State Bar of California Fails the Bar Exam

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:00 Clip: You must never, ever give up or give in. You must keep the faith and keep your eyes on the prize. That is your calling. That is you mission. That is moral obligation. That is mandate. Get out there and do it. Get in the way. Change happens because people care. The people have the power to make this life free and beautiful. To make this live a wonderful adventure.

0:00:38 Clip: I still believe with all my heart, America can be a place where no child is left hungry, no community is left behind, and no one gets told they don't belong. Country is always worth it.

0:00:58 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1142. I'm Thomas, and I'm actually joined by Matt Cameron. How are you doing, Matt?

0:01:05 Matt: Thomas, would you believe that I took the bar exam 20 years ago? Can't believe it either.

0:01:08 Thomas: No. Not possible. You're so youthful.

0:01:11 Matt: I know.

0:01:11 Thomas: And the vigor of a much younger man. Unless you took it as a 12-year-old. I don't know.

0:01:16 Matt: It is a distant memory for me, but it's going to be a little closer because we're going to talk today about what happened in California recently with our resident bar expert.

0:01:24 Thomas: I love the Wednesday wildcard. Oh, how did I only just now come up with that? It's wildcard Wednesdays. And of course, while we always have Heather and Thomas takes the bar exam questions on Wednesdays, we're also going to have Chex Notes, Heather as the guest, because as you say, the California bar, something weird is going on, something fishy. And I think it's definitely the reason for me getting any questions wrong. I think we can already decide before the recording that that's why I've gotten any T3 questions wrong, I knew there was something up with this test.

0:01:51 Matt: Something in the air in California.

0:01:52 Thomas: Yeah. So we'll find out how that's responsible for me getting those wrong. Then, of course, we'll have the usual patron shout outs. It's a fun Wednesday. Can't wait. Right. Well, we'll take our usual little break. And yeah, you can support the show at patreon .com slash law. Avoid the ads. Get the good stuff. The best place to play T3B, for example, to submit your answers. All right, and a quick reminder. To tune in to the Q &A that will be on Patreon. Wednesday tomorrow, or today, I guess, as maybe as you're hearing this, at 3 p.m. Pacific, 6 p.m. Eastern. Look out for that on Patreon, I think it's the $3 level and above gets to hang out with us, but everybody can ask questions on the Q & A thread, so look for that, and Olivia, I think, is going to hang out. So that'll be fun. Sure to look out for those links and after this, we will talk about what's going on here with the California Bar. Hey, Heather, how are you doing?

0:02:47 Heather: Doing pretty well. How are you?

0:02:48 Thomas: Good. It's a double dose of Heather on Wednesday. I like it.

0:02:51 Matt: Yeah, that was really great to talk to you. We met once at a patron meetup, but we've never had the chance to talk, so this is exciting.

0:02:57 Heather: Know. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to hear from you. And like a little bit about your outside perspective about what's going on here in California.

0:03:04 Thomas: Sorry, Heather. This is you. You're doing everything. Matt, don't talk. No, I'm just kidding. What's going on? Broadly's bringing us up to speed. The listeners and me know there's something fishy with the California bar. Something happened. What are we talking about?

0:03:10 Matt: Have questions. I

0:03:17 Heather: Well, year, the California Bar announced that there were going to be changes to the exam. And that's not surprising because all over the country, there's been talk about how there will be a shift to changes to bar exams all over The Nation. California decided that it would use a brand new vendor for its multiple choice questions. It would move from the vendor that everyone's been using, the National Conference of Bar Examiners, or the NCBE. To Kaplan. Kaplan is, for folks who might not know, they are in the test prep business. They're one of the three major bar exam test preparation companies. Kaplan has in the market for some time. And so California decided that it would move to Kaplant to create and use its multiple choice questions. Additionally, California decided remote and also for its platform. California also decided to use that same vendor to host its in -person test centers. These are all really big, brand new changes. And some of these changes were not finalized until the end of September.

0:04:22 Matt: How bad could it really get?

0:04:25 Heather: Well, let me tell you, it got very bad.

0:04:28 Thomas: One person hands you a test. A different person hands me a test, too.

0:04:32 Matt: Software, right? How hard could it be?

0:04:34 Heather: Well, one of the things that's really important for people to know is that there's some laws on the books. If And there is any major changes to the bar exam, it triggers this two -year rule. So if there's any major change, then basically it'll take two years to implement those changes. However, if the changes aren't really that big, then the bar can kind of make changes really quickly. And so the California Bar was saying, you know what, these changes to the test aren't going to be so big that it's not going to trigger this two -year rule, which is why they got away with essentially making such big changes in such a short amount of time.

0:05:09 Thomas: Know, us who take the test. Yeah.

0:05:13 Heather: We And were concerned for a number of reasons. I said, there's a lot of changes in a short amount of time. And it's not uncommon. I'll say this. It's not for the California bar examiners to make changes to the exam. It happens not infrequently, but the number of changes, the scale of the changes. Were pretty significant, again, in such a short period of time. As these were happening, like I said, some of these changes were rolling out right at the end of September. And just to give you an idea, students usually will be registering for the February bar on October 1. then they start studying usually sometime, some with the early starts in November, and some of them will also start studying mid -December. So, we're just seeing some of the really big changes happening right before studying begins.

0:05:53 Thomas: Well why don't they just take two tests? One from each company. It's

0:05:58 Matt: One of them ought to work.

0:05:59 Thomas: Already hell enough. It's double hell. No, off, sorry, How many components are there to the bar again, at least in California? Because remember with the stuff, that's like four tests or something. How's the bar exam work exactly?

0:06:11 Heather: This is a great question. So It's not California, the California bar exam consists of two days. Is the last Tuesday and Wednesday of every February and every July. The first day is what is referred to as the essay day. You have five essays. And then you have one performance test, which is 90 minutes. The performance test is essentially the most lawyerly thing that you do, which Fake cases. Yeah. And then you basically have a task memo that tells you what you need to do. The next day is the multiple choice question day. You have 200 questions and you have, let's usually six hours to complete that. And so it's made up of technically three components, but where you can kind of break it down into two, which is more or less essays and PT on the Tuesday and then the multiple

0:06:35 Thomas: That is awesome. So could they have like in, all right, new company, you do one of them this year and then two of them, you know what I mean? Like, could they've done that?

0:07:06 Heather: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's part of the concern, which is that they could have done a phased rollout. Other issue too, to your point, was that as we were starting to see some of the changes, because we saw a little peak of some of these things as it was happening, we were seeing problems right from the get -go.

0:07:26 Thomas: So what problems did we see? What do you mean?

0:07:30 Thomas: I got questions wrong and I was like, this something's wrong. Call the test.

0:07:34 Heather: Well, one of the things that's pretty common that happens, which So for the portion of the exam that you take on your computers, like the essay portion, there's a vendor. And so when I took the exam, it was the same vendor software that my law school used. At that time, it's called ExamSoft. Everyone's pretty much familiar with it. California Bar Examiner's decided they would move to a new vendor called Measure Learning. What happened was, you do these things, we take a practice test, you get familiar with the layout, it's actually really good. It's really helpful. You kind of fidget around with it prior to the start of exam day. Away, there were problems with the software. User interface was really bad. It was almost unusable for some people who were sitting.

