Ben Adams

Ben Adams (00:00):
They say you're not supposed to be angry in a courtroom, right? Because anger is the blood of the courtroom. Jerry Spence and they all said whoever's angry is losing. But on the other hand, if the defendant's conduct, if the company's conduct is outrageous, and you're not outraged, I don't think you have credibility.

Bob Simon (00:15):
The asbestos, this stuff was supposed to be cleaned out like the '70s, the '60s. How are these things still going on?

Ben Adams (00:21):
In May 9th, 1958, Johnson & Johnson finds asbestos in the baby powder and conceals it for the next 70 years.

Bob Simon (00:29):
Educate our listeners and viewers, how do you get those other folks on the hook where maybe Johnson Johnson who didn't tell anybody, but then Avon picks it up, sells it? How does that kind of work? Welcome to this episode of Bourbon of Proof, where we interview those who have been both successful at law and life. We do so over several spirits. And today we're very honored to have on none other than Ben Adams who came to us very closely from West Hollywood today. Ben, welcome to the show.

Ben Adams (01:05):
Thank you so much for having me.

Bob Simon (01:06):
Of course, the esteemed co-host today, as always, Mr. Mauro Fiore Jr.

Mauro Fiore (01:10):
Hello, Bob. Thank you for having me as usual. Again, thanks.

Bob Simon (01:13):
And he's not had a drink before filming today, so he'll be on his best behavior.

Mauro Fiore (01:17):
Well, I usually get into it pretty quick.

Bob Simon (01:20):
That's right. And thank you to Charles Liu and Tom Hardy for letting us use their private bar here at the Bike Shed in downtown Los Angeles. We're filming the summer of 2024, which is also known as the summer of Ben Adams. Not like, what's the Adams that sings the Summer of '69?

Mauro Fiore (01:37):
Bryan Adams.

Bob Simon (01:37):
Bryan Adams. This is Ben Adam.

Mauro Fiore (01:40):
Not to be confused with Ryan Adams because there's Bryan and Ryan.

Bob Simon (01:44):
Ryan, sure. So the first thing we're going to pour for you today is something called Knucklenoggin. And Knucklenoggin is a peanut butter whiskey, but it's also upside down, right? The tagline is three Knucklenoggins walk into a bar. And this was a California peanut butter whiskey. And we selected it for you because a lot of people know Ben Adams is crushing multiple eight, nine figure verdicts. Almost a billion on the last one, the jury would've given you a billion.

Ben Adams (02:16):
Probably.

Bob Simon (02:17):
Probably. But he's also big into skateboarding. And this one reminds me a lot of skateboarding, just kind of this logo and the background of this company too, being from Vista. So we're going to take a look.

Mauro Fiore (02:29):
I was a skateboarder myself.

Ben Adams (02:30):
Oh, really?

Mauro Fiore (02:30):
Yeah, you can tell I used to catch a lot of air.

Bob Simon (02:35):
Yeah, you and sport, I don't believe that for a second.

Mauro Fiore (02:38):
I grew up in the '70s, Bob, during the heyday of the Bones Brigade. I don't know if you are familiar with those boys or not but I was a big fan.

Bob Simon (02:46):
Oh, here we go. Well, cheers.

Ben Adams (02:48):
Cheers.

Bob Simon (02:48):
Thanks for coming on the show, Ben.

Mauro Fiore (02:50):
Tracy Peralta and the Bones Brigade.

Ben Adams (02:51):
Oh, yeah. Like Dogtown and Z-Boys?

Mauro Fiore (02:53):
Yeah, I lived that timeframe.

Bob Simon (02:55):
I can't believe you actually know... This one's pretty good. This is a good way to start a show.

Ben Adams (02:59):
Oh, wow. It's good.

Mauro Fiore (03:00):
Man, you're going to get me drunk already. This shit's good.

Ben Adams (03:02):
Wow. What a pour, Bob.

Bob Simon (03:03):
I gave myself a gangster pour to start the day. It's like having dessert for breakfast.

Mauro Fiore (03:07):
This is the second or third of these peanut butter I've had. They're all pretty good.

Bob Simon (03:11):
They're all pretty good. Peanut butter does well with whiskey. You know what does not do well with whiskey, Ben?

Ben Adams (03:15):
What?

Mauro Fiore (03:15):
Pickles.

Bob Simon (03:15):
Pickles. That'll be a call back job for a while. So now Ben, your office is physically in Dallas, but you seem to be in wherever the courtroom is across the nation.

Ben Adams (03:25):
Yeah, we travel around. I think we're in 27 states now and just try the cases wherever they are.

Bob Simon (03:31):
But you're a California guy, but how often are you actually home though these days? How does that work for you?

Ben Adams (03:39):
Man, it's pretty brutal. I think this year I've been home for maybe two weeks so far this year. We just had back-to-back trials.

Bob Simon (03:47):
For two weeks you've been home this year?

Ben Adams (03:48):
Yeah, maybe total.

Bob Simon (03:49):
So where have you been back to back to back?

Ben Adams (03:52):
We had a trial in Chicago for a couple of months, and then we had six-day break before we started another trial in Portland right after that that was multiple months. And then we're starting another one in South Carolina on August 5th.

