Charles Lew (00:00):
When you speak, when you're in front of a jury for new lawyers, which certainly, a large portion of this audience is going to be new lawyers, your general advice would be slow it down?
Bob Simon (00:10):
Look, people have a distrust for lawyers so they have to think of something that they trust, that they know.
Shaheen Wallace (00:15):
Right, and you want the jury to hear what it is you have to say. Listen, nobody's going to think you're dumb. They're going to think you're dumb if they can't understand you and you're jumbling your words.
Bob Simon (00:42):
Welcome to this episode of Bourbon of Proof. Before we talk to those who are successful at law and life, and we do it over spirits, varying degrees, varying proofs, to find out their bourbon of proof. We're also very blessed today to have the first guest ever, Mr. Charles Lew on location at his private members whiskey only club, The Firm. Charles, thanks for coming on here.
Charles Lew (01:04):
Thank you so much for having me, Bob. It's always a pleasure.
Bob Simon (01:07):
We've been filming here a few episodes and I'm just now noticing the cigarette machine back there. Is that street legal?
Charles Lew (01:13):
I believe it is.
Bob Simon (01:14):
All right. Well, and our guest today is none other than Shaheen Z. Wallace, Esquire.
Shaheen Wallace (01:21):
Thank you for having me and I love that intro.
Charles Lew (01:24):
Yeah, that's a nice intro.
Bob Simon (01:24):
You know what, I've been practicing in the mirror. I've been doing method acting in the mirror, whatever method I have to be you, right? Is that method acting?
Charles Lew (01:31):
Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (01:32):
Hey, if you can get into the shoes, go for it.
Bob Simon (01:33):
You ever see Tropical Thunder?
Charles Lew (01:34):
I can tell you seen it.
Shaheen Wallace (01:37):
I already know where we're going with this, but yes, and I think Robert Downey Jr. was brilliant.
Bob Simon (01:41):
Yeah, that's where I learned method acting.
Shaheen Wallace (01:43):
Absolutely brilliant.
Bob Simon (01:44):
Method acting. We always start with a little bit of a pour and I'm going to do something. I first met Shaheen... He grew up in New York, but lives in Pittsburgh now, dear to my heart, but we met on the Bourbon of Proof tour, which you were there too.
(02:00):
We were on the same tour, the lawyer marketing one, and the one we went to, they sold one of these blade and bows a day, the 22, and we were lucky enough to be the first one so snagged it.
Charles Lew (02:12):
Nice.
Bob Simon (02:13):
We're going to try it.
Charles Lew (02:14):
And you went straight 22?
Bob Simon (02:16):
They only had one. They had one 22 so I went and grabbed it but this is-
Charles Lew (02:19):
Nice.
Bob Simon (02:21):
It's interesting, of course-
Charles Lew (02:23):
Heavy.
Bob Simon (02:23):
As soon as I got home from Kentucky, I opened this. Because you have to, this brings back a lot of memories, Shaheen.
Shaheen Wallace (02:32):
Was that March of '22?
Bob Simon (02:34):
Yeah, '22.
Shaheen Wallace (02:36):
Yeah. Almost a year.
Bob Simon (02:38):
And they have the key. So do you remember the story about the keys? Not the Florida Keys?
Shaheen Wallace (02:43):
I wish I could remember.
Charles Lew (02:46):
Do you remember the story of the keys?
Bob Simon (02:46):
But they all come with different numbers on them and you can put them all together. They're all ready. So this is a number two on it. And I think if you find them all, you unlock some magical-
Charles Lew (02:54):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (02:54):
Creature. Some...
Shaheen Wallace (02:55):
I don't know if, I don't know if a creature might be a key to Narnia, but I think there was some special bottle that they give you. I don't know if there's liquor, but I think it might actually be the bottle itself that they give you if you collect all the keys.
Charles Lew (03:08):
Well, I'm in it.
Bob Simon (03:09):
All right. All right. Well thanks for coming on, Shaheen.
Shaheen Wallace (03:11):
Thanks for having me.
Bob Simon (03:14):
See how this tastes after it was the...
(03:16):
After a couple. After a couple, we had a pre-game on the green screen. Green shell. What do you call that thing?
Charles Lew (03:23):
The green...
Bob Simon (03:24):
The green room. The green room. He was in the green room last night at my house.
Shaheen Wallace (03:28):
Yeah, I was.
Bob Simon (03:30):
He almost didn't make it out. That's good.
Charles Lew (03:32):
That's nice.
Shaheen Wallace (03:33):
Almost, almost. But I'm here.
Bob Simon (03:36):
He's here.
Shaheen Wallace (03:36):
Alive and kicking. This is talking to me right now.
Bob Simon (03:39):
Yeah. Are you seeing colors again? No hearing colors?
Shaheen Wallace (03:43):
No, not yet, man.
Charles Lew (03:44):
He was hearing colors.
Bob Simon (03:46):
This is one of the most verbose guys. If you sit in a room with him, you'll come up with new expressions and phrases you'll try to steal.
Shaheen Wallace (03:54):
It's a gift and a curse, because sometimes I'll accidentally do it in court and not meaning to do it. So there was one time, I remember, for sure, this is probably three or four trials ago, there was some closing argument and defense counsel's making some crazy argument.
(04:08):
And I had said to the jury, something, something, I said, "That's what the defense wants us to believe is if we don't have the good sense God gave a cucumber."
Bob Simon (04:16):
What?
Shaheen Wallace (04:18):
And I don't know where that came from, but the judge left and his tip staff left. And I was like, oh yeah, we won.
Bob Simon (04:22):
It's a good litmus test, man.
Shaheen Wallace (04:25):
The jury's like... I was like, look at the defense counsel's like, "Yeah, go ahead and start writing that shit."
Bob Simon (04:30):
And start writing. Yeah. Good. Very [inaudible 00:04:31] numbers.
Charles Lew (04:30):
God gave a cucumber.
Bob Simon (04:32):
But a friend of mine just came out with a book and they talk about people being salespersons at their core and they interview people across [inaudible 00:04:39]. They did me as a trial lawyer and I told a story similar to that of how I do it middle of trial to figure out if you're winning or not. You tell some stupid joke in front of the jury, just look like an aloof lawyer. It's funny you say that.
(04:50):
Because I did one that's like... I ask a question if they ask for a read back. And I was like, I have no idea. I have no idea, judge. What I just asked anybody. I like no idea what's going on right now. And either the jury laughs and they're with you or it's like death sentence. But it works, man.
Shaheen Wallace (05:05):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (05:06):
I'm going to tell a cucumber story. Maybe an eggplant, squiggly squiggly.
