Come Back With a Warrant
Episode 28: From Student to Shark: Career Moves That Change Everything
Hosted by Brandon Dinetz and Monica Ishak
Intro
Brandon: Welcome back to Come Back With a Warrant podcast. I'm Brandon Dinetz.
Monica: And I'm Monica Ishak.
Monica: Before we kick-start this week's episode, this is your reminder that this podcast is not legal advice. It's real, unfiltered, and for entertainment purposes only. If you need to speak with a lawyer, call one. Or better yet, call us.
Brandon: Call us.
Episode
Brandon: So we're back this week. We've got a new episode for you, and we are talking all about what happens when you are done with law school. It's time to take that step into the real world of getting a job and what that process is like, but then also the process of changing jobs once you are in the legal profession and you are an attorney. You know, we're talking post-passing the bar. Really, you are ready to go out and take the world by storm, and it's time to figure out what that job is. So we're gonna be talking about, you know, your first job isn't always your last job in this world, especially in this career.
Monica: Yeah. Definitely.
Brandon: But what that move is all about, and what the moves you can make throughout this career are. Because one of the benefits about being a lawyer is you really aren't tied down to just the practice of the law, and you aren't tied down to one area of the law. So —
Monica: Hence this podcast.
Brandon: Yeah. Exactly right. We get to do this.
Monica: Yeah. We get to practice, and you literally are living it out.
Brandon: We were in court this morning, and bounced right from court to here to shoot a podcast.
Monica: Yeah. And it's like, you get to have opportunities to do a lot of different things because —
Brandon: Yeah, we're lawyers.
Monica: Well, yeah, exactly.
Brandon: Yeah. And we're running our own businesses.
Monica: Yeah, well, that's the other big factor.
Brandon: Yeah. And that's not something that everybody does right off the jump, getting out of law school, but some people —
Monica: Some people do, yeah.
Brandon: Do go out and hang up their own shingle —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: And they do a great job. Other people don't.
Monica: I'm like — yeah.
Brandon: I didn't.
Monica: No, and I always had a question mark about those people initially, because I was like, how do they even know what to do? How do they even know how to practice law? Because we're gonna talk about this, but I think the process of what Brandon's talking about starts a little bit before you graduate law school, because I was a CLI, and I think you said you were too, before —
Brandon: I wasn't.
Monica: Oh, no. Okay. Which is a certified legal intern, and you can technically — I don't wanna say practice law, but you can talk in court, you talk to clients, you're involved in cases. And that is kind of the introduction of the practice of law, and that's before you have your own job to, you know, have your own cases and all the things.
Brandon: It's definitely a different responsibility, because a CLI is, like, very low pressure, I think, kind of. I did my first trial as a CLI. It was like — I did, like, nothing compared to what you actually do in trial. Like, I literally read the JOA argument off the paper. But still —
Monica: Judgment of acquittal. Yeah. For those of you who don't know what a JOA is.
Brandon: Yes. Yeah, I was asking the judge to throw out the case even though we all knew it wasn't gonna get granted, but it's just a part of the process.
Monica: Right. So I think that — and we've talked about the process of becoming, of applying for the bar, and the CLI status is something you get designated or approved by the Florida Bar in order to be able to do it, and that's something you start doing first year of law school, to be able to take the bar exam. We've talked about this before. Like, you start your application process then, and that's, like, the same application process for when you become a CLI. There is, like, so many different intersections of transitioning jobs, and like I was saying, when it comes to people who were starting their firms fresh out of school, I was literally like — it was like — I don't know. I think it was just, like, when I say question mark, I think I was more so, like, how do they get this knowledge, and the confidence, and the audacity to really just go out and practice law, figure out business, figure out so many things? 'Cause up until this point, taking the bar exam, going through law school, and doing a lot of hard shit — running a firm is probably, I think, the hardest thing I've had to do up until this point. You don't agree?
Brandon: I think working as a waiter is still harder than running —
Monica: What?
Brandon: Your own firm.
Monica: Really?
Brandon: Yeah, I still think so. I still think that that is the hardest job I've ever had, was being a waiter at Houston's, a head waiter with, like —
Monica: Oh, that's like —
Brandon: Three or four, six-top tables or more.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: It's a fucking hard job.
Monica: Well, first of all, Houston's is, like, a good restaurant. It's like a nice restaurant. It's not, it's not like —
Brandon: That was a great job. Yeah. And I only had that job in between college and law school. I took that job because I graduated —
Monica: You were probably getting paid, like, as much as a lawyer.
Brandon: I got paid more there than I did as a state attorney. For sure.
Monica: That's so real.
Brandon: Oh, for sure.
Monica: That's the reality of, like — I complain about being — like, I talk about that being the hardest job I had. I was only a waiter for, like, I don't — maybe four months.
Brandon: Wow.
Monica: Maybe a little bit more than that, but —
Brandon: Sounds like you got promoted quickly.
Monica: I did. I did really — I don't know what it was, but I did really well there.
Brandon: Your charisma?
Monica: It was a lot about charisma, I think. Yeah. And I interacted well with the clients.
Brandon: Yeah. And it was a very good job, but it was —
Monica: That's so crazy that you say that's what it —
Brandon: I still think that was harder than —
Monica: Oh my gosh. Well, I've never done it, so I can't say that, but — 'cause you don't have, like — I mean, you do have nightmares about the bar exam, but you don't really have — I don't really have nightmares about the job that I have now.
Brandon: Like, I did have nightmares about missing a table, or forgetting an order, or some shit like that from that job. Like, that was a really stressful job.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: So this is not.
Monica: Yeah. You know. Wow. Well, I think the part of entrepreneurship — and, you know, before we get into transitioning between jobs — but the part of entrepreneurship is the different hats that we have to wear. That's why I'm like, am I missing something? And when we talk about stuff, I'm like, I need to write it down, 'cause I literally will forget. Like, I need to put it in my to-dos. We have so much shit on our plate all the time.
Brandon: Yeah. Literally. We do wear a lot of different hats.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah. But literally —
Monica: Yeah, shit on our plate from last episode.
Brandon: Yeah. Well, not — nobody took a shit on a plate, for those listening. We had a story about —
Monica: Yeah, somebody —
Brandon: Stay tuned —
Monica: Defecating in the courtroom.
Brandon: And that episode is either —
Monica: Out.
Brandon: Is out now, yeah.
Monica: Yeah. So make sure you listen to it. It's the episode with Fabby in it.
Brandon: Yeah, that's a good episode.
Monica: But —
Brandon: They're all good episodes.
Monica: Yeah. But after CLI, like transitioning from CLI — and also, for me, I was a CLI during that waiting period, waiting for the bar exam results. So I had gotten hired at the public defender's office and you're just kind of like in a waiting period, and we were working on like appeals and stuff, and then they were like, okay, well if you're a CLI, you can work on cases with other attorneys, and that was like the introduction of practicing law for me. The real shit didn't really like hit the fan until I became —
Brandon: Until after.
Monica: Yeah. Until I became an attorney.
