Speaker 1: Class Action is a production of I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Sound Argument. To give you a little background on South
Speaker 1: Dakota geography, you have what you call about two urban areas.
Speaker 1: Sioux Falls. You've been the Sioux Falls. That's the big city.
Speaker 1: It's a small city or a big town, but it's
Speaker 1: the big urban area of South Dakota. That's where about
Speaker 1: a quarter of the population is. And then out west
Speaker 1: you have Rapid City that's about eighty people. I grew
Speaker 1: up in Rep City, South Dakota. It was nice. It
Speaker 1: was pretty relaxed. Not a lot went on, so I
Speaker 1: don't mean to make it sound like it was boring,
Speaker 1: but it was definitely very yeah, just very relaxed. My
Speaker 1: dad is the general manager for RDIO Equipment, which is
Speaker 1: a John Deer dealership, and my mom drives school buses
Speaker 1: for the Rep City School system. But she's done a
Speaker 1: ton of stuff throughout her life. I grew up in
Speaker 1: a family of five, my mom and my dad, and
Speaker 1: I have an older sister who's thirty and a younger
Speaker 1: brother who just turned twenty two. I'm the oldest of
Speaker 1: nine children, so I have eight younger siblings, and I've
Speaker 1: always had this role model slash lookout for them, and
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that they're okay in life
Speaker 1: and that they're doing the right things. So by being
Speaker 1: a lawyer, I can apply that to other people. I
Speaker 1: can look out for other people. But the cultural divide
Speaker 1: in South Dakota is like East River West River. That's
Speaker 1: more ranching out there to seem more like cowboy hats
Speaker 1: and that kind of stuff. We're here it's more farming,
Speaker 1: so it's a little bit different culture. I mean, where
Speaker 1: I'm from, it's considered one of the big towns. You
Speaker 1: got about, you know, seven eight towns within that fifteen
Speaker 1: to twenty thousand, and then every place else is pretty ruled.
Speaker 1: I'm a listener as opposed to being the first to speak.
Speaker 1: I think people talk too much sometimes, and I think
Speaker 1: we miss a lot of stuff and we're talking, so
Speaker 1: I'd kind of rather listen and take everything in and
Speaker 1: then then add in an opinion. I'm a first generation lawyer,
Speaker 1: so no and my family has gone to law school,
Speaker 1: so this has been a fun kind of new adventure
Speaker 1: for all of us. I guess I'm also Catholic, and
Speaker 1: I am really involved in my faith. I think it's
Speaker 1: important to do that work through the criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: And also I'm Native American and here in South Dakota
Speaker 1: there's a lot of issues, especially on the western side
Speaker 1: of the state, with Native Americans and their treatment over
Speaker 1: the years and their problems that they struggle with. My
Speaker 1: parents had to see a bankruptcy lawyer at one point
Speaker 1: and ultimately saved their house. So that's something that really
Speaker 1: stuck with me when I was pretty young. So I
Speaker 1: started working when I was as soon as I can
Speaker 1: apply for a work license in Iowa. I started off
Speaker 1: by a detasseling corn. I did that every summer until
Speaker 1: I was old enough to get an actual job. Then
Speaker 1: you've got Vermillion here. It's about ten thousand people, but
Speaker 1: Vermilion it's pretty much just a college town. I think
Speaker 1: the population doubles when the college gets here. So I
Speaker 1: went to undergrad at the University of South Dakota. So
Speaker 1: by the time all of a sudden done, I have
Speaker 1: spent seven years in this town and on this campus,
Speaker 1: and I can't tell you how much I'm dreading leaving Vermillion.
Speaker 1: It has truly become home. I mean South Dakota culture
Speaker 1: in general. People are nice, they're reserved. You don't see
Speaker 1: a ton of characters are big, colorful personalities like you
Speaker 1: do in the city. Yeah, they're very conservative. People don't
Speaker 1: have the most open minded world view generally because it's
Speaker 1: a small state. You're not a round a lot. But
Speaker 1: I think people have good intentions here. They're good people.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody's really going to spin in your face
Speaker 1: and slam the door on you. We are the state's
Speaker 1: law school. Laura Rose, the feisty University of South Dakota coach,
Speaker 1: has already uploaded the fact pattern to her entire team.
Speaker 1: There was a quote that my dad used to use
Speaker 1: at Stetson when he was running their program. He used
Speaker 1: to tell people that when I send you out to
Speaker 1: a competition, I am putting the reputation of my school
Speaker 1: in your hands. If you drop the reputation in my school,
Speaker 1: I will cut your hands off. Now he can get
Speaker 1: away with that because he's a twenty two year military veteran.
Speaker 1: Law school mock trial season it's like a hurricane and
Speaker 1: it's fast approaching. Here's the deal. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: cut your hands off, but we're gonna have to talk.
Speaker 1: Tryouts are over, the team is hand picked. Classes are
Speaker 1: already in full swing. The law school grind. It's on,
Speaker 1: but you're in a competition setting. There is no time
Speaker 1: to be Midwest night. I love South Dakota, Nicce and
Speaker 1: Midwest nights. One of my favorite things about this area
Speaker 1: of the country is how polite people are and how
Speaker 1: much people care about other people. But you know where
Speaker 1: it doesn't have a place in a courtroom. We're here
Speaker 1: to argue. We're here to argue about facts. You are
Speaker 1: not my friend, you're not my enemy. I don't have
Speaker 1: to cut your throat precisely most of them. Dozens of
Speaker 1: schools around the country are preparing for the fall invitational tournaments,
Speaker 1: were second and third year law students get a chance
Speaker 1: to compete before the big national competition start in the spring.
Speaker 1: But I do have to make sure that you're following
Speaker 1: through with what it is that I need done. And
Speaker 1: I do have to make sure that you're complying with
Speaker 1: the rules, and I do have to make sure that
Speaker 1: I am not in an attempt to be kind and
Speaker 1: to be polite, actually giving away points of argumentation. I'm
Speaker 1: Katie Fang, and this is Class Action Episode three, Mob
Speaker 1: Hits and the H E. B. Tyler. You look confused,
Speaker 1: what's up? It's eight am, and everyone is working together
Speaker 1: to build an air tight case. Picture an old fashioned
Speaker 1: barn raising on the prairie. Only this barn is called
Speaker 1: together with arguments and legal strategy. Nicky owed two dollars.
Speaker 1: Nick's a bad guy, he's a drug user, a lot
Speaker 1: of problems that you can attack his credibility. And then
Speaker 1: you also got the bartender who's a good witness. He's
Speaker 1: lost doing a very credible kid, and he was saying
Speaker 1: Tommy is peaceful. Tommy's a very peaceful guy and he's generous.
