July 8, 2025 • 15 mins
https://justiceteamnetwork.com
This week, Bob sits down with Los Angeles attorney Michael Carrillo to discuss his work on behalf of child sexual abuse victims. Carillo recounts a landmark case he litigated that involved school district liability and the enhancement of the Civil Rape Shield statute through SB 1386. He provides insights into the challenges of representing abuse survivors, the complexities of holding institutions accountable, and the emotional toll these cases take. Carillo also explains the distinct approaches required when pursuing justice against public versus private entities and stresses the importance of compassion in legal practice.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hey, it's Bob Simon taking abreak to tell you about CallRail.
CallRail is a product that my firm uses,and what CallRail does is it plugs into
your phone calls with your intake and withyour clients to record those phone calls
as real time transcripts so you can getintelligence and with the attorney share.
Plugin.
You can actually in real time beable to send a referral out through
(00:23):
the marketplace to find the bestmatch all made possible with CallRail
being plugged into your firm's intakewith real intelligence CallRail.
I.
Welcome to this episode of the JusticeTeam Podcast on the Justice Team Network.
I'm your host, Bob Simon, andtoday we have a local LA legend
lawyer, Michael Carillo on the show.
Michael, how you doing?
(00:43):
Good.
Good.
Thank you.
That's a nice introduction.
Yeah, and you know, what's your,what's your Instagram handle
at Lawyer Mikey?
At Lawyer.
Mikey, how did you get that?
It had have been so early to the gameand by the time I went to Attorney
Bob, it laughed me off the stage.
I got that very early, but I wasn'tvery active on it and I just held
onto it and now that I'm puttingout more content, it's great for it.
(01:04):
Yeah, I've seen it get a lot of um, alot of traction in your social handles
'cause you're doing a lot of work in thecommunity, you know, as a lawyer helping
a lot of folks and for people wanna.
Look up attorney Mikey, um, gettingbig verdicts in the courtroom.
I saw recently, actually, I went toyour trial when you were trying one
in downtown Los Angeles for, um, forsome sex abuse victims at school.
(01:26):
Um, can you just kind of break that downfor us because that case was very long
or very old for kind of what happened.
That one is one that will remainwith me throughout my legal career
and even in my personal career.
I mean, I, I. We, I got referred thatcase by a colleague that I trust back in,
(01:48):
where are we?
2025. So this would've been 2018.
Wow.
And most of our practice now isfocused on child sexual abuse victims.
And it's really a passion of mine.
And this case, we started the trialin the middle of COVID in 2021.
It, uh, it was paused because the SupremeCourt intervened on an immediate stay.
(02:09):
We went all the way up to the SupremeCourt, got a published decision.
We didn't like that.
So then we drafted a legislator tohelp us, Senator Kaba Iro, to help us
with SB 1386, which is, uh, furtherenhanced the Civil Rape Shield statute.
So I'm very proud of that.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, because it's, it's a markthat I'm leaving, not just
on this case, but in future.
Yeah.
Talk to us about the, um, aboutthe rape shield statute, which
(02:31):
you were able to do through.
Through the courts and being a lawyer.
Well, um, this judge, uh, in thisparticular case felt that other sexual
assault incidents could be broughtin, in, to allow the defense or the
school district to argue that thisparticular victim, uh, we call her
Susie, I'm not going to say her lastname of course, but that Susie was
(02:53):
later victimized, not only by her, herteacher in in fourth grade, but by a
boy when she was about 14 years old.
The judge felt that thatevidence should come in to say,
well, she's not as affected.
The laws was pretty clear, at leastin my eyes, that it shouldn't come in.
And we took that all the way up tothe Supreme Court because she wasn't,
she was going to allow that evidencein to say that our victim was not
(03:15):
as traumatized as she really was.
So we felt that was a total injustice.
And it is, and I'm gladyou changed that law.
You know, I think, you know, I have afew cases where we've, we've been able
to use that as well, and some judgesfirst wanted to not apply it and then.