Brandon: Once it's your time — you know, you're the one that has to put your name on the documents and, like, everything that you're saying, everything that you're swearing to, is like, oh, okay, like —
Monica: It's me. I mean it. My ass is on the line. Like —
Brandon: Right. And that makes it all really different.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: Because when I first was at the state attorney's office, I wasn't a CLI, but I hadn't passed the bar yet, so I was, like, a support role almost. But I was given a lot of the same jobs that the assistant state attorneys were when it came to doing discovery or starting to negotiate cases, but then I couldn't do certain things.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: I couldn't sign my name.
Monica: Like speak on the record or sign, yeah.
Brandon: Yeah, right. And the day that I was able to sign the first document that dismissed the case, like, I thought that was really cool.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: Like, I had a lot of power.
Monica: Yeah. And also, that shows that I had other plans in the future because the most exciting thing was signing papers —
Brandon: Dismissing — dismissing a paper, dismissing a case.
Monica: Yeah, you're like, I will happily dismiss this.
Brandon: I was like, awesome, I get to get rid of a case. Look at me.
Monica: And now, I love when people sign those pieces of paper. That's like my favorite thing to watch someone sign one of those pieces of paper, but —
Brandon: Yeah. Good for us.
Brandon: I think one of the big things — you go from talking about it in law school and then being about it once you pass the bar, and the pressure is on.
Monica: Uh-huh.
Brandon: Because you have to be responsible for really everything that you're doing.
Monica: Mm-hmm.
Brandon: And I think there's different — obviously there's different avenues when people leave law school, right? You have the people that go into public service, the public sector —
Monica: Us.
Brandon: Which is, right, us. The public defenders, the state attorneys. You have people that go off into private firms, right? All different types of civil firms or criminal firms that they could go into if they wanted to at that stage. Or, you have the people that hang up their own shingle.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: Or you have people that are just like, I'm not becoming, practicing the law at all. I am a lawyer, but I want to open a restaurant or I want to open a business or do something else, because being a lawyer gives you the ability to do those things.
Monica: Yeah. And also, I think in law school, there's this — I almost forgot, because I was telling you I was talking at an event last week and they were talking about, like, big law, and they were asking about big law. I don't mean to laugh, but it's just funny to me 'cause it like slipped my mind that that was a thing. Big law meaning, like, big law firm.
Brandon: Yeah, like —
Monica: Or working for companies that are — it's like a very prestigious job, or being in-house counsel and having that, which I had that position briefly at an insurance company, but it has kind of this — in law school, when you hear, like, a big law position or in-house, you are kinda trained to be like, that's like the prestigious job that —
Brandon: Sounds very prestigious, right.
Monica: Yeah, it's like the job that pays well. It's the job that, you know, you'll get, like, apparently a lot of experience at. But it's just funny to me because I had like a brief feel for it, and I completely forgot that it existed. But in law school, it's like some people who, especially people who I think are like top of the class or like the overachieving people, think that that becomes their goal.
Brandon: Mm-hmm.
Monica: And so it becomes something that's like the competitive thing to do. And so you either have like that type of person or like the person that's like, I would generally wanna be in the courtroom or wants to be like a public defender or state attorney or wants to start there so that way they can get their experience and then go out and do whatever, X, Y, and Z.
Brandon: Well, yeah, and you make a really good point, because when you're in the position that you're deciding where you're gonna go right after law school, that question is paramount. I think if you're gonna stay in the legal practice, the question that you have to ask is, do I wanna find myself litigating cases in a courtroom?
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: Or, do I not wanna be inside of a courtroom? That's really important because that's gonna lead you down the path of what your career's —
Monica: Huge.
Brandon: Really gonna be like.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: If you wanna take a position where you don't wanna be in a courtroom, then a big law firm at first, when you first go there, that may be great for you.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: For somebody like me, when I was in law school, I was doing mock trial. I didn't wanna do anything other than be in the courtroom.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: The idea of sitting behind a desk and only —
Monica: Help.
Brandon: Doing research, that sounded terrible to me.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: I mean, there's no way I was gonna do that. And a lot of people go to these big law firms and think, I'll be in the courtroom. And no —
Monica: No.
Brandon: They're not at all in the courtroom.
Monica: No.
Brandon: Maybe not for years —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: Until they've been there for a long time. And it's not the same at every place, I mean, but —
Monica: No, but still, generally I would say that is kind of a good rule of thumb. What you're saying is true.
Brandon: Yeah, I mean, you're gonna go to a big firm, and you're gonna be doing the grunt work for —
Monica: Used and abused, honey.
Brandon: For hours and hours and hours, and what happens at some of these places, not all, is you have a meeting at some point where they say, all right, and what type of business have you brought in for us? And you're looking at them like, I've been in the basement this whole time.
Monica: Yes.
Brandon: How can I have brought in any business at all? All I do is live and breathe and work here —
Monica: That's so true.
Brandon: Twelve hours a day. And then some of those firms are like, well, all right, great, you're no use to us anymore. Let's go get the next crop of new law students that think they're the brightest and they can come in here and do the same thing you did. That's a scary part of big law. Now, that's not all firms, but that is something —
Monica: There is a toxic work —
Brandon: That a lot of people experience.
Monica: Yeah, there's definitely a toxic work culture. I don't wanna say everywhere like you're saying, but generally, it's a corporate job. And not only that, you're amongst a lot of successful attorneys. So not only is it a corporate job where you would expect kind of like what a corporate job would have, you also are in a competitive field —
Brandon: Hmm.
Monica: Amongst other very brilliant and successful and experienced attorneys who have the power and tell you that they're the partner, you're the associate, you need to go do whatever they say. And then they'll ask you to also participate in like the bar organizations and get involved and they'll pay for you to go to all these things, but it's like, with what time?
Brandon: Right.
Monica: So I have some friends that are still in big law and, listen, the paycheck is nice, I will say.
Brandon: Yeah, you get paid well to have no time —
Monica: Exactly.
Brandon: To spend that money.
Monica: It's a trade-off, and that's the thing —
Brandon: Right.
Monica: When you choose to go to, like, either public defense or the state attorney's office or even legal aid, any of those public service type jobs, you are gonna be in the trenches in the sense that you are gonna be in the courtroom fighting every day, you're gonna be getting real good experience, you're gonna become a really confident, strong attorney in the courtroom, but the trade-off is you don't get that paycheck. You don't —
Brandon: No.
Monica: You don't work 12 hours a day. I mean, there are days where you may, but it's not regular, it's not a common thing.
Brandon: No, it's a nine-to-five job. I didn't treat it as a nine-to-five job, but a lot of people do —
Monica: You can.
Brandon: Treat it as a nine-to-five job. There is no obligation. And that's correct, because you're working for the government and you're getting a solid paycheck, solid benefits, and you're required to put in the hours that you're at the office.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: And that's how some people treat it, and I think the people that treat those jobs in a sense like they are the higher paying jobs or they are the jobs that you would work more hours at, those people don't wind up staying at the state for — they usually have different —
Monica: Plans.