Speaker 1: Oh three, you all made faces when he said the
Speaker 1: word peaceful. Why did we make faces? Justin? Did you
Speaker 1: say peaceful in your opening? What have you done? You've
Speaker 1: opened the door to character evidence, character evidence, but you
Speaker 1: don't know it because you're a baby too, all right.
Speaker 1: If you get a criminal fact pack, there is an
Speaker 1: instinctive desire to start to humanize your client, which you
Speaker 1: can do. But you've got to watch the adjectives because
Speaker 1: if I say he's peaceful, and if there's any evidence
Speaker 1: that he's not, what am I doing? I am giving
Speaker 1: the state attorney the moment. I am giving brain in
Speaker 1: the moment to get up and go Hey, you just
Speaker 1: said that you love peace and love. It all happens
Speaker 1: if you were in the freaking mob. You were you
Speaker 1: you were doing this right, you were with these people,
Speaker 1: you were doing this. You're giving the opportunity to pounce. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the business he was in. So he's he's not
Speaker 1: gonna go full wive guy. He's not going to be
Speaker 1: a made man. He's not going to burn the car
Speaker 1: to the saint in his hands. Case file Commonwealth versus
Speaker 1: Santa Suso a mock trial case torn out of the
Speaker 1: script of a Grizzly mafia murder story. It's a movie
Speaker 1: plot and one you may be familiar with. I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to do a mob case and there's not really been,
Speaker 1: ever been one that's done at any level of mock trial.
Speaker 1: My name is Philip Pascua alo Um, the trial competition
Speaker 1: director at the Director University Thomas Arkline School of Law
Speaker 1: and the tournament director for the Battle of the Experts.
Speaker 1: So the Battle of the Experts is a national mock
Speaker 1: trial competition where sixteen law schools compete to be the
Speaker 1: national champion of the Battle of the Experts. So this
Speaker 1: Fear's case is loosely based on the plot of good films,
Speaker 1: change the names of the characters and then their stories
Speaker 1: is slightly different than what you'd see in the movie.
Speaker 1: For lots of reasons. I hope not on one we're
Speaker 1: going to clear there. I think Marty's got bigger things
Speaker 1: to do and then and then read our case file.
Speaker 1: But I hope he reads it. That would be excellent.
Speaker 1: There's a classic scene where the character played by Joe
Speaker 1: Pesci is insulted in a bar and he and the
Speaker 1: character played by Radiota killed that person killed. That character.
Speaker 1: Character's name is Billy Batts. It's still my favorite mob
Speaker 1: movie for sure. Nothing has come close. My name is Elijnig.
Speaker 1: I spent fourteen years as a prosecutor, but yes, I
Speaker 1: spent most of my career in the Southern District of
Speaker 1: New York indicting, prosecuting, and trying real life New York
Speaker 1: City mobsters. That is a great murder scenario for a
Speaker 1: mock trial, because it's not your obvious, premeditated murder that
Speaker 1: was not supposed to happen. When they're done beating him
Speaker 1: to death, I think the de Niro character sort of
Speaker 1: says to the Pesci character, would you do I think
Speaker 1: that's a great scenario because then you have to argue
Speaker 1: things like intent and premeditation and what degree of murder
Speaker 1: are we in here? Is it manslaughter? Is it murder?
Speaker 1: So that's a good scenario because I think there are
Speaker 1: arguments to be made, but you're getting into trickier issues
Speaker 1: that would be argued at a real trial. The purpose
Speaker 1: of mock trial, I think this to get kids interested
Speaker 1: in this, to get students wanting to do this in
Speaker 1: their future careers. And if what are you gonna do,
Speaker 1: Try some boring fraud case that's based on tax law
Speaker 1: and account no, give him an interesting case, Give them
Speaker 1: an exciting case, Give him something out of a movie,
Speaker 1: and that will spark their interest. Laura Rose has hand
Speaker 1: picked four of her top students to argue this case.
Speaker 1: Bailey Moore that and Justin Peter Right will defend Tommy
Speaker 1: Santa Suso. What happens is this guy, William Cafierre, we
Speaker 1: call him Billy. Billy goes to a bar. He gets
Speaker 1: out of jail and he kind of needs to re
Speaker 1: establish his boss presence, and Tommy Santa Suso and Nickpatrick arrived.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows each other, but Tommy's trying to get out
Speaker 1: of the mafia. He's still in the mafia, but Tommy
Speaker 1: just wants to be respected, because who doesn't want to
Speaker 1: be Brandon Hodeck and Bill Murray. Not that Bill Murray
Speaker 1: will prosecute Tommy. When I first read this fact pattern,
Speaker 1: for example, I thought the state slightly had the edge,
Speaker 1: and then I kept reading it, and then I thought
Speaker 1: the defense was gonna blow us out of the water.
Speaker 1: And then I kept reading it and I realized, maybe
Speaker 1: the state actually has the better case. And so when
Speaker 1: Billy starts shoving in his face that Houston your chauffeur,
Speaker 1: Tommy gets mad. They start a brawl, and after this
Speaker 1: bar fight, then it's only Nick and Billy, and that's
Speaker 1: all we really know from there. That's what we know
Speaker 1: for sure. They walk out of the bar together, and
Speaker 1: you know that Billy's dead. It's just kind of always
Speaker 1: work in progress. It's important never to get too in
Speaker 1: love with a certain theme or theory, because you can
Speaker 1: always think of something that completely derails everything that you
Speaker 1: just built. The rest of the team is spread out
Speaker 1: in the peanut gallery of the law schools practice court,
Speaker 1: firing pot shots at the new case as going through it,
Speaker 1: Does it make sense? Does it make sense with what
Speaker 1: you read and what questions leading as you're hearing for
Speaker 1: the first time, Tell me what you're thinking about. So
Speaker 1: I texted Bailey this as well, But it probably goes
Speaker 1: both ways. The knife is under the assumption that it's
Speaker 1: the mother's knife, a knight that she regularly uses, So
Speaker 1: where's her prince? On the other flip side, though the
Speaker 1: prosecution say the knife is wiped, there's no prince now
Speaker 1: because they're trying to cover it up. Yeah, this might
Speaker 1: be a stretch, but I was gonna say, who's to
Speaker 1: say that when he left the far the first time,
Speaker 1: he didn't take Nicky's car If his car is parked
Speaker 1: there but further away, he could have taken Nikki's car
Speaker 1: or I don't remember what I was thinking he did.
Speaker 1: He still didn't go back to the bar, which is
Speaker 1: where Tommy's car would have been. So even if you
Speaker 1: were to have taken him back to his car and
Speaker 1: not home, the cell phone records still don't show that.
Speaker 1: I do. I can't say it's comfortable. It's definitely not comfortable.