0:08:14 Thomas: Boy, that's already a high stress situation. Like, okay, okay. You got to nail this test. And you're like what the... How do I... What? And so they're just literally on a computer and like how do I click on the what to answer this question? Like is it just weird kind of stuff like that or what?

0:08:28 Heather: There and some of it was even format. So for example, you can't have two screens, right? You can only have your laptop for the people who are testing remotely. And the part of the problem was that it was really hard to read the essays on the screen. And even though you could enlarge it, it was still really difficult. And I was also hearing from students that it was difficult to navigate, move around from one part of the essay down to your answer, to your scratch paper, and back and forth. So I was hearing students saying they were having challenges, even just in the practice session, navigating part of work in a one hour timeframe. And it's also really tough, I think, for people who might not be familiar with high stakes testing, when you're in a situation where you've just spent, let's say, three years of your life to get ready for this exam, and then also your career and your license hangs in the balance. And you've also, and it's not just a matter of like, oh, I'm spending a lot of money on this test, a lot that hangs in the balance. I think Matt, probably you can talk to this as well, which is that it just feels like there's so much riding on their shoulders because there is. And also in California, to be successful on the exam for most of us, it requires studying like a full plus time job. And so you can't really be doing anything else. And it also requires you to forego income during that time as well.

0:09:45 Matt: I mean, it was honestly the best summer of my life. We just lived in an old farmhouse with no internet and I went to the gym every day. I've never did that in my life before. And I just took exam questions. So I was going to say, actually, I was... one of the last people in the hundreds of years of legal history in Massachusetts to handwrite the bar, as God intended.

0:10:03 Matt: And of course, my handwriting is awful, as anybody in this office can tell you. It's so bad. And I can't believe I passed the bar because apparently, maybe they read every other line and they just decided it looked smart.

0:10:05 Thomas: I'm going to say, jeez. Yeah.

0:10:13 Matt: I don't know. I just went and checked. And in Massachusetts, you still have the option to handwrite the bar if you want to. When was the last time you could do that in California?

0:10:14 Thomas: Only

0:10:20 Heather: You still can. So if you would like to handwrite the bar, you still have the option to do so.

0:10:21 Matt: Good. You might want to after hearing all this. Wow. Trying to remember the multiple choice. I think some of that was on the computer, but wow. There were people who handwrite and didn't have to deal with any of this.

0:10:32 Heather: That's my understanding. But I think there was another problem, which was that if you were testing in person, there around time slots. When do you show up? Proctors providing incorrect information about instructions and rules and that sort of thing. Sure. I haven't heard too much about the handwriters because that number is so small and so many people are in the category of having to use technology.

0:10:52 Thomas: Got to be like three people. Who would ever do that?

0:10:54 Matt: Three psychos.

0:10:55 Thomas: Yeah. They shouldn't be lawyers, actually. I'm going to go ahead and say. Oh,

0:10:59 Matt: We haven't gotten to the worst part yet, which is what happened to the results.

0:11:03 Heather: We don't know what the, well, so California, sorry. So California famously, for people who don't we have one of the last days, sorry, So states across the country, right, varying degrees of how long it takes in order to grade the exam. California famously we receive our results later than almost every other jurisdiction. So for those who sit in February, we usually get our results in early to mid May. At one of the last meetings, I think it was the Board of Trustees. Sorry, had mentioned one of remedies that they had proffered was that maybe pay to have more graders grade faster so that they could take a peek into the grading and maybe have the results a little bit faster as well. It's not clear when the results will be out at this point in time.

0:11:43 Matt: They all in, though? Nobody got lost?

0:11:45 Heather: That's a good question. I'm going to be honest. Every administration, there's usually a few people where it gets lost, but I'm not sure. Yes. Yeah.

0:11:53 Matt: Wow. Okay. I kind of got the impression from the coverage that maybe there might have been people that will never know how they did because it was so bad.

0:11:59 Heather: So part of the technical issues were that students were not able to connect at all to the exam. Some students got dropped while were in the exam, technical issues were numerous. Yeah.

0:12:09 Matt: So what's the remedy for something like this?

0:12:11 Heather: A good question. So the State Bar is looking at a number of different remedies, one of which they're considering right now is expanding California's provisional licensure program, that it's kind of like a — that it will also require examinees to take taken past the bar again. The good thing about the original provisional licensure program was that attorneys who worked with. Who participated in the program saw a lot, or they had a lot of really positive things to say about it. And the data that came out about it was actually really good. They were saying things like, oh, well, our students who are part of the program actually perform better than students who just took the bar exam. They were also seeing better results in terms of racial disparity than for the bar because historically the California bar exam has really bad pass rates as it relates to looking at them in terms

0:12:54 Matt: I just have always heard my entire legal career that California has the toughest bar in the country. Is that fair to say, or is it up there?

0:12:59 Heather: California point also had one of the highest cut scores, I think, next to Delaware. But it's a little bit like apples and oranges since Delaware doesn't have many attorneys sitting and taking its bar exam. So I think definitely that's the case, especially in terms of the number of people who sit for the exam.

0:13:13 Matt: Going in, I was at least knowing that we have something like an 86% pass rate at the time, and I was feeling very prepared, right? So even if there'd been a little stress about the software, maybe I wouldn't have been... I'm sure it would have been stressful, but this sounds awful going in thinking that you might have to take this again anyway.

0:13:26 Thomas: So wait, what, what happened? So if I was a bar taker and I did this and I had to have the time was like, wow, this was, this sucked. Maybe I got through it. Happened? What are you saying happened? Did I get a score? I haven't gotten a score yet. Is it, how am I feeling right now? What am I doing?

0:13:38 Heather: You have not gotten a score yet um it's not clear exactly what the remedy is yet the

0:13:43 Thomas: Remedy for what? Sorry. Remind me when when, I was supposed to get my score in

0:13:45 Heather: To mid -may I can't remember the date off the top of my head exactly Yeah, there's going to be a wait. What the California Bar has said is that you will not have to pay to retake in July should you decide to do that. So definitely the thing that they have done is that they've said we're not going to require anyone to pay for retake. And they're also going to do a deep dive into what went wrong. That's what we've heard them say so far. And like I said, they've proposed also expanding the provisional licensure program.

0:13:47 Thomas: So it shouldn't be out yet. Do I know what's gone wrong? Is a segment of people who are just like, no, it was fine for me. I passed. It was okay. Or what?

0:14:16 Heather: Oh, yeah. There's always that band of people who are like, yeah, it was fine. I did okay. I think by and large, what I've heard is that everyone's experienced a problem in some way, shape, or form. And some of those problems were also, to be clear, related to things like the multiple choice questions. Some people were saying that the format of the questions was different. So for example, we see them as yes, yes, no, no. were seeing them as grammatical mistakes in the questions. Of them were saying that there were more than one correct answer. Some were saying there were questions that were repeated from bar exam that took place in October.

