WE CHAT WITH TRIAL LAWYER BRIAN WILLIAMS 4

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome everyone to Inside the Badge.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
We delve deep into.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Understanding criminal law. So let's get started. Welcome back everybody.
Today we have a great guest, a managing partner of

(00:25):
Greenberg Gross LLP. And find them at GG trial Law
dot com. It's GG trial Law dot com. Brian Williams.
He's an accomplished trial lawyer who has served as lead
counsel in high stakes trials throughout the state of California.
Recently recognized by the Daily Journal as a top Plane
of Lawyer for twenty twenty four. His practice focuses on
cases involving sexual abuse, physical assault, serious injury or wrongful death,

(00:48):
and employment disputes. Many of mister William's cases garner significant
press attention across major media outlets. You'll see him on
news or TV shows when the circumstances call for it.
Miss William great pride in bringing needed attention to the
important cases filed by his clients. And today I can't
wait to dig in to see some of the cases
he's had to deal with and what's going on in

(01:09):
trial is TV accurate? We'll find out a lot more
answers to those questions in a second before we get started.
You know what to do. Make sure to shake, shake, share,
subscribe and head that I like but you don't, we
like it. Let's not waste any more time walking on
the show. Brian Williams, welcome.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Sir, Yeah, thank you, Carlos. Glad to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
By the way, folks, you can also reach Brian at
b Williams as be as and Boy Williams at GG
trial Law dot com. So, Brian, I guess my first
thing I always like to find out about people is
what motivated you to become a lawyer?

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Great questions. So I was a super competitive kid. I
played a lot of sports. I hated to lose. My
older sister used to comment at times that you should
be a lawyer because you refuse to lose any argument.
I realized in high school that my athletic skills are
lack thereof would necessary not carry me into a job

(02:01):
in which I could make a living being an athlete,
and so law interested me from a competitive standpoint. And
I actually got a job when I was doing my
undergrad working in a law firm as like a courier.
And I used to, you know, serve documents on people
or file documents in court and I kind of got
used to the law firm environment. I realized that law

(02:25):
firms did a lot more than just argue, but they
actually advanced causes that are important for society clients. And
I was drawn to it and I never looked back
and went to law school. And here I am.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
We're either one of your parents a lawyer.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
No. No. I come from a blue collar family. My
mom was a waitress, my dad was a construction worker.
They both instilled hard work in me and you know,
pushed me to, you know, do better. And you know again,
I found my way in the law and that for
that reason as well.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
We'll pubably tackle this question later on because you made
an interesting point. There were a lot of people tend
to have a negative view of lawyers until they can
need one. That's true, it changes a little bit, and
I think today's episode hope you'll give people a different
view that lawyers aren't as bad apples and everything. Right,

(03:20):
So we know that, So let me do this. What
was your very first I don't know how you would
phrase it in the legal world, but what was the
first area you worked in? Was it this area or
something else?

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Now, so I started my career actually as a defense lawyer,
where I was defending companies that were sued civilly for
monetary damages, typically because someone was harmed in some form
or fashion. And as a as a young lawyer just
out of law school, it's very common to get hired
in that defense environment, and I stayed there for you know,

(03:53):
quite some time. Actually had my I became the owner
of my own firm, and I represented a number of
companies throughout the United States, but particularly focused in the
state of California, where I would represent them when they
were getting sued by someone else who was seeking a
lot of money because of a tragedy like a car
accident or a truck accident. I did a lot of
trucker accidents early in my career, and I realized that

(04:18):
very early on that I did it and I was
good at it, but I didn't get emotional fulfillment from it.
You know. My job was effectively to keep people who
are entitled to money from getting as much as they wanted.
And it demoralized me, and it caused me to reassess
where I was. And I had young kids at the

(04:39):
time and fortunately have a very understanding life, and I
just went to and I said, you know, I don't
want to do this anymore. I'm successful at it and
I support my family with it, but I want to
represent individuals. I want to represent the people who are
actually harmed in some fashion and help them. And I
thought I thought I could be successful at it from

(05:00):
financial standpoint, meaning being able to continue to support my family,
but more do so do things on society's behalf and
try to change things that occur in society, or at
least do my part institute, you know, real change in
an area to protect people.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Interesting. Interesting does that happen a lot with defense attorneys?

Speaker 2 (05:21):
You think it's I'm not the only one it happens.
You know, there are some lawyers that come out of
law school and they're automatically on the plane of side.
There are a lot that start on the defense side,
like I shared my story, and they stay there forever.
And that's perfectly fine. I think it just it depends
on the end of the day of what I what

(05:42):
an individual wants to use their law degree for. And
I was able. Fortunately, I was at a point in
my life where I was finally able to use a
law degree in a way that I felt best fit me.
From a personality perspective, from a goal perspective, and from
the perspective of setting example for my own kids.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Kind of funny. Reminds me of a friend of mine.
He's well, he was a lawyer. He had his firm
for twenty years, and he switched back to the original
career before he went into law, which was a magician. Okay,
back there again. Once he made enough money he could
retire young, he went back to doing magic.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
I do know people that leave. You know, the law
is hard and it's a particularly being a trial lawyer. Right,
I'm not complaining, but it can. It takes a lot
out of you. There's a lot of stress, and I
do know a lot of lawyers will retire to younger
age and go into a completely different profession. I haven't
heard a magician yet, but but I know a lawyer
who retired and became a bartender because that's what they