We are actually in the middle of, um,litigation when your yours came down.
So what the Espb did, but I mean,so kind of walk us through like
(03:38):
what does liability look like?
'cause you know, a lot of people watchingor listening will get a call of something
had happened to a kid at school and youknow, first of all, what are their rights?
What should they do andwhat do you kind of assess?
Whenever we get calls first, I alwaystell them to contact the police.
We as lawyers can only do so much,but the police can do other things.
(04:01):
And once you contact the police, youtake your child through that process as
traumatic as it is for your child, andto watch your child go through that.
Uh, it's important to hold thosepeople accountable, be it a coach,
a teacher, whatever it may be.
Uh, in order to get that accountabilityand to get that justice, that person
needs to be put in jail first.
And then secondly, we have to look ascivil lawyers at what accountability that
(04:21):
we can hold the school district employeeswho allowed this person to be around kids.
And most of the times in these cases,it's the coolest teacher, coolest coach.
Mm-hmm.
He grooms not only these kids toallow them, allow him to abuse them,
but he grooms a community to say,well, I'm just gonna hug these kids.
It's totally fine 'cause it'sMr. Smith or Mr. Johnson, when
(04:43):
in reality that's the one that iscommitting all these heinous acts.
And they're also buildingthat community to say, well.
Coach Smith would neverdo something like this.
We see that all the time, right?
Um, yeah.
But, but so what, walk us through that.
Why is it, you know, how is the,the, the school accountable for
the bad acts of Coach Smith?
(05:06):
Well, the school can be held accountablewhen there's all these prior red
flags and say a principal or, uh, someother staff member knew that, uh, Mr.
Smith was having kids in hisclassroom against the rules.
Or he was having kids sit on his lap.
And in the case that you just brought upthat, uh, we tried this year, finally in
2025, we got a verdict after seven years,uh, eight years after this came to light.
(05:30):
Uh, in that circumstance, the teacher hadbeen caught, uh, in the late nineties,
early two thousands, uh, having kids onhis lap, uh, grooming kids by having them
be, or by becoming the kid's godfather.
And this was like padrinoof the first communion.
So he would.
Pay for something as part of thefirst communion for these kids.
(05:51):
And so we, uh, proved that theschool district knew about his
bad behavior as early as the latenineties, early two thousands, mid
two thousands, and the school shouldhave intervened and they never did.
Wow.
What happened to, uh, IIL?
Padrino?
Well, he got, uh, first convicted ofeight years and then he was sentenced,
(06:13):
uh, for little Susie's case for 20 years.
So 28, uh, total years.
And eventually your client did have civiljustice as well through your verdict.
She did have civil justice.
Uh, unfortunately it looks likethey're gonna challenge the verdict,
which happens in these cases.
Especially with something like,like this, where we really hold
the school district accountable.
(06:33):
Yeah.
And you know, it was aneight figure verdict.
We'll leave it at that.
We don't have to talk numbers.
It's very impressive.
But it's also impressive, the work andthe dedication it took for seven years
to even get there on the civil side.
Right.
Um, but walk us through like.
The school district on the other side, didthey ever even offer you any type of fair
(06:53):
compensation for what happened to Susie?
Absolutely not.
Their initial approach was to questionSusie's statements about what occurred
to say that when she first spoketo the sheriff's, uh, department.
Well, she didn't mention all thesehorrific, uh, acts, even though later
when she met with a detective thatspecializes in these interviews, she did
(07:17):
reveal all of those, these heinous acts.
And that's classic victimology.
It's it's classic, uh, victim symptomswhere when you first disclose to a the
first officer, you may not say everything.
And that doesn't mean that they lied.
It just means thatthey're slowly opening up.
And then later she revealed more.
And the truth actually cameout finally once and for all.
(07:38):
And so, no, the school districtfrom the very beginning, they
felt that Susie was lying.