Bob Simon (04:08):
Wow. So you-

Mauro Fiore (04:11):
The road warrior.

Bob Simon (04:12):
And if everyone wants to see, at least one of your trials are on CVN.

Ben Adams (04:16):
Yeah, the Portland one, CVN was there so the whole thing's on CVN.

Bob Simon (04:19):
I was trying to get my last trial televised, but the defense lawyer cried so much that the judge wouldn't allow it, whatever, had one on. But if you go, a lot of viewers and listeners don't know, but there's an organization called CVN, C as in Charlie, V as in Victor and is a network-

Mauro Fiore (04:33):
Courtroom View Network.

Bob Simon (04:34):
Courtroom View Network, subscription-based, where you can actually watch trials live or things that happened in the past.

Ben Adams (04:40):
Yeah, it's awesome. You can see a lot of great trial lawyers around there.

Bob Simon (04:46):
You do what's called toxic torts. Is that how you would define it?

Ben Adams (04:49):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (04:50):
So educate our listeners on the stuff that you do, that you try.

Ben Adams (04:53):
Sure. We do mostly mesothelioma cases. So people have probably seen the commercials on TV late at night about mesothelioma. And that's a cancer of the lining of the lung that's caused by asbestos and nothing else. And so, that's probably like 95% of the work that we do.

Bob Simon (05:10):
But these, the asbestos, this stuff was supposed to be cleaned out like the '70s, the '60s been around since the '30s, '40s, '50s. I mean, how are these things still going on?

Ben Adams (05:20):
The crazy thing about asbestos is it's in talc. And so for decades and decades and decades women would get this very rare mesothelioma cancer and they'd look and try to figure out how these women were being exposed to asbestos and they couldn't find any. And so in 2017, they couldn't find any asbestos exposure for these women getting the disease. So in 2017, a court ordered Johnson Johnson to turn over 2 million pages of documents for the first time that showed Johnson's baby powder had contained asbestos and they knew it since 1958.

Bob Simon (06:01):
Wow.

Ben Adams (06:01):
So there's this explosion of information and then it all made sense why tens of thousands of women-

Bob Simon (06:08):
But how long was this being hidden? I mean, this didn't come to light till 2017, 7 years ago?

Mauro Fiore (06:13):
Well, didn't they used to say that the women, that they couldn't figure out where they got it? They thought maybe their husbands had brought it home from work, the laundry on their work clothes and things like that?

Ben Adams (06:22):
So for some of the women, they were able to figure out, oh, their husband worked in a shipyard and brought the asbestos home on his clothes and they did the laundry and that's how. But for a lot of the women, husband didn't work in a shipyard, wasn't a brake mechanic, didn't do construction, parents, dad didn't do anything. And they were like, "Well, I guess women's bodies just fail." And so there was this whole body of sort of-

Bob Simon (06:46):
... junk science.

Ben Adams (06:47):
... bought and paid for-

Bob Simon (06:48):
Junk, junk science.

Ben Adams (06:49):
That said women's bodies are just kind of like no good.

Bob Simon (06:52):
But they knew the whole time then. They must have known the whole time that it was-

Ben Adams (06:55):
Yeah, the companies knew.

Bob Simon (06:57):
Companies knew.

Ben Adams (06:57):
So in May 9th, 1958, Johnson & Johnson finds asbestos in the baby powder and conceals it for the next 70 years. And they keep testing and finding it over and over and over and over.

Mauro Fiore (07:11):
Is it naturally occurring just like in the mines or something?

Ben Adams (07:14):
Yeah, so asbestos and talc, they're just like rocks. They're minerals, but I just call them rocks. And under certain-

Bob Simon (07:21):
Are you talking for juries, do you see that?

Ben Adams (07:22):
Yeah, just rocks.

Bob Simon (07:23):
Just rocks.

Ben Adams (07:24):
And so rocks grow in the ground under certain conditions and there's geologists that come... Under certain conditions asbestos grows like veins in a talc mine. And so when they mine out the talc-

Mauro Fiore (07:38):
You can't get it out the talc, you can't get it out.

Ben Adams (07:39):
... you can't get it out. When you mine it out and crush it up, you mine out some of the asbestos and crush it up in the talc.

Mauro Fiore (07:44):
That's nuts.

Ben Adams (07:44):
It's crazy. And then they're like, "Put it on your baby."

Bob Simon (07:46):
Ever since the '50s? They've known it since the '50s.

Ben Adams (07:49):
They probably knew earlier, but they wrote it down in 1958.

Mauro Fiore (07:53):
No, I'd never been a baby powder user, but I know people to this day love to put baby powder.

Bob Simon (07:58):
You don't get moist down there?

Mauro Fiore (08:00):
Well, I have other ways to freshen up. I just remember when I was a kid, I'd go in my dad's bathroom and my dad was a pig and there'd be just powder everywhere. My mom would yell at him, "You getting that baby powder everywhere." He would just be throwing it on everywhere. But I think the older generation, they were very big in the baby powder. But my dad would've it all over the bathroom. And my dad ended up getting lung cancer, but he smoked so I don't think... He didn't have mesothelioma. He had this regular-

Bob Simon (08:28):
Did you ever get a mesothelioma case ever?