Speaker 1: You put a lot of work into theory in your case,
Speaker 1: and then it's easy to kind of get upset when
Speaker 1: someone tries to pull holes in it. Though it's a
Speaker 1: team sport, it's can quickly feel very personal. So, Laura,
Speaker 1: during boot camp, it looks as if you're taking all
Speaker 1: of the students that you're working with and you're having
Speaker 1: them hive mind this problem that they've been presented with.
Speaker 1: Can you kind of walk us through that method and
Speaker 1: that procedure and why you think it's effective to be
Speaker 1: able to give them a foundation to work from. The
Speaker 1: reason for the hive mind with the Battle of the
Speaker 1: Expert's fact pattern in particular, came about for a few reasons.
Speaker 1: Number One, it's a great way to knock the rust
Speaker 1: off from the summer. It's a great way to get
Speaker 1: started and get going and get everybody back to thinking
Speaker 1: about those things. Number Two, it's a great way for
Speaker 1: the students that are so deeply entrenched with the fact
Speaker 1: pattern to realize, Hey, the thing that you thought was
Speaker 1: very clear isn't clear from your presentation That inference that
Speaker 1: you thought was so obvious isn't actually as obvious as
Speaker 1: you want to make it. Me, is it a good idea?
Speaker 1: Because I'm just thinking about this and like, what Ma's
Speaker 1: really saying here is if you can say that he
Speaker 1: was here for these parts, say, are there some fuzzy inconsistencies, Yes,
Speaker 1: but remember he's he's not a saint. He's a drug
Speaker 1: addict and drug dealer. Was he high on heroin when
Speaker 1: he was doing this? I don't know, But could you
Speaker 1: know he's there enough to say, yeah, there's some inconsistencies.
Speaker 1: But do we think he did it? Your reasonable members
Speaker 1: of the jury, I'd say yes, and then just kind
Speaker 1: of blur. So is it a combination of a confidence builder,
Speaker 1: an ice breaker, a substantive dive into the law and
Speaker 1: the evidence and the rules of procedure kind of all
Speaker 1: in one. Yeah, it's it's everything. It's a kitchen saint
Speaker 1: kind of approach. It's trial, and that's why it's wonderful
Speaker 1: because you have to deal with the facts, the law,
Speaker 1: the But Tommy, on the other hand, he's smart, he's methodical,
Speaker 1: he knows what he's doing. But it's kind of ironic
Speaker 1: that our star witness has all the things that make
Speaker 1: him look like the bad guy in San Antonio. Jasmineal
Speaker 1: Gain has finally managed to stream Martin Scorsese's mob classic
Speaker 1: Good Fellas one of my favorites. Anyway, her St. Mary's
Speaker 1: University teammates Andy Viscarra and Coldla they feel like it's
Speaker 1: their legal obligation to break down the plot. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this movie, Tommy didn't. Yeah. But in the movie. Even
Speaker 1: in the movie, I was like, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: so Tommy did it. He did it? Yeah, I was like, whoa,
Speaker 1: that didn't happen. Not in our story. They're adding a
Speaker 1: third person up in this joy all right, I killed Billy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when he wants anybody there, that's a good can you
Speaker 1: deserve that. I'm gonna pretend Jimmy saw me to morow
Speaker 1: like die for this man. That's not very okay. Dury
Speaker 1: remembers the dream. I'm sorry, I'm gonna start, but I'm
Speaker 1: trying to really think about this. You're gonna get on
Speaker 1: this vibe. I'm gonna kill Let me start that again.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that sounded weird. I'm gonna kill this bastard.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill you, you fake tough guy. Those were
Speaker 1: the last words that the defendant told Billy Cafilero the
Speaker 1: night that he was murdered. It's a dark knight in Sienna, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: And while walking on the street, you see a bar
Speaker 1: to the right. It's called the Bamboo Lounge. And from
Speaker 1: afar you think it's just a mom and pop little bar,
Speaker 1: something quiet. But inside inside that bar is a whole
Speaker 1: another story. Inside that bar, it's another world of people.
Speaker 1: They have a code violence, drugs, money, and family above all.
Speaker 1: Breaking that code means breaking that code can cost you
Speaker 1: your life. They make money from prostitution, loan sharky, theft,
Speaker 1: and extortion. Now, these families have a hierarchy. It goes
Speaker 1: boss underboss, conciliaire, capos, associates and soldiers. And these are
Speaker 1: the types of people that you will find the Bamboo
Speaker 1: Lounge when you walk inside. The first person, so I
Speaker 1: really like the story. That's Jason Goss. He's a St.
Speaker 1: Mary's grad and a trial team legend, Jason tried cases
Speaker 1: for the Bear County d a's office, but then he
Speaker 1: left to join his old boss and take up for
Speaker 1: the defense. Now, when you got towards the end, you
Speaker 1: just started basically reading it, it was like blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: da da da, something's never changed. In whatever spare time,
Speaker 1: Jason manages to get he and his wife Maritza who's
Speaker 1: expecting their first baby, coached the battle team. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: feel like it goes too long, and I was boring
Speaker 1: you guys. It is too long. But the only reason
Speaker 1: is and the reason why it felt that way is
Speaker 1: because you basically you did something that's it's kind of
Speaker 1: rare and mock trial. You woa of all what the
Speaker 1: witnesses we're going to say into the story, which is cool,
Speaker 1: but you know, one of the things I noticed was
Speaker 1: is you're talking about grab. You know, you had the knife,
Speaker 1: you stabbed once, you stabbed twice, three times. You need
Speaker 1: to talk about it like that. Right, he got the knife,
Speaker 1: he stabbed him once, he stabbed him twice, He stabbed
Speaker 1: him three times, nine inches deep right into his heart.
Speaker 1: Something like that. Drama at a little I like it.
Speaker 1: Keep going. I'm jasmineal Green and I'm a three. Oh
Speaker 1: uh not doing too well today. Uh. We have cold
Speaker 1: brew just running through my veins right now. Probably gonna
Speaker 1: get like two to three hours of sleep. Already. Told Andy,
Speaker 1: you know she sees me tomorrow. She didn't see me
Speaker 1: because the first two weeks I was dressing up nice
Speaker 1: and tomorrow it's it's gonna be bad. And I'm working
Speaker 1: on top of this, and I think that's what's killing
Speaker 1: me because I don't have that extra free time. So
Speaker 1: I don't know how Jasmine's living right now. I got
Speaker 1: a sabbatical from my job because I physically could not
Speaker 1: do everything. She's not human, she's not real. But but
Speaker 1: my job keeps me saying like, when I'm there, I
Speaker 1: love it. I'm not worried about anything. I'm like, I'm here,
Speaker 1: it's just wish there was more time in the week. So, Laura,
Speaker 1: when you perceive from some of the students, the ones
Speaker 1: that maybe you predict are going to have a struggle
Speaker 1: after a law school, do you pivot a little bit
Speaker 1: and maybe give a little bit more of yourself, maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit more mentoring, maybe a little bit more
Speaker 1: individualized attention to maybe get them more prepared for what
Speaker 1: the real world quote unquote is going to be. Like,
Speaker 1: I try to do that with all of my students
Speaker 1: in all honesty, and it's one of the things that
Speaker 1: I'm really fortunate with being here at South Dakota because
Speaker 1: I have the number of students that I interact with.
