Welcome to the special Valentine’s Day edition of Veteran Led. We all know the buddy system is integral to the success of every military mission. But it’s just as important on the homefront with your significant other. In this episode, the tables are slightly turned as Omaha Bar Association Executive Director, Dave Sommers interviews John and his wife, Mallory Hughes, as they discuss the unique dynamic of being married to another lawyer and highlight the importance of the buddy system in both work and personal relationships.
John and Mallory share their experiences and insights on building trust, collaborating effectively, and balancing work and home life. This insightful conversation emphasizes the benefits of having a strong buddy team in all aspects of life. Don’t miss out on learning from these inspiring leaders who use their military experiences to excel in their careers and continue to serve their communities. Watch now and discover the power of a supportive partner in achieving success.
Welcome to the special Valentine’s Day edition of Veteran Led. In today’s episode, Omaha Bar Association Executive Director Dave Sommers interviews me and my wife, Mallory Hughes. We all know how important our buddy teams can be. And the most important buddy team is you and your significant other. Here we go.
Welcome to the Veteran Led podcast, where we talk with leaders who use their military experiences to develop great organizations and continue to serve their communities.
I think there’s something special to being married to an attorney. That’s my personal bias as somebody who’s married to an attorney. We thought, what better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day but have you guys out and answer some questions about what makes it special being a lawyer married to another lawyer. So take us back. Tell us how you guys met and those early days of the courtship.
Sure. Well, let me start by saying that I don’t think it’s about a lawyer being married to a lawyer. Maybe it’s being married to someone who gets you.
Yes. Right.
We met trying a case together, and I had a case that I was working on, and one of Mallory’s colleagues suggested that she would be a good second chair for the case. She had just come off of a really big win. We started working together on this case, and it went really well. I would say the dynamic went from, “The first case we tried was, ‘Okay, you sit here, here are your witnesses, and you will do the opening statement,'” to, “Now, I will do whatever she tells me to do in the case.” I think that that’s just the trust, but not just the trust of a spouse, but the trust of a colleague that you work really hard with. And I think there’s a lot of similarities, and that you have to be able to live with your spouse day in and day out. And as some of us that try cases, it seems like we’re together all the time. And so if that chemistry is there, and you can collaborate, and you can critique each other, and you can still get along, then it’s pretty special.
Yeah. So we were in Nebraska City. There’s an annual federal criminal defense CLE that’s put on by the federal public defender’s office for the CJA Panel attorneys. So that’s where we were. And yeah, one of my colleagues introduced us and we talked about the case. And a few weeks later, John brought me on to it. And so we met trying a case together and I learned a lot from him. That was my early days of trial practice. That was probably only my third or fourth jury trial ever at that point in time. I learned a tremendous amount. But after that, we picked up another case together, and then we went to some seminars together, and the rest is history.
I think it’s rare to have working together and being in a relationship because I love to go home and tell my wife, I was the hero today. I did everything right. If anything went wrong, it wasn’t my fault. You’re working next to this person. You’re working the same case. You can’t fib a little bit about what happened. They’re seeing everything you’re doing day in, day out. And that closeness, it’s pretty special. I can never do it, but you guys seem to do it very well.
I think it’s easier. I think it’s easier in the courtroom, and I think it’s easier when you have your professional hat on than when you come home. Because we accept feedback as a gift. We want to get better, and we’re both hyper competitive, and so we want to work together to win. So we both know how to be on a great team in the courtroom. But at home, sometimes it’s different. So I think the best example is, because I think we won six or seven jury trials together, and all of a sudden, we lost one. And I realized after we lost that one, that Mallory is now, she’s better than me. And so it’s time for her to take the lead. So now I’m working with someone who’s better than me, and I can accept that. And that’s very easy to do in a professional setting, at least for me. But then when we get home, it’s a different game.
Yeah. I think in some ways, it almost makes for the most effective co-counseling situation because we do have that common goal of we want to get the best possible result for our client. And I don’t either one of us takes offense to just brutal, quick honesty. And so you don’t have to necessarily sidestep or try and be more gentle or like, Hey, have you considered doing… It’s like, Nope, that’s the wrong way to do it. We have to do it this way. And we both do that to each other. And there’s no offense taken because this is what’s best for the client. Whereas if you’re working with someone you’re not quite as close with, you have to be a little more professional and kind. And so to be able to just be blunt and raw, it saves a lot of time, frankly. But yeah, it is the transition from work to home. And then maybe somebody’s ready to unwind and watch TV and binge on a series, and the other person is still in work mode. And then that definitely impacts the other person’s ability to relax. And that’s definitely something that I think we run into.