Mauro Fiore (08:31):
I had one lady who called me one time and it was like she had died. The family called me and she had died from mesothelioma years earlier and they never called anybody. And I knew that, that wasn't going to go anywhere because I think it's a short statute. Even in California, I think it's one year statute limitations.

Ben Adams (08:50):
For wrongful death is one year. Unless they were retired when they got mesothelioma and then there's no statutes. Maybe call her back and see if she was retired.

Mauro Fiore (08:58):
That was years ago.

Bob Simon (09:00):
Because I've seen some of these cases where we're trying to get trials out and there's been dedicated courtrooms and long cause for mesothelioma cases because when you're doing these, you're not just up against Johnson & Johnson sometimes, there's dozens of defendants.

Ben Adams (09:15):
Usually people are exposed. Like the women who get it, they usually use other body powders like Avon or Cody or Estee Lauder. All those had asbestos in them too.

Bob Simon (09:28):
Educate our listeners and viewers, how do you get those other folks on the hook or maybe Johnson Johnson knew didn't tell anybody, but then Avon picks it up, sells it. How does that kind of work?

Ben Adams (09:41):
What actually happened was Johnson & Johnson set up, through industry groups, this type of testing of talc that they knew couldn't find the asbestos because the microscopes were too weak.

Bob Simon (09:56):
Oh my God, that's messed up.

Ben Adams (09:57):
So they rigged the tests. And so, there's a lot Avon and these other groups were in those industry meetings. J&J led the cover-up, but they also knew, and they were also part of the cover-up and hiding tests from the FDA. It's an insane story.

Bob Simon (10:17):
Whenever Big Tobacco orR.J Reynolds used to hire all these experts from Harvard that said cigarettes were good for you and they're testifying in front of Congress. I use that slide a lot in closing arguments. We talk about experts, I put them swearing in those people that said cigarettes were safe.

Ben Adams (10:30):
Oh, like the whole lineup?

Bob Simon (10:31):
The whole lineup. It's a powerful image because jurors remember that.

Ben Adams (10:34):
I love that.

Bob Simon (10:34):
But it's crazy how often we're exposed to people that say they're quote, unquote "experts" but they're literally bought and paid for.

Ben Adams (10:39):
And I don't think regular people understand how that works. Not just that they're bought and paid for, but that the peer-reviewed, published studies they do are bought and paid for. It's scary.

Bob Simon (10:52):
Do you have to expose that in your trials? Because you're there for months at a time and I'm sure they call in all these quacks to talk about shit.

Ben Adams (10:59):
Yeah, they call in folks who say every single mesothelioma in women is spontaneous, 100%.

Bob Simon (11:06):
I mean, that's just not credible.

Ben Adams (11:08):
It's insane but some judges won't let you show that the last 70 cases, they said the same thing. So it's always a challenge of exposing the truth.

Bob Simon (11:15):
How could they not allow you to do that?

Ben Adams (11:18):
It's another case, it's trial within a trial.

Bob Simon (11:21):
I hate that.

Ben Adams (11:22):
I hate that stuff.

Mauro Fiore (11:23):
I thought these cases mostly settled. I didn't think a lot of them went to trial.

Bob Simon (11:26):
But he's trying a lot of these.

Ben Adams (11:28):
So J&J, there's certain things I can say and not say, but essentially they're forcing them to trial.

Bob Simon (11:37):
They're also trying to create, from my understanding, I just read the news, shell companies to bankrupt them and do this kind of stuff to... How could you even possibly do that?

Ben Adams (11:48):
So they created these shell companies, put the liabilities in the shell companies, put the assets in another company and bankrupted the shell companies. And they've done it twice. Billionaire bankruptcies.

Bob Simon (12:01):
Where are they trying to pull this off?

Ben Adams (12:03):
It's called the Texas two-step. So the statute, they do it in Texas and then they get the case sent to North Carolina where they think the judges are favorable.

Bob Simon (12:12):
He has a joke, he has a joke coming.

Mauro Fiore (12:15):
You ever heard of a double Irish?

Bob Simon (12:16):
Oh, here we go.

Mauro Fiore (12:17):
I'm just kidding. Back to Texas 2-step.

Ben Adams (12:20):
Anyway, so they failed twice. They're threatening to do it a third time and we'll see.

Bob Simon (12:25):
But are they doing it in Texas? Is that where they're trying to do it?

Ben Adams (12:28):
Yeah, they do it in Texas. Honestly, it's so complicated. But the statute is in Texas that says you can do it. And then the actual litigation has been happening, I think, in North Carolina about it because they think it's favorable jurisdiction. If they do it again, the litigation will happen in Texas.

Bob Simon (12:50):
In Texas.

Ben Adams (12:52):
They're trying to do it just with the ovarian cases now because a lot of ovarian cancers caused by talc. They told women to, "Put it in your underwear." It goes right to the ovaries. So there's tons of ovarian cancer cases. They're trying to do a bankruptcy just with the ovarian cancer cases now, and I think they're going to fail, but nobody really knows.

Bob Simon (13:18):
Well, let's do another pour about where we're talking, Mauro. Well, not of this. We'll maybe finish up with this. So by the way, so I selected this one. This one's called the Redwood Empire. And this is bottle and bond. So it's going to be much hotter than a peanut whiskey, but a hundred proof, right? So 50% alcohol.

