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Law Have Mercy!
Law Have Mercy! isn’t just about the law anymore—it’s about life, business, health, and everything that sparks curiosity. Join Personal Injury Attorney Chaz Roberts as he dives into candid conversations that mix legal insights with lifestyle tips, entrepreneurial wisdom, and personal growth. From breaking down complex legal issues in simple terms to exploring the challenges and triumphs of health, business, and beyond, Chaz brings his unique perspective and passion to every episode.
Whether you're here to learn, laugh, or find inspiration, Law Have Mercy! has something for everyone. Just remember: the opinions of our guests are their own, and nothing on this podcast is legal advice or creates an attorney-client relationship—it’s all about entertainment, exploration, and empowerment. Let’s make it fun!
Law Have Mercy!
Vegas, Uber Wrecks, & Why Uninsured Motorist Coverage Is a Must w/ Bradley Aldrich
Ever wondered why some trial outcomes fall short despite the strongest of cases? With my good friend and law partner, Bradley Aldrich, joining me for his third appearance on the show, we explore the unpredictable world of jury verdicts. We share insights from our recent legal conference encounters, where we found validation in our practices and learned subtle tweaks that could make all the difference. From uninsured motorist coverage to settling cases before year's end, we discuss the nuances of personal injury law and how they play out across various jurisdictions.
Take a trip with us to Vegas, where the excitement of a Saints game and the camaraderie of fellow South Louisiana fans set the backdrop for a deeper discussion on navigating professional relationships in the legal field. We touch on the rare spectacle of multi-million-dollar verdicts and the importance of keeping perspective. Amid the high-pressure demands of our profession, we share strategies for balancing work and personal life, revealing the often-underestimated emotional toll of switching gears between these two worlds.
Discover the value in managing client expectations and understanding the jury's diverse perspectives, especially when evaluating settlement offers. Bradley and I offer a glimpse into our dynamic work routine, showing how flexibility and discipline help us thrive in high-pressure environments. Finally, we reminisce about our personal journeys from childhood dreams to legal careers, emphasizing that ambition, circumstance, and a bit of luck often chart our paths.
You can watch most full episodes of Law Have Mercy on YouTube!
For more FREE legal tips, check out our social channels:
Instagram - @chazrobertslaw
Facebook - Chaz Roberts Law
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If you are in need of legal guidance, visit our website: https://www.chazrobertslaw.com/
This show is co-produced by Carter Simoneaux of AcadianaCasts Network, Chaz H. Roberts of Chaz Roberts Law and Kayli Guidry Bonin of Beau The Agency, and Laith Alferahin.
It's those times in your day-to-day professional life when you're butting heads with someone, and it's not because either of you are bad people and it's not because you're doing a bad job In fact, you might be doing a good job. It's because of the nature of the relationship, either with a client who maybe doesn't want to hear bad news, or with an opposing attorney who's fighting like hell for their client. The nature of the job, the nature of the relationship, is adversarial.
Speaker 2:Hey, this is Chaz with Law. Have Mercy. On today's episode I bring on my good friend and law partner, bradley Aldrich. It's his third time being on the show and we just have a good time talking about our trip to Vegas and we even hit on Uber why you should have uninsured motorist coverage, bradley. Thank you for coming back on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me back. It's a pleasure. Am I the first three-time guest?
Speaker 2:The three-peat maybe Scott Guidry was. We tried to get Benny but he's back in the cave somewhere.
Speaker 1:you'll have to do okay, and and I guess, uh, technically, this is only my second time as a guest on the podcast, because I was a a guest host. Host, yeah, guest host, okay, but third appearance for sure. I'll have to go back to the archives too and see if scott beat me out on that one.
Speaker 2:So it's. It's interesting that we choose to film right now, because we're in the middle of settlement season and settlement season for those of you who are listening it's at the end of the year. Our phones just do not stop ringing and all these insurance companies that we fought with all year find a way to make things happen, to end the case at the end of the year. And look, it's a good time, right Right around Christmas season. Santa Claus ain't free, and so we've been super busy.
Speaker 1:Always. Well, are we not super busy anytime? Now we definitely are getting more calls about settlements, but if it wasn't that, it would be something else. Um, it's interesting. We, we went to a conference recently, like a national conference, with a lot of attorneys from all across the country, um, and some, uh, reformed insurance executives. So, shall we say, uh, a lot of the speakers and attendees had worked in the insurance industry in some capacity and then they have since left the industry and are working either as consultants or for plaintiff's attorneys and they talked a lot about that.
Speaker 1:It was interesting to hear different perspectives too, because everyone agrees end of the year is more conducive to settlement and we kind of see it anecdotally. But from year to year, you know, we don't have quite the volume. You know we're not a volume practice where we take every case and just want numbers, numbers, numbers. We get to be a little more selective, so we're never really sure, you know, is what we're seeing? Is it statistical or is it just anecdotal? So it was interesting to get their perspective on that too, and we definitely do get more calls and they seem to confirm that there is something to that.
Speaker 1:But it was also interesting to hear I heard a couple of them that were kind of like I think that's overblown. You know, and it's interesting You'll hear people. These were very similar background. They had worked in claims and management for these insurance companies and you'll hear one of them be like that is absolutely a thing.
Speaker 1:It is just a math problem. We have these reserves, we have these liabilities and we have to pay taxes too. And if we had a really good year and we're worried about a big tax bill, maybe we'll pay out some claims and kick the can of next year, do whatever we need to do. So absolutely it's a thing. You should try to settle your cases in November and December. And then I heard at least one or two people say that that they thought that was kind of overblown. You know that the with the accounting and you know that it's maybe not as just as a one plus one equals two situation. Um, that was one of the interesting things that I that I remember and took away from that conference just hearing different perspectives on stuff like that. Um, personally, I've never worked for an insurance company, so I'm not going to pretend to know the magic answer. All I do is listen.
Speaker 2:I can't see that. I don't see Bradley Aldrich a just or a defense lawyer.