We’re not always in the same…
The hat’s off.
Yeah. Sometimes the hat’s off for one person and still on for the other, and that’s when it can be a little tricky.
But it is so nice to be able to share this, connect with what you do professionally in your relationship, right? To experience those joys of winning together, of preparing and winning a trial and things like that. That can be extremely satisfying.
I think it’s easy to align. In any profession, professionals know how to align. They know how to work as a team. They know how to put the client first and get the job done. And that is paramount. That goes above your feelings, above what may have happened last night, good or bad. But you have to put that aside, and you can maintain that alignment in the professional environment. But you get outside of that environment, and it’s messy. It gets really messy because now we’re not working together towards a goal. Now we’re independent people trying to cohabitate. It’s a lot different when we’re different people outside the courtroom. Number one, the client isn’t there anymore, so we don’t have to maintain that level of professionalism. But the other part is that we just… We become different people. Now, we take it down a notch, we’re a little bit more relaxed, and it’s also, okay, now this is me time. And then if we’re both having our me time at the same time, then are we really working together? And the answer is no. We’re both doing our own thing. And that’s where it becomes really hard because now we have to compromise.
In a trial, we don’t compromise on excellence. If I’m screwed up and she tells me I’m screwed up, okay, if you’re right, I can take that. But if I’m at home and she’s like, You never take out the f****** trash, well, that’s not true, and I’m going to fight back on that.
But this brings up a really interesting point, which is the phone as the other thing in the relationship, right? You’re in the same room, you’re spending quality time together, but sometimes that phone just gets in the way and… Yeah, we were in the same room, but it wasn’t necessarily a time that we were together. We were on our phones.
Well, so I do, Wordle, Worldle, connection, spelling bee, crossword, all those with my family. But they all do them in the morning. And that’s one of my things at night that I like to do after I’m done with work and in bed. So that’s definitely a common thing. So if he starts something on TV, I’m usually doing my puzzles on the phone.
And I have no notifications on my phone. I don’t let anything pop up on my phone. No notifications. And so I don’t have social media on my phone, but Mallory doesn’t have her work email on her phone. So that way, you own your phone or your phone owns you. And I like to be proactive, not reactive. I think one of the challenges is if people are on their phone, they’re digging and buzzing all night, then it’s really going to affect the opportunities for intimacy, and you’re just going to be on your phone. As you know, clients don’t… If you don’t set really good boundaries, they’re not going to follow them. Even if you set them, that doesn’t mean you won’t get a text or an email at 10:00 at night. I just prefer to not have that notification.
And as criminal defense attorneys, you do have to be available for a potential arrest during the night, right?
There is such thing as vacation, but there’s not in the sense of if a client calls me in a panic and I’m in the Caribbean on a vacation, I’m answering the phone, I’m going up to the room, I’m taking 20 minutes to figure out what’s going on, or at least taking the time to talk to another attorney on my team who has boots on the ground that can help. But yeah, that is my entire career. I’ve never had my work email come into my phone. That is one thing that I’ve… But I still get feedback that I’m overly available. Why are you emailing me back at midnight? Sometimes I’m up.
But I think that’s the culture we want to set, too, because look, if a PI lawyer gets a call at 3:00 in the morning and clients in the hospital, they’re going to the hospital. And that’s just you have to have that attitude. And a friend of mine who’s highly successful. We were in a meeting with some amazing attorneys, and he took a phone call. I said, You’re one of the most successful people I know. How do you step out and take a phone call? He’s like, Hey, if you want to make money, you got to be inconvenienced. His idea was, I will be available 24/7. Then there are other people that say, No, I am in to set clear boundaries. I think your relationship suffers if you don’t set those boundaries. For this individual, I don’t know what his personal life looks like. I know that he always answers the phone, and he’s great at getting on and getting off the phone, and he wants his clients to know that he’s available all the time and gives out his cell phone number to everybody. And there are people that do that. I think sometimes early in your practice, you have to do that, but then you can move on to you realize that, Well, that might be an opportunity for a junior attorney to have that role.