(13:39):
This one was started, so it was distilled in 2017 at the same time that Johnson & Johnson finally gave us millions of documents that you were able to get where we are today. And then 2022, five years later is whenever there was actually, after it's done aging, when they poured this bottle into what we see as beautiful here today. But it's a rye whiskey. I promise you, there's no talc in it. I cannot actually promise you that, but it might be but I don't know.

Ben Adams (14:07):
Oh, my.

Mauro Fiore (14:08):
It says here it's 87% rye, 5% wheated, and 5% malted. That's pretty good.

Bob Simon (14:14):
This is a pretty high rye. I mean high ryes like this means it's not over 50, but this is a lot of rye that's in this. But this is going to be a lot hotter.

Mauro Fiore (14:20):
And this is called Rocket Top.

Bob Simon (14:21):
Rocket Top.

Ben Adams (14:24):
What does it mean to have a lot of rye?

Bob Simon (14:24):
Just the way that they make the whiskey. So rye whiskey, they call it rye. It just means that it has more, it's made more than 50% with rye in it because a lot of bourbons are corn based. To be a bourbon you have to be-

Mauro Fiore (14:43):
... 51% corn.

Bob Simon (14:44):
... 51% corn made in American oak barrels. And there's probably something else that I'm forgetting right now.

Mauro Fiore (14:49):
It has to be aged for four years.

Bob Simon (14:50):
And aged for at least four years. But all bourbons are whiskey, but not all whiskies are bourbon. So this is not a bourbon, it's a whiskey. He didn't even cheer, this pig.

Ben Adams (15:00):
Cheers.

Bob Simon (15:01):
He's just jumping the gun.

Mauro Fiore (15:02):
Getting right to it.

Bob Simon (15:03):
But this is the Rocket Top. So this is a special one that the Redwood Empire does. So this is, I think it's Sonoma, California.

Mauro Fiore (15:10):
Yeah, it's another Sonoma bourbon and whiskey maker. It's good.

Bob Simon (15:15):
Oh, this is good.

Ben Adams (15:15):
It's pretty good too.

Bob Simon (15:17):
So for a hundred proof, this was probably, I would guess, 70 proof for peanut butter whiskey. I didn't check this one, but then jump up to a hundred proof.

Mauro Fiore (15:25):
The peanut butter, it's not that strong. I think it's backwards. It's 70 proof.

Bob Simon (15:31):
70?

Mauro Fiore (15:31):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (15:31):
So 35% alcohol.

Mauro Fiore (15:33):
Pretty low proof.

Bob Simon (15:34):
So we're jumping up to 50% alcohol. But this is pretty good. I never had this one. So both of these bottles were sourced by the booze outlet who sponsors the show. Mauro and I put out ridiculous asks for bottles that are very hard to find. So we got these ones for today and this one's pretty good. I like this Redwood Empire. I could drink this every day.

Mauro Fiore (15:57):
I think we had another Redwood whiskey on one of the shows that was really good, but it was like 120 proof. It was real.

Bob Simon (16:03):
Those ones are really strong.

Mauro Fiore (16:04):
Very, very strong.

Ben Adams (16:05):
I got a lot of buddies in Texas at the law firm who are obsessed, obsessed with bourbon. Their entire house is almost filled with bourbon and take nothing other than-

Bob Simon (16:12):
We should come down and do a bourbon proof on the road to Dallas.

Mauro Fiore (16:17):
Isn't Whiskey Pete from Houston or Dallas?

Bob Simon (16:19):
Whiskey Pete's from Houston.

Mauro Fiore (16:21):
Houston. You ever heard of that guy's got a pretty very famous podcast about-

Bob Simon (16:26):
There's a show on ESPN about whiskey.

Ben Adams (16:27):
What's his name?

Mauro Fiore (16:28):
Whiskey, I don't even know what-

Bob Simon (16:29):
Kris Hart with a K. He's been on the show before but he's... I went to the Whiskey Houston social that he puts on. It's the biggest whiskey social in America. There's like 5,000 people that go to this thing. So it's a pretty funny story. I walk in, it was my first time there and I had co-sponsors and stuff because I've done stuff with Kris before. He just hands me a bottle of Pappy 23. And he's like, "This is yours for the night." I'm like, fine. So I just put it in my back pocket and I'm just walking around this big convention and people are like, "What?" I'm giving pours to people and like, "You have a bottle." And I just finished it off and then I asked for another one, he gave me something else that wasn't as good but he's a good dude. He's casually related to Evan Garcia, the trial warrior.

Mauro Fiore (17:15):
No kidding. Are they both from Houston?

Bob Simon (17:17):
Both from Houston. They're like siblings, [inaudible 00:17:19] siblings. So he's kind of related, but not by blood.

Mauro Fiore (17:22):
The one question I have on the mesothelioma cases is that this stuff, as a casual observer, I do other type of injury law. From what I remember, it was hard for you guys to try to rush these cases to trial before your clients died. The insurance companies and the big companies-

Bob Simon (17:41):
... wait about.

