At age 37, Chris Hammons made it all the way to the jury level of the hit reality show “Survivor.” The jury voted him off. But more recently, two juries in a courtroom – not on an island – have voted for him in federal civil rights cases: In this conversation with host Dan Ambrose, Chris breaks down how he secured verdicts of $126 million and $2 million. Tune in as he explains why he takes on Section 1983 cases and why they’re so hard to win. “They aren't car wrecks. There isn't any negligence. You've got to prove this deliberate indifference in all these constitutional violations.”

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Episode Snapshot

• Chris grew up largely on his own after his father — whom he describes as "a mountain man, but … kind of an outlaw" — went to prison when Chris was around 14. As he explains, his dad was guilty – but the system didn’t work for him. That’s why he pursued law.
• Chris walked on to the University of Oklahoma football program after an OU coach called his grandmother's house. He rose from walk-on to team captain of the 2000 national championship team.
• After law school, Chris built his personal injury practice by forgiving criminal defense clients' fees in exchange for referrals.
• Chris was cast on “Survivor” in 2015 at age 37; he survived 50 days on the show, reaching the jury phase. He later competed on “The Amazing Race.”
• The $126 million verdict involved the death of an 18-year-old girl who was struck by an off-duty police officer speeding to retrieve keys for a department event. Chris reframed what some saw as a simple car wreck into a Section 1983 civil rights case.
• The $126 million verdict came in on Chris' birthday, April Fools' Day, with the judge reading "18 million, 18 million, 18 million" — each category set at $18 million because Emily was 18 years old when she died.
• Two weeks after the $126 million verdict, Chris tried a jail death case involving a man who developed a perforated ulcer during nine days in jail. He secured a $2 million verdict.

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All right. Well, we got Chris Hammons is joining us all the way from Oklahoma via Las Vegas. How was your stop in Las Vegas, Chris?

We had a good time. Just trying to unwind from basically a month of jury trials in federal court. So we had some dinner and just kind of gambled and drank some beer.

Nice, nice, nice. And so you just finished two trials. Were they both in federal court?

Both federal civil rights cases. Yep.

And one of them you got a hundred and what?

It was 126 million.

On the dot. Right. And then you dropped the ball, theta one, the second one you got.

Oh, we only got two million on the second one.

Well, you know what?

Two weeks apart too.

Well, I imagine it built your endurance a bit, your trial endurance.

Yeah. I think I was proud of our team, honestly, going through what we did, that was a gauntlet of trial really involved civil rights case and then two weeks later do another jail death case with our team. I was proud of the team how they handled it, honestly. We went through the gauntlet. Yeah.

Oh, I can only imagine the amount of work and effort that it took to deliver on both those trials. And we'll talk about them in a bit, but first I want to back up a little bit of time and talk about how you got to this spot right here on the TLU podcast because first you had to go to law school. So tell us about how young Chris Hammons finds his way into law school.

Yeah. My dad was kind of a, for lack of better words, honestly, he was a mountain man, but he was kind of an outlaw too. And he went to prison over in Arkansas when I was very young. I think he finally went away completely when I was about 14, 15. And I always, my dad was guilty as hell, but the system didn't work for him. The police cheated in his case.

The rehabilitation part?

Yeah.

The first time you go to jail, you learn a lesson, they give you some more life skills so you don't go out and continue to commit crimes. Yeah.

I thought he got cheated though. So that's probably the reason I actually went to law school was I thought, "You know what? Maybe I can go in there and ... " Not that he has to be found not guilty, but you have to hold the state and the government to the task.

And

I thought that was important from a young age. And so that's why I went to law school was to get into there and try to fight for guys like my dad. And

Where'd you go to school?

Well, went to University of Oklahoma for undergraduate and for law school.

And so for undergraduate, give us some context of what your undergraduate career was like in Oklahoma.

So how I got to OU is I was out working construction on a damn park site in the summer. And Merv Johnson, who's a famous OU football coach, called my grandma's house and said, "We want you to walk on at the University of Oklahoma and play football and we want you here today." And I got in my car, an 88 T-bird with everything I owned, drove to Norman, Oklahoma, walked in filthy, dirty. They gave me a locker at the University of Oklahoma and said, "Get your ass out there to practice." And I walked on at OU. That's how I got there. And from there, started playing almost immediately. And from walk on to team captain of the national championship team's how I got to OU.

And so let's talk about that for a sec. So what year were you?

97 through 2000. Yep.

And what year did you win the championship?

2000 national champions. We went 13 and 0. No one ever believed we'd do it.

Wow. What was that like?

What I remember most is when I grew up, my dad was a huge OU fan of my brother. I wasn't really. I was just kind of whatever. I just happened to be good at sports. And we used to watch the Orange Bowl when I was a little kid on little TV and a trailer house on the side of a mountain. And all of a sudden I'm standing on the coin toss of the Orange Bowl and I said hi to my dad in prison. At the coin toss, I said, "Hey, what's up, dad?" To my father, which was a big hit at the prison. When I went and saw him, it was a huge hit. All the guards, everybody loved it. But it was wild. Denzel Washington was at the coin toss. I have no idea why, but he was one of my favorite actors. Toby Keith sang the national anthem.

It was incredible just to sit there and go, "Wow, I used to watch this game and now I'm standing at the coin toss." It was really, it was a special, special season for us, I'll tell you that.

I bet it was. But the pros, even as a captain, the pros weren't in the cards?

Just knee injuries. I tell people this all the time, I have unopened letters from like the Raiders and the Broncos. I didn't even open them. It was a very disappointing senior year. My knee went down and I pushed it back. That's why I have a lot of respect from the coaching staff and my fellow teammates is I played through pain. I played when I shouldn't have. I gave up my body like a lot of us did for the greater good of the team. And so it took me years to reconcile that, but I have, and I'm okay with it now. Those couple of years after school when I didn't make it to the NFL were tough, but I'm over it now and I see why I did it. It was a team deal.

Yeah. And so you said your father went to prison for an extended stay when you were, what, 14?

Probably about 14 when he went away for good. Yeah. We were up there on the mountain. I call it the mountain. It was a hill, but an Oklahoma mountain. And my dad was loading up the back of a car with his clothes and he said, "I'm running for it. " And he closed the lid. We said our goodbyes and he drove off and he got caught about two or three weeks later, but I've been on my own ever since then. And that was the moment I said, "Whoa, one way or other, I got to make it and go to college and get my stuff straight." But that was the moment when my dad drove off. That was when I was left alone.

Where was your mom?

Mom was in another town and kind of a mess. She had some addiction problems with some problems and just problems with men and abusive relationship after abusive relationship. And so I've spent a long time growing up fighting grown men and had enough of that. So I just went on it and just bounced around. People in the communities of my local towns would take me in. I had a wonderful family that took me in. I was dating their daughter and they were good enough to let me sleep on their couch. But a lot of good folks helped me along the way to get through that last couple years of high school.

I can imagine. I can imagine. I'm just curious, where are your parents today? Are they still alive?

So my father got out of prison and actually we got to be back kind of on a good terms. He passed away about 10 years ago. My mom, she's doing better. She's kind of a grandma now and away from all the abuse. And we're working on a relationship and I've got to give her a better shot. She's probably earned enough now that I need to probably give her a better chance and need to do better with her, honestly.

Good to recognize these things because sometimes it's hard. I can only ... I mean, I can imagine. I mean, good

Parents. It's hard, but it's time for me to let some of it go.

Of course. For yourself. I mean, not for her, but for you, right? Yeah, 100%. Forgiveness is for the forgiver, not for the forgive. They don't give it. I mean, that's what you're serving put that one. And so you go to the University of Oklahoma for law school. And so when you get out, tell us about your journey to ...

Yeah. So I went to work for a plaintiff's firm. I knew I wanted to kind of get into the plaintiff's side of things. But I wanted to do criminal defense too. So I thought that was the good guy's side. Criminal defense and personal injury. I think-

They are the good guy side. You were right at a young age. You

Were precocious. Yeah. We were the good

Guys. We are the good guys.