(06:40):
really wanted to do. That's what made them happy, and
I would support that or people retire early. I used
to joke that I was going to retire and become
a park ranger because I wanted to sit in some
national park somewhere. But that was before I became a
plant of lawyer. Now, I absolutely love what I do
and I don't see myself ever doing anything else awesome.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
You know you mentioned it. I mentioned a minute ago
some of the areas that you're working with, which is
physical assault, sexual abuse, serious injury. And again, this show
is a little different than others because not only going
to talk about law, but also the psychology behind it
a little bit. But I'm assuming some of these cases
and we talked with a friend of yours, of the
Heather Brown, but some of these cases got to be

(07:22):
difficult to be looking at these things, hearing the stories.
Sometimes you could be looking at videos for a several
hours that are pretty disturbing for sure.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
And Heather and I have you mentioned, Heather Brown, have
actually spent a lot of time talking about this topic
and we speak on it in our firm as well,
because yeah, I have a very active practice group that
focuses on representing survivors of childhood sexual assault, which is,
you know, if not the worst, one of the worst
things that any human being could ever be subjected to

(07:55):
and survive from. I'm a father of myself. I have
four kids that I absolutely adore, And You're right, Carlos,
there are days that I hear things where I meet
people that that make this road challenge. And you know,
I'm not asking for sympathy. I do it because I
want to do it. I don't have to take any

(08:16):
more of these cases, but I do. It's something that's very,
very important to me. But I'd be lying if there
are nights when I go home and it does take
a toll. And I have a wife that you know,
I adore, and she's great and she helps me, and
you know, seeing my kids helps me. But it's a challenge,
can imagine.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
So as I know, we talked a little bit about
this yesterday. People get to see what works for viewership
on TV. So we got the exciting stuff of the
trial lawyer and like eighty percent of it's in the trial,
and a few gotcha comments or statements saying but everybody,
But it's kind of like a cop sometimes, like homicide
detectives and things. You get all the high the highlights

(08:57):
of it, but then the other stuff nobody talks about
when they go home. What they saw, what they smelled,
things of that nature. And for your case, I'm assuming
it's what you saw, what you heard, because it's not all.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Pretty no, no, yeah, I agree with you. You know,
TV does and movies do a good job of highlighting
certain facts, but they don't. It doesn't tell the full story.
And I actually think of first responders fairly regularly. I
used to represent police officers, and yeah, I mean they
go home at night too, and their goal at night

(09:31):
is to go home and be able to go home
and see their families. And you know, first responders see
a number of really traumatic things, and TV shows don't
really highlight how human beings because that's what we all
are have to deal with the environments in which they work,
and mine is one of them. But again I do
so proudly and knowingly, and I think I have pretty

(09:54):
good mechanisms to deal with that. If my wife was
a guest on your show, Carlos, she might point out
areas where I think I'm doing a good job, but
I'm not. But I do my best, and I get
a tremendous amount of fulfillment out of helping a survivor,
you know, seek some form of justice for what happened
to them in some form of closure.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
I guess I mentioned it for the audience too, so
they realize there's a personal there's a bit of a
sacrifice and the work you're doing as well in regards
to that during some of those things that you're enduring.
So let me shift gears a little bit too. Can
you think of a case, And there's a lot of
cases you've had, There's a lot of scenarios, but any
particular case that stands out to you, whether because how

(10:39):
egregious it was, how bizarre it was, anything at all,
that just stands out for you.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Sure, And I know you know from a psychological perspective,
that's one of the focuses of your podcast, Carlos, and
you know, to this day, without giving you in a
specific example, I still cannot understand what motivates a human
being to be a pedophile. I wish society could figure
that out. There are a lot of studies going on

(11:07):
with the human brain and trying to figure out, you know,
if there's ways to almost figure out who's predisposed to
maybe having some of those tendencies. But in terms of
being shocked, I'm continually shocked. Disappointed is probably the better
word of what people do and how certain human beings
cannot understand that a child is a child and deserves

(11:29):
to be treated and protected accordingly in terms of you know,
the cases that I do, though, are you know the
from the standpoint of the perpetrator, the person who commits
a crime. You know, that's a lot of times dealt
with by criminal lawyers. I don't do that. I tell
my clients all the time. I don't have the ability
to put anybody behind bars. I save that for our

(11:50):
fully capable district attorneys and US attorneys. Their job is
to put the perpetrators behind bars. What I do is
is I hold instantitutions that enable those perpetrators responsible in
civil court. And I'll give you some examples. So most
of my cases fall in the categories of entities like schools, churches,

(12:13):
daycare facilities, perhaps use sports organizations like Little League Baseball
or whatever it might be. Because pedophiles tragically take up
professions that give them access to students, and you could
probably explain the psychology behind that, but they're really just
looking to have the ability to interact with children. And

(12:37):
so I firmly believe that in the United States that
institutions need to do a much better job of supervising
and disciplining and firing and responding to red flag behavior
that people should be noticing that could lead to sexual abuse.
And if we can do that as a society and

(12:58):
those institutions can do a better job, then we're eliminating
the chances or the statistical probabilities of a kid being
is abused. So to put that little more succinctly, you know,
the world is unfortunately going to continue to create pedophiles.
I don't know why, but pedophiles will exist and they'll

(13:20):
probably continue to exist. But as a society, to me,
we have the ability to force institutions to do a
better job of protecting kids while they're under their care
and supervision and thus prevent the instances of abuse from occurring.
And that's where I come in. I believe that one
of the best ways to hold an institution accountable is

