Bernard Alexander – The Beauty of Employment Litigation, from the Lawyer Who Won $136M Against Tesla

Voice over (: 00:02

Ready to take your verdict and jury selection to the next level? Jury consultant, Harry Plotkin and trial lawyer Dan Kramer are your ticket to tipping the scales before trial begins. You're not just picking a jury, you're picking justice, produced and powered by LawPods.

Dan Kramer (: 00:21

Welcome back to another episode of Picking Justice. I'm very excited for this one. I have a fellow Southwestern alumni, but here with us. Harry, what's going on, man? We almost got the gang back together and picked the jury together this week, but the judge says there was no jurors available for us. I think he saw you and got scared.

Harry Plotkin (: 00:38

He did, yeah. And all those damn Lemon Law cases apparently means we couldn't get any jurors.

Dan Kramer (: 00:44

We were so close to trying our first case together in probably a year or two, right? I can't remember the last one.

Harry Plotkin (: 00:49

Yeah, for sure. I've

Dan Kramer (: 00:50

Been doing it with your wonderful wife, Claire, recently, but we'll get that soon. Without further ado, I'm really excited for this episode. I've been trying to get him on our podcast for a long time, but the great Bernard Alexander who's won Trial Lawyer of the Year with almost every organization in the state of California, Cala Trial Lawyer of the Year, San Francisco Bar Association Trial Lawyer of the Year, Langston Trial Lawyer of the Year. I noticed, Bernard, you didn't put Southwestern Alumnus of the Year on your website yet. And so we got to get that on there.

Bernard Alexander (: 01:20

I do have to get that on there. It's everywhere else, I'll tell you that. And I'm having the same bad luck as you. I was supposed to be in a trial with Claire and the court had another case in front of us. It's like the third time we've been continued. So they're trying to block the Plotkins from having another trial victim.

Dan Kramer (: 01:36

I know. Anyway, so we're really excited to have you. Bernard has had just some of the most amazing employment verdicts, but he also does some personal injury, I know, but really one of the top employment lawyers out there recently had a $136 million verdict against Tesla, which I think is the largest single plaintiff employment verdict. Is that right in the state of California?

Bernard Alexander (: 01:55

Race harassment at the time, yes.

Dan Kramer (: 01:57

Yeah, that's truly an amazing verdict and very excited to have them on. So with that, let's jump right in, Bernard. We recently talked to David D. Robertas. He was our first employment trial lawyer. I know he's a good friend of yours. We're excited to have our second one here, but I know you do some personal injury and I just want to hear how your approach is different when you pick a jury in an employment case versus a personal injury case.

Bernard Alexander (: 02:22

With employment cases, the beauty is all those people on the jury, or at least most of them are employees. And so the idea is without telling the step-in shoes of my client to get them to step into the shoes. So when I'm asking the jury questions, I'm trying to find out their experiences, particularly employment, bad experiences they've had with a bad boss or a bad investigation. They've complained about something and how that has gone and try and get information from the jurors so that when I start to tell the story, I emphasize those parts of the story that they've already experienced so it can accelerate the process of them bonding with my client and my client's experience.

Dan Kramer (: 02:57

So you do want to find out, I imagine most people have had a bad experience. How do you ask that question to get that information if they've had a bad experience at work? Do you just ask it as simple as that?

Bernard Alexander (: 03:07

First ask, has anyone ever made any complaints inside the workplace about anything or know someone that has? And there'll be a few people that will answer and tell me about that. Did you have a good experience or a bad experience? Why was it good? Why was it bad? And then hope that it has a popcorn effect and other people raise their hand and say, "Oh, I had that as well." That's oftentimes a good entry point, people who have had bad experiences with the employer. You get enough of those people when the defense has to use their peremptories. So regardless of the fact that you've identified them, generally you'll start to get people in the same vibe of bad employers generally do the same bad things.

Dan Kramer (: 03:42

So those questions are obviously not to find out the bad jurors for you. Are you worried that question would expose the bad jurors for the defense too quickly? Or do you find that inevitably you're going to start getting the management type or the HR types who are going to be like, "I get too many complaints. People complain too much." How does that evolve?

Bernard Alexander (: 04:01

There is always going to be a danger, but first you got to gauge the jury and asking that question kind of does gauge the jury. People who have been employed any length of time, someone's going to have a bad boss, someone's going to have a bad HR experience. And so finding that out, finding out who those people are is helpful. But you're not just going to find out the favorable witnesses, you're going to find out the HR people or the people that are aligned with the employer and they're going to basically perk up and tell you the story. So it's not so much to figure out biases of who is figuring out receptivity. How receptive are they going to be to the story?

Dan Kramer (: 04:33

Harry, I wanted to ask, you handle a lot of employment cases. Is that usually how you set yours up or do you set it up any different to start, to kind of get the conversation going?

Harry Plotkin (: 04:41

Yeah, maybe a little different. One thing I definitely agree with Bernard is a lot of lawyers start out with a real, real negative stuff and I don't think that sets a great tone. I mean, I think because then they just start to, jurors are going to kind of focus on the stuff that's kind of right in front of them. And if you're right off the bat, you're talking about bad employees and BS lawsuits and false claims and headaches for companies and everything. It can kind of snowball, inspire a little bit. So I think I always like to start out talking about something to do with the defendant and their thoughts on what defendant's employers should do in certain situations. And the good ones will tell you good things and maybe the bad ones will tell you some bad things, but at least they're talking about mostly like our themes or the defense themes a little bit and at least we're kind of starting to gauge who's good and who's bad.

(: 05:25

I will say though, a really important thing that I'd like to talk about that I think is really interesting that Bernard brings up when you have a case like an employment case where you have jurors where almost everybody's experienced these issues. It's not like some patent case where people are like, "I know nothing about the science or med mal. I know nothing about this. I've never had this condition. I've never thought about a surgery." I love to ask about jurors' expectations about the workplace because they have such different expectations, depending on what kind of companies they work for, bad bosses like Bernard said, or good bosses or fair HR or unfair HR. And the one thing that I always find is that expectations in any type of case, but especially when you have a kind of case that your jurors can relate to, really sets how they view the case.

(: 06:06

A few times I've heard judges, the lawyers will be talking about something like, "How is your company do this or that? How do they investigate things or do you have progressive discipline policies and do you have to have a verbal warning before you fire people? " And sometimes judges will step back and go, "Can you set aside what your company does?" And just they may have a different set of rules. The jurors will say, "Of course." But the reality is, right? No, they don't. I mean, people take a look, they're going to compare what they're used to to what happened. And if the defendant didn't do what they expect their company to do, they're going to get annoyed and pissed off and go, "That's weird, that's suspicious." If they work for a company and they're like, "I've never seen a company do random drug testing." They're not going to be critical of a defendant that didn't do it.

