for hiring have had prior experience my friend, Jules Massey, who’s my partner over in Tampa, he was a fort Schuyler graduate at the maritime Academy in New York. Sail professionally for years. We’ve got you know, various licensed captains that work for us on pleasure craft, we got various my partner, Jennifer Siebold, has been on boats our whole life over in Cortez. So it kind of enabled me to form my own world of people that really knew the point in from the square into the round and if you will, and practice the law with a firm understanding in the Admiralty and maritime realm of what is going on the water.

Well and in in your practice, I mean, you do lots of consulting work and everything else. With shipping companies and you and I were kind of chatting coming over here. You know, other than then sort of the advancement of ships getting bigger and maybe faster and everything else, the world still relies on shipping to move everything around the world. We’re now in a position where supply chain has now become a household word, because people go, What can’t get anything? Oh, its supply chain, you know, what does that mean? Well, it means there’s 100 cargo ships, and we can’t get them unloaded and everything’s jam. So, talk about kind of just what that encompasses when you start working in that because it’s, you’re talking about countries around the world. I mean, you know, international trade back and forth with everything. So, what’s the type of work you do? And who are your clients?

Well, that’s funny, because I have a real general maritime practice, meaning I do a lot of work, defense work for marine insurers who assigned me to defend people, if you have an incident here on in Biscayne Bay, for instance, where somebody hurt or killed or whatever, or even just property damage, I’ll get hired by the insurance company, typically to represent the insured, which is the person who owns the boaters involved in the accident typically, and, and help them you know, defend them in court. And whatever the lawsuit is. The maritime world as part of that also encompasses because marine insurance deals with Surface Transportation as well. All the goods moving across this country by truck, all are insured by inland marine policies of some sort. I didn’t know that. So basically, everything that moves in this country or into this country and around this country, is if it’s insured is insured by some form of marine insurance policy. Even some of the aviation insurance is marine insurance. So, it’s a broad, it’s a broad, overall transportation perspective. This whole supply chain thing that we’re dealing with these days really is I think it really opened people’s eyes when the Suez Canal thing happened, right? And it’s like, well, you know, how can this one ship stuff? Well, first of all, how can you get you’re

going to get stuck? I mean, the layman sitting there going, are you driving the ship, and then I see a picture and it’s jammed into the bank. I’m like, that’s the drunk guy, you know, trying to dock his boat at Matheson not the professional Captain crossing the Suez Canal.

Well, you would think that and its but you know, stuff happens. Things like the Concordia, for instance, when that kind of stuff where you’re just kind of messing around, apparently, and not paying attention. It can happen just like you’re driving down Dixie Highway and not paying attention. Anything can happen. So, but I think everybody saw the importance of that, but it the Suez of transportation in the Suez Canal, particularly transportation by water, one ship stuck in the Suez Canal, can affect shipping worldwide for months, maybe even years, right. The backup in Long Beach right now and the other ports throughout the United States is an issue. The reason why that’s an issue too, is because we you know, in order to get the ship around here, economically, you got to go through a canal. Well, you know, shippers want to build bigger ships, and you can’t build bigger ships, unless you have big enough canals to get them through my site. It’s like you can’t get an 18 Wheeler across this country unless you have an interstate or decent size highway to get the thing across. So, it’s exacerbated not only by the fact that the ships are tied up in in or anchored off of Long Beach trying to get in. And it’s the problem that they’re having out there, I believe is primarily a labor problem, they can’t get enough or labor in space problem, they can’t get enough people in to offload those containers, right. And they got no place to put them once they offload them. Because if they’re not going to keep them on the on the port, there going to be have to go be dragged somewhere else to dredge which takes trucks, right so you got to have truck drivers to do that. And then once they get there, the Amazon guys got to hook up to that chassis and take it across the country wherever it’s got to go. And we all know that that’s there’s a huge shortage there. I’m in the I’m in the scope right now of are in the throes of trial. I just bought a new house few months ago when a new house it’s an old new house and I’m trying to get things fixed and repaired and you can’t get you can’t know anything to do it. I mean, it took me six months to get grass in my front yard. They almost threw me out of the neighborhood. So, everything that we do including aviation cargo relies on that aviation cargo is limited Of course by size, and weight. Things that move into this this town every single day by aviation modes are basic like flowers, fresh flowers get flown in every single day, right cruise lines and hotels and Disney and all that kind of stuff. But Everything else is moving my ships somewhere some form.

Alright. One of the things that fascinates me about Admiralty law is the ability to arrest the vessel. And I know you’ve been involved in that. And we always joke, you know how to get handcuffs big enough and everything else. But talk about that process because again, I think that that when people look at an Admiralty law, it’s so critical to have somebody with your expertise on it not only expertise, but connections as well, because it’s me it’s an archaic system. And that if you don’t understand the nuances of it, and you know, I mean, even on simple maritime things, the cases I’ve handled, and I’ve had plenty over the years, I’ll generally affiliate with a maritime council just to make sure we’re doing the right things. And we’re position because I want to do the service to my client that way, and I’m just talking about, you know, small boat cases or deaths or cruise line. But when you talk about the Admiralty law talking about arresting vehicles, how does that come about?

Well, that’s one thing about the maritime law is that it is archaic, and it’s, it’s, it’s got its roots. Back in the laws of old around, which is, you know, ancient laws. The laws are, frankly, somewhat consistent throughout the world with things like vessel arrests, and then so forth. Because we’re one big shipping world vessel arrest came about or the ability to arrest a vessel, the maritime law sees a vessel as an entity as a thing as a person, right. So that person can commit a tort, it can, it can be negligent, it can be, it can, it can purchase fuel, and not pay for it, and have to ultimately be arrested to pay for the fuel. So, what happens in vessel arrest, which is typically which is typically a primarily an only actually a federal court process and right entry, is you. Let’s say you chip shipped and pay for its fuel, you go down to the federal courthouse, you file a complaint against the vessel, you have the marshals mount up and ride down there and do what they call stickering. The vessel, they tie it up wherever it is, you put a custodian on board, and they take care of the vessel. And then the litigation begins over what is going to become of it who owes who owes what. And ultimately, the vessel because it’s like a person is ultimately responsible and can be sold at a marshal sale to pay the debt. Okay. And that’s really what it’s about. It’s about money. It’s about pain. Same thing in a personal injury case you can there a seaman, for instance, can arrest a vessel, it rarely happens, right? typically what happens is the threat of arrest allows the vessel owning company and or its insurer to step up and post either a letter of undertaking or a bond, which is just you know, as good cash. It’s like this, and we’re good for this and allow the vessel to sail because the vessel not sailing. Yeah. is huge money.

Yeah, I imagine you get the owners or the companies attention pretty quickly. When that vehicle now season, there’s marshals and they can’t move it anymore.

So as part of the maritime thought process, you always have to be thinking about what kind of exposures there are under old maritime principles like a rest that you typically don’t have to think about. And so, it is good to ask your maritime buddy a question if you got one. Absolutely. And an affiliate, because it’s, there are lots of little traps out there.

Well, one of the other things that that you see in maritime law, and again, the significance of it, is much like you see a lot of times with trucking cases and everything else. When things go bad. They go really bad. Okay. I mean, you know, they’re generally not little fender benders between two tankers. So talk about the scope of that. And I mean, you can talk a little bit of your own experience. I mean, I know you handled, and we’re a key part of the team, and so far, oh, you know, horrible, horrible case where that ship goes down and you’ve got deaths and all of that. How does that get orchestrated and done because you guys were able to resolve all of those claims, right?

We were and including the cargo claims, because you know, it’s not just the the horrible fact of losing crew members and family members. And that was a horrible thing. It was it was, I was proud to have been part of that, and allowed to be part of it was on the liability side for the company. There was a team of lawyers that was that was affiliated with that. And they were all run by the mike Holt, who was the head of tow At the time, the head legal guy at Toad at the time and he just did a super job of just keeping everybody in their lane keeping that many lawyers in their own room in a case like herding cats It really is. And he did a remarkable job at doing that. And you know, it’s funny sometimes the bigger cases are almost easier because there’s so many eyes on it that it must be watched carefully. I always tell my people when I do train with them and whatnot, and teach is that is that little case in the corner that little nothing $6,000 cargo case that’s just you don’t pay attention to right that’s the one that’s going to bite you.

Yeah, that’s the one because he’s not getting eyes at the top level yet. I mean, you get you get a disastrous event. You’re getting the people that need to be looking at it. Not the people down here that Yeah, yeah, we’ll deal with it. And I’ve been

really fortunate throughout my career when I was in the Coast Guard at justice. I was the lead counsel on the Tampa Bay oil spill case, which was huge and kind of allowed me ultimately way down the road to find my way back to Tampa. And as my justice job got me around the country and got to know all the other defense lawyers and a lot of the plaintiffs’ lawyers around the country in Admiralty so that the Coast Guard was just an absolute I know this is recruiting commentary for the Coast Guard Oh, no,

no, it’s just a bit but I like to look at it and I tell a lot of people your story just because I go listen in this is a kid truly at the crossroads that took advantage now don’t get me wrong, Coast Guard got what 28 years out of here, whatever. So, it’s not a matter of taking advantage like you won something from them. So pretty fair trade. But the fact that you were able to go undergraduate graduate law school, and then retire at a young age a fully commissioned lieutenant commander is an impressive story

with a pension 100% Well, you know, the cool thing I didn’t healthcare benefits, well, that’s, you know, you don’t really trust me, when you’re when you’re when you’re when you’re 20. Right. You don’t realize how important those health benefits are. When you

write and premiums are made for my firm, you realize how important

Me too, so it really is significant. And I was I was commenting the other day about how lucky I’ve been to be involved in certain things I was involved in now farro I was involved in most of the post open 90 big cases that came about after that legislation was written and passed. So, I did a whole bunch of oil spill stuff and then go off go figure once all this oil spill legislation was passed, and things were put in place that were much better than the Clean Water Act and that kind of stuff. The pollution incident stop course I’m speaking a little bit out of term because of what just happened.