0:14:43 Thomas: How did they? Okay. So I guess my question is, was there something catastrophic in which like, oh, the whole crop of bar takers, like we just have to redo it all. Or is it just that because of all these glitches, it's like everyone's score likely went down a little bit or, you know, on average. The score probably went down a bit, but it's so, so the people are going to be pissed are going be the people who went from probably passing to probably to not or whatever. Oh, okay. Everyone who didn't pass will probably say it was because of this and maybe they're right. Or is it like the whole test taking year is out? Like, I guess I didn't understand that.

0:15:25 Heather: I think from my perspective is that my likely that everyone experienced some problem in one way, shape or form. And because of the nature of the exam, I think that it's really hard. Say things are fine. Things were fine in February and then things. Same thing for July. I think that's also part of the concern, at least for me and from a lot of people, is looking forward to July. To answer your question, I know if there's one thing that's going to fix it for everybody.

0:15:37 Thomas: One's going to no, that's not what I meant. I meant so so there's going to still be plenty of people who like, well, that was weird, but all right, I passed. I'm good. Like, is it that I just didn't know based on how you're talking about this. I didn't have this was something like catastrophic thing where they messed up the test so badly. It's not even valid. And like nobody like gets to pass it this year or what?

0:16:10 Heather: Dont know that the California Bar will ever say that, to be frank.

0:16:15 Thomas: Like, oh, well, we're going to have a year of bad lawyers. Nobody. It's like a bad vintage of wine. Hey, nobody. What year did you?

0:16:21 Heather: What year was that?

0:16:22 Thomas: Nobody hire anyone from 2025.

0:16:25 Heather: Well, what's interesting is that, there's so a subreddit. Major So groups that I see that talk about this quite a bit. The one, there's subreddits specific to the California Bar Exam. And people have been really active in talking about their experiences there. And I think that's a good way to kind of see like... how huge and big that this is. The there's also a Facebook group in which people talk about as well. And also for those people who do what I do, especially in the state of California, we've been in constant contact with each other and we hear the same stuff from our students. And really what we're hearing is that it's, I would say the answer to your question directly is yes, it's been catastrophic in the sense of there's not a problem with the students, but that there was a problem to crop up early on and that the bar had a chance to stop it before it happened, but they didn't. And they just kind of kept trying to fix it here and there. And then they went through with the exam anyway, knowing that there were these massive problems that they were facing. Yeah.

0:17:18 Matt: So there's testing going on, obviously, of this new software. They knew. Wow. I assume this is all a cost -cutting measure. They're trying to save some money.

0:17:25 Heather: Oh, yes, they said explicitly last year that the state bar was going to be, I don't know if bankrupt was a word, but they talked about exactly how many millions of dollars that they were in the hole. And they were doing two major things, one of which was moving to measure learning in Kaplan as a way to cut costs and away from the NCBE. The other big thing they were was going jack up bar fees. Think what ended up happening was that they ended up having to spend more money trying to fix the bar exam then.

0:17:48 Matt: Now they have to give it for free. So, wow.

0:17:50 Thomas: What's their overhead cost? Like, what do we bar do? Lawyers have like a volcano layer that they're like, well. We got a lot of layer upkeep, you you Know, what's the there? Major cost there?

0:17:59 Heather: A good question. That I'm not sure, but typically my experience with business is that a of the major overhead tends to be things like real estate benefits.

0:18:06 Thomas: Volcano layers. It is hard to find a good volcano in California to let me tell you. You got one that's the size of a closet and wouldn't believe how much it costs to live there.

0:18:15 Heather: So much.

0:18:16 Thomas: Roughly how many people take the bar in California each year? Do you know that?

0:18:19 Heather: So we had over 8 ,000 people sit last year.

0:18:22 Thomas: Okay. And then, you and know, like roughly pass rate or

0:18:24 Heather: So the the overall pass rate for California for July was 54%. And for first-time, it was 68%. And so we'll So that was for July. So looking at February last year, that was about 4 ,000. So we have about 12 ,000, a little over 12, 000 a year, yeah.

0:18:30 Thomas: Wow. Okay, so we're talking like roughly speaking on average, we got 8 like ,000 a year, something like, sorry. Gotcha. 12 ,000 a year, somewhere around the neighborhood of, 60 you % pass rate or something. My question is, is it just that like, oh, the pass rate's instead going to be 40 or 45 or 50? Or is it like, hey, test canceled. No one counts. Like, we not know yet?

0:18:58 Heather: We don't know yet. And I think so what's continuing to happen is that the bar they can there are still having meetings, they have a meeting coming up on July 2. they've got a lot of agenda items related to this issue, one which is their update about July, they're moving another remedy that they said is that they're going to be moving to all in person test. Taking. Looking at moving away from their measure learning and back to their old vendor for the digital shocker test center. Then, like I said, they're going to talk about the expansion of the provisional licensing. So this is all ongoing and they're moving a little bit faster than I've seen them move in the past. Again, because the exam only happens twice a year and we're looking down the barrel of July, studying for July starts in May for,

0:19:37 Thomas: Yeah. So you'd already, you don't. So wait, you or not. Oh my God. Are you kidding me?

0:19:43 Heather: No.

0:19:44 Thomas: Wow. So, so I'm sitting here being like, well, I don't know if I passed and you know, that would be me. There's no, even if I were a lawyer in law school, I wouldn't be sure I passed.

0:19:44 Heather: Well, that's part of the problem. Yeah.

0:19:53 Thomas: I it's, you know that's hard. That's a hard test. And then you're like, Well, if I want to try to get this done as fast as possible, like if something went wrong and I didn't to get pass, I dunno if I need to be working on getting ready for July or not, huh? To be fair, would that always be true?

0:20:07 Heather: Well, so little bit. Yes. Just because I think I've not really worked with students who or I don't know. Listen, I think it's really hard to walk away from the bar exam and feel like, oh, yes, I crushed it. Like, that's just it's not like that, at least not in California. I've really only met one person who was like that and actually did. I think kind tough. And I think the other thing, too, is staring down the barrel of how many months am I going without work, right, without an income. I think this is different because you can actually see this time you The shift goes away from what it's that self -assessment, right? The shift is what did I do right? What went wrong on my end? This and that too. Lot of this really wasn't about about me and this was out of my control, right? Because you can see so clearly that so much of this was, out um, of, uh, the examinees control because there was a lot of also communication from the state bar, um throughout the process. Um, and sometimes a lot times the information was conflicting with the vendor was sending students as well. So you can kind of see the shift from it being an inward assessment to, well, this wasn't about me. Like you were saying before, it's such a stressful exam. It's so hard.

0:21:08 Thomas: We going to have a lawsuit?

0:21:10 Heather: There's already one filed. Yeah, that's

0:21:12 Thomas: What's the status of it? What are they trying to get? What would that look like?