Mauro Fiore (17:42):
... try to delay the cases till hopefully your clients die, because then the cases are worthless, right? So do you still deal with that

Ben Adams (17:48):
All the time.

Mauro Fiore (17:48):
That is just crazy.

Ben Adams (17:50):
They just try to run out the clock. So they try to depose the client for a 100 years and kill the client via depo. And it's happened. People have died at their deposition.

Bob Simon (18:00):
No way.

Ben Adams (18:00):
In LA they used to allow the depositions to go on for 25, 30 hours, like weeks. And this is a sick person who can barely breathe, who can go one or two hours a day and then is just destroyed.

Bob Simon (18:11):
How do these people have a heart? They're just asking questions like, "Where was your paycheck from this day on this hour?" For hours.

Ben Adams (18:18):
For hours, yeah. It's gotten a lot better. So there was some legislation passed after somebody died at a deposition limiting it to 14 hours in LA. So it's gotten a lot better but-

Bob Simon (18:31):
Is that 14 hours per defendant because your dozens are all together.

Ben Adams (18:34):
Total.

Bob Simon (18:35):
Okay, good.

Ben Adams (18:35):
Total.

Bob Simon (18:35):
That's okay.

Ben Adams (18:36):
Yeah, it's great. So that's really changed.

Bob Simon (18:38):
And I know in California you guys had a heavy lobby that passed I think during COVID 2020.

Ben Adams (18:44):
Yeah, where pain and suffering was preserved even if they died, everything was just stayed basically in California during COVID.

Bob Simon (18:51):
So they got the pre-death pain and suffering was because of these cases where they were literally waiting out the clock till they died?

Ben Adams (18:57):
Exactly.

Bob Simon (18:57):
That's so fucked up.

Mauro Fiore (18:59):
So what states are you licensed to break this in?

Ben Adams (19:01):
So I'm just licensed in California, but we just pro hac in and we've got attorneys licensed all over the country.

Bob Simon (19:07):
But do they give you flak because your office is physically supposed to be in Dallas and when you pro hac in... Every time I pro hac in to another state I'm not licensed in, I have to fill out this form and the judge sometimes gives you a little bit of lip service.

Ben Adams (19:19):
It's so common in asbestos litigation and mesothelioma cases. The companies, they've got their local lawyers and then when trial comes in, they've got all these big shots that parachute in, they're all pro hac'ed, so they don't really want to fuck with our pro hac.

Bob Simon (19:34):
So what do you think about local-local counsel? I've my Texas license and we still in Texas have to get a local-local person and it is just a different thing. So how does that work for you guys?

Ben Adams (19:46):
So we use local lawyers. We partner with local lawyers in every state where we're not licensed, which is a lot of them. And in local jurisdictions there's the rules and then there's the local unwritten rules that you have to know.

Bob Simon (20:02):
Like when the other defense lawyer goes back in the chambers with the judge and they start talking. It's like, "Wait, what is this? What's going on?"

Ben Adams (20:08):
And if you just parachute into some local jurisdiction and think you're a big shot, you're going to get hometowned for sure, especially if you're... They think we're all from Texas because our law firm's in Texas so they're like, "Oh, this fancy Texas lawyer." You got to have a local to explain the local rules.

Bob Simon (20:22):
Do you show up in your Vans and be like, "I'm here to skateboard and live it." One of my favorite video games ever was Skitchin'. Do you remember this one? It was of rollerblades, it was-

Ben Adams (20:34):
I had keepy parents. I didn't have a TV until I was like 14.

Bob Simon (20:37):
Oh, God. What? Skate or Die was one? We had Skitchin. There was a lot of stuff you would've loved back in the day.

Ben Adams (20:42):
I missed out, yeah.

Bob Simon (20:44):
I feel like you were born in '83-ish.

Ben Adams (20:44):
'81.

Bob Simon (20:46):
'81. Guess we're the same. I'm 80.

Ben Adams (20:48):
He's like '74.

Mauro Fiore (20:48):
'74.

Ben Adams (20:50):
I wasn't allowed to have a TV as a child

Bob Simon (20:52):
Really?

Ben Adams (20:53):
So I would go over to my buddy's house and I'd see a TV and I'd just be awestruck and they'd be like, "Let's go play outside." And I'd be like, "Shut the fuck up."

Bob Simon (21:01):
So what would you watch?

Ben Adams (21:04):
Anything.

Bob Simon (21:04):
Do another pour. Just do another pour of the heavy one because I want to get into this.

Ben Adams (21:06):
Anything.

Mauro Fiore (21:07):
Much like the Brady Bunch.

Ben Adams (21:08):
Like scary movies, like bad stuff I wasn't supposed to see, just anything. The TV, I was mesmerized.

Bob Simon (21:14):
Mauro used to get those descramblers where he would just look like this sideways to try to look through what the...

Mauro Fiore (21:19):
No, I could see. We always had the Skin channel was always scrambled but you could watch on-

Ben Adams (21:24):
Oh, Cinemax. Yes.

Mauro Fiore (21:26):
You could watch a little-

Bob Simon (21:27):
Oh, a little more.

Mauro Fiore (21:28):
[inaudible 00:21:29].

