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Presented by the American Bar Association’s Law Student Division, the ABA Law Student Podcast covers issues that affect law students, law schools, and recent grads. From finals and graduation to the bar exam and finding a job, this show is your trusted resource for the next big step.
Todd Berger (00:00):
From day one of your 1L year, it's easy to look around and see only competition in your peers. But the secret to a long happy legal career isn't about getting a slightly better grade on an exam. It's about building a community. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the plaintiff's bar, a surprisingly tight-knit network of lawyers dedicated to helping those who have suffered catastrophic injuries or economic wrongs. On today's episode, we break down exactly what it means to be a plaintiff's attorney. We talk about the chaotic but exciting realities of daily practice, explore platforms that offer law students paid opportunities to get their foot in the door, and discuss why replacing the fear of competition with the power of connection is the best move you can make in law school. This is the ABA Law Student Podcast. Hi, Nayeli. How are you?
Nayeli Diaz (01:01):
I'm good. How are you?
Todd Berger (01:03):
I am good. I'm good. I know Eve is here as well. Eve, how are you?
Eve Albert (01:07):
I'm great. And I'm very excited for the subject matter of the episode today.
Todd Berger (01:11):
Well, that's great. I'm very excited for it as well. So I had a little something to do with it, but I'll let you take it away. Why don't you tell us who we're going to hear from today?
Eve Albert (01:22):
Yeah. So today we are talking with Spencer Pahlke. He's an attorney at WalkUp, Melodia, Kelly, and Schoenberger, which is a plaintiff's law firm. There he has a focus on catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death. He's a lecturer at the University of California Berkeley Law School, and there he is also the co-director of the trial competition program. And he helped found the National Plaintiff's Law Association. So he has a stacked resume. We are going to touch on a lot today, but there were a lot of things that I didn't have that much experience with, I wanted to touch on. And he provided a lot of insight on different areas law students can approach at the center of that being plaintiff's law, which we will explain what that is.
Todd Berger (02:13):
Absolutely. And full disclosure, I know Spencer through the National Trial Advocacy Community does an amazing job running the program at Berkeley. He himself is terrific lawyers. Students clearly benefit from all of his expertise. And one thing that's really clear when you talk to Spencer is how passionate he is about not just working with law students and sort of the trial competition space, but his practice area, which is why he's not just out there trying cases, but he's trying to develop a larger community around it. So I think that people listening to this will learn a lot about not just what plaintiff's law is like, but how to find fulfillment in the practice of law beyond simply just the day-to-day of representing clients and going to court. So I thought it was a terrific conversation. I'm excited to get into it.
Eve Albert (03:09):
Spencer, thank you so much for coming on the podcast to talk to us about plaintiff's law and being a plaintiff's attorney. Now, I'm going to say it. I did not know that that was its own specialty or area of the law before arranging for this episode. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what being a plaintiff's attorney entails?
Spencer Pahlke (03:32):
Well, you're in good company, Eve, because a lot of folks don't know, and there's not a lot of formal teaching that addresses this. So it's a great question. Plaintiff's side practice, I always like to think of it as we are helping people who have been wronged. Now, typically, at least in my practice, that's a physical injury, but it can be economic injuries as well. And it can be one person at a time or large groups of people, but we're helping folks who have suffered injury due to the negligence or worse conduct of somebody else.
Eve Albert (04:01):
I saw, because I did do a little research on you, on your website for your firm, it says you have a focus on catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death. That sounds like very severe. Or do you deal with a lot of severe subject matter?
Spencer Pahlke (04:16):
We do. I mean, here at WalkUp, we've been doing this since 1959 in California, and we're lucky and we've worked hard at developing our name and we're a place to go to, I don't mean to brag, but a place to go to for catastrophic injuries. And it means what it says. I mean, we're handling folks, helping people who are going through the worst thing they or their family will go through in their lives.
Eve Albert (04:42):
Yeah, no. And I think that that is something that I definitely got the sense of when I was doing research for this episode. Plaintiff's attorneys are representing people that are seeking recourse for, in some cases, like horrible injuries or ... I don't know. And for a lot of plaintiffs, it's their first experience with the law. I think from the law student perspective, it's easy to look at a case and compare it with things that you're aware of. But for a lot of people, they're completely unrelated to the law or they don't have any experience in it. And so plaintiff's attorneys, I'm guessing, have to do a lot of legwork for uninformed parties, like helping them know what their options are and filling them in on a lot of the literature that's out there.