Speaker 1:At this point I would be probably qualified. It's probably the only thing I'm qualified to do besides be a personal injury attorney, though Maybe not in the mindset, but just in terms of the nuts and bolts. I'd be pretty good at claims, cause I know you know, I know all of our what it's like to be on our side, um, from I'll tell you this we, we had a great trip in Vegas.
Speaker 2:So there was trial, lawyers, university and Bradley and I decided to go together and not in the same room, by the way, to go together and not in the same room, by the way, in case you were wondering um. And so we, we had a an amazing time. We, we watched the saints lose badly in the sports book in the caesar's palace it was.
Speaker 1:The timing could not have been better, slash worse, because it was a thursday night game.
Speaker 2:It was a thursday night game. We got there on Wednesday late.
Speaker 1:And we looked at the schedule, we're like, oh, this couldn't be better. The Saints this is our Thursday night football game this week. There was probably eight to 10 attorneys and vendor types like just different attendees, who were all from South Louisiana. So we had this critical mass of diehard Saints fans, south louisiana. So we had this critical mass of diehard saints fans uh, it's in a week, weekday off season, uh, it's not. You can get nice like spots in the in the sports book. So it could not have worked out better. Everybody gets there early, high five and great, and it was fun for about five minutes. Um, was that the debut of it? Might have been. Was that the debut of it? Might have been Rattler's first game, or it might have been a game when Sean Payton's return to the Superdome and we just I mean Total laid an egg. Worst game of the season. Well, there's some competition on that one. But yeah, couldn't have been better.
Speaker 2:It was a good idea. It was a good idea.
Speaker 1:And we, we look, we executed our side perfectly.
Speaker 2:We had our seats blocked off.
Speaker 1:We had a waitress.
Speaker 2:We had all those south louisiana guys together so funny thing is, bradley and I went to momofuku. Am I saying that?
Speaker 1:right? I think so, but I'm not going to argue with you because yeah it's david chang's restaurant and so we went on wednesday night.
Speaker 2:Bradley had a great experience. Bradley is a very uh. He's a veteran of vegas. He's played in numerous poker tournaments and and enjoys going there, so he knew the lay of the land. Had a great experience at momofuku before, so he suggested that we go, so of course we go.
Speaker 1:We have a fantastic dinner, he and I couldn't have been better and I think we, for all the you know, unfortunately they have not agreed to sponsor us yet, so y'all can take this with it's a hundred percent, just our opinions. Yeah, uh, unbiased. Uh, it could not have gone better and we did it the right way. Accidentally, it's not like we had we just we, we asked a waiter. You know what was good, what should?
Speaker 1:you know what's just give us he was a cool guy, some feedback here, um, and he said I'll do better than feedback, you don't have to do anything, just tell me your budget and I will order for you. And we said deal, deal, yes, any allergies?
Speaker 2:nope, nope. Is there anything you got to stay away from oysters? Well, we're from louisiana, so maybe we stay away from the oysters because we get they're plentiful at home, sure? Anything else, nope. And look, he delivered in a big way yeah, all right, so that was night one.
Speaker 1:I interrupted you yeah, night one.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we're at the sports book. The game is so bad. This is night two, night two night, the night after Mimifuku. And when I get excited about something spoiler alert I like double down, triple down, quadruple down on it. So I'm telling this group of Louisiana guys about our experience.
Speaker 2:And then they were like hmm, we are hungry and we don't want bar food. So do y'all want to go back? And I was like, well look, Bradley booked this reservation ahead of time. You know, it's eight o'clock at night. We're losing by 30. They had a reservation open 15 minutes later. We hop in the Uber, we head there and we had a full table, a round table, and we're overlooking what area it was a beautiful Sure.
Speaker 1:It's in the cosmopolitan, so it's basically in the middle of the vegas strip, it's across the street from planet hollywood and then you've got the bellagio on one side of you. So we're and we're just looking over the strip.
Speaker 2:It was beautiful and we're in like a round table and we're like over nothing, like it's surrounded by windows and it feels like you're floating almost, and this group says we want to do the same thing y'all did, but we want a 10 exit. And at some point I mean we're you have to roll me out of there, and they're like we have one more platter coming. It was a platter the size of this table with lobster and steak and everything else and I was like oh my God. And so the one of the top 10 dining experiences I've had in my life was with Bradley the first night with Bradley the second.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they might've topped it the next night, so but, but look, here's the thing we went.
Speaker 2:We went to Vegas, and one thing that I learned is five days in Vegas is a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's uh, five days in Vegas in your forties. So we did it like, uh, people in their forties do. We were getting some sleep, we were getting up early every morning. Everybody laughs and is like, yeah, I know you're lying about that. No, sorry, I mean we've. I've probably been to vegas double digit times now from a lot of the poker trips I took. So it's like, you know, we had our, we had our 20s vegas adventures. So, uh, it's not like we were working 12 hours a day, but we were. You know, we, we paced ourselves to where we could make it through the five days and even doing it that way getting sleep, drinking water, you know, uh, being productive, it's still you're.
Speaker 1:You're ready to come home?
Speaker 2:You're ready to come home?
Speaker 1:for sure.
Speaker 2:And um, were there any big takeaways that you took from the conference, from the? I mean, we're with some of the best trial lawyers in the country. What was your big takeaway? Sure, um well it's.
Speaker 1:I don't know that there was any uh sort of like new thing or mind blowing thing that we heard that we hadn't heard before. Um, I think a lot of people maybe go, uh, they, they go looking for some sort of nugget, like, oh, this is going to be a game changer, I'm going to hear something that I've never heard before, that this person has a totally new perspective on everything. For me it wasn't really that. One is, I guess we've been doing it for a long time and we keep up to date with developments in the industry. You know, we look at things online, we talk to other lawyers all the time, both in Louisiana and elsewhere. Um, so we had a general idea of what to expect. Um, so for me it was more like, I guess, little things on the margins, uh, that you could tweak or get in different perspectives, and also just a reassurance from our peers that a lot of things we are doing the right way, we do a lot of things right. That we were. We were, uh, it's like okay, we're on this, okay, they talk about, you know, we go to a session on, say, a mediation and they're talking about and it's like, all right, these guys are pretty much doing it the same way that we are. It seems to be working for us, it seems to be working for them.