(: 06:44

But if they expect progressive discipline and steps and documentation, they're going to be very critical of a company that didn't fire somebody without a writeup. Talking about what they expect is a huge part of it. And I think that's kind of one of the things I love that Bernard's talking about, how HR does things and what they're used to with bosses. That's so important.

Bernard Alexander (: 07:00

When we start off when we're picking a juror, we have these expectations in our own mind. When I'm picking a jury and I see a person who's from the government, a government employee, government employees have certain expectations as the way things are supposed to be, but they also have this skewed experience of knowing that there are these little fight thems and supervisors are going to do things a certain way. And so they have a baseline of what they expect and what they know they're entitled for. People that work in unions, they have an elevated sense of what they should get and what they're entitled to and the protections. If you can figure out the experience of all these different people that you have on the jury and know what their level of expectation is, then you can know what to expect from them or try and anticipate or try and feed them the right information so that they will apply that to your client who made a complaint and HR didn't react to it or half-hearted investigation.

(: 07:48

Jurors who have experienced that before know the signs of when something isn't being done correctly. And so finding out that baseline, how they're going to receive the facts is really helpful in terms of picking who your jury is or ultimately, regardless of the jury that you get, finding out the best ways of presenting evidence to them and how they'll treat it.

Dan Kramer (: 08:07

Do you find generally speaking that people that do work in government jobs or do work with unions will hold a private corporate employer to a much higher standards? Are those kind of target jurors generally?

Bernard Alexander (: 08:19

It's an exception when I don't want them on my jury. There's a reason why people are government employees. There's certain things that tie them where they want to be there for the long term and they know that they're subject to the whim of their supervisor. They know how the rules work. So I want that mentality. People who work in unions, unions have better treatment than average circumstances. So I want them because they have an expectation that the way they're treated is the way everyone should be treated. And it's those types of norms, the way people treat the workplace that I want to find out early on so that hopefully every juror that comes up agrees with that outlook and it makes it harder for the defense to choose which people they're going to get rid of.

Dan Kramer (: 09:02

Yeah. So like the union guy's baseline, that becomes the minimum threshold for the rest of the jurors a safety rule essentially. Harry, I wanted to ask about, I'm really interested in this. So you start out, at least you suggest your attorneys to start out the employment questioning of asking individuals, what do you expect from your employer? Is it just really that broad and then see where they respond?

Harry Plotkin (: 09:23

No, it's-

Dan Kramer (: 09:23

So you're that specific. Okay.

Harry Plotkin (: 09:25

It's specific stuff.

Bernard Alexander (: 09:26

Do you believe employers should be fair to their employees? That's one of the questions that you gave me a long time ago.

Harry Plotkin (: 09:31

Yeah, I've done that before. Yeah, just kind of general, but usually it's like something really at the core of the case and really specific about whether how investigations are handled, how disputes are handled, how they treat, for example, if you have a case, employment case where plaintiff was fired and there was no performance improvement plan, no write-ups, no counseling. And you may talk to them about like, "Do you feel like employers have an obligation to give warnings or give counseling?" And who here has ever actually struggled in a job and gotten some mentoring? And because those jurors I find are great. They're like, "Yeah, they did that and I turned around and I have a great employee." And then they go, "Why the heck is this company?" They just immediately fired this person without even a warning or a second chance or even an attempt to get them better.

(: 10:11

They just seems like they just want to get rid of them, right? But if you're used to a workplace where, no, they just fire you if you're not cutting it, you're not shocked and you're not suspicious because in employment cases, you're always looking for pretext, right? You have to find jurors who are willing to say, not just like that's wrong, but that's so weird that they handled that way. They must be covering up a real reason why they fired them, whether it's age or gender or whistleblowing or disability or whatever it is. So you're always trying to find the jurors who are going to look at what a defendant did and go, "That doesn't match at all what I've seen." That's super strange. But luckily in employment, everyone's got a job for the most part. Everyone's got an opinion and everyone has expectations that totally set how they react to these things.

Bernard Alexander (: 10:49

I'm going to give you an example of a circumstance where you find out that an employer is in a great job. They don't treat it with the same reverence that other employees in the tech industry up in San Jose. I've tried a couple of cases, had a case where I thought dead bang liability, but my client was from the tech industry and the people on the jury were mostly tech. And when they heard the facts, even though there was direct evidence that the employer had knowledge of our client's disability and fired him because they thought that he was going to be off a long time, the jurors basically said, "Well, you're fungible. All you got to do is go next door and you can get the same jobs. It's inconsequential. So what are you complaining about? " So that mentality of feeling empowered because you're the ones in the control so you can find a job anywhere, that changes the outlook of the jurors.

(: 11:32

Those tech jurors figured, why are you complaining? I'm always looking for those jurors to think that you shouldn't be bringing a lawsuit. Just move on and put it behind you. And that's not always possible for everyone. That's why it's difficult to accept young jurors, young employees who have not had a long-term job who aren't necessarily committed to their job and don't understand the import of once you lose your own job, it's difficult to find a new job or things of that nature. The experiences of the jurors is really important because who you're telling your story to is important to the outcome of your case, the choices that your jury makes.

Dan Kramer (: 12:05

I imagine that becomes a question though. I mean, it's like the answer you just gave. I often find this, I think when you really think about how to ask the question, your voir dire or you do focus groups, it's oftentimes the answer someone gives can turn into a question. It's basically like, you said, Bernard, that some juror was just like, "Well, they're very educated. They can just get another job. They shouldn't be suing. That could just be a question. Who here thinks that someone who's highly educated in this environment here in Silicon Valley that they shouldn't be suing, they can just get another job? Does anyone feel that way already?" And then I imagine that, yeah, you're going to get a lot of hands up and then that you're going to find those jurors that are going to say that. I think that's a lesson for all types of cases.

(: 12:39

I really do. I think the answers you get from jurors, either past cases or focus groups, turn them bait into questions if everyone's starting to say the same thing.