(13:41):
through their pocketbooks. Schools, churches, businesses react and change when
an attorney like me forces them to by holding them
accountable in a civil court room. So, yes, it's a
wonderful thing to be able to give my client a
financial recovery for the that they could, but most of

(14:02):
my clients that's secondary to Again, what they want to
do is speak out and do their part to create
lasting institutional change.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
You've made a great point. I think we were talking
about that yesterday. I can't remember exactly how you phrased it,
and correct if I'm wrong, but something about it. You
can't really arrest an institution, but you can punish them financially,
because they will arrest somebody and then Okay, that person's gone,
but it's got five hundred other people working with them.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
They'll just replace them. Kind of thing. That's exactly right.
You know, I think the criminal and the civil justice
system when it comes to childhood sexual abuse can work
together and accomplish a larger goal. Again, it'll never be eliminated,
but hopefully it can be reduced. Criminal behavior leads to
criminal charges by district attorneys, and you know, I want

(14:46):
them to get the most time they can. As to
those individual pedophiles and my side of the law, we
can do more to hold institutions accountable, force them to
make lasting change, change their policies, increase their super vision,
whatever it might be, to make those institutions safer for kids.
And there's also a legislative component. You know, the legislatures

(15:08):
of our state and other states are picking up on
this and they're actually implementing statutes that further protect kids,
all with the goal of making the world a little
bit better for our children.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Absolutely, because it is. It's an incredible thing. You mentioned
some interesting points earlier. They unfortunately that that's stupid enough.
They know where the kids are and that's what they
look for, look for the places where they have access.
And so to me, when I talk to my criminal
psych classes, tell them you really shouldn't be surprised if
you hear about boy Scout leaders or tutors or pastors

(15:42):
or whatever, because that's where the kids are.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, you know, you asked what surprises me? And I
heard this is probably about six months ago, but I
was asked to speak on a topic and I had
no idea this was a thing. You know, we all have,
or maybe all of us. But most people have a
ride share app on their phone, right. I always used Uber,
some people use Lyft. And I found out that their
Uber offers a service that's specifically tailored towards children, basically

(16:07):
for working families being able to take their children to
and from school. And I heard that and I was shocked.
Was I get the need? But I don't. I don't
you know, I'm not questioning anybody. But I'm not putting
the safety of my kids behind Uber's hiring standards, right,
because are they doing a good enough job hiring those drivers,

(16:28):
screening their backgrounds, and monitoring their activities to say, hey,
it's safe for me to specifically offer a dedicated service
and market that service to kids. You know that that
surprised me, But that's an example of what you said.
There are certain professions, teachers probably being the number one
that I see, that attract individuals with pedophilia tendencies to them.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
That's a scary thing. That's pretty scary. I hadn't heard
that either. By the way, again, we're talking to Brian Williams.
You can find about his law firm at GG Trial
Law dot com GG Trial Law, Trial Law dot com.
You can also email them at b Williams at GG
trial Law dot com. Yeah, that's the sad thing is
that these individuals know where they're at. They get themselves

(17:15):
involved in situations where they can put themselves in there
to be able to access these children. And it's tricky
as I had a friend of mine who's a former FBI.
He went under cover with a group and I don't
know if you ever heard of nambla National Association of
Men and boys. A while back ago, twenty years ago,

(17:36):
they were trying to pass legislation that made the age
of consent five. Oh that's why he went undercover, because
they figured, well, something's up with.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
This group, so right, gosh, So.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
He went over there, and you know, and the one
thing that stood out to him was doc I just
couldn't There was no profile.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
It didn't matter.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
They were seventy years old, they were twenty five years old,
they were construction workers, there were accountants, there were doctors,
they were pastors, they were white, they were black, they
were it didn't matter it really, with no profile whatsoever
to do it. So it was really remarkable and it
blew his mind away when he was doing it.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, and I would be curious about, you know, larger
studies than even than that, because I think that's true.
I can tell you from my sample size. You know,
I get I get pictures of you know, alleged or
actual perpetrators or pedophiles all the time. And there are
ones and this isn't this a little bit of a joke,
but ones you could look at a picture and go, okay,

(18:32):
I could see it, right, But then I hear about
other instances and I see their photos. I learn about
these human beings and I think I never would have
anticipated that person being pedophile, but it happens, and I
think that's what makes them so dangerous. They pedophiles are
unlike some criminals. Pedophiles typically aren't dumb, because if they
were dumb, they wouldn't be successful at it. They're actually,

(18:55):
you know, psychopaths, and they're there. They're master manipulators and
through grooming they get these kids and oftentimes the family
of the kids to trust them so that they can
exploit some kind of vulnerability and get away with their crime.
So yeah, I you know, there might be certain profiles

(19:15):
of certain criminals that fit, and I haven't found a continuous,
you know, trait that I see over and over and
over again.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah, I mean, either it's interesting too, as you mentioned
that back to the Uber comment you made earlier, or
the right sharing companies. It's interesting because even if they
have a clean record. I'm sure you know this too
from experience, is that hell, a lot of times they
may not be caught for ten years, and then you
find out it's been twenty kids in ten years because
they operate differently.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
They do. I have still never and this is true
in all the cases I've had on the civil side.
I've never met a pedophile that only did it to
one kid. They have a sickness, they have whatever the
right word is to describe their illness that make then
do what they do, and they act upon it, and
you're right, they get away with it until someone finally

(20:06):
reports it or catches them in the act. And the
reporting part is what leads to multiple victims because most kids,
you know, they don't want to report what happened to them.
That's the last thing they want to do out of
because of a number of emotions, right fear or embarrassment
or concerned that they did something wrong or they won't
be believed. And so those children justifiably keep this to

(20:26):
themselves and that allows that pedophile to move on to
the next.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, that's the crazy part. And I don't know it's
even relevant too much, but I guess to me, it's interesting.
Sometimes I'll talk about the difference between pedophiles and child molesters.
The FBI used to a singer should now they kind
of go back and forth on the debate whether there
is a difference. But the child moluster is more like
Amber from amber Li Alert. You know, it is the
guy and for instance, who doesn't really care about the child.