Speaker 1:Or you go to say about depositions. That's a huge part of what we do in our practice, and I found that the attorneys that were talking about depositions you know tips and tricks. That's what they love to. You know tips and tricks for more effective depositions and nine ways to get the most out of your depositions. Uh, and it was pretty consistent with what we're doing already. Um, so it's good to be have a little bit of reassurance. Um, and you know, it's not like we're doing anything crazy. We're not trying to, we're not trying to revamp the industry. Uh, we're trying to put best practices into work every day for our clients, and there's a reason. They're the best practices. You, it ain't broke, don't fix it. Sometimes the way people are doing things is the right way and there's a reason for that. So I did come away reassured for the most part, hearing other attorneys that we respect, I'd say On a national level the who's who.
Speaker 1:Sure, and I was going to say I think you know I mentioned that there were both Louisiana and out of state people you know that we were interacting with there, but I don't think there were any Louisiana attorneys that at least not that I saw that spoke at the conference. So pretty much everyone that we heard was practicing in Texas, was practicing in California, was practicing in Ohio, talking about cases they had in the Northeast, getting a cross-section of everything and there are going to be little differences and little nuances because the state law is different in every state but for the most part it's a very similar enterprise of personal injury law and so it was great to get some you know, perspectives from from all across the country.
Speaker 2:What goes through your head when you see a guy on stage talking about his $25 million verdict, or $45 million verdict or $150 million verdict?
Speaker 1:Um well, my, my first instinct is to take it with a grain of salt. Um, I try not to be completely cynical about it. Right, you're not cause, they're not, they're not lying and this stuff is. It's public record. You know there's court records, there's reported opinions. You know you could go to that courthouse in Utah, in Ohio, in Indiana, wherever the case was, and verify all this stuff.
Speaker 1:But if someone is up on stage talking about a $10 million case that they had, like all of their cases are $10 million, that's when I'm going to roll my eyes, because you know that for every $10 million case this person has had, they have had cases where they got nothing or where they got a very little bit of money, just because most cases are not $10 million cases, most cases are not $1 million cases, most cases are not $100,000 cases, and so I just I try to keep a perspective. I think that's easier now that we've been doing this for 15 years Plus. We've been, you know so we've been practicing law for 15 years. We've also been going to these conferences for almost 15 years because we have to do, you know, something like that every year we have to keep our licenses up to date. So they call them continuing legal education, the CLEs. So we've been going to these conferences for a long time.
Speaker 1:We've been listening to our peers and our mentors and judges and lawyers and mediators give these talks for a long time, and so it's easier for me now to keep it in perspective, and I just try to keep that in perspective. Okay, absolutely, this person got that $10 million verdict, they got that $25 million verdict, and so I want to hear what they have to say, and I bet they have a lot of insights. But I also want to hear if are they the type of person that acts like they do that every day? Are they the type of person that says, okay, if you go for the brass ring sometimes you're going to get nothing? And I think we share.
Speaker 2:There's also some salesmanship there, right? Sure, they're trying to make you believe that if you send them your case, they're going to get you $20 million.
Speaker 1:Yes, they want Absolutely. They either want you to send them their cases, or they want you to buy their book, or they want you to buy their seminar or go to their seminar. And so there is a, nailed it, there is an element of salesmanship to that. Um, we try to keep that perspective because, um, but sometimes there are times when going for that brass ring could be a disservice to your client.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And ego. Ego is a killer. You think that? Okay? Once I got one jury to give my client a huge verdict and we killed it and we knocked it out the park and they accepted all of our arguments and they hated the other guy and they hated the other attorney and they were mad and they wanted to punish him. So they gave us all this money.
Speaker 1:That absolutely happens and the attorneys that make that happen have a skill to doing that.
Speaker 1:But that's not going to happen every time and sometimes, if you go for that, it just doesn't work out for any number of reasons.
Speaker 1:It could be that you got a bad jury or just a strange jury.
Speaker 1:It could be that the other attorney was just as skilled as you, even though you did a great job. It could just be that the jury didn't like your client and that that case was never going to be a great case and you should have settled it a year ago, um, and that that case was never going to be a great case and you should have settled it a year ago, um, and and I don't think you and I have ever had any any issues, uh, both seeing eye to eye with each other and with our clients about recognizing when is a case not that case. Um, if we know that it's not that case, that we need to take to trial and try to make the jury cry or make them mad or just really go for the brass ring, it's not one of those cases. It's one of those cases where there's a big risk on both sides, and so if we can reach a reasonable resolution for our clients, then that's the move in that case, and so I've always got that in the back of my head too.
Speaker 2:That's where the big verdicts come from. The big verdicts come from the insurance digs in and doesn't want to put legitimate money on the case for whatever reason, because of the way they analyzed it. And then that gives the plaintiff's lawyer an opportunity to actually try the case and you could have a runaway jury. But we don't hear about the zeros quite as much as we hear about the runaway juries.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I have never been to a law conference where the speaker was highlighting their worst cases, where they got up there and said let's spend an hour break. They break down. One of the ones that Chaz and I went to it was actually multiple sessions. There was an hour long and then there was a break and then we would come back for another hour the same speaker talking about the same case.
Speaker 2:And we're in Vegas, mind you.
Speaker 1:And I was sitting on the floor. It was a very popular.
Speaker 2:I took a picture of Bradley sitting on the floor. It was a very humbling experience.
Speaker 1:I think that one made it to the, to the gram consequences, death number two that factor, we go down cell phone, distracted driving. Consequences crushed pelvis and we go down two and we then weave the math factor. The physical comedy was added by my height as well. Somebody's 5'1", it's a little easier for them to find room on the floor.
Speaker 2:And the problem with the multi-sessions is people mark their territory with their laptop and their jacket, and so you can't go sneak in and grab a chair later on, for sure.
