August 12, 2025 • 45 mins
The journey to justice often takes unexpected paths. Attorney Blake Woodhall returns to share the remarkable conclusion of his fight against Los Angeles County, resulting in a historic $4 billion settlement for 11,000 survivors of sexual abuse in the foster care system over a staggering 65-year period.
Behind the headlines and enormous settlement figure lies a profound human story. Woodhall reveals how victims—many now in their 60s, 70s, and 80s—have carried the weight of childhood trauma throughout their entire lives. These survivors commonly struggle with educational disruptions, employment instability, relationship difficulties, and profound trust issues. As one survivor now in prison wrote to Woodhull: "I've had a really hard life and I've been told it's because of the emotional, mental damage done to me as a kid. You people are like guardian angels to me."
The settlement represents more than financial compensation. For thousands who suffered in silence for decades, it provides validation, acknowledgment, and the powerful realization they weren't alone. "Even though it's money, that's all we can get for them," Woodhull explains, "it's still a symbol they're not alone, they have a voice."
Woodhall also shares the emotional toll of representing trauma survivors, especially as someone who experienced childhood sexual abuse himself. These personal connections transform legal advocacy into something deeply meaningful: "Living is about serving others and helping them. For whatever reason, God put me in this position to be a person who can advocate for people who are suffering."
The case serves as both healing for past victims and protection for future ones. By creating significant financial consequences for institutional failures, the settlement establishes powerful incentives for systemic change. Social workers, supervisors, and organizations must recognize warning signs, follow proper reporting procedures, and conduct thorough investigations to prevent future abuse.
Ready to hear how one attorney's persistence changed thousands of lives and created a new standard for institutional accountability? Listen now and discover how justice, even decades delayed, can still transform lives and systems.
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🎙️ Hosts: Ilona Antonyan & Mila Arutunian
📲 Follow us on IG: @glamorousgrindpodcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mila (00:00):
What an amazing journey it must have been to take 11,000
people and use those statementsto demonstrate how the system
failed to protect these children.
Welcome to the Glamorous Grindwhere grit meets glamour and
ambition isn't afraid tochallenge institutions.
Ilona (00:20):
Today's episode is about justice, not in theory, but in
action.
Blake (00:23):
Even though it's money, that's all we can get for them,
it's still a symbol they're notalone, they have a voice.
Mila (00:29):
Attorney Blake Woodhull led the charge in a historic $4
billion settlement against LosAngeles County for its systemic
failure to protect children inthe foster care system.
Blake (00:42):
There's like some life-changing type experiences
that you have with folks whenyou meet them in person and you
tell them hey, I settled yourcase.
Mila (00:49):
You can't change what happened to them, but you're
making them feel heard, makingthe world know that what
happened to them matters.
But you're also helping thepotential victims of the future.
So you're literally changingthe world.
Ilona (01:03):
This case is monumental.
It is not just legal history,it's human impact and we're
honored to have Blake back withus to discuss how everything
went down.
Mila (01:21):
Blake, thank you so much for coming back with us.
Ilona (01:23):
We were super excited to hear the case finally settled
and we want to know more aboutit, because the last time you
came on the show you couldn'tanswer some questions because it
was confidential and it wasn'tdone yet.
It was in the works.
Now it's public, it's beenpublished everywhere on the
Internet and we want to knowwhat was going on behind the
scenes.
Blake (01:43):
Thanks for having me back Appreciate it.
So yeah, the case, just ingeneral or summary fashion, was
a case against the County of LosAngeles for systemic sexual
abuse occurring over a period ofabout 65 years.
It included foster care cases,camp detention center, juvenile
(02:03):
hall type cases, foster carecases, camp detention center,
juvenile hall type cases.
And then the one that Iprimarily worked on were cases
arising out of abuse, sexualabuse at McLaren Hall, which was
a temporary shelter for fosterkids.
When I was here the last time.
I wasn't able to answer a lotof questions, but we have
reached a settlement with theCounty of Los Angeles.
That settlement is for $4billion and it will cover claims
(02:26):
of approximately 11,000 people.
Ilona (02:29):
You said this is about systemic abuse over the last 65
years.
I've seen a news article whereit's you with about six other
attorneys in the photograph whoare all working on this with you
on the case.
All, I think, heroes, becauseyou've done something tremendous
that has never been done before, and you've helped so many
people that now are at least 65years old.
(02:51):
Right, because if-.
Blake (02:52):
Some even older.
Ilona (02:54):
So can you tell us more about the age group of people
who suffered and lived with thisfor so many years that are now
getting justice?
Blake (03:00):
Well, first of all, I do want to acknowledge the other
lawyers that were involved inthis.
It was a monumental task to getthis done, as you could imagine
Countless hours in working onworking up the cases.
Mila (03:14):
Can I ask you how long has the litigation been ongoing
before it settled?
Blake (03:17):
Well, we got our first McLaren Hall case four years ago
and it really started.
It ramped up from there.
The primary negotiation withthe county went on for about a
year and there were some really,really talented lawyers on each
side, by the way, to get thisthing done.
So I did want to acknowledgethose other lawyers, but in
(03:41):
terms of the victims becausethat's really what this is about
it's about the victims andyou're right, a lot of these
people have been living with thesubsequent damage of being
sexually abused as a child.
For example, I have a case of aclient who was abused in 1958
(04:02):
in McLaren Hall.
Ilona (04:03):
How old was he or she at the time?
Blake (04:04):
She was, I want to say, 10 years old.
So she's what would that makeher Late, 70s, 80s and she's
been living with it for thatwhole time.
And to see all sorts ofdifferent types of ways people
are affected by being sexuallyabused as children has certainly
(04:25):
been.
It's devastating, it's tragic,but what we've been finding with
the announcement of thesettlement and talking to our
clients now about it is many ofthem, the vast majority of them
feel like they finally have somesemblance of justice, and even
though it's money that's all wecan get for them was money it's
(04:48):
still a symbol to them that,first of all, they're not alone.
Secondly, that they have avoice, and that voice was given
to them by us filing a civillawsuit against the county on
their behalf.
Ilona (05:00):
It's crazy that it's 11,000 people that were sexually
abused.
That's kids, 11,000 children.
Blake (05:06):
I've identified a number of things that are relatively
across the board in terms of thetype of damage this has caused.
One is that my clientstypically have either never
finished school or they've hadto take a a a much different or
unorthodox um route to finishschool later in life, say as an
(05:30):
adult.
So most of them didn't umgraduate from high school, um,
let alone college.
Most of them have have spottyemployment so they have
difficulties maintaining uhgainful employment.
I have one client who's 60years old and he's had 200 jobs
in his life and oftentimesthat's because of a lack of
trust and authority.
(05:52):
Most have very, very difficulttimes in relationships,
maintaining a relationship withsomebody, a partner.
So that's a devastating,devastating damage.
Oftentimes they have a criminalbackground They've had, they've
just resorted to you know thetype of behavior that's
(06:12):
impulsive and damaging,oftentimes because they also
don't have a regular job, sothey don't have any money so
they need to go engage incriminal activity to survive.
So those are sort of verycommon types of damages that we
see and oftentimes a client willhave every single one of those.
I mean just one of those alonecreates instability in your life
(06:36):
and makes it difficult tomanage.
But all of them combinedfrankly, I don't know how some
of them even have made it thisfar.
Mila (06:43):
And frankly, I don't know how some of them even have made
it this far, so immensepsychological, emotional damage
as a result of this.
I mean, and foundationally,what happens to you as a child
forms kind of the foundation ofyour life, so that completely
makes sense.
But I do want to ask thequestion that I think most
viewers will be wondering is howdo you prove damages After 20
(07:03):
years, after 30 years I'm surewitnesses are either gone or
dead Like how do you prove that,a, this happened and then, b,
that a lot of these issues andthese individuals' lives are
attributable to the sex abuse,as opposed to whatever issues
(07:24):
resulted in them landing in thefoster care system?
How do you differentiate that?
Are there experts involved?
Blake (07:30):
With the size of this case.
Those types of things that youtalked about are very prevalent
in, say, a one-on-one type casewhere you have one plaintiff and
you're suing the foster caresystem or you're suing the
school district or the LittleLeague organization or the YMCA
or something right here in thiscontext it was literally
(07:50):
impossible to do that detailedof discovery because, first of
all, it would take 25 years toget through that many cases if
you tried to litigate them likean individual case.
So in this context, what we didwas we had them sign these fact
sheets and they're signed in apenalty of perjury, so it's like
that's their statement.
It's as if they had theirdeposition taken or written
(08:13):
discovery that we that we do asas litigators, as lawyers, and
that's what's essentially goingto be evaluated to assess their
damages.
And they were allowed toprovide an impact statement as
to how it affected themdepression and anxiety and
triggers and they were able tobe very detailed with that type
of information and we helpedthem do that.
(08:33):
So we really didn't do a lot oftraditional methods of discovery
to prove up the case.
It was, um, it was really moreof a person saying, hey, I was
in McLaren Hall at thisparticular time giving very
detailed information that wascorroborated many times by other
people involved as well, andthen sometimes some people have
(08:57):
had some therapy or they havehad some things that we could
produce documents to show that.
But for the most part therereally wasn't a ton of discovery
.
We took some depositions ofsome principal people who are
still alive, some witnesses,some whistleblowers and some
other folks, but at the end ofthe day that's how we were able
(09:18):
to quote unquote prove damageswas essentially
self-corroborating by peoplegiving their own statements and
their own words.
Ilona (09:25):
Were any of the abusers still alive and potentially
already convicted of any crimesrelated to any of the 11,000
people?
Blake (09:34):
So a lot of people are dead, as you probably can
imagine.
Some are still alive.
We don't have any ability tocriminally prosecute anybody and
we certainly, you know, didn'texpect the district attorney to
turn around and go.
We're going to charge somebodyfrom the 1980s.
It just they just didn't havethat kind of bandwidth to really
(09:56):
do even the county to do someyou know, serious deep dive on
the alleged perpetrators.
Oftentimes also, some of ourclients were five, six, nine, 12
years old.
They don't even remember thenames of their, of their abuser.
They can give a physicaldescription.
We saw a lot of very similarphysical descriptions during
(10:17):
particular time periods and somepeople had like a tattoo that
they remember, or a or anickname or something like that.
But it was even hard toidentify a lot of the
perpetrators because of memoryloss, because of the passage of
time.
There's more awareness now.