Bob Simon (21:30):
There might've been a family member of ours that was able to get a descrambler for anything in the Pittsburgh area. My brother and I were like the drug dealers of descramblers. So our teachers were getting new ones every other month to watch all the shows. So we've got all that stuff at home.

Ben Adams (21:44):
Wow, man.

Bob Simon (21:45):
The summers were the best. We'd stay up late, we'd be watching the Octagon fights, every single pay-per-view movie you've never seen. It was the best.

Mauro Fiore (21:52):
Those were the days.

Bob Simon (21:53):
I admitted to a crime on air.

Mauro Fiore (21:55):
Those were the days before-

Bob Simon (21:56):
Statute's were out. Do another one.

Ben Adams (21:58):
Cheers.

Bob Simon (21:59):
All right, we got about five minutes left and I want to hear about this not watching television bullshit.

Mauro Fiore (22:07):
So you were born and raised in SoCal?

Ben Adams (22:10):
I was born and raised in Vermont, lived in Boston for about a year then my mom wanted to go to, she became a naturopath, naturopathic doctor. So she moved to Seattle when I was two, three years old.

Bob Simon (22:22):
So where do you get the passion? Because you've been in this game a long time and I want to talk to you because early or mid teen, 20 teens you were with Simona Farrise, who's one of the most historic trial lawyers, one of the most altruistic. I mean she ran for office before just to help human beings.

Mauro Fiore (22:39):
I like Simona.

Bob Simon (22:41):
I love her.

Ben Adams (22:41):
She's great.

Bob Simon (22:41):
I love her.

Mauro Fiore (22:42):
I've met her through Riley.

Ben Adams (22:44):
Oh, yeah, yeah. [inaudible 00:22:45].

Bob Simon (22:45):
We were actually, her and I worked for [inaudible 00:22:47] year once, I think we had lost to... Riley was up that year too, and we lost to somebody else. I forget who it was, but we were in a room and she's one of the most fascinating...

Ben Adams (22:56):
She's a legend.

Bob Simon (22:57):
A legend. So what was it like to work with a legend as a young lawyer?

Ben Adams (23:00):
It was amazing. So Simona's story is she was a paralegal at this law firm and she was like, "One day I looked around and I was like, I can fucking do that." So as a single mother, she went to school at night school, got her law degree, got out of law school eight years later, she was the named managing partner of that same law firm.

Bob Simon (23:19):
Wow. She was traveling everywhere doing this stuff.

Ben Adams (23:22):
Yeah, she's the real deal. So I saw Simona, the way the asbestos cases work, I was working at a different firm. They're all consolidated from San Diego, Orange County, LA in one courtroom. So as a young lawyer, you get to go in a courtroom, there's like a hundred lawyers and you sit there waiting for your case to be called, and you get to see lawyer after lawyer argue.

(23:43):
It's awesome. So I've been doing it for about a year and one day I saw this little woman who didn't look like any lawyer I've ever seen, just arguing against a hundred defense lawyers. And dude, she just had the passion, but she wasn't just angry, she was articulate and passionate. I was like, wow. And I went back to my firm and I was like, "Who's Simona Farrise? Who is that?" And they're just like, "Oh, she's this legendary trial lawyer."

(24:11):
And I was like, "Wow, I never seen anything like that." I ended up leaving that firm going to another firm and one day I was actually doing defense work for a little bit like six months I was doing insurance defense.

Bob Simon (24:27):
That's gross.

Ben Adams (24:28):
It was super gross, but it was a firm that had about 5% plaintiff's cases. And they sniffed me out immediately and they gave me all the plaintiff's cases. So I was still really doing plaintiff's work, but it was a defense firm.

Mauro Fiore (24:39):
What is the name of your current... For people who don't know what's the name of your firm now and then give us the-

Ben Adams (24:45):
The current firm is Dean Omar Branham and Shirley. It's a Texas firm that's nationwide.

Bob Simon (24:50):
But how do you, being a California guy... Because it's very hard to get these trials, it's very hard to be A1 in these trials. And it's usually an egocentrical thing where people are battling who's going to try these bellwether cases. Those are the cases that set the barometer. So when Johnson & Johnson, I guess, got revealed there was a lot of who's going to try the A1 cases and it was you and a couple other folks that are out there on the front lines trying these cases. How does that go down and how was Mauro not in that conversation?

Mauro Fiore (25:19):
Yeah, how was I not on the steering committee, God damn it.

Bob Simon (25:24):
I got a few answers, but-

Ben Adams (25:26):
Honestly the way it works is that I was a second chair for trial after trial after trial after trial. And then there becomes a point where the first chairs are too busy and a trial comes up and you just got to be like, "I'm going to do it." I think everybody wants to be a trial lawyer until a trial comes along and then it's like, "Who's going to do it?" I'm so scared of trial. It's terrifying for me still. I'm still scared of it.

(26:00):
But when that opportunity came along, I felt like I was ready and I was like, "I'll do it." And then you get some success and then when another trial comes along, you do it and you just volunteer. And that's how I did it. So I had these great mentors and then when the opportunity presented itself, I was like, "I'll do it."

Bob Simon (26:18):
Usually the first opportunity is not the best opportunity.

Ben Adams (26:21):
Exactly.