Speaker 1:So this, this multi uh session uh, I don't, I guess multi-session session sounds bad, but whatever it was this.
Speaker 1:This gentleman was breaking down a case that he had done, uh, very successfully. Uh, it was a complex case and so he wanted to go through all of the you know the ins and outs and it was so complicated that it didn't last an hour. It lasted three hours, Right. So he's like okay, let's talk about my depositions and how I set up my depositions and the. Okay, let's do my demonstrative aids and all this. You know a lot of legal trial. You know minutia that he was really breaking down. My point is I've never seen one of those about a case that ended in a zero. Oh yeah, but then the jury didn't give my client anything, right, exactly no, I did it that statistically speaking, that's way more common.
Speaker 1:That would be interesting to see. I want to go to that one. I do. I bet it would be packed at least the first couple times they did it. It would be so outside the box how to get zero.
Speaker 2:That's someone, and then the punchline would be this is why you settled the damn case. When they put life-changing money.
Speaker 1:I guess so, and it would be interesting that would be a confident attorney too if they could give that kind of talk and say look, here's why I did everything right and my case still ended up in a bad result for me and especially for the client, because that's who that's really, at the end of the day, who's harmed the most when and it does we keep saying a zero, a zero, a zero. It doesn't have to be a zero, right? Uh, your client doesn't, it's. It's not that your client is unsuccessful only if they get nothing. Uh, your client, we talk about this all the time. Uh, a jury could give you X amount of dollars and think they're doing you a favor. Yes, it's a jury. Look, just a jury of 12 average Americans, a cross section of all ranges of income and economic stability.
Speaker 2:Some of them are going to be rich, poor and everything in between, like in a city like Lafayette or Baton Rouge, you're going to get a very wide array of different types of people.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And so those people, everyone on that jury, is going to have a different idea about what is fair and what is a lot and what is a little. And so we talk about it all the time that there is an amount of money that a jury might give a plaintiff and say I think you deserve X and they think they're giving you a great award, but they just don't know the extent, extent of the damages.
Speaker 2:so they recently, recently, like. So, reese, I'm just. I'm sorry to interrupt, but recently we had a case and you know, let's say the medicals were a hundred thousand. I'm not gonna say the exact facts, but let it. Let's say the the medical bills were a hundred thousand dollars. Bradley and I are sitting there saying look, the jury could double it and are they getting 2x that? Give you your medicals and to exit and think they're doing you a great job and that's three hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1:Well, what we have on the table is double or triple that right, and so if the insurance company is putting that kind of money on the table, then you really have to have a a tough conversation with your client and and really consider that kind of money on the table. Then you really have to have a tough conversation with your client and really consider that kind of thing. That was exactly where I was going to that a jury gives you X amount of dollars, but if you have six figures of medical bills, especially in cases where you've had a surgery or maybe a lengthy hospital stay, you stay a couple of nights in a hospital, boom, that's $25,000 right there, no problem, uh, and then if you have any kind of surgery, you're just looking. You know, everybody knows about runaway medical costs. Um, so that that big award that a jury gives you might, at the end of the day, not really be that big, uh, and so it doesn't have to be that the client gets zero for it to be a disappointment.
Speaker 1:Um, and that's, that's as much as what we're guarding against. Most of our cases. A zero is not really a possibility. We talk about that with our clients, the defense attorneys, the insurance companies. They will acknowledge that. They will say look, if you go to trial. You're going to get something because you were injured and it wasn't your fault. But the question is are you going to get what is fair, what is just, what is what is adequate compensation for your injuries and your damages?
Speaker 2:and that's that's where the their argument is that you're trying to get a lottery ticket. You're trying to get something you don't deserve. You're trying to get a windfall and a lot of juries.
Speaker 1:That's going to be a persuasive argument. And a lot of these attorneys that we see at these conferences and they're very proud of their big verdicts have had just as many. Where they go and they ask for that big verdict and the jury says no, sir, no, ma'am, you're asking for a lottery ticket and I'm not giving it to you and we don't hear about those Exactly. But maybe one day, maybe I'll start an underground movement. I'm liking this yeah of people how to get zero, how to get nothing, how to get zeroed at trial, or I mean they'd have to, they'd have to market it a little better, but how to? Hopefully we're not teaching from experience. Yeah, exactly, knock on, knock on wood that this is purely theoretical for for the rest of our careers let me shift gears a little bit.
Speaker 2:absolutely, I um, I think everyone knows that you're the brains of the operation here. I always I'd say, the beautiful bearded bean footage is one of the terms I made 10 years ago. Kevin calls you the bearded dragon and you do so much of the high-level thinking and research and writing and you're amazing at that. You always have been even in law school. What does your day-to-day look like?
Speaker 1:because we do so many, we wear so many different hats and there's so many facets to a personal injury case, from inception to the very end, when all the ink is dry on a jury verdict form, on a judge signing an order, on a settlement documents, whatever the case may be, however that ends so, but I'd say we usually don't. Our schedule, thankfully, doesn't require us to schedule multiple case depositions in a week. Usually we can. We've been able to, you know, with the different attorneys in the office and our resources and everything, uh, but about once a week, you know, I'm having a deposition. So if it's a deposition day, um, then that's kind of off on the side, and then most of my other days I spend on my laptop, the vast majority of the time, um, so I'm typing any number of documents, or I'm reading any number of documents or reviewing any number of documents.
Speaker 2:When do you start your day? Bradley works from home. Bradley has more discipline than anyone I know because he works from home and and he is at that lap, lap, laptop every single day and always available during working hours and cranking out documents and cranking out emails every single day. And you've done that pretty much yeah so so I'm not.
Speaker 1:I'm not a covid work from home guy.
Speaker 2:No, he did it before he was cool.