Shaheen Wallace (05:12):
Get a couple millennials on your jury. It's going to be real audience dependent for it to really land.
Bob Simon (05:21):
So speaking of audience dependent. So Shaheen is blown up on social media since... He was original Clubhouse star.
Shaheen Wallace (05:26):
Yo, I was telling somebody yesterday how I met you via Clubhouse.
Bob Simon (05:31):
I don't remember that's how we met. But now you remember.
Shaheen Wallace (05:34):
It was Clubhouse. So obviously during quarantine nobody can go outside. We're all yearning for connections. So they come out with Clubhouse. Now, originally I wasn't going to do it, right?
Bob Simon (05:43):
I was very averse. Somebody actually put, for me, put it on an iPhone, which I didn't have at the time. Bought me an iPhone, put it on and downloaded Clubhouse. I had one thing on it.
Shaheen Wallace (05:52):
So I wasn't going to do Clubhouse, but I said to myself, I had missed the initial train on Instagram. That initial wave. I had missed the initial wave on TikTok. And when I heard Clubhouse came out, I was like, "Ah, all right."
Charles Lew (06:06):
You weren't going to miss it.
Shaheen Wallace (06:07):
We got to go on the ground level this time. So we start doing it. And it's clubhouse. It was an app for everybody to have conversations. Whatever topic you can form rooms. And obviously the lawyer rooms form and you end up in the lawyer rooms.
(06:20):
So I noticed that Bob is there, [inaudible 00:06:23] is there chairing every meeting on the stage. And I'm kind of just chilling in the cut. I'm not really saying anything. Man, I can't remember. Somebody made some comment. So I'm like, I got to press him my little mic. And then all of a sudden-
Charles Lew (06:34):
What year is this?
Bob Simon (06:34):
'21?
Shaheen Wallace (06:34):
'21?
Charles Lew (06:34):
21, okay.
Shaheen Wallace (06:34):
It was like, I think it might have been mid or late '21
Charles Lew (06:41):
Second year of COVID.
Shaheen Wallace (06:42):
Yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bob Simon (06:44):
Yes. 20. It was '21. Because we just HQ in St. Anne and that's where Ramin gave me the phone.
Shaheen Wallace (06:49):
Yep. '21. So I ended up meeting Bob pretty much all the lawyers that I met at Bourbon of Proof, I met through Clubhouse. So you'd go on Clubhouse and then everybody would kind of get filtered to the Instagram. So you would talk and then you would end up meeting them virtually again to see them, their families, see what's going on via social media.
(07:06):
And then that's kind of where we built the connection. And then it was, I think it might have been January of '23 and-
Bob Simon (07:14):
'22.
Shaheen Wallace (07:15):
January, Lord '22. Gee.
Bob Simon (07:17):
Come on man.
Charles Lew (07:18):
Year of our Lord.
Shaheen Wallace (07:18):
It's already working. It's already working. And I just asked you-
Bob Simon (07:24):
[inaudible 00:07:25]. You continue talking. Want to see what proof this is.
Shaheen Wallace (07:25):
Man. So I asked him, I was like-
Bob Simon (07:28):
This is only 92 proof. I mean, come on.
Shaheen Wallace (07:30):
So we're just warming up. All right.
Bob Simon (07:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (07:33):
So I'm a lightweight. So I just asked him, I was like, "Yo, is there anything that I could do to help?" I wasn't really looking to gain anything. It was like, "Yo, how can I be of some kind of assistance?" Since we kind of got to know each other via Clubhouse. And he had saw that I was from Pittsburgh, well I lived in Pittsburgh and he was like, "Oh my whole family's from Pittsburgh."
(07:50):
And then he said, "Would you like to come out to the Bourbon of Proof tour? Speak on the social media panel on our bus." I was like, "Say less. I'm there." Because at that point I was also thinking about how can I meet more lawyers? Because Pittsburgh and the East Coast, I don't think they do as good a job socializing as West Coast lawyers do.
Bob Simon (08:11):
It's very, very stodgy. Old firm, big firm. But the West coast, we've always, we've been different. We always say fashion starts in the west. Same thing with law.
Shaheen Wallace (08:22):
I mean I hadn't seen anything like it. So I came out here in March, came down to the hotel and I walk... I'm the only dude from the east coast, but I'm watching everybody and everybody, you could tell, everybody knows everybody, whether it's like North Cal or SoCal or in the middle, wherever it is. And they're all hugging and dapping each other up. I said, "I like this, I like this."
Charles Lew (08:43):
So not the same in...
Shaheen Wallace (08:45):
No.
Charles Lew (08:47):
Less comradery? Less partnership?
Shaheen Wallace (08:50):
I wouldn't say it's less partnership. If they have to work together, they will. But they're not going to go out their way to hang out with each other. You know what I mean? We're in your spot right now, chopping it up. Yesterday I was at your house relaxing. And even when I said I was coming out here for a few days, the number of west coast lawyers that hit me up and said, "When you get out here, let us know."
Bob Simon (09:11):
Yeah,
Charles Lew (09:12):
That's interesting.
Shaheen Wallace (09:13):
When I go back to New York, they don't say that.
Bob Simon (09:16):
I think more people are empowered by the entrepreneurial spirit start out here. They start their own firms. So they need that common ground. Because you don't have a law firm, you can't walk down the hall. I mean that's one of the reasons we did just HQ. But you need to have that sounding board.
(09:27):
So you have to have start forming groups and small groups become big groups. But I noticed on the East Coast, the Midwest, they're doing masterminds, which is like pay $220,000 a month to be on my mastermind. And maybe you'll learn the secrets together. It's like we would do that for free.
Shaheen Wallace (09:39):
For free.
Charles Lew (09:40):
And it's still not community oriented.
Shaheen Wallace (09:42):
No, no
Charles Lew (09:42):
It's essentially just a pecuniary gain.
Bob Simon (09:45):
Correct.
Charles Lew (09:46):
We out here are very entrepreneurial. We talk about that all the time. LA is entrepreneurial. But Bob hits me or I hit Bob and we're chopping it up on business, entrepreneurship, opportunities.
Shaheen Wallace (09:58):
And what I notice is that out here, especially, people aren't selfish with the information. I don't know if-
Bob Simon (10:03):
At least the successful people are not selfish with the information. Because you got to give.
Charles Lew (10:06):
Yep.
Bob Simon (10:07):
Got to give to get.
Shaheen Wallace (10:08):
And I don't know if that-
Bob Simon (10:09):
Is that your love language? Giving?
Shaheen Wallace (10:11):
Listen, I think it-
Bob Simon (10:11):
[inaudible 00:10:12].