It is still different times.
I'm not saying that kids aren'tabused anymore.
(10:38):
And then, the real answer toyour question, though, as you
know, sometimes the only way youget people to make changes, you
hit them in the pocketbook, andthat's what's happening here,
and there's a lot of people thatare, that are pissed off over
the fact that the county'spaying $4 billion.
I'm not the I'm not the mostpopular person around, being
what you know.
I'm a.
You know I've been called a lotof names for for this, uh, for
(11:00):
doing this, because of thenegative aspect of this.
Oh, this is just a money grab.
These are just the lawyerscoming in.
They don't really care aboutpeople, things like that.
But if even the taxpayers, youknow, get pissed off enough to
where they're not electing thesepeople anymore and they're
running these people out andwe're getting the right people
in.
From the power that I have as alawyer in filing civil lawsuits,
(11:21):
that's all I can do, so theonly thing I can get is money,
but I also know that money is apowerful tool to get people to
change.
Mila (11:27):
What an amazing journey it must have been to take.
11,000 people put togetherstatements on behalf of all of
them and use those statements todemonstrate how the system
failed to protect these children.
The perpetrators obviouslyawful, and I also wish we, as a
(11:48):
mom of three, we could dosomething to punish them.
But we punished the underlyingsystem that failed our kids and
I do believe that because thesettlement is so high, because
it's all over the news, thesetypes of things will not happen
again on that type of systematiclevel.
Blake (12:08):
And that was you.
Awareness certainly leads tochange and awareness
communicated in the right way,and that's what we're hoping
with some of this.
And you know, the thing I'veactually been focusing on more
than the amount like the amountis sort of shocking and it's
historical right Everybody'stalking about.
It's never been done before onthis scale and there's never
been a government entity who'sever paid this amount of money
in a settlement of any kind, andblah, blah, blah.
(12:29):
And that's true.
But to me, the issue is thenumber of victims.
The amount of money mirrors thenumber of victims.
If there weren't this number ofvictims, the amount wouldn't
have been this much.
So, yeah, you guys need to getyour shit together.
And then, number one,acknowledge what's been done to
these people over decades oftime.
(12:50):
I mean, just think, just liketo actually think about that for
a second 65 years.
I mean that's wild and it'sinexcusable for there to be that
many victims over that muchtime.
And these are just the victimsthat came forward.
So I'm like, okay, yeah, it's$4 billion and you might be
offended by that, but why aren'tyou more offended by 11,000
(13:12):
people?
They mirror each other.
Ilona (13:14):
That's why the amount is what it is, and if it's 11,000
who came forward, there are manywho already died and took their
lives, that were impacted, thatdidn't make it this far in life
.
How did y'all join forces andturn it into a class action?
Blake (13:25):
It kind of happened organically, and I always say
it's not a true class action, itwas called a coordinated
proceeding, which is a littledifferent but we don't need to
get into the distinction rightnow, but it sort of happened
organically.
I remember specifically and Istill have the chart, I'm going
to frame it someday where thatwe internally made is like a
little pie chart and um, and hada timeline and we had nine
clients from McLaren hall andand I have this awesome
(13:45):
paralegal, michelle Keeks I gotto give her a shout out, she's
like the greatest paralegal inthe history of paralegals and
she made this little color codedpie chart and it was like she
was like this is a little weird,blake, we're getting, we have
nine McLaren Hall cases and likethree of them are from this
particular time period and threeof them from this time period
and two from here and like andthey're all one's in the 70s and
(14:06):
they're like this is reallystrange, you know there might be
something here.
So internally we started really, you know, looking more into
that and then all of a suddenthese people just came out of
the woodwork.
Ilona (14:17):
How did you find them, did you?
Blake (14:18):
advertise them.
Well, we advertised, we said,did you ever get abused in
McLaren Hall?
But the bottom line is we endedup with about 850 clients.
When you're first sort ofstarting out and you're filing
these complaints, you don'treally know what the universe is
out there.
Then all of a sudden we wouldgo to a case management
conference or something and theywould go.
Then the judge would go youknow, I'm getting a bunch of
(14:39):
these cases, and then all of asudden you find out oh, this
other law firm is also filing abunch of cases.
Let me call them up and seewhat's going on.
And then for McLaren Hall, in acoordinated proceeding there
always needs to be a liaisoncounsel, which is like
leadership counsel.
And so what happened was myselfand another lawyer from a
different firm, Slater Slater,who we had the majority of the
(15:02):
McLaren Hall cases.
We became leadership counsel orliaison counsel for that
particular case.
Then what happened is weoriginally were we had them sort
of separated into three buckets.
We had the detention center,juvenile hall cases in one
bucket.
We had true foster care caseswhere a person was abused by a
foster father, and then McLarenHall, and so we were originally
(15:25):
going to try to mediate with thecounty on those individually.
But then we decided that theonly real way we could do this
is to pool sort of our resourcestogether, and we just got
together and we were the primaryones who were negotiating with
the county.
So if you had like three orfour cases, or even 100 cases,
you really weren't involved inthe main negotiation with the
county, and that's the way allcoordinated proceedings go.
(15:46):
That's the way the RomanCatholic Church cases are going.
There's always a liaisoncouncil on both sides.
By the way, the county hired abunch of different law firms too
to represent them forparticular cases, but there was
leadership council for thedefendants as well.
So that's really the only wayit works, though, because if you
get everybody involved it justdoesn't happen.
But the actual coordination ofeverything really did just kind
(16:09):
of happen organically, and then,through discussions with the
county, we learned that, hey, weneed to do this all together
because it's not going to bemanageable.
Ilona (16:20):
Could you share with us the most touching story of all
those people that you've workedwith and how it impacted their
life, I actually.
Blake (16:23):
So I actually brought a statement that somebody sent me
and I don't know if it's likethe most touching, but this is
just an example of of kind ofthe stuff that we get from
clients and we don't always getthese, by the way, sometimes our
clients can be challenging.
But this is from a guy and Iwon't say his name just for
privacy reasons, but he sentthis to us after the settlement
(16:46):
and he's in prison.
And, by the way, we had to get850 people to sign releases and
a lot of those can be done viaDocuSign things like that.
But I actually was going toprisons, going to jail, I was
going to convalescent hospitals,I was going to all these
different places to get clientswho, who otherwise couldn't
DocuSign things to sign, tophysically sign the releases.
(17:07):
And there's some really neat.
There's like it makes meemotional, but there's like some
life-changing type experiencesthat you have with with folks,
when you meet them in person andyou tell them hey, I settled
your case, I'm going to get yousome money and just some wild
things.
So anyway, we got this from aguy who's in prison and he says
to everyone involved I justwanted to thank everyone helping
(17:31):
to get us some kind of justice.
I've had a really hard life andI've been told it's because of
the emotional, mental damagedone to me as a kid.
You people are like guardianangels to me.
If any of you ever need my help, please don't hesitate to call.
I'm 6'9" and 370 pounds, so I'mgreat for painting or moving or
(17:51):
whatever you need.
But from the bottom of my heart, thank you all.
I hope the best of your dreamscome true for you all and I pray
to God every night to ask himto do that for all of you guys.
I know people always say badthings about lawyers, but you
all are so above and beyondawesome, so once again, thank
you so much.
I mean I can't add anything.
Mila (18:14):
That was a very powerful letter.
And coming from someone inprison, someone who is now
keenly aware of how the abuse heexperienced in childhood has
affected his life and probablylanded him in prison.
Now you got pretty emotionalreading that letter.
How do you balance the emotions?
(18:40):
Obviously, the legal strategyis one thing, and you have to be
very sharp for that, which youare.
But you're not just doing thisas a job.
You find so much purpose in it.
How do you balance the emotionsfrom the work?
Blake (18:51):
I don't.
Mila (18:53):
No good lawyers do I have learned that.
Blake (18:55):
I don't do it very well, look, I mean I actually think
it's okay to be movedemotionally and to be moved to
even crying.
I mean I had a reallyinteresting experience when that
one thing that came out in theyou know about the seven, the
(19:17):
seven different lawyers and theycall us the dream team and all
that.
Right, we did a whole likephoto shoot and all this stuff
and I actually don't like thatstuff.
I was kind of uncomfortable.
I don't come on, but I had areally bizarre day that day.
Right before I went had to godo that I I met a client in a
convalescent hospital and, um,he couldn take care of himself
anymore and his mom was takingcare of him.
(19:38):
She passed away.
So he's in this convalescenthospital so he doesn't have
email.
He did so he didn't even knowabout the settlement.
So I went in there and his roomwas pitch black, dark, 10 AM
and he was sleeping and I wokehim up and told him about the
settlement.
We probably talked for half anhour and just had this really,
really nice, really nice time interms of connecting and he was
(20:01):
very happy about it.
And then I went and did thatphoto shoot thing and then I
went to, then I was at, went toHollywood to a facility where
for stroke victims and,ironically, the, the, the.
This facility was right downthe street from a Baptist church
that my dad used to preach atin Hollywood, fountain Avenue
Baptist Church, and so it wasalready a little emotional,
(20:23):
right, I'm driving down FountainAvenue going to this facility
and this facility was kind ofdirty and overrun and just very
depressing and my client wasnaked when I walked in.
He had a sheet over him and hewas asleep and he had a stroke
and I, um, kind of woke him upand explained to him that I got
a settlement for him and he wasvery happy.
(20:43):
He wasn't super, super verbal,but um, yeah, I, I got in my car
afterwards and I just wept Idon't know what to say.
I just wept and I think that'sokay, you know, and it's not
just a sad type of a cry, it'salso, um, I am a purpose-driven
(21:06):
person and when you, when yousee it right there that I've
affected this guy like he'sgoing to have some resources now
to maybe help with hiscondition and he's, he has a
chance to recover from a strokeand, um, and for them just to
say thank you and for them to,um, express gratitude, they give
(21:26):
me back more than what I'vegiven them.
That's what I really feel like,and so how do I balance it?
I don't know.
I I feel it, I embrace it likea warm blanket, like let's go.
I'm going to feel this rightnow and I think that's okay and
I think it's good for us, andthen I have to maintain
boundaries and things like thatfor sure, with clients and not
get too involved in some thingsthat just don't have anything to
(21:49):
do with the case.
But, at the end of the day,those types of events like
that's I'm sorry, but that'sliving.