Brandon: Different ambitions along the lines. Not to say that — because I know people that worked for the state attorney's office that would put in hours as if they were getting paid overtime.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: And they were not getting paid overtime.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: But they were really dedicated to the job and cared and, you know, the person that I'm thinking of right now, he is at the AUSA's office and he does the same thing.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: He's not even getting a paycheck right now and he's still in the office.
Monica: Wow.
Brandon: So, you know.
Monica: But it paves the way for your next opportunity. And in terms of when you're in school — I didn't have conversations like this, I didn't hear this type of conversation unless you are actively seeking, like, hey, what do I do if I wanna be good in the courtroom, where can I go? What do I do?
Brandon: Mm-hmm.
Monica: And I wanna be in criminal law, where should I start? At the state, should I start at the PD? What is best for me? There's so many questions, but there is really no place to go in school, 'cause I think they just put kind of big law on a pedestal in a way, and you could be easily influenced, if you don't know any better, to want to pursue the highest paying job or the most prestigious job, because it sounds great on paper. But I think it's super important to talk to people who are actually in it and, you know —
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: Interview those people too. Like, not just be interviewed by them and think like, you're not gonna have a job. That's the other thing. We are so needed just as attorneys generally — that was kind of my thing that I told myself when I was gonna go out on my own, that worst-case scenario, there is a job for me somewhere.
Brandon: Mm-hmm.
Monica: Like, I'm not worried about living and paying bills. There may be a time that it will be, but that's just the journey of having your own business. But if it doesn't work out, I will have a job, you know, and I'm not worried about that.
Brandon: Yeah, and you've put in the time. And there's always — I mean, it's not like you couldn't go back to the public defender's office and —
Monica: Exactly.
Brandon: I'd like to think if I ever really wanted to, I could go back to the —
Monica: Back to the state.
Brandon: State attorney's office and —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: That's just something that we, I think, us as individuals and the type of work we put in, that's something that we have built just by our own hard work and then developing credibility to go along with that. And with that, you know, when I left law school — when I was in law school, actually — a professor, Professor Flynn at Nova, asked me what I kind of wanted to do, and I said, I wanna find myself in a courtroom. I'd like to be a defense attorney one day. I don't really know how to go from point A to point B.
Monica: Exactly.
Brandon: And I think going out and hanging my own shingle from day one is really the right move for me.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: And he said, I'm going to set you up with a meeting with somebody that I want you to just go talk to. And he set me up with a criminal defense attorney in Broward, and I went and met with him, and the guy was really busy, a big-name defense attorney, and he said to me that if he was starting all over again, what he would do is go and be a prosecutor at the state attorney's office and specifically try to go to the Palm Beach state attorney's office.
Monica: Wow. That's legit.
Brandon: And I said, okay, and that was kind of what started the path of doing that. I never had any — it wasn't like I was like, yeah, I'm gonna —
Monica: Ah, exactly.
Brandon: Prosecute or, like, I definitely wanna work for, you know, take a government job out of law school. No. Like, I never had that thought. It was just, I wanna be in the courtroom —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: I love doing this, and what's the best thing to get me to kind of like what I'm doing now? And that was what I was told. So I think that the point is people don't have those conversations enough.
Monica: Yes.
Brandon: And you need to seek out the advice from people that have been doing this for some time, to see what you wanna do. My wife, when she was leaving the state attorney's office and finding her new job, she always used to tell me she would plan meetings and lunches with anybody that she could think of to have that, like, you know, not the what do I wanna be when I grow up conversation, but, what is the next step, and what exactly do you do for a living? And, okay, maybe that sounds like the right thing. And she was meeting with different lawyers in different spots and different areas. You need to seek that out. And that's the only way you're gonna figure out — and it also sets you up for doing what's right for you.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: Because you may just think, I never should be inside of a courtroom, or I should never be behind a desk. And one of those things may actually be the better choice for you based on your skill set —
Monica: Yes.
Brandon: Based on what you're able to do.
Monica: That's so true. That's so cool that she did that. I never did that —
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: Until kind of recently, and so it's invaluable, the wisdom you get from people who have already done it. Not only that, they connect you with people. They help you grow, seeking that, seeking lunches or emailing people. And now I have people that do it with me and I'm like, this is so important. So whenever I can, I try to help mentor people as well. But I also wanted to add, in terms of state attorney, public defense, these government jobs that don't pay that much but you get crazy experience, you can actually afford to do that in your mid to late 20s, which is oftentimes the age in which you are exiting law school. Obviously there are some people that go later in life or it's their second career or whatever.
Brandon: Mm-hmm.
Monica: But the bulk of people that go into the state attorney's office fresh out of school or the public defender's office fresh out of school, they're in their mid to late 20s, they're young. You don't have any really real responsibilities other than paying your rent and going to happy hour, so it's like —
Brandon: Right, it's your first time being done with school —
Monica: Yeah. You're no longer a student. Your first time being an adult.
Brandon: So it's your first time being really an adult —
Monica: Yeah. And being out.
Brandon: If you —
Monica: Exactly.
Brandon: If you just went right from high school to college to law school —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: And there were no breaks or anything, that's — yeah. And you're now out and most of the people in that position are like that.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: I mean, that's how I was.
Monica: Mm-hmm.
Brandon: That's how my wife was.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: That's how our friends were for the most part. It was, you're all, like, 23, 24 and you're just, you know — I described it like this in another episode. That's one of the reasons why I felt like it felt almost like an extension of law school, like your residency program —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: As a doctor. Going into that job, you weren't doing it for the pay, you were doing it for the experience, and there is a lot of work to do, and it is a lot, but it is an amazing segue from —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: Law school into that job.
Monica: It's so good, yeah. And the only downside really is the pay.
Brandon: Yeah, and that's the thing.
Monica: If you have a family, you have kids, you have to support your family, it might not work for you. So the best time to really get in that experience — and honestly, three years is the commitment time that they say there is. Obviously it's at-will employment in Florida, which means that you can leave any time and they can fire you any time technically, but at the end of the day, it's something that they still ask you to complete within three years, and three years is more than enough time to get the experience you need. Because just even, like, a year there — my mentors were just a year ahead of me. They were the ones teaching me, because the amount of experience you get in just a year there is insane. The caseload is crazy, you're in court every day, you're trying a lot of cases. There really isn't something you haven't seen when it comes to the caseload that you actually have. And obviously there are different charges you haven't worked on because you've only been there for a year or two years, but overall, you have pretty much mastered criminal defense, I would say, if you do your obligation there. Obviously there are going to always be things that you haven't seen. I think that that is the perfect setup, like you're saying, to the next thing that you need to go to. So even if criminal law is not even your goal, if you just wanna master the courtroom, I think either one of those jobs, if you wanna end up being like an actual litigator, whether it's civil, it doesn't matter, I think it's still going to be a great experience for people who just wanna be in the courtroom.