I was going to say, have you read what happened in California? Yeah,

but it’s I’ve been fortunate enough. I was talking to my partner, Jules, who I mentioned earlier. And I remember when I persuaded Jules 16 years ago to come to work when I left a large firm and formed my own firm with Jerry and open the Tampa office. I talked to Jules about coming with me. So he and I were having, I know you’re going to find this hard to believe a beer few months ago, and I said, Well, since

you said, it’s singular. Yeah, I find it hard to believe. I said,

I said, Jules, did you ever think when you accepted my offer to come to work with me, instead of taking the offer from the bigger firms because he had all kinds of opportunities? I said, did you ever think that you would have had the opportunity to be involved in the Alfaro? Did you ever think that you know, which is probably the single largest, you know, maritime disaster in the past 100 years, right? I said, did you think that you’d ever go to the Supreme Court of the United States, which we did, about almost 10 years ago now, I got to tell you sitting in that room, and with the nine justices on a table on the other side, is an impressive play, I would imagine. So, I never figured I’d be doing that. But those kinds of things. arcs are exciting, and I’ve had an opportunity to do those even in addition to just meeting a lot of the work that I do nowadays, as I get older is yachts. I do a lot of mega yacht and superyacht sales and transactions and forming corporations and doing that kind of stuff in the Caymans. That’s exciting stuff because it gets to it takes me to places that are cool, I mean, I get to go to London a lot I get to go to Monaco I get to go to places where you know yachts are and that’s fun. So, it’s not just cargo, and personal injury and death and there’s a lot of fun sexy stuff to it too. And that my practice fortunately I’ve been able to do all of that

was talk a little bit about your firm Hamilton, Hamilton Miller and Bertha sell. I know all you guys well. ton of respect for the firm. Kind of talking about the formation of that and what you own. We’ve kind of talked about what you do, and I know Tampa is more specified to that. But what does the firm do in general?

The firm is a general litigation firm. It didn’t begin that way. Jerry, and Jen, Jerry Hamilton and Jen Miller, my primary partners from Tampa, I mean, I’m sorry, from Miami. I met them when we were all at a other maritime firm back in the mid 90s. color and how, in Miami, I went my way, I was one of the first people to head to a different place for that firm when it was when I was breaking up. And Jerry ended up kind of staying with that until we formed Hamilton, Miller and Bertha. So back in September, I got word from actually from mark out from Colin out that that Jerry was going to be leaving and they were going to be doing something else. So, I called Jerry said, you know, we should get together and do something. So we did Jerry has traditionally, he’s, first of all, just a great litigator, and a trial lawyer, and but he was doing a lot of cruise ship stuff because of the Miami right a lot of cruise ship stuff, a lot of Disney stuff, a lot of if you read about a case over in Jamaica, Jerry’s Jamaican, if you read about a case over in the islands somewhere where something went horribly wrong, and there were people, you know, flying down a mountainside on a little train or something like that, Jerry was usually right in the middle of that not driving the train. Well, I

met Jerry years ago, handling a cruise line case. And it was funny because somebody dug up the transcript of a deposition, we had find a captain or whatnot, and it had to be taken on a Saturday or whatnot. And let’s just say, Jerry, and I might have been a little contentious with a surprise during the scope of that deposition. But I got to know Jerry through that, and again, got to see and appreciate what a good litigation litigator he is, you know, and we went at it head to head and ultimately came to a resolution on it, but it was one of those, you walked away where you’re kind of like, I hate that guy. And then you go, but I really respected you know, that. And that’s kind of in the relationship with with Jerry and, and and Jen. So that firm, thriving and doing very, very well, what he kind of looking back, and I know we’re not at the end of this career by any stretch. But what do you look back that gives you great sense of satisfaction or pride when you look at what you’ve done as a lawyer.

You know, I think that, to be honest with you probably the most, the most satisfying work I did was in the Coast Guard getting kids out of trouble, right? When I was in the Coast Guard, doing that defense work, because kids make mistakes they do. And I made a mistake or two and, and but for the forgiveness that was inherent in the system now or then, which may not be as inherent in the system. Now. I was allowed to continue on and have a very successful career. I think everybody deserves that opportunity. I had a kid that I got out of some real trouble. And I won’t go into the details. But he was facing serious jail time. And I won his case. And it was a full-blown trial before a jury in Puerto Rico. I got a Christmas card from that kid for 10 years. Yeah, after that. And you know that those are the ones that are really the satisfying ones. I mean, the I in fact, I think I mentioned this to you last night, what I would really like to do in the last 10 years. And of course, the problem with being my age is that 10 the last 10 years is creeping up on you pretty quick. But I’d like to spend the more

generous, I’ll just say you’re on the back nine. I’ll give you a whole my last night.

I appreciate it. Because, you know, it’s probably more like the perhaps the last quarter Yeah, well, I don’t want to make this two more. But what I’d really like to be able to do and what I feel like I’ve since I’ve had such good opportunities and blessings, as I like to spend the last 10 years of my life working with some organizations like the Surfrider Foundation and people like that, to try and help clean up some of the plastics in the ocean. We got to that’s something we got to do something about. And, you know, I have lots of clients out there that have probably, you know, been part of the prospect as as the as the military, right dumping stuff at sea and, and I’d like to in the last part of my career be part of the solution. And that’d be my legacy, rather than just moving money from one side of the desk to the other.

It is nice to see that that the world is sort of waking up to the fact that we can’t just throw things in the ocean. Like that’s not the dumping ground and it’s while it covers two thirds of the world, it’s still limited to what we’re at and it has a huge impact so

they can’t find they’re not finding any fish that comes out of the ocean these days without microplastics in their, in their, in their gut somewhere and it’s just, it’s just horrible. We’re killing we’re killing our planet. Yes, we

are slowly but guys, that’s the only hug I’m going to do on the tree today. Guys, guys, like you hopefully can start to save that planet a little bit. But listen, I really enjoy spending time with you. This is always easy. We do this whether there’s a camera or microphone or not anyway, but I appreciate you coming in childbirth, the cell again, one of the top maritime and Admiralty guys in the country. And I know that firsthand, because I’ve watched it. And I’ve watched the ability of this guy to be able to pick up the phone and talk to guys with lots of stars on their shoulders, that a lot of people don’t have that connection to and so been a pleasure. Hopefully here’s one we can sort of just take them off the list, you know, put them into the good guy category. And we won’t kill all the lawyers. We’ll save this one. I’m David Heffernan. We’ll see you next week. Thanks, Dave.

Kaire & Heffernan

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Welcome to another episode of First off, let’s kill all the lawyers. I’m David Heffernan. I’ve been practicing personal injury law here in Miami in South Florida for nearly three decades. The phrase, first off, let’s kill all the lawyers is from 15th century Shakespeare play, drew a lot of laughs at the time, it’s debatable on what it was actually supposed to mean. But the thought behind this show was, maybe let’s not kill all of them. Let’s take some South Florida lawyers, let’s shine some spotlights on them. Let’s talk about some trending topics in law. And maybe one by one, we can take them off the list. My guest this morning should be very easy to get off the list. When I say new member of the Florida Bar, we’re talking about in the last 72 hours.

Yeah, as of Monday at 11:30am. Alright, but who’s keeping score? What happened on Monday is this young man, who is my law partners son, passed the Florida Bar and got those results just 72 hours ago. We’re going to talk about that, because it’s no small feat.   But first off, congratulations, and welcome to the bar.

No, thank you. I really appreciate it. And thank you for having me on here today, of course,

And you’re going to realize now you get into the practice of law that Yeah, most people do want to kill all the lawyers. So, we’re going to see what we can do to dispel some of that, but, but let’s talk about passing the bar, we’ll talk about present and then we’ll work backwards and kind of go forward, passing the bar, because it’s pretty surprising. Of 3343 people that sat for the bar back in July 27 2014 –  183, passed a 44% pass rate. So, no small feat in in in passing the bar, How’s that feel?

It feels great. It was a culmination of a lot of hard work, a rough summer, but after everything’s, you know, fell through it all worked out in the end.

Excellent, excellent. So, while it’s a gruesome rate, I will put this out there that the University of Miami School of Law, the  Dean went and I’m an adjunct faculty did have an 82% pass rate, which actually was up significantly. So, talk a little bit about Dean, we’re going to talk about what you did in law school, but this was now totally online. I mean, it’s a thing, you know, annually, people hit the convention center in Tampa, big thing, what were the thoughts of, of taking it online.

So, my initial concerns, and I think a lot of my peers also had that same concern of when you’re taking it in the Tampa test center, from what you hear, there’s not a lot of things that are outside of your own control. So, if you’re in the Tampa test center, and someone’s rattling their pen, or clicking their pen or pencil, you’re hearing all of that, but so is everybody else in the room. Now, when you’re taking it online, depending on where you take it, you could be taken up by a busy intersection with fire trucks coming back and forth. Your fire alarm in your building can go off. And I know that’s what actually happened at the NYU School of Law. They rented out rooms, right? Yeah, they rented out rooms to all their test takers who didn’t have a place to take it, and they had a fire alarm go off in the middle of the exam. So, I feel like taking it online, that was a lot of nervous. nerve racking for a lot of different people just because there were so many factors that were probably outside of your own control.

Yeah, it’s interesting and I think they’ll probably delve into that. And hopefully we’re, we’re moving past things that we get back to take it into person, but I talked briefly to my daughter about this because she’s working on her master’s. And she goes, the odd thing is you’re sitting taking the test and you’ve got yourself in the screen up there. You know, somebody is watching you the whole time, right? It’s not like a teacher just wandering up and down the hallway. So she goes, it’s kind of an odd feeling. But let’s go back a little bit. Okay. Obviously, your dad’s a lawyer. Yeah, we’ll say nice things about him. Your dad and I are law partners. I love practicing with your dad. I think he’s a phenomenal, phenomenal lawyer. What is it, that got you into thinking about going to law school?