I think this, like looping it back to the couple situation, is where we can have a certain level of understanding and empathy that this is the reality of it. Whereas someone who has a 9:00 to 5:00 job who’s able to shut it off until the next morning at 9:00, might not understand why on earth are you stepping out of the bedroom at 10:00 at night to go do this. I think we understand. Short of the result, communication with the client is the most important thing. And sometimes they just need to have a conversation or know that everything’s okay in their case. But anyway, point being, I think that that’s understanding the fires, understanding that, yes, this is important. This is how our job functions, and being able to know it because we each live it, I think, is a helpful part of the relationship, whereas somebody who doesn’t have the same career is like, What? No, you’re done. It’s after 05:00 PM. What are you doing?
But I think that gives us a lot more freedom, too. So in terms of if stuff has to done, we do it. That might be at 6:00 in the morning, it might be at 10:00 at night. But then that also when you get the stuff done, you don’t have to live in this world of like, Okay, I’m going to be at the office from 07:00 AM to 05:00 PM. Now, if you’re a young lawyer, be there. If you’re in litigation, you need to be there. You just learn from being there. I think it’s unfortunate that a lot of the newer lawyers seem to miss out on that opportunity of being present in the office, because that’s where I really learned as a new lawyer, it was being present and the opportunities and just being there and being immersed with it. You can’t really learn litigation if you’re not present. But as we move on, it’s, Okay, I have to be in the office maybe today until noon, but then I’ve got all this other stuff I want to do. Well, can I do that from noon to 5? And can we go to dinner?
Yes. Now, I’ll probably be working till 10 or 11:00 in the clock at night, but that’s fine, so long as I meet my obligations. I think too often we get caught up in this mindset where we got to be at the office from 7 AM to whatever it is, 7 PM, and then we don’t get to see our family. You can go home, leave at 4:00 or 5:00, have dinner with your family, and then do the work. No, there’s not balance. There never has been balance. Not if you want to be great at what you do. You can look at a lot of… Go to any other profession and you can say, Well, does this person work 40 hours a week? No, they don’t work 40 hours a week. And yes, if you choose to have that lifestyle where you’re working 60, 70 hours a week, it’s going to impact the time you spend with your family. But the key is to make that time count and to be present during that time. I mean, if you’re just on your phone the whole time when you’re together and you’re responding to clients, you’re not really together. You might as well just go back to the office.
Right. Absolutely. So you guys have kids. You have twins, Sienna and…
Gabriella.
I always forget Gabriella. I’m so sorry. They just turned one.
Yes, on New Year’s Eve.
Oh, my gosh. So exciting. I mean, that’s a lot. That’s a lot to have twins the same age. To be that young. How has that affected your guys’ relationship?
I think that it’s… For me, it’s been, okay, I need to be more efficient with my day from a work perspective so that I can then be present with the family at the end of the workday. Before, when I didn’t have kids, and John was always very understanding of, I could stop work at 3:00 one day, and I could stop work at 11:00 PM the next day. It was there was no… And so for me, it’s just being more efficient with my day and setting a hard boundary to be able to go to family time and not let work transition, and then circling back in the evening and working after the girls go to bed. So that’s been the trickier thing, I would say, for me, is I didn’t have to be quite as efficient with my time before. But John has two older kids, too. So this is his second go around with the balancing act.
We figured out. We crunched the numbers, and it’s actually much more cost-effective when you have two lawyers to just get a nanny because the amount of time we work and the loss sleep, we need to be at our best for our clients. And so we’ve realized it’s worth it to pay somebody else to get up in the middle of the night so we can be ready, refreshed. It’s also good for a relationship. It removes a lot of the stress. It removes a lot of, you got up. And look, I’ve lived a life before where, Hey, well, it’s not my turn to get up. I’ve done that. While most couples get through that part of it, it’s a tough part of the relationship. We just decided, we’re not going to do that. I would rather work a few more hours and then be able to enjoy the time with my family than to always be struggling to do everything.
We get to really just enjoy our time with them. Our nanny is actually also a doula, so she has some extra training as far as sleep training, which is really important with twins, getting them on the same schedule, but feeding and that stuff. But she helps us meal plan for them. She does their laundry, she does their dishes. So when we’re with them, we don’t have to be thinking about doing all the collateral things for the kids. So if it’s related to the kids, she’s helping out with it, basically. Which I think is really nice. And you hear a lot of couples where, oh, dad gets to come home and be the fun dad. And mom’s cleaning up all this stuff. Well, we don’t have to worry about those battles, and we don’t have to worry about allocating time to chores related to the babies right now. We just get to be with them and eat with them and watch them do the next thing that they’re going to learn to do.