Shaheen Wallace (10:12):
I think all of them are. I think I might be more... It's interesting you said that because it was last year where I kind of discovered that. I didn't think words of affirmation were like, was one of my love languages.
Charles Lew (10:26):
I'm all words of affirmation.
Shaheen Wallace (10:27):
Because I'm a solo, so I'm always by myself anyway. So nobody's like patting me on the back. "Good job, Sha." But I did something and someone was like, "That was dope." And I was like, I love you too. So the words of affirmation has really become a big one.
Bob Simon (10:41):
Yes, it has been weird for you. We were talking and we shared this before we came on air, how people reached out to you and thanked you for their starting their own firms and having... I mean that's got to be a powerful moment.
Shaheen Wallace (10:53):
That was crazy. So I don't have a huge following on social media. Some of my colleagues, a hundred thousand, a million. I got my little modest like 3,500, 3,600.
Bob Simon (11:02):
They concentrated.
Shaheen Wallace (11:03):
But man, I was playing tennis with a colleague that I met via Instagram, also JHQ member. And he invited me to his wedding.
Bob Simon (11:13):
Wow.
Shaheen Wallace (11:14):
We hadn't met in person yet. And he sent me the invite to his wedding.
Charles Lew (11:16):
Powerful. Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (11:17):
So I said, what did I do to be deserving of this honor? He goes, "You are one of the reasons I started my own practice." I said, "You finna make a grown man cry."
Bob Simon (11:27):
Did you cry?
Shaheen Wallace (11:28):
Hell yeah. And these last couple years I've been getting emotional as hell.
Bob Simon (11:32):
Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (11:33):
And like to hear that...
Bob Simon (11:34):
How Shaheen got his groove back.
Shaheen Wallace (11:37):
Man, but-
Charles Lew (11:37):
This goes to what you and I have talked about a hundred times. Legal community. Bob and I coined this when we're talking about the NFT project lawyer friends, we are so good at polarizing. We're so good at talking trash about other lawyers. We're so good at differentiating ourselves from other lawyers.
(11:55):
We're so good at sowing... What we say is sowing discord rather than discourse.
Bob Simon (12:00):
Right.
Charles Lew (12:02):
So how-
Bob Simon (12:02):
Right.
Charles Lew (12:03):
I mean think about it. We are not... We're 1.2 million strong community, which is an immensely strong, just from a specifically numerical perspective, community. But all we do is fight and denigrate each other.
Bob Simon (12:18):
Imagine if we had the hive mentality or a fungi mentality.
Charles Lew (12:21):
Imagine if we were a hive mentality.
Bob Simon (12:25):
I mean, are you going to drink that or what? Guy's a talker, not a drinker.
Shaheen Wallace (12:29):
Hey, you knew who I was before you brought me on.
Bob Simon (12:31):
By the way. I love these cuff links. You got some sort of skull and crossbones situation?
Shaheen Wallace (12:35):
Skull. Yeah. The skull and crossbones. Yes indeed.
Charles Lew (12:38):
Pirate.
Bob Simon (12:40):
Speaking. I mean, let's see what you brought. Speaking to the pirates. I kind of scoped your
Shaheen Wallace (12:43):
Yes indeed.
Bob Simon (12:43):
Your stash.
Shaheen Wallace (12:45):
So I brought you a little something from home.
Bob Simon (12:52):
Nice.
Shaheen Wallace (12:53):
Brought your old son from home. Is from Wiggle, city of champions.
Bob Simon (12:58):
Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (12:58):
Not this year, but-
Bob Simon (12:58):
Okay. Historically.
Shaheen Wallace (13:00):
We'll get back there one day and hope it tastes as good as it looks. Because this is...
Bob Simon (13:05):
So this, I think Wiggle was actually the owner [inaudible 00:13:11] who owns the Pirates also owns, or at least a minority share of this. So probably the team which he invests nothing into. He probably invests nothing in this whiskey. And it's probably going to taste like shit.
(13:20):
But we'll call the city of champions on the right up later. We'll do a dram pour for our friends here. So it's only 92 proof.
Shaheen Wallace (13:33):
Okay.
Bob Simon (13:33):
You won't get hurt too bad. Don't worry.
Shaheen Wallace (13:34):
All right. I'm slowly building up my tolerance.
Bob Simon (13:38):
Intolerance. Doesn't even smell that great.
Charles Lew (13:43):
It doesn't smell that...
Bob Simon (13:45):
Smells like locker room.
Shaheen Wallace (13:49):
It smells like...
Bob Simon (13:50):
Actually not bad.
Shaheen Wallace (13:51):
Who is that?
Bob Simon (13:52):
Who is that? It's an individual?
Charles Lew (13:55):
Can we ask him for a profile? Flavor profile? We tried this last...
Bob Simon (14:01):
You could do it on the last one. I mean Okay. This is actually not bad. Yeah. Tastes like the Monongahela.
Shaheen Wallace (14:08):
Yeah. It's okay. What do they call it? It's a confluence.
Bob Simon (14:13):
Confluence, yeah. Confluence where two rivers form a third.
Charles Lew (14:17):
Is that what it tastes like?
Shaheen Wallace (14:19):
Was that the Ohio and the Allegheny that forms Monongahela?
Bob Simon (14:20):
The Monongahela and Allegheny form the Ohio. Bro, you got to go back to your lessons of Pittsburgh.
Shaheen Wallace (14:26):
I'm from New York.
Charles Lew (14:27):
Just taught me something right there. The confluence of those rivers. I didn't know that.
Bob Simon (14:32):
Now you do.
Charles Lew (14:33):
Those rivers...
Bob Simon (14:33):
Knowing's half the battle.
Charles Lew (14:34):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (14:34):
That's GI Joe. So you grew up... I mean, New York guy.
Shaheen Wallace (14:40):
Yeah. Boy.
Bob Simon (14:41):
So what was that like, man? How did you get to Pittsburgh? Because that ain't New York. That's a small town.
Shaheen Wallace (14:45):
So short answer, Pitt offered me the most money for law school. I said yes.
Bob Simon (14:49):
I tell lawyers to do that all day.
Shaheen Wallace (14:51):
Yes, indeed. So actually, the first law school I got accepted to was the University of Miami and the second law school I got accepted to was... What's one in Malibu?
Bob Simon (15:03):
Pepperdine. That's where I'm at, bro.
Shaheen Wallace (15:05):
Pepperdine.
Charles Lew (15:06):
Yeah, yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (15:07):
Had I known that you went to Pepperdine? Oh, I'd be like, "Let's go to Pepperdine."
Bob Simon (15:09):
Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (15:10):
However-
Bob Simon (15:11):
Three times the cost, had to have been, of Pitt. At least.
Shaheen Wallace (15:14):
Of course.