Speaker 1: I am very closely involved with all of my trial
Speaker 1: team members, and I get to do that individualized attention
Speaker 1: that you're talking about, But you can always pick out
Speaker 1: those one or two where it's like, hey, you're gonna
Speaker 1: need a little bit of extra coaching or a little
Speaker 1: bit of extra support. My office is a safe space
Speaker 1: for you. One of the biggest obstacles that I see
Speaker 1: in a lot of my friends at school and in
Speaker 1: myself is that imposter syndrome that most women have, where
Speaker 1: it's like you don't realize that you are smart enough
Speaker 1: or think you have the best argument, and there's always
Speaker 1: kind of a push to be better without accepting that
Speaker 1: you're already goody. And that's been one of the hardest
Speaker 1: things to overcome. And advocacy is knowing like, Okay, my
Speaker 1: argument is good, my style is good. Now I just
Speaker 1: need to trust it, but make it better and and
Speaker 1: that's the thing, right And I will empathize with you
Speaker 1: on the imposter syndrome point and tell you it's not
Speaker 1: something that goes away. I've got it horribly bad. My
Speaker 1: friends love to laugh at me because every other week
Speaker 1: i'd like, the law school is gonna fire me, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna lose my job, And they're like, in what world?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, somebody's going to see through that I
Speaker 1: have clearly just faked it till I made it. At
Speaker 1: this point, one of the things about being a female
Speaker 1: advocate that I've found challenging until we'll still find challenging
Speaker 1: but less challenging after working with you, is I think
Speaker 1: the practice of law has had very maybe kind of
Speaker 1: aggressive and straightforward and loud and boisterous and all of
Speaker 1: these kind of different qualities that you've seen all the movies,
Speaker 1: um that lawyers portrayed. But being you know, a female advocate,
Speaker 1: as you said, we have a different skill set. And
Speaker 1: in trial tech, I got a lot of comments about
Speaker 1: being too gentle or like motherly, or I speak too
Speaker 1: soft or something, and it kind of leads you to
Speaker 1: a different skill set of how you take those kinds
Speaker 1: of things and then make them better in your advocacy
Speaker 1: and make them dangerous in the courtroom. And I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the coolest things that I see women
Speaker 1: advocates do, is you kind of know where they're going,
Speaker 1: but you don't know how that final. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I think that part of the reason that we've had
Speaker 1: to become that is because the idea that if you're
Speaker 1: aggressive is a woman, You're going to get labeled as
Speaker 1: a bit. But number one, that's not necessarily true. The
Speaker 1: jury will give you leeway if the witnesses being ridiculous.
Speaker 1: You know, the more unreasonable they get, the more reasonable
Speaker 1: that you get, unless you have to do the control
Speaker 1: and then it shows the jury I've got the range
Speaker 1: to go there. I'm choosing not to go there because
Speaker 1: I know I'm more effective when I take these different approaches,
Speaker 1: and that's not a bad thing. The thing that you
Speaker 1: get to figure out now is is what your range
Speaker 1: truly is. You you've figured out a couple of octaves
Speaker 1: that you're comfortable singing in to make the analogy work,
Speaker 1: but you can expand out of that. We bring to
Speaker 1: the room our own biases and beliefs, and if you
Speaker 1: don't understand that, when you're an attorney standing up and
Speaker 1: presenting to a jury that is going to decide the
Speaker 1: facts of your case, you will always lose. For Trial
Speaker 1: team director A. J. Belito de Luna, running a trial
Speaker 1: program means keeping track of several competition teams. The thing
Speaker 1: that has to be at the forefront of your mind
Speaker 1: from beginning to add Trust me, they are watching every
Speaker 1: little thing that you are doing, Every little thing that
Speaker 1: you are doing. He means coaching up the younger lawyers
Speaker 1: and trial advocacy classes, but also looking out for promising rookies,
Speaker 1: your honor, opposing counsel ladies and gentlemen of the jury.
Speaker 1: She couldn't escape. She wanted to leave, but she couldn't.
Speaker 1: He would not have it, so instead he killed her.
Speaker 1: Rookies like Mariella and Sina's the second year law student
Speaker 1: from Tucson who knocked it out of the park in
Speaker 1: boot camp. This is her first opening statement in what
Speaker 1: may prove to be a very promising legal career. October
Speaker 1: starts as a typical day for a detective about He
Speaker 1: goes into the office, probably grabs some coffee, sits at
Speaker 1: his desk when the phone rings. Someone tells him that
Speaker 1: a body was found at the marsh. Unfortunately, in Detective
Speaker 1: Label's line of work, this isn't uncommon, so he treats
Speaker 1: it just like any other homicide. He goes to the scene,
Speaker 1: he examines the scene, he examines the body, suspects foul play,
Speaker 1: and that's when it hits him. That's when he makes
Speaker 1: the connection. He realizes Molly didn't go missing just randomly
Speaker 1: three years ago. She didn't just run away from the defendant.
Speaker 1: The defendant killed her. Thank you. This is assistant coach
Speaker 1: Stephen Lopez, your brothers and your poise up there. You're
Speaker 1: not moving around. You're very strong, you're very powerful. Your
Speaker 1: voice feels this entire room, which is awesome. Your theme
Speaker 1: that she couldn't escape, right, it's okay, right, it's not plunchy,
Speaker 1: it's not really catchy. But I think the bigger problem
Speaker 1: with it is he didn't really use it. If that's
Speaker 1: your theory and that's your theme, then you've got to
Speaker 1: play that through your whole opening. Great job, right, Sure,
Speaker 1: I have seen your days. I could see it because
Speaker 1: you just got criticized pretty heavil and you don't like it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I take criticism. Well, it's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you know, you want to be perfect all the time,
Speaker 1: but it's just not think so. So I want you
Speaker 1: to hear something. I sent him a text. What did
Speaker 1: that text say? I didn't My phone is off, sir,
Speaker 1: beat ault. She is a champion in waiting. I see
Speaker 1: in your face where you're feeling failure. I see in
Speaker 1: your face where you're like Damn, I didn't do it right.