They are so cute. And they have their own personalities. And I just love seeing all the photos and videos you post. So you guys are probably, I’m not going on a limb here. You guys are the most well-known lawyer couple in Nebraska. We got the billboards, we got the ads on TV. You guys are the known couple out there. How does it feel to be so famous in this small little world we have in Omaha? I mean, people that aren’t in the legal profession know you guys because you’re everywhere. You’re synonymous with the Omaha legal world.
Omaha is a small city. I feel like we go to these other events and we see the couples that are on a national scale. And I’m like, those are famous people. But I don’t know why.
Yeah, and I don’t think we’re famous. It’s more of a function of running a growing law firm. I’m not a huge fan of advertising. It costs a lot of money. But when I was a young lawyer, there was a lawyer that was highly successful in a specific area of law. I had won one case in this area this year, one year, and he had won five. When I didn’t find out till the end of the year was that’s because he had 50 of those cases. I had five. And so what I learned was sometimes to get the best cases, you got to get the most cases or at least enough for it to make a difference. And I couldn’t understand. Like, this guy’s great he’s winning all the cases. And then when I suddenly understood that if you’re looking for a specific fact pattern, you have to look for more fact patterns. It’s not going to be the one case, it’s not going to be there. But it might be there in 10, 20, 30 cases. It’s going to It’s going to show up eventually. But the problem is if you’re just going to sit around and wait for it, it’s not going to come.
So you do what you can to, I think, get the opportunities. And that’s where the value is. And then the byproduct is being… And I don’t know whether it’s a good byproduct or a bad byproduct because then people know us, they recognize us, they see us. And certainly, you have to be cautious. People will call, Hey, John. I’m like, I don’t know. That awkward moment where you say, Do I know this person? Should I say, Hey, yeah?
I mean, John has always, I feel like, been on the brink of the next new technology and marketing and things like that. And I’m not. And I’m not disinterested in it, but I’m just focused on my practice. And so I appreciate him doing the research and knowing and being involved in different groups where he learns the next new thing. And it’s nice to be at a place, well, I’m married to someone, frankly, who just says, Okay, these are your strengths, and this is what you have to offer, and this is the best way to market that and just follow blindly, almost, because it’s like, that’s not my area of expertise. I’m not in marketing. I’m not in business development. But I listen to people who are and just say, Okay, you think this works? Then let’s do it. And I’ll keep practicing law and doing the best I can on the cases.
And that’s the thing. As attorneys, sometimes we have that problem of not saying, We’re not the expert in this area. We know all this over here. Somebody else can do it. Somebody else can do our podcast video. And having the right experts and the right professionals doing the work to offset our good work in the courtroom is important. I think you guys have done a great job of that. One thing also that I’ve seen that I’m really impressed with, and I think word’s gotten on there in the community, is the culture that the firm has. John, I know you’ve talked about this in other podcast episodes about the team aspect, the squad mindset, and also the way you make decisions everyone’s heard. Can you talk a little bit about the culture that you guys are building?
Sure. So we want lawyers to be the best lawyers they can be. I see them as the tactical athletes, the ones that go out, and if they can focus on their craft and just focus on that, then they can become great. But it’s all the other distractions. I learned this when I was running the firm and I had to worry about payroll and back then the yellow pages, if you can believe it.
Yeah, I remember.
Figuring out whether we’re going to need to borrow money, figuring out how many cases came in the door, figuring out whether we had enough attorneys, we needed more attorneys, we needed more staff, HR issues. I was doing it all. And you just get so burned out. And not only does it take its toll on you and your family, but you’re also just not… You’re doing your clients a disservice. So if you’re going to be great at something, be great at it. And then you have to just let everything else go. When I say let it go, I mean hire somebody better than you to do it. I know that there was a book that came out, and I’ve just got an argument about this today.
It was called Buy Back Your Time. And the idea is that you just pay people to take things off your plate. But where I violently disagree is when they say, Well, yeah, you can just pay people to do everything to take it off your plate. No, no, no. You get to a level where you want to hire people who do it better than you, so you don’t even have to think about it. In other words, they’re educating you. So my goal is that we build a staff that knows how to do all these things so that the lawyers can just be lawyers, and that they don’t have to worry about all that other stuff. They can focus on their clients. They can focus on their cases. And my job is to bring them those opportunities. If I can’t provide them the best opportunity, and they go somewhere else, then I failed. And as leaders, we fail often. But that’s where we learn. And where I’ve learned the most is to hire the absolute best people. Look, we have somebody running a finance function for us that can help us work through the complicated stuff. I don’t understand.
