00:02:24.340They've got an audience of one, and I don't think they're reading that audience very well.
00:02:29.180Yeah, I think that judge is over it, right?
00:02:31.720I think better than any of us, he's got a very good sense of what this whole thing is about.
00:02:37.120He's obviously seen things that we haven't even seen.
00:02:40.240And I got a feeling that that goes poorly, but I haven't read it.
00:02:44.640Well, so she's asking for $8 million, just to put the number on there.
00:02:51.580Look, I know that I don't, by the way, as we have an office in New York and we have lawyers licensed in New York.
00:02:59.900And I understand that New York prices are higher than anywhere else in the country, but even under the inflated or the tilted New York standards, the idea of $8 million on a anti—basically an anti-slap is so over-the-top ridiculous.
00:03:24.100I know judges who would slash that from $8 million to $80,000 and would not even look twice, and there's no appeal.
00:03:43.580And his father was a legendary, legendary legal luminary who understood the First Amendment.
00:03:52.480And the apple does not fall far from the tree.
00:03:55.820This judge has both on the record and in his written rulings has said things about the First Amendment and has mused about the constitutionality of what Blake Lively's people are trying to do here.
00:04:12.220I just think he's going to slash this request like nobody's ever seen.
00:04:22.200Well, you know, there's almost two schools of thought in the practice of law that you see over and over again.
00:04:29.720There's the lawyers that come in and will represent to a judge or a jury or the other attorney exactly what they think the case is actually worth.
00:04:37.580You come in and you give an assessment.
00:04:40.400You might have a little bit of wiggle room with some persuasion, and you come off as honest.
00:04:46.700And then you've got others, and again, I'm with Mark on this.
00:06:13.240It's everybody who's doing or in the same kind of fishbowl knows each other.
00:06:18.520And if you come in and you're asking for some ridiculous amount off the top, it basically, if Matt had done that as a prosecutor, we never would have become friends.
00:06:36.360I wasn't trying to, I mean, I would posture to the extent that I'm giving my client's version, which he might be diametrically opposed to.
00:06:45.500But I'm also trying to put myself in Matt's shoes.
00:06:49.900He's not going to give away the store.
00:06:51.960He's not going to do something he's not comfortable with.
00:06:54.760But I'm going to try to explain to him why he should do something.
00:06:58.000When you go to a judge who has, understand this framework, this judge has been given this plate of whatever, excrement, and told, we have no right to appeal.
00:07:13.440So that means he can do whatever he wants.
00:07:16.460I mean, it's an unfettered trial court unicorn, because usually a trial judge always has to worry about what's going to happen from the appellate court.
00:07:42.520Yeah. I mean, if there is, Matt and I are going to be betting. We're going to take all of our in-the-well winnings and betting on the under.
00:07:51.060Yeah. Look, I think you just nailed it, Mark. This is in the real world of real legal fees to file an anti-slap. It's about 80 grand. And that's about what that would be a reasonable response in my view on this.
00:08:04.060And again, like you said, New York prices, but that's an $80,000 tab and anything over that.
00:08:11.820And, you know, they can kind of declare victory.
00:08:27.000But do you think that maybe Blake and Ryan pushed them to get the amount up as much as possible because this would be like a good like PR look for them?
00:08:36.780I mean, I just saw the headlines everywhere like Blake asking for $8 million.
00:08:40.360It sounds like he's done something wrong because she's asking for that amount of money.
00:08:47.260They're, they're, they're so desperate for a win on this thing because they, they, they just, they lost almost everything throughout the whole case and, and they lost the public relations battle, I think, big time on this. And yeah, they're, they're desperately trying to get some W out of this whole thing. And, um, you know, they'll declare, they'll declare victory no matter what, but you know, Mark's, Mark's buddy, Brian defended Baldoni in this.
00:09:14.440And I think he did a really fantastic job.
00:09:17.940So they're technically entitled to attorney's fees and rolling in.
00:09:20.940And, yeah, they would love to bankrupt this guy or his production company or whatever.
00:09:24.400And it's just it's not going to happen with this judge.
00:09:26.540This judge is not it's just not going to happen.
00:09:29.040Like I said, you want to let's I'm going to take your suggestion and hope that they do post this on the prediction markets today.
00:09:40.580But then when that happens, if he gives them, let's say he gives them $80,000, those headlines are going to be everywhere, too, which is going to be a much bigger loss for her because then it looks like she was really unreasonable.
00:09:52.040Don't you think that's going to harm her even more?
00:09:54.920Take a—if you—if he just did—gave an amount, which would probably be the largest amount in anti-slap California history—mind you, remember, this may be a New York litigation, but it's based on a California statute.