Speaker 1:I was. I was a. I started working from home in the end of 2010,. Roughly around the time almost 15 years, yeah, and now obviously not exclusively from home. There's a lot of things, as an attorney, you cannot do. You can't go to court from home. Well, during COVID, you could on zoom, but if you're actually going, you can't go to court from home. You can't go to court from home. Well, during COVID, you could on Zoom, but if you're actually going, you can't go to court from home. You can't go to a deposition from home.
Speaker 2:We like to say you cook from home, right, you cook that laptop from home.
Speaker 1:On the laptop a lot of times, right, but so I don't want to make it seem like I'm exclusively work from home, but I have been doing it in some capacity since about 2010.
Speaker 2:If you would know the briefs and the things that this man has written on a coffee table in his apartment.
Speaker 1:You just need a keyboard and an internet connection. Now, though.
Speaker 2:Bradley cooks bro.
Speaker 1:But it wasn't some master plan. That's what I had. I had never worked from home before. Do you keep normal hours? Yeah, so what time had you know? I had never. I had never worked from home before do?
Speaker 2:you do, you keep normal hours yeah so what time do you start work?
Speaker 1:anywhere between. I mean, it just depends on. It. Used to be, I'd say, whenever I wake up, but now it's more, I guess, whenever, uh, the cat starts whining. Uh, no, not not every day, but about nine o'clock ish.
Speaker 1:I'm usually starting before nine, um, but I don't really have a a set, uh, um, I wake up without an alarm pretty early now, but it's in a range every day, so just whenever I'm up and then I shake the cobwebs out. Yeah, welcome to marriage. It'll get earlier and earlier I'll play around on. When I open up my laptop to start the day, I don't necessarily dive straight into work emails, so that just depends on how much down you prime up your brain. Yeah, maybe, what time of the? Is it a Monday?
Speaker 1:After an NFL Sunday, I might spend more time, just, you know, goofing around on ESPNcom for a little while, or was there something going on the night before, that's, you know, on the internet, on social media, that, um, or did it just take me a little longer to shake off the cobwebs? But, yeah, eight, 39 o'clock, I'm probably probably working, um, and then I just kind of, you know, have a normal day, but it's just and I'll, I'll, I'll even bounce around my house too, so I'll still work at the coffee table sometimes, or in the kitchen, you know, on the, the Island, or in the office Um, I'm 100% in the home office if I'm doing any kind of phone calls or you know, zooms video conferencing. That we do. You know, in our firm we do at least once a week. We do a long meeting and video conferencing. Occasionally we'll do mediation by Zoom depositions here and there. If it's an out-of-state person, all that stuff will be from the office.
Speaker 2:And we usually try to meet once a week. Yeah, in person. So we have our case meeting through zoom, but you and I try to meet on our cases together at least once a week.
Speaker 1:Yeah so, yeah, it's a good setup. Um, I'm in, yeah, I come to lafayette all the time in my home I don't even think we said this like my home in Baton Rouge, so my home office. We always joked that I was the Baton Rouge branch of the Chaz Roberts law office, which is even truer now that we have a dedicated little office space. It happens to be in a neighborhood, but it is a dedicated office space for Chaz Roberts law in Baton Rouge.
Speaker 2:So Bradley would come in Wednesday, thursday, and we'll always rotate the same group of restaurants and it's lola, zorba's, blanchards, chris's pole boy.
Speaker 1:We do, we got, we got us our normal rotation and uh, and those are the important things which we just to bring it back for a second to that conference we recently went to the last night that we were in Vegas. Some guys that also had Louisiana connections a couple of them live here we did a big dinner. It's the only time we try to get a big group together her and Kat's 20 people but we managed to pull it off. Everybody went to this really nice steakhouse, got a separate room, so it was just us in the back and our end of the table was all people that lived in South Louisiana. I was sitting next to Chaz, across an attorney and his wife they live in the Lafayette area and then a couple other attorneys that came. We're halfway across the country. We're at a law conference. We've been doing all these things, seeing all these sites. What did we talk about the whole time? Food and specifically like best and worst lunch spots in the Acadiana area. Right, who's up, who's down, who's falling off? What's the new, up-and-coming?
Speaker 2:place. We're in a mafia room of a classic Vegas off-strip restaurant yeah, what's really important now?
Speaker 1:what? Where are the lunch spots in lafayette? What's what's what's good, what's bad? There are a couple spots they were talking about. What was that? Um, we have not gone there so I wasn't familiar with it, but it was. It's more it's like a plate lunch place that a couple people were swearing by and a couple people were saying, oh no.
Speaker 2:Laura's too.
Speaker 1:maybe I'm not sure, but they were saying that Jason was saying it was overrated. No, jason loved it and somebody else was saying it was overrated, or vice versa. But the Lafayette Lunch Spot conversation just followed everybody, even across the country.
Speaker 2:Speaking of Vegas Taylor, I was talking to our buddy, taylor Luce this morning, big fan of the podcast, and he said I want you to ask Bradley. I said you have any questions for Bradley? He said yeah, ask him. He's heading into college, getting through high school, heading into college. When did he diverge past from being on the radio to decide to be a lawyer? He said because Bradley has a radio radio voice I just never had an opportunity to.
Speaker 1:It just wasn't something that that was. I've had the opportunity, I guess I should say, because baton rouge high has had, and has to this day, uh, a great radio program for high school students. Even it's very, you know, uh uncommon, you know, to go to a high school, the high school students, even it's very, you know, uh uncommon, you know, to go to a high school, the high school has its own radio station. So you didn't have that, bro, um, yeah, most most high schools don't.
Speaker 1:And at one point they were actually Baton Rouge. I was actually the first high school in the world to have both an AM and an FM station. Uh, so there there's a long history of radio, like just learning. They had the studios in the school, so that was actually in the same building as where my dad taught his journalism and TV and film production classes. So I basically grew up like next to the radio station. But you know, you're kind of like doing your own. I wasn't going to take all my dad's classes and all the stuff that was over in their bill. It was like a, like a performing arts, like an annex, like a wing, like a separate little building off the main. You're keeping the world separate, yeah. And so I was like, well, no, I'm not going to do the radio, I'm going to do other things in high school.