We’ve got somebody running marketing. We’ve got someone running our intake. We’ve got someone running our HR. We’ve got a chief information officer that’s running our IT to make sure our lawyers never have a problem, or their computer doesn’t turn on. It doesn’t work. They’re working through the IT issues. They’re making sure our lawyers are at least literate when it comes to trial tech, because, Hey, let’s walk through. Let’s make sure you understand how your presentation is going to work, because there’s nothing more than the jury sitting there, and they’ve been sitting there for two weeks, and now they’re waiting for some lawyer to figure out how to use PowerPoint or one of the other presentation programs. It really has been about focusing on providing the best opportunities for the best lawyers to get even better. We want to hire great people, and then we want to give them this opportunity to get even better. That doesn’t happen overnight. You’re not going to have the best team tomorrow. Even if I decide to hire them, it’s going to take me years. By the way, if I don’t have the best team, then I’m not getting the best lawyers.
It takes time to, I think, build an attractive organization where you can say, Hey, come here, and we will do what we can to make you successful because we believe that you’re a great lawyer. And we can help you get there by removing all the extraneous stuff and putting you with a group of champions. When people come, the thoroughbreds want to know that there’s other thoroughbreds in the racetrack. They don’t want to come to the racetrack and see a bunch of donkeys. They want to run against other champions. And so when you have great lawyers like Mallory on the team, it’s easier to attract good talent. Then they come and say, Oh, yeah, we love what Mallory is doing. She’s winning all these trials. I say, Yeah, and by the way, we’ve got a phenomenal marketing team, IT team, and we can really help bring your practice to the next level if that’s what you want. Now, here’s where I have absolutely failed. I always believe that people want what I want or what Mallory wants. And some people don’t want that. They’re like, Hey, I really wanted to get the cases, but I want nothing to do with marketing.
Or some people, they’re amazing, and especially on our veterans law side, they wouldn’t work 8:00 to 5:00. We’ve got some phenomenal lawyers. They can just go 8:00 to 5:00, they’re in, they’re out. They do amazing work. They win for their clients, but they don’t have to worry about the client calling for the emergency at 10:00 at night, like the PI lawyers and the criminal lawyers have to worry about. So I try to create an environment where it’s right for the right people. But if you have the right people on your team, the message is always right. So I don’t worry that much about messaging. I worry about providing the resources for them to be successful and getting the right players on the team. Because also, I don’t believe that any lawyer, I’ll probably get beat up for this. If possible, a lawyer should never try a case alone. We should be working together throughout the case. Two heads are better than one, and there’s just so much you miss. And working together, Mallory is telling me, You did this wrong. This cross-examination is wrong. This impeachment is wrong. But had she not done that, that might have affected the outcome of the case.
So I think it’s important to have a team. Look, as lawyers, we go through some pretty deep, dark times when we lose, when we fail our clients, when we let ourselves down. I mean, it’s not all wins. And you’re in criminal defense, the deck is stacked against you. And it’s tough. And even in PI cases, you’re like, There’s so much money on the table right now that we’ve already invested in depositions and expert witnesses. And it’s really tough sometimes to go that alone. But when you have a team and they’re looking up to you, it’s very hard to not feel inspired. And I think that’s the key, is to hire your heroes, hire the people you look up to. And doing that has made quite a difference. And I know Mallory has a lot of team members that are her friends, right? And they get along. And some people were friends before they joined the team, and some have been friends afterwards. But it’s those deep bonds that you build when you’re really working together on solving the client’s problem. And I think that that’s really what’s worked well for us. And once again, I don’t have all the answers.
I’ve done a lot of things wrong. And through failing, I’ve learned quite a bit.
Well, it’s just you have egos. We have egos as attorneys. You put us in an environment together without the right framework, and it can be a complete nightmare. Everyone’s going up against everybody else. They see everybody else as a competitor against them. And I think you guys have had a pretty healthy culture of team that I think it’s a good learning point for some people out there, for some firms out there.