Spencer Pahlke (05:30):
It's a great point. I mean, tragedies befall anybody. There's no sort of natural constituency for it. It's everybody, it's anybody. That's why the world should be safer. That's what we're fighting for. But you're right. And I can think about my current case list and I've got the whole spectrum, really got all of the spectrums, whether it's education, less or more socioeconomic status, less or more familiarity with the law, less or more. It's really, I mean, aside from being interesting work, and I don't mean to be too much on a soapbox, but I am. It's an incredible way to interact with human beings because the thing that connects them to you is that they have gone through a horrible circumstance and you were able to help them. But beyond that, it's all comers.
Eve Albert (06:14):
Yeah, no, we love soapboxes on this show.
Spencer Pahlke (06:17):
Okay, good. I've got this one here. It's good. Okay.
Eve Albert (06:20):
Because that's what law students care about. Nobody goes into law school being like, oh, well, maybe some people do, but being like, "Oh, I'm going to do this because it makes the most logical sense for me. " Or it's like, no, even in the process of applying for law schools, they ask you, "What are you passionate about? What about the law really drives you? " So I think that's something that law students want to hear. If you really have a care for people and helping them get retribution for harm that's been done to them, maybe exploring plaintiff's law might be a good route for that. Law students, I think that's a great thing that the show offers. Touching more of the emotional side or more of the fulfilling side of different areas of practice and I don't know, getting them engaged in that way.
Spencer Pahlke (07:09):
Yes, I could go on and on about that, but completely. I mean, the studies show that if you want to be happy about your work, you should do work that you believe in. You should do work that connects you with other human beings. And that's what I spend my days and often nights doing.
Eve Albert (07:23):
So speaking of your days and nights, what does a typical day of work for you look like?
Spencer Pahlke (07:30):
I love when I get this question. I'm going to do it now because it's being recorded, but sometimes I'll just open up my calendar and when I'm talking to the law student about what a day looks like and just go through it. I mean, so for example, today actually I have my own podcast, a couple podcasts actually, and I was interviewing a plaintiff's lawyer for my podcast called Cause of Action, releasing in March. So sorry for the plug, but it talks about the very things you're asking about. What is plaintiff's law? And we interview great trial lawyers, talk about it and how do you get into it? So I did that. And then I had meetings about cases with folks I'm working on cases with. I've talked to an expert today. I actually talked to several experts today. I am flying to LA this afternoon to have dinner with a jury consultant.
(08:12):
And then tomorrow morning I'm giving a presentation to an engineering class about the law at Irvine, and then I'm coming back. So I mean, it's like every day is different. It could range from client meetings with new clients or a client I've had for a long time or preparing for trial, or maybe I am preparing for trial or a mediation. I've got a mediation on Friday or a deposition. I mean, I sound disorganized in describing it because the life is disorganized. It's like there's 30 or 40 sort of core things that I do and I do eight to 10 of them every day and they're just kind of a mishmash.
Eve Albert (08:48):
Interesting. What degree of that disorganization, for lack of a better term, is resolved by collaboration within your firm? Do you think that plaintiff's law creates a good environment for different attorneys to collaborate with each other?
Spencer Pahlke (09:04):
So the answer is it absolutely can be, yes. But I mean, people are people and it's not that every plaintiff's firm is perfect. They're organizations of people, so they're not perfect. But at the right firms, and there are lots of them, yes, absolutely. I mean, I've walked down the hall and I talked to multiple of my colleagues today about various cases that we're working on, and I'm doing part of the work, they're doing part of the work. I couldn't do all of it on my own. They couldn't do all of it on their own. So it's teams. And so yeah, at a firm where that's possible, absolutely. And it's a great benefit of being at a shop like this.
Eve Albert (09:40):
I wanted to talk about demand because also from my research, it seems like demand for plaintiff's attorneys, obviously. I mean, it's half of all parties in a case. Well, actually maybe not because co-defendants, but you understand what I'm
Spencer Pahlke (09:54):
Saying. Yes,
Eve Albert (09:55):
I do. There's plaintiffs in every action. Yeah. So is there ever a time when plaintiff firms don't have any new clients coming
Spencer Pahlke (10:04):
In? Yeah, that's the fear. So plaintiff's firms are truly small businesses. I mean, we're all a business and operating that business to not only help folks go through the worst thing they've gone through, but also want to keep our lights on. And we've got a bunch of employees and people who this is how they support their families. And so that's why I kind of joke. I mean, that's the fear. I mean, you're always trying to develop business and you're rewarded for it. That is a major part of being a plaintiff's lawyer is developing business. So I don't want to jinx myself, but knock on wood. We've been at it for what, 67 years now, I guess, and stronger than ever and hope to goodness that that stays the same way. But I always say I'm at the cutting edge of my own success or failure.
(10:52):
And thus far it's been great, but maybe the fear of not having cases is one reason why I keep plugging away.
Eve Albert (10:59):
I think that fear could probably be alleviated by what we were talking about with connecting with people. If you present yourself as somebody that's just willing to help and wanting to do everything you can to fight for your client, I can imagine that you won't have people in need coming to you for your services.