Uh, they tried to prove that at trial,which was a bad, bad gamble on their part.
And no, they didn't wanna offer faircompensation for any of these survivors.
Yeah.
And we see, you know, here in SouthernCalifornia, there's people that say,
well, we should limit the amount ofdamages that a sex abuse survivor
(07:59):
can can get for no matter whatthe harm is to them, because it's.
A public entity.
How do you feel about that?
Oh, it's, it's ridiculous.
It sounds like you've been followingsome of this recent push by the
legislators to, uh, reduce the amountof damages, but it doesn't allow
for justice for these survivors.
(08:19):
Just because you think X amount is, isa lot of money to you, doesn't mean it,
it pays for the suffering, the traumathat they've been through this victim
and you don't know what their lifeis like when they go home and they,
they, uh, clo turn the lights off.
They're in bed by themselves.
What.
Trauma they're going through.
So who are you to judge
and who, I mean, and for a lot of peoplewatching or listening, you know, you
(08:40):
hear about, wow, this, this is an outlierverdict and you know, it's eight figures.
This is crazy.
But what they don't realize is how many opreasonable opportunities to settle did you
give the school district that were much,much, much, much lower than the verdict
Multiple times.
Yeah.
Two mediations.
(09:01):
I sent a demand after we changedthe law and after the Supreme Court
decision didn't hear a Pete backleading up to the the 2025 trial.
There was some rumblings of, of,I guess what they felt was fair
offers, but it certainly was not.
Yeah.
And that's one thing that, you know,if you do any work with people's,
their are survivors of sex abuse.
(09:21):
It's first of all, hard for themto open up and tell their story,
let alone go through a trial.
Um, walk us through that process.
I mean, it's.
It's gotta be hard and you feel likea protector, but, but what's that like
for, for seven years, just helpingthat person through that journey?
This, uh, this case, I'veseen these kids grow up.
(09:42):
Mm-hmm.
They were maybe 10, 11 years old whenI met them, and I've seen them over
the years and we got them ready fortrial one, emotionally, mentally,
for only, only for it to be paused.
And I didn't, couldn't tell himwhen we were gonna get back into it.
So, of course the parents and the kidswere just on edge, anxious for years not
knowing when it's gonna happen again.
(10:04):
So then to get 'em prepared in 2025,I kept telling 'em, you know, things
may, we don't know what'll happen, etcetera, but it's really just, uh, we
developed a, a, an amazing relationshipwith these, with these folks.
And I, uh, I really value and respecttheir courage, their strength.
And really just as long as you'recompassionate with them, and I
(10:27):
always tell the lawyers in myoffice lead with compassion.
If you do that and you, you havetheir, their best interest in mind,
their heart, and their mental stressin mind going into trial, I think
you'll, you'll prepare them just fine.
Yeah.
And you truly do things as a team, notonly at your firm, but during trial.
I know when I was there, I saw your dad.
(10:47):
I saw some other familymembers that are there.
So just tell us a little bit aboutyour, your firm, the firm structure.
'cause you, y'all havebeen here for a while.
Yeah.
Yes.
Well, my dad was a solo practitionerfor probably 35 years, and then he
and I joined together on, uh, oneof these bigger, uh, cases in South
LA where the teacher was caught.
Uh, putting his semen on cookiesand spoon feeding it to kids.
It was horrific.
(11:08):
I remember that case.
I remember that story.
Mira Monte and Mark Burnt.
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burnt was the nameof the perpetrator.
And so we teamed up there and,and uh, before that I was doing
family law and criminal defense.
Uh, Bob Hope we've never donefamily law 'cause it's no awful.
Yeah.
I couldn't emotionally do that.
Could not emotionally do family law.
Mm-hmm.
It's bad.
But, so I work with my dad nowand there's, there's he and I, and
(11:31):
then we have five other lawyersthat work in our office and.
It's real, it's a family shop.
But, uh, I love my dad and I'mgrateful I get this opportunity
to practice law with him.