So, like every kid growing up, loved sports, and wanted to find a way to be involved in sports. So, growing up, I was like, I’m definitely not good enough to play any sports. So let me try to find the next best thing, which was a sports agent. So that was my dream, kind of when I initially started on this path, that’s obviously changed later on. But when I started this path, my whole dream was to be a sports agent. So, I went to the University of Texas, I got my degree in sport management. And then I realized probably after my first year at Texas that going down this path is not really one that is all as glamorous as it turns out to be. Obviously there are a ton of successful people in the industry and in that specific field, but I realized that wasn’t really where I wanted to dedicate myself and go down this path. So I knew at that point, that I still wanted to be a lawyer and go to law school and get my law degree but find a different path and it wasn’t really until I started working in law school figuring out where that path exactly was going to take me.  That’s  interesting and it was funny because you know when I got out of you I’m and then I bounced around the NFL went to law school people like, oh, you’re going to be an agent, this and that. And, and I think, and we’ll get off on a tangent just quickly. The whole concept of agent makes no sense to me. Why everything structured in the NFL, right? Why are you automatically getting a percentage of money of something that that guy could walk in and say, look, I’m the fourth pick the fifth round, I want what the fourth peg in the fifth round got last year, and they would go here. So I’ve never figured out and you know, to me, athletes should just go hire a lawyer and negotiate that first contract, hire a PR person hire somebody else that aren’t all related to each other but that’s a whole different issue on agents. So you get shifted and what shifts in law school what all of a sudden piqued your interest.

I actually clerked with you guys for a few months prior to the pandemic. And that’s when I kind of got into working more plaintiffs work for personal injury and medical malpractice with you guys and I really just enjoyed that field more than a lot of the other ones I had done some insurance defense work prior to that and I thought just being on the plaintiff side was a lot more engaging, a lot more rewarding and being able to communicate with your clients a lot more and one on one and really going out of your way to try to help people so to me that’s what made that that shift to want to stay on the plaintiff side and continue working plaintiffs side

Alright, excellent. We’re going to talk about that but let’s talk about law school because you go from UT in one of my favorite cities, and you come to Miami and when you start in law school, the world still normal, right? Right. So when did you start and then just talk a little bit about that shift and kind of how you other students schools had to adapt I mean it’s a whole different universe, you know, your university setting you’re going in, you’re with colleagues, you know, there’s always brainstorming before and after classes and now all of a sudden, you guys are in your bedroom somewhere in your kitchen, going to school.

Right? Absolutely. So fortunately I was able to be there for a year and a half before the pandemic hit so that first year and a year and a half I guess was really beneficial because as we’ll get into a little bit later learning and trying to do law school online is pretty difficult and fortunately my first year I was able to have that in person experience and that first year is so huge on trying to learn all the concepts and figuring out your best way to study and collaborative efforts like you said so I was lucky enough to have that my first year and then right we were on spring break in the middle of my two year and we start seeing all this COVID stuff start to pop up and my friends and I are talking being like there’s no way we’re going to you know go back to school u M was one of the later schools to announce it a lot of other schools in the country have already said you know, two weeks off don’t come back from spring break and then all of a sudden with two or three days left on spring break we get an email saying you know we’re going to delay coming back two more weeks until this COVID stuff dies down. So we’ll be online for two weeks and then be prepared to come back in person and obviously as we all know that didn’t end up happening at all we’re getting right so we were forced to be online that remaining semester and then it was just a completely different experience you really don’t get that same feel for being in an environment I think a lot of the professor’s were also you know, understanding of the circumstances so you lose the whole element of being cold called and you know, having to make sure all your cases were read to a tee before class so you don’t get embarrassed and you went from being in the classroom and speaking every day and being cold call to now you could just as easily have your camera off in a lecture and you know, be walking around your house doing nothing with the camera playing in the background, and then just two weeks before the final cram and, and do what needs to be done.

So how did how did you and others if you’ve talked others, sort of find the way to be able to kind of refocus, because you’re right. I mean, you know, if you may not want to go to class, but you stumble into an 830 class or lecture or whatnot. You know, you better be ready. I mean, that’s part of the whole Socratic method of being able to do that. And I mean, we went you know, in litigation skills went to online and it’s just it’s different. I mean, it’s a little easier for me because I only had eight students at a time, but it’s still hard to engage. You don’t know  you’re not making eye contact necessarily with that person. You’re looking at your own little camera. So, what was it that changed and how were you able to sort of stay refocused to say, now I got a year and a half of an alternate universe that I got to get through. Right. So, for the litigation skills class, for instance, I think there were certain classes that throughout law school, you always wanted to prioritize More so than others. So, for me, if I was taking litigation skills, even if it was online, I knew I wanted to be involved in litigation somehow down the road. So, there was no point in me for trying to figure out a work around the system. I know others would, you know, were practicing opens opening statements today, and they would have their Microsoft Word pulled up right in front of their camera and just read down the line. And, to me, I figure, you know, if I’m going to be going into litigation, there’s no reason to try to cut corners and go around, and if all this stuff is going to be beneficial to me later down the road. And I mean, even though it didn’t get switched online, and the trials were different than what we’ll be doing trial wise, we now are seeing a lot of the court system switching to zoom and likely staying on zoom for a lot of the hearings and motion calendar. So, we were kind of the first class to be able to be taught like that. So, there’s really no way and trying to cheat the system, if later down the road that you’re going to have to be doing the same exact things without any cheats to it. So to me, I prioritize those types of classes and the ones that I’d be focused on, and just really try to cut any corners and really tried to get whatever the university was trying to offer me.

Well, it’s excellent. And, and obviously, it paid off because you’re now a proud member of the Florida Bar Exam, we’ll talk about that skill set. So you learned all of a sudden to have to go online and do these things. And now, as you said, I mean, pretty much universally, at least motion counter and everything else is all zoom depositions are all being taken via zoom and these platforms. So how did that help you transition now into what you’re doing?

Yeah, so I haven’t had any, you know, as, like I said, just passed the bar Monday, so I haven’t really had to been thrown into the fire yet.

We got to get you to work. Exactly.

So haven’t had to take any depositions and hearings yet. But I feel now I know some people can be a little bit uncomfortable when they’re in front of the camera, and they see their face and see themselves talking and it throws some people off at least. So, I guess having had that experience being in law school and being familiar with technology a little bit more, and having that, you know, skill set acquired through these lips skills, I took one and two as well. So being able to have that structure and understanding of how it works. It’s going to play a big role in my success later down the road.

Well, it is important, and I mean, it’s nice, you’ve got a nice background here and everything else. You know, one of the things I work with my students and it’s amazing that you’ve got professionals, but you get into these hearings sometimes and you know, I mean people are in a collared shirt, I’m like, you got to treat it like a court appearance still. Okay, I mean, you know, and judges looking at you, you know, so set it up. So at least you know that there’s light and you can be seen, because it really is sort of what you see sometimes in some of these hearings, it just it’s mind boggling to me.

No, absolutely. And you know, I’ve been fortunate to sit in some hearings, and you can really tell the way the judge views someone who’s you know, making a call from their car for a motion calendar versus an attorney with sitting in their office prepared, dressed nicely. So, I really think those type of things make the difference and will make the difference later down the road.

All right, you talked a little bit about why you were in law school, you clerked for us. I also know you clerked for judge Venza and did some other things talk about the work experience you had while in law school, because to me, I think that’s so integral, you know, once you get that first year out of the way, which really is probably impossible to try to work and do that. But I think it’s integral to be able if you’ve got the means to be able to go out and work and do some things to get some exposure. So, talk a little bit about the experience, clerking for us and then clerking for a judge and what that was like,

absolutely, yes, I was fortunate enough to be able to work throughout all two of my back-end semester, or back two years at University of Miami. So, I worked at different jobs, those summers as well as during the semester and tried to really expose myself to as many different fields as possible so that when I was coming out of law school, and hopefully passed the bar at that time, I would kind of have an idea of where I wanted to end up. So, I clerked for Judge Denzer after my first summer in law school at the Criminal Division down in Miami, and I was able to observe courtroom hearings and proceedings and some trials. And that really was the first time I was getting firsthand experience. You know, I think I still in the courthouse was open, still in the courthouse was open, it was after my first year of law school. So, the year before the pandemic had happened. So that was my first real experience, being able to see litigators in person and watching trials and watching motion calendar and seeing their composure the way they speak. And I was able to experience that and obviously on the criminal side, you’re seeing, you know, very sad but interesting cases and a lot more interesting facts to the cases. So, it was interesting to see all that and then obviously came declared for you guys after that and was able to do a lot more client relations and speaking with clients and working on Discovery myself. So just being able to be exposed to all these different practice areas. Throughout my time in law school, I was a lot more beneficial than sometimes sitting in a classroom, you know, learning the rules, whereas in practice, you’re using those exact rules and putting them to work.

It’s amazing, you know, law school, they teach you all that, here’s the here’s the rules of evidence. But until you actually start to apply them, you know, when people give an answer, oh, let’s do within 20 days, 20 days of what? Oh, well, that, you know, you got to figure out a story somewhere. So now and then you went over, you’re now with Edwards, Pottenger. In in Fort Lauderdale. Yeah. Tell me how that came about. And then let’s talk about that firm and the type of work you’re doing.

Right. So I was fortunate enough in my lead skills classes at USM, one of my moderators for my final trial, spoke very highly of myself and my other trial partner and our adversaries in that trial, and had mentioned when we were graduating law school, and we were looking for a job, he’d be happy to put us in touch with some people. He was super, you know, thought we’d all be great with the Gators. So, he was very happy to make any connection he possibly could. So, when I was working, in my third year, I had reached out to him and said, you know, I’m graduating, this coming, may I plan on taking the bar in July. If your firm has any openings, if you know of anybody, I’d love to maybe talk and catch up and see if you know anything. So, we’ve got on the phone, and he was friendly with my pet attorney here, Brad Edwards. And he put me in touch with Mr. Edwards. And we spoke on the phone seemed to be a very good connection. And came here I clerked here for it was very, very last minute. So, I was working on an insurance defense firm in Fort Lauderdale at the time. And then Brad had said that I could come work for him for two weeks before I started setting for the bar to see if it would be a good fit. So I immediately as soon as I could put my two weeks notice came to work for Brad for about two weeks, and then was fortunate enough to be offered a position after passing the bar. Excellent.

So, you got to put the black hat on briefly take it off, put the white hat back on, and go and go to the good side.

Exactly.

Let’s talk about because it’s a very interesting firm. You know, obviously, very successful firms. So congratulations on the hiring there. Because I think that’s tremendous thing. Talk a little bit about what they do, because I know that they’ve sort of specialized in some areas and had a lot of national recognition for it. And it’s unfortunately, an area that we’re seeing more and more problems.