Spencer Pahlke (11:21):
Yeah. Knock on wood, it's a great point. And there's nothing like having a former client connect you with somebody else who can help out. It's a really nice endorsement.
Eve Albert (11:31):
Oh yeah, absolutely. Tell us about the way that plaintiff's attorneys organize themselves.
Spencer Pahlke (11:38):
So plaintiff's lawyers, our firms are small. At my firm's quote unquote big, we're 22, three, four lawyers, depending how you count folks, that's pretty big for what we do. There are bigger firms, but we are way on the side of large firms, which is to say we are really small compared to all the other sort of big firms out there. And the way the plaintiff's firm ... But there's way more of us, I should say, way more plaintiff's firms, just they're smaller. And so it is a complete delight to be on the plaintiff's side because there are so many organizations that we have, whether it's local plaintiff's bar associations like the San Francisco Trial Lawyer Association or our statewide one, Consumer Attorneys of California or the National one, the American Association for Justice. Every state has its own state trial lawyers organization. And then there's also organizations that focus on specific types of cases, whether it's auto products cases or it's medical malpractice cases or it's trial skills.
(12:33):
There's whole multiple constellations of ways that plaintiff's lawyers connect with each other and share their knowledge and their skill. And while in some sense you're competing with other plaintiff's lawyers to get cases, beyond that, after a case is in hand, you are on the same team. And it is incredible how tight-knit, frankly, the whole national organization of plaintiff's lawyers are. So we have lots of sort of smaller organizations, but that's how we deal with the other side, which is way, way bigger at any given firm.
Eve Albert (13:05):
No, that's a very interesting point. I wouldn't have assumed that it would be a tight-knit community like that
Spencer Pahlke (13:10):
Because- Super tight-knit. ... there's
Eve Albert (13:12):
So many areas. So one of those organizations or associations, should I say, that is probably near and dear to you is the National Plaintiff's Law Association. Yes. Which you helped found, correct?
Spencer Pahlke (13:28):
Yes. Yes.
Eve Albert (13:29):
Do you want to tell us a little bit about what they do?
Spencer Pahlke (13:32):
Absolutely. So the National Plaintiff's Law Association is a national organization that fosters shepherds, helps, supports plaintiff's law associations at schools across the country. And there's probably three or four dozen of these plaintiff's law associations across the country, helps them build in their law schools knowledge, awareness, and then connection to jobs on the plaintiff's side. So the NPLA has National Plaintiff's Law Association has grown incredibly and has a whole bunch of amazing initiatives, which I encourage your listeners to check out, whether it's their job fair, which they do. In the fall, it's their sources of connections to plaintiff's firms. I mean, they are super active in helping folks learn what the plaintiff's side is and then get a job there if that's what they want to do. So highly recommend you check it out.
Eve Albert (14:21):
Yeah. We talk a lot on the show about how important networking is and being able to vouch for yourself and reach out to people and asking them for help. So I think that it's always good. If what we've been talking about sounds interesting, it's always good to have the name to a resource that you can go look up and check out today. But I want to talk about the co-founding with how busy you've established that you are. How do you have time to co-found an association?
Spencer Pahlke (14:50):
Well, I mean, that was really fun. So I mean, that was what, four or five years ago now. And it just sort of became obvious to me that there were PLAs across the country, which I started to get in touch with because I do a thing called For the Plaintiff. It's fortheplaintiff.org. It's basically a platform where if folks are interested, they can work on plaintiff side projects on an hourly basis and earn some money, but also figure out what's going on. Anyway, that led me to meet a lot of these students. And I got thinking, my goodness, there are all these plaintiff's law associations, but I'm the hub between them and it shouldn't be that way. They should know each other. So we invited them out to our firm. We invited 14 folks from various schools out to our firm in the summer of, I think 21, I believe it was.
(15:32):
And we put on a seminar and everybody got to know each other. My hope was that they would decide that maybe there should be a national organization that does this kind of thing, and that's what they decided to do. So I was really happy to see that.
Eve Albert (15:44):
Yeah, that's really cool. Wait, you said something that was interesting to me.
Spencer Pahlke (15:47):
Yeah.
Eve Albert (15:48):
Plaintiff's projects?
Spencer Pahlke (15:50):
Oh yeah. For the plaintiff.org. I think it's for the plaintiff.org. Yeah, so it's this platform, you can check it out and students who are interested send us their resume and a writing sample. And then as projects come up, typically through our firm, we'll send an email out, they can check out the project, a description of it, how many hours it's likely to be, what the deadline is, and it's 60 bucks an hour to work on it. And it's just a great two-way street because students get the chance to do some work and low commitment, like work eight hours on a project, but get a sense of what this work is like and earn some money. And I get to, and our team gets to move the ball forward in our cases. So yeah, it's something I've done for a long time. We've probably finished upwards of 200 projects on it at this point, and it's a nice entree to the plaintiff's side.