Yeah, I love that.
So, um,
I mean walk, because you, Imean, you've been in Southern
California for a long time.
Like what is the general, you know,sentiment about you're going and you're
(11:52):
going fighting against public entities.
It's not all schools thatyou're going against.
You go a lot of private entitiesand it's probably a different.
A different way we go into a privatecompany as opposed to a school district.
But when you're going against aschool district or a public entity,
you've gotta have a different wayto like communicate to the jury.
'cause you know, jurors sit there andthink, oh my God, this is gonna cost
me so much money as a taxpayer, I mean,you know, that's what they're thinking.
(12:14):
Absolutely.
And how do you, how do you getan eight figure verdict from an
downtown LA jury that's payingLA taxes to the public entity?
I mean, you gotta approachit head on in jury selection.
And my big thing is.
Whenever there's a school districtemployee on the jury, I always feel
like it brings the verdict down.
And lately I feel like I've gottenbetter at telling these jurors that,
(12:38):
look, you cannot think about the kids'cafeteria food and their pencils and pens.
Like that's not for you todecide, for you to decide.
It's just what does justicelook like for this victim?
Yeah, a lot of people don't realizethat some of these public entities
actually do have insurance,and you can't even say that.
You cannot mention it during trial.
The jurors will never know.
But a little fun fact, a lotof the times they do in fact
(13:00):
have insurance and a lot of it,
very much so.
A lot.
And there are certain, uh, insurancerepresentatives, uh, for these school
districts, I won't mention themby names, but some in particular
that I feel deny justice to.
Latinos and black kidsmore than white kids.
And that's just, I'vebeen very open about that.
Yeah.
And I actually wrote a letter to aninsurance adjuster last week because they
(13:24):
just revoke revoked somebody's coverage.
I mean, just like, it was unbelievablewhat they tried to do on some weird, his
80-year-old mom was living at the house.
You didn't disclose her.
It's like, well, mom has her ownlicense and she's 80 years old and
she had nothing to do with this crash.
Like, not really.
Then I found out they'd done thisto a lot of other people who did
some quick research, and then I justemailed back the insurance company.
I was like, did you just do the, uh,this is a Compton zip code, so we're
(13:48):
gonna treat somebody differently.
And you know, they do it.
Absolutely.
You know, they do it.
Absolutely do it.
Uh, that's a
whole nother show on that one, man.
I mean, it's, it's whatever they canget away with and a lot of times it's.
Uh, people that are not as educated, uh,maybe English is not their first language.
Mm-hmm.
And so they try to screw our peoplewithout thinking of the consequences.
It takes people like yourselfand myself that have a voice
(14:10):
that can speak up for them.
Yeah.
And I think it's why it's so importantfor people to have direct access to
attorneys, whether it's through the dmsof lawyer, Mikey, whether it's through
the justice team, app, whatever it is,you should be able to find the best.
Warrior for you for yourspecific situation, right.
Public entity, sex abuse case.
(14:31):
I'm gonna call lawyer Mikey.
You know, like that's how it is.
Should be.
Well, and Bob, I gottagive you a lot of credit.
Mm-hmm.
I know I told you this off air, butjust this team that you put together,
justice hq and the ability for peopleto find a resource and attorney that
covers that area or that topic, Imean, you deserve a lot of credit,
Bob, for, for connecting the folks.
But
think about this, the peoplethat, that you've represented.
(14:53):
They don't know any lawyers, likepeople take for granted that because,
oh, I'm, I'm with this in my life.
I know a lot of lawyers,most people know Zero.
They know one is on tv.
So you, I think you owe a a duty to folksto, to make it easier for them to access.
Um, but anyway, thank you for comingon this episode of the Justice Team
podcast on the Justice Team Network.
We're definitely gonna have you on again.
Um, I look forward to doing yourbourbon of proof interview once
(15:15):
because Oh, I love to drink.
Um.