00:10:12.700I would be hard-pressed, I could be wrong, but I have not seen any anti-slap fees award that has exceeded $500,000.
00:10:26.820In fact, as I sit here, I think the largest anti-slap fee award I have seen, which the winner of it, Abandoned on Appeal, was about $240,000.
00:10:38.940And the judge, when awarding that amount, said specifically it was an existential threat involving the media company, but the media company walked away from it because basically they knew it was never going to last on appeal.
00:10:56.100I've seen $80,000 bills slashed to $20,000.
00:11:01.860The idea that there is a seven-figure—I wish I had somebody who does anti-slap for a living, and I know several lawyers who do.
00:11:12.300And I should probably, for you, do a consensus of them.
00:14:45.360Because I had Vietnam-style flashbacks to the Mean Girls in eighth grade.1.00
00:14:50.760You know, in the eighth grade lunchroom, they were just awful.
00:14:54.480So I think that when you're, you know, we hear the word privilege a lot these days or entitlement.
00:15:01.500And I think that when, you know, and Mark's the expert on this, truly.
00:15:04.460I grew up in L.A. I knew I, you know, friends with famous parents. But Mark has really he's represented some of the biggest egos in Hollywood and done so very well, as we've all as we've all seen.
00:15:17.040But I just, you know, when you have unlimited resources and you are offended by something or you've got a score to settle, you know, I think I think that that's what a lot of this lawsuit was.
00:15:29.800It was it was ego driven and somebody got their back up and somebody being Blake Lively.
00:15:36.600And I think that, you know, I think that that settlement at the end, I've always suspected somebody finally got to her, whether that was her her husband, whether that was some publicist saying you're getting killed in the in the, you know, public media right now online.
00:15:51.960You look terrible. This whole thing needs to go away. And I've always suspected she finally listened to someone.
00:16:09.160We call it the come to Jesus conversation where you finally get your client to listen.
00:16:15.620And I'm still kind of a rookie in the whole defense world in private practice, which you don't have clients as a prosecutor.
00:16:25.740So, you know, I couldn't even pretend to know how to deal with what the lawyers involved in this case must have been dealing with.
00:16:34.540It's so funny that you say that, Matt, because my dad used to, who was a prosecutor, not as long as you, but it's what seemed like for the first 13 years of my life.
00:16:44.900And he used to always say they don't teach you the care and feeding of clients in law school.
00:17:14.360The grandfather, the father, and now the grandson.
00:17:17.440And I have said, I have had the talk where I've said,
00:17:20.280You know, I get it. And, you know, all the literature says that the peak kind of criminal years are males between the ages of 16 and 25.
00:17:33.380My father also jokingly used to say, if you want to solve the crime problem, just incarcerate all males between 16 and 25, crime will evaporate the next day.
00:17:44.260But I have explained that to clients in these terms.
00:17:48.520You know, this is the third or fourth case I've had with you.
00:17:52.240You've now put my, you know, I used to say my daughter or my son through private schools.
00:18:15.360And you have to, the interesting thing about Blake Lively, I take a much more cynical view as to what happened.
00:18:23.420I, and I've articulated this with Matt, I think what really happened was when Judge Lyman gutted, if you look at the order, when he gutted Blake's case, he was savage with the lawyers.
00:18:39.260That goes back to what Matt says in terms of he's over this case.
00:18:53.380They've been milking that cow for God knows how many months at probably $3 million a month in legal fees, maybe $5 million a month in legal fees.0.87
00:19:03.120They knew at that point, we are going to get either a claim for clawback of our attorney's fees or a legal malpractice action.
00:19:12.800And legal malpractice was for real because the order was savage.
00:19:17.300So they ran over and got this immediately within hours into a private mediation.
00:19:24.760And people say, well, why would you do that?
00:19:28.020The benefit is if the case settles at a private mediation in California, given the broad nature of the mediation privilege, the lawyers can't be sued for malpractice.
00:19:41.880So it was the lawyers saving their own skin that got this case settled.
00:19:47.420In my humble opinion, I'm just connecting dots based on my experience.
00:19:53.960So Brian Friedman, did he tell you that they came straight to him like very soon after the dismissal?
00:20:05.940I will just tell you that it's been publicly reported that within hours or days of the issuance of Judge Lyman's decision that they were in front of the Uber mediator.