Right. So primarily, the firm is a plaintiff’s firm that specializes in crime victims and survivors of sexual abuse. So that’s what we focus on here. That’s a lot what I’ve been focused on in my short time here as well. So, working on those types of cases, and doing everything we can to help those victims and survivors is primarily what the firm focuses on.

Which, again, fascinating and, and, and difficult because I think, you know, the empathy and sympathy you feel sometimes in these circumstances and you know, of trying to find ways, how do we figure out where there’s potential compensation? And how do we try to restore people that in essence had been pretty severely broken?

Right, absolutely. And I think, given the fact that a lot of the cases that I’ve seen so far come across my desk, and obviously I’ve known what the firm has done in the past as well, when you see these types of fact patterns and these types of cases and the people who have been so severely hurt, it means a lot more to try to actually do everything you can in your power, to find a way to make these cases work and to find a way to be able to represent these victims to the best of your ability and you’re willing to go, at least I’ve seen so far and everyone in the firm here as well kind of has that same mentality that you’re willing to go that extra mile, even if it’s, you know, after traditional working hours or doing anything, you can’t figure out a way to make this case work to get into a courtroom and to be able to help these people any way you can.

Well, and i think that’s important, and you sort of hit on it, it really does. I think when you’re on the plaintiff side of things, and you see people that have been devastated by physical or emotional or mental injuries, it becomes a personal thing to you, you know, as the lawyer you’re like, I want to help this person and how can I and you know, it’s not just a matter of, Okay, I got X amount of hours in and I did this and, you know, it becomes a personal issue for you to say, you know, we’re taking you on as part of our firm with this, and what can we do to help?

No, absolutely, like you said that perfectly. It’s, it really does make a difference when you can do something to help these people who have been so hurt and they’re relying on you to help them and change their life and put them on a new path. And when you kind of have that understanding it really puts things into a different perspective. So you kind of throw out the nine to five and are willing to be here you know, early and late and a second phone call whenever you need to try to help these people.

So, how’s the experience been? You had a couple weeks before and now you’re just you know you got your time. I’m in here and did you go back to work before you got the bar results.

Yes so, I went back to work pretty shortly after actually I was willing I wanted to start earning dive in as fast as I can. So I came back I took about a week and a half after I finished the bar and then started that following Monday and I’ve been here now for about a month or a month and a half since Pat since taking the bar and obviously it’s my first week now being an attorney here so I’ve been able to be doing some work as a clerk for them for the last month or so and really figuring out the cases I’ll be working on once I become an attorney and now am an attorney so figuring out the case they’ll be working on and getting a pretty good understanding so really spent this last month and a half obviously working on assignments given to me but also diving into the cases that I knew I’d be working on once I’m an attorney and reading all the facts reading all the pleadings, reading all the deposition transcripts so I can get a better understanding of everything that’s taken place to this point and everything that needs to be done moving forward that can help on

that’s fantastic and where do you see your career going? I mean, obviously it sounds like you want to stay on the plaintiff side of things but what do you envision

right i mean for the time being I envision being here and staying here it’s you know, a great working environment here um, you know, all the co workers here are great, the other attorneys in the firm are fantastic. Everyone in the firm really works together super well. And it’s just a great working environment and like I say everyone kind of has those same feelings I do about doing everything they can to help people and their power and then trying to you know, save these people’s lives essentially. So for the time being, you know, I love to hear and plan on staying here for the foreseeable future.

And that’s Edwards Pottenger in in Fort Lauderdale again fantastic firm I mean you look at you look at the caliber the lawyer so I think great environment for you to be able to be around that because again, when you surround yourself with quality people, you know, that’s where your success is going to come from and hopefully you’re clogging with the you know, when you clerked with your dad and I we didn’t bring it down too much you know, Mike might learn something along the way Absolutely.

So, take out the crystal ball best you can because I know none of us can but where do the courts go I mean obviously we’re opening up and I think you know general consensus is a jury trials are going to have to be in person I mean, you know, both criminal and civil you just there’s no way to do that virtually you know, trying to look at jurors and everything else but what about other aspects Do you think things are going to stay virtual for hearings and things like that? Or where do you see it going? And where are you going to sort of focus the technology end of your career?

Right so like you said, I think trials need to be in person I think that’s going to be the most important thing and the first things and you see it not with the courts that they’re trying to get back in person. Like I said, I was in the litigation skills courses. So, both my trials which I took were supposed to be in the courthouse when the programs were initially designed but those are relegated to zoom and granted Those are my only two trial experiences I’ve had and they’re not even real ones. But when you try to make that connection with the jurors and you try to explain to them the law and empathize with them and try to really make that connection that can make or break the trial itself you really are missing that aspect of being in person and being able to truly resonate with the jury so I think first and most importantly it’s going to be jury trials have to be back in person which you know, we’re already starting to see now but I do think the hearings and the motion calendars and a lot of stuff that’s primarily just between the council and judges. I see no reason for that to have to be back in a courtroom anytime soon I think the zoom has been a great feature and super beneficial to saving time I mean you’re saving time you used to be out in the courtroom super early wait for your you know time to be called speak with the judge for it could be a matter for a few minutes and then you’re out and wasted two hours of your morning that you could have been putting you know your time elsewhere to us so I think the motions and the hearing calendars are here to stay for zoom particularly and I think that’s super beneficial but trials I think need to begin and start being in person

yeah and I think it’s general consensus and we’ve talked about it some on the show before I really do give I mean all of the South Florida judges but I really think the Miami Dade judges were cutting edge on a lot of this and Broward they all work together to be able to continue to move cases via zoom and all that I think Yeah, we’re going to cherry pick those things out and say, Okay, this was the oddest thing in the world. You know, all of a sudden we have to do this but look how efficient This is to be able to do this on emotion calendar and you know, outside of evidentiary hearings where you’re taking testimony. I think a lot of that should stay with the way it goes. And, you know, we’ve got other issues in Miami with our building itself, whether it’s safe or not, but you know, minor details. Beautiful courthouse down there.

Exactly. Exactly.

So having now graduated and pass the bar, what advice would you give for younger people that are thinking that are either in school or thinking maybe I want to go to law school? You know, is it a journey they should undertake?

Absolutely, I think so. I mean, it’s super rewarding, if not anything. So being able to go through this journey, I think, make sure it’s something that you’re interested in obviously, before you would even embark on this, and you kind of have to be if you’re going to sit through the L sat and prep for all that. So super rewarding once you get through it. And then like I said, I mean it’s, it’s tough to be able to come out of college, and then, you know, you see all your friends, all my friends, I was the only one to pursue a degree after undergrad. So, I was sitting back seats, all my friends who were, you know, in real jobs and starting to make money. And here I was, you know, in law school, three more years, before I can actually enter the workforce and do all you know, same things that my friends were able to do. But at the end of the day, it’s super rewarding paid off and we used to treat it like a job treat it every day. Like it’s like it is your job and you know, do everything you can in your power to succeed in doing so. So absolutely, I would recommend it. And, you know, I’m happy to talk to anybody who’s interested in being coming along or sitting for the bar or currently in law school and give them any advice I can.

Excellent. Well, I know it’s music, your dad’s ears. When you say and now that you can start to make money, you know, off the pair. Well, no, I know your dad’s extraordinarily proud of you as as him I, you know, I got to see you. You know, you did a lot of grinding at our office, getting ready for this thing, and I knew you were putting the work in. So, congratulations. Welcome to the Florida Bar. A brand new young lawyer Dean care working at Edwards Pottenger up in Fort Lauderdale. Dean, I think you’ve got a stellar career ahead of you. It’s going to be fun to sit back and watch and, and I think now even though you’ve only been on the list for a few days as a lawyer, hopefully we can take you off that list.

Now Thank you so much. I appreciate it. David. All right.

Enjoy it. All right. That’s one more hopefully we can take it off the list not to kill Dean care because bright young lawyer I think has a bright young future ahead of him. And I think you know, is typical of what we’ve had to see as these students have evolved starting law school when it’s normal, going to COVID and now in the hybrid practice of law, a lot of fun to see. So, have a great week. We’ll see you next week.

Kaire & Heffernan

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Welcome to another episode of First off, let’s kill all the lawyers. It’s that 15 century phrase that Shakespeare wrote and was uttered by Dick the butcher, and drew cut a raucous laughs even though there’s a debate as to what the line meant. And line, it still makes people laugh today, when we say first off, let’s kill all the lawyers. So, I’m David Heffernan. I’ve been a personal injury lawyer here in Miami for nearly three decades. And the goal behind this is to introduce you to other local lawyers and talk about various aspects of the law and maybe one by one, start to take a few lawyers off of that kill list. My guest this morning is a good friend, an avid cyclist, who I rarely see in clothes like this. And an excellent lawyer, Karen Jordan, and Karen. Welcome. Good morning, David. Good morning. Alright, so let’s talk about you because when we talk about local lawyers, you’re about as local as it gets, okay. You grew up down here. And then you go to Miami Dade, and then to F IU and then to St. Thomas. That is correct. But there’s a gap in there. So let’s talk about that. Because before you were a lawyer, you had another life.

I did. Before I was an attorney. I was a practicing sports, my massage therapist for about 1112 years, and I worked on athletes such as yourself.

Alright, so how does somebody then go from, from being a sports massage therapist, and everything else to going to law school seems to be not a natural transgression, maybe a little, you know, sort of a 180 jump.

That is true. When I was younger, I had intended to go to law school. And then I went out west and I got married. And I spent a few years living that life and traveling. And then I ended that. And I came back to Miami and I decided, you know, I need to get myself back on track to where I want it to be in my life. And I went back to school, and I continued the education. And that’s where it led me today. All right. So, what drew you to law school, I had always been interested in something that used my mind. I was very happy doing what I was doing. But I didn’t feel like it really used my intellectual assets, so to speak. So, I really wanted to do that. And I did like the fact that you were able to be involved with people, you were able to help people. And at that point, I just really wanted to become a lawyer to go out there and make my own business doing that.

And you did because you didn’t come out and start with a firm or anything else you started your own firm. So, did you go to law school, right?