Living is not, you know, evenabout the money or or, um, you
know, the, the, the living inSan Diego and all the benefits
of that, and the material is inthe consumer areas, and that's
(22:09):
not what living is about.
Living is about serving othersand helping them, and this was a
way that I was able to do thatand I will be.
I will be way that I was ableto do that and I will be.
I will be forever grateful forthe opportunity to do it and for
whatever reason God put me inthis position, to, to, to be a
(22:30):
person who can advocate forpeople who are suffering, and I
I don't think I mentioned thisthe last time, but I was a
victim of sex abuse as a child.
This the last time, but I was avictim of sex abuse as a child.
Maybe I did, I don't remember.
So for me to be able torepresent people just like me, I
can relate to them, Iunderstand them on a certain
level, like, what else is therethat's better than that, and so,
to balance it.
(22:50):
I don't actually consciouslythink about, well, how am I
going to balance this?
Maybe I don't do it very well,maybe I'm I'm you know, I'm a
mess.
Sometimes I'm.
I have my moments.
Trust me, and I have otherthings outside of work that I do
to try to help me.
Do you know?
I coach football and I I takelong walks and I have three
awesome kids that I you know I'mnow an empty nester as of a
(23:10):
couple of weeks ago, but threeawesome kids that I have great
relationships with and I havegood friends and things like
that, that kind of.
You got to step away from it,of course, but at the end of the
day, like it's, it's been likea call.
It was a calling for me to doit and I'm just really proud of
being able to to help all thesepeople.
What else can you ask for?
Mila (23:29):
I feel like you're exactly where you need to be.
I've known you for probablyseven years and I've never seen
you more alive, I guess, than Ido now, and I want to say, like
you're a warrior, like I see youas a warrior fighting for
(23:50):
people, and not only, may I note, are you helping the people who
this happened to.
Clearly, you know that'sobviously they're going to get
money.
You can't change what happenedto them, but you're doing the
next best thing, which is Agiving them a voice, making them
feel heard, making the worldknow that what happened to them
(24:13):
matters and the way it affectedtheir lives matters.
But you're also helping thepotential victims of the future
that now there will be betterpractices in place to prevent
these things from affectingfuture kids.
I mean, kids are the mostvulnerable population in our
society, and when they areplaced, not under their control,
(24:38):
into a system that is supposedto help them get better and that
system abuses them, there'snothing worse than that.
So you're literally changingthe world.
Ilona (24:45):
When you tell me they're going to get money and make some
things of people who you knowwin lottery and then they go
lose it or buy expensive thingsor their relatives can take
advantage of them.
So here you're dealing with alot of clients who are now older
, in their 60s or, like youmentioned, in a convalescent
home, who may be dying.
They're going to their relativeswho may be estranged from them
(25:06):
will hear that they're cominginto this money Now they're
going to be possibly facing therisks of being taken advantage
of by their friends possibleelder abuse now right.
Because they want their moneyand, like you said, they don't
know their settlement.
They don't have internet ormail Like a relative can come to
their bed and, hey, sign thisand take everything they're
(25:28):
going to earn.
Is there anything in placepotentially to protect them from
having a trust or havingsomething else, so that their
money is protected and so theycan decide who they're going to
leave it to through a trust,through administration?
Blake (25:43):
Yeah, so we've already set them up, if they choose,
with a person in a companythat's going to be able to
facilitate that for them.
So all that information hasbeen provided to them on setting
up some sort of framework thatwill protect them.
The other interesting thingabout this case is that their
settlement, for the most part,will be paid out over five years
(26:04):
, so they're going to get alittle bit of a chunk.
They'll get 20% of theirsettlement per year for five
years, and so that could be agood thing where they don't just
get it all in one lump sum likethe lottery thing.
But we can't force them to dothat.
But we provide the information,we recommend it and we'll be
dealing with I mean, becausethis is payable out over five
(26:26):
years, we're going to be dealingwith our clients for the next
five years, giving them advice,trying to support them, trying
to help them.
Ilona (26:32):
And for those who are older and who have been
separated from their spouse butare still legally married.
If they don't have a will ortrust in place and they die,
that settlement automaticallywill pass on to their spouse
right.
Blake (26:47):
We have a case just like that where a guy, he passed away
and he had a life partner, amale, who claimed that he was
with him for like 15 years orsomething.
And we were like well, did youever get married?
Do you have a will?
Do you have any documents youcan show that express his desire
for whatever he gets to go toyou?
And he didn't have anythinglike that.
And we found his children andhis ex-wife, but she wasn't his
(27:12):
ex-wife.
They never legally got divorced.
So she's like that's my money,you know, and so it's like we,
you know, we we don't really getinvolved in that family dynamic
, but we also have aresponsibility to make sure the
money goes to the right people.
Ilona (27:23):
Well, if any of your clients may think they're
divorced, but they want to knowfor sure, they should call us.
I will and look at the courtrecords to see if a judgment was
ever entered.
Because what I've seen happenis people are like, oh yeah, I
paid some lawyer to divorce meand they actually don't go
through with the paperwork.
And often lay people think thatoh, automatically you're
(27:45):
divorced six months later afteryou filed and served, and it
doesn't happen if you don'tsubmit a judgment.
So many of those people who areolder, who haven't seen their
ex for a long time, may still bemarried.
Blake (27:57):
I'll send them to you.
I'll send them to you, for sure.
Mila (28:00):
So now we're going to play Red Flag, Green Flag.
We are going to talk aboutinstitutional behavior for what
it is, whether it's real reformor a reputational spin.
You tell us if it's a red flagor a green flag and why.
Blake (28:13):
All right.
Ilona (28:14):
You ready?
I'm ready.
Mila (28:15):
Let's do this Okay.
Ilona (28:16):
Settlement funds are dispersed, but survivors are
forced to waive their right topublic testimony.
Blake (28:23):
First plus.
You would say that's a red flag, but sometimes to actually get
a settlement in place you haveto give up certain things, and
sometimes that's maintainingconfidentiality and you can't
just go around and publicly talkabout it.
Now, in this case, we don'treally have that and people can
(28:43):
still talk about what happenedto them and what the county did
to fail them, and so I guessthat's an.
It depends whether it's a redflag or a green flag.
I certainly prefer disclosureand that can create more
awareness and some moreaccountability if things are
(29:05):
able to be disclosed pertainingto a settlement.
Accountability if things areable to be disclosed pertaining
to a settlement.
But other times, like I said,as I'm sure you guys know from
time to time, that's the onlyway you actually get a
settlement done.
Mila (29:17):
is you got to give that up ?
I never get a defendant toagree to waive confidentiality
except for in sex, harassment orsex abuse cases because they
have to.
Blake (29:26):
Yeah, so I totally understand.
Mila (29:29):
Okay, A county announces major reforms to its child
protection policies but doesn'tfire or discipline any
leadership from the time of theabuse.
Blake (29:38):
Yeah, that's got red flag written all over it, right?
I mean, what's the point ofhaving a policy procedure if
you're not enforcing it?
There's a reason and purposefor policies and procedures and
in the context of these cases,it's to protect children.
And when you don't enforce itand just let behavior to
continue, children are going tocontinue to get abused.
That's what this whole case isabout.
Ilona (29:56):
Well, our other guest who is doing CWS nowadays, he's
saying that still happens, thatthese people will just get
transferred to a differentposition and they stay.
Blake (30:09):
That's an oversight issue .
It's not a policy or procedureproblem.
It's an oversight issue, and soif you have a supervisor or
somebody who is just ignoringthat, then obviously that person
needs to be removed.
Now how do you find out?
Well, if the person who hasdisclosed it or the person who's
talked about it notices thatnothing's been done, they could
go to a higher level.
There's always a higher level,right?
Somebody always has to answerto somebody, and so that's just
(30:33):
an oversight issue.
If somebody doesn't dosomething about a report,
because nowadays you havemandatory reporting and you have
all kinds of procedures andpolicies in place and laws in
place Just comes down toenforcement.
Ilona (30:46):
Again Comes down to enforcement and policies in
place and laws in place.
It comes down to enforcementagain.
It comes down to enforcement.
All right, a public officialapologizes on camera but
privately lobbies againsttransparency measures.
Blake (30:57):
Well, that's a red flag.
I've had this happen many timesin my practice and I won't be
careful what I say.
The Roman Catholic Church isthe worst at this.
I've had cardinals and bishops.
I've heard them testify, orI've had them say in meetings
that they're committed tocompensating victims of sex
(31:18):
abuse at the hands of theirpedophile priests over decades
of time and then, privately,they absolutely do whatever they
can to not pay a dime on thosecases.
They file for bankruptcy andthey delay and hope people die.
Mila (31:38):
So that's a major red flag for me.
Blake (31:40):
It actually hits me personally because I just
despise that.
That's almost worse than justcoming out and saying we don't
think this happened and I'd havemore respect for them if they
did that.
That's like that's almost worsethan just coming out and saying
we don't think this happenedand you know, I'd have more
respect for them if they didthat.
But to come out and to publiclyclaim that they're going to do
something and, you know, try tosave face with the public and
then in private, where it reallycounts, by the way, it doesn't
(32:03):
matter what we say in a pressconference, right.
What matters is what'shappening behind the scenes.
To go and do the opposite ofthat, that's just evil and dark.
Mila (32:11):
A law firm launches a hotline for survivors in other
counties to safely report abuse.
Blake (32:17):
So, that's a yeah, that's a green flag.
I mean, hotlines aren't theend-all be-all.
They can even hotlines.
A lot of times it's importantwho the recipient is.
Make sure that you have propertraining and make sure you have
people that know how to dealwith crisis situations and
trauma situations.
But at the end of the day, it'salso led to a lot of benefits
in terms of again providingsomebody a voice, even in
(32:41):
private, where they maybewouldn't want to come forward
because of the shame andhumiliation and the
embarrassment that's createdfrom being abused and the
concern and the worry of howpeople are going to receive that
and how they're going to.
You know.
So sometimes you don't go tofamily members.
I didn't, I didn't, I was goingto take mine to the grave,
right.
And so if you have a hotline orsomething like that where you
(33:03):
can talk to somebody that youdon't even know but you know,
you know cares about you andwill support you and provide you
with some resources, and that'sthat's a win, win.
Mila (33:12):
I always hear this quote.
What will you do with your pain?
Blake (33:16):
You know, I'm sure you've heard of it, yeah.
Mila (33:19):
And you know, a lot of people take their pain and they
use it to be angry or victimizethemselves and say how awful
their lives are and blame alltheir problems on it.