(20:54):
And I know it sounds weird to people, but they don't.
They just you know, they'll do what they need to
do sexually assault them and then kill them and leave them.
But the pedofile, in a distorted way, seems to think
they're helping the child and that's why they get to
twenty or thirty because they're doing it very secretively. Most
of the time they wouldn't hurt them. So it's kind
of interesting. It's really a different mindset.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, I use the terms interchangeably. Carlos is maybe I shouldn't.
I've never actually thought of it the way you just said,
and I agree with what you just say. It's just
the criminals. And I think perhaps hearing what you said
makes me think that the difference of a pedophile is
their success and their desire to fool everyone into thinking

(21:42):
that they're really good people, versus, as you put it,
the person that just kidnaps, you know, assaults and then
murders and almost turns themselves in. At that point they
knew they weren't going to get away with it. You know,
it's a little different.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, very opportunistic those individuals. Let me ask you this,
I guess it must be kind of well, I guess
I'll get to the psychological part in a minute. But
when you tackle these institutions, what do you look at
when you have a large into institution, like a big
church for instance. I'll let you decide if you want
to name a church. But if you have a really
big church with a lot of money behind it, are

(22:16):
you like this may not be so easy. They're gonna
put a lot of pressure on me. And I know
there's shows out there like Lincoln Lawyer and other things.
And I don't know if you've ever been attacked in
a parking lot structure for something.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
But I've never been attacked. I have been followed. I have,
I have. I have been followed in it and and
it wa I won't name it, but it wasn't a
religious institution, and I was followed regularly for I don't know,
it's felt like a couple months. And they were really
bad at it because it was really obvious, right, And

(22:49):
I didn't when I first noticed it. It, you know,
put a little fear in me, But then I quickly
realized it was just some you know, dumb true believer
who felt like he was doing the right thing for
this particular religious body. But no, to answer your question
a little more directly, yeah, you know, large institutions fight hard,
and they do and we know that. And one of
the ways what drew me to this firm to accomplish

(23:14):
my goal of suing survivors of sexuals or on behalf
of survivor's sexual assault is the infrastructure our firm has
in place to handle those large institutions. You know, we're
used to it. It's what we do every day. We
take on the most powerful institutions in the world, and
we're not afraid of it. And that's what those large
institutions do. From a civil perspective, it's it's not the

(23:35):
beating up in the parking lot, but they hire very
large law firms that try to overwhelm the plaintiff side
with work in the effort of drowning that plaintiff lawyer
to where he or she just wants to settle the case.
And that is a that is an actual litigation tactic.
It happens all the time, and it's unfortunate and it's
important that survivors or really any plaintiff. It doesn't have

(23:57):
to be a sexual assault case, can be an employment case,
could be a personal injury case. But it's important that
they hire a law firm that has the resources to
combat an uber or a large church or whatever, because
those are well funded corporations that can afford to defend
a case.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
I'm out of my league here with you. Obviously this
is your previews. I guess excuse my naivete on this,
but I know with like sovereign citizens, sometimes they've used
a paper terrorism a tactic where you know, just inundate the.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Court systems with this stuff. Would would that be?

Speaker 1 (24:26):
That wouldn't be considered that? Then?

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Huh from the other No, it's not. It's because it's
not they're not. You know again, if I'm if I'm
a big company, right, if I'm one of the world's
biggest companies, I can hire one of the world's biggest
law firms. And those law firms have a lot of
lawyers that work for them, and they're getting paid by
the hour, and so they're not doing anything unethical there.
They are representing their client. And one of the ways

(24:48):
to represent their client is to be very aggressive with
the plaint of side, do a lot of what we
call discovery, which is kind of the middle phase of
every lawsuit. And some firms can keep up with those
discovery requests and some certain some firms can't. But you know,
everyone out there should expect that if you have a
lawsuit against a big company or a big insurance company,

(25:10):
that that's a tactic that will be deployed. And so
you've got to hire the right firm that has the
resources and the infrastructure, the computer systems, the number of
employees necessary to combat that technic, because all you've got
to do is outlast that big company and let them
realize this isn't working. They're not going away, and then

(25:31):
they come to the table and try to resolve their cases.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Let me ask you this, I guess I'm not sure
how long you've been practicing.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
I'm assuming over twenty years. Yeah, despite my good looks,
you know, Carlos, I've been doing a little while.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
When you look young, so I don't want to say anything, well,
thank you, and then once they seize and I think
that might look yeah, But is it easier now to
handle those tactics because of the computers and compared to
the old days, we had to get these boxes of
files or for.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
Sure, for sure, yeah, you know when I was first
a lawyer, it was literally rooms full of boxes. And
you know, we have four different offices in three states,
and you know, we have people whose sole job is
it is to eliminate paper. Everything is digitized at this point.
You don't see bankers boxes full of documents unless you're

(26:19):
walking into a courtroom, and even then it's not so much.
There are great tools that are available. I mean, frankly,
we could have our own podcast about AI and the law,
because artificial intelligence is making creating efficiency gains for off
firms on both sides of the table that you know,
work through those thousands of thousands of page of the