Bernard Alexander (: 12:46

In fact, it's better when you get it from the jurors. When you can use a juror's question to turn it around and ask them and get them talking to each other, you find out so much more. That interaction between jurors that are in the same boat, it kind of warms up the jury. There's a book, 12 Jurors, One Voice. It warms up the jury and gets them to become a unit, but it also gets people to be more candid than they would be. It's one thing if they're talking to you as the attorney, but if they're talking to each other, you get lots of information and you get a sense of who they are and how they think. And I think that's very helpful.

Dan Kramer (: 13:17

Let me ask you, Bernard, in the employment much more than PI, obviously, is you're dealing with a lot of circumstantial evidence. Do you voir dire on circumstantial evidence because obviously the manager's not going to have an email being like, "We fired him because he's Black," obviously. So do you voir dire on that? Or Harry, do you?

Bernard Alexander (: 13:33

I do. Has anyone here or someone you know ever experienced discrimination or harassment? And I get people talking and try and get others talk and the people that talk identify who they are and get a sense of them. But the people that aren't talking, those are the ones that I really want to talk to. And in one of our cases, Harry was the person there we're there and a woman in back, we're in federal court, we finally get to ask questions and she's a doctor. And I say, "Have you ever experienced discrimination before?" And she says, "No." And I said, "Well, you work in kind of a male environment. There's never any times where even though they haven't done it overtly, you were being subjected to an unfair workplace or being treated differently. Oh no, never. That who can never be on my jury because not only can she not see it, because how can you be working around a bunch of male doctors and never have experienced that?

(: 14:17

She's actively looking not to see it. And that's a person that I absolutely can't have on my jury. So you got to find these subtle ways of finding out what people's real feelings are. She sounds like a lovely person, but she can't be sitting on my juror in a discrimination case.

Harry Plotkin (: 14:32

She's also a German too.That's a whole nother issue.

Bernard Alexander (: 14:35

Survival of the face.

Harry Plotkin (: 14:36

Not always, but jurors from other countries, they just do not get our civil justice system. I remember once I had this Jones Day lawyer, she was a partner of Jones Day, thick New Zealand accent. She was from New Zealand. I was like, ask her. It was some kind of a personal injury case. And I was like, ask her how she feels about our civil justice system. How do you feel about our civil justice system? And the idea that we use money to compensate. And she went off. And this is a woman who is part of our ... She's a lawyer. She's part of our civil justice system and she is like, the way that it works here that she's in is the stupidest, most terrible. And you're like, wow. You'd be surprised at how many people from other countries they just don't get. You asked them that question.

Dan Kramer (: 15:12

Oh, the French? I feel like we've had a few French people on our ... They really did not like our system at all, at least the few I've talked to.

Harry Plotkin (: 15:18

It's so unique to the United States and some love it. Some are like, no, that's one of the things I love about America. But I would say 80% of them are just like, no, it's terrible.

Dan Kramer (: 15:27

Because I think Bernard said something really key is that she chooses not to see it. I think that's a really important point that I don't want to go miss is that I imagine in a lot of the employment cases, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, is that you could get these Pollyanna type employees who just like their company could do no wrong, companies don't do wrong and then they're going to give the benefit of the doubt to the corporation, to the employer just because of their, like you said, they choose not to see it.

Bernard Alexander (: 15:53

During voir dire, I asked one of these questions that doesn't necessarily get a response, but it gets body language. Does anyone here feel that discrimination no longer exists? It's the body language that says more. And for some people, does everyone here agree that discrimination still occurs inside the workplace? And I get hands that shoot up and then I get followers that don't want to be outside the group that will also put their hand up. You got to be really paying attention to see those people so you can circle back and talk to them because there's a reason why they didn't raise their hand because they don't feel it. They believe that discrimination is exaggerated or people make up excuses for being incompetent employees. They're the ones that are going to be looking for some other excuse to explain why this happened as opposed to the reason you're trying to prove discrimination of whatever form.

(: 16:37

Sometimes you ask questions that you're going to get a pat answer about. That's why I look for the raising of the hands because that raising of the hands, that is a tell as to who's really in and people who have experienced, yeah, that's still happening. I know it's happening in me. And those people that are, well, people say it's happening, but I don't really believe it.

Dan Kramer (: 16:56

It's funny here, we often talk about judging someone by their race or even their job necessarily is not going to really help you, at least in PI. I'm curious how you both jurors race in a racist or sexual orientation, religion, just like someone who has a similar to the plaintiff, how much does that factor in for either of you?

Harry Plotkin (: 17:12

I mean, I think that it's in employment or anything, but certainly in employment, there's a lot of counterintuitive stuff with jurors. I think a lot of jurors who have had bad experiences in the workplace, first of all, the defense lawyers will usually strike them because they don't know any better, but a lot of those folks, I mean, we talked about this. Remember when we had Jennifer Keller on a couple episodes ago, two people's same exact experience can go completely opposite ways. It's how they take it. And so there's a lot of jurors who have been treated poorly in the workplace who kind of say, "I'm angry at employers. There should be better employee rights and this pisses me off when they do this. " But there's some who are just become really jaded and cynical, right? And those are actually the most dangerous jurors. The people who kind of go to the working world is just kind of unfair.

(: 17:51

I've asked that question many times. Anybody here kind of feel like the working world is just not supposed to be a fair place. And if you expect it to be fair, you're just kind of being naive and maybe foolish. There's a lot of jurors who feel that way. There's a lot of people too that have experienced discrimination that aren't very sympathetic to somebody who has experienced a different type of discrimination. I've seen a lot of jurors who African American jurors who maybe have experienced really significant discrimination and then you have maybe a white plaintiff who is an executive or something and they're like, "Come on. " And you'd think that, "Oh no, but they've just experienced discrimination too." But certain types of discrimination, they don't really relate to them. In fact, they go, "Oh my God."

Bernard Alexander (: 18:29

I absolutely agree. It's one thing for people to acknowledge that discrimination exists and be able to see the signs, but different groups, different subsets of your jury will treat the discrimination differently. Sometimes a person being discriminated because they're gay, people don't respect that type of discrimination. It's not there. Or someone being discriminated against based on their disability, they say, "Well, yeah, but that person gets an advantage over me. They get to do this or that. And it isn't enough for people to be similar to your client. They've got to be receptive to the story and receptive to the idea of fairness and justice. If they have their own biases and they only feel that way because of their own biases, that may not get you where you want to go.