Brandon: Yeah, and there's a ton of people that transition from that. Jenn. Jenn is one.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: That transitioned exactly to the civil side.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: And they still manage to find courtroom opportunities on the civil side. And, I mean, Jenn's an excellent trial attorney and she honed her skills at the state attorney's office.
Monica: Exactly.
Brandon: And now she tries civil cases and she has more experience than a lot of older attorneys that she goes against —
Monica: Exactly.
Brandon: Because these older attorneys can tell her, okay, you know, wait till you see trial. And if you look, she's tried, you know, I don't know, a few hundred jury trials?
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: And this guy's maybe tried 20, 30 trials in his whole life. Like —
Monica: I had that experience as well.
Brandon: She, I mean, that's, you know —
Monica: I had that experience.
Brandon: That's badass.
Monica: Yeah, it is. And the thing is, they see a young female and they think that you really don't know anything, and I think they just make assumptions based off of that and they're like, oh, look at this little girl, and then it's like, okay, honestly I realize being in civil practice has made me realize that being underestimated is a gift. Because the amount of times that — I won't say that I've showed out every time in civil litigation, 'cause my first few appearances in court were not my best despite my experience in criminal. But that had more to do with myself than anything else. But at the end of the day, being underestimated allowed me to show out in times where people were not expecting it, and it was like, okay, well there are no expectations, so let me just show you what I know, and it ends up being, like, you know. I had my first civil jury trial with a partner at my first insurance defense job, and it was obvious — I don't know his trial numbers, but it was obvious that I had tried more cases than him, and so he at one point in the middle of the trial was like, you need to stop objecting. I was like, first of all, I'm a PD. It's what we do.
Brandon: Yeah, that's all you do.
Monica: It's all I do. And then at the end of the trial, the judge was like, are you a former public defender? I was like, yeah. And I took it as a compliment 'cause then he could tell that —
Brandon: Ah.
Monica: By my skillset —
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: He was like, I could tell.
Brandon: Well yeah, I mean —
Monica: It's like —
Brandon: That's really funny.
Monica: Yeah. And so the partner who had been with this company for I think over 20 years, and he's been an attorney much longer than me — he would look at me and ask me questions in the middle of the trial and I was like, this is your arena. I know how to litigate, but I also was still learning civil litigation in terms of what we were actually litigating. I think it was a plumbing case or something. I was like, I don't know. I just know how to object and make arguments and speak in court, but I don't know this actual area of law, you know? So it was very clear in that sense that —
Brandon: It's interesting because, you know, I've met — and just hearing stories from Jenn — met a lot of civil attorneys that are so schmoozy and charismatic —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: And —
Monica: It's all talk.
Brandon: Can really put on a bravado, and when they're talking with each other and they're, like, you know, negotiating, they're real tough guys and they're real, like, oh, this guy is really good at taking depositions and this guy's really good at mediation. And then they suck in front of a jury. Like, horrible.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: Like they lose and their very prestigious firm with its name on the building doesn't look very good —
Monica: No.
Brandon: When they get the reputation of — that guy, oh, they've settled X amount of hundreds of million dollars in cases, but he is garbage in front of a jury.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: And if the case is gonna go that far, all the defense firms should know that this big scary attorney can't cut it —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: In front of a jury. And that also means you can't cut it in front of a judge. So that's so telling. There's also a lot of civil attorneys that have come out of the same realm that we did, and those people know exactly how to do it and they are the real —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: I have a few friends that are at one of the bigger named civil firms, and I worked with them at the state, and some of them are partners there now, some of them are associates, and they are awesome —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: In the courtroom. But they never —
Monica: But it's all based on the experience.
Brandon: It's based on the experience, and also those guys aren't showy or —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: Come off like —
Monica: They know everything.
Brandon: Douchey at all.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: Ever. And that's not in that arena. Some of the civil guys that come off douchey, that can't cut it in front of a jury, they do that — that's —
Monica: It's coming from a place —
Brandon: All noise. It's —
Monica: It's coming from a place of fear. Like —
Brandon: Right, it's not —
Monica: It's just bullshit.
Brandon: And that's a big thing I think people, when they get out of law school, will see when they go into the civil world —
Monica: Yeah, and they —
Brandon: Is that some of the people — they get scared easily.
Monica: Right, some of the people that have the brightest colors or the loudest bark really aren't the ones that can cut it in front of a jury.
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: That's so true. And I think they also try to bully, in a sense, the younger lawyers because they're like, oh, like, you'll, you know — like, you don't know this — this happened a few times where people would lie to me because I didn't know any better and then I would be talking to my mentors in whatever it was I was learning and I would explain to them, this is what was told to me, and they were like, no, this is wrong, and they were lying to you. And then I just discovered, I really was — they were trying to take advantage of the situation and the fact that I didn't know any better as a young lawyer, or as a new lawyer in this area, and they lied to me. So it's just —
Brandon: You're also not used to that because even —
Monica: At the state they would never.
Brandon: I was gonna say, even with the reputation that criminal defense attorneys have, or the criminal law world has, there's — you don't lie to your — opposing parties aren't lying to each other.
Monica: Never.
Brandon: There's not — like, I may not tell the state attorney certain things.
Monica: Everything, yeah.
Brandon: That's fine, but the obligations I have and the relationships you have with the other side to make sure that you can have credibility to carry on with conversations you need to — there's — the lying is not —
Monica: I feel like —
Brandon: It gets you nowhere —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: And it destroys your credibility. Everybody's like, oh, that guy's a liar.
Monica: Yeah, and the thing is, the industries that you're in, whether it's criminal or not, they're small. You start to know the attorneys —
Brandon: Right.
Monica: And I don't understand the thought process behind it because — just like you're saying, you have to still engage with this person, whether it's on this case or another case. There's going to be future cases in which we are gonna have to deal with each other. Why would you kill any sort of credibility we have with each other when we have an obligation to try to resolve this outside of court before we get to court? And then when we get to court, and we're in front of the judge, I'm not talking to you. I'm only gonna be talking to the judge —
Brandon: Right.
Monica: At that point because I don't trust you.
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: That's just a side note. Don't lie to your opposing counsel, and if you get lied to, my advice in that situation would be, don't even engage outside of court. I would not even —
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: Bother.
Brandon: Don't forget —
Monica: I would just go straight to the judge and deal with it.
Brandon: Don't forget that they lied to you and put everything else from there going forward in writing.
Monica: Yeah. Yes. That's the other thing. That's the big one. Oh my God. I had to learn that kinda the hard way. Especially when you know someone's a liar, yeah. No, but also people forget things. This is — I learned this at the PDs with the state — is that an attorney would tell me an offer in court and the prosecutors have literally the whole docket, and so as a public defender I had a big docket but it wasn't the whole docket, so it would be a portion of it, and then I would negotiate with them in person, which was the best time to negotiate.
Brandon: Mm-hmm.
Monica: We would agree on an offer and then later I'd call and be like, hey, send me the paperwork, or whatever, and it's like, well, we never agreed on that. And I'm like, oh my God, I lost an offer because I didn't follow up in writing. So ever since that happened — I don't even remember the details of that case or who it was with — but ever since that happened, I have put every single follow-up email, every single time till this day, if we have an agreement, hey, as we discussed in court today, we have an agreement as X, Y, and Z. Because people lie, people forget. It's just not worth it.