(26:39):
documents at a wrap more much more active pace than
a human being can. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
As a whole nother story another some pretty good white
websites too for AI for law only.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Think, yeah, there's a whole market there are you know,
large legal services companies that are investing millions and millions
and millions of dollars to come out with the best
AI products, because clearly that's you know, the future. I
was at a seminar recently that the speaker pointed out that,
you know, AI can't replace lawyers because there's a part

(27:11):
of being a lawyer. There's the human dynamic of going
into a courtroom and advocating for a client. None of
that can be replaced. So AI won't replace lawyers, but AI.
But lawyers that know how to use AI will replace
lawyers that don't. That's the point, right is it just
makes you so much more efficient.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yeah, as long as they don't start to developing these
holograms and everybody looks like a tom Cruise or something,
then we gotta are up a creek.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Right, Well, then I'll go be a park ranger, like
I said, Right, you know what, let me do this.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
This might be interesting to do. If I was a client,
for instance, something happened to me, maybe it was me
ten years ago, whatever, How would the process work? So
the listeners can understand if they ever had if they
know somebody who needs your services, or anybody wants they
need a lawyer, wherever there may be in the United States,

(28:03):
how does it work. I come to you and then
what happens?

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah, So, and if we're talking about you, and we
were talking about childhood sexual assaults. So I'll use that
as the example because the process could be different depending
on the type of case. But you know, when I
meet with a survivor or a survivor's family parents, usually
for the first time. You know, obviously there's there's a meeting,
it's it's can be you know, everybody does stuff on
zoom nowadays and now post COVID, but the a lot

(28:27):
of these are in person. Given the emotional aspect of it,
and the beauty of consulting a lawyer for everybody out
there is that that's a privileged discussion, meaning anything that's
said to me I can't repeat to anybody, and vice versa.
You know, it's it's a protected conversation. But what I
try to do is approach sexual abuse cases from a
trauma informed approach. If I'm speaking to a survivor, he

(28:52):
or she may not want to give me all of
the details, particularly at first. I'm a stranger. After all,
I'm there to help them, But I want that survivor
to know that they have complete control over the conversation,
that we can stop at any point. They can tell
me as little or as much as they want, and
just do my part. To make a very uncomfortable experience

(29:14):
as comfortable as I can, because it's a difficult topic
to talk about most of the time. You know, after
they hear that and they understand that, and they feel
that control, you know, I do get all the details,
and what I try to tell them is, you know,
I don't want to I only have to ask you
those details a few times during the case, meaning I
need to hear it initially so I know what your

(29:36):
case is about. At some point in the future, if
you file a lawsuit, you're going to be deposed and
you're gonna have to tell the other side that version.
And then other than that. The only other time you
have to go into all those details is if a
case gets to trial, and therefore you're telling your story
in front of a jury. Right, But ninety five percent
of sexual salt cases never make their way to a jury.

(29:58):
They're usually resolved. The point being that, you know, I
want them to know what. I want them to have
their eyes. I want them to go into a lawsuit
with their eyes wide open, full transparency. This is what
the process is is. I can protect you ninety nine
percent of the way. I can't protect everything. There are
lawyers on the other side to get to ask questions.
But I just try to make them as comfortable as

(30:19):
they can endeavoring into the civil justice system. I do
it every day. It's normal for me to have depositions
and go to court, but the average human being they
don't do that. And then you ask a survivor of
sexual assault to do that, and it's a whole other equation.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
You know. I guess just because of what I've been
teaching for the last ten years in criminal psyche and psyche,
it's this would be a different question maybe that people
would have normally, or maybe they wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
You can tell me, but you said that the information
is protected, and then they can, let's say they get
the posed. So does it matter maybe because our memories
are really not really good and we can add things,
take things out, change things. The guy was wearing a hat.
The guy wasn't wearing a hat. He said this, He

(31:07):
said that, does it have to be really similar to
what they told you originally to the deposition or is
that never actually get access to the original notes?

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah? What we you know, what a client tells their
lawyer privately is private, and so no one gets those notes.
Those are privileged in almost every possible circumstance. But you're right,
you know, human human beings, by our very nature, we
make mistakes, We forget things. It's not intentional, sometimes it's subconscious,
and our memories fade over time. So you know, very

(31:40):
rarely are there no variances what we tried to in
terms of the progression of someone's story about an event, abuse,
termination of you know whatever, a car accident, even right,
you know, how long had a light been green versus red?
You know people, you know that's going to change over time.
Their memory can change. Small very is are no big deal.

(32:01):
It's part of being human. Judges recognize that. Jurors recognize that.
What you have to what we do with our clients
is try to keep them from having a substantive change.
Let's get it right the first time on the key issues,
so that on the really important stuff you've told a uniform, consistent,
you know, fair, and most importantly truthful recitation of what happened.