Harry Plotkin (: 19:10

Yeah. I just saw just a couple days ago there was a pretty big race discrimination verdict in Stockton. Do you guys see that? And I was looking at it and I'm like, wow, Stockton is not the ideal place for an employment case." I'm looking at it and I'm like, "It's a white guy." The villains and the story of the defendants were some DEI. It was like a DEI thing. I'm reading the story and I'm like, "Oh, now you see why in Stockton, it was a white male plaintiff who's basically saying I'm the victim of DEI reverse discrimination." And so it totally flips the types of jurors that you're looking for if you're trying that case is very different than in a different type of discrimination case. So not every discrimination case, different discrimination cases and different set of facts, totally different types of jurors that'll be ... And normally you'd want somebody who supports DEI, but here it's like in Stockton, they got a huge verdict probably with a bunch of folks who absolutely think DEI is the worst thing in the world and probably would actually tell you most discrimination cases are BS, but it's crazy.

Dan Kramer (: 20:06

The defense attorney was too confused, didn't know how to get cause on the ... They were just like, maybe that's what happened.

Harry Plotkin (: 20:12

It could be. I know. I've seen it before.

Dan Kramer (: 20:14

They're like, "I always want the Trumper on my jury. What am I doing? I don't know what to

Harry Plotkin (: 20:17

Do. " I know, but I'm like, "I see what happened in this case." Years ago, Claire tried a case. It was a crazy case where it was like a defamation case. This woman had alleged that she had been sexually harassed by her boss. He was suing her for defamation and the lawyer who was representing the woman was like, "Well, I'm the defendant." And started picking a bunch of jurors who were just typical defensers, which is exactly the opposite. And it just got creamed in that case. And it's like, "Just because you're the defendant doesn't mean that all the jurors are the same. It depends on ... "

Dan Kramer (: 20:45

Yeah, there's a lot of strange bedfeld. It's so different than PI in that regard because we follow pretty similar formula.

Bernard Alexander (: 20:51

Then you can really make a difference and your socioeconomics, you're in downtown Los Angeles where you expect jurors to be a certain way and then suddenly out of the blue, you've got all these people who own their own business. You can't assume that when you walk in the door that the people are who you expect they're going to be. It's about finding receptive jurors, not necessarily finding jurors of a certain type.

Dan Kramer (: 21:12

I just want to kind of hit an employment you have to deal with so many different controversial salacious topics. In a sexual harassment case, I mean, how do you breach that with the jurors?

Bernard Alexander (: 21:22

I start with baseline. Do you think that employers are supposed to be fair? Depends on the circumstances. With some cases, the issue is someone has made a complaint about sexual harassment and the employer knows about it, but they protect the employee that's the harasser. And so in those circumstances, I'm trying to figure out how I can make the employer the bad guy, not just the guy that harassed, but also the people that should have protected the employee. Or sometimes it's a flipping of the coin. Who are you going to believe? The man who said it didn't occur or the woman who said it did occur. And so depending on the circumstances of the sexual harassment, that's how I address the jurors, try and figure out the receptivity.

Dan Kramer (: 22:01

They rubber stamped it basically. Yeah.

Bernard Alexander (: 22:03

You can't use peremptories on everyone. You know the defense is going to be using the peremptories on your best jurors. So the issue is the people that are left, are they going to be receptive to hearing your story? Sometimes I pick the lesser of two evils. Okay, I've got these jurors, that guy over there, I know he's not going to vote with me, but he's not going to persuade anyone else. I'm going to leave him on the jury. Those other two people, I think I can get nine, but I've got these two people over here. If I can just get them to listen, if I can get them to get angry at this guy, it's like you're making all these choices. And with sexual harassment, it often is that's the case. You got to make selective choices and hope that the conduct is so bad, the circumstances, the optics are so bad that they're going to be willing to listen and be willing to hear you so that when you get a critical point, they'll decide, okay, more likely than not.

(: 22:49

That's one of the circumstances where the more likely than not, if they'll follow the rules and you can get them just to the edge, you can get them there. That's kind of the approach I take.

Dan Kramer (: 22:57

Harry, how do you introduce sexual harassment like your attorneys too?

Harry Plotkin (: 23:00

The topic of sexual harassment?

Dan Kramer (: 23:02

It seems like there's different ways to approach it, I imagine.

Harry Plotkin (: 23:04

Yeah. It depends on the specifics. I mean, if it's something that was witness and corroborated, if it was something that is just a he said, she said, if it's something that was all those things, yeah,

Dan Kramer (: 23:15

Like a he said, she said. That's kind of a tougher one where they kept the harasser and fired the victim, I guess, something like that.

Harry Plotkin (: 23:22

Yeah. Or sometimes I see in these cases they'll do an investigation and they'll be like, "Well, we determined that they were both sort of consenting and so we fire them both or something for inappropriate." I've seen that before. That happens a lot. In those cases, sexual harassment, sexual abuse cases, usually you'll often get a questionnaire and we'll ask a ton of questions about, have you seen it happen? Have you seen victims? Have you been a victim? But on the other hand, I think it's really important to also ask, have you ever seen false accusations? Do you think that they're believed too quickly these days? How do you feel about the Me Too Movement? Did it go too far? All these kind of things to kind of get it, are these people who just hear an accusation and they get angry and feel like, oh my God, you have to prove it thoroughly.

(: 23:58

I mean, I also would want to know in a sexual harassment case, because usually there's most sexual harassment cases or it's not like rape or something like that. Their views are like, do they expect a sanitized workplace? Some people do. Some people have rules of like you can't even hug somebody versus you come from a workplace where people kind of do this kind of stuff all the time, sexual banter and flirting and stuff like that. So what are their expectations about how clean a workplace should be and are they going to be offended by it or do they think, "Oh my God, that's nothing. Why are you ... " So there's a lot of stuff to get into with sex harassment. Yeah.

Dan Kramer (: 24:31

It's kind of like how we were talking about for a premises case. It's like, do you expect pedestrians to be just as careful walking on a sidewalk as they are walking on a construction site? It's kind of similar. It's all relative, right? Working on an oil rig, do you expect them to use the same language as working in an office or whatever it may be and then you find out what the jurors who work in construction may have a very different viewpoint on words you can say as opposed to ... Bernard, do you find the same experience?

Harry Plotkin (: 24:55

Yeah, it's all relative. Yeah.

Dan Kramer (: 24:56

Are you asking, is it never okay anywhere?

Harry Plotkin (: 24:59

Restaurants are the worst. They are bad, man. Kitchens.