Speaker 1: I didn't meet the expectation. It's not good enough yet,
Speaker 1: but there's great stuff there. So don't get discouraged when
Speaker 1: you get these com heads. We're never going to tell
Speaker 1: you that you're good enough until you're good enough. And
Speaker 1: you know when you're good enough when you bring home
Speaker 1: a national championship like he did. When we put your
Speaker 1: trophy in a trophy case. That's when we stopped saying
Speaker 1: things to you. It's like you, you tell me what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do now, all right, that's when you're good enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so great job, now you can give her. Last week
Speaker 1: was probably my most stressful week so far. More and
Speaker 1: more things to do, and as we get deeper into classes,
Speaker 1: it gets a little more time consuming. Also, I was
Speaker 1: asked to practice with coach Douer and coach Goss as
Speaker 1: a witness for their Battle of the Experts competition. So
Speaker 1: I was really excited when I got the email. It
Speaker 1: was Aj who emailed me. I was really excited. You know.
Speaker 1: He let me know that this means you know what
Speaker 1: I'm doing well. He also told me, don't let this
Speaker 1: get to your head. You know, this isn't a golden ticketed.
Speaker 1: You know, we're offering you this opportunity contingent on you
Speaker 1: doing well and trial at um and keeping up the work.
Speaker 1: It's definitely been a whirlwind of craziness. I haven't even
Speaker 1: finished my evidence class. Like this is going to be
Speaker 1: very scary. I'm a thrill. I definitely feel a ton
Speaker 1: of pressure because I have experience. I should be better
Speaker 1: in theory, I should be really good, should be able
Speaker 1: to not necessarily carry the team, but at least do
Speaker 1: a really good part. But because of that competitive nature,
Speaker 1: you always feel like you're not there. We had practiced
Speaker 1: yesterday that was a full sort of round, and I
Speaker 1: didn't think I did as well as I should have.
Speaker 1: I messed up some really basic stuff that I know
Speaker 1: better than to do. I missed certain cues for things,
Speaker 1: I missed objections stuff that I shouldn't have screwed up.
Speaker 1: And we have, you know, a couple of weeks to
Speaker 1: three weeks to prepare and hone that in. So it
Speaker 1: it definitely that pressure gets to you, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot more pressure on it because all the leaders of
Speaker 1: the program are on this specific team. So it makes
Speaker 1: you want to be better, but it also it makes
Speaker 1: you really hard on yourself and does take a mental toll,
Speaker 1: which is probably a good thing that law schools competitions
Speaker 1: don't go all year. I have a meeting with my
Speaker 1: counselor later on today. I haven't spoken to her in
Speaker 1: a long time, but and I've had to keep putting
Speaker 1: it off due to how busy I've been. But in general,
Speaker 1: it seems like everybody's noticed everyone's mental health is sort
Speaker 1: of collapsing, far more than it was our one oh year.
Speaker 1: So I think people seem to be just generally worse off.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a mix of the continuing pandemic
Speaker 1: returning to classes knowing that the bar is coming up.
Speaker 1: It's started one o year. Um. I mean, I saw
Speaker 1: counselors periodically and in undergrad dealing with stresses and some
Speaker 1: medical issues that threw me off. So I saw or
Speaker 1: I saw regularly, but since things have gotten worse, decided
Speaker 1: to pick it up a little bit again, just to
Speaker 1: at least have a third party to be able to
Speaker 1: vent to. You know, talking to your friends is great,
Speaker 1: but if your friends are going through the same things
Speaker 1: you are, it does feel kind of weird to complain
Speaker 1: to them because they're not complaining to you. They get it.
Speaker 1: They know where everybody's at their dealing with the same stuff.
Speaker 1: But here you are complaining to them. It's just it
Speaker 1: feels weird, even though they don't mind, it's just doesn't
Speaker 1: feel quite as effective and it's just off. So, Ellie,
Speaker 1: what advice do you have to guard against the burnout
Speaker 1: that does happen in the business. Don't do mock trial.
Speaker 1: I'm only half kidding. Look, when you're on trial, it's
Speaker 1: all consuming, real trial. There's just no way around that.
Speaker 1: It devours your life. I will speak from my experience.
Speaker 1: You ignore your kids. You know, you don't take care
Speaker 1: of yourself in terms of what you eat and you sleep.
Speaker 1: And I think that mock trial, from what I've seen,
Speaker 1: can be similar on these kids and on these students.
Speaker 1: And I don't have an easy solution to that. I
Speaker 1: don't know how they do it. I don't know how
Speaker 1: they do mock trial and also keep up with their
Speaker 1: classes and their social activities and their other activities that
Speaker 1: they're trying to do at school. So God bless them.
Speaker 1: It wasn't for me. You know. If I had to
Speaker 1: give advice, I guess I would just try to say,
Speaker 1: don't let it invade your dreams. Try to put it
Speaker 1: in a box, put it to the side, and keep
Speaker 1: in mind, as as much as it can feel all
Speaker 1: consuming and competitive, it is a mock trial and you
Speaker 1: don't have actual you know, someone's actual liberty at steak
Speaker 1: or the family of a murder victim at stake. So
Speaker 1: take a breath, keep it in perspective. But God bless
Speaker 1: you for doing it. Everything has its season, everything has
Speaker 1: its time. Somewhere there must be footage of a young
Speaker 1: Lord Rose on stage. I can't do anymore in that
Speaker 1: because my voice is gonna bother me too much. From
Speaker 1: the time that I was very small, I loved musical
Speaker 1: theater in particular, and I blame my parents for this,
Speaker 1: because they took me to see Little Shop of Horrors
Speaker 1: when I was two. I fell in love with the
Speaker 1: storytelling element of that particular world. And like when Dad
Speaker 1: was first in the military and when I was younger
Speaker 1: and we would drive everywhere, he would play musical soundtracks,
Speaker 1: and the storytelling aspect of that for me was everything.
Speaker 1: Part of my plan was I wanted to work for
Speaker 1: children's Television Workshop, and so that's where I wanted to be,
Speaker 1: but I knew that if I couldn't make it work
Speaker 1: and I was going to become a financial burden to
Speaker 1: my parents. At that point, I couldn't justify it in
Speaker 1: my own head. I graduated from college in May of
Speaker 1: two thousand nine. I was two years behind when I
Speaker 1: should have been because my mom got sick before I
Speaker 1: went to school. She has MS, and I stayed home
Speaker 1: to help out with the family. With that, I said,
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't do it, as much as I
Speaker 1: want to, as much as I would have loved to
Speaker 1: go there, and so it was better to go with
Speaker 1: the practical thing, to have the thing that I knew
Speaker 1: could feed me, and then find a way from my
Speaker 1: creative love to become a part of that. And I
Speaker 1: got really lucky. I got really, really lucky and found
Speaker 1: a way to do it. The reason I was comfortable
Speaker 1: going to law school is I knew that the law
Speaker 1: school that I had chosen was the one that was
Speaker 1: going to make me an advocate, which was me, which
Speaker 1: meant that I was going to get to take my
Speaker 1: talents and all these things that I'd spent time developing
Speaker 1: and use them for the betterment of other people. It's
Speaker 1: just not the way that I thought it would happen.