00:22:02.700And when I was leaving, and he'd been in private practice for a while, and he said,
00:22:08.300always remember and never forget the decision-making that these people engage in throughout their
00:22:13.400lives that leads them to your office when they're sitting across from you, that way of thinking does
00:22:19.780not end simply because you decide to represent them. And I think that's something that Mark
00:22:24.220has probably seen about a thousand times where some people, they go through life in a contentious
00:22:31.080way, whether they're kind of a vexatious litigant or whether that's criminality, but just that
00:22:37.640decision-making that their little brands engage in doesn't stop simply because you get a good
00:22:42.200lawyer who's giving you good advice um i don't know this she needs to move on and i think uh i
00:22:49.340think i think the world is ready to move on i did hear though that did is it true that they're
00:22:53.260separated now her and ron reynolds did i no no i don't think so but but they never yeah it's a
00:22:59.120rumor but i don't think they're ever together because it looks like he's in the uk all the
00:23:02.680time from his social media and whenever they're pretending that i mean they did that big pr stunt
00:23:08.960in new york when they were walking together pretending they were on a date and there was
00:23:13.100paparazzi there and she was piggy piggybacking piggybacking is it called that yeah anyway
00:23:18.720back ride yeah on his back and it was just like so ridiculous the whole thing it was like okay
00:23:24.460yeah we don't buy that but anyways i want to i saw an interview with you mark where you talked about
00:23:30.260how uh this there was someone who's asked you how do you sleep at night when you represent
00:23:36.200some of these people that are criminals, and you said, I don't sleep when I know that they're
00:23:43.940innocents. Other than that, then I sleep. Can you explain a little bit? Because I want to try and
00:23:50.640get into the mind of an attorney and why, you know, you're picking these cases that people
00:23:55.480would be like, why would you defend people like this? So I've had either the fortune or good
00:24:02.760fortune or misfortune of uh representing my in fact my daughter teddy who's probably eclipsed
00:24:09.660both her father and her grandfather in terms of her legal acumen who's a lawyer she will
00:24:14.940talk about the fact that when she was representing diddy last year that she grew up with her father
00:24:22.660defending you know the current whoever the most hated man in america or the world was and it's
00:24:29.980There is something to be said for going through that. I will tell you, I'll give you a perfect example. I was legal commenting, like I am now, 25 years ago about Scott Peterson's case.
00:24:45.020And I made the comment at one point on CNN, back when people actually watched CNN, that there was more evidence against Scott when they found the bodies.
00:24:57.140There was more evidence against him than a lot of people that are currently in state prison.
00:25:02.420And they then, the family then, you know, was pushing back on it and called me and then eventually asked me to represent Scott.
00:25:11.400And everybody uniformly told me, don't do it.
00:27:10.620And you can't do justice as a prosecutor if you've got a bump on a log, a sleeping lawyer, or a lawyer who's just going through the motions.
00:27:22.840So I don't lose any sleep if I think my client is good for it, because I would do the same job. I do lose sleep when I don't think my client is good for the crime, because then it's on me. If I don't do my job, if I'm not on all, you know, hitting on all cylinders, it's a disaster for the system and for the client.
00:27:46.520What about you, Matt? Have you ever prosecuted someone that you felt, oh, maybe this person is innocent?
00:27:52.840So I've gotten that question probably as many times as Mark has gotten to how can you sleep at night one. It's an interesting thing. And a lot of people know that Mark knows this very well. The prosecutor's ethical duty is you must believe 100% in the guilt of the person you're prosecuting.
00:28:11.040And as soon as you subjectively entertain a doubt, it is your sacrosanct ethical obligation to dismiss the case or the count immediately.
00:28:20.640Sometimes that'll be in the form of an enhancement that you filed, but you have a job.
00:28:39.920It's not to get convictions. It's to go in and make sure that the right thing is done. And sometimes, you know, you got to, it's hard. You know, like I had a guy once out of Newport Beach, very wealthy man who murdered his wife. And we thought that the dispute, because they're kind of on the cusp of a divorce and they're both talking to lawyers and one of those just really toxic relationships.
00:29:04.260and he had a lot of money and you know i filed what's known as a uh a special circumstance for
00:29:12.180financial gain in the state of california which is mark knows very well that means they're not
00:29:16.520entitled to bail they can't get out because we believe that as long as financial as is there's
00:29:22.660a financial component of of the murder um this i.e this guy wanting to you know if they're arguing
00:29:29.300about money at all. That's all it takes for that. Anyway, we get into the computers and lo and
00:29:36.100behold, what this guy was doing is he was going out and he was having sex with workers and he0.91
00:29:41.280kept giving his wife STDs. And that's what they were arguing about. And the more the investigation
00:29:45.680went on, the more we learned that her family had a lot of money too. Turns out it was 0% about
00:29:52.000about money so i had to go in immediately as it was my ethical obligation to dump it as as soon as
00:29:58.920as soon as we got the computer results back and we learned what they were actually arguing about
00:30:03.100my fear always was that this guy was going to split that he'd make bail and it was a million
00:30:07.500dollar bail he could make it and then he would run and that's exactly what he did as soon as he made
00:30:12.240bail he fled to mexico and it took us like three years to catch him again and but it was and and i
00:30:17.880I knew he was going to, he was in my gut, I knew he was going to run, and he did, and it was a massive, it was a disaster for the case, but I had that ethical obligation to dump it because I no longer believed that it was financially motivated.