Eve Albert (16:34):
Wow. Wait, that's really cool. How do you manage...This is a side point, but I didn't even realize that this was a thing. How do you manage confidentiality then?
Spencer Pahlke (16:45):
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's not dissimilar. So there's a non-disclosure agreement and anything sensitive needs to get dealt with in its appropriate ways, but oftentimes it's research memos and that kind of thing where it's the same way it would be dealt with if you were to hire an outside contract attorney kind of thing.
Eve Albert (17:03):
Oh, interesting. Okay. No, that's really cool. I haven't heard of anything like that.
Todd Berger (17:08):
Well, there you go. Now you have. We'll be right back after this.
Eve Albert (17:20):
The one thing, I was poking around on the MPLA website and I saw something that was really interesting to me. There was emphasis on pay and pay transparency that's on that website. And I think that that's something that every discipline of law should have some sort of attention towards. Did you have any part in that? Can you talk about how that plays out or the importance of pay transparency?
Spencer Pahlke (17:44):
Yeah. I mean, this is such an important topic and I wish I could say that unanimously plaintiff's lawyers across the country are of the view that we should be transparent in our pay. For varying reasons, people have varying opinions on that. My opinion is that we should be very transparent in our pay, for a few reasons. One is that on average, yeah, the pay is not as much as what you get at big law in your first year, but it's also not the same thing you're going to get paid in a public interest job. And I think that people think that, oh, plaintiff's lawyer must mean I'm going to earn the same as I would earn in a public interest job. Now that work is absolutely crucial public adjust work, just like plaintiff's law work is, but you're going to make more money as a plaintiff's lawyer even right out of the gates.
(18:25):
And I don't know why we aren't a little bit more forthright about that. So this is an ongoing battle. And as people graduate and go from being an NPLA member and a law student to becoming a lawyer, I always encourage them. I say, "You're going to be on the other side of this debate and you'll be another person who will be saying we should be more transparent about what we pay folks." So it's a challenge, but I'm of the view that we should be transparent about it because people need to know what they're going to make. And it's actually, even as an associate, pretty good. Now, you're never going to have pay transparency on the partner level because these are small partnerships and that kind of thing. But I was just talking to Shane Inspector, a great trial lawyer in Philadelphia about this. And to almost quote him, he says, "You're going to find if it was public that plaintiff's lawyers that have been doing this for a while are making as much or more than the big law partners out there." It's just that we don't brag about it through our profits per partner kind of thing.
Eve Albert (19:23):
Interesting. No, but that's something that definitely should be addressed and I think forthright because law students ... I mean, I don't have to tell you how expensive law school is. It's so expensive and it's important to recoup that investment. You should be able to pursue your passion and also make money and provide for yourself. So I think that that's something that I would love to see in more areas of practice, pay transparency and just people being more comfortable talking about how much they make and how much they can expect to make, because it's not really something that you hear addressed every day.
Spencer Pahlke (19:58):
Yeah. And you should continue to use this platform to talk about it just in the same way that NPLA is doing it. They are accumulating power by being an organized force for law students, and I'm so glad that they're using it.
Eve Albert (20:10):
Yeah. Do you like the ... I always use the word administrative because I don't know if it's ... Or maybe educational, promotional side of the law. Do you like doing that more than practicing? Do you like it the same amount? I don't know. I feel like I keep saying it, but co-founding an association, that's got to be a commitment. You have to have a certain passion for things to do that. So I'm wondering, what do you get out of all of these side pursuits, your podcast, the organization, the website you talked about, what do you get out of that?
Spencer Pahlke (20:44):
Yeah. And I teach back at my law school. I do a whole bunch of political organizing. Well, so a few things. I mean, first of all, I don't think you can go through life for that long without just doing the things you really, really enjoy doing. You can struggle against your desires and your interests for some period of time, but not in any fulfilling way and certainly not in a way you could do over time. And so honestly, I do the things that I really enjoy doing. And I give a whole talk on business development to law students. But one of the points I make is that if you want to develop business at your future firm, you need to do two things. You need to do ... It's a Venn diagram. On one side, you got to do things you enjoy doing. You have to enjoy doing them for their own sake.
(21:30):
And then ideally, if you want to develop business while doing it, it's got to overlap with the potential that people could think, oh yeah, Spencer handles personal injury cases in California at Walkup. I should send a case to them if it ever comes up. If you can get those to overlap just a little bit, you'll have a really fulfilling life, at least on the plaintiff's side, because you will have cases that will be coming to you and depending on the structure of a given firm, and they're all a little different. But if you're bringing in cases, that gives you the ability to make that part of what you do at the firm. I love to work on my cases. I love to get to try a case. I love to take a depo and work with a client. Yes. But I also love doing other things which bring me in contact with the potential for more cases.