Bob Simon (26:22):
Usually like, "Hey, try this shit case," which we've done many times, Mauro to try to cut our teeth. And I tell every lawyer that's out there, "If you want to try cases, you want to establish yourself, you have to be ready to know you're going to try case and likely not win and certainly not make any money because you're there to earn your stripes, to be comfortable in the courtroom." Because it takes time, it takes time.

(26:44):
What I find when I do a national trial practice, it's hard to walk into a courtroom in another state and walk in and say, "You know what, I'm the big dog here." Because you can't start that way. Playing by their rules and their home court and you deal with that every day. That's got to be hard.

Ben Adams (27:00):
It's super hard. I can't say that I've mastered it, but I just try to be myself. I'm an introvert. I'm like a shy person. I'm a soft-spoken person. But if I love my client, I've spent a lot of time with my client and I believe in the case, then I just be me.

Bob Simon (27:26):
What about Ben? If you go to his website, it's really funny because Ben's hit, most recently, a few hundred million dollars verdict. He's a hundred million dollar settlements, $50 million verdict all across the country. If you go to his website, it just says, "I love my clients." That's pretty much all it says. It's just like, "Hey, I'm Ben, I really like my clients. I like spending time with them." I had to search a little bit to get all the verdicts. It's a testament to who you are.

Mauro Fiore (27:50):
That's a soft sell.

Ben Adams (27:52):
I've got an ego like everyone else, but I really think, how do you get a hundred million dollar verdict? How do you get a billion dollar verdict?

Bob Simon (28:02):
You got to love, love your client and love the case. I love it. They'd know if you don't.

Ben Adams (28:08):
You guys try cases where it's an old lady ran a stop sign and it's like, "Man, how do you get the jury upset about that?" But we try cases where it's literally a multinational corporation that engaged in mass poisoning of babies. You turn that up high enough and you turn up the love of your client high enough, that's it.

Bob Simon (28:25):
It varies. But I feel like if you, just a person that you are, just spending time with you, if we're in a courtroom, a jury's listening to you, you come from a sense of credibility. And I feel like with the soft-spoken sell, it's not like you're there to sell them on something. It's like you're there to educate them. "This is the way that is. I'm technical, this is how I'm going to outline it for you."

Ben Adams (28:53):
They say you're not supposed to be angry in a courtroom, right? Because anger is the blood of the courtroom. Jerry Spence, and they all said whoever's angry is losing. And I agree with that. You can't be a jerk. You can't be angry too soon. But on the other hand, if the defendant's conduct, if the company's conduct is outrageous and you're not outraged, I don't think you have credibility.

Bob Simon (29:16):
I've never done, you're not a Jerry Spence guy, you never do that, but we probably know enough about it.

Mauro Fiore (29:22):
I know enough about it.

Bob Simon (29:23):
But we've heard this preach and I do believe that there's moments to have outrage and anger or to show emotion. And if I had to classify my trial technique, I'm passive aggressive the whole time, whatever. But at moments you have to be able to turn that up. And we were trying a wrongful death of a migrant worker up in Santa Cruz and one of my partners, Tom Conroy, who I used to play baseball with, he was trying the case with me.

(29:49):
And I'll never forget this. This expert was up there talking nonsense, wouldn't answer a question. And he got pissed off and he was like, "Sir. A man is dead. I want you to listen to my question and I want you to answer." And it was powerful. You can hear a pin drop. He answered the next question. We went back to the hotel room that night and he's like, "Do you think I was too mean?" I was like, "Actually, I think that was perfect." We talked to the juror afterward, the jurors, and they all loved it. It was one moment, one moment, but it was super powerful. One moment

Mauro Fiore (30:18):
I used to get very angry in the courtroom a lot and it didn't usually have good results until maybe 10 years ago, Steve Artisarian, who's been on the show, is a real good trial lawyer. I think we were having dinner one night and he was telling me, "I used to get angry a lot and I don't get angry anymore because I realized that the anger needs to come from the jury box. They're the ones who have to get angry in order for your client to do good in this trial. You being angry doesn't translate to the jury being angry. You have to figure out a way to get the jury angry without yourself looking like the angry one." And I've took that straight to heart and I've tried to use that.

Bob Simon (30:58):
So I was trying a case in San Diego and Nick Rowley was trying one at the same time and we were just talking because we were in the hotel room down there and he told me this one thing about dealing with, in rebuttal what he does, and it's borderline. Nick toe's a line, right? But you got to do it artfully.

(31:12):
So I do this one thing now and now they filed motions in limiting that I can't do it and try to get... If they do your research, they can call you out on it. But a rebuttal, I go up and I'll be like, "We're sitting here listening to what we heard the defense lawyer talk about it. And I'm sitting there and I'm pretty angry. Imagine my client's feeling. They must be outraged. And I'm sitting here white knuckled, I don't want to object, I don't want to say anything, but this makes me pissed really off," or teed off whatever I say.

(31:41):
"But underneath of that anger, because anger's a surface emotion, underneath that is fear. Fear that the 12 of you bought what they were selling and this is the quintessential feeling that I have. But that fear is alleviated because I talked to 12 of you during jury selection and I feel like the 12 of you are not going to buy this nonsense." And he told me this and I do it in a lot of trials and the defense now when they call you out on, it's pretty funny that you can't do it, but it works. The jurors tell me it's one of the most powerful moments whenever you talk about stuff like that. You can steal it because I stole it.

