January 10, 2024 • 35 mins
Rex Elliott is a trial lawyer with more than 30 years of complex civil litigation experience. He co-founded Cooper Elliott in 1995. He has numerous multi-million-dollar jury verdicts and settlements and takes a client-first approach. He has served as an expert witness on various legal topics, frequently lectures about trial tactics, and has been called upon by judges and high-profile community leaders to handle their legal matters and those of their families and close friends.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Columbus in Central Ohio have a richhistory of companies being headquartered here, everything
from technology, manufacturing, retail,insurance, and more. But what about
the leaders behind these companies? Whatmakes them tick? How do they get
their start? This is where youget to meet the captain of the ship.
Welcome to CEOs You Should Know andiHeartMedia Columbus Podcast. Welcome back to
(00:20):
another episode of CEOs You Should Know. This is an iHeartMedia Columbus podcast.
I am Boxer and our guest thisweek is one of the founding members of
Cooper and Elliott. Since nineteen ninetyfive, they've been a civil litigation firm
who've been helping individuals, families,and business owners recover from life's most tragic
(00:41):
events. They have an incredible reputation. They've built a pretty powerful one too,
trying large, important and complex cases, which we're going to get into
with our guest, one of thefounding members, Rex Elliott, who's with
us right now in studio. Rex, good to have you with us.
Thank you for having me. Iwant to learn more about you. But
when you think, and I've metplenty of lawyers and attorneys will say,
(01:03):
you seem to think everyone is likeMason Perry, and they're all litigators.
But litigation is a whole different ballgameright from some of the other worlds of
law. It really is. It'sa Unfortunately, it's a world that's fraught
with all kinds of risk, notjust to the lawyers, but to most
importantly to the clients, because atthe end of the day, you can
(01:26):
have a very complicated scenario. Youcan work the case up for two two
and a half years, and thenat the end of the day, you're
relying on eight people in the communitywho know nothing about the subject matter,
nothing about the case, to makea decision. And you know, more
times than that you can be surprisedin the courtroom. Rex, forgive me,
(01:46):
I'm in awe of what you dobecause I feel like, and I
know I'm judging some of it basedon Hollywood and movies. But litigation,
if you're a litigator, that's anart form, isn't it. It really
is. I compare it many manytimes to being the producer of a Broadway
show. You have to come tothe courtroom, you have to be a
(02:08):
skillful communicator. As I just mentioned, we have eight people in the community
that are unfamiliar with the subject matter, So you have to present your case
in a clear manner that they canunderstand. There's just no question about the
desire of jurors to be entertained.Think about it. They have to.
They're taking time off from work,they're away from their family. They don't
(02:30):
want to sit in a courtroom andhear lawyers drown on and on and on
about documents. You have to bevisual in the courtroom. You have to
when you think about your order ofwitnesses. It has to be a little
bit like I got to have astrong opener and a great closer and some
good stuff in the middle. Youcan't be repetitive. So it's very much
like producing your own Broadway show.That's incredible. I just realized something.
(02:55):
We have some things in common withour line of work. With me and
the audience. The last thing youwant to do is lose them or have
them turn the station, for example. So is it the same with the
jury. You want to continue tokeep their attention. You not only have
to keep their attention, but thinkabout it today. I call it the
TikTok generation. Right, everybody's gotabout a fifteen second attention span. So
(03:19):
in the twenty years ago, wetry a case and the case would last
for two, three four weeks.You can't do that anymore. You have
to be you can't be repetitive.You have to put your case on continue
to make it interesting for a jury. For the reason I just said,
I believe that attention spans are veryshort today, and I also think we
don't give juries enough credit. Ithink they get it quicker than we think
(03:43):
they get it. So today it'svery different trying a case than it was
twenty years ago. Rex Elliott isour guest this week on CEOs. You
should know one of the founding membersof Cooper and Elliott back at nineteen ninety
five. Rex, let's get toknow you a little bit. Born.
Raise where you're from. Yeah,right from Columbus, Ohio, nineteen eighty
gra out of Bexley High School.I then migrated all the way over to
(04:03):
Dennison University for college, continued theEast coast Eastern migration at Syracuse College of
Law, and then I practiced inNew York City on Wall Street at Sullivan
and Cromwell for several years before movingback to Columbus in the early nineties.
We've had other guests like yourself verysuccessful who born and raised here, ventured
(04:25):
out, got to see the worlda little bit. You of course Syracuse
and then you know New York City, Wall Street. I have to ask
what made you come back? Ilove Columbus. I have always loved Columbus.
I think it's always to me beenan incredible community. I say it
all the time. In the communityI grew up in in Bexley. I
(04:46):
was raised by two incredible parents,but I had like eighteen other parents.
They were the parents of all myfriends. If I did something wrong,
my parents would know about it beforeI got home. So Columbus to me
has always been a incredible place toraise a family. I have four daughters.
I wouldn't change anything, and Ithink right now it's an extraordinarily exciting
time to be a part of thiscommunity. It's the culture, the education,
(05:11):
the expansion, the growth that's goingon in Columbus is about as exciting
as anywhere in the country. Iwas just going to ask you about that,
Rex. What was life growing upfor you? What did mom and
dad do? I'm just curious aboutthis path of yours. Yeah, I
tell this story all the time.So my grandfather was a trial lawyer here
in Columbus, and he was abig, imposing six foot six man,
(05:33):
and he would take me to thecourtroom and I'd watch him as a young
kid, and for that reason,since I was very very young, I
always wanted to be a trial lawyer. I wanted to be like my grandfather
in the courtroom, my dad.You know, the legal profession sometimes skips
a generation. My dad really wasn'tinterested in the law. He was an
(05:56):
insurance salesman. And my grandfather wasvery hard work and driven and worked a
lot of hours. My dad reallydidn't. My dad was never really interested
in the material part of life.He just loved his family and wanted to
be around his boys. I'll neverforget as a senior in high school,
and this is a moment I'm notreally proud of, but we were on
(06:16):
the bus to a baseball game andwe got there and it's three o'clock in
the afternoon, and my dad isthe only person in the stands. And
my immediate reaction was embarrassment because allmy friends had dads that were out there
working and my dad's sitting there inthe stands. And it wasn't until I
had a family of my own thatI realized my dad had it right.
Yeah, and he gave me thegift of understanding the importance of being a
(06:40):
father and a great husband as well. That's an incredible story. Rex Rex
Elliott is with us, one ofthe co founders of Cooper and Elliott and
this week's guest on CEOs You ShouldKnow and iHeart Media Columbus podcast. Rex,
do you remember you talked about beinga boy going to the courtroom with
your grandfather? Was Was that themoment that you realized what you wanted to
(07:01):
do? Was it a little bitlater on in high school? When was
it? No, it was onehundred percent. When I was a young
kid, I was always focused onwell. I also wanted to be an
NFL wide receiver, but my speedkept me from that possession profession. But
I always wanted to be a lawyer, and I had to I had to
go through a lot of challenges toget there. You know, my growing
(07:25):
up, my family didn't have alot of money. I had to take
a semester off of college to gowork heavy construction to make enough money to
come back. I had to payfor my law school, which required me
to take a year off between collegeand law school, and I built high
transmission power lines in the Mojave Desertfor a year in order to get to
(07:45):
law school. And then when Iwas in law school after the second year,
my money ran out and I didn'tknow how I was going to get
to that through that third year,and I was fortunate enough to graduate at
the top of my class and Iwas able to get a graduate school fellowship
that paid for my tuition my thirdyear. So I went through a lot
of things to get here. Andit's the I think having a license to
(08:09):
practice law is a privilege, andI've always treated it as such. I
feel very, very fortunate to bea lawyer. By the way, how
inspiring is that, Like you hadno help, you just had yourself,
and that's how you made it through. Anybody can do anything they put their
mind to it. It's truly amental exercise. It's about not giving up.