I did. I’d always worked for myself, I had the joke that if if I worked for anybody, I would probably get fired anyway. So, I might as well just make my business. And I have a business degree. So, my degree from NYU was in business marketing. So, I already had that under my belt, I knew what I needed to do. The marketing is in complete aspect, because you can be a great lawyer, but running a business is a completely separate endeavor.

It’s funny, that’s a conversation I have with a lot of friends. And I think it’s a deficiency in law school. Because I think yes, they train you to become a lawyer. And there are a lot of great lawyers. But a lot of lawyers don’t know how to run a law firm. They don’t know the business end of it.

True. A lot of lawyers that come into law school, they don’t necessarily want to run their own business. They do like, you know, for different reasons. They want to, you know, work where somebody can go in and out and then not have the responsibility of running the business. But for me, I love business. I love running a business. So, I knew what to do. And I can tell you yes, I was working maybe 100 hours a week, the first couple years, you know, moving my own desks, you know, setting up my own accounting. I can’t tell you how many Sundays and Saturdays I spent knowing that learning the law because you do not have a mentor you are learning as you go. It really teaches you the hard lessons that you never forget, especially the first time you go before a court, and you don’t have somebody telling you what to do. And so you learn. It makes you a better lawyer.

No question. No question. I mean, it’s trial by fire. You know? Yes. So, alright, so you open your own firm? And have you always dealt with domestic and divorce and immigration? Is that where the focus started?

No, actually, interestingly enough, in law school, I was more interested in intellectual property law. I had always been involved in music during my younger life. And so, I was geared towards that. And I actually did an internship with Mr. Wolf, who’s a very well renowned intellectual property attorney and I did an internship there. And I found that I would have had to have joined a law firm to do that. And I wasn’t inclined to do that. I actually rented some office space in another attorney’s office who was retiring and it kind of just fell in my lap Believe it or not, Were his older clients moving out were Family Law clients and some immigration clients. And I just took them on. And I learned as I went, and I was involved, and it was a good business, and I delved into it, and I found out that I was very good at it.

Alright, so let’s delve into it. Okay, because this is one i think that’s always an interesting topic, just because it’s either affected everybody personally, or affected someone they know. divorce. I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, we’re over the 50%. Mark, I think, and most marriages are sort of almost set up to fail. It’s a begins now. So, let’s talk about divorce law and sort of trends that you see in that, and I want to talk about the pandemic as well, and how that’s affected. But what was the appeal of doing domestic work,

or domestic work is very personal, I find that I am a very personal attorney. When my clients come to me, I am not afraid to ask them the hard questions. I know what they’re going through. I mean, I’ve been divorced. I’ve also my parents were divorced. I know what that’s like. And so I really personalize it. And I think that people coming in understand that, that they can tell me what is going on. I’m also a very strong person, when a person comes in, and they’re not quite sure I’m able to guide them and let them know that it’s okay to tell me those personal things that I’ve heard them before, and that I can help them. And I think that puts them at ease. And it makes me feel good to be able to do that.

Right? Do you tend to represent more husbands more wives, or it’s whoever comes in, because I know some lawyers sort of, I don’t know that they gear it that way? But it just winds up there. Oh, that’s view if your wife, you should go see this lawyer, you know, if your husband, you need to go see this lawyer.

Interestingly enough, I have a pretty 50/50 ratio. Some of the trends that I’ve noticed over the years is that the fathers have been having, getting more time sharing, you know, right now we started equal time sharing. Before many years ago, the presumption was that the mother would get them majority time sharing, the father would have to fight for that. Good thing is that now the premises that it starts at equal. And interestingly enough, I have a lot of fathers who actually majority time sharing now. So I’ve noticed that switch, and I’m not sure if it’s because of the economics and more women are taking charge and going out there and doing, you know, businesses and work, or I don’t know, but I’ve noticed that shift where the fathers are actually having majority time sharing, but I do represent equally both mothers, fathers, husbands and wives and do not have a majority of one or the other.

You’re in that delicate balance, you know, there’s a thin line between love and hate, you know, for a reason, because things are very passionate, either way. And so, you see a lot of times in divorce, how do you deal with the aspect of, you know, I want to hurt this person? Now, you know, in other words, I mean, I want a pound of flesh I want? And how do you sort of get that separated to say, really, it’s a business transaction, we’ve got to get it boiled down to that.

I think a lot of times, it depends on if the representation on the other side is as equally level headed. Because Don’t forget, there’s a lot of moving parts in a divorce, you have your client, you may or may not have children, you have extended family members, if it’s a post modification, after divorce, you might have a new spouse involved. You have opposing counsel, and then you have the judge. So there’s a lot of moving parts in a divorce. And you also see people at their very worst, you don’t see them at their best. And in order to get them to how do I say talk them off the ledge A lot of times, right, you really have to take them aside when they get emotional. And they get over the top. And you have to look at them and say, if I were to go into court with this, this would not work, this would not fly, you would lose and I don’t want that to happen to you. So, take a step back. take three deep breaths, right, and let’s do it together. And I’ve actually done that with my clients. And let’s think about what you’re saying. So I think that helps. And I think having the background that I have in doing even the therapy, you know, allowing people to just take their moment, and then move on from there is really helpful in divorce because it’s so emotional and it feels like the bottom is dropping out. And I have to tell them, the bottom is not dropping out. It may feel like that but it will come back.

Right. Okay. How do you deal with the delicacy of when you have kids involved? I mean, that’s, I think, the most difficult and we often see it portrayed the kids sort of become pawns, you know, and they’re used as weapons toward the other spouse. So how do you how do you kind of try to neutralize that and try to protect particularly young children in what’s an extraordinarily stressful situation?

Yes, that is an extraordinarily stressful situation for both parents, I think the most important thing that I have to look at is what is in the best interests of the child. And that is the standard that the courts look out. And at a certain point, the judge or whoever is administering the law over that case, will look at both parents and say, I really don’t care, I’m thinking of your child. So again, I try to step back, and I try to look at that parent, if I represent them, and I say, you know, is this good for your child, you know, maybe the other person isn’t an ogre. Or maybe the person is and you do have to step in and file an emergency motion and protect that child, which is often the case. So it each part of the case, whether you’re doing the analysis, or whether you’re actually in the case, you have to remind your client, you know, are you being over the top, you know, is the judge may be going to admonish you and say, you know, ma’am, or Sir, this is not in the best interest of your child, the other parents should have time sharing, or otherwise. And I think you have to walk them back from that and remind them of what is going on.

We went through, and there was a great meme I saw yesterday, it’s a guy running and he says me still processing 2020. And there’s a guy right behind him that says 2022, just four months away. You know, we sort of went through 2020, in this pandemic and into 2021. And it’s all kind of been a blur, but and we’ve seen a lot of different aspects. Obviously, bankruptcies have skyrocketed and everything else. But what about the impact on divorce, when you’ve got people now sequestered during lockdown, things like that? What have you seen as far as trends going in divorce?

Well, real briefly, I’ll take everyone back to that time, we know we’re used to going into court, we’re used to represent our clients in front of the jury, the lawyers and judges in the whole system was shut down, we had to learn how to do zoom, we had to learn how to present our evidence. I’m also a certified Family Law mediator. And we were learning how to do mediations via zoom. You know, life didn’t stop. So, I can come in the court system in Miami Dade County, because they did they did come up to speed and they were exceptional. So that being said, during that timeframe, as far as a family matters, were concerned, if the parties were already separating divorce, we had the time sharing issues of you know, who was going to have them during the pandemic. Some parents could agree, and some parents couldn’t during that time, we did the best we could I mean, there wasn’t a point in time where some parents did not see their child for a portion of time whether the parent was sick, and the other parent was healthy, or whether the child was sick or not in school and had to be homeschooled. Yes, it was pandemonium if I can, you know, use that word. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. We controlled it. People were dealing with a lot. And they were trying to work together that time.

Yeah, we’ve talked about it in some other shows. And I really do think that the judiciary for Miami Dade was out in front, then quickly went to zoom, they went for different they were trying different ways to have jury trials. And always And surprisingly, you know, at least in the civil end of things, were able to continue to move cases. And so, you know, a lot to be said about that. And we’re far from it yet. I mean, unfortunately now, you know, yes, we sort of reopened the courthouse except now they’ve condemned the courthouse because it’s falling down. And it’s an unsafe building. So we have judges ready to work and lawyers ready to work. We just don’t have a courtroom to go to anymore for a while.

Yeah, I have to tell you the funny stories is that everybody knows what dogs they have now. Because you know, you’re in a courtroom and you think it’s a courtroom. But actually, it’s the backdrop of the judges, right. And then your dog barks and then their dog barks. And then before you know it, you’re showing everybody your dogs. So it’s actually personalized people in a way that I don’t think would have happened before. It’s made us kind of realize that although we are judges, we are attorneys, you know, we are even the litigants, you know, we all have lives, and we all you know, our people, we shouldn’t be feared as much. And I think one thing that pin them did positively was bring that out more. And, and you know, I now know what judges dogs are looking like, and it’s personal.

Absolutely. I mean, I had I had a young lawyer and got to know her and we’re taking the deposition. And you know, she’s homeschooling kids and this not and, you know, how are you doing? Well, I’m failing first grade virtually, but I’m doing okay in third grade because she’s trying to practice law. She’s trying to keep both our kids in front of their computers while they do it. So, it’s been an incredible strain. But I think it’s a testament to, again, the human nature and the ability to adapt to these things. And, and I think the legal community has done a good job with that. And yes, but yeah, so I’ve met lots of kids and dogs that I didn’t know they had. Exactly,

exactly. I think one of the things that people forget is that during the process of divorce, that both people have feelings and emotions, and that the lawyers also have feelings and emotions. And also, you know, we’re dealing with a lot of plates in the air. And they that they don’t realize because I understand they’re encapsulating what they’re going through. And so, I tried to explain to them how the system works. And I think it’s important for people to know how the system works. In so many times, I have a client that maybe had a prior lawyer, and they said, I walked into court, I had no idea what was going on. I had no idea why was there no idea, you know, and so it’s really incumbent upon us as specifically Family Law Attorneys, when there are emotions. And there are children that are properties involved, their life savings practically sometimes, is that you break it down, I’m going in for this reason, this is what’s expected of you. This is what you need to know, this is how you need to prepare. And that’s really important because you’re nervous, the client, not nervous, but the clients, they don’t know what’s going to be asked of them. If it’s a trial, and there’s cross examination. You know, you need to prepare your client to be bombarded maybe with them pleasantries. So I think it’s important for the lawyer to prepare your client to also know that there’s been mediation available, which is a wonderful tool. I mean, as a mediator, I try to always support that and say mediation is a tool that can alleviate not only the cost, which is a high cost, right to divorce, or any part of the family law process. You know, it’s not insurance related, we can’t take a settlement, it is basically out of your pocket or out of the other party’s pocket. So, it’s important to know you have to find other ways to solve the problem and that this is a bubble in time of your life. It is not your whole life, that it This too shall pass. And that you can go on to do the least amount of damage to yourself and others during the process

was one of my favorite bumper stickers years ago. And it’s a little dated, but years ago, bumper sticker said love is grand divorce is 50 grand. So it’s, it’s it is an expensive process. One of the things that I had read articles about and would like your thoughts on is the collaborative process now? Is that something you see that’s going on? And can you explain how that works?