(22:10):
And that's a valuable thing to offer a firm just as it's a valuable thing to be a incredible technical specialist at a firm in one area of law. So there's different ways the pieces go together. And for me, I love my cases and I love trying to find more and then sharing those opportunities with my colleagues and partners.
Eve Albert (22:31):
Yeah, absolutely.
Spencer Pahlke (22:32):
So I guess to answer your question, I love doing these other things, the teaching, the coaching and organizations and all that stuff because I love them, but it also works. It makes business sense because that actually happens to lead to cases too. So I don't have to justify it to myself or others because it makes sense in the context of a larger business operation because it tends to bring in cases.
Eve Albert (22:56):
No, that is actually so great to hear because I don't know, through the experience of doing this podcast, I've kind of discovered about myself that I really like these non-practice pursuits. I mean, I love my job. I'm one of those annoying people that I'm like, "Oh, I love going to work." But I really enjoy doing research for these episodes and I don't know, talking to people about what the episodes are about and also recording, talking to different people about their passions and what they do. And I think that there's a general air in law school that like, "Oh, you're going to be work to death. You're not going to have time for anything." So hearing that there's a way you can kind of maneuver that to still do what you want, do what you're passionate about, but also make it work for you and still align with those traditional notions of having a law practice, I think that that is really a relief to hear.
Spencer Pahlke (23:53):
Yeah. And I mean, it's not every place and you got to find your right spot, but in the right places completely. And I think frankly, it makes it possible to do this work, at least for the way my brain and body works and everything, that I can have some balance to it. I get to do ... It's a broad diet. It's not just keep grinding only one way forever.
Eve Albert (24:12):
Yeah. And just to clarify, you do sleep, right?
Spencer Pahlke (24:16):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My biggest trick is to work on projects with really smart people and share as much credit as possible and cheer them on.
Eve Albert (24:24):
Yeah, absolutely. I love asking our guests, Nayelli and I make a habit of asking our guests this because I think it's really practical advice. When you were in law school, was there anything you were involved in or involved with or classes you took that you found to be really helpful to your practice now? And this can be for any of your pursuits, like your plaintiff's law practice, obviously, your podcast, your link to the association, any of that.
Spencer Pahlke (24:54):
So when I think back about law school and what I did there that helped get me here, it's interesting. It's not any particular class. It's a growing realization over time while in law school, which finally dawned on me by late 2L, maybe three all year, that I shouldn't be viewing my classmates as competitors. I should view them as partners in life in a way. So I realized that it didn't matter if I tried to get a slightly better grade than them or not, or if I shared an outline or not. In terms of my actual success and my career by just me getting better grades, the way to have a more successful and happy life and career is to build community and get to know all these folks. So all the people you're in law school with, they're going to go out and be great lawyers at various places and they will have opportunities they might share with you or you might share with them.
(25:42):
And that will enrich your career far more than doing a little bit better on this or that exam. And so that was the thing that mattered to me most. And that also led me to pick classes that were just, especially in my later years, just more interesting to me than anything else because I wanted to be with interesting people in an interesting class. So I just urge folks to view the people who are also your classmates, not as competitors to get better grades, but these are people who you will go through a legal career with and make friends now. Now's the time to become really good friends with folks.
Eve Albert (26:13):
No, that's so true. I think that that's something that my school really hammered into us in our 1L year. I think in our professional responsibility class, when we're all in one big room together, they're like, look to your left, look to your right. These are going to be your colleagues
(26:28):
One day. So don't make any enemies. Make your goal to be to help each other because even if you're not working with them, you're going to maybe need a referral. You're going to maybe have to explore an area of the law that somebody else is an expert in and you're not, but you need to freshen up on it. It's really good to have people surround yourself with people that will be able to help you and not really want to associate you with a bad time in their life. So it's always good to proceed with kindness. I think that that's a great idea for literally any career.
Spencer Pahlke (27:05):
And the more successful they are, the more successful you are. It's like- Yeah, absolutely. "Let's raise all the boats."
Todd Berger (27:12):
We'll be right back after this. So Nayeli, we heard a great conversation with Spencer. What were your main takeaways from it? What are the kind of things afterwards that got you thinking?