00:30:31.580Let me let me give you. See, Matt would do the ethical thing. Let me give you an example of a prosecutor. And I don't even remember who the prosecutor was, but I remember trying the case in Compton Court as a young lawyer.
00:30:45.840And I tried in front of a wonderful judge, Janice Clarecroft.
00:30:51.620And midway through the trial was an assault with a deadly weapon, also an attempted murder.
00:30:58.820And I represented a female who supposedly, with her shotgun, had stood on a balcony and shot at this person and hit them and was trying to kill them.
00:31:09.800So midway through the trial, I keep banging away at the investigator on cross as to where the ballistics are, where the ballistics are.
00:31:20.100So, mind you, we've almost got to the end of the prosecution's case.
00:31:26.800The gun that was recovered from the house does not match the ballistics.
00:31:33.740So you'd think, oh, prosecutor's going to get up and dismiss the case, going to do the ethical thing.
00:31:39.080Now, prosecutor got up in closing and argued, my client must have had the gun, fired the gun, put the gun down, picked up another gun, and run off with the other gun, and that's why the ballistics didn't match.
00:31:55.800The jury, I actually asked the jury, I said, you know, there's nothing that says you have to go back in the jury deliberation room.0.98
00:32:02.520You can vote right there, right now, and just tell this prosecutor, humiliate them right now, that that's the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard.
00:32:10.200But they didn't take that invitation, and they acquitted in about 18 minutes.0.96
00:32:14.960But that is the definition of an unethical prosecutor.
00:33:26.060that you present the best case you can and let the chips fall where they're going to.
00:33:31.460But especially in the civil world, you see abuses all the time.
00:33:37.160As a plaintiff's lawyer, I've seen abuses.
00:33:39.180I've seen my clients be treated horribly by counties they've worked for,
00:33:42.700where I think there was justice at the end.
00:33:44.700But a lot of times the litigation itself can be so brutal that it's almost a second wrong that happens.
00:33:51.920And I know Mark has seen it, you know, even more than I have, where those cases that Mark was talking about, when he really feels like his client is innocent, the ones that he's losing sleep over, those are the tough ones.
00:34:03.820I've only had a couple since I've been in private practice, and fortunately, I've prevailed on the ones that I've had.
00:34:09.240But you really do lose sleep because of that fear, and the more experience you have, the more cases you've seen that have gone wrong.
00:34:16.360And as a prosecutor, look, I've had I've had jurors that have come back not guilty on cases.
00:34:21.500I mean, fortunately, I didn't have too many of those.
00:34:59.180I remember another case where I had a kid was charged in Pasadena with a special circumstance, which, as Matt says, is death penalty-eligible murder.
00:35:12.620and I knew he was, I'd done a parallel investigation.
00:35:16.040I knew he was innocent and I had the cell phone records.
00:35:49.420Later, I get a tape of the photo ID, and the cop is telling, just ID this guy because don't worry, we've got other evidence.
00:35:58.880So, I mean, it was just bad from the get-go.
00:36:01.880I may have said, and I regret it, I do not recommend young lawyers say it,
00:36:08.140But it was out of frustration. I may have said I told the judge when she wouldn't give me bail because it was special circumstance and held the person to answer.
00:36:17.620I may have said, I wish I had an Uzi. I'd break my client out of here. This is outrageous or something to that effect.
00:36:25.400Yeah, that transcript is floating around. I often get it through my face. And, you know, ultimately, after we did a bunch of kind of further investigation, I went kind of up the flagpole of the DA's office.
00:36:56.460That jury came back, and they weren't supposed to do punitive damages.
00:37:00.760They not only assessed punitive damages, they were yelling at me that I hadn't filed against the DA because they were so angry that the DA had prosecuted the guy.
00:37:09.540It works, but most people don't have the resources or the wherewithal to fight those kinds of fights
00:37:20.000Most of the time I think it winds up somewhere close to being in the right place
00:37:25.240Most of the time, but certainly not always
00:37:28.420Usually it winds up in the ballpark of the right thing
00:37:31.360Let's hope that Justin Baldoni gets his career back
00:37:34.840I feel like that would be at least something