Okay, I have thoughts about the collaborative process, I hopeful, but in the end, it can start a collaborative, and then it typically doesn’t end in a collaborative fashion. And then the collaborative lawyer has to withdraw. That’s part of the process, if you enter into collaborative agreement for that type of dissolution of marriage. Typically, my experience has not worked. That’s just my experience.

It is an interesting concept to me, because, as you alluded to, so you can hire a lawyer, both sides can have lawyers, but those lawyers have to agree that they won’t go on with litigation if you can’t deal and resolve it through the collaborative process. So in theory, it sounds good. But you’re saying

I’m saying if you have an agreement with your party, just get a lawyer and have an agreement, write the case, I mean, you don’t really need to go through all the collaborative process. And that’s just again, not taking away from collaborative attorneys of their process. But that’s something that works in their system. But from my you know, 23 years of being an attorney and Family Law, I have found that if you do have an amicable divorce, just create a settlement agreement, right? Go through the easy process, and then it’s done. Because at that point, if you do have that, and it does fall by the wayside, you keep your attorney, you then it becomes litigation, and then you move on is you don’t have to start all

over to restart. Right, right. Right. Okay. So we talked about divorce, let’s talk about the byproducts of divorce, the other aspects of domestic law. And I’m sure the pandemic has had a big effect on this, people lose their jobs, or people are now working at home, or they’re not making as much money or they voluntarily changed and did something during the pandemic. How does that all get affected? And what happens then to the agreements that are in place?

Yes, modification, I would say it’s a substantial part of my practice. And for the viewers a modification is when you have maybe a final judgment of divorce, and a marital settlement agreement or mediated settlement agreement. And through substantial changes, there needs to be a post modification of that agreement, so that you can start from a different point in place of your life. And there has been many of them a lot of that going on. Now. What happens with that is if somebody has lost their job, and it’s long term, then we have to go back in and assess is this long term was a voluntary? Was it involuntary? So there’s a lot of parts that go into it. Also, did one party have to remove a child from school for various reasons? And then do we have to modify where that child now is going to school if there’s no agreement, or if one party was forced to move, so the modifications can be just as difficult as the actual divorce sometimes It’s another process, it’s very similar to to the actual beginning of the divorce, except now you have to show why things have changed. But I encourage people to do a modification. Because if it’s not working, and your child is five or six, you’ve got a lot of years to deal with that the way it is, it’s not working. So go ahead and make that move if you need to.

What about other aspects of things, custody battles that arise maybe after the divorce? So, you know, we’re going to share custody or whatnot. But then there’s now accusations against one spouse with that child? How does that all get impacted and how the parties deal with it?

Very, very difficult. I’m sure. It’s, it’s a, it’s one of those cases, and one of these areas of family law, that has to be tread on very carefully. The allegations are serious. You know, a lot of people get angry, especially with domestic violence, you know, people make accusations because they didn’t get what they wanted, or, you know, it did happen. So, you know, you really have to vet them. And you really have to question your client, you have to know that what you’re doing is something that you feel is not frivolous to the court. And I think that’s important for the attorney to make sure that you, you talk to your client, you find out if this is correct, because it does have an impact on the other party’s job, on their livelihood on their time sharing. And, and I speak to other lawyers, when I say that not only the clients, that you have to be realistic, and not make false allegations. That being said, as far as a child custody, you do have to again, make sure that the best interests of the child are front center. And that’s what the court looks at. So, you want to make sure you pick that apart as well. Because you don’t want the person to go forward and perhaps jeopardize what they have in their current time sharing if they’re unreasonable, because the judges don’t look kindly on that, right. So, we want to make sure our client has a reality check while we go through the process. If it is realistic, and it is something that should be done, then we go for we file our petition for modification, we set it before the court, and we have a litigation we have to or modification as through mediation. So, it’s another whole portion of the whole new case, basically, I deal a lot with military law, My office is south. So, I’m very close to the airbase. And the relocation is a lot, you know, we do a lot of relocation cases. And that has a whole different structure of law that you have to attach to it. So again, you have to make sure your client has a realistic expectation of what will occur and explain to them and if they have all the criteria, then you move forward with it.

So you say military law, is that separate and distinct? I mean, they have their own body of law that controls

in many aspects. They do. Okay, not all but in many they do. There are specific provisions that deal only with Military Divorce, regarding a pensions, regarding you know, insurance, regarding relocation. I’ve represented people who’ve been overseas in Japan, I’ve done trials via zoom, you know, people are in other countries. So, the whole relocation process may be a little different with that and other aspects. It’s still a divorce, but there’s just some different legal ramifications for that and actually different laws that come into play. Interesting.

Alright. So, what advice do you have for people that are contemplating divorce?

Well, I always like to say I’m a big believer in marriage, and I’m a big believer in divorce. You know, marriage. Again, I have to remind people marriage is a contract. You know, people don’t like prenuptial is what I say when you say I do, you’ve entered into a prenuptial dictated by the laws of the state of Florida. Well, that’s true. That’s an interesting point. You have already without knowing entered into prenuptial agreement, right. So if you want to get really romantic draft your own prenuptial vows. People don’t know that. So what I what I’m saying about family law and divorce in general is, you know, try to try to go to counseling. I’m a big believer in marriage counseling, if there’s no domestic violence involved in anything that was serious in nature, and try to see if you can work that out. If you can’t then find the right lawyer. You know, make sure that it’s explained to you divorce is a personal matter. I mean, my life will go on your life, right? So you have to like your attorney, you have to trust your attorney. You have to feel like you’re being represented in divorce should be contemplated very seriously, on behalf of the children, but go for it. If you feel like this marriage is not working for you. And it’s it’s an emotional business, as I like to call it. It is to people coming into partnership, and in various degrees, whether it’s financial, whether it’s emotional, whether it’s childcare, and once you separate, your life is different. So prepare yourself for that and Get your ducks in a row. And, and, and be honest about it, don’t try to manipulate the process because in the end, it all comes out in the wash. So make it simple, make it straightforward. You know, this is your child, this is somebody that she was loved in the past, and now you don’t. But okay, let’s be human. That’s why I try to tell my clients.

Well, it’s good advice. And I do the same, obviously, personal injury people are dealing with tragedy, or wrongful death cases, is find a lawyer that you can ever relationship with, because it’s going to be a long term relationship. I mean, these you know, it’s not okay, here, bam, you know, file three things, I’ll see you, we’ll have a phone call, that’ll be it. It’s a long, most times pretty drawn out, litigious process. And so having somebody that you can communicate with, that you’re comfortable with, I think is extraordinarily important when they pick a lawyer. And let’s talk about one other aspect, because you said, You’re a certified mediator, okay. I’m a big proponent of mediation. We had Stan Blake on a few weeks ago, who was one of my favorite one of my favorite people. But, you know, one of the top Circuit Court judges for so many years, and now he’s a fantastic mediator, have used him and he just brings that whole skill set to it. And it is amazing sometimes how cases you think, really have no shot of getting resolved, but you get everybody in the same room virtually or otherwise. And things happen. So in the divorce context, talk about those mediations,

in the divorce context, being a mediator, it’s a very active process, especially via zoom, right? You have to be a technological wizard at best. But in general mediation is you really, as a mediator standpoint, you have to listen. And you have to, again, manage people’s expectations. It’s a confidential process. So you have to be very wary of going from one side to another, if you’re in a caucus, which means that you’re with one separate party and their attorney or alone, dealing with that. So it’s a respectful process. And that is one main component that I start with in my mediations is a respectful process. And it’s here, if it’s an opportunity for both of you to maybe take a step back and realize that in the end, you don’t have control, if you go before the judge, right now you have control. So let’s manage those expectations. And let’s get forward a plan that both can be workable for both parties, you have to move each other to the middle, as best as you can. And again, as you know, everybody says mediation successful with the neither party is happy, nobody’s happy. And then again, again, the confidential processes, definitely play mediation, it can take hours, it can take two hours, it can take 10 hours. And again, I think the most important thing as a mediator is to be confident in yourself, and what you’re proposing to each party, and also being secure that the people know that what they’re telling you is definitely not spoken about unless you give consent, right and that you can go to the other party and let them know if you just cannot agree then we can agree partially on certain issues, especially family all you can have child timesharing agreed upon but not property division or equitable distribution Do you know? So in family law, we can bifurcate things and a portion of it have it agreed to and a portion of a go before the court. So that’s important to know, if you’re a little hesitant, you have control, and you can do this in different ways. And that’s as far as mediation is concerned. I think I really, very, you know, I think it’s a great, great part of divorce law and an opportunity for people to settle their case.

Well, there you go. One more hopefully, that we can take off the kill list. Karen, it’s it’s really been a pleasure. It’s an area of law that I know little or nothing about, but is so critical, as I said, because we all know, either direct close impact a family member friends, and I get calls all the time, you know, hey, I’m thinking about getting divorced, who do I talk to, you know, and finding that right lawyer I think is critical. So hopefully, that’s when we can take off the kill list. Next time. I see you probably in cycling gear and we’ll be out in heat somewhere. But pleasure to see you in this environment. hope you all enjoyed it. And we’ll be back next week with another episode of first off let’s kill all the lawyers.