I started out doing that, but I also, my ex- partner, Jeff Laird, he's passed away by now, but he was at that firm and he was a trial lawyer. He was a guy that went to trial and was well respected. So I kind of looked up to him a little bit, but started building my practice through criminal defense really. And when I'd get done with the case, I'd tell the guy, I'd say, "Hey, you owe me 1,500 bucks, but you don't owe it anymore." And I'd hand them a stack of cards and say, "Just hand those out and tell them I'm the greatest lawyer you've ever seen and then go get hit by a truck or something and come back and see me. " And I'd never let them leave owing me money because they wouldn't come back to me. But that's how I built my personal injury practice.

And then about five years into that, I decided to go out on my own. I wanted to do things my way. I wanted to go to trial. I wanted to just do things my way, which was work hard, try cases and fight for the little guy. That's how I've always been is that was really important

For me. And make some fucking money too.

Fuck yeah. We wanted to make some money.

Make

Some fucking money.

100%. All this justice shit is all good without any fucking money.

Justice-

It ain't that much fun.

Justice without a bunch of money is no fun.

That's an injustice. And we should work this hard and sweat and lose all this sleep and fucking pull our hair out and still not have any money.

Yeah. Half justice, as I say in these trials, is injustice. It's

Injustice.

Yeah, 100%. The money ... And I was hellbent on getting money. There's no doubt about it. I grew up so damn poor and I said I'd never be there. I would never be back there again. And it was damn sure a vehicle to get me to where I've been fortunate enough to make some good money and my kids don't go without and damn sure don't do what I had to do. And so hell yeah, the money is good and it's great, but it's also, I mean, it's cool. We get to fight for the right side.

Oh, it's great.

And make money. What the hell? I mean, it's the best thing in the world.

That's why I think it's the greatest job in the world. All these people that are telling their kids not to be lawyers, I'm like, what kind of lawyer are you? This is like the greatest job ever. You get to be a showman, you get to make money, you get to travel, you get to go have friends. Yeah.

My civil procedure professor, first year of law school, everybody's going around the room giving these bullshit reasons why they were in law school. It was all-

I'll help the people.

It got to me and I said, "Well, I want to be the center of attention and make a lot of money."

Here you

Go. And he said, "Oh, Mr. Hammons, you're going to be the trial lawyer." And I said, "Hell yeah." And I got picked on every damn day after that though.

You get practice speaking in public.

That was it. But yeah, I liked the money. Hell, I'm about like everybody. I like the gamble of it too. I like the fact that we have to

Put it all- A competitiveness?

Yeah, it's all

That. See what you're about? See what you're made of every day. You step into that courtroom?

Hell yeah. I mean, because if you're trying a case, even when you lose, man, you've had to put it-

Even when you lose, it's even worse.

It's worse. You

Got to put it

On the line though. You know what I mean? You got to put it ... If I'd have lost one of these cases this month-

You'd be so depressed right now. You're telling yourself, "I got to get over this shit." I wouldn't be drinking

Water.

No, right. I'm just saying, if you think over it, over and over how you fucked it up.What'd you fuck up? How'd you not see it? How could this happen? How could you let these people down?

That's it, man. Yeah, just the amount of effort that ... You build relationships with these people. We've been five, six years fighting for their daughter's life or for all this stuff and you've got it all on the line. Man, if you lose, but I like that. I like the edge. It's like, hell, we're going for it. I mean, it satisfies something. I'm sure I would, without that, I'd probably be snorting coke off of the back of some car or something. So it keeps me going. It keeps me lit up in life. I thought

You were going to say some strippers back, but you said a car.

Well, I usually do say that, but I thought, well, we're on a podcast.

Yeah, we're trying to be polite. I appreciate that. But I don't think anybody's expecting too much out of me, so I'm not too worried about it. TLU Beach has happened right here at the Paseo Hotel, June 3rd through 6th. Huntington Beach, California. But it all starts out on June 2nd because we're taking over the Lorea restaurant and the entire pool area. We're having a dinner party hosted by our friends at Finch. At TLU, we not only have the greatest education because we got five lecture tracks with the top trial lawyers of the country and eight workshop tracks for smaller group, interactive, on your feet training. But on top of all that, we got networking. We got friend making because we got golf, we got pickleball, we got go- kart racing, we got surf camp, we got all that stuff going on. And on top of that, we're going to feed you the entire time.

We provide a full breakfast for everybody, full lunch, dinner parties, food trucks, because we're having themed parties every night. Thursday night, 80s track suit party hosted by Supio. Friday night, the Wild West Satch Oliver party hosted by our friends at Eve. And Satche is bringing 500 pounds of Angus beef. We're going to have a mechanical bull. And then Saturday night, the opera ski adult swim pool party happening right here. So come for the education, stay for the food and make lots of new friends and change your life at TLU Beach. We'll see you here. You're in there for five years. Is that when you start out on your own?

Yeah. So I think I've been there four or five years. We go out and we start our own firm. Jeff, I brought up later, Jeff Laird and then his son went out with us too. And Jason Hicks, who tries tons of cases with me, who's really essential part of the team, he came with us too and said he had a like- minded idea. He wanted to go out and make money and try cases and do good stuff. And so we started the firm and you know hell we started it with nothing. We put everything we had into it and just started and hell we ended up ... We got a pretty good verdict right off the bat and got everybody ... We made a name for ourselves. We got crazy. We would just file the cases, screw the adjusters. We're not settling. We're trying and everything.

And I think eventually adjusters around Oklahoma just said, "Hey, listen, these guys are good or crazy or both, but just pay the sons of bitches because we're tired of messing with them." So that was the first four or five years. We were just hellbent on kicking ass and really getting a name for ourselves so we could ... We didn't want to be known as settling lawyers. And I think that we've accomplished that in Oklahoma for damn sure. We're

Going to talk about that in a minute recently, just putting this little exclamation point stamp on it now recently.

Yeah. So we built the firm up from nothing. And I think we've got a good reputation in Oklahoma and other states where we've done some cases and we're just like everybody else out there fist fighting every day, every damn day.

Plugging away, I want to take a quick side step to, because you not only have national champions, but you have some, I want to call it acting chops, but you got to be on some reality shows. So how'd you get onto ... Which one were you on for? Survivor, amazing race.

Survivor was my love, man. It still is. I'm obsessed with it. Never missed an episode. Tried out for about 16 years.

Wow.

I tried out every year, 16 years.

You're one persistent homeboy. I tell you that.

And I guess after 16 years, they finally- 16.

How old were you when you went on that thing?

I think I turned 37 when I was out there

On Survivor. Yeah. I think I was in the pre-game as they call it when I turned 37. I had a birthday on Survivor. But yeah, I tried out and hell, tried out, tried out, tried out. And finally, it was 2015, that's the first time I ever got a call back from them and I wasn't going to let it go, man. I stayed in the ... You get cut, there's cuts and all this stuff, and hell, I made it. That was another great day. I mean, I was at my law office late at night when I got the call from the people and they said, "You're no longer an applicant. You're a contestant." And I was like, "Wow, just going nuts." What

Was the application process like? What'd you have to do?

It was long.You apply, you do a video. So the video is to hook them in. In my video, if you want to know it, I actually ate dog shit to

Be

On Survivor.

Wow. You're committed, buddy.

I literally turned the camera around and I said, "This is my dog, Jake. This is my dog, Jake's poop." And I ate it and I said, "I just ate shit to be on Survivor." And they called and the producer said, "You're either going to make the show or we're never going to speak to you again." That was the first word said to me from a producer.

Wow. And so how long was the survivor journey?

So it takes months. You eventually get invited to LA. This is back when I did it. It's changed a little bit after COVID. You get invited to LA and you're sequestered for a week straight and they just test you. There's all kinds of IQ testing and emotional testing. And then eventually they'll just call you and be like, "Hey, go to room 800 or something like that. " And you walk in there and it's Jeff Ropes, the host, and he interviews you out of nowhere. And then you meet with the executives, like the big wigs, and then nothing. You don't hear anything for months. And you think, "What did I do? What the hell? Did I mess this up?" I was pissed. And all of a sudden they called, boom, out of nowhere, said, "You're on and you got a month before you go on the show." And it was pretty cool, pretty cool.