Some high proof spirits withMr. Carrillo and maybe your dad.
That would be fun.
He hasn't drank in 35 years or something.
Well then you're
drinking double.
I'll take his share.
You got it.
All right.
Well, thanks for coming on the show.
Appreciate it.
All right.
Thanks mom.
Hey, it's Bob Simon taking abreak to tell you about CallRail.
CallRail is a product that my firm uses,and what CallRail does is it plugs into
your phone calls with your intake and withyour clients to record those phone calls
as real time transcripts so you can getintelligence and with the attorney share.
Plugin.
You can actually in real time beable to send a referral out through
(00:23):
the marketplace to find the bestmatch all made possible with CallRail
being plugged into your firm's intakewith real intelligence CallRail.
I.
Welcome to this episode of the JusticeTeam Podcast on the Justice Team Network.
I'm your host, Bob Simon, andtoday we have a local LA legend
lawyer, Michael Carillo on the show.
Michael, how you doing?
(00:43):
Good.
Good.
Thank you.
That's a nice introduction.
Yeah, and you know, what's your,what's your Instagram handle
at Lawyer Mikey?
At Lawyer.
Mikey, how did you get that?
It had have been so early to the gameand by the time I went to Attorney
Bob, it laughed me off the stage.
I got that very early, but I wasn'tvery active on it and I just held
onto it and now that I'm puttingout more content, it's great for it.
(01:04):
Yeah, I've seen it get a lot of um, alot of traction in your social handles
'cause you're doing a lot of work in thecommunity, you know, as a lawyer helping
a lot of folks and for people wanna.
Look up attorney Mikey, um, gettingbig verdicts in the courtroom.
I saw recently, actually, I went toyour trial when you were trying one
in downtown Los Angeles for, um, forsome sex abuse victims at school.
(01:26):
Um, can you just kind of break that downfor us because that case was very long
or very old for kind of what happened.
That one is one that will remainwith me throughout my legal career
and even in my personal career.
I mean, I, I. We, I got referred thatcase by a colleague that I trust back in,
(01:48):
where are we?
2025. So this would've been 2018.
Wow.
And most of our practice now isfocused on child sexual abuse victims.
And it's really a passion of mine.
And this case, we started the trialin the middle of COVID in 2021.
It, uh, it was paused because the SupremeCourt intervened on an immediate stay.
(02:09):
We went all the way up to the SupremeCourt, got a published decision.
We didn't like that.
So then we drafted a legislator tohelp us, Senator Kaba Iro, to help us
with SB 1386, which is, uh, furtherenhanced the Civil Rape Shield statute.
So I'm very proud of that.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, because it's, it's a markthat I'm leaving, not just
on this case, but in future.
Yeah.
Talk to us about the, um, aboutthe rape shield statute, which
(02:31):
you were able to do through.
Through the courts and being a lawyer.
Well, um, this judge, uh, in thisparticular case felt that other sexual
assault incidents could be broughtin, in, to allow the defense or the
school district to argue that thisparticular victim, uh, we call her
Susie, I'm not going to say her lastname of course, but that Susie was
(02:53):
later victimized, not only by her, herteacher in in fourth grade, but by a
boy when she was about 14 years old.
The judge felt that thatevidence should come in to say,
well, she's not as affected.
The laws was pretty clear, at leastin my eyes, that it shouldn't come in.
And we took that all the way up tothe Supreme Court because she wasn't,
she was going to allow that evidencein to say that our victim was not
(03:15):
as traumatized as she really was.
So we felt that was a total injustice.
And it is, and I'm gladyou changed that law.
You know, I think, you know, I have afew cases where we've, we've been able
to use that as well, and some judgesfirst wanted to not apply it and then.
We are actually in the middle of, um,litigation when your yours came down.
So what the Espb did, but I mean,so kind of walk us through like
(03:38):
what does liability look like?
'cause you know, a lot of people watchingor listening will get a call of something
had happened to a kid at school and youknow, first of all, what are their rights?