Speaker 1: I thought I would be in the courtroom trying cases
Speaker 1: all the time, and in reality, I'm much better suited
Speaker 1: to what I'm doing now, which is taking the next
Speaker 1: generation and saying you go to it. If I am
Speaker 1: successful and get tenure here, I could stay here for
Speaker 1: the rest of my academic career. If I do that,
Speaker 1: I will know at the end of my career that
Speaker 1: for thirty plus years, I will have put out every
Speaker 1: single advocate that's come out of University of South Dakota
Speaker 1: Cannuts in school law. So I will know that the
Speaker 1: evidentiary issues in courtrooms across the state are being handled
Speaker 1: in a way that's appropriate. I will know that the
Speaker 1: people who are advocating in courtrooms have been trained this way,
Speaker 1: and it's going to change the legal landscape here because
Speaker 1: it's desperately needed. The clock is ticking in Coach Rose
Speaker 1: needs to whip her team into shape for the battle
Speaker 1: of the experts. Good morning, good morning, Good morning, gang,
Speaker 1: and for all of the competitions that are coming in
Speaker 1: the fall. Get your coffee, get your caffeine and drink.
Speaker 1: Make sure that you're awake. We will get through today
Speaker 1: as quickly as we possibly can. You all know that
Speaker 1: I'm all about efficiency and making sure that we don't
Speaker 1: waste our time, and I know that you have other
Speaker 1: things that you've got to do. But today what we're
Speaker 1: gonna be covering, we're gonna talk about cross examination, which
Speaker 1: is everybody in this room knows my absolute favorite thing
Speaker 1: that we end up doing in a courtroom, because it's
Speaker 1: when you have the most controled. So are we all
Speaker 1: clear about what we're doing this morning? We awake vaguely
Speaker 1: three else, Let's go around the room. What's your favorite
Speaker 1: part about cross examination? Justin The thing I like about
Speaker 1: the most is I feel like I'm in control, and
Speaker 1: no matter how hard they're trying to squirm out of things,
Speaker 1: or if they're trying to be cute with me, it's
Speaker 1: an easy situation to flip that back on them. Matt,
Speaker 1: you've had trial tech. What's your favorite thing about cross
Speaker 1: The power? I like the power behind it. This is
Speaker 1: Matt Skinner, a future defense attorney and the team's best sniper.
Speaker 1: Be honest, man, let's go work. Come on, talk about it.
Speaker 1: Why do you like the power? What about that is good?
Speaker 1: I like the power and forever. I've called it the
Speaker 1: oce Ship moment. Like I instead, you just lay these
Speaker 1: bread crumbs and eventually it leads to this trap where
Speaker 1: the witnesses like, oh Ship, I'm stuck. Hi, I don't
Speaker 1: know what to do here. Yeah. I like the power
Speaker 1: of having control. Basically you know what's going to happen,
Speaker 1: they don't, and eventually you're going to lead that witness
Speaker 1: to do exactly what you want. I think one of
Speaker 1: the most intimidating things that you can't really do on Zoom.
Speaker 1: But they call it working the wells. So like you're
Speaker 1: well as kind of right in from the judge and
Speaker 1: the witness table. Here Coach Rose teaches us how to
Speaker 1: walk your dog in the well and when you have
Speaker 1: an unfriendly witness, when you start kind of cornering them
Speaker 1: on a point, you start walking towards them and you
Speaker 1: keep the eye contact, and as you keep asking questions,
Speaker 1: you keep taking more and more steps, and once you've
Speaker 1: kind of cracked them a major point, you just turn
Speaker 1: your back to them and walk away. But it's one
Speaker 1: of the most kind of powerful moments that you can
Speaker 1: have in a courtroom. You know, when you go to
Speaker 1: the zoo and you turn your back to like all
Speaker 1: the monkeys, and they get mad like that's kind of
Speaker 1: what walking the dog is like. And hour after hour,
Speaker 1: coach it was puts her team through a crash course
Speaker 1: on trial techniques. So if you get somebody on the
Speaker 1: stand who says, well, Sally told me that Billy Bob
Speaker 1: told her objection your honor, hearsay within hearsay, may we
Speaker 1: approach all in the service of building a stronger case
Speaker 1: for the Battle of the experts competition. You're on her
Speaker 1: under federals of evidence in the process knocking the South
Speaker 1: Dakota nice out of her young lawyers on the team.
Speaker 1: Why is it unfairly prejudicial? Why is that the case?
Speaker 1: Explain it? Draw it for me in crayons if you
Speaker 1: freaking have to, But explain it. If it's egregious, if
Speaker 1: it touches upon a fundamental right, in particular, if we're
Speaker 1: in Battle of the experts and justin hears them say that,
Speaker 1: the defendant for sure is going to say something. He's
Speaker 1: gonna be up off of his chair having a heart attack,
Speaker 1: but he's going to make the objection to make sure
Speaker 1: that it's on the record. Because fundamental rights, constitutional issues,
Speaker 1: things that could get people into prison if we were
Speaker 1: in real life. You gotta be mad about that, and
Speaker 1: you got to be big man. You've got to say
Speaker 1: that it's wrong, and you've got to call it out
Speaker 1: for being wrong. When I was getting ready to do
Speaker 1: my first ever jury address as a prosecutor, I asked
Speaker 1: my supervisor, who had been doing it for a decade plus,
Speaker 1: I said, this is a stupid question, but what am
Speaker 1: I supposed to be tomorrow when I give this opening?
Speaker 1: And he said, what do you mean? I said, I
Speaker 1: don't know, Like, what's the vibe? What am I trying
Speaker 1: to do? My trying to be tough guy or cool
Speaker 1: or what? And he said, Look, as the prosecutor, your
Speaker 1: job is two things. To be clear and credible, and
Speaker 1: that's it. Leave the dramatics to the defense lawyer. Leave
Speaker 1: the pounding of the podium and the clever stories to
Speaker 1: the defense lawyer. That's not for you. Your job is
Speaker 1: a stand up in front of that jury to be
Speaker 1: clear they understand what your case is about. And to
Speaker 1: be credible. They believe you, they believe our evidence. That's it.
Speaker 1: I was once told a friend of mine said, I
Speaker 1: figured out your style. I said, okay, what is it?