Brandon: Yeah, it's true. If you would have told me that I made you an offer in court and I didn't remember making that offer, but it was specifically you telling me that I made that offer, I would agree. I would probably believe you.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: There are some PDs that I worked with, really less than a handful, that I would say, ah —
Monica: No.
Brandon: I don't know if I made that offer or not.
Monica: Right? You're like, are you playing me right now?
Brandon: Like, or somebody's joking around, like, oh, you told me you would dismiss that case.
Monica: Oh, yeah.
Brandon: Yeah. But that's different, like —
Monica: Yeah. But, yeah.
Brandon: No, the trust that you build — and this goes whatever job you're in — there is a huge trust factor, and between the trust that you have and the other people that you work with in the legal community and the reputations that you build, that's huge, and if you destroy your reputation or your reputation is taking a hit from nonsense, it carries because the legal community is small.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: And, you know, people talk, judges talk, and you don't want the reputation of someone that can't be trusted as a lawyer or as an individual. I mean, when I say that, I mean as a lawyer — meaning the things that they say in court you can't trust them, or the things that they're saying one-on-one to you, whether it's about the law or not, you can't trust. You can't have that.
Monica: I will say after — now that I've, and you probably have experienced this as well, but after having the experience of practicing in front of the same judges for — obviously there has been some turnover, some retired, but the ones that have been on the bench since I started practicing, which there are some, there is such a good rapport thankfully based off obviously the way I've been practicing, and I think this applies to you as well — but even if there have been moments of, like, tension in the courtroom between you and that judge or between you and a prosecutor in front of that judge, it doesn't take away from the credibility that you have built over the years with this specific judge or that specific prosecutor. Because I feel it. I feel the energy when I'm in there. Like, if I'm telling the judge, you know, I'm trying to get this piece of discovery and I can't get it, whatever, they trust that it's not because I'm trying to kick the case and not resolve it. There's never an issue when it comes to things like that, and there's this sense of trust with me that I can see may not be there with certain other attorneys who have burned that bridge. That's not because they, you know, for no reason or it's favoritism or whatever. It's because those people have not shown to be credible people.
Brandon: Or earned it yet.
Monica: Or, yeah. Or earned it, yeah, exactly.
Brandon: Right.
Monica: So it's like now that I'm kind of in the game, I've been in the game for a minute, I feel like, okay, I definitely can sense the difference between when I first started practicing where the judge was, like, questioning everything I was saying, and now it's like, okay, it's fine, you know? Obviously sometimes not everything can just be like, oh, yeah, we just need — sometimes we need to show proof of things, but —
Brandon: Yeah. No, no, no. Of course. That's such an excellent point, because I think about that all the time. When I practice in front of certain judges that I've practiced in front of for my entire career — there are a bunch of them in Palm Beach County that are —
Monica: Still there.
Brandon: Still on the bench that I practice in front of.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: That have been there since my first day. One thing that I have always maintained is I am myself in front of them. And I'm always myself in front of them. But when I get heated or I get emotional in court, it generally signals to that judge that I am very serious —
Monica: Something's wrong.
Brandon: Yeah, about something and something's wrong. And I don't do it for the purpose of being dramatic. I do it because I need to make that point —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: That there's a problem. Either I'm not getting discovery like I need to be getting or there's a victim that's taking advantage of the state attorney's office and nobody has made that obvious yet.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: I need to make that obvious.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: The judges that you practice in front of all the time, when they see that, they know something's up and automatically there's, okay, I'm giving some credibility to whatever this argument currently is. State why — tell me what's going on.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: That's only because you've built that up. Other attorneys I've seen go in and make passionate arguments that — they don't practice in front of the judges often, and the judges, before turning to the state to see what the state's opinion is, will have some interaction with, well, have you checked my divisional instructions? Did you contact the state attorney's office the right way that you were supposed to do? But with attorneys that have practiced in front of these judges that have built the credibility, that doesn't happen — they are immediately able to sense, hey, there's a real issue going on. And I love that. I never take advantage of it. And I think it's one of my favorite things about practicing in front of the same judges —
Monica: Yes.
Brandon: Over and over is —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: If I have an issue, I know how to get the point across the right way and I can be taken seriously. I have credibility that I've developed over time.
Monica: Exactly.
Brandon: And haven't squandered.
Monica: It's nice, yeah. Especially 'cause now in private practice, I do go to like new jurisdictions sometimes. Not to say that Palm Beach is my favorite, 'cause we do get like different judges in different counties that sometimes are, you know, better for our clients —
Brandon: Well, it depends on the county —
Monica: Yeah, exactly.
Brandon: It depends on the —
Monica: And it depends on the timing, yeah. It really depends on the specific judge, I think, and state attorney, but —
Brandon: If you go north of Palm Beach County, you're not getting anything better for your clients than what you get in Palm Beach County.
Monica: Listen —
Brandon: If you go south of Palm Beach County, you may.
Monica: Yeah. That is a general rule, but I have had good experience in St. Lucie County, ironically —
Brandon: Yeah, you say that now.
Monica: Yeah, you're like, wait till you get a few more.
Brandon: Yeah, exactly. St. Lucie —
Monica: You're never gonna go there again.
Brandon: St. Lucie a little rough.
Monica: But I have heard that, so I — I originally just haven't experienced it yet, but I'm not trying to find out. Like, 100-day-plus offers —
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: On driving under suspension charges. I've gotten, like, cases outright dismissed there. I'm like, really?
Brandon: I have too. I had a guy that had a flamethrower that got dismissed from there —
Monica: Flamethrower?
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: He was charged with arson?
Brandon: He was charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer.
Monica: Oh, wow. Serious charge.
Brandon: It's no longer a charge.
Monica: BD Law for y'all.
Brandon: Well, that's a shameless plug.
Monica: So, moving on to talk about more about moving in between different jobs in our careers, or in the legal career in general, I think a lot of people have this mindset of, like, okay, five-year plan, 10-year plan, just generally, I think, too. Maybe not necessarily in their specific profession — by this age, I wanna be married with kids, or whatever. Same kind of idea. And I really think that — listen, I'm not a life coach, so do what you want with this information. But I just don't think having any sort of five-, 10-year plan — you can always have an idea of, this is where I wanna go, this is where I see myself. But a detailed plan about how you're gonna get there — life throws so many different curveballs at you. And I always said I would never open up my own firm, and here I am running my own firm. You really never know. And if it wasn't for all my previous jobs going from public defense to insurance defense at a big firm to working as an associate for a solo criminal defense attorney in private practice to working as a trial team in-house counsel — if I didn't have all these different experiences — at the time, I loved the public defender's office, I loved working at the solo attorney's office in criminal defense — if it wasn't for those experiences, I wouldn't have chosen to start my own firm. So if you would've asked me my five-year plan at the public defender's office my first year, I probably would've said I'd be at the PD's office.