Yeah. I came from another firm when I worked for Stu Gordon, that was very collaborative as well, trying cases together. I mean, I am not ashamed that I have never tried a felony case by myself. You have to set your ego aside. Could I win a felony case by myself? I would like to think so. But gosh, do I want to gamble on that for a client, or do I want to give my client two attorneys, two heads? So that, to me, is when it can be done. That’s a good way to do it. But on more of a micro level, I guess, than John talked about, I mean, the two other attorneys on my team. We have some subsections depending on subject matter in our firm. I’ve talked to them collectively three separate times today already, and it’s only three o’clock. And that’s routine for us. We talk every single day of the week about our cases. We’re collaborating. They’re phenomenal attorneys, and I learn from them every day, and I hope they learn from me some. And I know our clients are benefited by multiple people being involved in the cases. So I like the team approach.
I think that that’s where you unturn all the stones and put forth the best that you can.
I think that’s a really important point because law school doesn’t develop lawyers, right? And you come out of law school and you know a little bit. I’m very thankful that I clerked at the Douglas County Public Defender’s office. I got a couple of years of experience knowing what really happens in the courtroom and how to file something. This is before electronic filing. But you learn how to do these things through doing. And there’s a big difference between training and development. And so when someone It comes to us, we have a 90-day onboarding program where we will actually, Okay, we’re going to train you on how to use Filevine and SurePoint and all of our systems. But the real development comes from the team members like Mallory. And so the way we break it down is I have commanders of each section, and then there’s platoon leaders. Then each platoon leader is going to have a few attorneys that they are responsible for developing. That way, those platoons can… Mallory has, I guess, right now, two other attorneys and legal assistants and paralegals, but they all work together as a team. The value in that is as junior attorneys develop.
Now, that being said, it works a lot better when people are in the office, so they can just be present for that, Hey, you, can you help me, please? As opposed to when we see somebody, we’re just more likely to give them an opportunity than if we don’t see them. But I will tell you that one of Mallory’s best lawyers is in Lincoln, and it just works out that way. But as lawyers, we have to be dedicated to mentoring those team members. We can train. Look, we have a corporate trainer at Barry Law that can teach you all the basics, but you can’t learn how to practice law. You must be developed to practice law and to practice law well. And so it’s a developing and mentoring. And so people like Mallory totally get that. Now, that being said, leadership is tough. Leadership, especially with lawyers, because generally, lawyers are not leaders. They’re technicians. They want to be super good at what they do, and that is understanding the law, applying the law, winning for their clients. But then you have to bring in other people’s opinions, and you have to get results. And leadership, while it’s important to have diversity of thought and diversity of opinion, leaders get results.
And it’s tough because when we bring people in, it’s okay, this is about leadership, and they think it’s all about talking and feeling good. I’m like, No, no, no, no. It’s about winning. Leadership is really about winning for your client, winning for your team. And I always say, if someone wants to do something it has to be a triple win. It’s got to be a win for the client. It’s got to be a win for the lawyers in the firm. And it’s got to be a win for the firm as a whole. If we can do that, then everybody wins, that’s what leadership is. It’s really aligning people. And I said, I failed miserably from time to time. But I get frustrated then when I have a subordinate leader who might be running a team, and they’re doing the same things I was doing. And it’s like, Man, just believe me, don’t do that. Don’t do that. And they do it. And then there’s pushback. I think back in the military, I would always be able to tell my company commander, Hey, are you sure you want to do that? And if they did it, they learned from it.
But I think in law, it’s a little bit different because in a military training environment, yes, there are risks, and we certainly mitigate the risks. In the law, we’re playing with live rounds here. These are real clients with real problems and if we don’t have a great leadership structure where our team is performing and we’re holding our teammates to the standard, the client is affected. So we have to get it right. And so sometimes it makes it very difficult to have some of those conversations. I wouldn’t call them difficult conversations. I’m pretty straightforward. But for some people, it’s pretty difficult, right? Because we want to give someone feedback in a way that they see it as a gift and it helps them. We don’t want to give them feedback, and then they just bristle and say, Oh, they just don’t like me, or they’re just jealous or whatever. And it’s like, No, I’m giving you this feedback because I want you to be successful. And that’s one of the things where I’ve really pulled back. Now, I love to try a case, but I’m not trying to take cases away from other lawyers. I want those lawyers to own those cases and to learn from those cases, and I want to be there to support.