(32:27):
I've found that you know, you always can tell who
because it may on either side of the case, is
telling the truth or not? Truth is hard to forget.
The truth is the truth. Right. People who lie, people forget,
they get caught and multiple lives, right, And if you
change your lie in different ways, it's much easier to
get caught up in those changes.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
You said, I guess overwhelming majorities get settled before they
even go to trial.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, you know, civil cases. You know, a lot of
criminal cases go to trial because that's the that person
is going to jail, you know, based on the outcome,
and they may want to have their day in court,
and absent a plea agreement, you know, criminal cases certainly
go to trial a lot. Civil cases statistically have a
very high percentage of cases that settle. I think across
the board it's you know, depending on the state might

(33:14):
be different, but in California, I feel fair say it's
you know, it's ninety percent of all civil cases never
make their way to a jury trial, and it might
vary year to year or time period of time period.
I think that cases involving childhood sexual assault, which we've
been talking about, it's an even higher percentage of cases

(33:34):
that resolve for a variety of reasons. I have clients
who are survivors who say, brand I don't want to
go into a courtroom and have to share my story
with twelve strangers and then be judged by those twelve
juror members in terms of my case. And I understand that,
and I respect it, and I would never force them

(33:55):
to go that route if they didn't want to do it.
On the other side of it, if you're an institution, school,
if you're a church, these cases have a very high
value and there's a risk of alienation amongst the jurors
where they could walk into that courtroom and get hit
for millions and millions and millions of dollars. And so
the same is true on the other side, just for

(34:16):
different reasons. It's not. It's a fear of a large
verdict on the defense side that leads them to settle again.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Folks, we're talking to Brian Williams, managing partner over at
Greenberg and Gross Gross Gross what they keep seeing Gross
for Gross LLP Greenberg and Gross. You can find them
at GG Trial Law dot com, GG trial Law dot com.
You can also email them at b Williams at gg
trilaw dot com. I guess that could me another question

(34:43):
and I maybe completely off base here. I just remember
seeing CNN the other day they lost their court, their
case defamation I think it was or something like that.
There was age ensued. They really didn't want to go
to discovery. They ended up going to discovery. A lot
of things were revealed in discovery. We saw other big
quick companies they don't want to get the discovery either,

(35:06):
for whatever reason the emails that were shared. Do you
find that to be the case too sometimes for these
big institutions where like, uh, crap, no, we don't want
to show anybody that we were hiding this or something
like that.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah, there are certain types of cases, and I can't
you know, just like we were talking about a profile
for pedophiles, there's not necessarily a profile on which cases
will resolve very very early. But there are certain key
characteristics like you mentioned in reading my bio, and I
appreciate the kind words that you know. I do get
a lot of cases that get media attention, and I

(35:39):
find that on those cases there's a It's not uncommon
to within days of the complaint being filed, which is
what leads to the media attention. There's an attempt on
the other side to stop the bleeding, so to speak,
and settle the case because of the public exposure of
it and that's fine, and we'll particip paint in that process.

(36:00):
And if you know the numbers work for both sides,
the case can resolve early. There's also a certain segment
of cases, though, where the opposite happens. Where I file
a case, perhaps against a celebrity defendant, you know, and
it gets media attention, and that celebrity defendant thinks I
have to protect my name, my reputation, and more importantly,
my brand, And not only do they not settle, they

(36:24):
fight back hard, gloves are off, and it becomes the
opposite approach. So you know, it's hard to I don't
always predict correctly which way it's going to go. Certain
cases lend themselves to early resolutions. Other cases that are
personal in nature do not, because that puts the defendant

(36:45):
kind of backs them in the corner and they think
I have to fight my way out.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
I guess any cases that really surprised you turn did
you thought was he going one way? Switches gears goes
on another, whether you want or loss or whatever you
want to share.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Note, yeah, I mean, you know, not once a case
is filed. You know, my job is to not be surprised.
And that's what discovery is right. Our job is to
do all the right discovery, so but that by the
time you get to trial, there's very few things that
can come up that are new. And I think any
good lawyer would tell you the same thing. The good
lawyers don't get surprised because they did all the prep

(37:22):
work to know every possible angle that come across I
do you know, But to directly answer your question a
little bit better, you know, I get surprised by conduct
or things that I learn in lawsuits all the time.
I mean disappointing, you know, facts or realities that are troubling.
I can give you example if you'd like. I this
is a case that in Orange County, California, that got

(37:44):
a large amount of media attention recently, where we filed
a lawsuit against Santa Margarita Catholic High School on behalf
of a football player who was fifteen at the time,
and he walked into a locker room and a group
of his teammates basically attacked him and pinned him down,
and then you know, sexually assaulted him in that locker room.

(38:04):
The shocking part to address your question of that is,
you know, when I heard this this kid's story, I
of course said yes, I want to help you, and
I'm going to do everything I can to help you.
The shocking part was learning that the school had readily
admitted to my client's parents before they even hired a lawyer,
that the same type of incident happened like six to
eight other times in the past. That that's alarmed, and

(38:28):
that that wasn't you know, this wasn't years ago, this
was months ago. And the fact that that kind of
stuff can continue to happen troubles me, But it also
empowers me to want to do it more and keep
going and you know, do what I can to hopefully
get institutions to change.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
And that case is over now too, thank you.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
No, that case is active. It's again. This is this
is all public information. You could google it. You could
find these stories and hear all about it.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
That's crazy, that's sad. Well, let's do this switch gears
a little bit. I'm heading to a particular direction.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Okay, So.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
How is it in regards to go to trial? That
is what everybody wants to know, right How the fun
parts of the trial? I'm assuming these are jury trials,
not bench trials or.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
Yeah, for the most part, and the type of cases
I do. Every once in a while you'll have a
legal question that has to be resolved by the judge.
Did I lose you still? Oh sorry, you've disappeared off
my screen. Every once in a while there'll be a
legal issue that you know has to be resolved by
the judge. But for the most part, these involve a
trial by a jury of your peers, and that's what's happening.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
And I forget what the civil term is, I know,
for criminals beyond a reasonable doubt and what is the
preponderance of evidence or something?