What should they do andwhat do you kind of assess?
Whenever we get calls first, I alwaystell them to contact the police.
We as lawyers can only do so much,but the police can do other things.
(04:01):
And once you contact the police, youtake your child through that process as
traumatic as it is for your child, andto watch your child go through that.
Uh, it's important to hold thosepeople accountable, be it a coach,
a teacher, whatever it may be.
Uh, in order to get that accountabilityand to get that justice, that person
needs to be put in jail first.
And then secondly, we have to look ascivil lawyers at what accountability that
(04:21):
we can hold the school district employeeswho allowed this person to be around kids.
And most of the times in these cases,it's the coolest teacher, coolest coach.
Mm-hmm.
He grooms not only these kids toallow them, allow him to abuse them,
but he grooms a community to say,well, I'm just gonna hug these kids.
It's totally fine 'cause it'sMr. Smith or Mr. Johnson, when
(04:43):
in reality that's the one that iscommitting all these heinous acts.
And they're also buildingthat community to say, well.
Coach Smith would neverdo something like this.
We see that all the time, right?
Um, yeah.
But, but so what, walk us through that.
Why is it, you know, how is the,the, the school accountable for
the bad acts of Coach Smith?
(05:06):
Well, the school can be held accountablewhen there's all these prior red
flags and say a principal or, uh, someother staff member knew that, uh, Mr.
Smith was having kids in hisclassroom against the rules.
Or he was having kids sit on his lap.
And in the case that you just brought upthat, uh, we tried this year, finally in
2025, we got a verdict after seven years,uh, eight years after this came to light.
(05:30):
Uh, in that circumstance, the teacher hadbeen caught, uh, in the late nineties,
early two thousands, uh, having kids onhis lap, uh, grooming kids by having them
be, or by becoming the kid's godfather.
And this was like padrinoof the first communion.
So he would.
Pay for something as part of thefirst communion for these kids.
(05:51):
And so we, uh, proved that theschool district knew about his
bad behavior as early as the latenineties, early two thousands, mid
two thousands, and the school shouldhave intervened and they never did.
Wow.
What happened to, uh, IIL?
Padrino?
Well, he got, uh, first convicted ofeight years and then he was sentenced,
(06:13):
uh, for little Susie's case for 20 years.
So 28, uh, total years.
And eventually your client did have civiljustice as well through your verdict.
She did have civil justice.
Uh, unfortunately it looks likethey're gonna challenge the verdict,
which happens in these cases.
Especially with something like,like this, where we really hold
the school district accountable.
(06:33):
Yeah.
And you know, it was aneight figure verdict.
We'll leave it at that.
We don't have to talk numbers.
It's very impressive.
But it's also impressive, the work andthe dedication it took for seven years
to even get there on the civil side.
Right.
Um, but walk us through like.
The school district on the other side, didthey ever even offer you any type of fair
(06:53):
compensation for what happened to Susie?
Absolutely not.
Their initial approach was to questionSusie's statements about what occurred
to say that when she first spoketo the sheriff's, uh, department.
Well, she didn't mention all thesehorrific, uh, acts, even though later
when she met with a detective thatspecializes in these interviews, she did
(07:17):
reveal all of those, these heinous acts.
And that's classic victimology.
It's it's classic, uh, victim symptomswhere when you first disclose to a the
first officer, you may not say everything.
And that doesn't mean that they lied.
It just means thatthey're slowly opening up.
And then later she revealed more.
And the truth actually cameout finally once and for all.
(07:38):
And so, no, the school districtfrom the very beginning, they
felt that Susie was lying.
Uh, they tried to prove that at trial,which was a bad, bad gamble on their part.
And no, they didn't wanna offer faircompensation for any of these survivors.
Yeah.
And we see, you know, here in SouthernCalifornia, there's people that say,
well, we should limit the amount ofdamages that a sex abuse survivor
(07:59):
can can get for no matter whatthe harm is to them, because it's.