But with you, I see somethingso different and it's so
refreshing and this is why Ilove.
Your energy is because you takeyour pain.
I mean, you were abused as achild and you've dealt with so
(33:42):
many things in your life that Iam aware of, and you have used
your pain as a weapon to protectother people and help them cure
their pain, and that's justvery powerful.
So I just want to say, on therecord, I'm very proud of you.
Blake (34:01):
Thanks, mila, you're saying that because you're my
friend, I appreciate that.
And there's, I mean, I've sortof languished for many years,
even in the legal field, justdoing things that I just wasn't
happy with or content or likedor anything, and questioned what
am I doing?
And all those and I do want tothank Herman Law for hiring me.
(34:21):
They recruited me and it was.
I kind of feel like my lifesort of went full circle once I
started doing this type of work.
Um, because that is true, I'mnot, I'm not gonna, you know,
I'm not gonna play a victim butI can't help victims.
You know, my abuser was a maleneighbor and so it wasn't
somebody who really hadauthority over me and it
(34:42):
happened just for a I call it aseason.
And so, um, I had really neatparents.
I had a cool mom and dad and myyou know, my mom sold Avon and
my dad was a minister and wekind of had humble um beginnings
but a very loving home and Ihad really neat.
I have really neat brother andsister that I to this day love
and get together all the timeand and um, I had.
So I had really neat supportwithin my family and um, and
(35:06):
highly educated family too, youknow.
And so my, my dad kind ofpigeonholed me into being a
lawyer.
He said that he just he wantedto be a lawyer and and he felt a
call to become a ministerinstead.
But he was the you knownational champion in debate his
freshman year at Pepperdine andthe guy was like a genius, so he
had those analytical skills andand the logical reasoning type
(35:27):
of a brain and kind ofidentified that in me very early
and so he was like you're goingto be a lawyer.
But once I became a lawyer Iwas like, ah shit.
Mila (35:38):
Speaking of lawyers, we have a lot of listeners who are
lawyers and a lot of people willsee this verdict and think, oh
yeah, $4 million verdict ofcourse that's so easy.
And think, oh yeah, $4 millionverdict, of course Like that's
so easy.
No, like.
I am sure that there were dayswhen you did not think you could
push one foot in front of theother, when you hit obstacles,
walls, wanted to give up, and Iheard this quote I posted about
(36:00):
this the other day that what isthe secret to success?
It's passion.
And why is it passion?
Because when you're passionateabout something, you become
literally an unstoppable force,Because every time you fall down
, you won't care, you will getback up again and keep going.
So tell us, how many times didyou want to give up and your
passion drove you to keep goinguntil you reached that $4
(36:23):
billion settlement.
Blake (36:23):
Yeah, I work from home and I have certain pictures or
things around me, that kind ofof McLaren hall, by the way,
like I've done a site visitthere and we have a and we have
a diagram of it, and I've had adiagram of McLaren hall on my
wall where I just look to theright and I can see it.
So I use things to like I keepme motivated.
But yeah, I've had my momentswhere I'm in the corner, stuck
(36:45):
in my thumb and fetal positionand going why am I doing this?
And and just some of thedarkest, worst things you
possibly can imagine.
And just when you think itcouldn't be any worse in terms
of stories of my clients, youhear another one.
But you know, I'm oddly, I'msort of comfortable in the dark
and so that didn't necessarilymake me want to quit, but, um,
(37:12):
but yeah, sometimes I'm like Igot to take a walk around the
block and I can't or I just haveto, I just have to stop or you
just yeah, I um, I can't counthow many hours I spent on this
case.
What kept me motivated?
With my clients, my victims?
I want this to be veryvictim-centric and not so much
about me.
I'd love to be out of business,I'd love to have to go do
(37:35):
something else because thereweren't any more victims around
right to represent.
So that's what I really focusedon.
What's next for you.
I'm kind of going from one bigcase to another one.
There's actually PolinskyChildren's Center down here in
San Diego.
We have a lot of cases now forabuse that occurred in there,
(37:56):
and it's a very similar type ofa place as're not managed well,
(38:18):
because you have a ton of staffmembers and you have a ton of
people who are interacting withchildren every day all the time,
and vulnerable children whohave been removed from their
home for some reason because ofabuse and neglect, and then
they're taken to a facility.
And just imagine the relief thatthey probably have being placed
(38:40):
in a facility where they'relike okay, I'm not gonna get
beat up by my dad today, or I'mnot gonna, or I might have food,
I'm gonna have breakfast, lunchand dinner and then to go in
there Pending a placement in afoster home with a more
hopefully stable environment andthen be abused again, all over
again, sexually.
And people always ask me well,where do you get your cases from
(39:03):
, or how do you identify thecases, or where do you see that
cases are coming from?
Wherever there are childrenthere you will find pedophiles,
so that's their breeding ground,and when you have a large
number of them all in one place,them being vulnerable children.
You're going to have problemsif there's a failure, if there's
a failure to protect.
Ilona (39:25):
It's time to get gritty Audience Q&A.
Listener question.
I'm a social worker and I'moverwhelmed.
I see so many problems all thetime, but I don't know how to
speak up without risking my job.
What can I do?
Blake (39:38):
If somebody notices it going on, first of all, they
have an absolute legalresponsibility to immediately
report that to a supervisor orto somebody who can take care of
it right away.
There is no lag time.
Don't wait a day, Don't wait anhour.
You immediately report it andthen an investigation will ensue
.
And then, of course, you needto also follow the policies and
(40:01):
procedures for the type ofinvestigation you do.
I have lots of cases where therewas a report, they did an
investigation and they didn't dothe investigation properly.
They didn't interview theperson face-to-face.
And there's a reason why youinterview a potential
perpetrator face-to-face so youcan see body language, you can
see how they answer questions.
Are they sweating when you'reasking them questions?
They're doing it over the phone, things like that.
(40:21):
So, even like you can't just go, well, I'm just not going to
follow the procedure.
You just can't be that kind ofa person you can't worry about.
Well, is this going to affect me?
This is my boss.
Who's the guy who's doing this?
What if I?
What if I do?
Go and tell somebody?
That's going to affect mepersonally, and I understand
(40:42):
people that might feel that way.
They got three kids and theygot a job and they don't have.
You know, and if they saysomething they don't want to get
in trouble themselves becauseit might be their supervisor, et
cetera.
But you just have to have,first of all, you have to have a
respect for the legalobligation that you have and
then also the courage justwithin you to actually be a
person who wants to protectchildren.
Because that's what happens is.
(41:02):
It's not even necessarily thatthe policies in place are wrong
or bad, it's the implementationand the enforcement of them.
Mila (41:11):
And I want to add just a couple of things from an
employer perspective and theenforcement of them.
And I want to add just a coupleof things from an employer
perspective.
First of all, like you said, ifemployees, especially
supervisors, witness, this butreally any employee witnesses
sex abuse or child abuse andthey don't report it.
They could be liable and if alawsuit is filed they will be
deposed and they will have totalk about it.
Secondly, if they're concernedabout retaliation, legally an
(41:37):
employer is not allowed toretaliate against you for making
these complaints.
I've seen so often that peoplewant to make complaints but
they're terrified so they don'tput them in writing.
They just like kind of tellsomeone and then there's
retaliation afterwards, but thenyou can't prove they made the
complaint because it was quietlymade and not in writing.
So if you really want toprotect yourself from
(41:58):
retaliation, always document thecomplaints, Put it in writing,
CC, everyone you can on it sothat it is investigated and then
later if there's anyretaliation against you, you can
prove that it's tied to thecomplaint you made.
Like if you get written upafter you make a complaint, if
your hours are cut, if you gettransferred to a different
(42:18):
position you don't want, andit's after you made a complaint
and before you made thecomplaint your employment was
perfect.
Ilona (42:24):
That's a clear tie, yeah, so it's very important we're
saying because I think thesepeople who have a duty to report
and investigate need to reallythink about how this is going to
impact this child's life.
And it is important, if ithappened even once or even for a
few seconds, that if ithappened at all, you have to
take what the child saysseriously, report it up the
(42:44):
chain, because that is going toimpact this child's life for the
rest of their life and candestroy it and the future
generations.
Blake (42:52):
And the last thing I'll say about that is also, training
is really important.
You know, a lot of times,defense attorneys, they'll go oh
, this happened a long time ago.
Times are different, you know.
I'm like oh, so it was okay inthe seventies to have sexually
abused children, like there'snever been a time right where
it's okay to sexually abusechildren.
But there was a time, though,where we didn't look for red,
(43:13):
for red flags.
You're talking about the redand green flags.
Well, there's a lot of red flagsand sexual abuse.
Usually.
Usually, it doesn't just happenwhere somebody just comes in
and just abuses a kid.
They get groomed.
You know there's groomingbehaviors.
There's all kinds of thingsthat you can look for.
Lap sitting, for example, is ais a red flag, is it?
(43:35):
Is it responsive touching oractive touching?
So responsive touching is akindergarten kid comes running
up to you and gives you a hugand you just kind of you know
pat them on the back.
That's a responsive touching.
That's not.
That's not a sexual abuse typeactivity.
But are you going?
Is it a person that you noticegoing towards these children and
actively touching them, andwhere are they touching them?
And so there's all kinds of redflags, grooming behaviors such
as hey, you're my guy, I'm goingto, you know I'm going to.
(43:56):
They isolate people and theygive them.
They give them benefits.
We have so many clients.
They were given alcohol, theywere given candy, they were
given drugs.
They were given hey, I'm goingto let you out of McLaren hall
for a day Like wild stuff.
They would get into the car ofthe perpetrators and they would
go to a different place, go to apark, get drunk, abuse them and
(44:17):
bring them back.
Mila (44:18):
That's why these kids will blame themselves.
Yeah.
Blake (44:22):
So there's a lot of grooming.
There's a lot of groomingbehaviors that these people need
to be trained on to, toidentify and look for before
even the abuse happens, and notlike a training video where you
watch it on video.
You watch it on a thingtwo-hour training video and you
click the slides and you gothrough a weird scenario with
some actor, like an actualtraining session, with maybe
(44:42):
even people who do this for aliving or who were victims
themselves and who were groomedthat can identify different ways
that people do this, becausethat's what a pedophile does, is
there?
Ilona (44:53):
always grooming.
I'm assuming there's justthere's almost always grooming.