Kaire & Heffernan

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First off, let’s kill all the lawyers. I’m David Heffernan and I’m a practicing lawyer in South Florida for about the last 30 years or so. And we put this together just because it’s one of my favorite Shakespeare quotes and often gets misconstrued going back to the 1500s. But the one thing about that line is it got a lot of laughs when when it was uttered back in the 1500s. And even today, people kind of go, it’s not a bad idea to get rid of some of those lawyers. So go here, bring other lawyers in bring other people to work with lawyers in kind of talk about the business end of things, and personalized some of it, and maybe one by one, take a few lawyers off the kill list. But I made it easy this morning, because I didn’t bring a lawyer in. I’m very privileged. Only because I’ve known this guy is a very, very close personal friend for the vast majority of my life, but also been an integral part of my law practice, as I’d like to introduce Dave watcher of the watcher agency, one of I think, one of the top private investigators, not only in town, I mean, nationally, you’ve done a lot and everything else. But I’ve had a lot of fun. Getting to know you over the years, but more importantly in the practice of things, you know, really working hand in hand with you on a lot of cases. So first off, welcome. Well, thank you. nice introduction. Well, thank you. Well, you know, the thing is, and I was thinking about this as we came over. I actually go back with you so far that this was before I was in law school, and I was actually working for you. When I made the decision to go to law school, undercover I was I was doing some undercover work for some paper company. We were I was up in singer Island and we you hired me and and I rented a car and we got the route. So these paper trucks, and they would periodically follow these guys to find out who was you know, going home during during lunch hours or who wasn’t dropping things off here and literally running on the beach one night, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. You know, I bounced around the NFL for a little bit. And that’s when I came to the decision to go to law school. So yeah, you You make me do grunt work like that forced me to go to law school and get a real job. It was it was all good. But let’s talk a little bit. Okay, you started out years ago in the public defender’s office. So how does that evolve from what you did the public defender’s office, what makes you go out and become a private investigator?

Well, money was a big motivation. I worked for the state, I actually learned so much at the public defender’s office, worked with tremendous attorneys. Guys, that taught me a lot about how to do my job. And as time went on, I realized there was a bigger fish out there to deal with and more challenges. And I wanted to start my own business. And it ended up in evolution. It took a lot of risk. I think a lot of lawyers, young lawyers go through that when they decide to go out on their own. And I had that same risk. And I was very fortunate that things worked out. Growing up here in Miami, I knew a lot of people. And so it was a natural fit. And here I am today and I’m almost ready to retire. I have my my son who’s my partner. Now, Travis Wasser. And technology technology has changed. So he has really boosted up our agency through the technology side. And he’s learned, learned a lot. And he’s, he’s out there doing going full time.

Good stuff, good stuff. So let’s let’s talk about what is it? What does it mean to be a private investigator? Okay. I mean, because I think the scope of services you offer is going to shock some people as to just how broad that goes. I mean, you know, you can think of the easy things, okay, you know, we go out and it’s a divorce case, and we do surveillance, and, you know, we get some videos that, you know, kind of make people uncomfortable and resolve issues, but but talk a little bit about the whole practice.

Well, we really are a service industry that helps attorneys in their case in their cases, and we have multifunctions, you know, we work for all kinds of attorneys from divorce and marital situations, civil attorneys, which is plaintiff and defense and, and criminal attorneys. So our function is to assist the attorneys in their cases and try to help them bring the case forward, so that they can be prepared when they go to trial.

Well, and I know because I personally, I mean, we bring you in on a case and it’s it’s just a tremendous asset, you become part of our litigation team. And and, you know, insurance companies, they often have their in house people, you know, they’ve got that ability to get these things. Done. But but for a small firm like Mark and I, to be able to bring somebody like you on a case and say, okay, from the onset, you know, hey, this, this just happened, this accident occurred or this incident occurred somewhere and immediately, we’ve sort of got eyes and ears on the ground, you know, we’re able to get somebody like you and other investigators that work for you out there to kind of develop what was going on in the scene and who the potential witnesses are and develop all of that. So how do you see your role when when lawyers bring you in? Early in a case?

Well, as time has changed, and in recent time, now, it’s important for us to get out there as soon as possible after an incident occurs. Sometimes people look at it is like almost ambulance chasing, but it’s not ambulance chasing, once we’re hired by the attorney, it’s important for us to get out there and talk to witnesses while it’s fresh. And we have a system where we go to our databases and our investigative research and we find these people and before they get lost people move away Miami’s got a lot of transient people that come and go. And so it’s important to, to talk to these witnesses, because a lot of times the police, they don’t concern themselves with keeping people around at scenes. And, and so a lot of those people get lost. So we have to get out there quick and and do our job. And that certainly helps the cases move forward.

Let’s say it’s also a situation I think now, having somebody get out to an area, there’s so much video cameras, on businesses and everything else to be able to get a lot of those businesses. It’s great. They’ve got surveillance one now nowadays,

I mean, bring cameras, me there’s more stuff being caught on ring cameras of what’s going on in the street. But you know, those businesses have systems and they rewrite and everything else. So if you don’t get somebody out there quickly, you may lose that opportunity. And that can be that can be a game changer. In a case. While it’s it’s extremely important. That’s one of the first things we do when we go and canvass an area. When I say Canvas, I mean, we go knock on doors, in a radius around where the incident occurred. And we’re looking everywhere for cameras. And it’s amazing how many cases we’ve solved through cameras. And a lot of times again, the police miss it because they’re not so interested in cameras for a lot of reasons. We need those cameras, because every camera could pick up something different. That may be helpful in our case.

Yeah, it’s it’s it’s critical. And, and and the services go beyond that. And I’m gonna ask you to share a story just because it’s my favorite story, because because I think it shows a couple of things shows the creativity of a guy like you, but even his things, civil as Service of Process. Sometimes, you know, lawyers have to get somebody served with papers. And sometimes people are trying to avoid that. So they may hire a private investigator, so So tell us about maybe one of your more interesting Service of Process cases. Well,

there was a case that went back a few years, a very wealthy developer on Miami Beach, lived on a private island. And we were trying to serve Him because this father in law, wanted him served papers. He was trying to collect on some money that was owed. And I had tried to go in the front door, but they had a gate there, and bodyguards. And so that wasn’t working out. So I put one of my guys, I told the client, I said, Hey, listen, he’s out of the country. Right now I’ve got an informant that’s told me that. He said, I don’t care. I want you to be out there. 24 hours a day, seven days a week till we get up. said okay. That’s good with me. So, I put one of my guys out on the causeway, and all of a sudden I get a call from him one day, and he goes, he’s here. I go, What do you mean? He goes, I’m looking through my binoculars. And I see him and he’s with several women and their nude sunbathing behind his beautiful mansion on this island. And I said, I’ll be right there. So I go to sunbathing. You’re actually planning on working. It’s one of my better case. Okay. So I get on over to club nautico. I ran a boat from Miami Beach Marina, where the captain and we pull up to the the man’s residence from the water and the planet was to fake engine trouble and roll up to his dock and asked to use his phone. So that worked like a dream. The guy came down, he actually put a towel around himself as he approached us and he said, What’s going on? I said, Well, we have some engine trouble. And he he, I said, Can Can I use your phone to call for help. And as we were getting close to him, he, I reach out and I pull the, the summons out of my back pocket, and I hand it to him. And he goes, What’s this? And I go, Well, you’ve been served

a summons. And

he said, Can I have your card? I said, Why didn’t you come in the front gate? I go, not too easy. Yeah.

That’s exactly why I didn’t come to the front gate. But again, the creativity and sort of persistence on getting something done. I mean, you know, if can’t get it done one way, try another way.

Well, you try to, you know, most of the time, and, and this has been the way I work, I try to do it, the, the easy way, just go out and talk to people straight up and, and do our job, you know, the way most people do it. But then if they’re, you know, deceptive, then we got to play our games, too. And sometimes you’re successful, sometimes you’re not, we just do the best we can.

Well, one of the things and and I think it really goes a lot to the success you’ve had over the years, but I’ve watched it firsthand is, again, I think your ability to communicate with people to get people to be candid with you, you know, in just in a non threatening, you know, kind of likable way. But But you know, I’ve read lots of statements you’ve taken on behalf of my clients and everything else. And you can see, you know, it’s it’s a, it’s a nervous situation, you’re asking somebody, Hey, can I take a recorded statement, but you’ve got an art about you, that puts people at ease. I mean, you created that what to just years of experience, or, you know,

people are very reluctant to talk because they’re abused by our system, unfortunately. And it’s hard to get witnesses to come forward and talk knowing that they may have to sit down in court, and wait and never get called, or get called numerous times, and never, never get called or then get abused from another attorney. So we just try our best to be straight with them. And because once you lied to them and and mislead them, they’re gone. That’s it, it’s over. And so we try to treat him as best as we can. And guys, like you that are attorneys that also help the situation out by speaking to them after we get hold of them, and making them feel like important. And and they have value to the case. It’s, it’s all good. And we we just try to do that. And, and and I try to do the best I can sometimes it doesn’t work,

right? Oh, yeah, no, no, you got to be one nothing to do with you. But But I think that is important. And and and it’s you know, it’s something I do when when you talk to people because again, if you mislead them, oh, you just give us a statement, you know, that’ll be the end of it. Well, then all sudden, they get served with a subpoena and they’ve got to be deposed, or they’ve got to show up in court. Now they’re not happy, okay, at least, you know, I think you got to lay it out but but explain how they can be part of helping this solution because normally, you know, the cases that you’re dealing with, for my firm or other civil firms, you know, oftentimes deal with devastating injuries, okay. And, and, and the ability to change people’s lives. But you got to get other people to help.

You know, some people just when it’s, when it happens to you, you know, and you want to help to somebody to help you, a lot of people don’t feel that same way. You know, they don’t want to help anybody else. We live we live in a very selfish town sometimes, right? And that’s what we struggle with, you know, and I guess, you try to make people feel good by letting them know how they’re helping and what they mean to this case. And, you know, that’s what we prey on, you know, sometimes I’ll show a picture of the person who is hurt very badly or, and and try to get some sympathy. Right. And that helps sometimes to get them to come forward and talk.