Speaker 1:Um, and so I just I never was, but I did have a judge stop me in court one time and and comment on the radio voice. But in hindsight it's like. It's like, well, I'm glad I didn't tie my entire career to terrestrial radio 20 years ago. I'd be like, yeah, this is a growth industry. And it's like the internet comes along and I think you picked the right path, the more lucrative path, that's for sure. Again, not intentionally, but like most of the successes I've had in my life, it was not due to any brilliance on my part. I just kind of got lucky.
Speaker 2:Do you remember a certain time when you remember thinking I want to be a lawyer?
Speaker 1:I really don't. I'm not sure when the first time when you started teaching the LSAT class.
Speaker 2:Was that a you took the LSAT to get into law school and you did so well that they offered you a job to teach it, or you were doing that first before you decided to go to law school?
Speaker 1:I had already. I can't remember if I was in, if I knew a hundred percent that I was going to law school or not, but I was definitely going down that path before I started taking the LSAT. Okay, I mean, I'm sorry, Before I started teaching the LSAT. Yeah, I took the LSAT in undergrad.
Speaker 2:I paid to take a LSAT course.
Speaker 1:Bradley was the teacher of the LSAT course, bradley was the teacher of the LSAT course, but it wasn't like oh, I got an LSAT score and then the Princeton Review started.
Speaker 2:By the way, the LSAT is the standardized test that you take to get into law school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like the SAT for college students. It's the equivalent of the MCAT if you want to go to med school, or the GRE if you want to go to grad school, and they may have other ones.
Speaker 2:But man, I remember when I was a kid being second or third grade, thinking I want to be a lawyer, and I made that known publicly. I didn't know what a lawyer does, I didn't know any lawyers, but it's kind of always been a path. I remember in high school, like during homecoming Jazz plans to go to LSU and become a lawyer. That was always kind of my path and I'm lucky I guessed right. It fit me, because many of the people that we went to law school with aren't even practicing law now and I'm assuming those people had the same ambition, definitely had more resources to be around more lawyers than I did, and so that's just curious and I and I didn't know if you had that same experience.
Speaker 1:It wasn't that far back for sure. I mean I wanted I was probably the typical, you know, and you probably had lawyer was probably the fallback if you weren't playing for the saints, right, I'm sure that was the goal number one, Because I think most kids Dude the Braves and the Saints at the same time Bo Jackson, deion Sanders, Chaz Roberts.
Speaker 2:Come on man, let's get it right. Exactly.
Speaker 1:So I had that typical story that most young men our age had you want to be a professional athlete and then everybody has that. You were basketball. There's some baseball was mine really. Yeah, I didn't play basketball like organized until middle school yeah, bradley's six five, by the way I didn't.
Speaker 1:Um, I'll take it. I maybe maybe six, four on a good day, but uh, but I didn't. I was average height until probably high school, so I wasn't like always the tallest kid in the class or anything. I mean I was. I was decent at basketball but I didn't play organized basketball until middle school. Baseball was the thing T-ball, softball, baseball on up the route, banger. But everybody, you know everybody, it's a different time. Some people it happens in second grade, some people it's in fifth grade, eighth grade. There's some point where you're like, oh, I'm probably not going to be a professional at this. There's that guy where you see that guy and you're like, oh, in my wildest dreams I'm not even close to him in natural ability and skill and all of that, in natural ability and skill and all of that, and I'm, you know, oh, I might be one of the better players on my team, which is one team in one league, in one city, and so okay.
Speaker 2:And you know what's crazy, like that guy is looking at someone else and saying, okay, I'll never. I watched a Johnny Manziel documentary and he wanted to play baseball. He was late to football and he joined this school and there was a guy hitting the ball consistently 420 feet and he was like I will never be that guy at Thomas Rich Sports and he was a great baseball player.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that guy that he was looking at maybe made it to single A. Oh yeah. And then there were 10 other guys that were better than him.
Speaker 2:Didn't recognize the name. I don't think he ever made it out of out of college, right which is which is insane to think of the level of professional athletes right, there's only one guy.
Speaker 1:That was that guy for me. I mean, there's multiple, there's probably multiple. We keep saying that guy, there's multiple people.
Speaker 1:You see, right, when you and it's usually around maybe junior high, when people kind of start separating and you really see, okay, who's going to be the star of the state champion team and might have a chance to go to college versus who's just having fun playing ball. And there's a few of those guys. You're like, wow, he's a lot faster than me, wow, he hits it a lot farther than me, that kind of thing. And those guys don't become the guys, except for one. There was one guy. His name was Michael Clayton. That was one of the guys for me and he became obviously an NFL Rookie of the Year. But you play junior high baseball with somebody like Michael Clayton, it's real quick. You figure out where you stand.
Speaker 2:And he could beat you in ping pong, baseball, basketball, any sport, anything with a ball.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah. I played on a on a team with him one summer in baseball and played against him in basketball a couple of times and neither of those ended up that. Neither of those. He was obviously the best player in both of those, just dominating everyone, and neither of those ended up being the sport that he took it all the way. I don't know if you remember, both him and Marcus Spears got basketball scholarship offers at LSU and they were both going to do the double sport thing and that was. It was a big publicized because they were both Baton Rouge guys, local guys. Michael Clayton went to Christian Life and Marcus Spears went to Southern Lab, I'm pretty sure, and they both stayed home. You know they were in high school in the late 90s, which was a very down time for LSU both basketball and baseball and so they stayed home. They were going to be two-sport stars and that lasted about a month into football season and Nick Saban said no, john Brady, I'm very sorry, sir, we're going to win a national championship with these two guys.
Speaker 1:Exactly. They're not going to go break their ankle just stepping on a guy's foot coming down from a rebound and be out for six months. We're not having any of that.
Speaker 2:Why do you think people get out of the legal industry? We're 15 years in. It feels like it's flown by. Why do you think so many of our former classmates are out of the industry?