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Honorance of the evidence. For the most part, so fifty,
you know, just just one spec more than the other
side has, so to speak, versus you know, the civil system,
which is a much higher standard. Yeah, justifiantly. Still, yeah,
of course. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
So let me ask you this, how important is jury selection?
We know it made doctor Philihill of a lot of money,
but how is it?

Speaker 2 (40:12):
I you know, I've tried a good amount of cases
my career, Carlos, and it to me it's the most
important part. You're you walk into a courtroom not knowing
who you're going to be judged by, meaning who the
jury is going to be that decides your case. And
you know, in every city, in every county that you
go to, you get you know, depending on how long

(40:33):
a case is, you get forty to one hundred perspective
jurors that walk into a room, and your job is to,
you know, hopefully select a jury of twelve that you
think best fits your case. I believe in the model
that you're you're not really selecting jurors that you want,
you're excluding those that you don't, and you find yourself
left with the twelve that are there. So we all

(40:54):
look for certain tendencies and people it's not like they're
not doing anything wrong. They just we all walk into
you know, jury duty with our own life experiences and beliefs,
and a good lawyer in vaire, which is the process
of asking jurors potential juris questions, will understand and appreciate
and learn what those those life experience has led that

(41:17):
particular juror to believe, and if that doesn't fit your case,
then they need to be excluded. And then you also
find jurors that are clearly, you know, not because they're
doing anything wrong. Biased is a word that has a
negative connotation, but some people walk in and they just think, like,
for example, you know I could never find against a child. Well,
if I'm a defense lawyer on one of my cases,

(41:38):
I have to tell the judge look, that jury can't
be fair and needs to be excluded for cause. So
jury selection is huge. A lot of cases are won
and lost in juris selection. Another thing that happens is
a lot of cases are settled right after jury selection
because one side or the other won't necessarily be happy
with the jury they ended up with.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Really true. Another thing I guess I always found interesting
was the psychological component of it I've seen. I don't
know when this changed. Maybe you know, I have no idea,
but I know I actually should know this stuff. But
I never knew. When the defendants in a criminal case,
you see a lot of them dressed up in suits

(42:20):
and things of that nature instead of their prison or
jail outfits. And I get it, there's a psychological component there.
If I'm a jury member and I see this person
dressed in a suit, I look at them differently. How
does that play for you? In a civil case? Doesn't
matter how your the defendant looks, I mean the plane
of how you look.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
It does it does. There's a lot of it. I could.
I mean, we can talk about this for a long time.
So you know, let's start with the lawyers first. You know,
I want to my goal when I walk in and
try a case is to be the most credible person
in that courtroom. I want the jury to think that
everything I say is credible. I'm authentic. I am who

(43:01):
I am. I don't try to be or tend to
be someone else, because authenticity, to me matters. I dress,
you know, I obviously have to wear a suit. I
was taught at a young age that if you wear
suits that keep the color of the flag red, white,
and blue, you won't offend anybody. And that's never really
left me. So I do own a lot of blue

(43:21):
suits and white shirts and red ties. Could be it
could be nothing, Carlos, but you know, we each have
to have our thing. I want my client, who most
of the time is sitting next to me at a
council table in a jury trial, I instruck them how
important it is to gain credibility with a jury number

(43:43):
one and to pay attention to what they're doing in
a non verbal fashion, because jurors don't just listen to
a case, but they watch. So I need my client
to dress appropriately for the courtroom. I need my client
to not make faces at or scoff at certain events
in a way that could, for some emotional reason, anger

(44:04):
or turnature against him or her. I encourage clients to
express whatever true emotion they have during a case. Tears
are fine as long as they're legitimate, actual true tears. Right,
don't fake it, be authentic, do your best not to
alienate anybody, and realize that you're being watched from the

(44:28):
moment you leave your car in the parking lot of
the courtroom to the moment you get in your car
from the courtroom. And I make that distinction because you know,
when you're walking from the parking garage to the doors
of the courthouse, particularly when the trial is just starting,
you don't know who are jurors. So don't say anything.
Don't do anything that someone might hear you say. When
you go down the hallway to use the restroom, you

(44:50):
might be in a stall next to a juror. They're
always being watched, You're always being judged, So be authentic
and be credible. That's interesting.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
I saw something one of the shows, and we're hitting
that direction on a second to see when you think
about the TV shows and how they represent law, but
this made sense to me. Whether it's legal, whether you
guys do it or don't do it, I guess we'll
find out in a minute. But to me it was
interesting because they had people watching the jury to see
how they took certain arguments or how they handled certain witnesses.

(45:19):
So then they can come back and say, hey, you
know what, Brian, I don't know. This guy didn't wasn't
happy when you said this. Is that something that actually
does happen?

Speaker 2 (45:26):
Absolutely? So you know, I never I should say never.
I rarely would try a case by myself, meaning there's
always going to be at least one other lawyer from
my firm, there perhaps multiple. And part of that is,
you know, if you're if you're the lawyer who's actually,
like everybody sees on TV, standing up and asking questions
of a witness, you don't you're focused. You're singularly focused

(45:49):
on that witness and your next question. I don't have
that lawyer doesn't have the ability or it's a challenge
to also observe everything else that's going on in the courtroom.
So the general rule of thumb is whoever's not directly
answering or questioning a witness. Those other lawyers need to observe.
How is the judge responding, How is the other side responding?