0:21:16 Heather: I'm not sure about. But I can tell you that what I did notice on this on this agenda for the State Bar Board of Trustees meeting is that in their closed session, they are also looking at litigation.

0:21:26 Thomas: Against the company?

0:21:27 Matt: Companies.

0:21:28 Heather: They didn't say, but I would imagine. So yeah.

0:21:31 Thomas: Yeah, well, I assume it's not against like one guy who took the test and complained.

0:21:34 Heather: No. No, but it was interesting because almost right immediately after the test, they were talking going after people online. The State Bar was talking about examines online and sharing essays and all this weird stuff. And I was like, really? After all this BS you put people through and then you're going to try to target examines? It's

0:21:52 Matt: Bad form. Wanted to ask you, you mentioned in -person testing centers and having to take it in person this time. So people could take it at home during all of this. There's not a requirement to be.

0:21:59 Thomas: That one part of it or all of it.

0:22:01 Heather: No, the whole test. Yeah. So what was actually kind of good about of the changes they made was that they were actually allowing people for the February bar was that allowing people to take it from home. So there was an option to have remote testing.

0:22:12 Matt: Would have been nice.

0:22:13 Heather: Yes. Challenge was over the last couple of years is that they've shrunk the number of test centers that have been available. There's been more testing centers available in Southern California. Obviously, that's good. But there's been less in Northern California, more in the Bay Area, but less, less, not very many at all from the Bay area all the way to the Oregon border. There've been like maybe one, maybe two. And so that's been really tough to navigate the travel and all Yeah, absolutely.

0:22:37 Thomas: A law desert out there.

0:22:41 Matt: Like it's going to be in person for the foreseeable future while they figure this out. Yeah, that's too bad because that's a really nice thing to be able to offer. I would have loved that.

0:22:48 Heather: So there's been a lot of letters that have been sent out, a lot advocacy. Deans of California law schools, one of the things that they offered was saying, hey, if you're looking for test centers, we are offering at no cost to host the bar exam in July at our law schools. Contact us. We have contact information for you. Come to us. And so I don't know what's come of that, but that was, I thought really, that was a great offer and a great opportunity for the state bar to partner and also have more testing centers available as well. I would also mention is a lot of issues around the multiple choice questions, and that can't be overstated. First time that they to sent faculty, they had a student guide, and there were problems with them right from the beginning. Then they sent a revised guide in early February, less than a month from the exam. Came out with the changes. There were also problems with those as well. So there's problems.

0:23:37 Thomas: Hard is this to get right?

0:23:40 Matt: How long

0:23:41 Heather: Well, so the NCBE, to their credit, has been doing this for a really long time, and they've been dedicated to this. I think they would come out and say, and I think there's a reason we cost a lot. We've been doing for experts at this.

0:23:51 Thomas: I know. I feel like I could have done a better job. The pressure's not... You got this new contract, whatever that company is. Come on. It feels like it's one guy trying to do it with ChatGPT or something. Just doesn't realize it's not going to work. That's crazy.

0:24:06 Matt: Did they have to put it together?

0:24:08 Heather: Spring, and then I think that they did not finalize the contract until August or September.

0:24:13 Matt: This is what happens.

0:24:14 Heather: Maybe the last thing that I would mention is also this is a great time to start thinking about the bar exam differently. We don't need to continue to do the thing that we've done for a long time. And again, this is not the thing we have always done. Bar across the country have not always been a bar exam to license attorneys. We haven't always done it this way. And frankly, it's rooted in white supremacy and racism. So we don't have a host of other things that we can do. If we want to have a bar also offer alternatives. Oregon's doing some great stuff. Nevada has some great in the pipeline. And this is really being created and developed with research and a lot of thought and with experts who know what they're doing. And so I really think this is a great opportunity to start thinking differently about how we want to license lawyers and how we wanna protect the public. And also how do we wanna prepare lawyers for the future really as we get them ready for the profession.

0:25:03 Thomas: Years legal podcasting should be equivalent enough to get you in, you know, under the supervision of an attorney, Matt Cameron, you Know, yeah,

0:25:11 Matt: That's right. Weekly bar exam questions. I can't go wrong. You're pretty much there.

0:25:15 Thomas: I do. I would do a good job if I was had to. Come on. All right. Well, Heather, thanks so much for taking us through that mess. Sounds awful. Sorry to anyone. I am positive that we have plenty of listeners who were affected by this. And that sucks. Seriously, all joking aside that. Absolutely sucks that that happened. And that's that's a failure of that company. That's failure of the bar, California bar like that just sucks. And I hope that if there's a successful lawsuit or something, I hope one way or the other that folks can get some sort of justice out of that, because, man, I can't imagine studying that hard for something for that long and having it be messed up like that by a stupid, the dumbest thing. You know, so my heart goes out to you. All Sorry that happened

0:25:21 Matt: Got it. You

0:25:26 Heather: You. Thank yeah.

0:25:36 Matt: Yeah. If you're listening and thinking, maybe I should have just handwritten it. No, you shouldn't have. Don't worry about it.

0:26:00 Heather: Thank

0:26:00 Thomas: No, that's insane. Right. Well, we'll get to, let's see, checks Heather on the other end of this break here. Stick around, Heather. We'll get we'll

0:26:11 Matt: All right. Good talking to you.

0:26:17 Thomas: This episode is brought to you by Quince and can't believe it, but it's already nearly vacation season. I don't know what that is, but I'm told that people who have normal jobs take a bunch of vacations. You know, that's not true, actually, because now that the kids are in school, we are taking a trip centered around their spring break, which is sometime This after now, Quince roughly. If you are looking to travel, go somewhere fun, might I recommend Quince's high quality travel So we're talking lightweight shirts and shorts from $30, pants for any occasion, and comfortable lounge sets. Actually, and also premium luggage options and Durable Duffel Bags to carry it all! The best part, as always, all Quince items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. Because they partner with those top factories and they cut the cost of the middleman, and they pass the savings on to us. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. If you're going someplace warm, I can absolutely recommend my Quince clothing that I wear all the time because I'm in California where it's almost always warm. Wearing a pair of Quince shorts right now as we're speaking. I love them. They're good quality. They last and look good. What more could you ask for? For your next trip, treat yourself to the luxe upgrades you deserve from Quince. Go to quince.com slash OA for 365-day returns plus free shipping on your order. Fun, That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash OA to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash OA.

0:27:50 Clip: Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar will eat you.

0:27:56 Thomas: How are you doing today?

0:27:57 Heather: I'm pretty good. No one has adjudicated me mentally incompetent, so I think I'm doing all right. How are you?

0:28:03 Thomas: Good. I'M ready to embrace this question with open hooves. Gallop on into it.

0:28:09 Heather: We have our friend Allison, who was charged with arson. She pleaded not guilty. And then before right her trial began for arson, she fired her defense attorney and decided to represent herself. Always love a pro se moment in these questions. All during her opening argument, she decided to get up, gallop around the room like a horse. She made some horsey noises. She was neighing in front of the other people in the courtroom. So we're trying to determine that if nobody else raises the issue of Allison's competency to stand trial, what's the responsibility of the trial judge?