Yeah.
Blake (44:58):
It doesn't usually just happen in a vacuum.
There's always some groomingbehavior when you talk to the
clients about okay, when did youfirst meet the perpetrator?
What happened, you know?
Oh well, they would give mecandy or they would say, hey,
you know, they would incentivizeit and then normalize it once
it happens.
Mila (45:15):
This week's Glam Tip Legal reform may not feel glamorous,
but integrity always is.
Ilona (45:23):
And fighting for the voiceless.
That's power, that's purposeand that's legacy.
Mila (45:28):
Blake, thank you for showing us what the law can do
when it's used with heart,intellect and ferocity.
This case proves that even thebiggest systems can be
challenged and changed To ourlisteners.
If you're in a system that'sbroken, speak up and don't stop.
Justice starts with a voice.
Ilona (45:48):
And the right attorney.
We are the glamorous grind andjustice that's always in style.
Mila (45:53):
See you next week.
What an amazing journey it must have been to take 11,000
people and use those statementsto demonstrate how the system
failed to protect these children.
Welcome to the Glamorous Grindwhere grit meets glamour and
ambition isn't afraid tochallenge institutions.
Ilona (00:20):
Today's episode is about justice, not in theory, but in
action.
Blake (00:23):
Even though it's money, that's all we can get for them,
it's still a symbol they're notalone, they have a voice.
Mila (00:29):
Attorney Blake Woodhull led the charge in a historic $4
billion settlement against LosAngeles County for its systemic
failure to protect children inthe foster care system.
Blake (00:42):
There's like some life-changing type experiences
that you have with folks whenyou meet them in person and you
tell them hey, I settled yourcase.
Mila (00:49):
You can't change what happened to them, but you're
making them feel heard, makingthe world know that what
happened to them matters.
But you're also helping thepotential victims of the future.
So you're literally changingthe world.
Ilona (01:03):
This case is monumental.
It is not just legal history,it's human impact and we're
honored to have Blake back withus to discuss how everything
went down.
Mila (01:21):
Blake, thank you so much for coming back with us.
Ilona (01:23):
We were super excited to hear the case finally settled
and we want to know more aboutit, because the last time you
came on the show you couldn'tanswer some questions because it
was confidential and it wasn'tdone yet.
It was in the works.
Now it's public, it's beenpublished everywhere on the
Internet and we want to knowwhat was going on behind the
scenes.
Blake (01:43):
Thanks for having me back Appreciate it.
So yeah, the case, just ingeneral or summary fashion, was
a case against the County of LosAngeles for systemic sexual
abuse occurring over a period ofabout 65 years.
It included foster care cases,camp detention center, juvenile
(02:03):
hall type cases, foster carecases, camp detention center,
juvenile hall type cases.
And then the one that Iprimarily worked on were cases
arising out of abuse, sexualabuse at McLaren Hall, which was
a temporary shelter for fosterkids.
When I was here the last time.
I wasn't able to answer a lotof questions, but we have
reached a settlement with theCounty of Los Angeles.
That settlement is for $4billion and it will cover claims
(02:26):
of approximately 11,000 people.
Ilona (02:29):
You said this is about systemic abuse over the last 65
years.
I've seen a news article whereit's you with about six other
attorneys in the photograph whoare all working on this with you
on the case.
All, I think, heroes, becauseyou've done something tremendous
that has never been done before, and you've helped so many
people that now are at least 65years old.
(02:51):
Right, because if-.
Blake (02:52):
Some even older.
Ilona (02:54):
So can you tell us more about the age group of people
who suffered and lived with thisfor so many years that are now
getting justice?
Blake (03:00):
Well, first of all, I do want to acknowledge the other
lawyers that were involved inthis.
It was a monumental task to getthis done, as you could imagine
Countless hours in working onworking up the cases.
Mila (03:14):
Can I ask you how long has the litigation been ongoing
before it settled?
Blake (03:17):
Well, we got our first McLaren Hall case four years ago
and it really started.
It ramped up from there.
The primary negotiation withthe county went on for about a
year and there were some really,really talented lawyers on each
side, by the way, to get thisthing done.
So I did want to acknowledgethose other lawyers, but in
(03:41):
terms of the victims becausethat's really what this is about
it's about the victims andyou're right, a lot of these
people have been living with thesubsequent damage of being
sexually abused as a child.
For example, I have a case of aclient who was abused in 1958
(04:02):
in McLaren Hall.
Ilona (04:03):
How old was he or she at the time?
Blake (04:04):
She was, I want to say, 10 years old.
So she's what would that makeher Late, 70s, 80s and she's
been living with it for thatwhole time.
And to see all sorts ofdifferent types of ways people
are affected by being sexuallyabused as children has certainly
(04:25):
been.
It's devastating, it's tragic,but what we've been finding with
the announcement of thesettlement and talking to our
clients now about it is many ofthem, the vast majority of them
feel like they finally have somesemblance of justice, and even
though it's money that's all wecan get for them was money it's
(04:48):
still a symbol to them that,first of all, they're not alone.
Secondly, that they have avoice, and that voice was given
to them by us filing a civillawsuit against the county on
their behalf.
Ilona (05:00):
It's crazy that it's 11,000 people that were sexually
abused.
That's kids, 11,000 children.
Blake (05:06):
I've identified a number of things that are relatively
across the board in terms of thetype of damage this has caused.
One is that my clientstypically have either never
finished school or they've hadto take a a a much different or
unorthodox um route to finishschool later in life, say as an
(05:30):
adult.
So most of them didn't umgraduate from high school, um,
let alone college.
Most of them have have spottyemployment so they have
difficulties maintaining uhgainful employment.
I have one client who's 60years old and he's had 200 jobs
in his life and oftentimesthat's because of a lack of
trust and authority.
(05:52):
Most have very, very difficulttimes in relationships,
maintaining a relationship withsomebody, a partner.
So that's a devastating,devastating damage.
Oftentimes they have a criminalbackground They've had, they've
just resorted to you know thetype of behavior that's
(06:12):
impulsive and damaging,oftentimes because they also
don't have a regular job, sothey don't have any money so
they need to go engage incriminal activity to survive.
So those are sort of verycommon types of damages that we
see and oftentimes a client willhave every single one of those.
I mean just one of those alonecreates instability in your life
(06:36):
and makes it difficult tomanage.
But all of them combinedfrankly, I don't know how some
of them even have made it thisfar.
Mila (06:43):
And frankly, I don't know how some of them even have made
it this far, so immensepsychological, emotional damage
as a result of this.
I mean, and foundationally,what happens to you as a child
forms kind of the foundation ofyour life, so that completely
makes sense.
But I do want to ask thequestion that I think most
viewers will be wondering is howdo you prove damages After 20
(07:03):
years, after 30 years I'm surewitnesses are either gone or
dead Like how do you prove that,a, this happened and then, b,
that a lot of these issues andthese individuals' lives are
attributable to the sex abuse,as opposed to whatever issues
(07:24):
resulted in them landing in thefoster care system?
How do you differentiate that?
Are there experts involved?
Blake (07:30):
With the size of this case.
Those types of things that youtalked about are very prevalent
in, say, a one-on-one type casewhere you have one plaintiff and
you're suing the foster caresystem or you're suing the
school district or the LittleLeague organization or the YMCA
or something right here in thiscontext it was literally
(07:50):
impossible to do that detailedof discovery because, first of
all, it would take 25 years toget through that many cases if
you tried to litigate them likean individual case.
So in this context, what we didwas we had them sign these fact
sheets and they're signed in apenalty of perjury, so it's like
that's their statement.
It's as if they had theirdeposition taken or written
(08:13):
discovery that we that we do asas litigators, as lawyers, and
that's what's essentially goingto be evaluated to assess their
damages.
And they were allowed toprovide an impact statement as
to how it affected themdepression and anxiety and
triggers and they were able tobe very detailed with that type
of information and we helpedthem do that.
(08:33):
So we really didn't do a lot oftraditional methods of discovery
to prove up the case.
It was, um, it was really moreof a person saying, hey, I was
in McLaren Hall at thisparticular time giving very
detailed information that wascorroborated many times by other
people involved as well, andthen sometimes some people have
(08:57):
had some therapy or they havehad some things that we could
produce documents to show that.
But for the most part therereally wasn't a ton of discovery
.
We took some depositions ofsome principal people who are
still alive, some witnesses,some whistleblowers and some
other folks, but at the end ofthe day that's how we were able
(09:18):
to quote unquote prove damageswas essentially
self-corroborating by peoplegiving their own statements and
their own words.
Ilona (09:25):
Were any of the abusers still alive and potentially
already convicted of any crimesrelated to any of the 11,000
people?
Blake (09:34):
So a lot of people are dead, as you probably can
imagine.
Some are still alive.
We don't have any ability tocriminally prosecute anybody and
we certainly, you know, didn'texpect the district attorney to
turn around and go.
We're going to charge somebodyfrom the 1980s.
It just they just didn't havethat kind of bandwidth to really
(09:56):
do even the county to do someyou know, serious deep dive on
the alleged perpetrators.
Oftentimes also, some of ourclients were five, six, nine, 12
years old.
They don't even remember thenames of their, of their abuser.
They can give a physicaldescription.
We saw a lot of very similarphysical descriptions during
(10:17):
particular time periods and somepeople had like a tattoo that
they remember, or a or anickname or something like that.
But it was even hard toidentify a lot of the
perpetrators because of memoryloss, because of the passage of
time.
There's more awareness now.
It is still different times.
I'm not saying that kids aren'tabused anymore.
(10:38):
And then, the real answer toyour question, though, as you
know, sometimes the only way youget people to make changes, you
hit them in the pocketbook, andthat's what's happening here,
and there's a lot of people thatare, that are pissed off over
the fact that the county'spaying $4 billion.
I'm not the I'm not the mostpopular person around, being
what you know.
I'm a.
You know I've been called a lotof names for for this, uh, for
(11:00):
doing this, because of thenegative aspect of this.
Oh, this is just a money grab.
These are just the lawyerscoming in.
They don't really care aboutpeople, things like that.
But if even the taxpayers, youknow, get pissed off enough to
where they're not electing thesepeople anymore and they're
running these people out andwe're getting the right people
in.
From the power that I have as alawyer in filing civil lawsuits,
(11:21):
that's all I can do, so theonly thing I can get is money,
but I also know that money is apowerful tool to get people to
change.