Speaker 1: He said, your Jersey conversational. I'm from New Jersey. And
Speaker 1: I said, oh, I don't know that he meant it
Speaker 1: as a compliment. I think he meant it like I'm
Speaker 1: not super intellectual. But I said, perfect, that's great. That's
Speaker 1: what I want to be. Part of the beauty of
Speaker 1: our jury system is. I think people tend to think
Speaker 1: our jury system is mechanical or mathematical, but in fact,
Speaker 1: every judge instructs every jury use your common sense, use
Speaker 1: your good everyday common sense that you use every day
Speaker 1: out there, and and it can really resonate with the
Speaker 1: jury and you say, why would this defendant take this action? Look,
Speaker 1: you all know, you're all human beings. You've all been
Speaker 1: in scenarios where someone has insulted you. You know how
Speaker 1: that maybe made you feel that you didn't act on it,
Speaker 1: but he did. You know, you can use common sense
Speaker 1: type arguments like that, and it's part of the beauty
Speaker 1: of our jury system, and it can be quite effective
Speaker 1: in advocacy. Back in San Antonio, the team piles into
Speaker 1: Andy's car. They're not searching for facts, They're hunting down
Speaker 1: snacks brain food for a tournament that will stretch over
Speaker 1: three marathon days. Yeah, my grandmother calls it cheap, cheap,
Speaker 1: it's better than and calls it him. Okay, it's so focused.
Speaker 1: We need energy drinks. I probably want to try about Okay,
Speaker 1: we need them for tomorrow because we're not gonna have
Speaker 1: time to kind of energy drink. I gotta probably get
Speaker 1: like the double shot espressos from Starbucks, like like like
Speaker 1: like a pack of them. We also need like snatter
Speaker 1: because we need Yeah, we need water bottles. We need
Speaker 1: to haul all the water when I go home. This
Speaker 1: is what I missed the most, ya for sure. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Jasmine wants I want the little I do the
Speaker 1: double shot ones or I mean their triple shot but
Speaker 1: I'll be bouncing off the freaking walls and that you
Speaker 1: just get me alive by one out year. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: triple shot ones. There you go, all right, I think
Speaker 1: I got snacks, We got drinks ready to go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to get your opening right now? What here
Speaker 1: in everybody do it? You can do anywhere, You can
Speaker 1: do it anywhere else on our way to get over
Speaker 1: your fears. Then just stay in the day. You can
Speaker 1: get it for something to get to be true or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't need a compa no, like like you want
Speaker 1: me to do an hour or not? I want used
Speaker 1: to do it at the hotel top and get animated.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a rant on all the things and be like,
Speaker 1: get Mike, I didn't even that it was my car.
Speaker 1: Come on, coach, Jason Goss is waiting at the hotel.
Speaker 1: So the way, the way that it was described in
Speaker 1: the coaches meeting is not if you plan to use
Speaker 1: any character evidence of Tommy, if you plan to use
Speaker 1: any character evidence at all for any witness my entire
Speaker 1: nae Patrick Across right. Well, so you know the idea
Speaker 1: is and what they were talking. So Jason, how do
Speaker 1: you help these students just get over their nerves? You
Speaker 1: know what I always tell them is you're gonna You're
Speaker 1: gonna have it like it just it's there, Like I
Speaker 1: used to throw up for these things, always did, and
Speaker 1: I don't now. But I'll tell you what I mean.
Speaker 1: I tried a hundred fifty cases and I will still
Speaker 1: feel so nervous every time I do an opening or
Speaker 1: every time I do across examination. So you know, I
Speaker 1: don't really know how to tell them because it's kind
Speaker 1: of how they do it. I'll tell you that. Tomorrow
Speaker 1: the first round, we are going against University of Chicago, Kent.
Speaker 1: So those are your advocates, those are your witnesses. You
Speaker 1: can't get noticed any My coach before me, that was
Speaker 1: coaching this team before me, and I remember telling there like,
Speaker 1: these kids are, they're not ready. They don't know what
Speaker 1: they're doing, you know, like she said, it's it's weird.
Speaker 1: But right when the competition starts, like whatever, it is,
Speaker 1: all that stuff you told them, it just kicks in
Speaker 1: and then they just go and they do it. Tomorrow,
Speaker 1: they're gonna amaze and astonished. They're gonna be great because
Speaker 1: they're gonna take those nerves or whatever, and they're gonna
Speaker 1: be on stage and they're gonna be ready to go
Speaker 1: and they're going to deliver her. Like any collegiate athlete,
Speaker 1: these law students have something to prove on the field
Speaker 1: of play. The battle starts in one day, and on
Speaker 1: top of all of the legal strategy, there's another major
Speaker 1: stress factor. These trials are held on zoom and this year,
Speaker 1: the second year of the pandemic, stakes are higher for
Speaker 1: mastering the technology. Yeah, last year it was old webcams,
Speaker 1: bad internet bedrooms, and here we've got like really nice cameras.
Speaker 1: This is Bill Murray from South Dakota. You're on in
Speaker 1: a moment to situate myself in the well of the courtroom.
Speaker 1: So this is us right now present, and we go
Speaker 1: to screen share. Already got anything that publish mission published,
Speaker 1: and we I think they need to click through it
Speaker 1: instead of waiting. We've got some whiting. We're going to
Speaker 1: be in the courtroom. It's almost set up for the competition,
Speaker 1: so I think the school has had some more time
Speaker 1: to prepare for it. You know, there's been a whole
Speaker 1: year of zoom trials, so they've had time to think
Speaker 1: about it and the best way to go forward? Can
Speaker 1: we run through the motions once of like where we
Speaker 1: would be motion and lemon a and then I just
Speaker 1: don't like how switch it out? Well, let's let's run
Speaker 1: it quick. Grady, do you want to go in there
Speaker 1: with this laptop? And then Rose you're presiding. So now
Speaker 1: all of our teams will be using this set up
Speaker 1: for all the competitions and hopefully we're back in person
Speaker 1: next spring, but if not, we've got a very nice
Speaker 1: setup going forward. Okay, so I'll be given the motion
Speaker 1: and lemonade. So I'm gonna be giving it from the
Speaker 1: Williams in the room, granted obviously, so state ready to proceed,
Speaker 1: permission to prepare the well, your honor, thank you, your honor,
Speaker 1: nothing further, and then turn off my camera. Maybe I
Speaker 1: would unplug this and I'll do my direct they'll do
Speaker 1: their cross. I'll be seated here. This video quality right
Speaker 1: this video quality right here not the same as the
Speaker 1: video quality that we haven't here. That's gonna be too
Speaker 1: much of a difference. But if we have a setup
Speaker 1: in Yere so that we have that quality camera and
Speaker 1: here I'm mine and I will stop my bidge, it's
Speaker 1: equally as tense inside that hotel room in San Antonio. Okay,
Speaker 1: So right now we're setting up the witness rooms. So
Speaker 1: we have to set up the backdrops and the cameras
Speaker 1: and the microphones in the rooms of the team members
Speaker 1: who will be witnessing in this competition. Every little detail matters,
Speaker 1: the lights, the cameras, the backdrops, even the makeup and
Speaker 1: hand movements. If you can see it on zoom, chances
Speaker 1: are you're going to be judged on it. So John
Speaker 1: has built this like contraption that's gonna hold up the
Speaker 1: back drops that another one of our classmates made. It's
Speaker 1: supposed to look like wood. It's like a wooden back drop.