Bernard Alexander (: 25:02

Well, how about this? Women are hit on all the time. So suddenly you're on the jury and you're talking about a case and you're talking about subtle sexual harassment and it wasn't a sexual assault. It was just harassment, verbal things to sort of act. Sometimes women who have been hit on that are not sympathetic because that's a matter of life. I mean, you can't get on a bus, you're always going to be looked at, you're going to have this. So why are you complaining about this? And so being able to explain that this was a hostile work environment all the time which people can get their work done. Some people will be more receptive to that than others. And I find oftentimes female jurors are tougher, particularly with female jurors addressing what meets the threshold of justifying making that complaint.

Harry Plotkin (: 25:46

For the same reason that we've talked about with other things where people have had discrimination, whatever they're similar, people who've had injuries and personal injury cases. I mean, some of them are going to be jaded and some of them are going to judge somebody harsher. I wouldn't have done this. If they say, I wouldn't have done this, this and this, if I was the plaintiff, they're going to be tougher. And then they're also comparing. I mean, do you want somebody who's experienced much worse sexual harassment than the one that in your case? Probably not. They're going to give you millions of dollars. I mean, but I mean, the defense will probably strike them, but probably. But at the end of the day, if they're not, do you want that person if it's like, "I've had much worse." I mean, that's not-

Dan Kramer (: 26:18

No, not at all. Why would you ever want that, especially when they got nothing?

Harry Plotkin (: 26:22

It's not good either.

Dan Kramer (: 26:24

Going back to how you flip their answers into a question, do you say, look, you're going to hear about how she was hit on at work and all this. Does anyone hear any women here, do you think that getting hit on is just kind of a part of life and you shouldn't sue about it?

Bernard Alexander (: 26:36

A long time ago, I made a mistake of identifying by person. So I probably wouldn't say I try and circle in. That's the question I want to ask.

Dan Kramer (: 26:44

Yeah, you're right. You shouldn't say whip probably. Yeah.

Bernard Alexander (: 26:46

I got to talk to the women. I try a subway of getting there, but you're absolutely right. I'd want to know. What's the standard by which you determine whether it's appropriate for people to complain? Is it okay to complain if you're uncomfortable with something or is there an objective standard by which, "Hey, keep your mouth shut until it reaches this. " And then how about with gay sexual harassment? You have two people that are the same sex and there's a complaint about that and how do you deal with that? And I've had circumstances where it's been the same sex type of harassment inside the workplace and how people deal with that. Yes, it's inappropriate, but the thing is people don't necessarily give everyone the same freedom to complain that they give people that are heterosexual. So you've got to deal with that with regard to the jurors.

(: 27:30

So the circumstances of the sexual harassment really do determine what you have to do, which means you can't prepare for every voir dire the same. You've got to take the facts of your case, figure out how best to ask the questions and take advantage of answers to get so that you can spread the questioning and spread the, find out what's out there. It's a blessing when someone has a bias inside the jury and they speak up and they talk about it so that you can then bounce that off other people.

Dan Kramer (: 27:57

On the other end of this break, I want to talk about how you prehab the anti-corporate jurors and then how you talk about money to get these amazing verdicts for someone who's not physically injured, which is truly incredible. So let's take a quick break. All

Harry Plotkin (: 28:10

Right. So I'm super excited to talk about one of our newest sponsors, a company I've wanted to work with for a long time, Focus Graphics. They are specialists in demonstrative trial graphics. Basically, you as attorneys, you tell the story of your case and you rely on Focus Graphics to do the visual storytelling. They do animations, they do medical illustrations, things like that. And the thing that makes focus graphics different, for those of you who haven't heard of them, I'm sure most of you have, but they're the only visual company that actually focus groups their work. So obviously I love that kind of thing. They actually test it with jurors and see what jurors think and tweak it based on what feedback they get, which is something you should be doing anyway. And so that additional service ensures that your jury is not the first to see your visuals.

(: 28:49

They have an in- house team of animators, illustrators, visual consultants to ensure that your medical and forensic and engineering visuals are all accurate. They do those super detailed medical illustrations, but they also do demonstrative, persuasive ones as well. I know they worked with many of the lawyers we've had on our show already and some of the ones upcoming, they tell me over 20 billion in verdict and settlements based on their work. And they've worked with Nick Rally, John Marco, Samantha Thiel, who's on our episode who just got that $300 million verdict. To Dickerson, Jude Basile, Kurt Zehner, Kale Paris, Lourdes Armis. And of course, Sean Claggett, because Sean is part of the company and his brother Seton runs the company. If it's good enough for Sean Claggett, I'm sure it's good enough for you guys. I would encourage you to work with them. They're playing a focus.

(: 29:29

If you want to get in touch with them, contact Seton Claggett. His email is seeden@focusgraphics.com and give them a try because they're terrific and we can't use enough help in our trials. Trial is a team thing. So excited about Focus Graphics.

Dan Kramer (: 29:41

All right, welcome back. Thank you again to our sponsors. And I also want to give another shout out to LawPods as always for making this possible. But I want to jump in, Bernard and both Harry. We've talked about this in previous episodes of this concept of pre-habbing where you got some really great jurors for you and they've expressed huge Such anti-corporate sentiments or they're angry at just corporations, how they treat people and they're really great for you, but you think that you can insulate them from a cause challenge just by getting them to set aside their corporate anger and not necessarily just believe that this corporation is terrible yet. Do you spend a good chunk of your voir dire on that? In PI we do sometimes, but it's like obviously it's got to be a big corporation. But employment, again, a lot of the people are like your client and you're suing a big corporation.

(: 30:26

So how are you going to protect your best jurors from cause?

Bernard Alexander (: 30:29

Absolutely have to pre-hap. And Harry and Claire have both talked to me about the best way of doing that, saying there's a difference between having a bias and having a conscious. Having a bias is saying without hearing any facts that, oh, I'm going to favor one side or the other. But having a conscience is saying, "Hey, based on having heard these facts, now there have to be consequences to bad conduct." I try and do that subtly. When I get a juror that tells me something that's really great and I know that they're going to be dinged by the other side, I'm not really talking to them. I'm talking to the other jurors saying, "You've said this and I want you to understand that the other side will get an opportunity. I want you to be very candid. But at the same time, just because you believe in small businesses and you favor big companies over smaller companies because you think it's better community, that doesn't mean that you can't be fair to that large company, is it?

(: 31:20

" And so I go through and do that and I'm looking at all the other jurors. I know that juror that has spilled their guts and said, "I hate corporate America and all this stuff. They're gone. You got to let the others learn from that. " I incorporated into my discussion with the juror that's going to be lost so that the other jurors will understand the consequences.