But when you got on the show, how long were you there for?

Oh yeah, 50 days. So the first time you get on one of these reality shows, you take the confidentiality pretty serious. And back then they were pretty tight lipped with Survivor. And so I had to go to my staff. They let me tell my law partner where I was going. The rest of the staff though, we had a meeting, and back then I had a little bigger staff. I had probably 20, 25 people working for me back then. And I said, "Y'all, I can't tell you where I'm going. I can't tell you where I'm ... You'll not have any contact with me. No phones, no internet, no emails, and just know I'm not in any trouble. I'm not going to rehab. It's okay, but y'all aren't going to hear from me for 50 days and you need to clear the calendar."

Why couldn't you tell anybody you're going there?

They don't want anybody, A, to know the cast, who they are before the show airs because they shoot two seasons in the spring. One will air in the fall, one will air in the spring and they do it again. They don't want anybody knowing the cast and they don't know once you know in the order in which you get voted off. So they don't want anybody knowing anything. So when you get voted off the island, you don't go home. If you're voted off first, you're still there for 50 days. You're just in another area.

Just hanging out?

Yeah, you get to party and just hang out. When

You get better- Do you work?

No,

You don't. Oh God, you're just hanging out with a bunch of people he just met? Prepared you for the ranch.

Wife and kids didn't know where I was at

On

The whole earth. My kids were young. And when I got back from survivor or when I got back from shooting, I lost 33 pounds and I looked like a mess. I had a beard and I was just a mess.

You have a beard now.

I have a beard now. I didn't before. Now I have a beard. I look like a homeless person, but I went in, I was able to tell my boys, I said, "Hey, listen, y'all can't tell anybody, but dad's been on Survivor." And they're going nuts because we watch Survivor together. By the end of the first day, we go pick Costner up from school.

Everybody knows.

This teacher goes, "Kostchlier's been telling everybody the reason you've been gone, you've been on Survivor." And I was like, "Oh no, he's crazy. I don't know what he's talking about. " Pretty funny though. And then the amazing race, I got to do that because with a guy from Survivor, it was pretty fun, but his name's Brett, he's a Boston police officer and a really funny guy, but that one was out of nowhere. They called us on a Friday and they were like, "We're getting you on this show." And they said, "Be ready by Tuesday." So we had to scramble and move stuff around and I had to leave and go around the world for 30 days. It was a wild time.

Where did you place on Survivor?

Survivor. So I made it onto the, you make it to the merge. Merge is where everybody comes to the both tribes come together, both teams

Basically. I've never watched the show.

There's like usually two tribes fighting each other in different challenges. Then when you merge, which is a big thing on survivor, you become an individual game, okay? So you can be voted off by your tribe. Guys like me, they come after after the merge. Could

They ever have a better chance of winning?

Well, I win the immunity challenges. Athlete, you can beat everybody in most of this stuff. So I got voted out third on the jury. So I got to be a part of the show the whole way. You get to vote on the winner. The jury votes. So you get to be on a jury. Only jury I'll ever be on is the survivor jury. These are

What your jurors are going through.

Yeah, it was pretty fun. But I got to give like a closing argument to influence the game too. It was kind of cool. Yeah. So I made it pretty far for a guy like me. And when I say guy like me, a big athlete guy, they come after you.

Jealous. More jealous. They're always so jealous. Big athletes. One of

My guys turned on me and son of a bitch. Yeah. And he was from Oklahoma too. Oh, no

Wonder.

I love him to death now. His name's Zeke, but at the time I literally wanted to kill him.

How about the amazing race? How'd that one go for you? Where'd you end up on

That? We made it pre ... So that was a big brother versus survivor versus amazing race teams. So the amazing race teams were all starter. They'd done

This

Multiple times. They had a distinct advantage. But I think we outlasted all the survivor teams and we outlasted, I think almost everybody else that was not amazing race. But we had a blast doing it. We had fun. The last leg of the race though, we blew it. We were like ahead by ... Brett and I were ahead of everybody by hours.

How'd you blow it?

We got to this one challenge and we couldn't find these stupid gold coins in Croatia and we just were too hardheaded to change. You can switch challenges. We switched challenges way too late, but we had like a two or three hour lead. And on an amazing race, two or three hours is a long time.

I didn't know that, but I can tell by the way you're saying it, that was a big lead that you blew.

We blew it.

We

Blew it. I

Know. Probably still regretting that a bit. You wake up sometimes going, "Oh my God, I could be an amazing race champion." But for the fact that we didn't, I was too stubborn.

We blew it. It was fun though, because Brett was like, my boy Brett was a little out of shape. So I had to carry his backpack around the damn world. It was funny as hell, man. I was like, you'd have these teams, it'd be a husband, wife, little girl, the husband's carrying the backpack. And

Then

Brett's this big burly cop and I'm carrying his damn backpack around. I mean, I didn't let him live it. He still isn't going to live it down.

Well, don't let him let it down. Let's go back to your trial lawyering world now. So you and I have some things in common and the Trial Lawyers College is one of them, although they eventually put you on staff. They never put me on staff. So I had to start my own program. I didn't

Actually make them. They talked to me about staff. I never made it on the official staff.

They just

Talked

To me about it. I wanted it down. I went there for 12 years and tried to be accepted, but I've suffered. As my mother told me, Dan, you're not everybody's cup of tea. So apparently it wasn't the trial lawyer's cup of tea. I don't think they like my brutal honesty because somebody would do some presentations. They just sucked. And somebody would be like, "Oh, that was good." Everything was great. No matter what, I'm like, "That was terrible. It was terrible. You can't do that in front of a courtroom in front of a jury. You never have a chance. Oh, you can't talk. You got to give them the fucking compliment." The critique sandwich. You say something nice, then you put it in the critique and they sit nice and they're going to be confused. They think they're good. And then they go in the courtroom, they're going to suck and they're going to cause somebody their freedom or their chance of justice.

Why are you doing that to these people? But that was the philosophy. So what was your journey like with the ranch? Yes.

So the ranch was, I think if you take the ranch for what people sometimes find there is a little bit of, I don't know-

Community.

Some community, some peace a little bit. I think there's some meditation that goes on there. There's a whole line of the psychodrama. It's not everybody's cup of tea. No. And it really can freak you out if you don't have the right people doing it. Maybe that benefits to get down to some problems that you have personally. I think that helped me. But for trial skills, again, I saw that too, what you're talking about where somebody would do an opening or whatever they were having you do that particular day. And I was thinking to myself, I tried some cases by then and I was thinking to myself, there's zero chance that that's ever going down in a courtroom. I mean, there's no judge-more

And be a little bug or something stupid like that.

Yeah. And if you do, you really got to pull that off. If you're going to pull some wild shit like that in a courtroom, you better be really skilled. And I don't know. And I just couldn't see Jerry Spence doing some of it because Jerry's got this great voice and he just has it, right? He just has it. And there's no way some of that was going to go down. And I thought to myself, it's not my style. I'm not going to be the guy up there. I get the utility of maybe reenacting something a little bit. I get that 100%. I agree. But some of it was just too much. And I think it also ... There was too much emphasis on ... It was almost like, I felt like it was almost like you got to cry or something. You know what I mean?

You got to cry during trial.

If you don't cry, you're in denial. Or if you don't have to talk about some traumatic experience where you were just, because you listen to these trauma experiences, you're like, "Fuck." Man, I thought I was fucked up. Man, these people are really fucked

Up. Yeah. Well, what it highlighted to me was I might be the most fucked up. And I think that's a problem in and of itself. I was like, holy shit, I'm pretty ... Every time I was in one of these rooms with a psychodromatist, they're like the Jedis of feelings. They can feel stuff and they'd be like, "Hone in on me. " They're like, "Whoa, we've got a real doozy here.This stuff a bitch has got some pain." And I was like, "Wow." So overall, I think positive experience. I think just going up and living in the ranch is this experience that was cool. I mean, I just thought it

Was cool. Did you only go there for one

Year? I only went one year.