Charles Lew (15:15):
When did you go?
Shaheen Wallace (15:16):
But it was the distraction bro. I was like-
Bob Simon (15:19):
Oh no, actually you could dial it down man. Nope. I had a schedule.
Charles Lew (15:21):
By the way, I did the same thing. Same analysis on Pepperdine. What year were you?
Shaheen Wallace (15:25):
I went to law school in 2011.
Charles Lew (15:28):
Oh, so a little later.
Shaheen Wallace (15:29):
Yeah.
Charles Lew (15:29):
But I did the same analysis on Pepperdine. I said, "If I go to Pepperdine, I'm never going to be engaged in law school."
Shaheen Wallace (15:36):
Nah. I just knew myself. I was like, let me go somewhere where I can focus. And that's going to, like I said, give me the most money. And the decision to go to Pitt was also kind of strategic. Right? Because I knew that Pennsylvania had reciprocity.
(15:48):
It's like 30, 40 states and more importantly had reciprocity with New York.
Bob Simon (15:53):
California zero.
Charles Lew (15:54):
Zero.
Shaheen Wallace (15:55):
Cali and Florida. They don't want nobody.
Charles Lew (15:57):
Why is that?
Bob Simon (15:59):
Pride.
Shaheen Wallace (15:59):
You know what it really is? It's the weather. Because if they knew... Same thing with Florida. If they knew that you could just wave in, they would have an influx of lawyers.
Bob Simon (16:10):
That's true.
Shaheen Wallace (16:12):
Who wouldn't want to be warm all year round and make money doing what they do?
Bob Simon (16:16):
Psychos.
Shaheen Wallace (16:17):
They're like, nah, you guys can stay up there. Carpet baggers.
Bob Simon (16:19):
Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (16:22):
Yeah. Long time since you heard that one, right?
Bob Simon (16:24):
It is. [inaudible 00:16:27].
Shaheen Wallace (16:26):
So I went to Pitt, got the degree and I was like, I knew going in, it was like five years I'm waving into New York. So as soon as I hit five years, waving to New York, also waving to Georgia for case related reasons. But...
Bob Simon (16:39):
Georgia's a good booming, good booming venue for us. Yeah. Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (16:43):
It's a fantastic-
Charles Lew (16:43):
You're in Georgia?
Bob Simon (16:44):
I'm not but I've been there a bunch lately. I've been in Atlanta a couple of times the past six months.
Shaheen Wallace (16:48):
Yeah. Lots of cars and people drive idiots. Yeah.
Charles Lew (16:51):
Yep. No, we're in Atlanta, but not for law, for stem cell.
Bob Simon (16:56):
Interesting.
Charles Lew (16:57):
Talk about that later.
Bob Simon (16:58):
But I mean there's cities that are just... You can see the boom of ingenuity.
Charles Lew (17:01):
Absolutely. Atlanta's one of them. Beast city.
Bob Simon (17:04):
A lot of... Yeah. So whatever man, this isn't so bad. I don't feel like a champion.
Shaheen Wallace (17:09):
It's not horrendous, but yeah.
Bob Simon (17:11):
I feel like city of mediocrity, maybe?
Charles Lew (17:15):
You're feeling profoundly mediocre here.
Bob Simon (17:17):
That's right. I feel very C plus. Yeah. Actually C plus students probably made the best lawyers.
Charles Lew (17:22):
Yeah. We'll go B minus.
Bob Simon (17:24):
I did well my first year of law school and then after that I was, I'm fucking working the whole time.
Charles Lew (17:28):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (17:29):
And I kind of teetered down.
Charles Lew (17:30):
What were you? A B minus C student?
Bob Simon (17:33):
I was graduated third or fourth of my high school class and was-
Charles Lew (17:37):
No law school.
Bob Simon (17:38):
I was top 5% first year.
Charles Lew (17:40):
Oh, so you were a smart guy.
Bob Simon (17:41):
And then... Because it was the first time I didn't have to play a sport or work two jobs. It was all about time management. This is fucking easy. And then I worked a lot full time.
Charles Lew (17:49):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (17:50):
The last two years I went back to probably top 10 or top 15.
Charles Lew (17:53):
You beat me by 50%.
Bob Simon (17:55):
That's fine. But the best lawyers are ones that are in the middle.
Shaheen Wallace (17:57):
Listen, I rode the middle of that curve.
Bob Simon (17:59):
Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (18:00):
I said let me get in and get out.
Bob Simon (18:02):
Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (18:03):
I was like, I don't need order-
Bob Simon (18:05):
And you're still in Pittsburgh.
Shaheen Wallace (18:07):
I was like, I don't need order of the... What is it? Order of the Coif or whatever it is.
Bob Simon (18:09):
Yeah, the coif. What the fuck is a coif?
Charles Lew (18:10):
Yeah, I set no expectations.
Bob Simon (18:12):
Is it a hairdo?
Charles Lew (18:12):
Yeah, it is.
Shaheen Wallace (18:13):
It's the hair do. And that stupid little thing they put on our heads at graduation.
Bob Simon (18:17):
Oh, I didn't know what that was.
Charles Lew (18:17):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (18:18):
It's called a coif?
Charles Lew (18:18):
Yeah, well it's a order.
Bob Simon (18:21):
I also think law [inaudible 00:18:22] is a bunch of bullshit.
Shaheen Wallace (18:23):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (18:23):
You should never do it.
Shaheen Wallace (18:25):
It's the slickest way to hire...
Bob Simon (18:29):
Big law wants to hire [inaudible 00:18:31]-
Shaheen Wallace (18:30):
To hire cogs. It's the slickest way. Here's this privilege.
Bob Simon (18:35):
They're like predators. [inaudible 00:18:40].
Shaheen Wallace (18:40):
Especially if you write on, because you writing, you think it's a privilege. I wrote on like, go ahead. Me and my friends will make the money then.
Bob Simon (18:48):
Yeah.
Charles Lew (18:50):
Nah, no thank you. I was never a big-
Bob Simon (18:52):
Was your law experience good? Law school experience?
Shaheen Wallace (18:54):
It was, you know what I mean? I wouldn't do it twice.
Charles Lew (18:57):
Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (18:57):
You know.
Charles Lew (18:58):
Felt like your law school prepared you for your legal career?
Shaheen Wallace (19:02):
Not the generic classes like torts and contracts.
Charles Lew (19:06):
Sure.
Shaheen Wallace (19:06):
It was the elective courses that were taught by the adjuncts.
Bob Simon (19:11):
See, we just had this conversation.
Charles Lew (19:12):
We just talked about this.
Shaheen Wallace (19:14):
Because I want real practitioners telling me what was cracking in the legal industry. I'm like, get it.