(08:31):
It's about chasing your dream and notletting anything get in your way,
even if you have to take alittle bit of a detour. Yeah,
well, let's fast forward if youdon't mind rex a little bit. There
you are in Syracuse, You're inlaw school. When did you decide and
maybe it's after law school. Idon't know when you decide I want to
be a litigator. Well, Ithink it was in law school that solidified
(08:54):
the desire to be a trial lawyer. And I just wanted to be in
the courtroom. Want wanted to persuadepeople. I wanted to be a part
of the action. I played footballin college, and being a trial lawyer
is the closest thing that I cancome to to the competitive feeling that I
had playing sports growing up. AndI started out the first eight years of
(09:16):
my career were defense. I wason the defense side, and when I
was in New York City, werepresented the NFL in the anti trust cases,
some just fascinating cases I got achance to work on. But when
I got back here, I reallyfelt like I wanted to maximize the impact
of my license to practice law,and I really felt like representing the underdog
(09:39):
was the best way to do that, and that kind of started my desire
to represent people in small businesses.Well, I pride myself with Showbrett.
But somewhere I must have missed thatabout you playing college football, tell us
about that what position? I wasa wide receiver at Dennison in the old
single wing. Keith Piper was thehead coach over there. I had an
incredible experienperience at Denison. I showedup the first day. I really didn't
(10:03):
realize that they ran the single wing, and if you know anything about the
single wing, there is no widereceiver. There's a tight end in that.
But there was a spread aspect tothat offense that got me out there
as well. But I had atremendous experience over there in Grandville. Yeah,
were there dreams of wanting to goto the NFL at one point or
I had a shot at the totry out for a CFL team, the
(10:24):
Toronto Argonauts, and I just feltlike it's time to get on with my
life and to get to law school. But certainly I had that dream,
just like everybody else in that situationdoes. Rex. You eventually find your
way back to Columbus. Where doyou land? Yeah? I started at
Porter Right Morrison Arthur. I wasa defense lawyer there for a few years
(10:45):
before I decided in nineteen ninety fivewith my partner, Chip Cooper, who
was also a Porter Right, wejust you know, Porter Wright's a phenomenal
firm, but we just felt thatbeing on this side of the equation and
helped being individuals was really where youknow, we were meant to be,
and that's kind of that started theconversation. In nineteen ninety five, we
(11:07):
opened up our law firm, CooperElliott was zero clients and just build it
lit kind of the Blue Jackets brickby brick, right, That's that's how
it all happened. Yeah, bythe way, speaking of the Blue Jackets,
and of course for those that don'tknow Cooper and Elliott, you're based
in the Arena District. Can Ijust say, as someone who goes to
Crew games, Clippers games of BlueJackets, you have to have the best
(11:30):
parking where you're at You're where thecompany is located, with premo parking.
Feel free to text me and I'llsay we don't say that, Rex,
I'll take advantage of you. Weare the official law firm of the Columbus
Crews, which is an exciting partof our law firm. But it's great
to be down there in the ArenaDistrict, particularly when there's a baseball game,
a soccer game, a hockey gameall in the same day. It's
(11:52):
what Columbus is all about, thatvibrant active energy down there. Absolutely,
it's really great to be there.Hey, side note, this is going
to sound ridiculous, but because Ihave you here, I've always wanted to
know. Do you own the billboardabove your building? We own the signage,
We don't own the building. Okay, yes, okay, I was
just curious about that. Okay,we can move on. So when it
(12:15):
you had no clients when you startedCooper and Elliott. So how does do
you have to be part maybe alittle bit of a salesperson too. How
does that work with a law firmto get clients. It's a great question.
So it's very different today than itwas back in the mid nineties and
the mid nineties. Our whole marketingconcept was let's take the toughest cases that
are out there. Let's try thosecases, and then let's get a bunch
(12:39):
of publicity. And if you thinkabout it, back in the mid to
late nineties, if you had abig result and it was on the front
page of the Columbus Dispatch, itkind of lingered out there for a long
time. Today, that doesn't work. You know, the news cycle so
fast that, yeah, you canget a great result and it's in the
paper or on TV. But thenext day, everybody's forgotten about it and
(13:01):
they've moved on to something else.So we've had to be really creative in
our in the way we approached ourmarketing. I didn't I never wanted to
be one of those kind of crazyTV lawyers. It just the message was
terrible in my opinion, and sowe really tried to take on tough cases
and get in the media, andwe did, and we won them,
and that started conversation and lots oflawyers took notice, and that helped us,
(13:26):
you know, sort of generate thebusiness we needed to be the law
firm we are today. How itespecially a bigger case REX that has to
take tremendous resources. So how doeshow does that work? I mean even
financially to keep yourself afloat and movingalong. Yeah, that's the other part
(13:46):
of why I started this law firm. I you know, we work on
a contingency fee basis, so wetake all the risk, we financed the
case, and we we then ifwe win, we take a percentage.
If we lose, we lose allthe money we have in the case and
all the time that we've spent inthe case. The billable hour model never
really made sense to me that thebillable hour model, in my view,
(14:07):
teaches inefficiency, whereas our law firmteaches efficiency. Now, the resources are
really important because if we have acase, a big case that requires experts,
we have to go out and getthe best experts in the world.
You know, the best crash reconstructionists, the best engineers, et cetera.
And it costs a lot of moneyto do that. But our experience is
(14:28):
when you get the best on yourteam. And it's like I said earlier
putting on this Broadway show, juriswant to hear from the best experts in
the world. And when you dothat and you pay for it, you
maximize the value of the case forthe clients. Rex is there, I
would imagine they are all of them. You prep do you prep your witnesses?
Do you do you prepare them beforethey go in? One hundred percent
(14:50):
it's critically important, not just beforetrial, but before deposition when they're you
know position is going to be lockedin stone, it's really really important to
spend time with him. Keep inmind they're not familiar with the process,
they have no idea how to goabout it, and you got to teach
him to how to answer questions,and you also have to teach him make
(15:13):
it clear to them that they needto be themselves, right, Yeah,
because the quickest you know juries.I'll tell you a little story. I
early on, so jurors can't talkduring the process, so their sense of
observation is so keen it's amazing.We had a case very early on where
(15:35):
there had been malicious prosecution of aUS meat packing inspector because he was hard
on the inspection and the owner cameafter him because he was slowing down production.
And we tried the case and wegot a really good verdict, but
when we were talking to the jury, the jury said, we were we
would have given you twice as muchas we did. But we observed the
(15:56):
husband and the wife that we represented, and we felt that my wife was
just there for the money, andI thought, you gotta be kidneying.
I mean, she's a fourth gradeteacher. They sat right next to each
other the entire trial, and Isaid, how could you have reached that
conclusion? And they said because theynever once held hands, they never once
touched each other in the courtroom.And I kind of walked away from that
(16:17):
experience, and I said, youknow, people are crazy. You shouldn't
be thinking things like that. Butsix months later she left her husband,
and so I learned a very importantlesson at that point that jurors observe things
that even the lawyers don't see inthe courtroom, and they take their jobs
very, very seriously. So everysingle thing that happens in the courtroom,
(16:37):
you have to make sure you're ontop of that, and you need to
choreograph it. Boy, that justgave me goosebumps. That story. I
had no idea. Do you do? You get to do? You always
get feedback from the jurors afterwards afterthe trial's over with. How does that
work? Yeah, it depends onif the jury wants to talk to you.
Sometimes they really just they want toget out of there. They've been
(16:57):
there for a week or two andthey're they want to get home to their
families. But when they do wantto talk to you, they're pretty candid.