One year? 12 years, bro. I went to some

Follow-ups and stuff, but I went to the one year and again, I took what I could from it and I thought Jerry was great. We got to hang out with ... Jerry happened to be there all three weeks for some reason. And he was getting older when I was there.

What year was this?

2015. But I made a ton of great friends who I'm still friends with. We still talk and Facebook, all that stuff. But I took what I wanted from it, and that's why I never really followed up

On it. Chris from Dallas, what's his last name?

Stoi.

Stoy. I think he's coming to the beach.

He's

Supposed to come last year and he bailed out because of a trial that didn't even go.

Chris is great. I think he drank the Kool-Aid longer than I did for sure.

Still drinking.

Yeah. And so it just wasn't my cup of tea. It wasn't my style. I took what ... A lot of these things you go to, you take what you can from it and you use it as a tool in your toolbox. And that's what I did. And in many ways, I think it opened up some ideas about some of the pain that I've had to deal with and I needed to deal with. I was just a new father Sure. And so in that respect, I think it helped. But for trial skills, it wasn't my cup of tea. It just

Wasn't. And then I know you also, you went to trial by human for a while and

With my

Buddy Nick?

Yeah. Of course, the first time I went to trial by human, of course you're enamored with Nick. I mean, everybody is. It goes there. I

Mean, he was my roommate at the ranch, so that was a good thing. For four years, we'd be roommates every year.

Yeah. I mean, you can't help me. By the time I went to trial by human, I mean, Nick was just-

The guy.

Just hitting home run after home run, just doing amazing stuff. And of course I was excited. I was mesmerized by the lights. I mean, Nick's a special dude. When you meet him, he's got something, he's got it, right? Helped him out. I think he saw something in me, which I appreciated. He told me. He pulled me out of a ... I think we were doing an opening or something. He pulled me aside and he said, "Hey, with a little bit of this or a little bit of that, you could be one of the best in the country."

Let's be honest, he said, "You know what? If you started hanging out with Dan Ambrose and get some coaching from him, I think we can make you a rockstar."

That's what he ended up saying. You know what? Now I'm remembering

Back. It took two years to find the courage to come up and say, "Dan, be my coach, but that's cool. He finally got around to it, so we'll talk about that. "

But I had a really positive experience. I think Nick's style's more my style. I mean, Nick and I, he had a rough upbringing too, like me, and we kind of bonded on that. I taught with him a couple times at Trial Lawyers University.

How about that? Your first exposure. Thank God for he might not have found some of you. And who knows what the world would

Be like. That's exactly what. We were in Vegas and Trial by Human was at Trial Lawyers University. And that was the first experience I had with Trial Lawyers University. And I was like, "Jesus, this thing is huge." And I of course remember you, we didn't know each other that well then, but I thought, God, this guy's fucking crazy, man. He's wired to the macs. How's he running all this stuff, man?

I run a lot during conferences. You

Had to.

Yeah. Room to room to room. Make sure everybody's taking the breaks on time. I walk down at the beach. I walk into this one guy's room and it's like, because we take lunch from 12:30 to 2:00 and it's 1:15 and they're in class. I'm like, "What are you guys doing here?" I'm like, "Oh, we took a vote to come back early." I'm like, "Hold on, hold on. Who thought this was a democracy? Who asked for a vote?"

There are no votes.

And no hands went up. I'm like, "Exactly. This is no democracy. The dictatorship with a lot of fucking rules. And one is we take an hour and a half lunch because we got to relax and we got to make friends. And we can't make friends if you're up there talking the whole time. That's right. So we got that straightened out there.

Yeah. So I got to help Nick when he needed it. And then that went away. I hadn't heard from Nick. Maybe he just didn't need any help anymore. I think Nick, he had a case in Oklahoma that I was local council for a while. We did a few things here and there. And every once in a while they fly into town and I'll see him or I'll give him a call or hear from him or just see him on the TV hitting another verdict. But yeah, Nick's style's way closer to my style. But you know what? The way I look at it though, if you're wanting to get in this business and what I tell my guys all the time, I don't want to be Jerry Spence and I don't want to be Nick Raely. I want to be me and I want to be the guy.

And so- We're working on it. We're working on it. We're working on it. Well, that's what you got to do. You got to keep working. You work on it. Guys work. You got to keep working on it. You got to develop the skills. You got to do all the stuff. And yeah, it's great to mimic a little bit of these guys or do some of the stuff they do or look at it and hear it. But I don't want to ... Nick's doing Nick stuff. I want to be doing my stuff. I want to be Chris Hammons doing it. But I can learn from Nick. I can learn from Dan Ambrose. I can learn from Jerry Spence. I can learn from all these great lawyers, but I want people to learn from me. I want to be the guy.

Well, maybe that's in the cards. You never know, Mr. Hammons. You keep getting nine figure verdicts. Yeah.

And it's nine figures. I mean-

I know. It's just nine fingers. Thank God. Thank God. Anyways, we'll talk about that here in just a moment now. May 8th and 9th, right here at the TAU Beach House, you should join us because we're going to do a two-day witness preparation and direct examination workshop. It's going to be a small group, limited to eight people, eight students. We're going to teach you how to prep your clients and your lay witnesses. So when they're up there in deposition, they're not just remembering the story, but they're reliving it. So the jury just doesn't hear it, but they experience it. We'll see you here.

You finally saw the light and came to Cabo last December for your ... We connected over at Connectionology with Satch Oliver at the- That's right. ... episode trial down in Dallas. That was a great time, great program. Sat is one of my favorite guys. Actually, he helped me a lot because when I was down visiting him and his ranch just a few months ago, but we were talking about ... And he's going to do this presentation and his talk about money because so many trial lawyers don't have money or just like they're making a lot, but they're just constantly under money stress. And near them under money, stress. That's stressful

Shit.That's a great topic. I'd love to hear

What you have to say. It's profound for me because it gave me not just the confidence, but also the courage to buy this house here in California where I really want to be because I was in Vegas for four years and it was a good time. And I enjoyed Vegas and I enjoyed my place there and what I was doing. I enjoyed

It this weekend.

Yeah. I know. Thank God. I got

To stay there. Yeah, it was

Awesome. I know. Thank God I have the ... But now it's great because now I have my place there still. And so when my friends like you or you were there and Steve King and Georgio were all there and Noel, we're all there this past weekend. So I was so happy because I have this place and if nobody stays it, it's kind of a waste. But then when different friends of mine go there, especially you and Steve were staying in one of the places and so you guys get to connect and you're both civil rights guys and I'm sure you-

Oh, we hammed it up

For ...

Kelly got tired of listening to us.

I bet you did. Because Steve, he's all excited about it too. And he's all excited about the civil rights and things with the prison cases and his buddy. She told you all about his buddy, Parish.

Oh, he

Was- Parish Collins. Oh,

We've got plans. We've got class action

Plans

Going on. I know what

You do. I know. I'm so happy for you because he's really fired up about this and perished and everything. And so you come down to Cabo though and you really put the time in ahead of time because so many people come to these bootcamps and they just don't put the time in to develop the skills via video ahead of time, but you did. And so tell me your different takeaways as far as like, what was your big takeaway from the Cabo Bootcamp?

Yeah. So Cabo Bootcamp was great and it helps. Shymik was amazing. He was kind of my instructor in our little small group. But the big takeaways are, A, the reps, you got to do the work. I mean, people ... And it seems like that would be obvious, honestly. But what I see is it's not. No. It's really not. It doesn't matter what conference I go to, but Trial Lawyers University, you're sitting there going, "All right, we're going down to Cabo to work and you got to put in the work." But it's not obvious to some people that you actually have to learn and repeat these skills and video yourself. And then it helps when we go over them. I mean, you're going over them on Zoom, you're having them sent to you and actually watching them on TV, you've got to ... It's just like playing football.