Mila (11:27):
What an amazing journey it must have been to take.
11,000 people put togetherstatements on behalf of all of
them and use those statements todemonstrate how the system
failed to protect these children.
The perpetrators obviouslyawful, and I also wish we, as a
(11:48):
mom of three, we could dosomething to punish them.
But we punished the underlyingsystem that failed our kids and
I do believe that because thesettlement is so high, because
it's all over the news, thesetypes of things will not happen
again on that type of systematiclevel.
Blake (12:08):
And that was you.
Awareness certainly leads tochange and awareness
communicated in the right way,and that's what we're hoping
with some of this.
And you know, the thing I'veactually been focusing on more
than the amount like the amountis sort of shocking and it's
historical right Everybody'stalking about.
It's never been done before onthis scale and there's never
been a government entity who'sever paid this amount of money
in a settlement of any kind, andblah, blah, blah.
(12:29):
And that's true.
But to me, the issue is thenumber of victims.
The amount of money mirrors thenumber of victims.
If there weren't this number ofvictims, the amount wouldn't
have been this much.
So, yeah, you guys need to getyour shit together.
And then, number one,acknowledge what's been done to
these people over decades oftime.
(12:50):
I mean, just think, just liketo actually think about that for
a second 65 years.
I mean that's wild and it'sinexcusable for there to be that
many victims over that muchtime.
And these are just the victimsthat came forward.
So I'm like, okay, yeah, it's$4 billion and you might be
offended by that, but why aren'tyou more offended by 11,000
(13:12):
people?
They mirror each other.
Ilona (13:14):
That's why the amount is what it is, and if it's 11,000
who came forward, there are manywho already died and took their
lives, that were impacted, thatdidn't make it this far in life
.
How did y'all join forces andturn it into a class action?
Blake (13:25):
It kind of happened organically, and I always say
it's not a true class action, itwas called a coordinated
proceeding, which is a littledifferent but we don't need to
get into the distinction rightnow, but it sort of happened
organically.
I remember specifically and Istill have the chart, I'm going
to frame it someday where thatwe internally made is like a
little pie chart and um, and hada timeline and we had nine
clients from McLaren hall andand I have this awesome
(13:45):
paralegal, michelle Keeks I gotto give her a shout out, she's
like the greatest paralegal inthe history of paralegals and
she made this little color codedpie chart and it was like she
was like this is a little weird,blake, we're getting, we have
nine McLaren Hall cases and likethree of them are from this
particular time period and threeof them from this time period
and two from here and like andthey're all one's in the 70s and
(14:06):
they're like this is reallystrange, you know there might be
something here.
So internally we started really, you know, looking more into
that and then all of a suddenthese people just came out of
the woodwork.
Ilona (14:17):
How did you find them, did you?
Blake (14:18):
advertise them.
Well, we advertised, we said,did you ever get abused in
McLaren Hall?
But the bottom line is we endedup with about 850 clients.
When you're first sort ofstarting out and you're filing
these complaints, you don'treally know what the universe is
out there.
Then all of a sudden we wouldgo to a case management
conference or something and theywould go.
Then the judge would go youknow, I'm getting a bunch of
(14:39):
these cases, and then all of asudden you find out oh, this
other law firm is also filing abunch of cases.
Let me call them up and seewhat's going on.
And then for McLaren Hall, in acoordinated proceeding there
always needs to be a liaisoncounsel, which is like
leadership counsel.
And so what happened was myselfand another lawyer from a
different firm, Slater Slater,who we had the majority of the
(15:02):
McLaren Hall cases.
We became leadership counsel orliaison counsel for that
particular case.
Then what happened is weoriginally were we had them sort
of separated into three buckets.
We had the detention center,juvenile hall cases in one
bucket.
We had true foster care caseswhere a person was abused by a
foster father, and then McLarenHall, and so we were originally
(15:25):
going to try to mediate with thecounty on those individually.
But then we decided that theonly real way we could do this
is to pool sort of our resourcestogether, and we just got
together and we were the primaryones who were negotiating with
the county.
So if you had like three orfour cases, or even 100 cases,
you really weren't involved inthe main negotiation with the
county, and that's the way allcoordinated proceedings go.
(15:46):
That's the way the RomanCatholic Church cases are going.
There's always a liaisoncouncil on both sides.
By the way, the county hired abunch of different law firms too
to represent them forparticular cases, but there was
leadership council for thedefendants as well.
So that's really the only wayit works, though, because if you
get everybody involved it justdoesn't happen.
But the actual coordination ofeverything really did just kind
(16:09):
of happen organically, and then,through discussions with the
county, we learned that, hey, weneed to do this all together
because it's not going to bemanageable.
Ilona (16:20):
Could you share with us the most touching story of all
those people that you've workedwith and how it impacted their
life, I actually.
Blake (16:23):
So I actually brought a statement that somebody sent me
and I don't know if it's likethe most touching, but this is
just an example of of kind ofthe stuff that we get from
clients and we don't always getthese, by the way, sometimes our
clients can be challenging.
But this is from a guy and Iwon't say his name just for
privacy reasons, but he sentthis to us after the settlement
(16:46):
and he's in prison.
And, by the way, we had to get850 people to sign releases and
a lot of those can be done viaDocuSign things like that.
But I actually was going toprisons, going to jail, I was
going to convalescent hospitals,I was going to all these
different places to get clientswho, who otherwise couldn't
DocuSign things to sign, tophysically sign the releases.
(17:07):
And there's some really neat.
There's like it makes meemotional, but there's like some
life-changing type experiencesthat you have with with folks,
when you meet them in person andyou tell them hey, I settled
your case, I'm going to get yousome money and just some wild
things.
So anyway, we got this from aguy who's in prison and he says
to everyone involved I justwanted to thank everyone helping
(17:31):
to get us some kind of justice.
I've had a really hard life andI've been told it's because of
the emotional, mental damagedone to me as a kid.
You people are like guardianangels to me.
If any of you ever need my help, please don't hesitate to call.
I'm 6'9" and 370 pounds, so I'mgreat for painting or moving or
(17:51):
whatever you need.
But from the bottom of my heart, thank you all.
I hope the best of your dreamscome true for you all and I pray
to God every night to ask himto do that for all of you guys.
I know people always say badthings about lawyers, but you
all are so above and beyondawesome, so once again, thank
you so much.
I mean I can't add anything.
Mila (18:14):
That was a very powerful letter.
And coming from someone inprison, someone who is now
keenly aware of how the abuse heexperienced in childhood has
affected his life and probablylanded him in prison.
Now you got pretty emotionalreading that letter.
How do you balance the emotions?
(18:40):
Obviously, the legal strategyis one thing, and you have to be
very sharp for that, which youare.
But you're not just doing thisas a job.
You find so much purpose in it.
How do you balance the emotionsfrom the work?
Blake (18:51):
I don't.
Mila (18:53):
No good lawyers do I have learned that.
Blake (18:55):
I don't do it very well, look, I mean I actually think
it's okay to be movedemotionally and to be moved to
even crying.
I mean I had a reallyinteresting experience when that
one thing that came out in theyou know about the seven, the
(19:17):
seven different lawyers and theycall us the dream team and all
that.
Right, we did a whole likephoto shoot and all this stuff
and I actually don't like thatstuff.
I was kind of uncomfortable.
I don't come on, but I had areally bizarre day that day.
Right before I went had to godo that I I met a client in a
convalescent hospital and, um,he couldn take care of himself
anymore and his mom was takingcare of him.
(19:38):
She passed away.
So he's in this convalescenthospital so he doesn't have
email.
He did so he didn't even knowabout the settlement.
So I went in there and his roomwas pitch black, dark, 10 AM
and he was sleeping and I wokehim up and told him about the
settlement.
We probably talked for half anhour and just had this really,
really nice, really nice time interms of connecting and he was
(20:01):
very happy about it.
And then I went and did thatphoto shoot thing and then I
went to, then I was at, went toHollywood to a facility where
for stroke victims and,ironically, the, the, the.
This facility was right downthe street from a Baptist church
that my dad used to preach atin Hollywood, fountain Avenue
Baptist Church, and so it wasalready a little emotional,
(20:23):
right, I'm driving down FountainAvenue going to this facility
and this facility was kind ofdirty and overrun and just very
depressing and my client wasnaked when I walked in.
He had a sheet over him and hewas asleep and he had a stroke
and I, um, kind of woke him upand explained to him that I got
a settlement for him and he wasvery happy.
(20:43):
He wasn't super, super verbal,but um, yeah, I, I got in my car
afterwards and I just wept Idon't know what to say.
I just wept and I think that'sokay, you know, and it's not
just a sad type of a cry, it'salso, um, I am a purpose-driven
(21:06):
person and when you, when yousee it right there that I've
affected this guy like he'sgoing to have some resources now
to maybe help with hiscondition and he's, he has a
chance to recover from a strokeand, um, and for them just to
say thank you and for them to,um, express gratitude, they give
(21:26):
me back more than what I'vegiven them.
That's what I really feel like,and so how do I balance it?
I don't know.
I I feel it, I embrace it likea warm blanket, like let's go.
I'm going to feel this rightnow and I think that's okay and
I think it's good for us, andthen I have to maintain
boundaries and things like thatfor sure, with clients and not
get too involved in some thingsthat just don't have anything to
(21:49):
do with the case.
But, at the end of the day,those types of events like
that's I'm sorry, but that'sliving.
Living is not, you know, evenabout the money or or, um, you
know, the, the, the living inSan Diego and all the benefits
of that, and the material is inthe consumer areas, and that's
(22:09):
not what living is about.
Living is about serving othersand helping them, and this was a
way that I was able to do thatand I will be.
I will be way that I was ableto do that and I will be.
I will be forever grateful forthe opportunity to do it and for
whatever reason God put me inthis position, to, to, to be a
(22:30):
person who can advocate forpeople who are suffering, and I
I don't think I mentioned thisthe last time, but I was a
victim of sex abuse as a child.
This the last time, but I was avictim of sex abuse as a child.
Maybe I did, I don't remember.
So for me to be able torepresent people just like me, I
can relate to them, Iunderstand them on a certain
level, like, what else is therethat's better than that, and so,
to balance it.
(22:50):
I don't actually consciouslythink about, well, how am I
going to balance this?
Maybe I don't do it very well,maybe I'm I'm you know, I'm a
mess.
Sometimes I'm.
I have my moments.