They tell you why they reach decisions. We tried a case against World
Harvest Church in a case where thepreschool teacher had abused a young child,
not sexually, but physically. Hehad hit him really hard and he had
(17:18):
marks on his body. And thejury came back with a verdict in that
case of six point three million dollars. And one of the jurors on the
case was of South American descent,and I was really concerned about him.
He kind of had a scowl onhis face the entire trial. And I
said to him, I said,how did you perceive everything? And he
said, well, I'm really dissatisfiedwith this process. And I said why
(17:41):
is that? And he said,well, because all we could do is
a word compensation here. What I'dreally like to do is go down and
burn down that church. And soyou really do get a sense and you're
surprised many times about how people feelabout the presentation of a case. Have
you ever I have so many questionsabout the jury, But have you ever
(18:03):
looked at the jury and maybe someof the individuals and gone that person shouldn't
be here. Have you ever gotany language or vibe? Well? Absolutely,
in the jury selection process, wehave the ability to get jurors off
for cause if they have some biasthat they bring into the case. But
we also have three peremptory challenges inmost cases, which allows us to get
(18:26):
rid of jurors just for you know, no reason at all. I mean,
if I have a juror that says, you know what, I think,
all lawyers are greedy. I thinkeverybody's looking for a payday. All
lawsuits are frivolous. I'm going totry to get that juror off the case,
not because of anything other than thefact that I want a fair and
impartial jury. But there have beenmany times that I've exercised those three peremptories
(18:51):
and I still have jurors on thatpanel that I would prefer not to be
on that panel. But you gotto roll with the punches at all point.
You gotta have a jury that hada case involving a nurse nursing malpractice
case. One day and I getinto the courtroom of the jury pools like
twenty four and we're trying to pickeight. There were like twelve nurses in
(19:12):
that pool, and I didn't wantnurses on this pool, right, And
we ended up with five of themon the jury, and we got a
tremendous verdict. And their concept was, you know, what, we expect
nurses to do better, you know, And so it was pretty contrary to
the way I thought going in soyou're surprised many many times. Rex Elliott
(19:33):
is this week's guest on CEOs.You should know he's one of the co
founders of Cooper and Elliott with theCEOs. You should know this is an
iHeart Media Columbus podcast. Rex,did you and if you can't say,
it's all right? But did youever have a case where it wrapped up
and you got the verdict and youstrongly felt and the jury got it wrong?
(19:56):
Here? You know what, evenin cases that we lost, I've
gone back and I can understand howthe jury reached its its conclusion. I
really, I really think that moretimes than not, jurors, even though
they don't want to be there,once they're there, they take their job
really, really seriously, and likeI said before, they pay attention very
(20:19):
closely to every detail and so haveHave I disagreed with the jury in the
past, Sure, but for themost part I can I can at least
understand how they got to their decision. Yeah. Yeah, you know what's
refreshing about your ritches. It soundslike you you have a great deep appreciation
for the jury and those that arethere. The jury system is I believe
(20:42):
one of the most important foundations thatwe have in our country. The our
our system of justice in this country, which some people criticize from time to
time, is the best in theworld. There's no question about it.
And without juries, people in yourcommunity can set the standard for what they
expect. For instance, here inFranklin County, I think every I think
(21:06):
anarchy rules. So the jury systemis critical. It's to be respected,
and without it, I think we'dbe in deep trouble. Sure, Rex,
for those that might not know wheremight be surprised, Cooper and Elliott,
you actually have represented cases all acrossthe country, right, we have,
Yes, we do. Do youhave any cases that are memorable for
(21:27):
you that you know some of themore memorable ones, Well, you know
so many of them are memorable,to be honest with you. But you
know, our work in the hazingcollege hazing area is a good example.
So we've represented just as an examplein the last five years, the family
of Colin Wyant, who died througha hazing incident at Ohio University, and
(21:49):
also the stone Faults family. StoneFolts was killed in a hazing incident up
at Bowling Green State University, andthey're both terribly tragic stories. I've been
on the Doctor Phil show talking aboutthem, trying to get the message out
about hazing. And the most importantthing to me about those cases. You
(22:10):
know, we're as civil trial lawyers. The only thing a jury can award
us is money, and people misinterpretthat from time to time. It's compensation.
The word compensate literally means to balanceharm. That's the only way we
can do it in our system.But if we settle cases, we can
do much more. We can agreeto things that make the world a safer
(22:30):
place. So, for instance,in the cases of Colin Wyant and Stone
Folds, we've gone well beyond thejustice system. We have. We helped
write and get past Colin's Law,which elevated to felonies acts of hazing involving
drugs and alcohol. We have beenheavily involved in the Inner University Council,
(22:53):
the fourteen largest public universities in thestate of Ohio, adopting a zero tolerance
policy to hazing in the state ofOhio. We have spoken at universities all
across the country talking to these kidsabout the dangers of hazing. It's just
it's senseless, It makes absolutely nosense. And so from my standpoint,
(23:15):
we have provided tremendous help to theFults and Wyant families. But through and
with their help, their partnership,I think we've saved a lot of lives
in the state of Ohio and inthis country by virtue of our efforts to
get the message out there. Sure, and I remember those cases Rex just
out of curiosity because obviously I wasn'tin the courtroom. But how difficult was
(23:37):
that with the hazing cases to proveyour point, because I'm sure you had
the other side going, well,they're young adults, you know, they
could make those decisions on their own. They no one forced them to do
that. Absolutely, that's always theargument. Fortunately, in the state of
Ohio, we have a statute thatbasically says anybody that participates in or tolerates
(23:59):
hazing going to be civilly liable,including universities. So we've got very favorable
law here in the state of Ohio. But from my standpoint, the most
important thing, the message that I'vegotten out there is that you know,
and Judge Cooleman set it up inBowling Green. He said, if we
are going to trust and trust thebattle to stop hazing in the hands of
(24:22):
eighteen to twenty two year old boys. It's never going to happen. We're
going to continue to Hayes until thecows come home. We have had a
death in this country every single yearon a college campus, with the exception
of this year, since nineteen fiftynine because of Hayes. So we have
to put a stop to it.And to me, it's the adults in
the room that need to step up. It's the universities that need to police
(24:45):
better what goes on on their campuses. It's the national organizations that need to
do a better job of doing somethingother than collecting revenue and fees. They
need to be there, they needto be present. We need to We
need to educate these kids. Peoplesay to me, after I have a
speech at a university and then anotherhazing incident happens, they say, these
(25:06):
kids aren't listening. I totally disagreewith that. I think they are all
listening. The problem is they thinkit's not going to happen to them.
We have to get them to understandthat not only could it happen to them,
but the other side of the hazingcoin are the people that Hayes right
under. In the state of Ohiotoday, if you haes and something bad
happens, you are immediately in thecriminal justice system. You're being charged with
(25:30):
a felony. These kids at BowlingGreen spent time in prison in local prisons,
they were expelled from school. Theyit's on their record for the rest
of their lives. Their family hasfinancial consequences. It's a disaster all the
way around. So I'm really reallyproud of the efforts that we've gone to
in the hazing cases to get themessage out there and try to put a
(25:51):
stop to this well rack. Soalso is something that I always harp on
and maybe I sound like an oldman, get off my lawn, but
you're holding people accountablesolute hundred percent,you know. And in the State Fair
case you may remember the ride offthe arm. What we did in that
case, we represented Kaziah Lewis,who spent ten months in a hospital and
still struggles to walk, and she'sa wonderful, phenomenal young woman. In
(26:15):
that case, we took steps tomake sure inspection standards were higher in the
state of Ohio because a lot oftimes these traveling carnivals, if you will,
yeah, come in set up.You got people running these rides that
aren't qualified. We did a lotto make sure that something like that doesn't
happen in this country. Again,those are the kinds of things that really
get me out of bed in themorning and drive me to the office.