We would film every practice. People would go, "Well, we just watched game film." No, we filmed every practice at OU and watched the practice because you're looking for, are you working the skills? Are you doing it right? And if you're not, correct it now in practice. And I think that's what's interesting is you've brought kind of that idea of

Watch it and watch it back and repeat and make sure you're doing it correctly and you're providing an exemplar through your video. So I really, I like that concept. It reminds me of football. It reminds me of going back to the film room, but it's trial skills. And I think that's amazing.

I think the game changer for me from Cabo is the witness prep. It had a huge impact in our $126 million and our $2 million verdict. Our clients were outstanding. They were showstoppers in the $126 million verdict. The dad's up there telling this amazing story about building smoke bombs with Emily, his daughter who was killed in this wreck. It was amazing. People were looking up in the air as he's blowing up the bomb. The smoke bomb blew up in their house and there's color and Emily's around the corners talking on her phone, diamond the dad out to their mom. It was amazing stories. I mean, the people ... And then it was just this subtle, boom, this badass story. And then the dad's like, "Man, we just don't do 4th July anymore. It's no fun anymore." And I mean, just wow, boom. That moment, I mean, the jury, no one there could stop from feeling the emotions, whether they were crying, tearing up, everybody, even though Judge Dujuici, I think, was kind of looking away a little bit, a federal judge, game changer though.

The stories that they told in the jail death case we just did, one of the brothers was telling a story and he was waving his arms. He's this big guy. It was outstanding. And I took that from Cabo. I took that from your skills and there's no doubt that added zeros to the 126. There's no doubt in my mind that they were just game changers for me, I think. Yeah.

It's so great too, because I hear from colleagues and stuff, people talk, this guy calls me up the other day, he's like, "I'm going to be a witness prep thing. I just fucking settled this case for a 10th of what it's worth because my client, shit on the stand." And it's like I'm so frustrated. I'm just thinking I understand your frustration, but persons you need to be frustrated with is yourself because clients are what they are, they're scared, they're unsophisticated, they're fucking hurt. And if you didn't give him or her the skills and to tell their story, and first you have to have the skills to help them access the stories, first of all, because they're traumatized and they've buried these emotions. They've buried everything because they're just trying to survive with a little bit of smile on their face for the rest of their family that's still there or their kids.

And if you don't have the technique and the skills to get them to have the confidence and the courage to rip those bandaids off or I can consider metaphorically going into that dark, dark room and reliving the event and the confidence they can come back out and shut that door and still have a happy life or whatever semblance of life, they're never going to get to their stories. And these traumatic things happen, but they come off boring because the client will not connect with the story and that's the skill. And then the skill of listening and being the director, instead of just having some whatever script or outline, which is great. I mean, as you know, I'm a big scriptor because you have to have the repetition to build the skill. But once you have the skill, then the script's not quite as important because you develop the technique of it, but do a great direct examination, you have to be able to picture the story you're telling.

If you cannot see the story you're telling, nobody else can see it. You have to have the imagination. And that's such a struggle for so many lawyers because there are so many years just buried in that computer screen with words, words, words, words, and no images, no imagination.

And so that's the challenge.

Yeah. Dana, the mother of Emily, she told how she found out that morning, her daughter was on the way to an ACT test and just down the road. And she pulled out the phone to check Live 360. I mean, you could see her in her living room doing this in front of the jury and she's like, "She's still there. And I run out and I get in the car and she saw it on Facebook." But when she was talking about the officers walking towards her and they were looking at me and I knew that was my daughter in that car, I mean, chills. I've got chill bumps right now because I can remember her saying it and it was just like, whoa, everybody in the room was there. Her finding out her daughter is dead in a car over there. I mean, it was game changer, showstopper.

I mean, it was like, "Ooh." And then you get that contrast when she then tells a good story about their last meal together and how she cooked her a bacon sandwich and porter, sunny delight.

Because that's the challenge too is that to teach the client the skills of compartmentalizing their experiences, because the experience of knowing their daughter's death and what happened to her is the overriding experience. But if they cannot compartmentalize it and keep that separate from the past when the great moments are, then they can never tell the great moments of their lives with any joy because they're overshadowed by the grief. And then it's like they're telling about supposed to be happy thing, but they're just in shambles and that doesn't work because there's no contrast because then the jury never understands what the joy was, so they don't get the contrast.

It took a lot with Brian. Brian, he was there. Only the times me and him would speak, I think is probably the only times he spoke about this. And we'd spent a lot of time in my courtroom at the office. He literally was in so much pain. He just would bust down in tears. He couldn't talk about Emily at all, but somehow we talked about the 4th of July came up and he perked up. I saw it. I mean, he was like, "Yeah." And I was like, "Whoa, what? You perked up. Tell us about that. " That was Emily's thing. It was 4th July and 4th in fireworks with Brian. And that's where he told me the story about the smoke moment and he was just lit up. It was the first moment he could speak words in our trial prep. He couldn't speak about it, but that was his deal.

And I was like, "That's where we're going in front of the jury. If he can tell that story, that's all we need." It told everything about everything. It told how fun she was. It told the joy he had with his daughter, but it also told them that's gone too. It was the perfect story.

And

It was just amazing that he went from kind of, like you said, couldn't speak, but through imagination and a story of telling it like he's there, he got to relive that with Emily in front of a jury and he did her proud. It was amazing. I mean, it was an amazing story.

So give us the ... I know we talked about Emily and Brian and the story and the result, the number, but tell us what happened.

Yeah. So Emily was, it was a long time ago, December 14th, 2019, she was on her way to take the ACT test, retake it. She wanted to do better on it. It's a common street. It's a big street. Everybody knows it's Sooner Road with Oklahoma Sooners. It's Sooner Road. And that morning, the Moore Police Department was holding their big annual shop with a cop event. It was a shop with a cop. So the little kids would go and meet a cop and they'd get to eat breakfast, get in the squad car, turn the lights on and drive down the road and go shop with them for Christmas. It's a great PR event, but it's really important to the city of Moore and the department. One of the officers had locked the damn keys, both sets of keys in the squad car, calls his partner at home who's off duty.

He's the only one that has the city's key fob and he says, "You need to hurry. Get down here. I got to have this. It's the big event." And that officer gets up, gets in his own personal vehicle and proceeds to go about 95 miles an hour through all these intersections. He's going 95 miles an hour as he approaches the intersection at 134th and sooner. Emily's making a left turn and he hits that intersection about 92 miles an hour and broadsided her. So at first glance, when some lawyer brought this case to me, he said, "Well, I don't know what to do with it. It's just, can you make it into something?" At first glance, it's an off-duty officer in a personal vehicle. And I said, "Well, you know what? I think this is a civil rights case." And my staff, my team was like, "How?" And I said, "I'm telling you, this guy, he was in the course and scope of his duty.

He was acting under color of law. I don't care if he was in his personal vehicle or not. This is nonsense. This can't happen. It's BS." And really proud of the team, Jason and Jason Hicks, he's just a legal, really, he's a genius at this stuff.

You need those.

Does

Trial lawyers need those, correct?

He is.

He's the

Guy over there on the side that doesn't get all the glory sometimes. Everybody calls

Me. That's the way the lay fits. Not the genius. The C students get the glory. The geniuses have to do the work for

Him. That's it. He's the behind the scene guys. But at the end of the day, we turned this car wreck that seemingly everybody thought was just a car wreck into a 1983 civil rights case. And it was because, by God, they had this kind of environment where these officers around there were able to speed. They were able to break the law whenever ... It's no emergency. There's no 911 call. No one was going to die. He didn't have lights and sirens. You got to obey the traffic laws and he didn't. But we had to thread such a tight needle here. We had to get course and scope of employment and prove that he had violated her rights and prove he was acting under cover of law and abused his authority as an officer. We had to have all that fit. And really just a magnificent ... It's one of the ... The verdict is high, but it's one of the best pieces of legal maneuvering we've ever done, honestly.

I'm more proud of this case, not because of the number, but because of how we got it.

The number does help though.

Number

Helps with- If you got a million dollars, you might not be as excited about. I'm just saying.