Nayeli Diaz (27:31):
I think that Ease mentioned about how she's doing defense work or work and defense, and I've also been more on the defense side. So it was really cool to see it from a plaintiff's perspective. My first thought was it's so important if you're going to do any kind of work, especially if maybe you're leaning towards the defense side, that you know what's happening on the plaintiff's side. And as he said about this collaboration, I think it's maybe not as antagonistic as it may appear on TV. Defense attorneys and plaintiff's attorneys are friends. I know many of them who are friends, and it's so important to understand all aspects of the work that you're doing. And so I think that that was really valuable for him to talk about that perspective in a way that I hadn't experienced before, especially his discussion on pay transparency is really important for law students because I have certainly known many people that, as you've mentioned, law school's a lot of money and that's a thing as I'm looking at graduation, a lot of people talk about they come in with dreams of doing one thing, but defense work on its face offers a lot of money.
(28:36):
So people automatically look there and maybe as he said, don't think about plaintiff's work because they assume that, as he said, without transparency, they assume that maybe they're not going to be in a better financial situation looking into that. And I think that's a really noble effort to start pushing that forward for students to have more transparency in the field. I think they'll be really beneficial.
Todd Berger (28:57):
Yeah. I think that's definitely an important point too, is one of the things Spencer's trying to do is not just with this individual client work, but is also trying to think about how to improve the plaintiff's bar as a whole. And part of that is recruiting the next generation of plaintiff's lawyers, which is why he has this group that he started at law schools to try and do that. And pay transparency is a big part of that, making sure students know that this is a viable career that they can choose coming out of law school, wanting to make sure that they'll be able to pay their bills. So I thought that was a really good thought on his part, right? What is preventing us from expanding even further, creating the next generation of plaintiff's lawyers, adding some information transparency to the process. And I actually separately had had a conversation with Spencer about it where I said, "One of the things that I admire about plaintiff's lawyers is that most of the cases they take, they're mostly contingency fees." So there's very high risk, very high I don't know if it's tremendous risk.
(30:02):
I guess it depends what kind of practice here is, but there's potential for very high reward there as well. And I think sometimes students might think, oh, well, if there's this contingency feed, how am I going to know if I'm going to be able to pay my bills? And I think something about pay transparency is going to making it clear this is a viable means of being able to practice law and support yourself. I think that was really important.
Eve Albert (30:25):
Yeah. The legal field in general doesn't have ... I mean, a lot of careers, like higher education careers especially, don't have a lot of openness when it comes to pay and wages. It's kind of fresh to me to hear somebody that's so enthusiastic about pay transparency and not even just Spencer, but this whole organization that he's worked with, really putting emphasis behind it. I mean, if you go on the NPLA website, it's its own tab. That's how I came to that subject when I was doing research on Spencer. It has its own tab with data collected from members. So I think that was just really surprising to me that he and this organization is so open about discussing that, and I would love to see that in the legal field in general.
Todd Berger (31:14):
For your interview, what did you think about plaintiff's law before? And afterwards, was some of that reinforced or did some of it completely change or did you think nothing about plaintiff's law? And this was all just you as a blank slate.
Eve Albert (31:28):
I think it was mostly a blank slate situation. I mean, I just hadn't thought of it. I didn't realize that there was a whole unified front, so to speak, for the plaintiff side and counsel. But I knew that there was kind of a unified front on the defense side. I work in medical malpractice defense, so there's multiple
Todd Berger (31:52):
Defects. Do you tell Spencer you work in medical malpractice defense?
Eve Albert (31:55):
I don't think so.
Todd Berger (31:56):
Yeah, it's probably medical.
Eve Albert (31:57):
Probably for the
Todd Berger (31:58):
Best. You would've been great about it, but I understand why that was something you strategically omitted.
Eve Albert (32:04):
I was like, maybe not right now. This isn't about me, but this, this is about me. In medical malpractice defense, the co-defendants are ... There's usually several counselors, like hospitals, individual doctors in actions, insurance companies. So I think that my interactions with plaintiff's lawyers have just been, I mean, very civil, but there is just two sides, obviously, to every case, and they are on the opposing side at the end of the day. So I don't know. I think it's encouraging that the plaintiff's side also has some camaraderie like the defense side has. So that was my general impression of what we talked about.
Todd Berger (32:53):
Yeah. I think also, you talk about there's a defense side. I think one of the things that you see Spencer at the forefront of, but the people before him is it seems like the plaintiff's bar across the country has sort of been more unified in pushing the things that are important to the plaintiff's bar. It also seems like they do a very good job of creating other plaintiff's lawyers and training plaintiff's lawyers and supporting plaintiff's lawyers. Most of the work that's done, I think on the, not all, but a lot of the work that's done on the defense side of personal injury cases is many times insurance companies and they have maybe their own lawyers or they go and they hire outside firms. And it just seems to be a little bit less united. And that's why if you kind of follow the news, it seems like there's a lot of success the plaintiff's lawyers are having across the country.