But I’m not going to jump in and take one of Mallory’s cases or walk into her office and Hey, I’m going to kick Paul off this case because I want to try it with you. I generally will bet… Now, someone asks, I’m always like, available. The asks seem to get fewer and fewer these days for some reason, so maybe I’m not that good. But I want to help. I think that’s the example I can set is, how can I help? How can I help you be a better lawyer? How can I help you reach your financial goals? How can we make this work? Having those conversations, I think, works well. And even Mallory and I have the conversation. What do we want our future look like? I’ll tell you, if someone can’t tell me what they want their future to look like or they don’t want to tell me, they’re probably not going to work out because I need someone who wants a bigger future. I need someone who gives me energy. If I come out of a meeting and I have less energy than going in, I probably got the wrong people in the meeting.
With Mallory, she’s got big goals and so does her team. And so it’s very easy to have those conversations, but it’s when you don’t really know what your team member wants or if they don’t want something bigger and they’re just here to cruise, look, high performers and low performers don’t get along.
Well, that’s true. That’s a big part of the team working together is similar mission feeling from both them, understanding what they want in a big way. What’s one thing about the other that you really appreciate? And what’s one thing that really bugs you in a big way?
I really like the sex.
I love it. Okay.
What I really appreciate is I think we’re both…
This is a mature podcast. I’m checking that box.
You can edit it out if you want to. That’s fine. But what I really enjoy about the relationship, I say that, I’m not really joking because it’s more the physical. We do a lot together. Sometimes we work out together. We ski together. Mallory was an Olympic development skier. We play sports together. So we do a lot of physical activities together, which I think makes our relationship better because that’s one thing to talk and to have the nice dinners. But for me, that doesn’t really make me feel close to someone. It’s when we’re actually doing something together, whether it’s trying a case or skiing or biking or doing an exercise program. It just makes me feel like I’m close to that person. When Mallory and I do that, I think I really like that part of our relationship.
Mallory?
John’s energy in everything. I mean, it’s really…
This John Berry? Energy?
The same person sitting here. I know you wouldn’t guess it, right? Yeah. No, it’s high energy whatever we’re doing. It’s all the things he mentioned, exercising, work, trial, skiing, even with the kids. I mean, it’s always a million decibels of, Hey. But no, in a good way. So, yeah, I would say the energy he brings.
Opposite? What bugs you? What does he do that bugs you?
Oh, that’s easy. The protein powder and energy powder that is caked to the kitchen sink or the counter that I have to then go clean up.
There’s no easy way to put it into the bottle. I’ve tried.
It’s the formula that helps give him all the energy that I love so much, but seeing it on the counter and on the sink.
Well, my defense attorney in this would be Maggie Ebert from Kutack Rock. We’ve had this discussion that maybe what we’re doing is a little bit more important than getting a little powder somewhere. Maggie, if you could send a text later today.
Andrew, we can talk to because Andrew will call Maggie a serial killer for knowingly leaving powder on the counter.
That checks out.
I would say that the thing that bothers me is that while Mallory is a phenomenal cross cross-examiner. I mean, she can just go in and she doesn’t let go. It can be the same way at home. Oh, yeah. And so sometimes I see people crying on the witness stand. I think, You have no idea what Tuesday night was like for me.
I love that. Yeah, that’s something I ask every single time is, does that happen at home? Do you get cross-examined at home? Because I’ve dealt with it. I feel that from time to time. Sometimes you put on that lawyer hat because it’s the easiest way to win the conversation and show them are wrong.
Yeah, proving your point.
Who’s the first to say that they’re wrong?
Well, that’s me because she never says she’s wrong.
Then that second part, who’s the first to say they’re sorry? They may not be wrong, but they’re sorry that this has happened.
I say it all the time. I don’t mean it, but I say it because that’s the quickest way to avoid the argument.
If you say it, it means something.
Yes. I would say that I have said I’m sorry in more meaningful ways than John.
Well, but this also goes to good gift giving. I’m sorry gifts can be important if done right. Who’s the first one to make fun of the other?
John makes fun of me for sure.
He is quick with the jokes, isn’t he? Who is more likely to correct the other one?