(26:37):
Yeah, well, I was goingto say, didn't the next year the
State Fair completely go with a differentcompany? Yes, yeah, immediately,
one hundred percent. Yeah, Andit's part that, but it's also part
setting the standards for any company thatcomes in in terms of inspection, in
terms of operation, in terms ofwho's you know, running the rides at
(26:57):
the time they're being run. Andso you know, my hope is that
we never like cazing. Hope.My goal in the hazing area is to
never have another hazing incident in thiscountry's history. And that's the same with
the State Fair. I hope itnever happens again. Hey, Rex,
I know we're starting to wind down, but I know you also cover things
like medical malpractice, wrongful death,serious injuries, civil rights violations, wrongful
(27:22):
convictions, which that one, bythe way, seems to be a really
popular one now you're seeing TV showsKim Kardashian, for example. Out of
those categories, what's probably the bulkof your cases. It's largely in that
area of wrongful death and catastrophic injuryby any means, right, But you
mentioned wrongful conviction. That's a reallyimportant area of our practice too. There
(27:45):
are a lot of people in thiscountry that are innocent that are serving time
behind bars. I think one ofthe biggest problems we have in our system
is that prosecutors have absolute immunity.In other words, if they do something
that they hold evidence, they dosomething in the process that leads to somebody
innocent being convicted, you can't touchthem. And the reality is that unless
(28:08):
we have consequences, like your kid, right, if your kid doesn't have
consequences, they're going to run themup. I need to do something about
that. But a mission of ourlaw firm is to try to help people
that are innocent get out of prison. It's a you know, we've had
clients that have spent twenty four totwenty five years in prison that we've helped
get out and then pursue the civiljustice system there as well. Rex,
(28:30):
I didn't know that about the prosecutors, Like that sounds really shady. And
by the way, how do youlive with yourself? Yeah? And By
the way, I don't mean tocast a black shadow overall prosecutors. They
do. Most of them do avery very good job. But think about
it for a second. They're ina competitive arena. They want to win.
They certainly believe that the person they'reprosecuting is guilty, and at some
(28:52):
point, you know, you've gotto be careful about how far you go
to secure that conviction. And Ijust believe if if we had consequences for
improper behavior that leads to somebody beingput in prison for any period of time,
we'd be a better system. We'dhave checks and balances against people crossing
(29:15):
the line like they do some ofthe cases we've obviously highlighted just out of
curiosity. If someone's listening to thispodcast and they're like, Wow, I
had this happen to me. Maybeis it just a simple phone call?
Is it an email? How doesthat work with you guys? Yeah,
you just reach out to us.I say it all the time, but
the kinds of cases that we litigatein our clients' lives, it's the worst
(29:40):
trauma that they will ever go through. And what I try very hard to
do is not make the legal processa trauma. On top of a trauma.
So once somebody contacts our office,it's all about communication and giving them
information. We try to have regularcalls with clients so they understand what's happening,
what's about to happen. Keep inmind they're complete strange to the legal
(30:02):
system, and so information is reallyimportant to those folks. And like I
said, you know, if Icould, you know, if one of
the things that I could do isbring their loved one back or take the
injury away, That's what I do. But I can't do that. So
what we try to do in ourcases, the first question I ask our
clients is what do you want meto do for you? And then and
(30:23):
I don't think lawyers ask that questionvery often, right they assume what the
client wants or they're going to pursuetheir own agenda. We say, what
do you want? And then Itry to figure out can I get you
there? And if so, howdo I get you there? Rex Is
that, by the way, howyou build trust with them? Because I
don't have to tell you this,they're you know, lawyers don't exactly have
(30:45):
the greatest names of the word,not all lawyers, but you know there
are lawyers that just give the wholeindustry probably a bad rap. So I'm
just curious if you could just tellus a little bit more too, about
what you do behind the scenes thatmy the rest of us away with,
how you take care of your clients. Well, and let me say,
there are bad apples in every profession, right, absolutely, but I do
(31:07):
believe some of the bad apples andour profession taint everybody. I will tell
you that I believe most lawyers outthere are interested in representing their clients to
the best their best of their abilities. I though, do believe that as
a lawyer, we have a tremendousresponsibility to do things beyond you know,
(31:29):
just you know, compensation. Wehave a duty to understand what our clients'
objectives are. I will tell youI have never had a client walk into
my office that has suffered a deathor serious injury and ask me, geez,
how much is that worth? Theyask me every time they say we
want accountability, we want somebody tobe held responsible for this, or they
(31:51):
say please do something so that noother family has to go through what we
just went through. And we dothat. We work really hard to accomplish
our clients' objectives, and I thinkif more lawyers did that, listened to
their clients and what they want toaccomplish, I think the world would look
at us a lot more favorably.Well, ROX on the heels of that,
(32:13):
you have a heart, You're ahuman. Are there over cases where
even maybe behind the scenes or behindyour closed door in your office, can
it get emotional for you? Oh? Absolutely, one hundred percent, not
just behind closed doors in a courtroom, it can get emotional for me,
no question about it. I've hadI've had tears in my eyes in opening
(32:35):
statements and closing arguments. When you'retaught, one of the things that people
don't understand is that if somebody's gone, I'm not just representing the family I'm
representing. I'm the warrior for theperson that's not here to protect themselves.
And so what I have to doin a courtroom is bring that person to
life. And I really try tostep in their shoes and under I've never
(32:57):
met that person, but I tryto understand who they were and how important
this would be to them. AndI don't think you can be a human
being without feeling extraordinarily strong emotions,and situations like that all right, Rex,
as we start to wrap up,just out of curiosity, I know
for a talk show it takes hoursof prep, so I'm just curious they
(33:19):
And don't get me wrong, there'sno average case with you. I get
that, but on average, howlong does it take you to prep a
case before you litigate it? Becauseof our cases, they're all complex,
you know, really really important casesthat involve lots and lots of harm.
It typically takes years to get acase ready. You have to gather information,
(33:44):
You have to take depositions, youhave to file motions with the court,
you have to secure experts. Youhave to think about what kind of
visuals you'll use in the courtroom.You have technology that you want to use
in the courtroom. You have tothink about who your model juror is going
to be. The heck, youhave a judge on the case and you
got to sometimes maneuver your case aroundthe biases of the judge that you have.
(34:07):
So it's a really long, complicatedprocess. Okay, Rex, how
about opening closing statements? How longdoes that take you to do? You
write them out and memorize them.How does that work? I typically write
my opening statement at the outset ofthe case before we even get into discovery,
and it obviously changes over the courseof time. I spend an enormous
(34:28):
amount of time on both of thosebecause it's the whole primacy and recency concept.
You got to get off to agreat start. If you don't get
those jurors right out of the gate, you could never get them back again.
And then closing really kind of tiesthe trial together, right, because
trials happen in bits and pieces andsometimes it's hard for lay people to put
it all together. And that's myjob in a closing argument. So we
(34:52):
pour for hours and hours leading upto the trial on all both of those
aspects of the trial, opening andclosing. Wow, Rex Elliott, I
have to tell you this has beenreally fascinating as someone who's always been interested
in law, but quite frankly notsmart enough to be there. But Rex,
I really appreciate you being a guestthis week on CEOs. You should
(35:14):
know and iHeart Media Columbus podcast RexElliott with Cooper and Elliott. By the
way, if someone wants more info, just go to the website socials.
What do you have? Yes,Cooper Elliot's a law firm, so www
Dot Cooper Elliot dot com. We'vegot a great staff. We had twenty
four hour a day, not justInternet but bones as well, So just
(35:35):
call our law firm and we willhelp it. Rex a real pleasure.
Thanks for your time. Thank youvery much, it was pleasure. CEOs
You Should Know is hosted and producedby Brandon Boxer, a production of iHeartMedia, Columbus
Columbus in Central Ohio have a richhistory of companies being headquartered here, everything
from technology, manufacturing, retail,insurance, and more. But what about
the leaders behind these companies? Whatmakes them tick? How do they get
their start? This is where youget to meet the captain of the ship.