Brandon: For five years.
Monica: Yeah. I thought, I saw myself there. I really thought I was a lifer, like I was gonna be a PD for life.
Brandon: But you were never a true believer lifer.
Monica: No.
Brandon: You were — when I say a true believer lifer, a true believer is like, I was given 100 cases today and every single person on that is innocent. You were not a true believer.
Monica: I wasn't delusional.
Brandon: Correct. You believed, and you fought —
Monica: Yes.
Brandon: The fight, but —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: There are some people that are like, oh, no way. There's no way my client is — and you're —
Monica: And maybe those are —
Brandon: Like, come on.
Monica: Maybe that's the key to staying in public defense —
Brandon: I don't think so.
Monica: Long.
Brandon: I don't know — I know some people that are there, I mean, we obviously know the same people that are there that have been there a long time, and some of them are not — I wouldn't say true believers, but they're just made to be public defenders.
Monica: PDs, yeah.
Brandon: Yeah. They're made to do that job.
Monica: Right. Yeah.
Brandon: And that's cool. That's great. That's awesome. I mean —
Monica: Like, I wanted that.
Brandon: That's great.
Monica: That's the life I wanted.
Brandon: It's interesting. One of my favorite authors talks about — and he's a businessperson first — talks about having a 10-year plan and creating that 10-year plan. And I always felt that that didn't apply to me until I opened my own business. And then I thought having a 10-year plan made sense.
Monica: Yes.
Brandon: Because I want to project where my own personal business will be, or what the growth will be, or what things may — you know, you can't always account for every change, but —
Monica: Right.
Brandon: What things I would like to see in 10 years. But I completely agree with you. When you first step out of law school, it is very difficult to make a —
Monica: You don't have enough data. You don't have enough information.
Brandon: That makes sense to me. But a 10-year plan at that stage is —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: Unless you already have unlimited wealth behind you —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: And you literally can choose to do whatever you want, that's a little bit difficult to do.
Monica: Yeah. But at this stage, having a 10-year plan now makes —
Brandon: Makes more sense.
Monica: Well, now because we're in it for the long haul. This is now, like, for longevity. We want our businesses to survive. But when you're still trying to figure it out or you're not sure of what you want or how to even get there, you still need to collect data on yourself. What is it that you truly enjoy? Because I knew I was going to law because I wanted to do criminal defense, but I also didn't want to speak in a courtroom. I was scared of public speaking. There were so many hurdles I still needed to overcome to become the person that would be successful in criminal defense. So I didn't have all — like you're saying, unless you have resources — I didn't have the tools and the resources at that moment to start a five- or to think of even a five-year or 10-year plan.
Brandon: Right.
Monica: And so I think the biggest thing when you exit law school is to not put so much pressure on yourself and to allow yourself the opportunity to still continue learning. Because you really do leave, even though you have a bar card and you can say you're a lawyer — I'm not minimizing that, 'cause it's a huge accomplishment — but you do not have a lot of wisdom you still need to learn just from practicing law. You don't know how to practice law. I didn't know what to do with my first case. I didn't know what to do at my first trial. I had tried fake cases, but definitely not my best work. That's for damn sure. I was not in my A-game in terms of — that was the best jury trial I've ever tried in my first trial, 'cause it was still my first trial. So there are so many different things that I needed to get done in order to get there, and that is, I guess, you can consider a part of the plan or a part of the five-year plan. There's so much that can happen between day one of being a lawyer to where you actually see yourself. And now that we've found our places in our career in terms of, okay, this is where we see ourselves, now we can get a little bit more comfortable and be like, okay, how do we get our firms to be X amount in 10 years —
Brandon: Right.
Monica: Or in five years? And I think that makes complete sense.
Brandon: And remember something, it's called the practice of law. Nobody is the master of everything. And the law is constantly changing. It takes time to learn everything. And while you're learning in the field, you still have an obligation under the bar to continue to learn, to get CLEs — continuing legal education credits — while you're a practicing attorney, because you need to keep learning. You need to keep refreshing yourself on everything, and in addition to the case law and news that you can read on the law, you also need to learn that practical experience that is going to teach you the things that you didn't learn in law school — how to be underestimated and take advantage of that, how to have credibility and use it responsibly, how to have power and use it responsibly. There's a lot of things that you need to learn after law school —
Monica: That's true.
Brandon: In this career. And you're never there. That's why it's the practice.
Monica: I always say, I'm always becoming. I'm never there. I stole that from JJ Redick, but —
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: That's the truth. You're not there yet. You have to keep working and keep being hungry, and if you're gonna stay in the part of the profession where you're gonna practice — and what I mean by that is you're gonna stay in the part of the profession where you're gonna be in court or you're gonna be writing motions, you need to keep learning, the whole —
Brandon: Have to.
Monica: The whole time.
Brandon: Yeah. It's really important.
Monica: Well —
Brandon: And you have to have that want to do that.
Monica: Yes. And I think that applies in life, too. This is your life's journey, right? And life will continue to humble you, so you have to stay in your lane. Know that, like, to always be a student — always know that whether it's the practice of law or life scenarios, what is this teaching me? What can I gather from this, whether it's your first day on the job or 10 years in? I hope to still be a student when I'm, like, damn, I've been practicing for 20 years, which is crazy, 'cause — the next milestone for me — have you hit 10 years?
Brandon: No.
Monica: You're about to though, right? Like, soonish.
Brandon: Within the next couple of years, yeah.
Monica: Like, that's pretty soon — like, for me too. So for me, I'm like, that's so crazy. That's —
Brandon: That is pretty wild.
Monica: Yeah, we say, we've been practicing 10 years.
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: I feel like it's like dog years.
Brandon: I've been arguing with people forever.
Monica: Exactly. It feels like it's been forever, but it's so cool to be like, oh, I've been doing it for 10 years, but still would consider myself a student at that point and be like, what more can I learn? Because there's still stuff that I don't know.
Brandon: So. I'm a student of the game until I am the game. Period.
Monica: I like that.
Brandon: Stole that from Triple H.
Monica: You have some good quotes today.
Brandon: That's the best quote I'm probably gonna ever drop on this podcast, frankly.
Monica: Well, listen, we still have many more podcasts to come, so you never know. But there is another — we can also talk about the hiring process of different jobs, because at the PDs and the states, they do — and we've touched on this briefly in the past — but at the PD's office, they give you, like, a fact pattern, they ask you to do a — obviously, they talk to you, you're in a room filled with all the higher-ups in the office that make the hiring decisions, and they ask you questions to get to know you, but then they give you a fact pattern, and they're like, okay, analyze this case, what legal issues do you see? And then there was maybe an opening or a closing, I can't remember which one it was, but there was a little mock argument that you had to kinda present to them at the Miami Public Defender's Office. And then I don't think they did that in Palm Beach, but it was still like, they still wanna test your legal skills and what you know. And so that was my experience at the PD's office. I know for you, you have an interesting story. I don't think you've shared it on the podcast before.