Dan Kramer (: 31:38

You're protecting the cause so that they have to use a strike on that. To me, that's the biggest. I mean, Harry, what about you? I mean, in your employment voir dires, are you writing the prehab pretty early or getting to it pretty early?

Harry Plotkin (: 31:49

I mean, lately I've actually been doing it a little bit later just because I don't want to just get them talking first. I mean, I think in assessing who you need to prehab, why prehab somebody who later on you're like, "Oh, that person's terrible." But yeah, for sure you got to do it because it's just so dangerous these days. I mean, so many jurors just are so angry at corporations these days and it's so easy for defense to get them off for cause if we don't at least educate them that just because you don't like corporations or you're angry at some of the things that they do doesn't mean that you can't be fair. Yeah. I mean, I'll echo what Bernard was saying about consciences, but really the best way to frame it is if you're going to vote for against a corporation no matter what the evidence, even if they didn't do anything wrong, then that would be a bias.

(: 32:26

And we can't have you here. I mean, that's a rally thing of saying it wouldn't be right for me to have you here. If it depends on if they did something bad or not, that's just being a juror and you're allowed to get upset at the evidence. If it depends and then you can convince that person, "Hey, as much as you hate corporations and generally, and you've had bad experiences with employers or whatever, but the evidence right now, I mean, both sides know what it is. If Tesla's sitting over there and they know this evidence is really good for them, they didn't do anything wrong. Should they have any reason to be worried about you at all as a juror if they didn't do anything wrong, the evidence is going to convince you? If they're worried because the evidence is really bad for them that they don't have a right to get rid of you.

(: 32:58

But I will say that, gosh, I mean, just to show you how easy it was. I mean, I was picking a jury last year with ... The last one I picked with Dear Birdis and the defense counsel asked the jurors, it was a case against a healthcare company and said, "You remember when that UnitedHealthcare CEO got killed and murdered and shot in Manhattan? How many of you cheered?" This is in downtown LA. How many of you actually cheered and celebrated? And several, many hands went up. That's how bad it is, how bad it has to be for a dozen jurors in downtown LA to be like, "I don't feel bad about telling you that I celebrated when a guy was murdered." Now, she did not close the loop. She kind of left it at that and she tried to get them for cause and the judge and we convinced the judge, you have to establish that that's going to interfere with their ability to be fair.That's not just automatically means they're ... And so they didn't get cause on it, but had she closed that loop and we hadn't done anything to prehab them, you're probably going to lose a lot of jurors.

(: 33:52

So you just have to do it first because we don't get to come back and rehab them after the defense gets a chance to get their hooks in

Bernard Alexander (: 33:59

Them. That is one of the benefits of having a jury consultant sitting there with you because oftentimes we make that jump. We understand the question that was asked and we understand the consequences, but there's that step that's in between that we don't focus on. And that's what you got to explain to the judge just because they said that that's not enough. And sometimes in the heat of battle when you're thinking, you got all these things to think about, which jurors, which this or that? And you hear that and then all of a sudden you're stuck, you need that extra person who has seen this day in and day out and picking jurors three, four times a week to say, "Wait, but they haven't done this. " So you can explain to the judge why it's wrong. Harry and I were in a trial years ago and I had to think about it when we're in a trial, age discrimination trial where the defense had asked a question essentially saying, "If you favor corporations and you can't be on the jury." And the judge had adopted that.

(: 34:47

And I got up and I pushed back excessively hard. The judge basically gave me a timeout. I had to push back because that was going to get rid of all these jurors and that's not enough. The bottom line is you've got to be able to take the questions that defense is asking and separate between, well, yes, that shows the potential for a bias but not an actual bias because just because someone disfavors corporations doesn't mean they can't be fair to a corporation.

Harry Plotkin (: 35:12

When you're voir direing about who's experienced an unfair boss or discrimination in the workplace or whatever and they're giving you this good stuff, what do you say to them to try to get them to also say that they can be fair? If I'm a juror who's saying, "Yeah, I just had so many jobs where they just wouldn't promote me because of the color of my skin or my gender or whatever." And how do you talk to them and prehab them?

Bernard Alexander (: 35:31

I don't know whether I'm effective, but one of the things I do is I say, "Well, you understand that your experience is unique to you and not employers are like your employer and you haven't heard anything about my client or my case or this employer." And you understand that employers are companies, but it's people inside companies that make these discriminatory decisions. So you don't know anything about these people about that. And so can you sit and determine whether in this case the facts warrant this or whether in this case it's a bad employer? Because we all understand that the company itself, it relies on the employees that are in them and they might have great employees. And so that's what I do, try and distinguish the circumstances and say, you understand that you have to look at these facts at this employer. It's not that all employers are bad.

(: 36:11

We're suing this employer and you have to decide whether they were bad.

Harry Plotkin (: 36:14

I don't think there's anything wrong with telling them too, and because jurors don't understand that this is not a bias, but if you were the victim of discrimination, if you hear the evidence and they did the exact same thing to my client, you're allowed to say that's discrimination too, right? Just because you've experienced it doesn't mean now you're not a judge of discrimination. Does that mean that you're going to say that everything, accusation of discrimination must be true because it happened to you? And they're like, no, of course not. Okay. So you can judge it too. I mean, you can almost maybe judge it more than anyone else because you've actually seen what it looks like. But as long as you can judge fairly, it's like somebody, if a juror was like, "I saw my spouse, the doctor cut off the wrong leg and that's malpractice." That means that you can't determine ever another doctor cut off somebody's leg, the wrong leg too?

(: 36:52

I mean, it's- Well,

Bernard Alexander (: 36:54

Yes. In fact, we used the Batson Wheeler motion because our defense attorney decided that because this person had experienced discrimination, they couldn't be a fair and impartial juror immediately did the batson on that. So you're basically going to say that there can't be any African American jurors on the jury, not an African American person who hasn't experienced discrimination. That's not fair, right?

Dan Kramer (: 37:13

Have you both seen judges grant cause in a discrimination case just because another juror had experienced discrimination? Are they more inclined to do it?

Bernard Alexander (: 37:21

Yes.

Dan Kramer (: 37:21

Well, and the law in California got much better on that for us. So I do want to ask how you talk about money in voir dire in these employment cases, but the non-economic damages. Do you talk about unvoir dire and then do you also, maybe in your mini opening, do you talk about how much you ask for or in employment cases, do you specifically wait on that because you haven't earned the trust yet? What are your thoughts?

Bernard Alexander (: 37:42

I never specifically identify a number, but I do earn the voir dire. I ask them, is there some number without hearing any facts above which you would never consider? For example, if we were to say we're seeking $5 million in this case, does the possibility of that number just completely you say, "No, I'd never do that. " Have you already decided without hearing any evidence that you would never consider some number above and somebody have throw out a number? Oftentimes they'll be jokingly says, "Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to go above $10 million." And I says, "Well, all right, is there anyone here who would not be willing to go above $10 million?" And I take advantage of that and then I say, "We're going to be asking for a substantial number." We wouldn't have you here on a case that was of no significance.

(: 38:20

It's an important case. The damages are important and at the appropriate time I'm going to tell you just how severe those damages are. But I break it down to, we're going to ask you about economic damages, but the economic damage is going to be easy. It's just adding up and figuring out how long, but it's the emotional stress is important. Do you value emotional distress? Can you put a number on the value of emotional stress in this case? Do you believe it's important? Because it's for me, and that's why the damages are so up. It's the emotional stress damages that really drive the case. I don't want to deal with $50,000 or $75,000 because that anchors it. I want to be able to say it's not about the economic damages, it's about the emotional distress.

Dan Kramer (: 38:58

Before you do that though, do you introduce the concept of awarding money for emotional distress, such as who here feels that things like emotional distress, you shouldn't really be suing for those kinds of damages. Do you introduce it softly or do you hit it straight on with the money question?

Bernard Alexander (: 39:13

I've already asked questions like, has anyone here or someone that you know experienced what they believe to be emotional distress? Tell me about that. How did it occur? Does anyone feel that you can suffer emotional stress as a result of losing your job or as a result of how you're being treated inside the workplace? Tell me about that. At some point I'm going to be asking you for damages. Do you feel that emotional stress damages are real and if we were to meet our burden of proof, would you be willing to award monetary damages, money for the harm suffered as a result of that emotional distress? And then only after I do that do I talk about the numbers? So it's first a commitment that it's real. Next, it's a commitment that you'd be willing to award damages for it and then next that you'd be willing to consider damages that are in the stratosphere.

Dan Kramer (: 39:54

And what about like a low wage earner who you're going to ask for many millions of dollars for? Do you hit that head on and say is-

Bernard Alexander (: 39:59

I have the most difficulty asking for lots of money for people that are making $200,000, $300,000.

Dan Kramer (: 40:05

That's not even a low wage earner. I'm talking like ...

Bernard Alexander (: 40:08

No, no, but that's my point. For a low wage earner, I can say, "Hey, look, the moment that they lost their job, they didn't have the ability to do other things. They were immediately going to ... Their family was going to be kicked out of their apartment. They were going to lose their car. There were absolute consequences. The defense is going to talk to you about the fact that they didn't seek treatment. They couldn't afford to worry about the emotional stress treatment. They had to worry about their family. For me, it's easy to deal with the low wage. It is hard to deal with the person who's got that line of credit, who's got the credit cards, who's got other things so that they've got a soft cushion. They're the ones where I've got to work with the jury to get them to give me a lot of money.

Dan Kramer (: 40:42

Or if they've gotten another job six months later too, but their claim is still worth a lot. So I mean, Harry, how do you deal with those two different scenarios in jury selection?

Harry Plotkin (: 40:50

Yeah, I mean, I've had cases in employment. I mean, I remember one retaliation case where a guy got fired and he immediately got another job making way more money from ... He was in Orange County and he had to move his family out to Phoenix. He loved living in Orange County and he wasn't happy about it, but still, but obviously waived economic damages. So usually economics are waived in these big cases. I usually don't talk about economics in these cases, but the other concept that I think is really important to talk about for the reason that Bernard just brought up, which I love saying and Keith Mitick, I just heard him when I was speaking at his conference too, said it too, which is like, now would not be the right time for me to tell you how much I'm asking for because ... And I promise I'm going to it when I can actually explain it.

(: 41:28

It wouldn't be fair to you for me to throw out a number right now and tell you, "Are you okay with this number because you don't know anything? And I haven't explained this number. I don't expect you to ... " I love it when lawyers say, "Your number right now should be zero."

Dan Kramer (: 41:38

In this trial I was about to start, you wrote that. That's the first time I'd seen you write that. I really liked that a lot.

Harry Plotkin (: 41:42

It's really important to introduce that concept, especially in employment cases where more than any other kind of case, they don't get it. Why emotional distress, millions of dollars? I get it if it's like a guy is in a wheelchair or somebody died or somebody back fusion or something and they can't work. So it's really important in employment. I always like to introduce the concept of holding them fully accountable and money is the only way. We're going to tell you at the end of this case that it's going to take millions of dollars to hold this company fully accountable for the suffering that they caused my client. And then when you throw that fully accountable, it really changes people's, oh, they get that to a lot of conservative jurors, that's the hook that gets them like, "Oh, that's a good reason to award a money. Why would I order a lot of money for emotional stress?" Oh, because that's the only way you can hold them accountable.

(: 42:23

Oh, okay then.

Dan Kramer (: 42:24

I'm getting some judges pushed back on not allowing, especially if it's a non-punitive damage case to say that. Honestly, I think it's fair game. There's no good case in California that gives me that yet, but there's also no authority to say that-

Harry Plotkin (: 42:35

I had a defense lawyer bitch and moan about it, but the judge was like, I mean, that's part of it is it's not only the damages, how much, but also it's against this particular defendant. That's how you hold them accountable.

Dan Kramer (: 42:45

For night well, in a PI, it's for negligence. You hold them accountable for negligence, their neglect.

Harry Plotkin (: 42:51

If you say fully accountable, you got to say, for the harm they caused, the harm that their choices caused, for the suffering that they caused him, if you just say, hold them fully accountable and then you stop there, then it starts to be ... Are you talking about punitives? Are you talking about sending a message? Because you can't say that.

Dan Kramer (: 43:04

Hold them to account the money. I don't know. I mean, Bernard, how do you handle that for the non-punitive phase?

Bernard Alexander (: 43:12

I am ambiguous and I say to hold them accountable. If I'm in my opening, I'm certainly going to tell them. And actually in the voir dire, I'll talk to them, I says, "And in this case, we're going to be asking for punitive damages to punish." How do you feel about that? Does anyone feel that they're wrong or could not give them all that stuff and walk through? In this case, we're going to find out conduct that a managing agent allowed to occur or ratified or that. You'll get to decide whether that's true, but if we meet our burden of proof, is there anyone ... And I go through it and get people to commit that they'd be willing to punish or that they understand that punishing is the only way to hold people accountable under circumstances where they've broken the law. If they aren't willing to do that, then I get to damn.

Dan Kramer (: 43:46

I think holding the accountable is great. I think half the judges are going to balk at that. I think you push it. Yo try it until you get the objection, but it does make sense to me.

Harry Plotkin (: 43:55

I've had very few judges actually, I can't even think of any that said you couldn't say that. Maybe one in all the years that I've been doing it.

Dan Kramer (: 44:01

Well, you've tried way more than I have.

Harry Plotkin (: 44:04

At worst, they'll say, "Maybe don't say it again or something."That's the worst you'll usually get.

Dan Kramer (: 44:09

With that, I do want to, for our California listeners, a new great case came down. I don't know if you've seen it, Bernard, but it's called People verse Dean, D-E-E-N. It doesn't even have a Westlaw number, but it's 2026 Westlaw 926611. It's the first time I've ever string cited in the podcast history, I think. But it's a great case because basically what happened in that case is that there was a juror who was ambivalent and seemed like they were biased, but then the defense said, "But you can be fair, right?" And then the judge really struggled because he felt that they were biased, but then the judge says, "Well, look," but he did say the magic words, so therefore I'm going to let him offer cause. This case actually says that just saying the words I can be fair is not enough for cause. You have to look at their body language, you have to look at the way they've given other answers, but just to give them the cleanup final conclusive line saying, "I can be fair," is not enough for cause.

(: 44:59

It's a phenomenal case. I love it. Actually, Judge Marianne Murphy in LA, many will know. She's the one who told me about it and she agreed. I spoke on a panel with her recently and she's a tough judge, but she said that the bar for cause actually should be pretty low. Jurors need to be put through the ringer and they have to commit to being unbiased and this case, keep it in your arsenal. I have a brief, I just updated my for cause brief on it, but the totality of the circumstances, if they say that line, I can be fair, that's not enough to deny a cause challenge. People verse Dean, D-E-N, I've been wanting to record a podcast where I can give that plug. Bernard use it. Please, everyone use it because I think it really goes to the heart of judges need to look at everything.

(: 45:39

It's the most important to sit a fair 100% neutral juror and just by saying the magic word is not enough.

Harry Plotkin (: 45:45

Here's what I do worry about though. It is a good thing and you use it.

Dan Kramer (: 45:48

Okay, tell me. Tell me why it's bad, Harry, please.

Harry Plotkin (: 45:51

It's not bad, but let me tell you the danger of it, which I've seen before, because I've seen some judges even before this kind of use the concept of just discretion. I've seen, I remember there's this one judge who, he's not a bad judge, he's not a good judge. He's retired now, but anyway, but he would just basically pick whichever side he liked better. And if he didn't like your case, he was just going to destroy your case and jury selection. And if he liked it, he was going to help you. And he would just go, I remember there were cases where you'd just sit there and he would go, you get the juror to say all the right things, he'd be like, "Your honor, we want to get this juror for cause. He said he can't be fair. He said he's biased. H said we're behind, all this stuff." And he would go, "He said all those things, but I was also observing him and I could just tell my observation of his body language and everything.

(: 46:27

He didn't really mean these things and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and so denied." Or he would go the other way. If he liked your case, the defense would be like, "This guy said he'd be fair." And he'd be like, "Yeah, but I was observing him and I saw his reactions in his body language and I determined that he's not telling the truth." So it does kind of give judges the discretion to basically say, "I'm going to overrule what they said based on what I say I perceived." So I obviously like the fact that just because the defense can come back and say, "But you can be fair, right?" It gives you an opportunity to say, "You can't just go by that. " But at the end of the day, if a judge is, they're still going to do what they're going to do. And if you have a judge that's not so fair to you, they can almost use this to say, "Well, I know what you got him to say, but everything else tells me that he's fair."

Bernard Alexander (: 47:06

Judges are one of the most important parts of the trial because you get to know your jurors and if you don't know, regardless of how good your case is, if you don't have a receptive jury, it does you no good the facts are irrelevant. And sometimes judges, when they don't make those cause findings in the right direction, they're stealing one of your peremptories, which shapes the jury. And if it isn't your last peremptory, then it goes away because you can use your peremptory and so no consequence. But that really is unfair. And the consequence is that your choices in terms of picking the jury are justice because the judge has either overexercised the peremptory, given away a juror that hasn't really met the standard of showing bias or forces you to use a peremptory. And so it forces choices. Sometimes judges inadvertently do it because they have made a good faith choice.

(: 47:54

Other times they're making a choice to basically move the case along.

Dan Kramer (: 47:58

I mean, obviously you have more experience, but I mean, I do feel like that a lot of times the defense will just get up there and just try to get the magic words more. I feel like this can be used better for us than the other side.

Harry Plotkin (: 48:10

It's a good thing for sure. I'm for it and I think it's mostly positive. I'm just saying it also though creates even more possibility of an unfair judge. It probably doesn' change anything because the unfair judge is going to probably always do what they're going to do. But now they're even more covered by the law that says, "Hey, I have discretion to sort of overrule what they said based on all these other factors that I'm observing." And I think it's a good thing. I don't think it's going to change anything too much.

Bernard Alexander (: 48:32

Until you've been in federal court and had a federal judge basically say, "Can you hear me? Are you breathing?"

Harry Plotkin (: 48:38

That's to me, I always explain that's what federal judges do. They go, the first question, they don't know anything about the case. You all follow the law that I give to you regardless of whether you disagree with it. And they're like, "What else am I? " It's all theoretical. I go, "Yeah." And they expect that if they say that, now it's true. If I said it and I'm a judge, I'm here, there's not a single law that they won't disagree with. Then I could probably tell the jurors that it's okay to drive 180 miles an hour. 3 BAC and they'll all follow it. But the federal judges really think that. Their word is like gospel and jurors will just listen.

Dan Kramer (: 49:06

All right. Well, with that, the great Bernard Alexander, thank you so much, man. I love seeing your career and look up to you and these great verdicts you keep getting.

Bernard Alexander (: 49:16

Thanks for the invitation. It's always great to speak with you too. You're doing great work. You're going to have to show me how to do PI work so I can chime.

Dan Kramer (: 49:25

No, don't take my cases, dude. I'll stay out of employment. All right. Well, thank you everyone. Thank you to LawPods and all our sponsors. We look forward to seeing you on the next one. Thank

Bernard Alexander (: 49:34

You.

Dan Kramer (: 49:35

Take care.

Voice over (: 49:37

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