Welcome to CEOs You Should Know andiHeartMedia Columbus Podcast. Welcome back to
(00:20):
another episode of CEOs You Should Know. This is an iHeartMedia Columbus podcast.
I am Boxer and our guest thisweek is one of the founding members of
Cooper and Elliott. Since nineteen ninetyfive, they've been a civil litigation firm
who've been helping individuals, families,and business owners recover from life's most tragic
(00:41):
events. They have an incredible reputation. They've built a pretty powerful one too,
trying large, important and complex cases, which we're going to get into
with our guest, one of thefounding members, Rex Elliott, who's with
us right now in studio. Rex, good to have you with us.
Thank you for having me. Iwant to learn more about you. But
when you think, and I've metplenty of lawyers and attorneys will say,
(01:03):
you seem to think everyone is likeMason Perry, and they're all litigators.
But litigation is a whole different ballgameright from some of the other worlds of
law. It really is. It'sa Unfortunately, it's a world that's fraught
with all kinds of risk, notjust to the lawyers, but to most
importantly to the clients, because atthe end of the day, you can
(01:26):
have a very complicated scenario. Youcan work the case up for two two
and a half years, and thenat the end of the day, you're
relying on eight people in the communitywho know nothing about the subject matter,
nothing about the case, to makea decision. And you know, more
times than that you can be surprisedin the courtroom. Rex, forgive me,
(01:46):
I'm in awe of what you dobecause I feel like, and I
know I'm judging some of it basedon Hollywood and movies. But litigation,
if you're a litigator, that's anart form, isn't it. It really
is. I compare it many manytimes to being the producer of a Broadway
show. You have to come tothe courtroom, you have to be a
(02:08):
skillful communicator. As I just mentioned, we have eight people in the community
that are unfamiliar with the subject matter, So you have to present your case
in a clear manner that they canunderstand. There's just no question about the
desire of jurors to be entertained.Think about it. They have to.
They're taking time off from work,they're away from their family. They don't
(02:30):
want to sit in a courtroom andhear lawyers drown on and on and on
about documents. You have to bevisual in the courtroom. You have to
when you think about your order ofwitnesses. It has to be a little
bit like I got to have astrong opener and a great closer and some
good stuff in the middle. Youcan't be repetitive. So it's very much
like producing your own Broadway show.That's incredible. I just realized something.
(02:55):
We have some things in common withour line of work. With me and
the audience. The last thing youwant to do is lose them or have
them turn the station, for example. So is it the same with the
jury. You want to continue tokeep their attention. You not only have
to keep their attention, but thinkabout it today. I call it the
TikTok generation. Right, everybody's gotabout a fifteen second attention span. So
(03:19):
in the twenty years ago, wetry a case and the case would last
for two, three four weeks.You can't do that anymore. You have
to be you can't be repetitive.You have to put your case on continue
to make it interesting for a jury. For the reason I just said,
I believe that attention spans are veryshort today, and I also think we
don't give juries enough credit. Ithink they get it quicker than we think
(03:43):
they get it. So today it'svery different trying a case than it was
twenty years ago. Rex Elliott isour guest this week on CEOs. You
should know one of the founding membersof Cooper and Elliott back at nineteen ninety
five. Rex, let's get toknow you a little bit. Born.
Raise where you're from. Yeah,right from Columbus, Ohio, nineteen eighty
gra out of Bexley High School.I then migrated all the way over to
(04:03):
Dennison University for college, continued theEast coast Eastern migration at Syracuse College of
Law, and then I practiced inNew York City on Wall Street at Sullivan
and Cromwell for several years before movingback to Columbus in the early nineties.
We've had other guests like yourself verysuccessful who born and raised here, ventured
(04:25):
out, got to see the worlda little bit. You of course Syracuse
and then you know New York City, Wall Street. I have to ask
what made you come back? Ilove Columbus. I have always loved Columbus.
I think it's always to me beenan incredible community. I say it
all the time. In the communityI grew up in in Bexley. I
(04:46):
was raised by two incredible parents,but I had like eighteen other parents.
They were the parents of all myfriends. If I did something wrong,
my parents would know about it beforeI got home. So Columbus to me
has always been a incredible place toraise a family. I have four daughters.
I wouldn't change anything, and Ithink right now it's an extraordinarily exciting
time to be a part of thiscommunity. It's the culture, the education,
(05:11):
the expansion, the growth that's goingon in Columbus is about as exciting
as anywhere in the country. Iwas just going to ask you about that,
Rex. What was life growing upfor you? What did mom and
dad do? I'm just curious aboutthis path of yours. Yeah, I
tell this story all the time.So my grandfather was a trial lawyer here
in Columbus, and he was abig, imposing six foot six man,
(05:33):
and he would take me to thecourtroom and I'd watch him as a young
kid, and for that reason,since I was very very young, I
always wanted to be a trial lawyer. I wanted to be like my grandfather
in the courtroom, my dad.You know, the legal profession sometimes skips
a generation. My dad really wasn'tinterested in the law. He was an
(05:56):
insurance salesman. And my grandfather wasvery hard work and driven and worked a
lot of hours. My dad reallydidn't. My dad was never really interested
in the material part of life.He just loved his family and wanted to
be around his boys. I'll neverforget as a senior in high school,
and this is a moment I'm notreally proud of, but we were on
(06:16):
the bus to a baseball game andwe got there and it's three o'clock in
the afternoon, and my dad isthe only person in the stands. And
my immediate reaction was embarrassment because allmy friends had dads that were out there
working and my dad's sitting there inthe stands. And it wasn't until I
had a family of my own thatI realized my dad had it right.
Yeah, and he gave me thegift of understanding the importance of being a
(06:40):
father and a great husband as well. That's an incredible story. Rex Rex
Elliott is with us, one ofthe co founders of Cooper and Elliott and
this week's guest on CEOs You ShouldKnow and iHeart Media Columbus podcast. Rex,
do you remember you talked about beinga boy going to the courtroom with
your grandfather? Was Was that themoment that you realized what you wanted to
(07:01):
do? Was it a little bitlater on in high school? When was
it? No, it was onehundred percent. When I was a young
kid, I was always focused onwell. I also wanted to be an
NFL wide receiver, but my speedkept me from that possession profession. But
I always wanted to be a lawyer, and I had to I had to
go through a lot of challenges toget there. You know, my growing
(07:25):
up, my family didn't have alot of money. I had to take
a semester off of college to gowork heavy construction to make enough money to
come back. I had to payfor my law school, which required me
to take a year off between collegeand law school, and I built high
transmission power lines in the Mojave Desertfor a year in order to get to
(07:45):
law school. And then when Iwas in law school after the second year,
my money ran out and I didn'tknow how I was going to get
to that through that third year,and I was fortunate enough to graduate at
the top of my class and Iwas able to get a graduate school fellowship
that paid for my tuition my thirdyear. So I went through a lot
of things to get here. Andit's the I think having a license to
(08:09):
practice law is a privilege, andI've always treated it as such. I
feel very, very fortunate to bea lawyer. By the way, how
inspiring is that, Like you hadno help, you just had yourself,
and that's how you made it through. Anybody can do anything they put their
mind to it. It's truly amental exercise. It's about not giving up.