It depends. I think, especially if I’m wrong in a rule of evidence, I will hear about it for three days. But I think that in terms of sometimes the business aspects of the law, some of the leadership pieces where maybe Mallory comes in a little bit hot. I may have to say, Hey, you might want to rethink that. And then you say, Look, I told you. It’s like, this is what happened. So I think that when it comes to specific, I think, practice area stuff, Mallory is a steel trap mind, just really sharp, and will make that correction on the spot, which I appreciate. You got to make on-the-spot corrections. But I’m the same way where I don’t want someone to tell me two weeks later I screwed something up. So I will let her know, Hey, I think you’re making a bad decision here. And we have those conversations, and sometimes she listens, and most of the time she doesn’t.
Well, you’re a big fan of fail forward, right?
Oh, yeah.
That’s important. I don’t want to hear that I’m wrong. So I’m the opposite. I don’t want to be corrected until I admit it to the world, and then I can be told, Yes, we all knew this before.
Yes.
Well, I’m big on data. I have no problem being wrong. Show me I’m wrong. Show me the numbers, because the numbers tell the story. Especially in the practice of law, someone told me, well, we even talk about numbers, and we’re having an argument about what was the right numbers. I said, look, cash doesn’t lie. Give me the cash numbers, then we’ll work backwards from there. But I think for me, I’ve learned over time, I’m much less stubborn. I think it was when I turned 40 years old, I figured out that feedback really is a gift. But I have evolved a lot of my thinking over the time, and just because I’ve been wrong, and the numbers or the data has shown me I’m wrong, and then I’ll try something different. And then maybe that’ll work, maybe it won’t, or maybe it’ll only work for a little period of time. But I think, especially in a relationship, it’s difficult. Because if I could tell you data points and understand when I’m wrong, great. But in a relationship, it’s so nebulous. It’s all opinion. And so it’s very difficult to who’s right or wrong.
If I didn’t take a minute to scrape off the protein powder, but instead was able to hire a new lawyer in that time, where’s the value? I think we can live with a little protein powder in the sink. We have this argument all day long.
But I do think that because of what we do, I think some of the smaller things that maybe trigger in relationships more are like, 90% of the time I just take a Windex wipe and I clean it up myself. I don’t say, Do it differently. And same thing with whatever. Making one of the girls’ bottles. Well, they don’t do bottles anymore. But it’s just like, correcting things like that. It’s like if you have a certain… Because it is nebulous. It’s like there are different varying degrees of accomplishing something and some may think one way is better and then more optimal, and others think, Well, this got the same outcome. It’s just not quite as pretty or whatever. So for me, it’s typically, depending on my mood, but typically not worth making a fight about it and saying, You should have done it this way, and just going and doing it that way if I want something to look a little different than however he did it. Just fixing it myself rather than starting to fight about it.
Who plans where you go on vacation?
Me.
And who plans Valentine’s Day? Do you do?
I don’t know. We were like, every day is Valentine’s Day.
We really… Yeah.
We’re in Strapman to have the same answer here. Wow. You guys must have exchange notes there. Who plans day-nights? Let’s talk about that. Date-night plans?
Generally, she does. I don’t.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, and we haven’t been out.
Well, but Mallory is pretty good. I will eat anything. I mean, as long as it’s not vegetarian or vegan or something.
Yeah, I know that.
But Mallory is very good at researching the restaurants, knowing what’s a good restaurant, knowing what to order, what’s new. She’s very on top of the restaurant scene wherever we go, whether we’re here in Omaha or we’re on vacation somewhere. She already knows where she wants to go. We just came back from Aspen last week. All four nights, we had reservations somewhere.
I enjoy doing things. If it’s not moving the needle forward, I feel like you don’t want to make the decisions in that regard. You don’t want to look at the restaurant or pick the vacation. John’s just ready to show up for that stuff.
There’s a lot of big things that need to be figured out. Here’s all these questions that you’re answering for the day. Where are we going for dinner? That’s always the most important.
Yeah, I have decision fatigue by the end of the day. I really don’t care. But I think that’s a way to get unhealthy really quick, too. So then it’s like, Yeah, okay, well, we’ll just eat what looks good. So having somebody on the team who is aware of that. And we’re starting to actually start to try to cook some meals at home.
We are. I made lasagna last night, and I have a salmon marinating for tonight. It’s the twins, honestly, because we’re now introducing them to food. So I don’t want to give them DoorDash stuff. So with the cooking, we have definitely made more home-cooked meals lately.
I love how down-earth you guys are as a couple. I think that maybe there is misconceptions about you two, and I’m glad that we got you on the pod to have this conversation, to show you guys as fun, real people that care a lot. And so I wish you guys a happy Valentine’s Day. Thanks for coming on.
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