No, 100%. I do. The number means something to me because it means it's in no way equal to Emily's life, but it says a lot. It was a loud verdict that said, "Hey, she didn't die for nothing." And hopefully the city of Moore does something to change some of this officer's behaviors at their place.

But at the end of the day, what a great ... They seemingly came into ... Brian and Dana came into our office thinking, "Well, this is going to be a car wreck case. They're going to pay their policy limits on a personal liability insurance." And I told them, I said, "If you'll stick it out, it's going to take a long time. We'll take this the distance." And we did it. And I was proud of them. They hung in there. It's not an easy task waiting five, six years for a jury trial. Knowing you got to go and face these guys off that killed your daughter. And they did it, man. I was super proud of them how they handled it. August 24th

Through 28th, Satchel Oliver has come all the way from Arkansas to right here to Hermosa Beach to TLU Beach House. And we're going to be teaching a five-day depositions our trial bootcamp. You're going to be working on your cases. Satchel's going to be working with you on your cases. So not only are you going to transform your case, but at the end of the day, it becomes a case expense because your case is going to get that much better. This program's limited to 10 participants. So if you want to come get registered today, we'll see you right here. How'd you come up with the number? I mean, what was your tell? As Nicorelli would say, now you're asking, what was your tell, Chris?

So to be honest, Kelly, my lovely other half, came up with the 18 million for each category because of Emily's life. She got cut short at 18 years old. So every category of damage, we came up with 18 million. And I'll tell you what I did on this one. It's the first time, I think it was a Jerry Spence thing. I think Nick maybe has used it before, but I used the old suitcase ask on this one. I told them the 18 million, all these categories. So you're sitting there going, okay, that's ... For Emily, her loss was 90 million and the parents had 36 million, but that 90 million, you could tell the jury was going, "Dude, you just asked for $90 million. Whoa." And I said, "Well, just let's go back to December 13th, 2019, the day before the wreck." And I said, "Emily's at home.

She's just hanging out watching TV and there's a knock on the door." And I said, "Emily gets up, she goes to the door and she opens it. And there's this guy with a nice suit and tie on. He's got a big old case. It's got $90 million in it. " And he says to Emily, "You can have this. It's $90 million." And Emily's, she's smart. I said, "You know, Emily's smart." She says, "Well, what's the catch?" And he says, "You just have to die tomorrow, so you can choose to take this money and die tomorrow, or you can leave it and live." And I said, "Emily would've chosen life, but Kyle Lloyd took that choice away from her and I think it landed." I mean, I've been wanting to use that for years. I'd heard it in different varying subjects, but it never fit. But man, it landed and that jury said, "Holy shit, I'm not giving up my life for $90 million either." And I think that landed.

The choice was taken from her and she would've chosen life, not 90 million. So that's how we presented the ask in the trial. And I think it would obviously landed.

Well, I think what's seven times 18, I don't have my calculator out, but I think it is $126 million.

Yeah, there were certain categories. It was boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and they all added up to the 126. And man, it was special when that judge started reading them, man. I'm telling you, 18 million, 18 million, 18 million. And just the look on Dana and Brian's faces, I mean, Dana looked over at me and of course she's in tears and it was just a ... Well, I'll never forget it ever. I mean, we were all crying.You couldn't help it. You had to. I mean, it was just the whole room you could just feel ... Even the defense lawyers were like ... They didn't like losing, but they were like, "Shit, man, good job." Good job. Holy shit, I can't believe y'all just pulled this shit off. And we may get fired from everything we've ever done, but wow, special moment. And it was my birthday, April 1st-

On?

April Fool's Day, my birthday, 126

Million. Man, it keeps coming, huh? Oh, it was it. So did you manage to get anybody to celebrate this great day of your life?

I'm telling you, Kelly had already had it. She just risked it. She risked it. She

Already had a party. She knew it. She was there the whole trial. She

Was.

Guiding you, giving you the arguments, giving everything you could eat so you could bring it home.

She sat through focus groups, helped me write opening statements, was witness. She was a witness. I'd cross-examine her at home, but she had everybody there. My kids were ... Well, one of my boys wasn't, but one of my boys was there with his friends. My older brother was there. Some other trial lawyers just happened to be at the bar that knew my old partner. I mean, it was literally one of the greatest days of my life, period. End of story.

I can only imagine it was. It was. He finally something found a day that maybe overtook the day he met me. I didn't know it would be possible, but apparently he might have

Had- I mean, it was very close.

It was just

Even.

He appreciated it. But you finished that trial, but you got to what, rest for that night because then you had to get right back into the game again.

We rested one day and we were back in it an important jail death case that really one of the first times that this county jail in Oklahoma had been taken to task. And we're really proud of it. It was a tough case, a perforated ulcer case, but-

When you say it's so tough, just kind of give us the story

Of

The case.

So the story of the case is our client was having a mental health breakdown. Like a lot of places in Oklahoma City, we don't have a lot of good mental healthcare shocker. They take him to the county jail and took him to the county jail. He was delusional, overt psychosis. He didn't know where he was, and they do what they do. They put him in a cell with a bean hole so they can open it up and say, "Hey, do you need anything?" He was there for nine days, never left that cell. It was disturbing the inside of the cell. They actually labeled it a biohazard, but they never did a medical assessment of him. And in those nine days, he developed, he had an ulcer, a perforated ulcer, which everybody agreed, every expert in this case is maybe the most painful thing apparently you can go through because the perforation is leaking stomach acid into your body cavity.

I mean, it's really painful. Miss site checks,

Lethally mismanaged jail. And I got that statement from a multi-county grand jury that said it's lethally mismanaged. Just awful. They just didn't check on this old boy, and he made 893 phone calls on his phone from the cell. We don't know where they would've been going, but I likely say he was calling for help, but of course the phone system doesn't work either in that jail. And when they finally found him, they said, "Well, we think he needs some medical." They left him to do court pools and miss six more site checks and he died. And it's just pitiful how they don't look at them as human when they get in there. I understand you mean. They don't look at them like humans in there, but it felt good to finally ... I wanted to ... Everybody wants a bigger verdict, but we took them to task for the first time and we got more cases coming.

They're going to see me again in that courtroom and we're going to kick their ass again and again. But at the end of the day, I got a lot of praise on that case from the guys that know what we're doing and know how hard it is. Jail death cases with ... Our clients aren't sometime the-

They ain't Boy Scouts?

They have Boy Scouts. But you know what? It drives me nuts in America that we still have places like that where I don't care what you did or whatever. We have a Constitution that says Because you don't get to treat people even when they're in jail like that. And when I say like that, I mean, we're talking about the worst conditions ever never leaves the cell for nine days, no help, no mental health help. Literally talking to a guy with overt psychosis and say, "Well, hey, if you need mental health, call us on a phone that doesn't work and then just leave them to die." And that just doesn't sit well with me. And that's why we keep taking these cases and they're hard. 1983 cases for all of y'all that don't know, they aren't car wrecks. There isn't any negligence. You've got to prove this deliberate indifference in all these constitutional violations and Monell cases.

I mean, it's hard work and it takes a long time. And that's why if you don't do them, don't jump into them and screw it up. Because boy, I tell you what, we spend a lot of our time fixing cases where a car wreck lawyer or good lawyer sometimes screw them up. Well,

Speaking of that, it's how people come screwing up. They don't have to say that they need some help. How do people get ahold of you, Chris?

Yeah. Obviously we got websites and stuff, but you can also just call me. My phone number's 405-659-4148, and I'll promise you I work seven days a week. And that's the way it is. For people that do this for a living, I bet you every one of these great trial lawyers we talked about tonight do the same damn thing because if we don't, more people are going to die, more people are going to be treated poorly, and we won't be able to pay for all of our stuff. That's true,

True.That'd be another injustice. Yeah. Another injustice. So the verdict on that one was $2 million.

Two million on that one. And we're going to go back and we'll hit them again and we'll hit them again. And again, we learned a lot from the case that we could have done better and then we're going to fix it and we're going to regroup and we're going to do it again.