(33:49):
There's like a million cases from Bender Bender traffic accident cases all the way through to the stuff Spencer does, which is the catastrophic injury cases. But it seems like there's big verdicts and they seem to be very successful. And part of that is this idea that through this sort of collective process of building each other up and training, they're able to really put forth their best foot. Obviously there's a lot of people doing it, but on the whole, and you don't see that from the defense bar necessarily. It's a million people out there doing their own kind of thing. And so I think that's something to take away from the practice of law. It's like you don't have to just do it alone. There's sort of strength in numbers and there's ways that you can build communities and that you can enhance the practice of law through your collective efforts.
Nayeli Diaz (34:37):
I think that's certainly something that comes across very strongly for Spencer is how much he cares. And as a law student who also cares a lot, it's really nice to see that you can carry that care into your practice for many years. And as you've mentioned, how do you do all of it? She asked him. And I think he had such a good way of approaching it that you get to do all the things, you make time for it. And I feel like that we've talked about in the past, organizations you can get involved in in law school and how you can get involved in these things as a student. And I think it reminded me when he talked about it that these things carry over. Once you graduate law school, hopefully you're still following up with the same bar associations, the same organizations that you became involved in in law school that are part of your practice.
(35:20):
And it's really about those long-term community building. And then as he said, giving back to the community, giving back to figuring out how to get more students involved in plaintiff's law and provide more information for them. And I think that especially for so many first generation and minority students, the hardest part of law school is not knowing what you don't know and not knowing where to get information, not knowing all these different parts of it. And when he spoke about these opportunities that he has for students to get to work on some cases and going and talking to these schools, that's really cool. That was so cool. Yeah, that's super cool. It's just so making sense.
Todd Berger (35:58):
I kind of wanted to do it. I'm like 60 bucks an hour maybe. I thought
Nayeli Diaz (36:01):
About
Todd Berger (36:01):
It.
(36:03):
Yeah. I might be pretty efficient. I don't know. That's not too bad.That was really cool. No, I think you're totally right, Nayeli, one thing that came really clear, and this is true whether you're doing plaintiff's law or anything else you're doing, it's just the passion that a practitioner might have for what they do. And Spencer talked about in the podcast, all the studies show that people find jobs rewarding when it's something that they kind of love to do. We did talk about pay transparency, and I know this sort of sounds somewhat cliche, but I think this is true. It's like, first, you can't put a price on how you are. There's people that have jobs. Some of the people listening to this podcast, they're going to be like, "Do I go do this job and make money? I don't really like what I do. " I think that works for some people if your primary objective in life is just making money each time.
(36:51):
But for a lot of other people, they feel that push pull. It's sort of a classic question in the practice of law. It's not to say ... I have a general philosophy about economics, which is it's better to have more money than less of it. So I don't want to minimize that, that you can get a job that pays well is important, but I do think it's very clear that it's like being happy is most likely, I think, going to come, not from the check at the end of the day that you get, but from when you heard Spencer talk about, I open up my calendar and I got all these things on there and I really want to do all of them and they're all really cool and it's all really fulfilling, but then that's, I think, where you can find enjoyment in the practice of law and fulfillment.
(37:35):
It doesn't mean you might not want to make more money, but if you can also be lucky enough where you're one of those people that you kind of sit at the intersection of it, you're doing all those things you want to do and you happen to make money, then I think you get really lucky. But my general sense of it too is like for young lawyers, you start out, you do the things, make you happy, you build your career, you get great experience. If you handle the work the way you're supposed to, you develop a great reputation, the money will come. You'll have more stability will come over time. You'll have options that'll be open to you for other things at a certain point that might pay you more or you'll move up in the organization you are. So I mean, obviously you can't pay your bills because something I said just don't come to me.
(38:16):
I want to be responsible for that. But I do think happiness comes from doing something you find fulfilling and then you keep doing it, you do a great job at it and eventually greater financial stability comes.
Nayeli Diaz (38:29):
That's really important to know at this time right now for 3Ls, as a 3L looking for work, that's the exact, I think, balance that I and so many of my peers are going through. How do I make sure that I can do something that brings me fulfillment, do a job that doesn't make me miserable and still provide for myself and my family. And so I think it's such a timely time to be talking about this. For any of the 3Ls out there, take this into consideration. Look into different avenues of the things you're interested in. Find the intersections where you get to do all of those things because they exist out there. Sometimes they're just a little bit harder to find, but take a deep breath, look into it and have faith in yourself and letting that guide you to find, like you said, Todd, that middle ground.
(39:15):
Any 3L's there, we're going to be okay. It'll all get worked out, but it's possible out there. And I think that Spencer's a great example of that, that is possible to do the work you care about and to continue giving back to the community and to continue learning and having fun and being taken care of.