Trust me, and I have otherthings outside of work that I do
to try to help me.
Do you know?
I coach football and I I takelong walks and I have three
awesome kids that I you know I'mnow an empty nester as of a
(23:10):
couple of weeks ago, but threeawesome kids that I have great
relationships with and I havegood friends and things like
that, that kind of.
You got to step away from it,of course, but at the end of the
day, like it's, it's been likea call.
It was a calling for me to doit and I'm just really proud of
being able to to help all thesepeople.
What else can you ask for?
Mila (23:29):
I feel like you're exactly where you need to be.
I've known you for probablyseven years and I've never seen
you more alive, I guess, than Ido now, and I want to say, like
you're a warrior, like I see youas a warrior fighting for
(23:50):
people, and not only, may I note, are you helping the people who
this happened to.
Clearly, you know that'sobviously they're going to get
money.
You can't change what happenedto them, but you're doing the
next best thing, which is Agiving them a voice, making them
feel heard, making the worldknow that what happened to them
(24:13):
matters and the way it affectedtheir lives matters.
But you're also helping thepotential victims of the future
that now there will be betterpractices in place to prevent
these things from affectingfuture kids.
I mean, kids are the mostvulnerable population in our
society, and when they areplaced, not under their control,
(24:38):
into a system that is supposedto help them get better and that
system abuses them, there'snothing worse than that.
So you're literally changingthe world.
Ilona (24:45):
When you tell me they're going to get money and make some
things of people who you knowwin lottery and then they go
lose it or buy expensive thingsor their relatives can take
advantage of them.
So here you're dealing with alot of clients who are now older
, in their 60s or, like youmentioned, in a convalescent
home, who may be dying.
They're going to their relativeswho may be estranged from them
(25:06):
will hear that they're cominginto this money Now they're
going to be possibly facing therisks of being taken advantage
of by their friends possibleelder abuse now right.
Because they want their moneyand, like you said, they don't
know their settlement.
They don't have internet ormail Like a relative can come to
their bed and, hey, sign thisand take everything they're
(25:28):
going to earn.
Is there anything in placepotentially to protect them from
having a trust or havingsomething else, so that their
money is protected and so theycan decide who they're going to
leave it to through a trust,through administration?
Blake (25:43):
Yeah, so we've already set them up, if they choose,
with a person in a companythat's going to be able to
facilitate that for them.
So all that information hasbeen provided to them on setting
up some sort of framework thatwill protect them.
The other interesting thingabout this case is that their
settlement, for the most part,will be paid out over five years
(26:04):
, so they're going to get alittle bit of a chunk.
They'll get 20% of theirsettlement per year for five
years, and so that could be agood thing where they don't just
get it all in one lump sum likethe lottery thing.
But we can't force them to dothat.
But we provide the information,we recommend it and we'll be
dealing with I mean, becausethis is payable out over five
(26:26):
years, we're going to be dealingwith our clients for the next
five years, giving them advice,trying to support them, trying
to help them.
Ilona (26:32):
And for those who are older and who have been
separated from their spouse butare still legally married.
If they don't have a will ortrust in place and they die,
that settlement automaticallywill pass on to their spouse
right.
Blake (26:47):
We have a case just like that where a guy, he passed away
and he had a life partner, amale, who claimed that he was
with him for like 15 years orsomething.
And we were like well, did youever get married?
Do you have a will?
Do you have any documents youcan show that express his desire
for whatever he gets to go toyou?
And he didn't have anythinglike that.
And we found his children andhis ex-wife, but she wasn't his
(27:12):
ex-wife.
They never legally got divorced.
So she's like that's my money,you know, and so it's like we,
you know, we we don't really getinvolved in that family dynamic
, but we also have aresponsibility to make sure the
money goes to the right people.
Ilona (27:23):
Well, if any of your clients may think they're
divorced, but they want to knowfor sure, they should call us.
I will and look at the courtrecords to see if a judgment was
ever entered.
Because what I've seen happenis people are like, oh yeah, I
paid some lawyer to divorce meand they actually don't go
through with the paperwork.
And often lay people think thatoh, automatically you're
(27:45):
divorced six months later afteryou filed and served, and it
doesn't happen if you don'tsubmit a judgment.
So many of those people who areolder, who haven't seen their
ex for a long time, may still bemarried.
Blake (27:57):
I'll send them to you.
I'll send them to you, for sure.
Mila (28:00):
So now we're going to play Red Flag, Green Flag.
We are going to talk aboutinstitutional behavior for what
it is, whether it's real reformor a reputational spin.
You tell us if it's a red flagor a green flag and why.
Blake (28:13):
All right.
Ilona (28:14):
You ready?
I'm ready.
Mila (28:15):
Let's do this Okay.
Ilona (28:16):
Settlement funds are dispersed, but survivors are
forced to waive their right topublic testimony.
Blake (28:23):
First plus.
You would say that's a red flag, but sometimes to actually get
a settlement in place you haveto give up certain things, and
sometimes that's maintainingconfidentiality and you can't
just go around and publicly talkabout it.
Now, in this case, we don'treally have that and people can
(28:43):
still talk about what happenedto them and what the county did
to fail them, and so I guessthat's an.
It depends whether it's a redflag or a green flag.
I certainly prefer disclosureand that can create more
awareness and some moreaccountability if things are
(29:05):
able to be disclosed pertainingto a settlement.
Accountability if things areable to be disclosed pertaining
to a settlement.
But other times, like I said,as I'm sure you guys know from
time to time, that's the onlyway you actually get a
settlement done.
Mila (29:17):
is you got to give that up ?
I never get a defendant toagree to waive confidentiality
except for in sex, harassment orsex abuse cases because they
have to.
Blake (29:26):
Yeah, so I totally understand.
Mila (29:29):
Okay, A county announces major reforms to its child
protection policies but doesn'tfire or discipline any
leadership from the time of theabuse.
Blake (29:38):
Yeah, that's got red flag written all over it, right?
I mean, what's the point ofhaving a policy procedure if
you're not enforcing it?
There's a reason and purposefor policies and procedures and
in the context of these cases,it's to protect children.
And when you don't enforce itand just let behavior to
continue, children are going tocontinue to get abused.
That's what this whole case isabout.
Ilona (29:56):
Well, our other guest who is doing CWS nowadays, he's
saying that still happens, thatthese people will just get
transferred to a differentposition and they stay.
Blake (30:09):
That's an oversight issue .
It's not a policy or procedureproblem.
It's an oversight issue, and soif you have a supervisor or
somebody who is just ignoringthat, then obviously that person
needs to be removed.
Now how do you find out?
Well, if the person who hasdisclosed it or the person who's
talked about it notices thatnothing's been done, they could
go to a higher level.
There's always a higher level,right?
Somebody always has to answerto somebody, and so that's just
(30:33):
an oversight issue.
If somebody doesn't dosomething about a report,
because nowadays you havemandatory reporting and you have
all kinds of procedures andpolicies in place and laws in
place Just comes down toenforcement.
Ilona (30:46):
Again Comes down to enforcement and policies in
place and laws in place.
It comes down to enforcementagain.
It comes down to enforcement.
All right, a public officialapologizes on camera but
privately lobbies againsttransparency measures.
Blake (30:57):
Well, that's a red flag.
I've had this happen many timesin my practice and I won't be
careful what I say.
The Roman Catholic Church isthe worst at this.
I've had cardinals and bishops.
I've heard them testify, orI've had them say in meetings
that they're committed tocompensating victims of sex
(31:18):
abuse at the hands of theirpedophile priests over decades
of time and then, privately,they absolutely do whatever they
can to not pay a dime on thosecases.
They file for bankruptcy andthey delay and hope people die.
Mila (31:38):
So that's a major red flag for me.
Blake (31:40):
It actually hits me personally because I just
despise that.
That's almost worse than justcoming out and saying we don't
think this happened and I'd havemore respect for them if they
did that.
That's like that's almost worsethan just coming out and saying
we don't think this happenedand you know, I'd have more
respect for them if they didthat.
But to come out and to publiclyclaim that they're going to do
something and, you know, try tosave face with the public and
then in private, where it reallycounts, by the way, it doesn't
(32:03):
matter what we say in a pressconference, right.
What matters is what'shappening behind the scenes.
To go and do the opposite ofthat, that's just evil and dark.
Mila (32:11):
A law firm launches a hotline for survivors in other
counties to safely report abuse.
Blake (32:17):
So, that's a yeah, that's a green flag.
I mean, hotlines aren't theend-all be-all.
They can even hotlines.
A lot of times it's importantwho the recipient is.
Make sure that you have propertraining and make sure you have
people that know how to dealwith crisis situations and
trauma situations.
But at the end of the day, it'salso led to a lot of benefits
in terms of again providingsomebody a voice, even in
(32:41):
private, where they maybewouldn't want to come forward
because of the shame andhumiliation and the
embarrassment that's createdfrom being abused and the
concern and the worry of howpeople are going to receive that
and how they're going to.
You know.
So sometimes you don't go tofamily members.
I didn't, I didn't, I was goingto take mine to the grave,
right.
And so if you have a hotline orsomething like that where you
(33:03):
can talk to somebody that youdon't even know but you know,
you know cares about you andwill support you and provide you
with some resources, and that'sthat's a win, win.
Mila (33:12):
I always hear this quote.
What will you do with your pain?
Blake (33:16):
You know, I'm sure you've heard of it, yeah.
Mila (33:19):
And you know, a lot of people take their pain and they
use it to be angry or victimizethemselves and say how awful
their lives are and blame alltheir problems on it.
But with you, I see somethingso different and it's so
refreshing and this is why Ilove.
Your energy is because you takeyour pain.
I mean, you were abused as achild and you've dealt with so
(33:42):
many things in your life that Iam aware of, and you have used
your pain as a weapon to protectother people and help them cure
their pain, and that's justvery powerful.
So I just want to say, on therecord, I'm very proud of you.
Blake (34:01):
Thanks, mila, you're saying that because you're my
friend, I appreciate that.
And there's, I mean, I've sortof languished for many years,
even in the legal field, justdoing things that I just wasn't
happy with or content or likedor anything, and questioned what
am I doing?
And all those and I do want tothank Herman Law for hiring me.
(34:21):
They recruited me and it was.
I kind of feel like my lifesort of went full circle once I
started doing this type of work.
Um, because that is true, I'mnot, I'm not gonna, you know,
I'm not gonna play a victim butI can't help victims.