So the practice. That's it. The practice of law. So this what $126 million win though, you are coming back to TLU Beach because you and Kelly were there last year. Oh, it was

Great.

Ran into you randomly. I'm like, "Hey, what are you doing here? How about that? " So TLU Beach last year, what was your favorite memories from it?

I think what you do there better than all the other conferences is you facilitate interactions with the people, the actual human beings. So you have all these ... Obviously you got top guys there talking and teaching. I mean, that's amazing. And a lot of it's interactive. Get up on your feet, do some stuff. But it's how you structure the events to make contact with each other too. There's lots of social type events where we can all network and we can all talk about cases and get help from other lawyers or get help from me or I can get help from somebody else, one of these great lawyers. And there's so many there. There's no reason why you can't go up to one of the greats. It's like this, if you're at a basketball conference and you got to just walk right up to Michael Jordan, you can do that.

And LeBron.

You can do that.

And Kobe, if he was here still.

All of the greats.

Larry Bird,

Magic Johnson.

Name them. Durant. I mean, all of them.

You have access to some of the greatest legal minds. You have the lineup. And why not come and have a great time. Get your juices flowing because that's what these things do for me is trial lawyer university gets me going. Keeps me ... I'm like, let's go.

Inspired. I love what you put time they're inspired.

Hell yeah. When you leave there, let's go, man. Let's get after it. Cabo, the bootcamp. I left there ready to go tear somebody's head off. And what'd we do? We went and did it. It gave us the push to get through some of this stuff. But that's what I like about it is even if you think you're like the nobody, nothing from Oklahoma, you can walk up to Nick Raely at this thing.

And Brian Panish and Joe Freed and set us been rabid with.

Joe Freed. Guess what? Where I met Joe Freed, Trial Lawyers University. He's awesome. Now, he sweet talks my Kelly all the time.

He's charming, true. What are you going to do? That's part of me at trial. You got to be charming the game. That some of

The bitches too have charming. He knows it too. He's so good. I actually said Joe Fried's name in my closing, my rebuttal closing in that jail death case. The lawyer on the other side, he called these two. My client was African American and another one of our witnesses, inmate was African American. And he said, "These people. " And it was really just racist. I mean, it was, you're just flat out overtly racist. He's these people. Well, I got up in rebuttal and it just hit me. Something Joe Freed told me at Trial Lawyers University last year at Huntington Beach. We were talking about this case, the case I'm trying. And he said society, and I think it's a Shakespeare quote, but he says it so well. He said, "Society should be judged on how we treat the least of us." And so I got back up in my rebuttal and said, "Did you guys just hear these people?

" Whatever I said. And I said, "A great trial lawyer named Joe Freed told me that society should be judged by how we treat the least of us." And I'm not talking about least as in they're less important than us. I'm talking about the poor, the mentally ill, the accused, Greg Davis, my client, the least of us. And anyways, I tied it in somehow, but I actually quoted Joe Fried in my closing and I met him at Trial Lawyers University last year at Huntington Beach, the great Joe Freed, who I'd read every one of his books. He's like a guy that I'm like ... It was like Nick Raely. Joe Freed's like Nick Raely to me. And I got to meet him. He gave me his cell phone number. I can reach out to him. He'll answer the phone. I can talk to him. What a great deal.

And I did that because you have it set up to where I can walk up to the Michael Jordans. I can walk up to the Larry Birds and talk to him. And then I want to be the next guy. I'm like Shay Gillis or whatever his name is, Alexander from The Thunder. And so

I think that's great. Thunder, they're quite the team, aren't they?

Your

Champs and they're going to be Chimps again.

We're going to win it again.

I know. Right in the Oklahoma. By Detroit Pistons, they were like number one and then they're down two to one. I don't know what's going on right now because I think they probably lost tonight. Yeah, probably so. Probably don't know how to fucking win. It's terrible. Except for the Bad Boys era, right? Those are my boys, Lambier and Mahorn and Isaiah Thomason.

Isaiah.

The microwave. Rodman

Was in

There too. Rodman. Oh, and John Spider-Sally. Those were the days. Oh

God, John Salley. All those guys, they were tough. But then that's why you respect Michael Jordan for going in

The middle of those beats. I got a beat for those few years. I put on some beef and got himself strong. I remember when the turn was too. And I'm like, we were beating his ass every year, go in the playoffs, we win, and then all of a sudden it was like he was wiping the ... I mean, he was just wiping the court with the Pistons after that. Had no chance. It felt like there was big. It

Was amazing.

Bunch of senior citizens out

There. But that's what you get at Trial Lawyers University though, is you get to walk up to Joe Fried, a guy that you read his damn books and try to learn from him, but it's accessible. And you find out that these guys are all like us. Joe Fried's just like us. Nick Rowley, just like us. Dan Ambrose just like us. It's having access and you never thought you'd have access to guys like that.

It's great. Like this year, because for me it's always a ... I remember talking to Panish a couple years ago about my conferences and what I'm doing. He's like, "Ambrose, the only one you're competing with is yourself." And so every year when I do this conference, because I just do Huntington Beach now instead of Vegas on Huntingt Beach because it was like too much because going right out of Huntington Beach, I have to start doing 12 hours a day to put Vegas together.

That'd be tough.

No, it was. It was exhausting. It wasn't fun anymore. I was like, why am I doing this if it's not fun?

If

It stops being fun, I ain't doing it anymore. I'm 58 years old. If it's not fun, I'm doing it. But it's like this conference, I just love this conference. I just love this hotel. The fact that we have the whole hotel and just this year we're going to be doing a dinner party on Tuesday night beforehand where everybody's going to have assigned seating with eight people trade tables. So you're going to sit down with seven people who don't know, but you're going to have their personal bios before you sit down with them. So you're going to know their stories and then you're going to have a couple hours to have dinner with them before the conference starts. So just think of the friends you're going to make throughout this conference. If that's happening before you even get there. And that's besides the fact that everybody doing workshops and stuff is going to meet up ahead of time via Zoom and have their bios.

So all these connections. And then this year too, we got on top of, because this year we have the first time we have our golf outing. Ted Wacker's hosting a golf outing and Kurt Zaner's taking people out go- kart racing and there's going to be pickleball on Wednesday besides the eight workshop tracks. And then every night besides the lobby turning into a gaming lounge from 8:00 to midnight where we have a couple ping pong tables, a foosball, an open bar to DJ, we got a poker tournament every night and the president. Oh, it's so great because you just want to chill out, throw cars back. I'm so stoked about it. And it's my tracksuit on. The tracksuit. Because we're having our first dinner party during the conference, the Supio, 80s tracksuit dinner followed by the 80s tracksuit party. Wait, it's not just 80s tracksuit party, but wait for it.

80s tracksuit pool party. I always wanted to have a pool party with the wayward sun since this awesome 80s cover band. They're going to be rocking it. I

Think I'm going to have a Velcro suit and go straight

To

Go straight to a Speedo.

No, it's going to be great. Tearaways everybody's like, "You need a tear away because we're trying to tear away right there." Tear it

Away.

Tear it away. And then Friday night, Satch Oliver, Wild West Prize. I'm looking forward to

That

One. No, it's going to be fucking great. I love that. His fucking beef is ... Oliver Angus ranch because I was down there and he gave me a whole couple of cases of it. Man, this shit, that beef is great. He's awesome. You got to have a wood fire grill. Don't cook my meat on some bullshit gas. I'm like, you got it. But we're going to have a mechanical bull that night and then we're going to finish it off on Saturday night with a rooftop treaty house. I'll pray ski party. Actually, we're not even finished up. Sunday. Sunday brunch. Sunday brunch because you know what? You can't just go home and leave your friends without saying goodbye.

That's right.