Well, let’s, let’s talk and you talked, you know, that your office now transitioning with your son Travis a little bit? How has technology changed the game? I mean, you started you know, back in the day where, you know, you you’d be out there and and, you know, it’s all knocking door to door to door and it’s that hard work that does that. So how have things changed? Well, now that you brought it up That’s right. Phone,

Grant Miller come in. So yes, this is a, this was called the brick. And it was the first telephone I had, I got an issue to me when I worked at the public defender’s office and weighs about 10 pounds. So get me in shape curls. But yes, technology has changed. I remember when I first went out, to go to a house to try to see who lived in a house back in the day. We couldn’t run license plates on the scene, we didn’t know who was in the house. So we’d have to go back to the office. Okay, go on our computer, that we had just gotten and learned how to get a tag and information, go back to the house. And now we knew whose car that was in front of them. Swimming, they were still there, right? Nowadays, you have a picture of them, you know, what his record is, you know, who lives with him? It’s so much technology that is helpful to us, and helps us identify who were were targeting.

What about other things that are there? database searches? Okay. I mean, I know, oftentimes, we’ll have a significant automobile accident, there’s a limited amount of coverage, you know, we sort of need the peace of mind to know, okay, this person that caused the accident, you know, most people in this town, and Florida is a pretty well, you know, well known state for debtors, you know, because they’re protected. But, you know, so talk about the databases that are available, some things that you may offer to law firms to help on on the financial end of things. So looking into things?

Well, there’s certainly databases that help us identify assets, you know, real property boats, you know, if they’ve filed bankruptcy, because if if, and have liens, because if you’re going after somebody, and they have all these things, you want to let your attorney that you’re working for know this, because they may not want to take the case,

right? And that’s the harsh reality. I mean, we’ve got to sit down with a client. So now this person was absolutely at fault. Yes, you’re absolutely significantly injured. But there’s nothing there. At the end of the day, I mean, you know, we can get you a piece of paper, you know, we get a jury to bring it back to you, but nobody’s going to be happy at the end of the day with your piece of paper, which we get a percentage of that piece of paper. That never gonna be collectible.

That’s correct. You know, at one point, I was gonna start a business, going after people going after debtors. And it’s a lot harder than you think attorneys are great at suing people and winning cases. But collecting on a debt is very difficult, and it’s time consuming. And at the end of the day, sometimes you just don’t get there. So we do the best we can to advise them of what they have, what they can get. And then it’s up to them how hard they want to push.

All right, let’s shift gears a little bit. You were involved in some pretty high profile national cases on on the criminal end, and I know the one that comes to mind is the murder of the young woman down in Miami few years back, how do you get involved with something like that?

Well, on that particular case, I think it was like New Year’s and all my investigators were hung over or from New Year’s Eve, and I was the one that answered the phone that day. Okay. Boyfriend called me to hire me. And he had desperately gone out trying to find his girlfriend who was missing. And, you know, I asked him, how’d you get my name? How’d you find me? And he did through the internet. Actually, I guess on Google, he googled private investigator Miami and I came up. And so I tried to help him. But I was a little sketchy about him. I wanted to learn more about him to see if he’s telling me the truth, because I didn’t know him from Adam. And I met him down at the Miami police department and I said, Let’s go talk to this detective. And immediately he was telling the story to me right as we’re talking to the detective, because time was of the essence at that point, she was missing for a little bit. And in missing persons cases, you want to find them as soon as you can. You want to get your information out there to the media in different places. So you can hopefully have a successful result. Unfortunately, in this case, yeah,

horrific, horrific result, you know, find her dead set on fire in a dumpster. I mean, that’s that’s even even in Miami standards. That one sort of shook everybody a little.

It was terrible. It was terrible. And We didn’t get a whole lot of cooperation from the police department that was handling it, because in my opinion, they just weren’t well trained in their home aside investigation, and they let a lot of things slip by. I was very upset about that. And we did our best to help the family, but there needed to be a stronger presence. And I know it wasn’t the most important thing on their on their list. But there could have been a lot more.

Right. So how do you deal with that relationship? Okay, because obviously, a lot of times you’re involved, whether it be a civil issue, or a criminal issue, where you’ve got the police actively involved? How do you kind of try to blend that relationship, because I would assume that it many times the police officers are like, okay, you’re your private investigator go away, let the big boys do their job, you know, but as you point out, and again, not a criticism of the police, a lot of times, they’re not really doing all they can

you know, the police are protected by open cases. So if it’s an open homicide, they do not have to share anything with us. And as a result, that can work out good for them or bad for them. In this particular case, I thought it was bad for them, because I think if they had worked with us, and other other people, private organizations, they could have solved this case. But unfortunately, you try your best to get their confidence because my, my feeling was I didn’t want to go out and hurt the police. I love the police, right? These are great. They’re they’re what we need, who wants to defend police, we need more police, right. But you want to work together and find a common ground where you both can assist each other. And a lot of times, private investigators. I know I’ve worked with Miami Dade homicide and different organizations, and they’ve been great in certain cases. And we’ve been able to help them and they’ve been able to help us. So it all depends on the case who’s involved. And the trustworthiness, I’ve had always had a lot of former detectives working for me and their relationship with the police, bridges the gap and helps things move forward. And hey, the bottom line, we want to we want to help them get the case soft. That’s that’s what it’s all about.

Yeah, and we get the same thing. I mean, a lot of times, I’ve got cases where the state attorneys involved in some component of I’ve got the civil end of it, they’ve got the criminal. And it really is it’s kind of hit or miss sometimes because we very actively reach out because a lot of times I have information I’ve brought guy like you on, we’ve obtained this information that I want to give them to help on the criminal end. So there’s always an odd sometimes pushback, like you know, they’re doing and I’m like, No, we’re, we’re, we’re fighting for the same goal here. You know, and if I’ve got some stuff can help you and I get, you know, all I’m asking as you share with me what you can and I understand there’s restrictions on it. But but so a lot of times that’s been very successful, but sometimes Yeah, there’s just big pushback. They don’t want to deal with the civil lawyer and let them handle their stuff.

Well, the problem is, if you get a lazy guy, that lazy detective that hasn’t done his work, and he doesn’t have to share his file, that’s true. He can continue to be lazy and do nothing, and nothing happens. So there, there seems to need to be a watchdog, sometimes watching out for these guys, and you hope the internal departments handle their department well. But I’ve seen it where it’s it’s been where it’s been a problem and in some departments.

Alright, we’ve talked about getting you involved early in cases and how that’s integral because now you sort of become part of that litigation team to look at overall strategy to look at. And, you know, there’s been times you shared with me, Hey, this could be a potential defendant, you know, maybe something we weren’t looking at, you know, somebody else owns this as well. But it runs the gamut all the way through. So because you’re even involved, oftentimes, once it goes to jury, okay, and in looking at potential jury issues and everything else, we’ll talk a little bit about that.

Well, we have worked on jury cases before sometimes we background that jurors when they go to trial, so attorneys like to get the edge up on the competition or whoever they’re going against. And one of the things they do is they hire us to do background checks on everybody in the jury pool to see if they’re telling the truth or if there’s something that they don’t want that juror if we find that somebody In the background check, so they can get rid of that germ before they put them on their panel. There’s also jury misconduct investigations. And so there’s there’s a number of ways and things we do backgrounding those people and developing information that certainly assists the attorneys in their job.

It’s, it’s a, it’s a tremendous help. And again, you know, smaller firm like Mark and I, to be able to add an asset like that to the team, you know, again, big firms may have full time jury consultants, and all of that, but you’ve got to reach out to people and build your team, you know, and we do it through people like you like private investigators. We have nurses, we have doctors that we work with, and everything else hand in hand. So so you’re kind of winding down the career, what’s been the most enjoyable part of being a private detective or private investigator?

Well, you know, my father wanted me to get an us Insurance Agency. And to me, that was so boring. It was terrible. The great thing about private investigation is you. Every day you wake up, you get a new case, it’s something different, it’s exciting. And then that’s what I think drives me is that if you know, something different every day, and I’ve enjoyed the career, I’ve worked with some great people, yourself. Many attorneys, and and private people that have just been I’ve had nothing but good experiences, very few bad experiences in my life, I guess the bad experiences would would be the danger of the job or going into neighborhoods that are you’re dealing with just a lot of violent crime, and you’re investigating violent crime and you hear bullets flying, you’re out there at night. you’re photographing scenes, and you’re seeing gangs of people that are looking to see what you’re doing. So it makes your job. That’s the uneasiness of the job. But other than that, it’s been a very rewarding career. You know, I didn’t, I didn’t finish college. And a lot of people think everybody should send their kid to college. Well, this is a career where you don’t need to go to college. You can educate yourself, you can go through courses, and get to wear this to be a good private investigator by just following your path. And I was fortunate that had people helping me teaching me on the job, and it worked out well. And I know it wasn’t all that hard because I do believe I think you and your wife Jamie went undercover on a cruise to somewhere.

I’ve heard some of these gigs that weren’t too bad. So you know, if you get to recruit your wife Jamie to go into an undercover role, that can’t be that bad.

Well, she’s a talker. She can talk her way out anything and and she was an asset to me so it was fun having her around when I had her around. As long as she wasn’t in my ear all day long. Sorry, James. Don’t watch

unsolicited testimony from a watcher so let’s dive It has been a pleasure it’s been great night and and I know we’re not done working with you yet. You may be trying to get out of town but but you know, I got to build up things with Travis and get things going there because you’re a critical part to our practice and and I appreciate all you’ve done for the legal end of things. And as a friend I mean, it just goes goes without saying you’ve been a tremendous friend and I look forward to many many more years together.

Well, thank you Dave. I I’m not dead yet. I still want to work a little bit here and there as time goes on. And so I’ll be around and look forward to still work with you and Mark great attorneys and and you guys are true professionals.

Appreciate it. So look, we don’t get a lawyer to take off the kill list. But here’s a private investigator in case you want to look into a lawyer that you want to get killed. He can give you the background on him and everything else but but appreciate everybody watching this one. We’ll be back next week with with some more interesting legal things. And Dave, really appreciate your time. Thank you, man.

Kaire & Heffernan