Todd Berger (39:31):
I mean, the irony of all of this, and honestly, everything we're talking about and plaintiff's law is like, I actually kind of came to some of this realization between my 1L and 2L year when I had an internship at a plaintiff's law firm. This is Alexaggeration. I was probably the worst intern in the entire history of interns that might stretch back a thousand years. I really was. But that
Eve Albert (40:00):
Can't be right.
Todd Berger (40:01):
What I found was, while I was not, obviously it's terrific that other people are, and you could hear how passionate Spencer was about practicing claims law. It just wasn't for me. It did click. So I would go into this internship and the issues didn't necessarily move me. I don't know. I would get these depositions and I'd have to summarize the depositions and I didn't ... So I eventually would show up really late, but I'd go in the back door and for some of our older guests, and if not younger guests, you should watch the movie Office Space. I don't know if either of you have seen Office Space. I knew it. For all the Gen Zers out there, you have to watch Office Space. This amazing movie about working in an office and trying to find fulfillment and not necessarily being happy. And there's this scene where the guy finally says the main character, he says, "I would say in any given week, I do a real solid 15 minutes of actual work." And that was kind of like what that job was.
(41:05):
And I realized it, but it was so important because I always tell students, sometimes you're not sure what you want to do, knowing what you don't want to do. I mean, you should not do the things I did. That was not advisable. But at the same time, knowing what you don't want to do is, particularly early in your career, it's invaluable because I realized from that experience that what I wanted to do was in criminal law at that stage of my life, the prospect of making more money, that wasn't what was going to motivate me. And so after that, I kind of went on a different path and I ultimately found the thing that I wanted to do. And that's really, really important. You said when you're applying for jobs, you're thinking about what you want to do, you want to be in a situation where you want to do more than 15 minutes of real actual work a week.
Eve Albert (41:51):
Right. Oh, that's really funny. No, but I think that that's a common experience for your 1L summer job. I mean, I worked in real estate. At the time, I was like, "Yeah, this could be interesting." And then after a while I was like, "Okay, yeah, I do not want to do this, but that's okay because now I've knocked something out of the way and I'm a little bit closer to figuring out what I do want to do. " And then when you're at Nyellie's Point and you're a 3L, you get even closer to narrowing that down. Yeah.
Todd Berger (42:20):
Hopefully.
Nayeli Diaz (42:21):
Hey, fingers crossed.
Eve Albert (42:22):
Before we move away from the subject of passion, listening to the interview back, it reminded me of something that is a piece of advice that I always give to undergrad students and undergrad students and high school students when talking about law school. I say that because I just did career day at my old high school and I loved being back. But anyways, I was explaining the application to law school process and I kind of had an epiphany because I was pondering this episode. I was preparing what I was going to say to them. And I realized that when law schools ask you why law for your applications essay, because that's usually what it boils down to. I think that the reasoning behind that is just wanting to go to law school or wanting to be a lawyer isn't enough.
(43:15):
Law schools want to see that you have a passion, and that's an indicator that you're going to persevere through how difficult law school is. So having a passion that drives you to keep working towards your goal is something that is always going to make it easier. The way that ties into the episode is we saw what Spencer's passion looked like. It looked like this organization, it looked like the trial program and teaching and working. And so I think that it's important to remember that everyone's passion is going to express itself differently. I mean, for the three of us, part of that passion is probably doing this podcast. For other people, it's probably like publications or clinics or clerkships or whatever that ends up being. But I think that it was just a nice reminder that there's not one path. You don't need to be on law review and in the trial program and this and that.
(44:15):
There are several different ways that you can express that passion that you have as long as you're expressing it.
Todd Berger (44:22):
And I can also ask you, so obviously you didn't love this job in real estate, but I assume you never snuck in the back door, right?
Eve Albert (44:30):
No, I didn't. Actually, I came in the front door every day and it was a very small office. So it's like one of those places where you say good morning to everyone. And if you don't, not a good look. So if I was late, everybody would know.
Todd Berger (44:45):
Yeah. So I guess my parting advice would be like, if you're going to have that job over the summer, you're not sure if you're going to like it, make sure the place has a backdoor you can go in and out of.
Eve Albert (44:52):
Smart. Yeah. And like for fire exit reasons probably.
Todd Berger (44:57):
Yeah. For health and safety reasons as well. Mental health reasons, fire related reasons. That's probably the best advice we've ever given on this podcast.
Nayeli Diaz (45:06):
Definitely.
Todd Berger (45:09):
Thanks to our guest, Spencer Pahlke for joining us for this episode. To learn more about Spencer's various projects, you can find links in the show notes. If you're looking for even more content curated just for you, head over to the ABA Law Student Division website and become a member. We want to make sure we're making the best content for you. Let us know what you'd like to learn more about by telling us in a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Finally, we'd like to thank our production partners at Moraine Media and to thank the ABA Lawson Division for making this show a reality. We'll be back next month with our next episode. See you then.