Brandon: No, I never shared that story. But I had a really interesting interview at the state attorney's office because I was under the impression that I was not gonna get the job because of where my rank was in my class. There was a handful of law students that had gone before me at the state attorney's office and applied, did their interview, and didn't get the job. So I was thinking, okay, my background was good because I had all the mock trial stuff, but my grades were not the best. They were good, but they were not as good as some of the other people. So when I went to that interview I was pretty sure it wasn't gonna happen, and it was the final interview at the state attorney's office. There were multiple rounds. The first round was with some assistant state attorneys, which is like a hiring committee, and then the second round was with the chiefs, the people that are the heads under the actual state attorney — these are the people that run the office. I think one or two are still at the state, but one of them is not. And I remember going into the room with them and thinking I wasn't gonna get the job —
Monica: Thinking, yeah. 'Cause he's saying knowing, like he didn't. He got the job.
Brandon: Yeah. Thinking I wasn't gonna get the job. This one person that doesn't work there anymore, who was kind of like the enforcer of the office — he was a tough guy. He came up to me and he said, so I see that you were a criminal law teaching assistant, and you have all this mock trial stuff. How much do you know about criminal law? And I heard the question and I was like, all right, whatever, now I'm gonna have fun. And I sat back in the chair, and I just said, everything. I said, I know every —
Monica: Like that.
Brandon: And I was very serious about it. I was like, everything. And he was like, everything? And they all kinda looked at each other.
Monica: Not expecting that answer.
Brandon: No. And he got up from his chair and went over to a bookshelf — and if you've worked in a government office, you know in every office there's bookshelves filled with books from a hundred years ago. The books —
Monica: With dust on them.
Brandon: Right. The books are never used and they're not —
Monica: You don't even know what year they're from.
Brandon: But he pulled one of these random books out, opens it up, and he starts going down the page and he says, okay, well what is this? And I said, oh, you don't need to know that. Don't worry about that. That's not something that's important to know. You don't need to know that. And he was completely confused by what I was doing. So then he closed the book and he sat down and he said, how do you feel about the death penalty? And I was like, love it. Just like that, but I was completely serious. And he's like, love it? And I was like, I think they should expand it. I think there are some areas they could expand it to. I think certain child molesters can get it. I think there are some areas for expansion. And at this point, one of the three of them was starting to laugh —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: And kind of knew what I was doing.
Monica: Realized, yeah.
Brandon: And the other two were, like, one who still kinda works there —
Monica: Is this a joke or no?
Brandon: Who was very uptight. He was like, I don't know how I feel about this guy. And so they asked me a few more questions about what would I do if a judge was acting a certain way, and I said I would tell a supervisor, whatever the questions were. Okay. So I leave and I had a good time.
Monica: You're like, worst case scenario, I don't get the job and I had fun.
Brandon: Yeah, and that was a great story that I could tell later. And I got to my car and the phone rang and they offered me the job. The HR person offered me the job on the phone, and I was like —
Monica: Love that story.
Brandon: Okay, really cool. When I was actually in the job working, one day I was walking in the hall to go to somebody's office and I heard the chief ASA, who's the enforcer type, telling — and we never had an interview like this. He sat back in the chair —
Monica: Oh, my God.
Brandon: And when I asked him what he knew about criminal law, he said, everything. And he was completely serious. And then we started to ask — and I was like — I walked in, I popped my head into the office and —
Monica: That was me.
Brandon: Head into the office and —
Monica: That was me.
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: Well, I think there are really good lessons out of this story, as great as it is.
Brandon: That's a terrible lesson — don't throw an interview.
Monica: Two lessons, I think. One lesson is, be yourself.
Brandon: Yes.
Monica: Another lesson is probably, don't throw interviews, or don't think you're not gonna get a job just because you hear other people didn't get the job. I think your confidence won them over, because that's a huge part of the job, is being confident. You don't have to know everything, and that's kind of what he was doing. He was like, I don't really know, but I'm confident, and they saw that. He just embodied that, because that's who Brandon is. And then the second thing is that — I don't wanna say grades don't matter, but they're not as important as, I would say, other things that you're doing. I don't think that your grades are everything. And so maybe your writing sample's good and you're confident, and you, you know, are —
Brandon: I had good extracurriculars.
Monica: Yeah, your —
Brandon: My grades were well above average, but my —
Monica: Even if they weren't —
Brandon: You know what I mean? I just wanna say that 'cause I —
Monica: He's great.
Brandon: Toot my own.
Monica: He's smart.
Brandon: No, definitely not.
Monica: But —
Brandon: And my writing sample definitely was not —
Monica: You're like, that was not good.
Brandon: Gonna win anybody over. I think it was just, like, finger painting. This is my writing sample.
Monica: Well.
Brandon: No, it was not — I think being confident is important to me for everything that I do, and in that circumstance, it definitely did something.
Monica: Yes.
Brandon: But you have to be yourself. And whether you're in front of a boss or a jury or a judge, the way that you build credibility is by being yourself and by putting in the work and putting in the effort. And you have to be pretty good at the job, whatever it is, and it's gotta be the right fit for you, but confidence goes a long —
Monica: Huge.
Brandon: Goes a long way.
Monica: Yeah. Well —
Brandon: Just like jobs are.
Monica: But the reason why I was bringing up —
Brandon: That's true.
Monica: I'll have to interview people, I imagine.
Brandon: Yeah. I mean, I'm going to have to interview people —
Monica: A hundred percent, yeah.
Brandon: That's, to do things, so that's cool.
Monica: Yeah. I don't know how cool it is when you actually have to do it. I had to interview for an assistant and it was like hell for me, but, you know? I have a great assistant —
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: Right now.
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: So — hopefully it stays that way. But in terms of — I wanted to — the reason I brought up grades as well was 'cause I wanted to talk about how I did bad in school.
Brandon: Okay.
Monica: Everybody listen to me talk about that. Well, now that's here. But I just wanna say that because I feel like I made it to successful parts of my career, and there were parts — the only time I was asked for people to see my grades or for a job to see my grades was, I think maybe the PD's office. After that, nobody asked to see my grades. I'm not saying that that's not a thing, 'cause I think probably more prestigious jobs may, but I also made it to in-house counsel and stuff without having ever been asked to see my grades. They cared more about my experience, my trial numbers, how I was as an actual attorney by that point. But I had a D in contracts. I was put on — before I say this, I need to explain how law school's set up, for people who don't know — but you're graded anonymously on a bell curve, and there's only enough — not to say that I was gonna get an A, clearly — there's only enough As, Bs, Cs to go around, right? 'Cause they designate based off of, I don't know how they do it, but I assume that if it's, like, 100 multiple choice questions and there's a 68, which is the highest grade in the class, that 68, in our head, logically, would be a D, right? But if it's the highest grade in the class, that would become the A. And so they'll be like, okay, based off this amount of people, you get — you're looking at me crazy. You didn't know this?
Brandon: Well, no, I know how a bell curve works. I'm just waiting to see —
Monica: Okay.