(08:31):
It's about chasing your dream and notletting anything get in your way,
even if you have to take alittle bit of a detour. Yeah,
well, let's fast forward if youdon't mind rex a little bit. There
you are in Syracuse, You're inlaw school. When did you decide and
maybe it's after law school. Idon't know when you decide I want to
be a litigator. Well, Ithink it was in law school that solidified
(08:54):
the desire to be a trial lawyer. And I just wanted to be in
the courtroom. Want wanted to persuadepeople. I wanted to be a part
of the action. I played footballin college, and being a trial lawyer
is the closest thing that I cancome to to the competitive feeling that I
had playing sports growing up. AndI started out the first eight years of
(09:16):
my career were defense. I wason the defense side, and when I
was in New York City, werepresented the NFL in the anti trust cases,
some just fascinating cases I got achance to work on. But when
I got back here, I reallyfelt like I wanted to maximize the impact
of my license to practice law,and I really felt like representing the underdog
(09:39):
was the best way to do that, and that kind of started my desire
to represent people in small businesses.Well, I pride myself with Showbrett.
But somewhere I must have missed thatabout you playing college football, tell us
about that what position? I wasa wide receiver at Dennison in the old
single wing. Keith Piper was thehead coach over there. I had an
incredible experienperience at Denison. I showedup the first day. I really didn't
(10:03):
realize that they ran the single wing, and if you know anything about the
single wing, there is no widereceiver. There's a tight end in that.
But there was a spread aspect tothat offense that got me out there
as well. But I had atremendous experience over there in Grandville. Yeah,
were there dreams of wanting to goto the NFL at one point or
I had a shot at the totry out for a CFL team, the
(10:24):
Toronto Argonauts, and I just feltlike it's time to get on with my
life and to get to law school. But certainly I had that dream,
just like everybody else in that situationdoes. Rex. You eventually find your
way back to Columbus. Where doyou land? Yeah? I started at
Porter Right Morrison Arthur. I wasa defense lawyer there for a few years
(10:45):
before I decided in nineteen ninety fivewith my partner, Chip Cooper, who
was also a Porter Right, wejust you know, Porter Wright's a phenomenal
firm, but we just felt thatbeing on this side of the equation and
helped being individuals was really where youknow, we were meant to be,
and that's kind of that started theconversation. In nineteen ninety five, we
(11:07):
opened up our law firm, CooperElliott was zero clients and just build it
lit kind of the Blue Jackets brickby brick, right, That's that's how
it all happened. Yeah, bythe way, speaking of the Blue Jackets,
and of course for those that don'tknow Cooper and Elliott, you're based
in the Arena District. Can Ijust say, as someone who goes to
Crew games, Clippers games of BlueJackets, you have to have the best
(11:30):
parking where you're at You're where thecompany is located, with premo parking.
Feel free to text me and I'llsay we don't say that, Rex,
I'll take advantage of you. Weare the official law firm of the Columbus
Crews, which is an exciting partof our law firm. But it's great
to be down there in the ArenaDistrict, particularly when there's a baseball game,
a soccer game, a hockey gameall in the same day. It's
(11:52):
what Columbus is all about, thatvibrant active energy down there. Absolutely,
it's really great to be there.Hey, side note, this is going
to sound ridiculous, but because Ihave you here, I've always wanted to
know. Do you own the billboardabove your building? We own the signage,
We don't own the building. Okay, yes, okay, I was
just curious about that. Okay,we can move on. So when it
(12:15):
you had no clients when you startedCooper and Elliott. So how does do
you have to be part maybe alittle bit of a salesperson too. How
does that work with a law firmto get clients. It's a great question.
So it's very different today than itwas back in the mid nineties and
the mid nineties. Our whole marketingconcept was let's take the toughest cases that
are out there. Let's try thosecases, and then let's get a bunch
(12:39):
of publicity. And if you thinkabout it, back in the mid to
late nineties, if you had abig result and it was on the front
page of the Columbus Dispatch, itkind of lingered out there for a long
time. Today, that doesn't work. You know, the news cycle so
fast that, yeah, you canget a great result and it's in the
paper or on TV. But thenext day, everybody's forgotten about it and
(13:01):
they've moved on to something else.So we've had to be really creative in
our in the way we approached ourmarketing. I didn't I never wanted to
be one of those kind of crazyTV lawyers. It just the message was
terrible in my opinion, and sowe really tried to take on tough cases
and get in the media, andwe did, and we won them,
and that started conversation and lots oflawyers took notice, and that helped us,
(13:26):
you know, sort of generate thebusiness we needed to be the law
firm we are today. How itespecially a bigger case REX that has to
take tremendous resources. So how doeshow does that work? I mean even
financially to keep yourself afloat and movingalong. Yeah, that's the other part
(13:46):
of why I started this law firm. I you know, we work on
a contingency fee basis, so wetake all the risk, we financed the
case, and we we then ifwe win, we take a percentage.
If we lose, we lose allthe money we have in the case and
all the time that we've spent inthe case. The billable hour model never
really made sense to me that thebillable hour model, in my view,
(14:07):
teaches inefficiency, whereas our law firmteaches efficiency. Now, the resources are
really important because if we have acase, a big case that requires experts,
we have to go out and getthe best experts in the world.
You know, the best crash reconstructionists, the best engineers, et cetera.
And it costs a lot of moneyto do that. But our experience is
(14:28):
when you get the best on yourteam. And it's like I said earlier
putting on this Broadway show, juriswant to hear from the best experts in
the world. And when you dothat and you pay for it, you
maximize the value of the case forthe clients. Rex is there, I
would imagine they are all of them. You prep do you prep your witnesses?
Do you do you prepare them beforethey go in? One hundred percent
(14:50):
it's critically important, not just beforetrial, but before deposition when they're you
know position is going to be lockedin stone, it's really really important to
spend time with him. Keep inmind they're not familiar with the process,
they have no idea how to goabout it, and you got to teach
him to how to answer questions,and you also have to teach him make
(15:13):
it clear to them that they needto be themselves, right, Yeah,
because the quickest you know juries.I'll tell you a little story. I
early on, so jurors can't talkduring the process, so their sense of
observation is so keen it's amazing.We had a case very early on where
(15:35):
there had been malicious prosecution of aUS meat packing inspector because he was hard
on the inspection and the owner cameafter him because he was slowing down production.
And we tried the case and wegot a really good verdict, but
when we were talking to the jury, the jury said, we were we
would have given you twice as muchas we did. But we observed the
(15:56):
husband and the wife that we represented, and we felt that my wife was
just there for the money, andI thought, you gotta be kidneying.
I mean, she's a fourth gradeteacher. They sat right next to each
other the entire trial, and Isaid, how could you have reached that
conclusion? And they said because theynever once held hands, they never once
touched each other in the courtroom.And I kind of walked away from that
(16:17):
experience, and I said, youknow, people are crazy. You shouldn't
be thinking things like that. Butsix months later she left her husband,
and so I learned a very importantlesson at that point that jurors observe things
that even the lawyers don't see inthe courtroom, and they take their jobs
very, very seriously. So everysingle thing that happens in the courtroom,
(16:37):
you have to make sure you're ontop of that, and you need to
choreograph it. Boy, that justgave me goosebumps. That story. I
had no idea. Do you do? You get to do? You always
get feedback from the jurors afterwards afterthe trial's over with. How does that
work? Yeah, it depends onif the jury wants to talk to you.
Sometimes they really just they want toget out of there. They've been
(16:57):
there for a week or two andthey're they want to get home to their
families. But when they do wantto talk to you, they're pretty candid.
They tell you why they reach decisions. We tried a case against World
Harvest Church in a case where thepreschool teacher had abused a young child,
not sexually, but physically. Hehad hit him really hard and he had
(17:18):
marks on his body. And thejury came back with a verdict in that
case of six point three million dollars. And one of the jurors on the
case was of South American descent,and I was really concerned about him.