A public entity.
How do you feel about that?
Oh, it's, it's ridiculous.
It sounds like you've been followingsome of this recent push by the
legislators to, uh, reduce the amountof damages, but it doesn't allow
for justice for these survivors.
(08:19):
Just because you think X amount is, isa lot of money to you, doesn't mean it,
it pays for the suffering, the traumathat they've been through this victim
and you don't know what their lifeis like when they go home and they,
they, uh, clo turn the lights off.
They're in bed by themselves.
What.
Trauma they're going through.
So who are you to judge
and who, I mean, and for a lot of peoplewatching or listening, you know, you
(08:40):
hear about, wow, this, this is an outlierverdict and you know, it's eight figures.
This is crazy.
But what they don't realize is how many opreasonable opportunities to settle did you
give the school district that were much,much, much, much lower than the verdict
Multiple times.
Yeah.
Two mediations.
(09:01):
I sent a demand after we changedthe law and after the Supreme Court
decision didn't hear a Pete backleading up to the the 2025 trial.
There was some rumblings of, of,I guess what they felt was fair
offers, but it certainly was not.
Yeah.
And that's one thing that, you know,if you do any work with people's,
their are survivors of sex abuse.
(09:21):
It's first of all, hard for themto open up and tell their story,
let alone go through a trial.
Um, walk us through that process.
I mean, it's.
It's gotta be hard and you feel likea protector, but, but what's that like
for, for seven years, just helpingthat person through that journey?
This, uh, this case, I'veseen these kids grow up.
(09:42):
Mm-hmm.
They were maybe 10, 11 years old whenI met them, and I've seen them over
the years and we got them ready fortrial one, emotionally, mentally,
for only, only for it to be paused.
And I didn't, couldn't tell himwhen we were gonna get back into it.
So, of course the parents and the kidswere just on edge, anxious for years not
knowing when it's gonna happen again.
(10:04):
So then to get 'em prepared in 2025,I kept telling 'em, you know, things
may, we don't know what'll happen, etcetera, but it's really just, uh, we
developed a, a, an amazing relationshipwith these, with these folks.
And I, uh, I really value and respecttheir courage, their strength.
And really just as long as you'recompassionate with them, and I
(10:27):
always tell the lawyers in myoffice lead with compassion.
If you do that and you, you havetheir, their best interest in mind,
their heart, and their mental stressin mind going into trial, I think
you'll, you'll prepare them just fine.
Yeah.
And you truly do things as a team, notonly at your firm, but during trial.
I know when I was there, I saw your dad.
(10:47):
I saw some other familymembers that are there.
So just tell us a little bit aboutyour, your firm, the firm structure.
'cause you, y'all havebeen here for a while.
Yeah.
Yes.
Well, my dad was a solo practitionerfor probably 35 years, and then he
and I joined together on, uh, oneof these bigger, uh, cases in South
LA where the teacher was caught.
Uh, putting his semen on cookiesand spoon feeding it to kids.
It was horrific.
(11:08):
I remember that case.
I remember that story.
Mira Monte and Mark Burnt.
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burnt was the nameof the perpetrator.
And so we teamed up there and,and uh, before that I was doing
family law and criminal defense.
Uh, Bob Hope we've never donefamily law 'cause it's no awful.
Yeah.
I couldn't emotionally do that.
Could not emotionally do family law.
Mm-hmm.
It's bad.
But, so I work with my dad nowand there's, there's he and I, and
(11:31):
then we have five other lawyersthat work in our office and.
It's real, it's a family shop.
But, uh, I love my dad and I'mgrateful I get this opportunity
to practice law with him.
Yeah, I love that.
So, um,
I mean walk, because you, Imean, you've been in Southern
California for a long time.
Like what is the general, you know,sentiment about you're going and you're
(11:52):
going fighting against public entities.
It's not all schools thatyou're going against.