Ben Adams (32:16):
All right. I'll steal it. I'll steal everything.

Bob Simon (32:19):
Yeah, we all just take stuff, make it a little bit better. So Ben, at the end of the episode here, we always ask for you to pick your bourbon of proof. And you're the toxic tort lawyer. There's nothing more toxic than whiskey, but it's also medicinal. I actually never get sick because I think I drink a lot of whiskey. I'll take that to my grave, an early grave. But we could do some junk science reports on that that are peer reviewed.

Mauro Fiore (32:43):
Well, during Prohibition they let people drink whiskey if they had a prescription because it was medicine.

Bob Simon (32:50):
That's actually true. So the old Forrester was a doctor, Dr. Forrester.

Mauro Fiore (32:54):
Old Forrester was sold as a medicine during Prohibition. You needed a prescription.

Bob Simon (32:58):
I didn't think you were awake.

Mauro Fiore (32:59):
I'm awake. What are you talking about?

Bob Simon (33:02):
So Ben Adams, what is your bourbon of proof out of these two?

Ben Adams (33:06):
I like the skateboarder bourbon.

Bob Simon (33:09):
I love it.

Ben Adams (33:09):
It's super good. I could drink this for sure.

Bob Simon (33:12):
All day. I feel like you are a guy with a lot of patches. Do you like patches.

Ben Adams (33:16):
In high school, yeah. I definitely had some patches on my backpack.

Bob Simon (33:19):
On your JanSport, you had some patches?

Ben Adams (33:21):
Like skater, black label patch. Sure.

Mauro Fiore (33:26):
So did you skate competitively or were you just screwing around at the half pipe with your buddies or what was the deal?

Ben Adams (33:29):
I had some sponsorships. I had a board sponsor. There's videos of me on the internet racing.

Bob Simon (33:36):
Oh, we're going to find the [inaudible 00:33:37] this episode.

Mauro Fiore (33:37):
Were you freestyle?

Ben Adams (33:38):
Mostly street skating because they didn't have parks, they didn't really have skate parks.

Bob Simon (33:41):
What was it called? Mostly what?

Ben Adams (33:42):
Street skating.

Bob Simon (33:42):
Street skating.

Ben Adams (33:43):
So like handrails and stuff like that. We'd make videos.

Mauro Fiore (33:48):
You seem to be that age. How old are you?

Ben Adams (33:50):
42.

Mauro Fiore (33:51):
Did you see that Jonah Hill movie called Mid90s?

Ben Adams (33:54):
I did.

Mauro Fiore (33:56):
Did you see that movie?

Ben Adams (33:56):
It was a great movie.

Mauro Fiore (33:57):
Jonah Hill made a movie called Mid90s

Ben Adams (34:01):
That was my life and other kids.

Bob Simon (34:01):
Really?

Mauro Fiore (34:02):
About '90s skateboarding kids in West LA just like skateboarding and drinking Arizona ice tea and shit.

Ben Adams (34:07):
Such a good one.

Bob Simon (34:12):
[inaudible 00:34:12].

Ben Adams (34:12):
It was such a good movie.

Mauro Fiore (34:12):
Because I was a little older, mid '90s I was already in college, in law school. But I can appreciate the mid '90s because I lived it. And if that's exactly your era, so that movie would be right your era.

Ben Adams (34:22):
Exactly.

Mauro Fiore (34:22):
You got to see Mid90s, with Jonah Hill.

Ben Adams (34:26):
That was in my [inaudible 00:34:27].

Bob Simon (34:26):
I'll watch it.

Mauro Fiore (34:26):
It wasn't his biggest. It's a movie about the mid '90s skateboarding kids. Literally, I think it was at the art houses or whatever, but he wrote and directed it. It was like his passion thing but he's probably the same age as him, Jonah Hill.

Ben Adams (34:39):
He's like a real skater.

Bob Simon (34:40):
Really?

Ben Adams (34:40):
Yeah.

Mauro Fiore (34:40):
Yeah, and he's like a real skater. You got to see that movie. It's not a blockbuster film or nothing, but it's a cool movie about a postcard in time.

Bob Simon (34:46):
I grew in Pittsburgh. It's a little different on we didn't have... There's one season you can essentially skateboard because there's ice and rain and shit. It's just a little different. We used to play California games. We'd get inspired by hacky sack and things like this. The things you could do in California. Well, Ben Adams, thank you for coming on Bourbon of Proof.

Ben Adams (35:04):
Hey, thanks so much for having me, Bob. I really appreciate.

Bob Simon (35:05):
You're an inspiration to us and thank you for fighting for everybody across the nation.

Mauro Fiore (35:09):
I read about your verdicts, man, and I always tell Bob, "Man, this guy is something else."

Bob Simon (35:12):
He's trying to find cases for you.

Mauro Fiore (35:13):
Yeah, I was like, "Damn, man."

Bob Simon (35:15):
Let's do it, Mauro.

Mauro Fiore (35:17):
One or two is a fluke, but 10 of them it's like, "Okay, the guy knows what he's doing."