0:28:37 Thomas: I do love that wording too, because I feel like the trial judge should say, all right, if nobody else is going to say it, I'll say something. Okay. This is crazy. This is bananas. I can't believe I'm the one that has to say this, but no one else is saying it.

0:28:48 Heather: And then then he we have our four options, which is A, the trial judge must raise the issue of competency because Allison is representing herself. B, the trail judge must rise the issue competency because the Constitution obligates the judge to do so. C, the Trial Judge has no responsibility because Allison decided to defend herself. Or D, the Trail Judge has not responsibility because he cannot decide whether Allison is competent to stand trial. Were you saying that you were feeling like this was feeling like a criminal law question, but also you were kind of like a flavor of constitutional law, a little bit of civil procedure. But you landed on criminal law and procedure, and you were correct. This is a criminal procedure question. Anytime you're feeling a little like criminal law, and a little kind of con law, or some kind of procedure together is oftentimes criminal procedure. Our issue is not surprisingly competency to stand trial. What's our judge's responsibility? And we know that straight from the call of the question, which just tells us like, what's the judge's our rule tells us that a defendant must be competent to stand trial, and if they're not, they cannot stand trial. Judge has a constitutional duty under the Fifth Amendment to determine the competence of a defendant to stand trial if there's evidence to suggest that the defendant might be incompetent. Is a denial of due process under the Fifth Amendment to sentence or to try a defendant who is incompetent or insane. And it's not quite clear when on first blush at the Fifth amendment kind of have to read a little bit into it, which says no person shall be held to answer for a crime, without due process of law. And we have a case from, not going to get too much into it, but from the 60s that really tells us that it is a Fifth Amendment violation of due process for the judge not to raise this issue when they have some evidence to suggest that a person might be incompetent to stand trial. You were kind of looking almost away at C and D and had eliminated those, right? Just to say that the trial judge has no responsibility, right. And some of the wording felt a little bit wrong, especially with D.

0:30:48 Thomas: The becauses weren't even right. It didn't seem like like I could have gone for a no responsibility answer if it had been worded different. But I just really didn't like the wording of those.

0:30:56 Heather: Yeah. And you were right to think that way, especially with D, to say that he cannot decide, especially when a lot of times when like the judge, that's their courtroom. You had kind of brought up, well, what if, let's say we bring an expert in and can the judge not say anything then? That seems a little bit funny. That's true. And we eliminate D, right? A reason I'm going to get to in a second, but you're right to have that inkling to say, that's not right. We don't like the wording. And again, a lot of times when I think about a courtroom and I think of the judge, I kind of think it's their courtroom. Have the ability and a lot times the discretion to make certain determinations. D is out. Says the trial judge has no responsibility because she decided to defend herself. You have brought up a little bit about pro se. What we know from the rule is that the issue isn't whether or not someone decides to defend themselves. A lot of people make the determination to represent themselves, whether it's in a civil matter or in a criminal one. And although for a lot of lawyers and a lot people, they might think that's a little crazy, that's not the thing that determines whether or

0:31:57 Thomas: Also, yeah, wording is so bad that that would be the thing determining whether the judge has responsibility or not, which can't be right.

0:32:03 Heather: Exactly it, right? C and D are out. So right away, that kind of tells us, so we know that the judge has some responsibility, but we're trying to figure out why or what for. So C, D are gone. So now it's between A and B, which is how exactly how you ended up kind of at the end there, right. Trial judge must raise the issue because Allison is representing herself, right know that's not right, unfortunately. Sorry, your first chance answer. I'm sorry, I have to throw it out. Sorry about that. Again, this is not our hinge issue. It's not whether or not she represents herself. I think that's really attractive, especially when the question kind of points us that way and says kind of right at the beginning, immediately before the trial began, she fired her defense attorney. A lot of times, because you had asked some questions about who might raise this issue. Sometimes in the courtroom, when you have an attorney, they will raise that issue. And the case upon which this hinges on, it's it's a case from the 60s. Called Pate v. Robinson. The defense attorney raised the issue. I tried to raise it than more once, and it's typically that. But

0:32:58 Thomas: Wait they was the answer that the defense can't even raise it it's only the judge oh

0:33:02 Heather: No, no. The defense counsel can. Yeah, and created this rule. All It the way up to the Supreme Court, who the court's opinion was that in that section of the fifth amendment, that's what it reads, is that when when the judge fails, when they have evidence to suggest that a person is incompetent, the defendant's incompetent and they do not evaluate their competence. You allow the person to stand trial, that's a violation of their due process rights under the Fifth Amendment. That's of the case was.

0:33:04 Thomas: Okay what did that case that change then like I guess I'm trying, I'm not understanding what the previous status quo was that was there no such thing as incompetent to stand trial oh well no wonder when they were trying to raise Your Honor, man, I got to come up with a new name for this.

0:33:34 Heather: Previous was like, doesn't matter. Yeah, think that's my understanding. Yeah. Yeah.

0:33:47 Thomas: My defendants, my client seems really, they're not They're not, oh, man. Don't know. I'm spitballing what this should be called from now on once this wins the Supreme Court. But, fair enough.

0:33:55 Heather: The language that they used was, quote, disturbed behavior, that the defendant had a long history of disturbed behavior. When you are representing yourself, then again, the rule tells us that when the judge has some evidence in the courtroom to suggest or some other evidence to suggest that competence might be an issue, then the judge is responsible, right? And here we do have some evidence, right, we have someone who gets up in the court room in the middle of opening arguments and decides to act like a horse.

0:34:23 Thomas: They did some gish galloping.

0:34:25 Heather: Yeah, that's exactly it. Typically, people who are competent, they don't get up in the middle of their arson trial and start acting like a horse, right? That is the evidence that raises the flag for the judge to say, all right, I am now required to look.

0:34:40 Thomas: Say, whoa, there.

0:34:43 Heather: That's exactly what the judge said here after this. That was the evidence that the judge had to raise the issue of competence. That's how B is our correct answer, right,

0:34:51 Thomas: It sounds, yeah, it sounds like B is our right answer because it doesn't hinge on whether or not Allison is representing herself. Trying to think if there's a way I could have really gotten this one not knowing anything. It's kind of tough because it seems like the kind of thing where just can't imagine it would make sense to have the person have a lawyer the lawyer is not raising the issue but the judge has to you know so like I it was hard to see that as a possibility but I guess waythe logic of of it is is I guess that could happen right I mean I guess if the if defendant has a lawyer but the defendant is also a horsey then seems like the judge still has that responsibility so therefore It is B, as much as that thought, I thought that was worded like a, like, trick answer. No, it's actually. Okay, well, once again, a triumph for the second chance bar exam. Come to my law firm, I will get you the right answer within two guesses, guarantee. Almost guaranteed, not quite, but almost guaranteed to

0:34:58 Heather: That's absolutely it. Yeah, Yeah. Well, and if it helps to think about too, and I know you don't know too much about the professional responsibility, because it doesn't come up a lot on these questions. Takes a lot to get an attorney kicked off a case, you know, in certain circumstances and that sort of thing. And so there's instances, I'm sure you've heard about instances and cases like in the news and stuff where there's been attorney misconduct and that kind of thing, so not all attorneys are operating at 100 % or they're not all the greatest attorneys all the time, just like kind of any profession, right?

0:36:12 Thomas: Put it lightly, uh, a

0:36:13 Heather: Sorry. Out there. Sometimes what happens is that I it helps to think about this as if you're being represented by counsel, right? If you're a defendant, you're represented by council. Let's say your attorney's not the greatest. Regardless of whether you've hired them, regardless of whether or not they're a public defender, it doesn't matter. Then the judge is, also has that constitutional duty. So I think of it as, at least for questions on the bar, I think if it is like a, I don't want to say a backup, but as a, what's the word I'm thinking of?

0:36:38 Heather: Yeah, that's it. Let's say they're defense counsel for a lot of these questions. Sometimes they're literally asleep in some of these fact patterns. Then the judge is there to act as the failsafe. Yeah, yeah,

0:36:37 Thomas: Safe man I, I've gotten there, I don't know, I think that's, uh, I see what I did wrong, but I also don't really see that I could have known that for sure. But yeah, well, you win some, you lose some, especially here at Thomas's Second Chance Law. We do our best, it, but right, roughly 60% of the time, 61, you be precise, 61.02% of the time right now. That second chance, that then, I haven't done the math, but then it, it really, that score goes up, you, I guess it's mid eighties, nineties, I don't know. Fortunately we get to go on the internet and see who the big winners are. Maybe they'll cheer me up. So let's hop on over and see who got this one right, who stamped this answer out. I don't know, I can't think of any more horse things. Well, let's look to the internet. And no Blue Sky this week, I don't know what happened, someone didn't post it, so we'll skip that one for this week and we'll go straight to Reddit. So who do we have as our big winner on reddit.com slash r slash open args? Okay.

0:37:42 Heather: I have to give a great big shout out to It's Sandwich Time because we have a really hilarious and correct right answer. And there was also a request for Thomas to read It's Sandwich Time's response, especially. So Thomas, I'll let you take it away.

0:37:54 Thomas: I'd love to. Hey, good start, hey, we all know that someone who is their own lawyer has a fool for a client, stupid. So this tale of whoa, this tale whoa is a real nightmare. Oh man, the main consideration, I feel like I made like half of these, the main considering, which I'm just saying, you know, well done. The main consideration here, of course, M-A-N-E, is the defendant is not stable, so someone needs to rein her in so she doesn't stir up trouble for herself. This is so many. Under the Sixth Amendment, I think the judge is saddled.

0:38:44 Thomas: Oh man, I think your judge is saddled with the responsibility of making sure this doesn't go on furlong. That's so bad, you've lost it. Go on fur, is it like furlong or go on for long? Or is there another, like, idiom that I'm missing there? So my answer is B, and I'm finally through horsing around. Oh man, that was so good.

0:39:07 Heather: Was amazing.

0:39:08 Thomas: Oh boy. Good times. Yeah, that's definitely the winner. I, congratulations, Sandwich Time. That's, that was, that was fun. You know, I want to say, I hope, okay, in your reporting, Heather, this was a hard one, right? I mean, I feel like only a few people got this right and they're pretty much lawyers. Yeah.

0:39:19 Heather: And question too, I think, because also the answer choices were a little bit tricky, and they kind of set up for, kind of, do the misdirect of, oh, was it because she was not representing herself? So good job navigating around that one.

0:39:32 Thomas: Exactly well Honestly, on Patreon, yeah, not a lot of correct answers. Um, uh, Alvin Bragg should indict Eric Adams, totally agree. Thomas had really good instincts this week and especially, especially real good reasoning on CND, but unfortunately I think he got the answer wrong. It's B, the judge has a constitutional obligation to ensure the defendant is competent, it's a Fifth Amendment due process issue. If a defendant is not competent to stand trial and or to represent themselves at trial, the court has an obligation to intervene, or they may argue on appeal that they were denied due process of law. Of course, if they had a lawyer, it would be on them to raise the issue, but it doesn't absolve the judge of their independent duty to ensure that the defendant is given due process. Yeah, that's the key, independent duty. I've just never heard of it, but totally makes sense. One. That was a tough one. I think think, I've been doing a little too well and Heather's like, all right, on behalf of lawyers in the bar, we need to teach this guy a lesson because, uh, I'm on a, I've on a not great streak lately, but you know, we'll see if we can get it back. Any rate, congratulations to our big winners. So much fun. Lots of comments on Patreon. Mean, I also, people, uh Really loved Lydia's, gosh, that about the Kennedy Center. I'm still, that is, ah, what a gift to this world that was. In this dark time, getting to hear a board meeting about the Kennedy Center with Trump is just, that was so fun. Right, well, we're going to take, a break. And then after that, I'm going to have to get back on the saddle and try question 64 Let's see if I can turn this around and get one right after

0:40:57 Heather: 2023, Prue was shopping at Grocery Goods when a large display of fruit fell on her, crushing her under the weight of many various fruits.

0:41:04 Thomas: Prue, from Great British Bake Off, she's older, that's gonna be rough. Oh,

0:41:08 Heather: The incident caused injuries all over Prue's body. Prue filed suit in federal district court against Grocery Goods for negligently maintaining the display and sought damages for medical expenses, pain and suffering, and lost wages. Grocery Goods stipulated that jurisdiction and venue were proper and filed an answer denying all liability. After the parties held their discovery conference, Prue filed a set of 27 interrogatories upon Grocery Goods. The company objected to the interrogatories. Is Grocery Goods under a duty to respond to all 27 interrogatories? A. No, because Prue exceeded the limit of interrogatories allowed under the rules. B. No, because only defendants may serve interrogatories. C. Yes, because the company agreed to answering all the interrogatories. Or D. Yes, because Prue has not exceeded the

0:41:56 Thomas: Oh man, right. I think had I not gone through a lawsuit, I would have no chance on this. I think now I have like a 10% chance because I wasn't in federal court, so I don't know for sure. And also, actually covering the Blake Lively dispute, this has kind of come up, but not to the extent that I actually know it. But we're, have to be in federal civil procedure here, I can't imagine what else it would be. So, so interrogatories are these, these, these, what they feel very pointless, but they're not, um, these pointless questions where you ask the, uh, other side to concede things. And in my experience, it's like, do you concede that you're guilty in the murder and you did it? And then the other side says no. And then, like, cool, we've done some good work here. It's sort of necessary. You see which things that you, like, will actually agree to, because you, is, want stuff you'll actually agree to. Yes, we agree that there's a contract formed on this date, but we disagree about what's in it. Or, you know, you figure out what stuff that you're agreeing to. And then once the two parties agree to stuff, that's that, you know, it's kind of a fact as far as that case is concerned. That is my understanding of it. Document requests, you do deposition requests or whatever, you set those up, and you also do these interrogatories, and they are essentially questions. Now, I do know there's limits, there are limits to how many depositions you get, and, now, can you get permission to get more if it's, if the judge will agree to it. I think in general, it is trying to limit how long and expensive everything is, and how long everything takes, and how gummed up everything. Now, 27 actually does not feel like a lot to me. I am pretty sure, 27, I think the key here might be if you mix it up with deposition requests, or like a lot for depositions. I don't think you get that many depositions off the bat. I could be wrong. I don't think it's a lot for interrogatories, because especially when you consider you got to waste a lot of it on, like, okay, are you named that? Like it's all the basic stuff, you, it's not that basic, but a lot of it is kind of useless and you have to do it. So I think, I think 27 is not a lot. Like, I'm pretty sure I did, of those. Gosh, I feel like I did maybe not hundreds, but it was more than 27. I'm pretty sure. So I could imagine a limit being 30, 45, you know, something like that. My instinct before even looking at any of this is that I don't think that's going to, man, there could be, I guess, 25 is conceivable. There could be a 25 interrogatory limit, but interrogatories are not that burdensome, like a deposition is burdensome, a document request is burdensome, an interrogatory, I mean, I get you're just answering a question. So I feel like it's, I swear it's a higher limit than that. I'm going to go ahead and say my intuition is that's under the limit. And the lawsuit's in federal district court, don't know why it bothers saying this, but it says Grocery Goods stipulated that jurisdiction and venue were proper. If, maybe you have to do that to move on to this phase of proceedings, or is that just like, yes, we're in federal court? Filed an answer denying all liability. After, okay. The parties held their discovery conference, Prue filed a set of 27 interrogatories upon Grocery Goods. The company objected to the interrogatories. Is Grocery Goods under a duty to respond to all 27 interrogatories? Okay. A, no, because Prue exceeded the limit of interrogatories allowed under the rules. Man, I, it could be 25. It could be 25, just, they're not that hard. I think I'm sticking to my, to my instincts, that that's not going to be above the limit. That's just not that much. I don't think, I guess I'll say A is possible, but I'm, I think I'm sticking to my guns that that isn't under the limit. B, no, because only defendants may serve interrogatories. Now, is that, anything that doesn't seem right? I mean, in my case, we definitely both serve them. There may, there's some sort of timing thing, but that's, like, in California, the defendant gets to serve discovery right away. If they realize they should do that, which, you know, not every defendant perhaps does realize they should do that for many months, actually. That's but not the norm. And in federal court, and in this Blake Lively thing, which I think is helping a little bit with me knowing these, they pretty much did it, they did it all together, right. So I think B is out, I don't think it's B. C, yes, because the company agreed to answering all the interrogatories, that's weird. If that's it, it's a trick answer, because I don't see anywhere in this question that that happened, unless we're supposed to think that's implied by them having a discovery conference. But that's, I mean, it's definitely not for sure. Sure, let me just go through, make sure there's nothing I'm missing. I will say C is either completely wrong or the biggest trick answer ever, because I don't see. I mean, maybe there's something, often the way these trick questions could work is like there's something in there that they did that, like, obligates them to answer the interrogatories. But if there is, I do not see what that is, because they didn't answer, they just objected right away. So they had a discovery conference, in that conference they could have not agreed on anything. The discovery conference doesn't, they agree to answering all the interrogatories? If so, I'm way off, because I just don't. So I think C is just, that's just out, I don't think it's C. D, yes, because Prue has not exceeded the limit of interrogatories allowed under the rules. Okay, so I think we get to the crux of it. I think it's solidly A or D. So is this above the limit or below the limit? There's a chance it's 25. I'll say that, like, I do worry that that might be it, but I, man, I don't, that doesn't seem like enough to me. All it is, is like yes or no questions essentially in writing. Like, you're like, do you stipulate this? Or do you agree to this? Do you agree to this? And it's like, it's not, again, in the scheme of burdensome things about litigation, it's one of the least burdensome things. Like, you might have to make sure your answer's right, but that's kind of, you know, whatever. If you're telling the truth, it is pretty easy. But like, I feel like it's more, it might be 45. Like, I feel like a lot. Gosh, I'm getting so nervous that it's actually 25, but I think, I think I got to stick with my instincts here, and maybe they're wrong. But I think I'm going to say D, yes, because Prue has not exceeded the limit of interrogatories. And the second chance answer is A, no, because Prue has exceeded the limits. I think that's, I think it's as simple as that, unless it's some weird trick. And so I'm between A and D, and I'm, I'm going with D. And if you'd like to play along, check Blue Sky, we might be doing that still, we'll see. Follow us anyway, Blue Sky, OpenArgs, OpenArgs, check it out anyway. And, and you might also, you see if you can play along there, play along on reddit.com slash r slash OpenArgs. And most importantly, patreon.com slash law. That's where the biggest winners play, that's where the high rollers play. Play, you know, that's where they get the most shout out there. All right, Heather, I'm gonna send you interrogatories about whether or not I got this right, and I'll see you next week. I'm going to send you like 50 of them, just, that'll, that'll be how I'll know if you object then I'll

0:48:16 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, all right, well thanks for joining as usual, and see you next week, Heather, Heather.

0:48:24 Thomas: Show is brought to you by Incogni. Incogni is a service that helps protect your personal data from data brokers who collect, aggregate, and sell it. I don't know why, but I know it's happening. I know, but this is what's happening because I, from time to time, have had these bouts where I've gotten constant spam out of seemingly nowhere. And I don't know if that's from a breach or from a sale of data or what, but it's not just spam. It can be identity theft. If you're tired of feeling vulnerable, vulnerable, vulnerable, and Incogni is like your personal beta defender, safeguarding you from all the digital predators. A couple of ways they protect you. They will contact data brokers on your behalf to request the removal of your personal data. Also handle any objections from data brokers, they your data stays off the market with repeated removal requests. That's the main reason I use Incogni. I'm so sick of spam, it's enough, you know, enough of it. And with all the AI these days, it's only getting better at those kind of spam emails, scam letters, all that stuff is getting easier and easier. So I'm using Incogni to try to fight back against that, and I think you should give it a try. Don't delay, secure your data with Incogni today. Head to incogni.com slash opening to take advantage of their robust protection, they have a great offer. Experience Incogni risk-free for 30 days with a full refund guarantee if it doesn't meet your expectations. Incogni, i-n-c-o-g-n-i dot com slash opening, use that code opening and get 60% off an annual plan.

0:49:53 Clip: Thank you for being, say we started from the bottom, now we're here, girl.

0:50:02 Thomas: Only one thing left to do, which is to thank our patrons, our all-time greats over at patreon.com slash law. Joining me is Lydia, how are you doing?

0:50:11 Lydia: Hi, I am doing pretty well. How are you?

0:50:13 Thomas: Great. Happy to have you for the shout outs. I cheated on you with Matt for the intro, for the opening. Just figured, yeah, it just made sense.

0:50:18 Lydia: It's fine. If it's going to be anybody, I'm okay with that.

0:50:22 Thomas: But we need to thank first our new patrons. Thank you to Kevin Mitchell, Enema Man. And Mike Senn. Thank you for pledging. Hope you enjoy the goodies and the no ads.

0:50:27 Lydia: The enemas.

0:50:36 Thomas: Enema's not included. Yeah, right. And now it's time to thank our Hall of Famers, our all-time greats. These are the folks who pledge at that $5 level and above at patreon.com slash law for at least a month. A very rigorous process, it's more rigorous than the California bar and actually works. It's a sound system. We're changing vendors, it is still the same vendor, figuring this out. We like to give these folks a weekly shout out. Some of them like to change their shout out to be funny or related to current events or anything like that. You can do whatever you want with it, or you can keep the same for literally ever, as some of them have. Either way is great. Why don't you start us off?

0:51:09 Lydia: Thank you, too. I tap two white, one blue, and one of any color to cast Supreme Verdict. Can't be countered. Destroy all Trumpians. Kahn.

0:51:18 Thomas: I think that should target the Supreme Court. You know, Supreme Verdict, it just, yeah, you know, that would be nice. I mean, I say target loosely speaking. There's no target for Supreme Verdict, of course. It's not a targeted spell. Otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense, would it?

0:51:30 Lydia: My god. Oh. Oh yeah.

0:51:34 Thomas: Anyway.

0:51:35 Lydia: Need to leave. Kahn. Democracy cannot survive unregulated capitalism. Bragg should indict Eric Adams.

0:51:45 Thomas: If you start making fun of nerds, we're going to lose our entire audience. So, yeah.

0:51:47 Lydia: I love nerds. Donna Treadaway, Mother of Harridans. James H. Corgi on stilts, that would be so cute. Sionitus. Disappointed in the number of business capitulating to fascism, Ward. Okay, one note really fast, actually, on business capitulating to fascism. Go Costco, you know, they're like, we're not participating in any of that.

0:52:09 Thomas: Can have my $1.50 hot dog when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

0:52:13 Lydia: Yeah. And that's, that's not going anywhere. So Ward, Fourth Circuit attorney reluctantly changing her font. Sex and gender are different things. Apprentice of Adventure. Vehicular Man's Laughter is revved up to share that the vehicle fleet has expanded. And by all accounts, the new Mini has strong E.

0:52:31 Thomas: Well, it's too long. Darn. A strong e.

0:52:32 Lydia: By all accounts the new mini has strong e. we'll have to take your word for it.

0:52:37 Thomas: Like low C, but for cars, or low T, but it's different every

0:52:40 Lydia: T. Yeah. Rooting for the hamburgers to deliver more timely justice than the current system. Unfrozen caveman lawyer, Nick Fish, Valus Tark. Did we say this one was? Valus? Valas Tark, Valas Dark. If

0:52:55 Thomas: Time. Valis to Ark, calling Ark. This is Valis.

0:53:01 Lydia: A Negative Phenomenon. Cavalry. Irregardless of anything, Ovechkin has only seven goals from owning the record.

0:53:07 Thomas: Neat.

0:53:08 Lydia: Is that where we're at?

0:53:08 Thomas: That's the last I've heard. The Sharks that play now all of a sudden one game a month. I don't know what happened. So I haven't checked in with Hockey for a minute. But yeah, I'm pretty sure he's... I think he hasn't scored in a bit. Little bit of a dry spell. But maybe they're also off is my point. So I don't know.

0:53:20 Lydia: Man. Right. (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Ex Parte). Jaysank. Off by one error. It is by the juice of Sappho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. Look, I finally changed my name, for real, legally. And E.T., winky face, your turn.

0:53:42 Thomas: You to Thomas Freeman, Cajunkilla. Fraud Fishy Hates Everything. Chris Simpson, love the extra episodes. Gun owning liberal who knows that root cause mitigation and gun control are both important, control works, see Australia. We lost, wait, we lost the middle of the sandwich.

0:53:58 Lydia: What?

0:53:58 Thomas: Holy Crap. Look, I think this is all just Patreon billing shenanigans. Like, I think people drop off, come back on, you know, when their credit card needs to be renewed or whatever. But that is funny that we lost, we lost one part of the sandwich, and then now we've lost the middle. So now these two brilliant geniuses who had, maybe it's like, this is like, they were quarantining the pro-gun. And then now it's like that person's gone. I hope they're not really gone, but it's sort of what it seems like. Anyway, gun control works, see Australia. This isn't a Patreon name and I'm not reading anything right now, I just personally think Legal Eagle is so handsome. Mark Schultz, the Cincinnati Kid. Bob Loblaw's Law.... Podcast. Philly Basement Bar is back open and is not taking this shit lying down. Elect Thomas Smith President, American Honkytonk Bar Association. Baltakatei. Philip Kizer. Return of the Jedi requires a receipt of the Jedi.

0:54:50 Thomas: That kind of caught me off guard. I like it. Yeah. Hors d'oeuvres in the court before we report. Coryn_Lann, a string of unpronounceable characters. Milo Meadsong is fighting petty tyrants. Malaika Chandler, Malcolm the Precious variant. RhondaTheDork.com. Big Easy Blasphemy. FRED R GROOTHUIS. Chris Waltrip. Classic libtard. And Mitchell, the champion, the newly crowned champion, Mitchell, top patron in the clubhouse. Thank you so much. Hey, thanks, top patrons, you're the best. We love doing these shout outs, always fun. So thanks, thanks for doing that. Thanks for supporting the show.

0:54:51 Lydia: That's good. Yep. Guys are the best.

0:55:23 Thomas: All right, well, that's it from us. A lot of fun. Thanks to Heather. Thanks, thanks, Matt, for coming on, on a Wednesday, to talk California bar stuff. And Heather, of course, for doing double duty today. Will see you for that hangout that I definitely mentioned in the beginning of the show and did not have to just do now and edit back into there. See you at that hangout, as you're hearing this, but it, but might be today, Wednesday, the 26th, 3 PM Pacific, 6 PM Eastern. Be there, be square. We'll see you at that and/or on Friday.

0:55:49 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.

0:56:07 Thomas: All Test canceled, no one counts. Like,

0:56:10 Heather: Bad at the horse puns.

0:56:11 Thomas: A genre of pun that you feel you really excel at

0:56:15 Heather: That's a good question. Probably not, no.

0:56:17 Thomas: I wish I could put a better tail on this one than that, but uh, oh

0:56:21 Heather: Don't worry. I'm not going to try to rein you in on these.

0:56:24 Thomas: Would want to listen to me loud? You're crazy. Turn that shit down.

0:56:29 Lydia: Yes, Wednesday, 3 p.m. Pacific, 6 Eastern. Oh, my

0:56:33 Thomas: I'll do, I'll move my mouth and then you say that doesn't make any sense on