You go a lot of private entitiesand it's probably a different.
A different way we go into a privatecompany as opposed to a school district.
But when you're going against aschool district or a public entity,
you've gotta have a different wayto like communicate to the jury.
'cause you know, jurors sit there andthink, oh my God, this is gonna cost
me so much money as a taxpayer, I mean,you know, that's what they're thinking.
(12:14):
Absolutely.
And how do you, how do you getan eight figure verdict from an
downtown LA jury that's payingLA taxes to the public entity?
I mean, you gotta approachit head on in jury selection.
And my big thing is.
Whenever there's a school districtemployee on the jury, I always feel
like it brings the verdict down.
And lately I feel like I've gottenbetter at telling these jurors that,
(12:38):
look, you cannot think about the kids'cafeteria food and their pencils and pens.
Like that's not for you todecide, for you to decide.
It's just what does justicelook like for this victim?
Yeah, a lot of people don't realizethat some of these public entities
actually do have insurance,and you can't even say that.
You cannot mention it during trial.
The jurors will never know.
But a little fun fact, a lotof the times they do in fact
(13:00):
have insurance and a lot of it,
very much so.
A lot.
And there are certain, uh, insurancerepresentatives, uh, for these school
districts, I won't mention themby names, but some in particular
that I feel deny justice to.
Latinos and black kidsmore than white kids.
And that's just, I'vebeen very open about that.
Yeah.
And I actually wrote a letter to aninsurance adjuster last week because they
(13:24):
just revoke revoked somebody's coverage.
I mean, just like, it was unbelievablewhat they tried to do on some weird, his
80-year-old mom was living at the house.
You didn't disclose her.
It's like, well, mom has her ownlicense and she's 80 years old and
she had nothing to do with this crash.
Like, not really.
Then I found out they'd done thisto a lot of other people who did
some quick research, and then I justemailed back the insurance company.
I was like, did you just do the, uh,this is a Compton zip code, so we're
(13:48):
gonna treat somebody differently.
And you know, they do it.
Absolutely.
You know, they do it.
Absolutely do it.
Uh, that's a
whole nother show on that one, man.
I mean, it's, it's whatever they canget away with and a lot of times it's.
Uh, people that are not as educated, uh,maybe English is not their first language.
Mm-hmm.
And so they try to screw our peoplewithout thinking of the consequences.
It takes people like yourselfand myself that have a voice
(14:10):
that can speak up for them.
Yeah.
And I think it's why it's so importantfor people to have direct access to
attorneys, whether it's through the dmsof lawyer, Mikey, whether it's through
the justice team, app, whatever it is,you should be able to find the best.
Warrior for you for yourspecific situation, right.
Public entity, sex abuse case.
(14:31):
I'm gonna call lawyer Mikey.
You know, like that's how it is.
Should be.
Well, and Bob, I gottagive you a lot of credit.
Mm-hmm.
I know I told you this off air, butjust this team that you put together,
justice hq and the ability for peopleto find a resource and attorney that
covers that area or that topic, Imean, you deserve a lot of credit,
Bob, for, for connecting the folks.
But
think about this, the peoplethat, that you've represented.
(14:53):
They don't know any lawyers, likepeople take for granted that because,
oh, I'm, I'm with this in my life.
I know a lot of lawyers,most people know Zero.
They know one is on tv.
So you, I think you owe a a duty to folksto, to make it easier for them to access.
Um, but anyway, thank you for comingon this episode of the Justice Team
podcast on the Justice Team Network.
We're definitely gonna have you on again.
Um, I look forward to doing yourbourbon of proof interview once
(15:15):
because Oh, I love to drink.
Um.
Some high proof spirits withMr. Carrillo and maybe your dad.
That would be fun.
He hasn't drank in 35 years or something.
Well then you're
drinking double.
I'll take his share.
You got it.
All right.
Well, thanks for coming on the show.
Appreciate it.
All right.
Thanks mom.
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