He kind of had a scowl onhis face the entire trial. And I
said to him, I said,how did you perceive everything? And he
said, well, I'm really dissatisfiedwith this process. And I said why
(17:41):
is that? And he said,well, because all we could do is
a word compensation here. What I'dreally like to do is go down and
burn down that church. And soyou really do get a sense and you're
surprised many times about how people feelabout the presentation of a case. Have
you ever I have so many questionsabout the jury, But have you ever
(18:03):
looked at the jury and maybe someof the individuals and gone that person shouldn't
be here. Have you ever gotany language or vibe? Well? Absolutely,
in the jury selection process, wehave the ability to get jurors off
for cause if they have some biasthat they bring into the case. But
we also have three peremptory challenges inmost cases, which allows us to get
(18:26):
rid of jurors just for you know, no reason at all. I mean,
if I have a juror that says, you know what, I think,
all lawyers are greedy. I thinkeverybody's looking for a payday. All
lawsuits are frivolous. I'm going totry to get that juror off the case,
not because of anything other than thefact that I want a fair and
impartial jury. But there have beenmany times that I've exercised those three peremptories
(18:51):
and I still have jurors on thatpanel that I would prefer not to be
on that panel. But you gotto roll with the punches at all point.
You gotta have a jury that hada case involving a nurse nursing malpractice
case. One day and I getinto the courtroom of the jury pools like
twenty four and we're trying to pickeight. There were like twelve nurses in
(19:12):
that pool, and I didn't wantnurses on this pool, right, And
we ended up with five of themon the jury, and we got a
tremendous verdict. And their concept was, you know, what, we expect
nurses to do better, you know, And so it was pretty contrary to
the way I thought going in soyou're surprised many many times. Rex Elliott
(19:33):
is this week's guest on CEOs.You should know he's one of the co
founders of Cooper and Elliott with theCEOs. You should know this is an
iHeart Media Columbus podcast. Rex,did you and if you can't say,
it's all right? But did youever have a case where it wrapped up
and you got the verdict and youstrongly felt and the jury got it wrong?
(19:56):
Here? You know what, evenin cases that we lost, I've
gone back and I can understand howthe jury reached its its conclusion. I
really, I really think that moretimes than not, jurors, even though
they don't want to be there,once they're there, they take their job
really, really seriously, and likeI said before, they pay attention very
(20:19):
closely to every detail and so haveHave I disagreed with the jury in the
past, Sure, but for themost part I can I can at least
understand how they got to their decision. Yeah. Yeah, you know what's
refreshing about your ritches. It soundslike you you have a great deep appreciation
for the jury and those that arethere. The jury system is I believe
(20:42):
one of the most important foundations thatwe have in our country. The our
our system of justice in this country, which some people criticize from time to
time, is the best in theworld. There's no question about it.
And without juries, people in yourcommunity can set the standard for what they
expect. For instance, here inFranklin County, I think every I think
(21:06):
anarchy rules. So the jury systemis critical. It's to be respected,
and without it, I think we'dbe in deep trouble. Sure, Rex,
for those that might not know wheremight be surprised, Cooper and Elliott,
you actually have represented cases all acrossthe country, right, we have,
Yes, we do. Do youhave any cases that are memorable for
(21:27):
you that you know some of themore memorable ones, Well, you know
so many of them are memorable,to be honest with you. But you
know, our work in the hazingcollege hazing area is a good example.
So we've represented just as an examplein the last five years, the family
of Colin Wyant, who died througha hazing incident at Ohio University, and
(21:49):
also the stone Faults family. StoneFolts was killed in a hazing incident up
at Bowling Green State University, andthey're both terribly tragic stories. I've been
on the Doctor Phil show talking aboutthem, trying to get the message out
about hazing. And the most importantthing to me about those cases. You
(22:10):
know, we're as civil trial lawyers. The only thing a jury can award
us is money, and people misinterpretthat from time to time. It's compensation.
The word compensate literally means to balanceharm. That's the only way we
can do it in our system.But if we settle cases, we can
do much more. We can agreeto things that make the world a safer
(22:30):
place. So, for instance,in the cases of Colin Wyant and Stone
Folds, we've gone well beyond thejustice system. We have. We helped
write and get past Colin's Law,which elevated to felonies acts of hazing involving
drugs and alcohol. We have beenheavily involved in the Inner University Council,
(22:53):
the fourteen largest public universities in thestate of Ohio, adopting a zero tolerance
policy to hazing in the state ofOhio. We have spoken at universities all
across the country talking to these kidsabout the dangers of hazing. It's just
it's senseless, It makes absolutely nosense. And so from my standpoint,
(23:15):
we have provided tremendous help to theFults and Wyant families. But through and
with their help, their partnership,I think we've saved a lot of lives
in the state of Ohio and inthis country by virtue of our efforts to
get the message out there. Sure, and I remember those cases Rex just
out of curiosity because obviously I wasn'tin the courtroom. But how difficult was
(23:37):
that with the hazing cases to proveyour point, because I'm sure you had
the other side going, well,they're young adults, you know, they
could make those decisions on their own. They no one forced them to do
that. Absolutely, that's always theargument. Fortunately, in the state of
Ohio, we have a statute thatbasically says anybody that participates in or tolerates
(23:59):
hazing going to be civilly liable,including universities. So we've got very favorable
law here in the state of Ohio. But from my standpoint, the most
important thing, the message that I'vegotten out there is that you know,
and Judge Cooleman set it up inBowling Green. He said, if we
are going to trust and trust thebattle to stop hazing in the hands of
(24:22):
eighteen to twenty two year old boys. It's never going to happen. We're
going to continue to Hayes until thecows come home. We have had a
death in this country every single yearon a college campus, with the exception
of this year, since nineteen fiftynine because of Hayes. So we have
to put a stop to it.And to me, it's the adults in
the room that need to step up. It's the universities that need to police
(24:45):
better what goes on on their campuses. It's the national organizations that need to
do a better job of doing somethingother than collecting revenue and fees. They
need to be there, they needto be present. We need to We
need to educate these kids. Peoplesay to me, after I have a
speech at a university and then anotherhazing incident happens, they say, these
(25:06):
kids aren't listening. I totally disagreewith that. I think they are all
listening. The problem is they thinkit's not going to happen to them.
We have to get them to understandthat not only could it happen to them,
but the other side of the hazingcoin are the people that Hayes right
under. In the state of Ohiotoday, if you haes and something bad
happens, you are immediately in thecriminal justice system. You're being charged with
(25:30):
a felony. These kids at BowlingGreen spent time in prison in local prisons,
they were expelled from school. Theyit's on their record for the rest
of their lives. Their family hasfinancial consequences. It's a disaster all the
way around. So I'm really reallyproud of the efforts that we've gone to
in the hazing cases to get themessage out there and try to put a
(25:51):
stop to this well rack. Soalso is something that I always harp on
and maybe I sound like an oldman, get off my lawn, but
you're holding people accountablesolute hundred percent,you know. And in the State Fair
case you may remember the ride offthe arm. What we did in that
case, we represented Kaziah Lewis,who spent ten months in a hospital and
still struggles to walk, and she'sa wonderful, phenomenal young woman. In
(26:15):
that case, we took steps tomake sure inspection standards were higher in the
state of Ohio because a lot oftimes these traveling carnivals, if you will,
yeah, come in set up.You got people running these rides that
aren't qualified. We did a lotto make sure that something like that doesn't
happen in this country. Again,those are the kinds of things that really
get me out of bed in themorning and drive me to the office.
(26:37):
Yeah, well, I was goingto say, didn't the next year the
State Fair completely go with a differentcompany? Yes, yeah, immediately,
one hundred percent. Yeah, Andit's part that, but it's also part
setting the standards for any company thatcomes in in terms of inspection, in
terms of operation, in terms ofwho's you know, running the rides at
(26:57):
the time they're being run. Andso you know, my hope is that
we never like cazing. Hope.My goal in the hazing area is to
never have another hazing incident in thiscountry's history. And that's the same with
the State Fair. I hope itnever happens again. Hey, Rex,
I know we're starting to wind down, but I know you also cover things
like medical malpractice, wrongful death,serious injuries, civil rights violations, wrongful
(27:22):
convictions, which that one, bythe way, seems to be a really
popular one now you're seeing TV showsKim Kardashian, for example. Out of
those categories, what's probably the bulkof your cases. It's largely in that
area of wrongful death and catastrophic injuryby any means, right, But you
mentioned wrongful conviction. That's a reallyimportant area of our practice too. There
(27:45):
are a lot of people in thiscountry that are innocent that are serving time
behind bars. I think one ofthe biggest problems we have in our system
is that prosecutors have absolute immunity.In other words, if they do something
that they hold evidence, they dosomething in the process that leads to somebody
innocent being convicted, you can't touchthem. And the reality is that unless
(28:08):
we have consequences, like your kid, right, if your kid doesn't have
consequences, they're going to run themup. I need to do something about
that. But a mission of ourlaw firm is to try to help people
that are innocent get out of prison. It's a you know, we've had
clients that have spent twenty four totwenty five years in prison that we've helped
get out and then pursue the civiljustice system there as well. Rex,
(28:30):
I didn't know that about the prosecutors, Like that sounds really shady. And
by the way, how do youlive with yourself? Yeah? And By
the way, I don't mean tocast a black shadow overall prosecutors. They
do. Most of them do avery very good job. But think about
it for a second. They're ina competitive arena. They want to win.
They certainly believe that the person they'reprosecuting is guilty, and at some
(28:52):
point, you know, you've gotto be careful about how far you go
to secure that conviction. And Ijust believe if if we had consequences for
improper behavior that leads to somebody beingput in prison for any period of time,
we'd be a better system. We'dhave checks and balances against people crossing
(29:15):
the line like they do some ofthe cases we've obviously highlighted just out of
curiosity. If someone's listening to thispodcast and they're like, Wow, I
had this happen to me. Maybeis it just a simple phone call?
Is it an email? How doesthat work with you guys? Yeah,
you just reach out to us.I say it all the time, but
the kinds of cases that we litigatein our clients' lives, it's the worst
(29:40):
trauma that they will ever go through. And what I try very hard to
do is not make the legal processa trauma. On top of a trauma.
So once somebody contacts our office,it's all about communication and giving them
information. We try to have regularcalls with clients so they understand what's happening,
what's about to happen. Keep inmind they're complete strange to the legal
(30:02):
system, and so information is reallyimportant to those folks. And like I
said, you know, if Icould, you know, if one of
the things that I could do isbring their loved one back or take the
injury away, That's what I do. But I can't do that. So
what we try to do in ourcases, the first question I ask our
clients is what do you want meto do for you? And then and
(30:23):
I don't think lawyers ask that questionvery often, right they assume what the
client wants or they're going to pursuetheir own agenda. We say, what
do you want? And then Itry to figure out can I get you
there? And if so, howdo I get you there? Rex Is
that, by the way, howyou build trust with them? Because I
don't have to tell you this,they're you know, lawyers don't exactly have
(30:45):
the greatest names of the word,not all lawyers, but you know there
are lawyers that just give the wholeindustry probably a bad rap. So I'm
just curious if you could just tellus a little bit more too, about
what you do behind the scenes thatmy the rest of us away with,
how you take care of your clients. Well, and let me say,
there are bad apples in every profession, right, absolutely, but I do
(31:07):
believe some of the bad apples andour profession taint everybody. I will tell
you that I believe most lawyers outthere are interested in representing their clients to
the best their best of their abilities. I though, do believe that as
a lawyer, we have a tremendousresponsibility to do things beyond you know,
(31:29):
just you know, compensation. Wehave a duty to understand what our clients'
objectives are. I will tell youI have never had a client walk into
my office that has suffered a deathor serious injury and ask me, geez,
how much is that worth? Theyask me every time they say we
want accountability, we want somebody tobe held responsible for this, or they
(31:51):
say please do something so that noother family has to go through what we
just went through. And we dothat. We work really hard to accomplish
our clients' objectives, and I thinkif more lawyers did that, listened to
their clients and what they want toaccomplish, I think the world would look
at us a lot more favorably.Well, ROX on the heels of that,
(32:13):
you have a heart, You're ahuman. Are there over cases where
even maybe behind the scenes or behindyour closed door in your office, can
it get emotional for you? Oh? Absolutely, one hundred percent, not
just behind closed doors in a courtroom, it can get emotional for me,
no question about it. I've hadI've had tears in my eyes in opening
(32:35):
statements and closing arguments. When you'retaught, one of the things that people
don't understand is that if somebody's gone, I'm not just representing the family I'm
representing. I'm the warrior for theperson that's not here to protect themselves.
And so what I have to doin a courtroom is bring that person to
life. And I really try tostep in their shoes and under I've never
(32:57):
met that person, but I tryto understand who they were and how important
this would be to them. AndI don't think you can be a human
being without feeling extraordinarily strong emotions,and situations like that all right, Rex,
as we start to wrap up,just out of curiosity, I know
for a talk show it takes hoursof prep, so I'm just curious they
(33:19):
And don't get me wrong, there'sno average case with you. I get
that, but on average, howlong does it take you to prep a
case before you litigate it? Becauseof our cases, they're all complex,
you know, really really important casesthat involve lots and lots of harm.
It typically takes years to get acase ready. You have to gather information,
(33:44):
You have to take depositions, youhave to file motions with the court,
you have to secure experts. Youhave to think about what kind of
visuals you'll use in the courtroom.You have technology that you want to use
in the courtroom. You have tothink about who your model juror is going
to be. The heck, youhave a judge on the case and you
got to sometimes maneuver your case aroundthe biases of the judge that you have.
(34:07):
So it's a really long, complicatedprocess. Okay, Rex, how
about opening closing statements? How longdoes that take you to do? You
write them out and memorize them.How does that work? I typically write
my opening statement at the outset ofthe case before we even get into discovery,
and it obviously changes over the courseof time. I spend an enormous
(34:28):
amount of time on both of thosebecause it's the whole primacy and recency concept.
You got to get off to agreat start. If you don't get
those jurors right out of the gate, you could never get them back again.
And then closing really kind of tiesthe trial together, right, because
trials happen in bits and pieces andsometimes it's hard for lay people to put
it all together. And that's myjob in a closing argument. So we
(34:52):
pour for hours and hours leading upto the trial on all both of those
aspects of the trial, opening andclosing. Wow, Rex Elliott, I
have to tell you this has beenreally fascinating as someone who's always been interested
in law, but quite frankly notsmart enough to be there. But Rex,
I really appreciate you being a guestthis week on CEOs. You should
(35:14):
know and iHeart Media Columbus podcast RexElliott with Cooper and Elliott. By the
way, if someone wants more info, just go to the website socials.
What do you have? Yes,Cooper Elliot's a law firm, so www
Dot Cooper Elliot dot com. We'vegot a great staff. We had twenty
four hour a day, not justInternet but bones as well, So just
(35:35):
call our law firm and we willhelp it. Rex a real pleasure.
Thanks for your time. Thank youvery much, it was pleasure. CEOs
You Should Know is hosted and producedby Brandon Boxer, a production of iHeartMedia, Columbus
Popular Podcasts
Monster: BTK
'Monster: BTK', the newest installment in the 'Monster' franchise, reveals the true story of the Wichita, Kansas serial killer who murdered at least 10 people between 1974 and 1991. Known by the moniker, BTK – Bind Torture Kill, his notoriety was bolstered by the taunting letters he sent to police, and the chilling phone calls he made to media outlets. BTK's identity was finally revealed in 2005 to the shock of his family, his community, and the world. He was the serial killer next door. From Tenderfoot TV & iHeartPodcasts, this is 'Monster: BTK'.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.