Speaker 1: It has the skills of justice in the middle of
Speaker 1: a little circle. Um, how would you describe it, John,
Speaker 1: So it's a piece of vinyl that's wrapped around a
Speaker 1: frame built of pbc uh imprinted on. There is wood
Speaker 1: paneling with the scales of justice kind of like superimposed
Speaker 1: on it, kind of like you would see in the
Speaker 1: wood paneling in the back of like a courtroom or
Speaker 1: like an office space. I just gonna get all these
Speaker 1: sprinkles out, so it's gonna be behind the advocate and
Speaker 1: so the advocate if the advocates right here, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: hang or put the ring light up, which I can
Speaker 1: do actually behind you see what I'm saying, because that
Speaker 1: ring light also has a spot on it before the
Speaker 1: camber to screw. And we went through our defense case
Speaker 1: opening of defense, our crosses than we did our direct examinations,
Speaker 1: and Andy closed on defense and kind of got some
Speaker 1: more stylistic feedback Like for my any Coach Stewart told
Speaker 1: me that I can bring it up a notch and
Speaker 1: my energy maybe like sound a little more powerful, and
Speaker 1: also she wants me to move around more. I have
Speaker 1: to do less because it's like stop doing this with
Speaker 1: your hands. I was like, I just want to emphasize
Speaker 1: it's like teetering on jazz hands because I'm like, there's this,
Speaker 1: there's that, like there's like explosions coming out of your hands,
Speaker 1: and then this is just like you're thinking, we have
Speaker 1: a thought. You're think it's like you're pulling like a
Speaker 1: like a little band between your hands, like you're exercising
Speaker 1: your forearms or something. We've got a feedback, Like one
Speaker 1: of the judges commented on a girl's eyelashes and her hair.
Speaker 1: You have to be like very very natural, natural makeup.
Speaker 1: That's what they want for sure. Hair tucked back because
Speaker 1: last year my coach she was like you have gray hair,
Speaker 1: which is true, thank you um, but he was like,
Speaker 1: you need to like move it from your face. You
Speaker 1: don't need to have it blocking your your face because
Speaker 1: it's just tracting and natural makeup. No heavy eyes, shadows, nails,
Speaker 1: need to be professional, nude, nothing crazy with the clothes,
Speaker 1: just like blue or black suits and then like a
Speaker 1: white top. They had to prove like our outfit. They
Speaker 1: even approved our other advocates tie. He's had to send
Speaker 1: his thie colors because you can't have something too distracting
Speaker 1: because they know, like the judges will be like, I
Speaker 1: hate that Tie, I hate you, Like it's over for us.
Speaker 1: So we got we're not going to sleep tonight. Um
Speaker 1: texting my nail guy because he's like, next, we're all
Speaker 1: right here. I love this man. I do the only
Speaker 1: thing left to do in South Dakota. I am a
Speaker 1: bundle of nerves. Besides the usual panicking is to fuel
Speaker 1: up for the brutal days that law ahead. I'm feeling
Speaker 1: pretty good. I think we're ready to go. I'm ready
Speaker 1: for some pasta tonight and then then we're ready to roll.
Speaker 1: It's LaCOSA noodles like La Cosa Nostra. Rose makes this
Speaker 1: like infamous pasta sauce and you can like smell it
Speaker 1: through the school whenever she she brings it. So she
Speaker 1: made that sauce for a team dinner tonight before competition,
Speaker 1: and Bill calls them look coastra and noodles. I make
Speaker 1: comematee spaghetti sauce. It's one of my ways of decompressing
Speaker 1: and de stressing and I was also couring and blanching
Speaker 1: a hundred and seventy nine pounds worth it tomatoes, and
Speaker 1: so I have fast tracked some of that to make
Speaker 1: homemade spaghetti sauce. We're gonna have a spaghetti dinner because
Speaker 1: it just felt appropriate. With the fact matter. It's kind
Speaker 1: of an insane time. Everything gets a little discombobulated. Everything
Speaker 1: is a little stressful, everything is a little bit heightened.
Speaker 1: But it's also a lot of fun. But what I'm
Speaker 1: most looking forward to is regardless of if it's Bill
Speaker 1: or Bailey, whichever one of them first gets to say
Speaker 1: you're on, or a moment to prepare the well and
Speaker 1: get up and stand and be in a poort room
Speaker 1: and make an argument in front of people. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to. I think it's a ton of
Speaker 1: fun just doing all of our run throughs with the team.
Speaker 1: I've never competed, but it's fun watching a case come together,
Speaker 1: and then it's fun listening to what someone else has
Speaker 1: done and then flipping it on them. I mean, it
Speaker 1: sounds a little like mean, but it's fun to just
Speaker 1: tear something apart. I'm aunt, and here's why I'm aunt. Guys,
Speaker 1: you're ready. You're absolutely ready for this. There is nobody
Speaker 1: who's going to be able to know this fact pattern
Speaker 1: as thoroughly as you know this fat pattern. There is
Speaker 1: nobody who has come back and to put in the
Speaker 1: amount of hours outside of typical practice time that you
Speaker 1: guys have. Rely on that and rely on your knowledge.
Speaker 1: You guys are ready to go. They'll let the bells
Speaker 1: and whistles worry. We're about to screw some people over
Speaker 1: big time, and I cannot wait to watch what happens.
Speaker 1: That's next time. Class Action. Class Action is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Sound Argument, Created, produced, written,
Speaker 1: and edited by Kevin Huffman and Lisa Gray. Executive producers
Speaker 1: are Taylor Chacogne and Katrina Norvell. Additional story production by
Speaker 1: Jennifer Swan, Kristin Cabrera, Jason Foster, and Wendy Nardi. Sound design,
Speaker 1: editing and mixing by Evan Tyre and Taylor chakogn This
Speaker 1: episode had additional field production by Kristen Cabrera, Paul Ebson,
Speaker 1: Alfredo de la Garza, and Malia Lukomski. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows