Law on the Spectrum, with Peter O'Neil

Transcript

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

0:00:03 Peter: It never occurred to me that Peter was autistic. I just thought he was weird. I knew that I had a certain magic in my profession. I didn't know what it was. If we're 3 % of the population, I'd bet we were 6 % of the legal field.

0:00:09 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1280. I'm Thomas Smith and just doing an intro here before I'll be joined by real life attorney Matt Cameron and another real life attorney based out of Seattle who has written the book that is this month's book club choice. This one's really important to Matt, something that Matt really identified with and has been incredibly excited to talk about. It is called My So-Called Disorder, Autism, Exploding Trucks, and the Big Daddy of Rock and Roll by Peter O'Neil. Here's a little blurb to give you an idea. A valuable and charismatic firsthand contribution to understanding the autistic experience, Peter O'Meal's witty storytelling provides an easy -to -read call to action that bravely advocates for autistic and neurodivergent professionals. O'Meil's exploration of identity emphasizes how autistic individuals can truly thrive when their unique gifts or quirks are met with creativity and trust. So as Peter was preparing to retire after 40 years of practicing law, only then was when he learned that he had autism. And the book, My So-Called Disorder, is a memoir looking back at fitting that all together and how everything made sense in retrospect. Really fascinating. And like I said, it is this month's OA Book Club choice. And just like last month, the best book club in town is going to have the author of the book that we're reading at the book club meeting. And that's July 26th at 4 .30 p .m. Eastern. And that's for any patrons at any level at patreon .com slash law. So in a moment, we're going to be speaking with Peter O 'Neill. And then like I said, in about a week, he'll be joining us for the book club. So much fun. I love what Matt is doing with this book club and I know this episode and this book in particular, Matt was very much looking forward to. So without further ado, why don't we take that usual first break? Hey, while you're at it, patreon .COM slash law is where you can get a lot awful movies, which was recorded. Oh boy, that one. Okay. The lot awful Lotawful movies we just recorded to give you the teaser is, I think, the worst law ever for a lotawful movies. For real. There's a lot that goes into that, but it was incredible. It was incredible, you have to hear it. I'm editing that now, it'll be out soon. So all kinds of great reasons to pledge at patreon .com slash law, skip the ads, get the goodies, and join that book club. All right, right. We'll take a break and then we'll be on with Peter O 'Neill.

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0:02:52 Matt: Peter O 'Neill, I'm going to start this conversation in the most autistic way possible. We're going to skip the part where I ask how you're doing, and you're going to skip part where you ask me about the weather in Boston, and we're just going to get to the good stuff. I know that neither of us want any small talk, and just to set the stage here, I am sitting in my office, as I often am when I record these, without shoes or socks in the dark, just in case anybody needs to know how neurodiverse I am. We'll get into that. But you, Peter O'Deal, only came to realize at the age of 65, after a long and successful career in products liability that you're autistic. We'll get into more of this and we'll develop the story as we go here. But I just want to say up front that I know what it's like to discover something like this mid-career, but what's it like to discover it going into retirement? What kind of feelings came with all of that? And kind of what was that process like to come to accept it and write a book about it?

0:02:57 Peter: You can imagine that it was kind of wonderful. I'd done everything that I was going to do in terms of being a lawyer, for example. I had gone off and sought some help from therapists because my past life really hurt me. It began to hurt more as I got older. So when I finally found out, it took a couple of therapists to get there. The first one, I handed her everything on a platter. I had memorized my entire life story beforehand, and I went in and told it to her perfectly. And then a couple days later, I came in and told her about this crazy fascination I had with Chuck Berry that had lasted a lifetime.

0:04:16 Matt: Appreciate

0:04:17 Peter: She enjoyed it all. She was fun to talk to. She was never going to figure this out. So the second person took about 10 minutes. She sent me home with a book. She turns out she was autistic herself or is autistic. Once I began to study, what does this mean? First, I kind of fought it. But once I began To study what this means, and by study, I mean, going to podcasts, going to YouTube, finding whatever decent books I could find, which are kind of few and far between, then I began TO see myself over and over in one person or another, I beganTo understand that that difficult life I'd had, as a young man, it wasn't my fault at all. It was just me as kind of an immigrant in this other society trying to do my best. And I did. I did my best, so I felt really good about all that. It was a wonderful experience to finally understand.

0:05:11 Matt: That. And of course, we're talking to you because we're talking about your book, My So-Called Disorder. I read this book last year for the first time. I just read it again before talking to you now, and I relate to what you're saying about reading a book. And just about every page, there's something in this book that I can relate to. Everything from drumming with your teeth all the time to walking around talking to yourself to scheduling first dates where you don't have to look at anybody, where you can take a walk. So many little details, and especially as the practice of law as well. So I just want to thank you up front. I already thank you. I want to Thank you again for writing this and kind of getting out there on behalf of autistic lawyers, because this is not a conversation that I think is being had, even for as many of us as there are out there. And you make a great case in the book, as to why autistic people make great legal professionals. You were a paralegal for many years and then became a lawyer. I guess just to anyone who would be in a position to hire autistic lawyers and paralegals in law firms, what's your best pitch as to why they should hire autistic people and how would you advise they accommodate us?

0:05:35 Peter: First, I'd kind of make my guess, and I'll ask you the same thing. Why it might be really hard for an autistic person to get a job, because you have to go do that job interview, and I can't think of anything worse. I got a two-week job that I just retired from last week because I couldn't imagine going out in the world and trying to apply for a job elsewhere, selling myself. You talked about dating where I'd rather sit next to somebody or take a walk with somebody. I don't want to stare someone in the eyes and try to boast about myself and my skills.

0:06:35 Peter: People should take that into account. You're not hiring someone to excel at the office party or go out to clubs to meet people and bring them into your firm. You're hiring someone who's going to just be how could you say just attached to their job my job was something I never stopped thinking about 24 hours a day I was a good parent I was a very attentive parent hung out with my kids all the time they were my best friends but we would play look for the exploding trucks and they were good at finding these things so it was something I just never stopped think about is my work and then you get all these other sort of I call them autistic charms, attention to detail, an eye for detail, and ability to connect the dots. I think creativity is a huge part of being autistic. And it may be that we're more creative. I think a lot of artists, musicians, writers, those kind of people are going to be autistic or neurodivergent in some sense. Just because our brains work differently, we do think outside the neurotypical box.

0:07:38 Peter: We see things differently. We do things differently。 They're just a host of ways. When I was first being told I might be autistic, I found a list of autistic strengths, and it was bullet points, and there were maybe 30, 35. Every single one of them applied to me in my work. You get someone who's just never going to let go of a problem until they've solved it, who can work alone, who could work without supervision. I think in my job as a paralegal, one time my future mentor told me to do a particular thing. After that, he just let me go to town.

0:08:11 Matt: That's the way. I can still relate to what you just said. We'll get back to the exploding trucks in a second.

0:08:15 Thomas: I don't know what that is. Okay.

0:08:15 Matt: That's an important detail. I want to flag that. But the reason that I've been self -employed for 20 years now, I got my first opportunity because the hiring partner wanted to sexually harass me for two years, which he did. And so I had that experience of being abused and exploited for two years. And then I tried to go out and interview. And I'll never forget, maybe it was the third or fourth interview. By the end of the interview, I actually told the hiring partner that I will drive this firm into the ground if you hire me. Because I did not, actually.

0:08:42 Thomas: Did you get it? Did you Get the Job? Oh,

0:08:47 Matt: It turns out that I can't recommend that as a way to close your interview. You. But I mean, he was sitting there telling me, because this is not what they'd advertised. What they'd advertise was somebody that was more like the kind of job you're talking about, where it was going to be self -starting, you know, driven. And he's telling me that what they need for this firm right now is people to get out to parties, go to bars, go golfing with people, right? And go drive up business and be a rainmaker and not me. So I had to be clear about that. They loved my cover letter. They, they loved the writing sample I'd put in, right. I was, I was showing everything right. And I've learned a lot more about how to adjust in the world and how to mask and how how to deal with the things I have to deal with, but I was pretty raw in 2008 when I was trying to interview, so I can certainly relate to that. We're going to talk about exploding tracks in a second, but since you mentioned it, I just wanted to give you a chance here. You mentioned your mentor, Paul Whalen. This is so important for so many autistic people to have somebody that sees the potential, that sees what they can do. I know that Paul passed in 2018. I'm sorry for the loss because he sounds like a wonderful guy. I wanted to gives you the chance here to just honor him and tell us a little bit about what kind of person, what kind of lawyer he was.

0:09:03 Peter: Great question because he was he was exactly my opposite in many ways and yet we sort of got married professionally and went around together for for 20 years or 30 years he was really charming a schmoozer really smart great product liability lawyer people on the defense side loved him judges loved him, mediators loved him. As you say, he not only became my mentor, but he sort of became my champion. Without him, there's just no way I would have had the career I had. He'd bring in these cases. And finally, it was actually me bringing in the cases because we started down this automotive product liability route. And I was the one who knew about that. He was the person who was in the limelight on those cases. So he'd bring them in and I was just happy to work on them. He he trusted me implicitly. There was no time when he questioned me. He'd kind of keep me in the straight and narrow. I'd ask him every 20 minutes, I'd get some idea and I'd go run it past him. And if it was totally stupid idea, he would be sure to tell me that. But for the most part, he just said, go for it, go forth, go forward. Can you imagine most autistic people? I just can't. I can't imagine them working. I've had a hard time, even as an established attorney, attorney working with people who didn't appreciate what I was bringing to the table. So to have someone who just loved it from the very start and championed me, I became partner as soon as I became a lawyer within maybe a year. That was part of the deal that we'll come to your firm and we'll work with you guys. But Peter O 'Neill is going to have to be made a partner when he becomes a lawyer and

0:11:17 Peter: That sort of champion. I tell young autistic lawyers, just try to find that person. You may or may not. I don't know. But what a difference it makes.

0:11:24 Matt: Yeah. Of course, it's so fortunate. And also the opportunity to get your own office right away and to just be able to drill down on the stuff that you're doing, which is now, of course, what we want to talk about here. Let's talk about the exploding trucks because it is, obviously, it's in the title of your book. It's one of the most important things that you've ever worked on. It's just an incredible story, I think, of autistic perseverance.

0:11:44 Peter: Yeah, well, they were the stupidest vehicles ever designed, the stupid and most dangerous vehicles ever designed. This one ran from 73 to 87. It was the most popular vehicle that General Motors ever sold. They sold over 10 million of them. And from the very start, before they sold the first one, they knew that if you bumped it on the side, there was a good chance it would spring a leak and gasoline would pour out the side. In a real crash, they new that the car that was going to come and hit this vehicle was going to rip that gas tank open. And I started to explain that. Trucks in those days had steel frames, kind of like a ladder. First, they used to put gas tanks in the cab of the pickup behind the driver. That was not a good idea. I worked on a few of those cases too. Then they moved them between the frame rails. Everyone except General Motors. General Motors put the fuel tanks outside the frame rail. And if you walk by one of these trucks, you can see the fuel tank hanging down below, just waiting to be ripped open. And that's what would happen in almost any crash. And either the person in the truck would be burned or the people in the car that struck it would be burned. Well, you can imagine when they sell, you know, 10 million of these trucks, there's just millions and millions and billions of documents and crash tests. Over the years, they get thrown photocopies in all these different boxes. And then finally they start being sued and they start putting everything together as much as they can to build this big haystack of photocops. And that's what we started facing. Being autistic was such a thing because I would just return to these documents every day. Every time we went to Detroit, I'd go back to what they called the reading room, which was just this dumpy suite of offices with all these old file cabinets. And I'd find anything new that they'd put in there. I'd start seeing things that other people hadn't seen, whether it was in an old photograph that had been photocopied 50 times or 100 times until it was so blurry. You could hardly see it. All of a sudden I'd see, oh my God, they've put some sort of shield on this gas tank. Why? Why did they do that? Why is it only on this one truck? I just never let go of that. I ended up with about a dozen of these cases, but for the first seven cases, I was learning new stuff almost every day. And it was one place, I talk too much here, but it was one place where I became ultra social. I knew every paralegal in the country who was working on these trucks. I'd call them every day. Attorneys across the country would call me because I started getting a reputation of knowing these things. And we shared information daily. It was a thrilling time. It was the only thing that equaled my fascination for Chuck Berry.

0:14:25 Peter: And it was wonderful because I was doing it to really help people who they might have their leg or their face or their whole body burned. And they were struggling on that way. And we got to help them.

0:14:38 Matt: That's one thing that really struck me is you had the incredible fortune of finding a practice area that marries that attention to detail, the ability to focus on a couple of cases at a time, maybe just one case at a times, with that deep sense of justice that most autistic people seem to have. That really came through in the book, that you cared so much about these people and the horrific injuries that were documented in this book, the things that people had to suffer for these terrible designs. It really made me appreciate product's liability in a way I hadn't before. Have you ever thought about other fields of law that might have worked for you?

0:15:07 Peter: I'm a funny guy because I know so much about my field of law. And I can't really tell you much about other fields of law. So no, it was so personal to me. It used all those autistic skills, but that's all I knew about. It's kind of like in music. The only thing I know about is starting with Chuck Berry branching out into the blues. I missed my entire generation of music because I was interested in the older stuff that all those guys had listened to. One of the difficult things at a law firm is for injured parties, figuring out the numbers, how to pay people back, what you're going to owe these different people, adding up medical bills, studying the medical records, all these things. Each autistic person is going to bring some fascination with one thing or the other. And if you can find the person and match them with that, that's when you're gonna strike gold.

0:15:56 Matt: Have been looking, and I think now maybe in the last couple of years, there have been more and more people sort of coming out and talking about being autistic while practicing law. It's very rare. I don't think anybody's really written a book quite like you have. Obviously, this is a fairly conservative profession. People are very concerned about their reputations and what clients might think about them. How many autistic lawyers do you think you've met in your career?

0:16:14 Peter: Well, what was interesting is after I wrote some articles trying to get a little publicity for the book, but with the Washington State Bar Association, for people who do the kind of work that I do representing injured people, I started getting contacts from other lawyers every day. And we formed for a little while, we called it the ABA, the Autistic Bar Association. We'd get together, we'd get lunch together and things like that. And it didn't last very long, but I was surprised there are a lot of us out there.

0:16:44 Peter: And of course, there's more people who are like me or like you at a certain point where you have no clue this is why you have these skills. I knew that I had a certain magic in my profession. I didn't know what it was. If we're 3 % of the population, I'd bet we were 6 % of the legal field or more.

0:17:04 Matt: Oh, for sure. It certainly attracts people who drill down on things. I've also been fortunate in that immigration law and policy is one of my special interests. It's one of the things that gets me up in the morning and I think about all the time in the same way that you're talking about with your cases and the work you're doing. But I got to say, I envy the fact that, you know, you mentioned at one point, I think you briefly had a solo practice and you were taking on two or three cases a year. Here. Is that right?

0:17:25 Thomas: I'm

0:17:25 Peter: For the last 20 years, I worked on my own. I would work with big law firms because I didn't want to pay the costs, which are a half a million dollars or or more, but they'd hire me to add a certain percentage of the fee. And yeah, I figured out one day I could either go off and become a teacher or something that I enjoyed doing, or I could settle one case a year or work on one case every year. Sometime I'd settle a case every couple years.

0:17:49 Peter: And luckily my niche allowed this to happen. I didn't become rich, but I am, I think, comfortably retired now. It worked out magically almost. One thing you had said something about luck and talking about my fortune. My fortune in finding a mentor, my fortune in finding a field. I've got to say, first and foremost, that throughout my life, I've had all these lucky breaks, whether with being born into a big, giant family, a wonderful high school, spending a few years in Africa where my quirks weren't as noticeable as they are here, finding that mentor, finding this niche. They're all just incredibly lucky things. So I've benefited from that. And I know that a lot of autistic people really don't. Somebody who read my book said, I like your story. It's a wonderful story, but not all of us get so lucky. And I have to acknowledge that.

0:18:42 Matt: Me too. And so much about being right place, right time, right people. There's a weird kind of echo for me with what you're saying about your time in the Peace Corps in Africa. I thought that was a very interesting part of your story there of your account of sort of finding yourself in a place completely foreign to literally to everything that you knew and had grown up with and with people that were much more likely to accept you because they're just so different from you. And I have the same experience being able to represent people from all over the world who are, first of all, just wonderful people and just very very forgiving to begin with. There is a kind of a similar rhyming thing there with people that are not raised in this country and don't have the same expectations of people.

0:19:14 Thomas: Just thinking, Matt, you might be the one to write the ADHD version of this because that's taking 100 cases a year, not finishing any of them, right? That's where I would be.

0:19:24 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, see, I get the fun intersection of Autism 8 HD that we call Audi HD. And again, when I was reading your book, honestly, again, I was thinking about maybe I should focus more on my appellate practice because I love appeals. I love being able to drill down and get that obsession and think about it every day about how I'm going to get that just right and really refine find the argument and get it to the point where it needs to be. There's so much of immigration practice that is so frenetic. And I've got hundreds of cases right now, and I have great staff, obviously, and really good support. But it really was interesting to think about the possibility that it's an incredible fantasy of just having one or two cases that you can deal with at a time.

0:19:57 Peter: Was very lucky. You know, one thing I thought about you, I haven't met you before, but you represent immigrants. And And I think a lot of people who are neurodivergent are really accepting and interested in helping people who Are othered in our society, the horribly injured people. Yes, you know, immigrants. Yes, that makes perfect sense. The other thing is you started your own firm.

0:20:22 Peter: I think, unfortunately, the people we have to look at as autistic role models right now are these giant and often disgusting entrepreneurs. Yeah.

0:20:31 Matt: One in particular.

0:20:32 Peter: Yeah. And those people could not have survived in the General Motors that I learned about when I was a paralegal. Everyone had to wear a blue suit and a red tie. They had to go to the country club and do all those things. They weren't going to make it. So they started their own firms, whether that's Bill Gates or the one who shall not be named, all of them, the Facebook guy, all of Them had to start their own firm because they were a little too weird to succeed in some some other place.

0:20:57 Thomas: It is kind of a cruel trick on the world that making a website where you rate the women without their consent in your class turned out to be like a billion dollar idea.

0:21:06 Matt: Oh, that's not even the one we were thinking of.

0:21:08 Thomas: Well, he, no, he mentioned Mark Zuckerberg too. So yeah, it's like bad luck that that turned out to be a profitable thing.

0:21:15 Matt: Yeah, so true.

0:21:16 Peter: But not surprising somehow.

0:21:17 Matt: Yeah, somehow. But no, it is true. Even at the beginning of this conversation, you mentioned feeling like an immigrant, right? And I've always felt the same way, that sense of never being quite comfortable in your own skin, never feeling like you even belong in any room that you're in.

0:21:29 Thomas: Well, can I jump in and ask you guys to maybe take a step back for the listeners who haven't read the book and, and maybe who are more neurotypical, could we maybe step back and talk about like some of the challenges or some of the ways you might notice, I guess, for you, Peter, in retrospect, but some of those, some of the challenges and differences and things that, that made it difficult to operate.

0:21:50 Thomas: What do you think just to give people maybe a baseline

0:21:51 Peter: I'd love Matt to chime in because he said he sees himself in the book. And anytime that happens, I'm thrilled because when I wrote this book, I think I've already said here, I have an old hand at being autistic, but I was new to understanding what that means. And so I was taking my chances, writing down the experiences in my my life that I thought were due to being autistic. First and foremost, I think any autistic person I've ever spoken to about this has felt that they were different their entire life and that their lives were unrolling differently. And for me, that really hit. When I went away to college, I had a wonderful teacher who got real excited because he said, I had skipped a grade when I was like in second or third grade. He said, hey, you got all the credits you need to graduate. You should go out to college now. You could start at age 16. He amusingly said I could be a lawyer by the time I was 23.

0:22:43 Peter: I had no interest ever in becoming a lawyer until I did. I have been protected by my giant family who were great. They supported any quirky idea I had, any goofy idea I had. They were all probably neurodivergent themselves and very creative. And then I'd had this terrible experience in grade school, but everyone in that school had a terrible experience. They were these old school Catholic schools with old school nuns who are meaner than can be. But then I went to a wonderful high school. I was at the center of things. It was really tiny, probably a lot of neurodivergent people there now that I think of it. A lot of diversity in that school, just a great place. And I went off to college and I all of a sudden realized, I don't know what any of these people are doing, how they make friends. I had no clue. So for me, the biggest difficulty about being autistic then, and even today, is just the social aspects of it. Matt started the conversation by saying, you know, let's cut the small talk. Well, I'm sure I was the world's worst person at small talk if you didn't want to hear about Chuck Berry. Well, what was I going to say?

0:22:43 Thomas: I doubt that came up that often just

0:23:55 Peter: And then there was the failures to understand what a smile meant. I was lucky in those days to look a lot better than I do now. And I attracted a certain amount of these really attractive, funny young women who wanted to get together with me and we were fine if we were face -to -face a lot of the times, but I never understood what they were actually up to until all of a sudden they might lean over and kiss me or something like that. And so this complete failure to understand sort of the social rules, the social cues, those things I think really changed my life until, as I said, I got lucky and went to Africa. And A, people taught me, okay, here's how you behave in Africa. Good, thank you. Here's how You Make Friends in Africa, thank You. There was a Peace Corps trainer, just a former Peace Corps person who gave us tips on how to meet men or women in Africa for romantic needs and what they expected of you, which was different. Well, if anyone had told me any of these things, I mean, I was a quick learner.

0:24:57 Peter: When I was a young man, I would have figured it all out, but I didn't.

0:24:57 Thomas: Organically we almost need like the foreign exchange program or like like the pretend you're a tourist thing and then someone teaches you for this society you know know.

0:25:06 Peter: No, honestly, even when I talk about my romantic failures, there was one girl who kind of told me, hey, you should should come up to my room. I was up there within about 10 seconds. I went straight up. If anyone would tell me what to do, I could figure it out. But on my own, I was an utter failure at that stuff. And I remain, I've got rudimentary social skills at this point.

0:25:32 Matt: Years of practice. I know, I know. That is one thing I really appreciate about the memoir, especially, was though, you know, you're just unafraid to be very personal and to tell the story of your life and not just your professional life. I think there's a version of this memoir that could have just been a professional memoir because you have so much to say and such an interesting career, but you have blended the personal and professional in such a way that it gives a very complete understanding of an autistic life. And I think it really, it's very helpful for people, especially professionals who are trying to find their way to sort of see the whole picture. And I'd really appreciated that. What point did you decide that this should be a book and how did of that, how long did it take to write?

0:25:33 Peter: I told the therapist who helped me, who diagnosed me, I don't like that word, who identified me as autistic and helped me accept it. I said, I told her, you got to be right because I'll go out and speak. I'm not a public speaker by nature, but I can prepare for a speech and give a good speech. So I knew I would have to go out and talk about being autistic, being an autistic attorney or neurodiversity in the workplace, really the value of having any sort of diversity, whether it's age diversity or gender diversity or racial or ethnic diversity, cultural diversity, and then neurodiverse. They all bring new ways of seeing things to whatever profession you're in. I knew I would have have to talk about that because along with learning the amazing strengths of autistic people, what I used to think of as two things, hard work and magic, some sort of magic made me find all these things. I learned that along with those special autistic skills, most autistic people really struggle to find and keep work. Workplace culture can be really difficult for people. Some have sensory issues that make it difficult. Some have the problems of doing an interview that make make it really difficult to get a job, to keep a job. And so I knew I'd have to go out and speak about this. And I first imagined writing a pamphlet and I started writing about my work. And I really thought nobody wants to read my war stories, my stories about my career any more than they wanted to hear about Chuck Berry. AndI kind of knew too that I'm going to have to tell these more painful sides of my life. One of the ways I was lucky is I've got this wonderful wife, these wonderful grown children, wonderful granddaughter. I'm in a good place. And yet those past years hurt so badly. I never talked to anybody about them. I never talked my wife about them, it was just too painful. And then once I understood where that came from, and I'm not saying every autistic person had the same experience I had, but once I understood why that happened to me, all the shame and pain of it, well the pain didn't go away, all the SHAME of it went away. And I could talk to 200 people, people, 200 lawyers about it. And it felt fine. Once I started writing it out, I sort of enjoyed it. It was therapeutic. I still was somewhat terrified. Why are you telling the world this? But it's a small world that has read my book. I thank you, Matt. Somehow you found it. So that's really wonderful.

0:28:27 Matt: That's what I was looking for. I mean, it's obviously just one autistic characteristic is the need to share the degree of honesty and depth of honesty for better or worse that comes with it. And I really, that did come through and I really appreciated that because I think that other people might've tried to write it more favorably to themselves, but you really just told the story as it happened. Not that you look bad, but certainly it's just a very honest account. You have so many examples throughout the book of how autistic artistic, creative thinking helped you as a lawyer and helped you, especially with these products liability cases. So many examples, but you want to tell us about your favorite one?

0:28:36 Peter: I think the thing I had most fun with, and this is impossible just using my voice, but what I had more fun with was creating exhibits. The first time I was sent to take a deposition, it was this really hardened engineer who I'd met before several times. He knew me because I'd been working on all these cases as a paralegal. And he'd kind of figured out that Peter's the one who knows all this stuff, but had to take his deposition. They were trying to deny that the gas, this was an in-cab gas tank case that we talked about. The gas cap hit the road and the friction between the road and the gas cap unscrewed it, spilled all the gas onto the road. And then the spark started a big fire and burned our client. He was trying to deny it. He was saying that it would be protected somehow. I had built this wonderful little moving machine, almost like a pair of scissors, but I used his photograph of the gas cap and the body. All I had to do was hand it to him. He gave up and said, yeah, okay. The gas cap hit the road.

0:30:02 Peter: All through my career, I've had the most fun making little artistic, funny exhibits divots that I would pull out at trial or at a mediation or during a deposition. And those were my favorite parts.

0:30:14 Matt: I also go to court a lot. I was just in East Boston district court this morning and there was a judge I had only seen once before. I could just see the look on her face, the look that you're also familiar with when she realizes this guy's a little weird. I'm going to have to listen a little closer. I don't speak much louder than I'm speaking right now. And I did try to get close enough to the bench that I could be heard. There's that kind of tension of presenting as someone who's walking in the room wearing a suit, presenting professionally is in a lawyer role. And you described that in the book too, as well, that look that people get on their faces sometimes when they realize they're going to have to be dealing with someone they didn't quite expect to be doing with. You also had the experience of working closely with very experienced, talented attorneys who are great role models and could show you how to do things. Did you feel comfortable in court? Did you like that? Because obviously you did well in court.

0:30:58 Peter: Thing that made me comfortable was that I always knew I know every fact of this case so much better than any other person in this room. So I could just walk in and say that. And whether it took me a while or not, I always felt comfortable enough that way. I think I described in the book the first time I actually had to argue a motion, I was prepared for for my part. But all of a sudden, Paul Whalen, this mentor of mine says, the next motion comes up. I had written whatever it was, I'm sure. And I briefed him on how to present it. And he also goes, hey, you argue this one. And this was going to be my first argument in court. And I wasn't expecting to argue that one. And what was funny was I got up there and I was doing all right. But when the Ford attorney was talking, I started walking around in circles, listening to him, but thinking about what I was going to say. And all of a sudden, I hear that same whisper going, stop walking around.

0:31:55 Peter: And other times, I think in this probably the same motion, he told me, you've won, shut up.

0:31:54 Thomas: First

0:32:03 Matt: Some of the best advice you can give a young lawyer is to stop talking.

0:32:06 Thomas: Thought, I'm not a lawyer, but my first thought was like, well, this is another environment where there's a lot of rules to how you interact, the way you talk to the judge, the way he talked, you know, all that stuff. But is that true or not? Does that help?

0:32:08 Peter: There certainly are, but I hadn't started that case as a paralegal. I don't know any other rules. I still don't know. During that trial, he made me put on one witness and the Ford lawyer, who was a Southern gentleman, kept saying, objection, your honor. I'd try again and objection sustained. I had no idea what the... Yeah.

0:32:37 Thomas: Like your honor, can he stop interrupting me?

0:32:41 Matt: That's

0:32:41 Peter: Finally, I turned around and Waylon kind of shrugged and I said, okay, that's it. There are rules and that could help people who really know the rules. I'm not interested in that aspect of the law, so I never consider myself a real lawyer. I love the stories that I was learning about and that I could use in favor of my clients. I love certain legal things, but those were cases that applied to my case. I'd figure out why the case the defense was citing was actually in favor and helped us. I never learned a lot of the the rules that I should know that a lawyer, people who are real lawyers would know. I never consider myself a real lawyer. I consider myself more of a story person.

0:33:23 Matt: So funny. I've said that my entire career, that I'm in it for the stars. And of course, this job is obviously immigration law is full of them. I was almost a journalist. That was kind of where I was heading. That's still kind of how I think of myself. And I think that's still my strength is narrative and putting a story together and getting deep on the facts, like you said, just really getting to know exactly what's going on and things to bring out. And it does help, I think, in court as an attorney that you're playing a character. You're not necessarily yourself. You know, you're in a suit, you got your costume on, you get, you know, maybe not outlines but you know pretty much how the script is going to go rules of engagement not at all no it's a performance and but in the best possible way that's always helped me and it's helped me in client meetings too because obviously I'm sure you experience yourself you learn pretty quickly that you can't really have clients you can look in the eye or at least they don't take well to it often uh if you can'T look your way in the eyes so I've had to really force myself to do that and it'S exhausting sometimes

0:33:52 Thomas: It's not real life up there

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0:34:16 Thomas: I got a question in this day and age how um forward would you be with just that information you know is it something where it's like if it's going to affect a client relationship or something is it the kind of thing where you would feel the need to like inform your client on the other hand does that feel like something you shouldn't have to do or you know like an almost an invasion of privacy in a way

0:34:34 Matt: Yeah that has become an issue because more and more people are now aware of this right and I actually I had a meeting a couple of months ago with this guy I was really enjoying the conversation he stops and he's this guy was just I loved him he's a straight talker because I think you know what you're talking about, but I just want you to hear it. I just want you say it to my eye. I said, I'm so sorry. I am kind of coming to terms with the fact I'm on the spectrum. I'm trying to figure out how this works in my life. I usually do try, but I've been really trying to focus on what you've been telling me. I've really tried to focus on your case. I want to get this right. He said, you know, I respect that. I know a lot of guys like you, but just look me in the eye and tell me this was one thing. He was very nice about it. Honestly, too, more and more because now we are catching these things earlier in development, I have a lot of clients with kids around the spectrum, they're often and very concerned when they get this diagnosis. And I feel it's appropriate sometimes when I feel a great connection with a client to share that they didn't catch this when I was a kid and here I am, I figured it out more or less and your kid's going to be okay. They're going to get all the help they need. Sometimes if I'm really struggling and if I, cause I just, you know, there are days when you're close to burnout or you're feeling like you're about to melt on, you just have to take it at your own pace. Clients, you're coming in expecting a lot, but they generally, I mean, we're able to project competence and I certainly know what I'm talking about. And sometimes I just time to ask for patience. And I do reveal it sometimes, but I think more than anything, like I said, it helps that most of my clients are not American and raised in this country and don't really know what to expect, I think. And a lot of them haven't spent that much time with a professional American-born white person, honestly.

0:35:58 Matt: So maybe they don't really expect anything. I don't know. How about you, Paul? Did that come up a lot? Did you ever have to explain yourself? I mean, Paul, I'm so sorry. I was thinking about Paul. I'm sorry. Peter, of course.

0:36:06 Peter: That's fine. I always get called Paul. Peter and Paul go together. We worked with another attorney named Murray, so that was bad. Peter, Paul, and Murray. But I explained myself after the fact to one of my clients, and she's sort of my biggest fan, so that part's easy. A lot of the young attorneys that joined our little ABA, some of them told me they were starting to tell the judge or people on the other side that it's going to take me a little longer to make this argument, or I'd like a chance to read you my argument here without interruption or something.

0:36:13 Thomas: Well, that's fantastic.

0:36:16 Matt: That's great.

0:36:40 Thomas: What?

0:36:41 Peter: So they asked for their own accommodations that way, knowing what those might be. I never had that experience. You were talking about eye contact with clients. The first time I was going to go out and speak about this to the local product liability or plaintiff lawyers, the guy before me was doing a seminar on picking juries. And he said, well, the first people I strike are those people who won't look me in the eye because I know they're not on my side. And so it gave me a, he was, he, he wasn't, he didn't, you know, he wouldn't he was great. It was, it was a good presentation, but I went up and said, thank you for saying that because now I can tell you my side of the story. And He, he came over and thanked me afterwards. Words. You know, when I was in Africa, not looking you in the eye is a sign of respect. You didn't look an elder or a chief in the eyes. You looked down at the ground and spoke to them. And so I tried to explain, I'm listening to you if I'm not looking at you. If I'm looking at you, I think about the fact that I'm going

0:37:36 Peter: To lose 20%.

0:37:39 Matt: Yeah that's not something so many people understand but I have used that line too that like to really think about what you're saying I'm just gonna have to look somewhere else for a minute.

0:37:45 Peter: And it's not even a line. It's just the truth. Like so

0:37:47 Matt: No it's true. It's the truth. Absolutely but you know to explain it to somebody even you know my own parents still don't really understand it probably never will and that's fine and they love me. It seems like the easiest thing in the world to just look somebody in the eye and I still can't really even explain why it is that I think that my entire soul is going to be sucked out of my body as soon as I make eye contact with you. But that's how it feels.

0:38:03 Peter: Many things, it's so culturally important in our culture to look someone in the eye. And my sister-in-law teaches corporations and such about culture. So she loved that thing that in West Africa, people out there will understand something about high concept and low concept cultures that are very different. The one that was closer to being autistic was a sort of village culture, a more natural culture than we've got. That's a beautiful thing about living in Africa. I lived in a small town, but every person had their place in that village. There was a guy who had a physical deformity, which most of us would look at askance at. He ran one of the little bars. No one said a word about it. He had a whole wife and family. No one cared about his physical deformities, as we'd call it. So every person had their place, and that's what we kind of lack. So if you act a little bit differently, you'll have your place. I was always accepted as a guy who could get the job done as a product liability attorney, but not so much on the social scene even today, even though I've learned how to behave a lot better and make small talk and do all that stuff.

0:39:13 Matt: It's funny you mentioned the African culture there because I've experienced that with some of my clients. I've even had judges question their credibility when they won't look the judge in the eye or when they're staring at the ground while they're talking. And I've had that explained to me too. That's like, well, I'm not going to look the judge in the eye. That person's an authority. We don't do that.

0:39:30 Matt: That has actually been a fascination for me just overall in the immigration system about how we determine credibility because because it's done through the Western lens of what we expect white people to do, frankly, as credible people, right?

0:39:29 Peter: You

0:39:41 Matt: We sit and talk a certain way and we look people in the eye and we speak with that kind of confidence that you are speaking with when you're credible, right. Or you tell the story directly. And a lot of cultures, they'll tell the study more indirectly or sort of tell you details that other people might not think are relevant. Intercultural communication has always been fascinating to me for exactly the reasons we're talking about, just because I feel like I'm doing it already.

0:40:00 Peter: Had talked about the immigration clients. We one time took on a client, it was right when Trump was elected and was starting to throw people out of the country. And so we took somebody on as volunteers, very inexpert, but it stunned me how much trust she gave us. And she never questioned us on anything. And that was always true of the catastrophically injured people because they kind of knew what was important at that point.

0:40:25 Peter: People who are barely injured question everything you do or everything you think or say. But the immigration, this one immigration client I had just amazed me because she never question what we were doing. And she never questioned the right or wrong of it.

0:40:40 Matt: It's a lot to trust. And that's certainly people in those vulnerable situations, that responsibility. And it came through in the book about the responsibility you felt to these people that had suffered just massive life-changing injury because of this wildly, ridiculously irresponsible design. And I wanted to ask you too about the way that you sort of ferreted this stuff out. I was thinking about it as I was reading the book again, and I don't know if you really have an answer for this, but I'm kind of curious because so much of what you were doing was absorbing thousands of pages of documents in discovery and things that you had access to from the other side. That is a job now, as of 2026, that is being done by Quad, being done by ChatGPT. And I was wondering if you think, I don't know if you had any experience with these things, but do you think that they could catch some of the things that you caught as an autistic person?

0:41:14 Thomas: That's

0:41:25 Peter: No, no. I have no experience with them at this point. I saw some of the early stuff. I saw what people were doing early on. But what I have to admit is what I dealt with was paper.

0:41:35 Matt: Mm-huh. Yeah.

0:41:36 Peter: I could go into warehouses and find the good documents because I had this knack for going through paper very quickly and spotting the things that were important to me. Now they send you PDFs and they'll put maybe 500 PDFs in one little blue file and then 500 more in the next blue file, you open this thing and you have like 60,000 little blue files, each one having 500 PDFs.

0:42:00 Peter: And you have to open each one and then scroll through.

0:42:03 Thomas: A job for AI, yeah.

0:42:05 Peter: That sort of beats me. So yeah,

0:42:07 Matt: Yeah, I'd much rather have a box at that point, just a box of paper.

0:42:10 Peter: I shouldn't admit this, but I would sometimes just on a medium-sized case, we had a lot of road design cases at the end of my career. I just asked them, print me everything. And then I'd spend a day going through it and throwing out all the bullshit that they gave you. And ending up with, you know, a hundred documents or something that told our story.

0:42:26 Matt: This is such an interesting perspective that you have, because I came to this realization basically during COVID when I was 40, 41, mid-career. And you're looking back as you're finishing your career in this book. The generations after us, I think, as long as public schools are the way they are, education is the way it is, it seems like they're catching now neurodiversity in kids and they're helping them to work with it, with behavioral differences and developmental differences. They're just having a different experience than I think we had a different experience now as kids growing up in these different generations. Have you thought about sort of what we might've lost there, not having the experience of having it identified early on?

0:43:06 Peter: For sure. Because as I said, I could learn if you told me what to do, I could learn. I also think I'm just going to make an interjection here. You found out during COVID, so did I. The first person was before COVID and we stopped our sessions because of COVID. And the second person was as soon as it was safe to get in the room. So we're both being identified as autistic at the same time because the so -called diagnosis caught up with us to include us. No one my age would have been caught unless they were someone who could not speak. Somehow Temple Grandin was identified because she couldn't speak to people and had those sensory issues and things. But someone like me was never going to get identified. And how I could have benefited from a little bit of instruction, nothing bothered me. I love being autistic. I loved what it did for my life. But the social stuff was impossible for me.

0:44:01 Peter: And I learned person by person, trial and error, many errors. But each time I can look back and see, well, I learned this from that person and this from that person. And that kept growing. So yes, if someone had caught me as a teenager, and if I'd been willing to listen to them, if it was someone who spoke to me in a way that I was willing to listen to, it would have changed my life. I often fantasize about being able to go back and talk to myself. Hey, Peter, come over here.

0:44:28 Matt: It's going to work out. Just you have a different kind of brain. That's all I needed to hear, right? It's just you have different kind of brain from everybody else and you're going to figure it out. And I was so touched too, by the stories in your book about the people closest to you and how accepting and even your daughter basically having already clocked it, like she knew what was going on.

0:44:45 Matt: And then I had the same experience with the people around me that nobody was surprised. Was anybody surprised actually when you told them?

0:44:49 Peter: Well, I had a couple of funny experiences. Someone I was trying to get to write a squib for the book, he wrote me three different squibs. And one of them was, it never occurred to me that Peter was autistic. I just thought he was weird. And another friend told me the same thing the same exact words there was a woman who she was the wife of the leader of my law firm my own my other mentor his name was Leonard Schrader and so Alice Schradner one time told her daughter who had worked for maybe three weeks at the law firm as I recall. Oh, I just learned that somebody from the firm is autistic and her daughter who had known me for three weeks or so, goes, Peter O 'Neill, so I guess I wasn't fooling many.

0:45:02 Matt: Fair enough, that's funny yeah no because I mean I certainly when I was growing up there was no awareness of the spectrum as we call it now autism was a very specific kind of experience and diagnosis I don't even know what it was like when you were growing up is it something you're even aware of at

0:45:52 Peter: I know that there was some point my mom was talking about these poor autistic children who couldn't communicate at all, locked inside their bodies, unable to communicate. Whether I was 18 or 22, I have no idea when that happened exactly, but that was all I knew about it. There was a time I was watching a TV show about autistic people, it was called Parenthood, and it had a teenager, he didn't ring any bells with me, although he should have. There was another character played by Ray Romano. And when he came on, the show didn't tell you this guy's autistic. He didn't know he was autistic, but we were supposed to spot it, I think. And I immediately paused the show, got out my computer and looked up, you know, what is autism?

0:46:24 Matt: All hmm hmm

0:46:33 Peter: And everything I found then, this was maybe 15 years ago now, was so ugly and horrible. Things like no sense of irony, no sense of humor, no sense of empathy.

0:46:33 Matt: Hmm

0:46:46 Peter: And I thought my whole career has been based on humor and empathy. I threw that away.

0:46:43 Matt: Yes yeah

0:46:46 Thomas: Well, yeah, there's been nothing more offensive than the RFK quote. I mean, it's the most insane thing is to the it was so offensive. It was funny. Like at least it went across a lot of people online had a lot of fun with that. Like autistic people will never. What is it? They'll never write a poem or something. They'll ever play baseball.

0:47:08 Matt: You know I play baseball or yeah yeah

0:47:11 Thomas: Oh my god yeah it's a very

0:47:11 Matt: I think A lot of people are super into baseball or artistic.

0:47:16 Thomas: Number stats game yeah yeah

0:47:16 Matt: Somebody ought to tell them. Yeah, I mean, it's to some degree. I feel like that's actually another thing that actually I wanted to ask you, Peter, is sort of on the general kind of culture, because it's interesting the culture now has caught up. It's become so prevalent. As you said, unfortunately, we do have Elon Musk out there kind of repping the worst of it. I hope he's not the first person people think of now. But there is this kind of thing that I've been getting a little frustrated by. Why sometimes I know I get pushed back because I have had to discipline myself so hard because I'm running a business. And, you know, again, I have staff around me who understand me basically and tolerate my weirdness, but it's still not easy to run a business all the time with all the differences.

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0:47:56 Matt: Two responses that are kind of frustrating. I was wondering if you've kind of gotten these out in the world where there's kind of this idea now, well, we're all a little autistic. And I was like, well are we all sitting in the dark with our shoes and socks off? Every time we have to do something important, are we also like, I can't, I can't play music or, and if I could in court, if they would just let me, it'd be amazing if I I'd be like 25 % better at all of this. We're not all walking around practicing every single thing we're going to do in our lives. I'm pretty sure. I don't know. Maybe, maybe that's happening. There's that. And then there's also the kind of thing of like, well, you're not really autistic, are you? I mean, like you're just kind of different. Have you gotten those kinds of responses? Yeah.

0:48:27 Peter: I have early on from a couple people, people, but we're all a little autistic. Yes, that you hear once in a while for sure. You had mentioned the spectrum, and I think people don't get the spectrum what the spectrum is. When I used to hear it, I think of it as like the speedometer on a car, and you were either zero autistic or 5 % autistic or 10 or 20 or 50. And so people might think, well, Peter might be 10 % autistic. And no, no, you're 100 % autistic. I think that the spectrum is kind of like what astronomers would use to look at a star and say, there's this much hydrogen, there is this much helium. Autistic people also have all these common features, but we have them in different amounts, different things rise. For me, those social issues, to some extent, communication issues, speaking, I can write happily. Speaking is a little harder for me. People don't understand exactly how that that works. But yeah, a little bit autistic. No, probably not. Probably not. But I trust anyone who says they are autistic, that they themselves are autistic.

0:49:10 Matt: Mm -hmm. Mm -huh. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. No, it's, it'S, yeah. It's a hard thing to reach sometimes. I've also, it's funny you mentioned astronomy because I've heard it described as a constellation, right? Like you have different clusters of traits and, you know, like I could relate to maybe 85 % or 90 % of what you had in your book. And I think maybe, again, these are different life circumstances, different sort of right place, wrong place, right time, wrong time kind of things. One of the things you wrote that you kind of initially were pushing back when you're thinking about, is this really me, is you didn't really feel like you had any sensory issues.

0:49:58 Matt: And I know that I have sensory issues, it's never been a question for me. I can't stand loud credit rooms, I can't stand bright lights and loud sounds. AndI always feel like I'm yelling even when I'm speaking as quietly as possible in a microphone right now. That is a really good point what you're making about how there isn't a zero to 60. And we have all these wonderful variations within the realm of being on the spectrum and these different kinds of brains that we're still learning how it all works and the relationship between ADHD and non-autism and what ADHD actually is. One thing I want to ask you about before we go, though, I love how music is such a theme in your book. It's something I can certainly also relate to. It saved me, like it allowed me to really be able to express myself and to make friends. It was the only way that I was really able to make friends growing up was playing music.

0:50:35 Matt: I just want to give you a chance to talk about what music means to you and kind of what it is still in your life and how it's helped you.

0:50:35 Peter: First and foremost, there was that Chuck Berry thing that happened. Before that, I still loved music. We were all listening to all the stuff that was coming out in the late 60s. I had a lot of older brothers and sisters. So listening to music has always been huge. Those brothers and sister's all introduced me to different things to whether it was Sly and the Family Stone or jazz or any form of music, Bob Dylan stuff. And then finally, my departed brother, Steve-O, introduced me to Chuck Berry. And then I went autistically down all the paths to Steve-Oh Walker and all those folks. But I also have always been good at just sort of picking up an instrument and playing something on it, whether it's the piano or guitars or drums or things like that. So that's always been a huge huge part. And I've realized that as an autistic person, like I only stepped on stage with a guitar when I was like 55 or some 56, but I played, I noodled on the guitar my entire life. Like I learned almost everything I could do on the in about a month when I went away to college, I couldn't bring drums. So I brought a old guitar and that noodling on the guitar or playing the drums, I think are sort of my version of what's that word when people rock stims, stimming.

0:51:55 Peter: I don't sit and rock back and forth a whole lot.

0:51:54 Thomas: Was too yeah you rock out yeah

0:51:59 Peter: Yeah, exactly. And just some of it, I mean, I spent most of my life watching The Bachelorette while noodling on the guitar. I had to do something while I was doing the other things. So it's hugely important. I'm curious what you play. What do you?

0:52:06 Thomas: I

0:52:34 Matt: With other people too the chance to I mean to me it's like some of the only times I felt comfortable around other people like completely comfortable around people I don't know very well as if I'm playing music with them because you don't have to talk you can just you can connect that way and you have this with this language you can have together from what I've been reading it's incredibly effective as therapy for people with the whole spectrum of autistic uh expression oh I play piano I have my whole life can't never really got into guitar. I just couldn't really do it. Later in life, I expect I'll pick it up.

0:52:40 Matt: And all of my other artistic pursuits, it just was kind of the only way that I could really connect with people. My particular expression of autism comes with dyscalculia. I have like a severe aversion to numbers, as listeners well know by now.

0:52:51 Thomas: Didn't know that when I was laughing at matt I've just you know it's hard because it is also funny I can't I'm sorry I first off I didn' t know that I'd like genuinely didn't know that and then secondly it's still funny and I don't know that I can oh I

0:52:55 Matt: It's fine. It is funny. I laugh at it all the time.

0:53:05 Matt: No, it's totally fine. I make fun of myself all the time, I can't believe the stuff I can do with numbers. But it also means I can follow team sports, which is very inconvenient convenient in Boston, obviously. Yeah, like wrong town. Did you get into sports? I don't think they really came up in the book. Oh, basketball. That's right. You had a basketball thing.

0:53:14 Thomas: Didn't think about that

0:53:20 Peter: No, no. I liked watching the Sonics. I got into basketball right when I moved to Seattle. No, I couldn't play sports.

0:53:29 Matt: Me neither.

0:53:30 Peter: My parents were semi -professional baseball players, track stars, badminton players, golfers. My mother was this great golfer. That skipped over me. Other people in my family could play sports to some degree. I have the problem with coordination and balance, hand -eye coordination. There's no way that I could do any sports. Golf, I kind of liked, but as I say in the book, I don't like foursomes, so forget that one I could go out and play by myself I ran I ran marathons and half marathones slowly

0:54:02 Matt: Solo sports. Yeah., of course. That is the way. I am also pretty clumsy and just constantly covered with inexplicable bruises. I don' t remember how I got them.

0:54:08 Peter: Yeah what I also think is funny is that I can do arithmetic multiplication division that kind of thing

0:54:14 Matt: I brag about it one, don't you?

0:54:15 Thomas: Wow oh

0:54:17 Peter: But but I could speak with engineers they love me I just understood them you know and a lot of them are autistic and the ones that aren't I kind of theorize that there's a couple sorts of autistic people. One sort is the mathematical autistic people, and the other sort is artistic autistic people and I think I'm in the artistic camp and sounds like you are as well.

0:54:42 Peter: And then there's the mathematical people, but somehow I could communicate with them. I always understood I could often teach them about the cases and ask them the right questions that changed their minds about cases. That was one of the things that was explained by the diagnosis gnosis. It's just this ability to communicate with these people who know a field that I don't understand at all in reality.

0:55:02 Matt: That makes a lot of sense. And I wanted to touch on before we go, one other thing that has come up in this interview and also in the the book that I also struggled with, which is the idea that if I tell people that I'm autistic, they're going to think I'm not funny, which is a stereotype that I had in my head for so long. And then I started to realize that some of the people that I think are funniest in the world definitely are on the spectrum. There's no question. I studied humor intensively in high school to try to figure out what makes people laugh, because I knew it was the easiest way to communicate. And if you're goingto be weird, you might as well be funny, right?

0:55:12 Peter: Well,

0:55:26 Matt: It really seems to work. And I just want to say, I think the book is very funny. I think you're a funny guy. I just enjoyed talking to you. I really hope that we can keep pushing back against that, because I do think that the autistic people I've met are some of the funniest people in the world. I really do.

0:55:26 Thomas: Yeah it's too easy as like a character trope I think and stuff and on tv or whatever where it's like oh I made a joke and they take it literally there is literalism it seems to be a real thing right like some sometimes I know my autistic friends take stuff too literally sometimes, but it doesn't mean that like humor is impossible.

0:55:55 Matt: No, no. And I've learned how to get that kind of nuance. I still take things to literally sometimes, but I really appreciate just the chance for an hour of autistic joy here with you. It's really been a great conversation. I Really thank you so much.

0:56:05 Peter: Thank you very much for inviting me to do it.

0:56:08 Matt: So the book of course is my so -called disorder, autism, exploding trucks and the big daddy of rock and roll by Peter O 'Neill. And it's been a pleasure to have you with us. Is there anything else you want us to take a look at or point people to?

0:56:17 Peter: No, I think this has been a really fun conversation. Thanks for inviting me. Thanks. For thinking the book is funny because you never know when you write a book that whether people will see that or not. Thanks for reading it and telling the world a little about it.

0:56:30 Matt: No, thank you. And we're looking forward to having you join us for book club last Sunday of the month for patrons. So we'll be seeing you You know, dropping by for that.

0:56:38 Matt: I'm sure we'll have many more questions. I know that we've got a lot of people who have been excited to read this book. I've been hearing great things back from people who've been reading it.

0:56:43 Peter: Great. Hey, one thing I'd ask if you read it and you like it and and you bought it someplace, you could leave a little review.

0:56:49 Matt: There you go. Please do that. Yeah.

0:56:49 Peter: Please do, or tell people about it, because I don't get enough word of mouth, and that's all I get these days. This I really appreciate.

0:56:58 Matt: Of course.

0:56:58 Thomas: Our pleasure.

0:56:59 Matt: My pleasure. Are we all sitting in the dark with our shoes and socks off?

0:57:39 Peter: You've won! Shut up! We worked with another attorney named Murray, so that was bad. Peter, Paul, and Murray.

0:57:49 Matt: That's great.

0:57:50 Thomas: That's fantastic.