Speaker 1:My guess that the most common. Well, again, we're both still in the industry, so I don't have firsthand experience, thank goodness, and hopefully I never do. I'd love to do this, you know, make this my career forever, um, so I'm speculating a little bit. I don't want to speak for anybody's specific situation but, uh, I think a lot of it is dealing with, uh, your, your clients. Dealing with your clients who have unreasonable expectations is something that is true across all areas of the law. Okay, we probably have it better than most because we represent normal people every day and the vast vast majority of our clients are good people and they just they're injured and they just want help and if we give them help, they are very grateful and they are, uh, they appreciate our assistance and our judgment, and our clients too. But their clients are insurance companies. Their clients are banks. Their clients are businesses small businesses, medium businesses, fortune 500 companies Um, all of if they're in some kind of private practice in in business, in industry, it's high pressure and their clients are going to have expectations, just like our clients have expectations. A lot of that can sometimes be unreasonable.
Speaker 1:We hear stories from the other side that insurance companies are harder and harder to deal with. We believe it. We don't have to deal with it in a day-to-day, thank goodness. So I think a lot of people get burned out dealing with the insurance. We see insurance companies nickel and dime our clients who are injured and having the worst time of their life. So I can only imagine how they might nickel and dime their attorneys and their law firms who they have a purely arm's length business relationship with. Same in the banking world, the tax world, the business world, you're going to have demanding, high pressure situations and that can lead to burnout. That can cause stress for a lot of people. I think that's a lot of it that somebody might look at it and say, hey, what are the trade-offs? Maybe I'm making a good living or I'm, you know, doing things that are are intellectually stimulating, or I have great health insurance for my family, whatever. And then they decide that ultimately the positives are not worth the trade-off of the stress of dealing with this very high pressure industry.
Speaker 2:And what we do is adversarial in nature. And so your job is to fight over a thing, and whether that be a divorce lawyer, or someone's freedom in a criminal setting, or money in a civil setting, whether you're right, wrong, whatever, your job is to fight for that stuff in the middle. And so every day you go into war. And also, another thing is, our job is to be pessimistic, in a way, right, we can't always be the glass half full, because we have to hedge the downside of any transaction for our client, because we have to look at what happens if things go south. And so you're, you know you're not, it's not, it's not all rainbows and cupcakes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You're, you are, uh, you're paid to uh look at the dark side of things, because you have to be able to advise your clients about that and that is a big part of our job. Absolutely Specifically to personal injury law, we have to be honest with our clients about the potential bad outcomes that could happen if they turn down a settlement, if they file a lawsuit, if they pursue a lawsuit to trial. There are downsides to those things and we have to be honest with them and think about that, the same as an insurance attorney has to be honest with their clients about. Hey, chaz and Bradley's client, the jury is going to love them, they are injured, they did nothing wrong and they're a great person.
Speaker 1:Y'all need to think seriously about this claim, like the insurance attorneys. Have you mentioned the freedom attorneys? Have the you mentioned the freedom? I mean, that's gotta be the hardest context about talking about the downside. You have a criminal defense client and they're facing serious charges. You have to be honest with them. Hey, there is a possibility that you will lose this case and you will be found guilty. Well, what happens then? You? You will go to jail, potentially to prison, for a long time 20 years. Yeah, you will lose that time of your life, you will lose your freedom. Yeah, you're right. We have to consider all of those outcomes because a big part of our job is to try to do whatever we can to avoid those worst case scenarios for our clients.
Speaker 2:Well, how about this too? So you talked about being in it all day. I'm in it all day. You're doing that from nine to five, and then you have to turn the switch off and say, okay, I'm not going to be the tiger, I'm not going to be the lion, I'm not going to be the adversarial, whatever. I'm going to go home and be dad. I'm going to go home and be dad. I'm going to go home and be a loving husband. I'm going to go home and be a good neighbor and friend and everything else. Yes.
Speaker 1:And that's probably more difficult in our industry than a lot of other industries. Because of what you're talking about, the adversarial, I'd be interested. I think you probably hit on something. You said what's my first thought about it and I went to like difficult pleasing clients and you went to the adversarial, you know process with the other side.
Speaker 1:It's kind of two sides of the same coin though, because it's like you're kind of it's those times in your day-to-day professional life when you're butting heads with someone and it's not because either of you are bad people and it's not because you're doing a bad job. In fact you might be doing a good job. It's because of that is the job, the nature of the relationship either with a client who maybe doesn't want to hear bad news or with an opposing attorney who's fighting like hell for their client the nature of the job, the nature of the relationship is adversarial, and so we do get more of that in our day-to-day professional lives than some people do, and so it's got to be harder to, you know, turn that off at the end of the day, and I guess that's one of the reasons why people would leave the industry is they're saying, hey, I want to come home at the end of the day and not have to move heaven and earth. Just to get back to that you know, center calm place.
Speaker 2:That's where. That's where drugs and alcohol have come in for a lot of lawyers, or you know people in our industry to uh, as a way of coping, I'll tell you one thing over the last sort of decade I have really found ways to kind of cope with that stress and be able to unplug.
Speaker 1:Running has been a tremendous just goes and runs for eight hours at a time or get punched in the face, boxing something, but it definitely works.
Speaker 2:Or listening to good music and working out, but I'm able to kind of separate work and and one thing about being a lawyer is that you're always a lawyer right 24 hours a day. That's just a true profession. So people always associate with me a lot. I carry myself like a lawyer 24 seven but I'm able to sort of unplug and not tie my self-worth to a particular case my self-worth to a particular case.
Speaker 1:We took a few ubers in in vegas because you, you look up and you see a building and it's right in front of your face and you're like, oh, I see a building, I can walk there, no. And then 30 minutes later you're halfway there and you're like, well, that was a mistake, so we'll take a few.
Speaker 2:But so the big thing with Uber is for a while it was actually way better than taking a taxi, not only on the service, but they carried a large uninsured motorist policy.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so we had some cases where there was a million dollars of uninsured motorist coverage. So the passenger gets, there's a wreck.