Brandon: How you get to —
Monica: I don't know what my score was. I don't know. I'm just saying that's how law school's set up. And then you only get one final, and that's your grade. I didn't get —
Brandon: There was no other grade in the class, yeah.
Monica: There's no midterms. 2L and 3L, second and third year of law school, you might get a midterm and then a final, but your first year, you only get one exam. It's at the end, and every single day, law school is just like, read 50 pages, come to class. Read 50 pages, come to class. And it's all of your classes. So you're reading hundreds of pages every day and you're showing up to class expected to know it. Anyways, so that's the setup of law school. And so, contracts comes around. We get our grades. I did, like, okay for my other classes, but I got a D in contracts. And so then, I get a letter from the school that's like, if you don't — mind you, this is 1L, first semester, just completed — if you don't bring your grades up, you're on academic probation. If you don't bring your grades up, you are gonna get kicked out. So I was like, no, because I thought I could study in law school the way I could study in undergrad, because I was like, let me just do flashcards. I'll be fine, you know, no biggie. Going into law school, I really thought that I was — I don't wanna say I was the smartest one there, but I didn't realize how smart the people around me were. And just like I was top of my class in undergrad, just like I had a great GPA in undergrad and a great LSAT score or whatever — so did all my classmates. That's why we're all here. And that didn't register until first semester, and so after I got my grades back, I was like, oh, okay. Shit. I need to get my shit together. So they put me in this remedial class that was like, we're gonna help you get your grades up so that way you don't get kicked out.
Brandon: Thank God.
Monica: And so they taught me how to do law school in that class. But all that to say, obviously I made it through. I brought my grades up, and there was a happy ending there. But I want to say that D did not get in the way of me getting to where I need to be or where I want to be. Like —
Brandon: Fair enough.
Monica: I don't wanna say Ds and Fs don't matter. Obviously —
Brandon: Fs probably matter.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: I mean — Fs probably matter.
Monica: There were people in that class, I think, that did get Fs. I'm not sure. And every school has their policy, whatever. But I just think that there is so much more to it than just — just like when you apply to law school, your GPA is not everything. Just like when you apply to law school, your LSAT isn't everything. There are more things that you can do that can make up for that one failure or bad mark on your history or whatever. So it's not the end of the world, you know?
Brandon: True.
Monica: So I just wanted to throw that in there 'cause I feel like —
Brandon: Fair enough.
Monica: Whenever I tell that story, people are like, oh, like, you know — it's relatable. It's not a straight and narrow path every time.
Brandon: I think the only thing that we were additionally gonna talk about in this episode was just the idea of changing jobs while you're already in a legal career. And there's a lot of people that, like we said, start at big law or start at the government and then find the point where they want to move on to something else. And the way that you do that is by reaching out to people and finding out what is out there so that you know what you wanna do if you don't already know. And then networking builds relationships and those relationships get you a foot in the door. So it's important to join different organizations and join different legal networking groups, whether they're specifically legal or —
Monica: Like Inns of Court and stuff?
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: Have you done that?
Brandon: I did it for a little bit.
Monica: How was that experience?
Brandon: I didn't like it at all, but that's just me.
Monica: Okay.
Brandon: But Inns of Court seemed like it was more like making theater productions than doing any, like —
Monica: Actual —
Brandon: Kind of networking.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: I've gone to a lot of, just by who my wife is, I've gone to a lot of PBCJA events, and I love those.
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: So I go all the time to —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: The Palm Beach County Justice Association events there. Shout out to them, they do a good job. But you need to be able to find what you're gonna go to, and that's through meeting people and through knowing what's out there, and that's how you transition —
Monica: Yeah. And knowing — and I mean knowing — what you want too. If you don't wanna be in the courtroom, you know for sure. The conflict I had is that I wanted to do a specific job that required being in the courtroom, and I did not wanna do that. So I had to weigh how badly I wanted to do that versus, was I willing to sit behind a desk all day and not actually do the work I wanted to do? And I was like, okay, I need to get over something. You know? So it's really asking yourself those questions and then be willing to kind of just be uncomfortable in figuring it out. I was uncomfortable the first time I went into a courtroom. I was uncomfortable the first time I tried a case. Now it's fun for me. I mean, yes, it's stressful. I don't wanna minimize my client's experience, but that is not the stressor of my job. The stressor is more so getting my client through it as it should be.
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: So.
Brandon: I think one of the big lessons and big takeaways people should get from this episode, as leaving law school or transitioning jobs — do not chase the money.
Monica: Yes. I agree.
Brandon: Do not chase the money.
Monica: I agree. That's such a good piece of advice.
Brandon: The money will come if you are doing something that you enjoy, or the right type of money will find you. But you need to do what's gonna make you happy, because as a prosecutor, I was very happy. I wasn't making good money, but I was very happy doing the job —
Monica: Yeah.
Brandon: That I was doing and with the life that I had. But I know people that went to big law firms right out of law school, made more money.
Monica: Miserable.
Brandon: A bunch of them aren't even practicing law anymore. They —
Monica: Exactly.
Brandon: They're done.
Monica: They don't like it. It ruined their experience. Well, speaking on that, when I was applying for law school, taking the LSAT, that whole thing, I was working as an assistant or receptionist at a law firm. And those two attorneys, as well as many other attorneys that I was exposed to, kept telling me, don't go into law school. Don't go into law school. They were discouraging me from the profession. Love being a lawyer.
Brandon: Yeah.
Monica: Can you imagine if I actually didn't do this? 'Cause I can't see myself doing anything else other than being a lawyer. But it was just finding my space in law. And I say that because I did transition from public defense to big law, or to work in civil litigation as an insurance defense attorney. Not to say that I've done every aspect of the law, like, no. There's still so much more I could've explored, but trying the things that I did not like basically validated my experience in the other places that I actually enjoyed. Like, okay, I'm still gathering data about myself, and so when you see these miserable lawyers that are making so much money and they hate their lives, it's because they are chasing the money. And there is so much money in this industry — not to say, you know, obviously we said public defense and state attorney and these public service jobs are not going to be the highest paying jobs, but there's a trade-off with everything. Again, I think that is such a good piece of advice. Do not chase the money, because I fell into that trap at one point and I was like, I wanna know what it's like to get that six-figure paycheck. I wanna know what it's like to live in a high rise and have everything I wanted, kinda, on paper. And then when I experienced it, I was like, I will not do this another day. And so I just quit —
Brandon: Yeah, it's not worth the —
Monica: Kinda on the whim. It's not worth it. It's not the quality of life that you want.
Brandon: No.
Monica: Right? I wasn't seeing my family, my mental health was declining. It was just miserable. I was not willing to live that life, but some people thrive in that and, great for them. Not for me.
Wrap-Up
Monica: If you liked listening to our episode, make sure you check the show notes and subscribe to our newsletter. We drop weekly gems into your inbox, and make sure you like, comment and subscribe. We are on all platforms, Come Back With a Warrant, doc, pod, and make sure you leave us a five-star review, and if you did not like listening to us —
Brandon: Come back with a warrant.