You know, my abuser was a maleneighbor and so it wasn't
somebody who really hadauthority over me and it
(34:42):
happened just for a I call it aseason.
And so, um, I had really neatparents.
I had a cool mom and dad and myyou know, my mom sold Avon and
my dad was a minister and wekind of had humble um beginnings
but a very loving home and Ihad really neat.
I have really neat brother andsister that I to this day love
and get together all the timeand and um, I had.
So I had really neat supportwithin my family and um, and
(35:06):
highly educated family too, youknow.
And so my, my dad kind ofpigeonholed me into being a
lawyer.
He said that he just he wantedto be a lawyer and and he felt a
call to become a ministerinstead.
But he was the you knownational champion in debate his
freshman year at Pepperdine andthe guy was like a genius, so he
had those analytical skills andand the logical reasoning type
(35:27):
of a brain and kind ofidentified that in me very early
and so he was like you're goingto be a lawyer.
But once I became a lawyer Iwas like, ah shit.
Mila (35:38):
Speaking of lawyers, we have a lot of listeners who are
lawyers and a lot of people willsee this verdict and think, oh
yeah, $4 million verdict ofcourse that's so easy.
And think, oh yeah, $4 millionverdict, of course Like that's
so easy.
No, like.
I am sure that there were dayswhen you did not think you could
push one foot in front of theother, when you hit obstacles,
walls, wanted to give up, and Iheard this quote I posted about
(36:00):
this the other day that what isthe secret to success?
It's passion.
And why is it passion?
Because when you're passionateabout something, you become
literally an unstoppable force,Because every time you fall down
, you won't care, you will getback up again and keep going.
So tell us, how many times didyou want to give up and your
passion drove you to keep goinguntil you reached that $4
(36:23):
billion settlement.
Blake (36:23):
Yeah, I work from home and I have certain pictures or
things around me, that kind ofof McLaren hall, by the way,
like I've done a site visitthere and we have a and we have
a diagram of it, and I've had adiagram of McLaren hall on my
wall where I just look to theright and I can see it.
So I use things to like I keepme motivated.
But yeah, I've had my momentswhere I'm in the corner, stuck
(36:45):
in my thumb and fetal positionand going why am I doing this?
And and just some of thedarkest, worst things you
possibly can imagine.
And just when you think itcouldn't be any worse in terms
of stories of my clients, youhear another one.
But you know, I'm oddly, I'msort of comfortable in the dark
and so that didn't necessarilymake me want to quit, but, um,
(37:12):
but yeah, sometimes I'm like Igot to take a walk around the
block and I can't or I just haveto, I just have to stop or you
just yeah, I um, I can't counthow many hours I spent on this
case.
What kept me motivated?
With my clients, my victims?
I want this to be veryvictim-centric and not so much
about me.
I'd love to be out of business,I'd love to have to go do
(37:35):
something else because thereweren't any more victims around
right to represent.
So that's what I really focusedon.
What's next for you.
I'm kind of going from one bigcase to another one.
There's actually PolinskyChildren's Center down here in
San Diego.
We have a lot of cases now forabuse that occurred in there,
(37:56):
and it's a very similar type ofa place as're not managed well,
(38:18):
because you have a ton of staffmembers and you have a ton of
people who are interacting withchildren every day all the time,
and vulnerable children whohave been removed from their
home for some reason because ofabuse and neglect, and then
they're taken to a facility.
And just imagine the relief thatthey probably have being placed
(38:40):
in a facility where they'relike okay, I'm not gonna get
beat up by my dad today, or I'mnot gonna, or I might have food,
I'm gonna have breakfast, lunchand dinner and then to go in
there Pending a placement in afoster home with a more
hopefully stable environment andthen be abused again, all over
again, sexually.
And people always ask me well,where do you get your cases from
(39:03):
, or how do you identify thecases, or where do you see that
cases are coming from?
Wherever there are childrenthere you will find pedophiles,
so that's their breeding ground,and when you have a large
number of them all in one place,them being vulnerable children.
You're going to have problemsif there's a failure, if there's
a failure to protect.
Ilona (39:25):
It's time to get gritty Audience Q&A.
Listener question.
I'm a social worker and I'moverwhelmed.
I see so many problems all thetime, but I don't know how to
speak up without risking my job.
What can I do?
Blake (39:38):
If somebody notices it going on, first of all, they
have an absolute legalresponsibility to immediately
report that to a supervisor orto somebody who can take care of
it right away.
There is no lag time.
Don't wait a day, Don't wait anhour.
You immediately report it andthen an investigation will ensue
.
And then, of course, you needto also follow the policies and
(40:01):
procedures for the type ofinvestigation you do.
I have lots of cases where therewas a report, they did an
investigation and they didn't dothe investigation properly.
They didn't interview theperson face-to-face.
And there's a reason why youinterview a potential
perpetrator face-to-face so youcan see body language, you can
see how they answer questions.
Are they sweating when you'reasking them questions?
They're doing it over the phone, things like that.
(40:21):
So, even like you can't just go, well, I'm just not going to
follow the procedure.
You just can't be that kind ofa person you can't worry about.
Well, is this going to affect me?
This is my boss.
Who's the guy who's doing this?
What if I?
What if I do?
Go and tell somebody?
That's going to affect mepersonally, and I understand
(40:42):
people that might feel that way.
They got three kids and theygot a job and they don't have.
You know, and if they saysomething they don't want to get
in trouble themselves becauseit might be their supervisor, et
cetera.
But you just have to have,first of all, you have to have a
respect for the legalobligation that you have and
then also the courage justwithin you to actually be a
person who wants to protectchildren.
Because that's what happens is.
(41:02):
It's not even necessarily thatthe policies in place are wrong
or bad, it's the implementationand the enforcement of them.
Mila (41:11):
And I want to add just a couple of things from an
employer perspective and theenforcement of them.
And I want to add just a coupleof things from an employer
perspective.
First of all, like you said, ifemployees, especially
supervisors, witness, this butreally any employee witnesses
sex abuse or child abuse andthey don't report it.
They could be liable and if alawsuit is filed they will be
deposed and they will have totalk about it.
Secondly, if they're concernedabout retaliation, legally an
(41:37):
employer is not allowed toretaliate against you for making
these complaints.
I've seen so often that peoplewant to make complaints but
they're terrified so they don'tput them in writing.
They just like kind of tellsomeone and then there's
retaliation afterwards, but thenyou can't prove they made the
complaint because it was quietlymade and not in writing.
So if you really want toprotect yourself from
(41:58):
retaliation, always document thecomplaints, Put it in writing,
CC, everyone you can on it sothat it is investigated and then
later if there's anyretaliation against you, you can
prove that it's tied to thecomplaint you made.
Like if you get written upafter you make a complaint, if
your hours are cut, if you gettransferred to a different
(42:18):
position you don't want, andit's after you made a complaint
and before you made thecomplaint your employment was
perfect.
Ilona (42:24):
That's a clear tie, yeah, so it's very important we're
saying because I think thesepeople who have a duty to report
and investigate need to reallythink about how this is going to
impact this child's life.
And it is important, if ithappened even once or even for a
few seconds, that if ithappened at all, you have to
take what the child saysseriously, report it up the
(42:44):
chain, because that is going toimpact this child's life for the
rest of their life and candestroy it and the future
generations.
Blake (42:52):
And the last thing I'll say about that is also, training
is really important.
You know, a lot of times,defense attorneys, they'll go oh
, this happened a long time ago.
Times are different, you know.
I'm like oh, so it was okay inthe seventies to have sexually
abused children, like there'snever been a time right where
it's okay to sexually abusechildren.
But there was a time, though,where we didn't look for red,
(43:13):
for red flags.
You're talking about the redand green flags.
Well, there's a lot of red flagsand sexual abuse.
Usually.
Usually, it doesn't just happenwhere somebody just comes in
and just abuses a kid.
They get groomed.
You know there's groomingbehaviors.
There's all kinds of thingsthat you can look for.
Lap sitting, for example, is ais a red flag, is it?
(43:35):
Is it responsive touching oractive touching?
So responsive touching is akindergarten kid comes running
up to you and gives you a hugand you just kind of you know
pat them on the back.
That's a responsive touching.
That's not.
That's not a sexual abuse typeactivity.
But are you going?
Is it a person that you noticegoing towards these children and
actively touching them, andwhere are they touching them?
And so there's all kinds of redflags, grooming behaviors such
as hey, you're my guy, I'm goingto, you know I'm going to.
(43:56):
They isolate people and theygive them.
They give them benefits.
We have so many clients.
They were given alcohol, theywere given candy, they were
given drugs.
They were given hey, I'm goingto let you out of McLaren hall
for a day Like wild stuff.
They would get into the car ofthe perpetrators and they would
go to a different place, go to apark, get drunk, abuse them and
(44:17):
bring them back.
Mila (44:18):
That's why these kids will blame themselves.
Yeah.
Blake (44:22):
So there's a lot of grooming.
There's a lot of groomingbehaviors that these people need
to be trained on to, toidentify and look for before
even the abuse happens, and notlike a training video where you
watch it on video.
You watch it on a thingtwo-hour training video and you
click the slides and you gothrough a weird scenario with
some actor, like an actualtraining session, with maybe
(44:42):
even people who do this for aliving or who were victims
themselves and who were groomedthat can identify different ways
that people do this, becausethat's what a pedophile does, is
there?
Ilona (44:53):
always grooming.
I'm assuming there's justthere's almost always grooming.
Yeah.
Blake (44:58):
It doesn't usually just happen in a vacuum.
There's always some groomingbehavior when you talk to the
clients about okay, when did youfirst meet the perpetrator?
What happened, you know?
Oh well, they would give mecandy or they would say, hey,
you know, they would incentivizeit and then normalize it once
it happens.
Mila (45:15):
This week's Glam Tip Legal reform may not feel glamorous,
but integrity always is.
Ilona (45:23):
And fighting for the voiceless.
That's power, that's purposeand that's legacy.
Mila (45:28):
Blake, thank you for showing us what the law can do
when it's used with heart,intellect and ferocity.
This case proves that even thebiggest systems can be
challenged and changed To ourlisteners.
If you're in a system that'sbroken, speak up and don't stop.
Justice starts with a voice.
Ilona (45:48):
And the right attorney.
We are the glamorous grind andjustice that's always in style.
Mila (45:53):
See you next week.
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