Speaker 1:Even if the driver of the Uber is not at fault, we can still tap into the Uber's uninsured motorist policy Right and we needed to for several of our clients who had just been riding in Ubers that were involved in Uber wrecks.
Speaker 2:Now they don't have.
Speaker 1:UM. Yes, I just remember what it was that sparked my brain to think of that, and it was you saying that you are a lawyer 24 seven. You, in some ways, you're always a lawyer. And to me, when I think of Chaz Roberts, what does he do? 24 seven? It's he tells people to buy uninsured motorist coverage. He says you have to get uninsured motorist coverage. Uh, whether, that's, I think, most days. Chaz also asked me earlier about my day toto-day. I know Chaz's day-to-day starts. He wakes up in a sweat uninsured mutters. He's like muttering it to himself. When he wakes up in the morning, it might be the last thought. It's almost like you're in my bedroom. Yeah, it's like the last thought before you go to sleep at night. Because we just see it time and time again. We see the carnage, we see time and time again that people that they're injured through no fault of their own, but the person whose fault it was either didn't have insurance or they had very little insurance and there's not enough to go around.
Speaker 2:Think about. Think about the nice people that I've represented that have gotten huge, purchased huge, large insurance policies. I'm talking about a hundred thousand, 250,000. I've seen million insurance policies and there's no uninsured motorist coverage Correct, they're protected.
Speaker 1:If they do something wrong and harm someone else, they're fine. Their insurance company will pay for that. But they haven't protected themselves against other uninsured drivers out there and that's the bigger risk Absolutely. And so with Uber, it was almost an exception to this rule because when Uber started out, for whatever reason whether it was intentional or whether they just didn't think about it or whether they didn't get around to it on the corporate to-do list but they had uninsured motorist coverage for all of their passengers for a million dollars per incident. They also had a million dollars of liability coverage, and that is something that I know they do advertise. I've seen it advertised. They definitely market it. They want to put it out there. Hey, if you get in an Uber, there's a million dollars of insurance coverage.
Speaker 1:Well, their marketing, in my opinion, is intentionally vague about that, because your average person doesn't know liability coverage from uninsured motorist coverage, from what is my health insurance policy, from life insurance, you know, yeah, it's just not something that you want or need to know in your day-to-day life as a human being. You're like that's why I have an insurance agent, that's why I have a lawyer, or I just, you know, I just do whatever the law says. I need to do the minimum so I abide by the law. But I'm not. You know I don't have time for that. I have three children. I'm working two jobs.
Speaker 1:You know your average person doesn't know or care about these nuances, so, but they do want to feel protected. They want to say, okay, I'm getting in some stranger's car, some strange car, I don't know this person, I don't know this vehicle, I will never see them again. What is my only insurance that I'm protected? Well, it's part of this Uber, umbrella or Lyft. It's the same thing in terms of. They have the same practices in terms of insurance. Different companies but same practices. Million dollar policy Used to have UM Now they don't.
Speaker 1:So our average Uber rider? They just want to know hey, I'm, I'm protected, right. And so Uber says we have a million dollars of coverage. Well, uber is protected up to a million dollars, right, the driver is protected with whatever harm they cause. But if you get in that Uber and you're riding in that Uber and you don't have uninsured motorist coverage and somebody else crashes into that car and they don't have insurance, you are not protected.
Speaker 1:And that was something that didn't used to be the case and it also was litigated. And the reason it's been front of our mind is there have actually been a couple of cases lately where attorneys have tried to fight that they had that client in that unfortunate situation. They got it in an Uber and somebody else hit that Uber that didn't have insurance, or they only had a little bit of insurance, and the person that was injured said, well, hey, I'm riding in an Uber, so, uber, you need to pick up the tab for my bills beyond that. And Uber said, no, no, no, no, we don't have that anymore. And the attorneys tried to fight that and say, well, you can't do that, you can't operate, you can't drive a fleet of vehicles around our state and not protect your passengers.
Speaker 1:But courts have said no. As long as Uber dots their I's and crosses their T's and files the proper paperwork and fills out the proper policy forms to say we don't want this uninsured motorist coverage. As long as they do that, then that's perfectly legal and they can operate these vehicles and you are not protected through Uber's policy if someone else hits your car. And that's just reason number 73 to add to the Chaz Roberts list of why you need uninsured motorists. If you are getting in a ride shared vehicle and you do not have uninsured motorist coverage on your own policy, you are no longer protected If other people without insurance run into that car.
Speaker 2:And and most people at least around here, take the Ubers from midnight to 3. Am. You do it, and when is the riskiest time?
Speaker 1:to be on the road, or what is the riskiest time to be on the road, or what is the probably the most popular busiest uber day in of the year lsu game day or southern ul.
Speaker 1:It's not quite the volume at the smaller schools, but they got tailgaters there too. Uh, that's when you know. You talk to the uber drivers in baton rouge they can make $500 on a game day. Again, you're going to have a much higher risk of wrecks. There's just more congestion, there's more drinking. It's kind of lawless when you've got Contraflow and you've got an overworked cop who might be waving you through, but you've got 600,000, 150,000 people are driving, cycling through campus, yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's why I say, like uninsured motorists will cover you in your vehicle, it'll cover your passengers in your vehicle, and it will also cover you when you're the passenger in someone else's vehicle, and that also includes Uber, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I just I think that that's something that most people don't think about when they get in that Uber, but I think it might give them pause and they might be surprised to learn that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the yellow cabs don't have UM either.
Speaker 1:Exactly Now. They also don't have million dollar liability policies. They have $25,000 policies. So even if you're going to be taking a yellow cab, you need uninsured motorist coverage even more in case something bad happens. But same policy there. Yeah, they're not going to insure you against other drivers out there on the road without their insurance.
Speaker 2:Well, Bradley, let's get back to settlement season. We have our Christmas lunch today. Looking forward to that. Looking forward to spending some time with you and selling some cases and to having another great 2025. It's a pleasure working with you. I love the work you do. Our clients appreciate you and keep up brother, all right.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me back on, it's been a pleasure.
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