You got to say goodbye, right? Just like you say hello. So I am more fired up. And this year we have five lecture tracks because so many people are speaking who are new to the Verdicts. I mean, you're speaking this year about your $126 million and how you put it together in a lot more detail, like a live case. I'm looking forward to it. No,

I'm excited. I hope we can get somebody else excited about it. And if they need help, we can help them. If they want to hear some more, we can tell them more. I mean, I'm looking forward to it. I think it's great. I'm really excited about this year's TLU. It's going to be

Nice. I know, Anne, we're doing a bootcamp right here in Hermosa Beach the five days before. It's kind of like a dark arts bootcamp because my boy, Dave Clark, who's my mentor who really taught me about framing and the unconscious mind and embedding stories and stuff. But he's not going to make it this year because he's still getting better at getting the strength back. But he is going to help virtually with Shemic because Shemik's been studying underneath him for like three years and really understands how he does things and his philosophy. And so we're going to have just a small bootcamp, just 10 people out here training and getting ready for the first few days. We're going to do it here at my house in Hermosa. And then we're going to do a little road trip on Sunday. Which by the

Way, the house is amazing. I

Mean,

The views are unbelievable. This

Place is

Amazing.

It's finally I get to live my dream. I always wanted to live at the beach. I mean, Vegas was great, but you just always dream about going to the beach every day if you're a beach person.

It's pretty tough to beat out, right out your front door. That's

Pretty

Tough

To beat. I'm endlessly grateful that the good Lord has smiled on me in this way to allow me to ... And not just have just the house, but have a place where all my friends, my friends could come and stay.That's why.

Yeah, it's amazing.

I have five bedrooms. I love when they're all filled up with my friends from different parts of the country and come down, hang out, go to the beach, go ride bikes and stuff. It's just the best. Just

Scream at them. Get better, get some reps.

Oh, I know. We just finished a bootcamp right before you got here. This employment firm from New York was here for the last few days working on their cases and stuff and working on their skills.

It's what it takes.

It's what it takes. I mean, it's a big commitment to bring it. But it was great. They brought their whole firm out here and we worked it and they got better and I'm excited and I'm going to keep working with them because they go into trial because now I'm invested. You know what I mean? Yeah, we got to make sure. Once we get started this trip, just like you got to bring it home. I'm like, on the phone, "What's going on? " Kelly's texting me. Okay, jury's out. I'm like, "Oh, verdict watch. Okay." TLU On Demand is the library for trial. You catch everything you missed over the last six years. And we've collected all the pleadings, transcripts, and PowerPoints for all these cases and presentations from Las Vegas, New York, and from right here at the Puicea. And it's an app for your phone and there's a Dan GPT feature on the desktop so you can search the entire database for exactly what you're looking for when you need it.

If you're not a subscriber, you can call me on my cell phone or text me 248-808-3130 and I will send you a 30-day comp code so you can try it at no risk. And then finally, you will see what you've been missing out on for all these years.

I know. You probably feel it because you're like, "This guy just went to my

Book." Oh, no. We

Worked on this case.

Right. And helping you tell the story of the cars and the crash and

The whole

Drama of it all and bringing it to life. But it's

Got to be a good little moment though. It's like coach. No,

Great moment. I always tell people that I help. I'm like, "You may get the verdict, you may get to keep the money, but I'm taking responsibility for it. " They're like, "You can take whatever personal glory you want. " Why not? I'm keeping the money, but you're just taking responsibility. I make you feel good about it. That's right. Makes me feel. It gives me a little fulfillment inside here. I need it desperately. Hell yeah.

It's

Awesome. No, it's great, man. Well, Hammonds, we're going to be seeing you a few days before TLU beach back here at the beach house and you can bring your lovely Bride Kelly with you to give you one of our executive suites in the house, our VIP friends. Everybody's like, everybody's a VIP for that. But some of the people, Georgio might find himself on the air mattress, but as long as we're all ... My buddy Jason Scott is coming down. I'm like, "Yeah, I'm out of room. I'm going to get a hotel." He's like, "Fuck it. I'm staying hotel. Give me a fucking air mattress. I want to be in the house where it's fun." We're going back to college. We got a friend house on the beach for adults and for trial lawyers, adults. I'm like, hell yeah, we do.

Well, all I would say if we're closing out is if you don't do the work and learn these skills and learn how to do it in front of people and get up and stand it, don't expect to walk in front of a jury and get good results. People that think you can just wing it and go in front of a jury and just- And

Just be yourself. Just be yourself. Just be yourself. It's

Not enough.

No, it's not

Enough. Hey, you got to learn to be yourself, but how you learn to be yourself is doing it in front of people and learning the skills and then you can

Have

The tools to be yourself the right way.

Well, what it is, when you train and you get the skills, then you can relax. And if you're relaxed- And the natural towel will come

Out.

Well, but if you're relaxed, you can connect with people. If you're nervous, you're insecure, you can't connect with people. You can't lead people if you're not confident and secure. And you can't become competent if you don't do the work. We can't fake it to ourselves. We can't fake ourselves

Out. And you can't fake it in front of a jury. They'll smell you out and they'll know it and they'll eat you up. They'll chomp you down. And it's a tough business. It takes hardcore work and it takes learning these skills. And that's what I take away from your bootcamps is you don't mess about. There ain't no messing around with Dan at a bootcamp. It's work, work, work. And that's good.

Because people came there for a reason.

That's right.

And it's not to fucking hang out and have fun. That's a side benefit.

Do

That. Because they want to change their lives. And they're counting on me to change their lives and they gave up time and money to be there. That's right. Damn it. I'm going to do everything I can to change their lives, whether they like me or not. They can be like, "You're an asshole." I'm like, "Good. But I'm your asshole this week, so I'm going to fucking be on you like fucking right on Rice."

That's right.

White on Rice. Just want to say, let's see the final things. Oh, but at TLU Beach and for the last six years, if you miss anything we've ever done, if you miss any of it, it's all recorded. It's all on TLU on demand. You demand.

Yep.

It's all on the app and we collect all the pleas transcripts and PowerPoints. And I'll

Tell you, I haven't utilized it enough because I've just been in trial mode. But my gosh, the amount of information and what you can learn off that is crazy. Every big hitter you've ever known on your ... Name them is in there and you

Can set that- It's not one. Joe Fried, you got 40 different presentations. Same with Satch, same with Rye, same with Panish, because they come every year and it's great because of all the tracks. It's like being a trial lawyer, you got to be real competitive. You cannot be a successful lawyer if you're not competitive. And then I think that's where playing sports, because you played college ball, Pat played college ball, Satch was a professional rodeo guy. And you got to love the ... You know what I mean? It's like you got to love the competition and winning. And once you know what it takes to win and you're able to play the price and fucking winning becomes its own drug. Being a champion.

You got to get in there and fist fight. And if you don't have that in you, then you might want to do something else. And I want to do something else because being a trial lawyer, it's no joke, man. It is a warrior mentality. And if you don't have it, it's okay. Not everybody does. And not everybody's meant to step up in a courtroom and do it. But if you're going to, then go all the way. That's how I deal with it. You either right. Do it right.

Do it right. Be proud of yourself.

That's it. All

Right, Hammons. I never tell people I'm proud of them because it always feels like somebody's dad talking to you. You know what I mean? But I am really thrilled that I was able to be some part of this journey of you getting to where you're headed in this life club of being a trial lawyer because it fucking is great to win and it sucks to lose. It does. All right. Well, thanks for coming out here. Appreciate it. I think it's the latest podcast ever. It's probably, what, about 10:15 right now, 10:30. But hey, man, we had to do. You just showed up. I just showed up. Before we could do it. So this is what we have to do. We have to make sacrifices to trial lawyers. Pay the heavy price. You got to burn the mid oil. That's what we did.

We did it.

All right. Thanks everybody. Oh, if anybody needs me, my phone number's 248-808-3130. That's my cell, my email danatrollersuniversity.com. If you don't have TLU on demand and you want to try it out, shoot me a text or a phone call. I'll give you a 30-day come. And you should be at TLU Beach because if you're not, that's fucking crazy. I have to ask you, do you hate money? And if money is part of the challenge of getting in there, don't let it be. Call me. I will make sure that you get there. Okay? So you got to come, you got to learn because we're going to have the greatest time ever.

It's going to be great.

All right, cool. Now we're set.

Good one.