(46:10):
Are they doing things? Are they ruffling papers? Are they
fidgeting in their seats where you think, okay, there's a
there's a weakness there. And then most importantly, how is
the jury reacting to the testimony. I know a lot
of lawyers will hire courtroom observers with they'll actually sit
in the audience and their job is just to watch
the trial and report on what they see and hear

(46:32):
that perhaps the lawyer wouldn't catch on.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
To interesting were in our last five minutes again, folks
managing partner Brian Williams of Greenberg and Gross LLP. Can
find them at GG trial Law dot com, GG trial
Law dot com. In the last few minutes here the
last two questions one, how important is the judge? Do
you know the judges? Typically? I guess that's two part question.

(46:54):
And then the last question are TV? Do the TV
shows do a good job?

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Do or don't? There you go, Yeah, so I'll adjust
your question about judges first, yeah, you know, depending on
the county. You know, you may know every judge, or
you may know some of them, and you may be
in front of the same judge often or very regularly,
just depending on how big it is. But you know,
and through legal organizations or whatnot, there's a certain amount

(47:20):
of contact that most trial lawyers has with judges, and
you do get to know him or her and him
or hers and their tendencies as judges. They're judges for
a reason, though they're not biased. They're there to be
I refer to them as umpires, meaning they're there to
call balls and strikes. Good judges don't inject themselves too
much in the case unless they have to, meaning someone

(47:42):
in the courtroom is doing something wrong that they have
to stop, whether that's pointed out by an objection from
one of the lawyers or just something that the judge
observed themselves. But you know, yeah, you know, trial lawyers
on both sides know each other, they know the judge,
but not on a personal social level. I don't want
anyone to get the idea that cases are decided amongst friends,

(48:05):
because that's not the case. But you do run into
the same judges over and over again. I think judges
have very difficult jobs. The public may not always realize that.
Not only are there as they're presiding over a case,
you know, they have a thousand sometimes more other cases
on their docket and they have to handle those cases
as well. While they're in trial. They work very long hours.

(48:28):
It's a difficult job. I think it weighs on them
emotionally and they deserve our respect.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
Interesting, I guess the magic question is let me ask
it this way. Are there any shows that you would
recommend A to watch and B If you're gonna watch it,
just realize that everything is off anything like that at all.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Yeah. So recommending as a lawyer, like I had to
beat a lawyer, I don't know that I have one.
Some are more entertaining. You and I talked about this
CAUs my cousin Vinnie is a fantastic movie. No, it's
entirely accurate, but it's a great movie. If anyone has this,
that they should watch it. Here's what My kids ask
me this question all the time, particularly when they were younger,
and they would be you know, we would watch shows,

(49:09):
and now that they're in college, we've even watched Like
Suits together and they're like, how accurate is Suits. They're
like Dad, You're like Harvey Spector, and I'm like Suits
as an example, is a show that gets some things right.
It's some things are not nearly as dramatic as they
are on TV in real life. But the biggest difference

(49:29):
between TV and real life is the timeframe that we're
talking about. If you watch an episode of Suits, I'll
use again that example. You know, it's a thirty to
sixty minute show, and like they get a case one
day and three days later they're in trial. That is
just completely not reality. You know, on the civil side,
if I file a case tomorrow, I'm lucky in California

(49:51):
if I have a trial date within two years of
the day I file it. And some of those cases
last three or four years. It's different than criminal. Criminal
cases get prayer work because someone is typically behind bars
and their life, their ability to be a free person
is at stake. Civil cases take long. So that's the
biggest difference is it's like no one walks in the
door and you're trying the case the next day. Like

(50:12):
you see how respect of doing on Suits, it's a
very prolonged process. Again, as a generality, I would also
say that things aren't quite as dramatic in real life
as they are on TV. And that makes sense. I
don't think anybody believes that there's not a lot of
yelling and screaming in a courtroom because there's a man
or a woman in a black robe there whose job

(50:33):
it is to keep the decorum of the courtroom in order.
And yeah, there might be dramatic moments and some conflicting,
you know, or powerful cross examination, but no one's screaming
or yelling or throwing things at people like you see
a TV.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
Sometimes, no judge judy's flowing around.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
Well, I mean, there could be a little bit of
a judge judy, but the judges can get you know,
they're in charge. But I would just say it's it's
not nearly as fast as you see it on TV,
and it's not nearly as dramatic. There's parts of trial
law that become a little more mundane, and it's just
part of the process.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Makes me feel better about the life. I know he
dragged on some of those cases for a while.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
Yeah, Gowith Is is a good one. There's a there's
a movie that came out probably twenty years or so ago,
called A Civil Action involving John Travolta was in it,
and it was a case, if I recall correctly, it
was a like a contamination case where a company contaminated
groundwater and was sued for it. That there are aspects
of that case that are fairly realistic in terms of

(51:31):
how civil cases proceed. But yeah, I don't know that
any of them gets it exactly right, because if they did,
we wouldn't watch it right. Like as consumers of television,
we want to be entertained, and if you depicted it
like it was in real life, no one would watch right.
Nobody watched my job either.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
Once again, folks, Brian Williams, managing partner over at Greenberg
Gross l LP, can find him a gig Trial law
dot com gtrial law dot com. You can also email
them if you have something or know somebody who might
need help at b Williams at GG trial law dot com. Brian,
I can't thank you enough for spending time with us today.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
It is my pleasure. Carlos, thank you learned a lot.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
I hope you folks learned a lot as well. And again,
if you know anybody who may need their services, or
you yourself, find yourself in a particular situation, Lord forbid
that you may need their services as well. I highly
recommend them. Go check them out. You know what to do, Share, subscribe,
hit that like button you know we like it, doc
delier everyone,