Charles Lew (19:18):
We just spoke about this.
Shaheen Wallace (19:19):
I get it. You like 75 and you've been teaching torts for the last 300.
Charles Lew (19:24):
Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (19:25):
I said, but when was the last lawsuit you filed? Talk to me about that. Yeah. Oh, I haven't. So we had an expert witness class taught by John Perry.
Bob Simon (19:35):
Really? See, I wish... We never had that, that little thing. You didn't realize the value at the time in law school before.
Charles Lew (19:43):
You mean Pepperdine in general?
Bob Simon (19:44):
Well Pepperdine didn't have that, but we did have adjuncts. We never had an expert witness class.
Shaheen Wallace (19:47):
So we had John Perry of former Rosen, Lewick and Perry teaching expert witness. We had dudes like Jason Matsis teaching... I think it was pretrial practice and pleadings. We had George Contos of Contos, Mengine teaching advanced trial evidence. We had some real killers teaching us how to get it done.
Bob Simon (20:11):
Those are the adjuncts, people that are practicing.
Shaheen Wallace (20:13):
Oh my God.
Bob Simon (20:13):
This is where I have this whole moniker. I think law school should be free. I know it sounds fucking crazy, but I think real lawyers should come in and devote their time to practice people or teach them for a year or two, gust how to pass the bar two or three year apprenticeship at a firm. But that's how you do it.
Shaheen Wallace (20:25):
Old school. Some Abe Lincoln.
Charles Lew (20:27):
Loyola did that with me. If you look, I just taught web three and Metaverse artificial intelligence at Loyola. I mean that was a crazy formulated idea in my head that the dean at Loyola said, "Yeah, run with it. Let's go."
Shaheen Wallace (20:41):
Oh, that's dope.
Charles Lew (20:41):
The next thing I know, were the first Metaverse in the law class in entire country, which now has been emulated or copied by nine different law schools.
Shaheen Wallace (20:53):
So what does that look like?
Bob Simon (20:55):
Anything you want.
Shaheen Wallace (20:56):
That's what I'm saying.
Charles Lew (20:57):
I mean we've talked about, Bob and I have had plenty of whiskeys. Speaking of which, he's going to pour his next.
Shaheen Wallace (21:02):
I'm going to pour another one we stole from the founder of Cleo. He had his 15 years of Cleo in, he gave us this huddle, so we're going to use it again.
Charles Lew (21:14):
But Whistlepick 15 can never be-
Bob Simon (21:16):
So we're going to wish Shaheen a good 15 years. And yeah. See where you're going to be. I want to know the answer to these questions.
Shaheen Wallace (21:23):
Yes, please.
Bob Simon (21:23):
Where the fuck are you going to be 15 years into practice? Where do you want to be and how are you going to get there? Because you're got to start planning now for this, my friend.
Shaheen Wallace (21:32):
Yeah. Where do I want to be? So honestly, I see my firm being mobile. Right? I see at least 10 trial lawyers. Right?
Charles Lew (21:46):
How big is it now?
Shaheen Wallace (21:47):
Just me and my legal assistant right now.
Charles Lew (21:49):
Right. Love it.
Shaheen Wallace (21:51):
And we are doing, we're starting to do some damage, but I'm like, "All right Sha, if you can get 10 trial lawyers and that's all you do." No, no pre-lit stuff. You're not holding hands while they do treatment. They call you when stuff goes left.
Bob Simon (22:04):
Goes left. Pittsburgh left?
Shaheen Wallace (22:05):
Yo...
Bob Simon (22:06):
You know what a Pittsburgh left is?
Charles Lew (22:07):
No, I don't. Tell me.
Bob Simon (22:08):
So it's whenever you're at a stoplight and you're sitting in the left turn lane or pocket to make a left, it doesn't have to be the pocket. And as soon as the light turns green, the Pittsburgh left is the person left, just cuts it.
Shaheen Wallace (22:16):
Just guns it.
Bob Simon (22:17):
But in Pittsburgh, it's like a normal thing. Like go ahead. You go.
Charles Lew (22:19):
Okay.
Bob Simon (22:20):
We understand you have to wait longer than us. I think it's a respect thing. But...
Shaheen Wallace (22:24):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (22:25):
But Pittsburgh left. Actually, look it up. Wiki it.
Charles Lew (22:27):
I'll Wiki it.
Shaheen Wallace (22:29):
It's bananas. But I see 10 trial lawyers, the appropriate amount of staff. I don't know what that looks like yet. Yeah-
Charles Lew (22:36):
With the legal technology that we've been discussing, it used to be X number of staff and support per lawyer. Now I don't even know what it is.
Bob Simon (22:46):
I think it's more lawyer heavy and it's more...
Charles Lew (22:47):
Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (22:48):
And I want to see us in the three states, New York, Pennsylvania, and Georgia primarily. But if people call us to act pro hoc into other states.
Bob Simon (22:56):
So let me ask you this. We know in California this exists where you can hire contract killers like we do at our firm. Trial lawyers come in last minute, parachute in, kill. Does this exist in Pennsylvania?
Shaheen Wallace (23:05):
It doesn't. However, I've started to be that guy. I've told... I've got cases right now where I've told firm straight up, I'm like, "Yo, if you are too tired, too old..." You know what I mean? "Or too busy to try cases-"
Bob Simon (23:23):
Or all of the above.
Shaheen Wallace (23:23):
"Or all of the above. Call your boy."
Bob Simon (23:25):
Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (23:25):
I'm not going to ask you any questions except where's the case file? And I've got three cases like that right now that we're working on. And that's kind of what I'm becoming known for. It's like, yo Shaheen wants to smoke all the time. Just call him.
Bob Simon (23:40):
You want to smoke?
Shaheen Wallace (23:40):
I want to smoke. You know what I'm saying? If you want to fight, we with it.
Bob Simon (23:42):
Smoke. Smoke.
Shaheen Wallace (23:43):
You know what I mean?
Bob Simon (23:44):
Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (23:44):
I'm saying...
Bob Simon (23:46):
So anyway Shaheen, what's your Instagram handle for everybody that's...
Shaheen Wallace (23:50):
ShaheenESQ. So S-H-A-H-E-E-N-E-S-Q.
Bob Simon (23:55):
Just great content.
Charles Lew (23:56):
I want to see Shaheen's hairline in 15 years.
Shaheen Wallace (23:58):
Oh, it's going to stay right here.
Charles Lew (24:03):
Right now it's solid.
Shaheen Wallace (24:03):
Let me tell you, it's going to stay right here.
Charles Lew (24:03):
Bob, it's... Look at that.
Shaheen Wallace (24:05):
On my mom's side, all the men lose their hair at like 25.
Charles Lew (24:11):
Because right now your hairline is impressive.
Shaheen Wallace (24:14):
I appreciate that because my dad, he lost his at like 28. But he has a brother whose hair... Like he's got to be 65, still has a fro. And my dad was like, "You look like him." So I'm praying...
Charles Lew (24:31):
Say you got the uncle...
Shaheen Wallace (24:32):
I'm praying I got my uncle's hair. You know what I mean?
Bob Simon (24:34):
Just take Propecia for a few years.
Charles Lew (24:37):
Is that that what you do?
Bob Simon (24:38):
Dude, I did it from actually 25.
Charles Lew (24:40):
Because your hair is fantastic too.
Bob Simon (24:42):
Dude, It stayed on. It's a coif.
Shaheen Wallace (24:42):
You've got a coif. You do not want to queef on your-
Bob Simon (24:42):
No, I do not.
Charles Lew (24:43):
Yeah. But it's impressive.
Bob Simon (24:51):
Some people do.
Shaheen Wallace (24:53):
Hey, it's 2023, man.
Bob Simon (24:54):
You do you.
Shaheen Wallace (24:55):
You do you.
Bob Simon (24:56):
This is... We're going to...
Charles Lew (24:58):
Are we jumping into this already?
Bob Simon (25:00):
Because I want to... This is a story arc, this conversation. So I want to... I mean Shaheen, as I know, I knew this from our pre-production drinking meeting. Now that I'm drinking again, it's the selective memory.
Charles Lew (25:10):
He's already struggling a little.
Shaheen Wallace (25:11):
No, I'm good.
Charles Lew (25:14):
I'd say a little struggle.
Shaheen Wallace (25:17):
Before I came here. Before I came here-
Bob Simon (25:18):
Oh, I almost took the wrong bottle.
Shaheen Wallace (25:19):
I made sure that I went to Jollibee's. I got a three-piece.
Charles Lew (25:23):
You coated.
Shaheen Wallace (25:24):
Three-piece chicken, baked mac and cheese, mashed potatoes and a lemonade. I said-
Charles Lew (25:29):
Nice.
Shaheen Wallace (25:30):
I put something in my stomach. Because my mistake yesterday was I went to brunch with my homie at 11 and all we had was some tapas and I didn't realize I didn't eat anything again until 6:30.
Bob Simon (25:42):
7 o'clock. Seven. Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (25:44):
And then what did I do? Had four glasses of assorted bourbons and I was...
Bob Simon (25:49):
The first two were well over a hundred proofs.
Shaheen Wallace (25:51):
Yeah, it was rocket fuel. It tasted good but it was straight up high octane. And by the third glass, your boy was feeling nice. I was like...
Charles Lew (26:00):
How you feeling now though?
Shaheen Wallace (26:01):
I'm good. I'm Gucci.
Bob Simon (26:02):
Yeah, he's Gucci. So we talked about this last night. Your dad is a minister. So how does that affect you trying cases? How does that work into your practice? That work into you trying cases?
Shaheen Wallace (26:16):
Man, it comes out all the time, right? So I grew up in the church, you know what I mean? So-
Charles Lew (26:21):
What denomination?
Shaheen Wallace (26:22):
Non-denominational.
Charles Lew (26:23):
Non... Okay.
Shaheen Wallace (26:24):
Right. So the way I try to explain it to young trial lawyers like, "Oh I'm nervous." And I'm like, "Look, find what trial is for you." And trial for me is church.
Charles Lew (26:39):
Okay.
Shaheen Wallace (26:39):
It's the same thing. People are paying $200, $300 to go to [inaudible 00:26:44], it's the same thing I was doing since I was a kid. You get up in front of a congregation of people from all different backgrounds and you're telling them stuff and you're trying to get them to believe something that they might not have been believing when they first walked in.
Bob Simon (26:55):
Praise the Lord.
Shaheen Wallace (26:56):
That's church.
Bob Simon (26:57):
Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (26:57):
Right?
Bob Simon (26:58):
You're right man. I think about that shit all the time.
Shaheen Wallace (27:00):
And then-
Charles Lew (27:01):
Wait, do you do that?
Bob Simon (27:03):
I always think about depending... We talked about this last night, depending on the venue. I try to come off as... Look I am ordained in this... What is it? Some online thing. Universal Church... I've actually, have you ever done a wedding before?
Charles Lew (27:14):
Universal Life?
Shaheen Wallace (27:14):
Yes.
Bob Simon (27:15):
How many weddings have you done?
Shaheen Wallace (27:16):
Just One. It was-
Charles Lew (27:18):
I've done [inaudible 00:27:20] by the way.
Bob Simon (27:19):
I've done 12.
Charles Lew (27:20):
I've done a high profile gay wedding was the last one I did. And it was the greatest one I ever did.
Bob Simon (27:25):
Yeah.
Charles Lew (27:26):
Yeah. It was amazing.
Shaheen Wallace (27:29):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (27:29):
I married my dad, my sister, my brother, my twin brother. One of my paralegals. Two of my paralegals. One of my best friends. Lawyers.
Shaheen Wallace (27:37):
Oh, you're busy.
Bob Simon (27:38):
I do it for bourbon. So I will officially-
Charles Lew (27:40):
Do you have a script or do you-
Bob Simon (27:41):
I did one in Spanish. Spanglish.
Charles Lew (27:42):
Do you wing it?
Bob Simon (27:44):
I have a little bit of a script. No, I got... I Mean, it's a storytelling.
Charles Lew (27:47):
No way. No way, Bob.
Bob Simon (27:48):
Open my Bible. I have the same kind of general things that I do.
Charles Lew (27:51):
But it's got the Bob Simon twist?
Bob Simon (27:52):
It's a good 15, 20 minutes of just fun.
Shaheen Wallace (27:56):
I like it.
Bob Simon (27:57):
Well we did a wedding, one of my best friends, they got married in the Montage in Laguna, the fanciest place and one of the best, most fun weddings I've been to. And then a week later we did my wife's cousin's wedding in West Virginia and I'm talking West Virginia.
Charles Lew (28:11):
Nice.
Bob Simon (28:12):
And that trumped that wedding. It was so much fucking fun. It was like the dichotomy of two different types of weddings. Man. I have so much fun doing that shit. But just learning people. Because it's like-
Charles Lew (28:20):
I love them.
Bob Simon (28:21):
Intimacy.
Shaheen Wallace (28:22):
Oh yeah.
Bob Simon (28:22):
I hate when you go to those weddings and it's like the person's telling stories, they never met these people. I spent five-
Charles Lew (28:26):
I never understood it.
Bob Simon (28:27):
Years with Cindy and Cindy told me she likes breakfast. Joe liked to make breakfast. He didn't like to make breakfast in the...
Charles Lew (28:35):
No.
Shaheen Wallace (28:36):
But yeah. But I definitely think it comes out in the way I track it. It's interesting. Before I tell people that I'm a preacher's kid, generally when they hear me in trial, after it's over, they might ask like, "Yo, what does your dad do?" I'm like, "Oh, he's a peace officer but he's a minister." And they go, "Now you make sense." They go, "Now you make sense." And I'm like, "What do you mean?" They go, "We can hear it in your cadence."
Bob Simon (29:01):
Cadence is the important thing.
Shaheen Wallace (29:02):
Your cadence is very churchy. MLK's got the same preacher's cadence. You'll notice that with a lot of black trial lawyers. You'll find that a lot of them are real church. And you'll hear it in their cadence.
Bob Simon (29:16):
Oh, that is true.
Shaheen Wallace (29:18):
Go ahead and watch CVN, any of them. I guarantee you'll hear the same cadence, because we kind of all grew up the same.
Bob Simon (29:24):
That's interesting. But it's like we tell all my lawyers now when you talk, slow it down.
Shaheen Wallace (29:30):
I tell people-
Bob Simon (29:31):
Talk like this.
Shaheen Wallace (29:32):
I tell people how-
Bob Simon (29:33):
Pause.
Shaheen Wallace (29:33):
However slow you think you're talking, talk slower. Because you don't realize how fast. Especially on cross exam.
Bob Simon (29:39):
I write it on my notepad. I put it right in front of me, slow down.
Charles Lew (29:43):
Wow.
Bob Simon (29:44):
And I'll tell a lawyer, I'll slap the thing, slow down up there because it makes a big difference. Because if you're talking like this, talking so fast, it seems like you're trying to sell somebody-
Shaheen Wallace (29:51):
Right.
Bob Simon (29:52):
One over on it. But if you're going slow, you are confident about the process. How could they get up here and say these things?
Shaheen Wallace (29:59):
And you want people to hear you.
Bob Simon (30:00):
We know what the truth is.
Shaheen Wallace (30:02):
And you want the jury to hear what it is you have to say. So I said, I tell everybody, I'm like, "However slow you think you're talking..." I said, "Nobody's going to think you're dumb. They're going to think you're dumb if they can't understand you and you're jumbling your words." So yeah, cadence is key.
Bob Simon (30:18):
[inaudible 00:30:19] slow with talking slow to going too fast and jurors are going too slow. And jurors thinking it's taking too long.
Charles Lew (30:26):
I got a question as a non-trial lawyer.
Bob Simon (30:29):
We're going to pour this first because he brought this for you. Yeah.
Charles Lew (30:31):
Yeah. This is for you.
Bob Simon (30:32):
Mr. Jamaica man.
Charles Lew (30:32):
But I've tried five cases in my life. So for both of you, but you specifically, when you say slow it down, is there ever a point where you sit there and you say, "Where is this lady or gentleman going?" Or...
Bob Simon (30:46):
You get your point quickly. So whenever you're doing... During evidence, I like to go a little faster. Get to the point where you're making a point, slow it down so they know it's a point. And if you're doing closing argument, you have to slow it down.
(31:00):
And everybody listens to a lot of the podcasts. They do. I speak really fast, but that's a different audience, because people need it quickly. It's a different vibe.
Charles Lew (31:06):
But when you speak, when you're in front of a jury for new lawyers, which certainly a large portion of this audience is going to be new lawyers, your general advice would be slow it down?
Bob Simon (31:17):
Slow it down. Especially, I mean, look, people have a distrust for lawyers. So they have to think of something that they trust that they know. And if they think somebody's a slick Willie talking real quick, trying to fool them, not going to work. But both sides, you see it on both sides. But if somebody like jury selection is a credibility process for me.
(31:36):
So you're like, I'm interested, generally interested in people so I'm asking questions. I'm interested in what they have to say. Ask open-ended questions. The other lawyer, if they're like, "Show of hands, how do you feel about this? How do you feel that way? Why do you feel that way?" It just not cool.
Shaheen Wallace (31:50):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (31:51):
All right. Why'd you bring this for... His dad is building a house in Jamaica, right?
Shaheen Wallace (31:56):
In Jamaica. Yep.
Charles Lew (31:56):
Perfect. So yeah, Bob, as the consummate professional asked me to pick something that would be akin to or in line with our guests. So what we brought right here is above any.
Shaheen Wallace (32:09):
All right.
Charles Lew (32:10):
14 Caribbean cask. Now depending whether or not you're fauz Scottish accent, like myself, you would call it Caribbean or Caribbean.
Bob Simon (32:19):
I think it goes both ways.
Charles Lew (32:22):
I think it goes both ways.
Shaheen Wallace (32:22):
Jamaicans say Caribbean.
Charles Lew (32:24):
My Scottish friends-
Bob Simon (32:24):
Really? Caribbean.
Shaheen Wallace (32:25):
Yeah. Caribbean.
Charles Lew (32:26):
You say Caribbean? Yeah. My Scottish friends always make fun of me about how I pronounce certain words. Taco. Taco.
Bob Simon (32:31):
I just think what would Sebastian say?
Charles Lew (32:34):
That's a good point.
Bob Simon (32:35):
The little Mermaid. I just saw the live one.
Charles Lew (32:37):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (32:37):
Did you know that Shaggy played Sebastian in the 2019 rendition of Little Mermaid Live? Fucking Shaggy.
Charles Lew (32:43):
Didn't know that.
Bob Simon (32:43):
I was like-
Charles Lew (32:44):
That makes sense.
Bob Simon (32:44):
We were watching with our girls the other day and my wife was like, "Was Shaggy Sebastian?" I was like, "It sounds a lot like..." it wasn't. But I was like I think it was Sebastian.
Shaheen Wallace (32:51):
It wasn't.
Bob Simon (32:52):
He was wearing a crab suit and everything.
Charles Lew (32:53):
Really? So you're building a home in Jamaica?
Shaheen Wallace (32:56):
Yeah. So my dad-
Charles Lew (32:58):
So, we've got a aged 14 years in rum casks. So Bob said pick something out for the next gentleman that would be very in line with him.
Bob Simon (33:12):
Because the firm here has everything.
Charles Lew (33:15):
We have everything.
Shaheen Wallace (33:16):
It sure looks like it.
Charles Lew (33:16):
We have everything. So I'm very curious. So what we've been doing is we want you to try this and we want you to hit us immediately with what hits your palate and what you think.
Bob Simon (33:27):
Let's do it. Let's do it.
Charles Lew (33:27):
And now we might critique you horribly.
Shaheen Wallace (33:30):
That's okay.
Charles Lew (33:30):
We might roast you based on-
Shaheen Wallace (33:32):
I might critique this thing horribly. Let's find out.
Bob Simon (33:40):
This is a single malt. Look at him heavy handing me again.
Charles Lew (33:46):
This is the only time in Bob's life he gets heavy-handed.
Bob Simon (33:50):
That's true.
Charles Lew (33:50):
Every other time you heavy-hand it.
Bob Simon (33:53):
I do. You can smell it in here. It's definitely different.
Shaheen Wallace (33:55):
I smell a little raisin.
Bob Simon (33:56):
Actually I'm not going to ruin it for you.
Charles Lew (33:57):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (33:57):
I just threw you off. Is it-
Charles Lew (33:59):
No, no, no, no.
Bob Simon (33:59):
Is this a mango?
Charles Lew (34:01):
We need the flavor profile. The palette profile.
Shaheen Wallace (34:09):
Wow. That is lively.
Bob Simon (34:12):
Wow. That is very different.
Charles Lew (34:14):
It's beautiful. By the way, this is incredible, incredible expression.
Shaheen Wallace (34:21):
So you kind of did bias me a little bit to the raisins, but...
Bob Simon (34:24):
I knew I'd fuck with you, man.
Shaheen Wallace (34:26):
Because it's in a rum. Because it's in a rum cask.
Bob Simon (34:27):
It might be weird.
Shaheen Wallace (34:30):
I taste... It almost smells like sugarcane.
Charles Lew (34:33):
That's fair
Bob Simon (34:35):
But wrong.
Charles Lew (34:37):
That's fair.
Bob Simon (34:37):
Yes.
Shaheen Wallace (34:40):
Honestly, I can't even pick it up.
Charles Lew (34:44):
Well the thing we always say with whiskeys is there's no wrong answer. So what's your answer? What do you feel?
Bob Simon (34:51):
Don't say wood chip.
Charles Lew (34:52):
Don't say wood chip. The only wrong answer you can give is wood chip.
Bob Simon (34:57):
Is wood chip. Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (34:58):
Which would you be?
Charles Lew (34:59):
There really is no wrong answer. The answer is what you...
Bob Simon (35:02):
This is a fun game. Because I'm not good-
Charles Lew (35:04):
What comes to your mind when you-
Bob Simon (35:05):
My wife, she can smell-
Shaheen Wallace (35:07):
It smells like it smells like honey and cinnamon.
Charles Lew (35:09):
Honey, for sure. Yeah.
Bob Simon (35:11):
Just keep saying things. You'll get it right eventually. Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (35:14):
It smells...
Bob Simon (35:15):
Come on.
Shaheen Wallace (35:17):
Not fig. That's not what I'm looking for.
Bob Simon (35:19):
We had fig last night.
Charles Lew (35:20):
Yeah, fig last night.
Bob Simon (35:21):
Dude, we had [inaudible 00:35:23]. That was the Greek.
Shaheen Wallace (35:24):
I don't know how to describe it. Yeah, that whistle pig, that whistle pig slap.
Charles Lew (35:27):
We've talked about that.
Bob Simon (35:28):
We did. Yeah, there's one back there too.
Charles Lew (35:30):
Oh, we could probably hit that later.
Shaheen Wallace (35:36):
Oh, that one's getting away from me. It just tastes like... I feel like... You know what star anise is?
Charles Lew (35:43):
That's interesting.
Bob Simon (35:44):
It's a fruit, yeah.
Charles Lew (35:45):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (35:45):
Star anise?
Shaheen Wallace (35:45):
Star anise.
Charles Lew (35:45):
Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (35:45):
That's what they make licorice out of.
Charles Lew (35:48):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (35:48):
What?
Charles Lew (35:48):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (35:51):
That's like what I learned sassafras was root beer.
Shaheen Wallace (35:53):
I'm putting you on-
Bob Simon (35:54):
[inaudible 00:35:55].
Shaheen Wallace (35:55):
I'm putting you on some things.
Bob Simon (35:56):
It's an actual root. It's actually from a root.
Shaheen Wallace (35:58):
Man, that's [inaudible 00:36:02].
Charles Lew (35:58):
But you like it?
Shaheen Wallace (35:58):
Yeah.
Charles Lew (35:58):
Okay.
Bob Simon (36:03):
There should be a root beer flavored.
Shaheen Wallace (36:04):
I like the way it kind of coats the tongue. Like the other stuff is kind of... Kind of just goes down, makes you warm. This one coats the tongue.
Charles Lew (36:09):
Bob's stuff is going to just punch you in the mouth.
Shaheen Wallace (36:10):
Yeah. Yeah. It's going to stop.
Bob Simon (36:12):
This is probably live 90 proof. What is this?
Charles Lew (36:14):
I'm going to try to be a little kinder and gentler with you.
Bob Simon (36:17):
He's a gentle lover.
Charles Lew (36:18):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (36:20):
He'll hold you-
Shaheen Wallace (36:20):
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Charles Lew (36:25):
Bob's looking to punch you right in the face.
Shaheen Wallace (36:29):
What's in this one?
Bob Simon (36:31):
He doesn't even know.
Charles Lew (36:32):
Well, no. Of course.
Bob Simon (36:35):
He knows everything.
Charles Lew (36:36):
Here's the thing. Look, I'll tell you. Interesting side note, side story. I had the opportunity to tour Macallan and during one of the tours we were discussing with the master distiller all of the different nuances and flavors.
(36:53):
And of course all of the individuals who were on this particular tour were very experienced or very eloquent or very educated with the whiskeys that they were touring.
Bob Simon (37:07):
They're hotty toddy.
Charles Lew (37:07):
Yeah. Thank you.
Bob Simon (37:09):
We had work for that.
Charles Lew (37:10):
Thank you Bob. So while they were engaging in these conversations with the master distiller, the master distiller said, "What do you get? What do you get? What do you get?" And everybody was participating. And one of the messages or the stories the master distiller imparted upon all of us was it's not about what you get or what you get or more importantly, what he got, which is now a female distiller.
Bob Simon (37:35):
Well they have a female distiller?
Charles Lew (37:38):
Macallan is now run by master distiller, who's an incredible, incredible-
Bob Simon (37:43):
Women have the best noses for that. That's why they should be.
Charles Lew (37:47):
She's truly on a different level. But one of the most interesting lessons that he imparted upon the whole group was it's completely irrelevant what everybody else gets. Including him as a master distiller. It's really dependent on-
Shaheen Wallace (38:01):
See man...
Charles Lew (38:02):
What you get.
Bob Simon (38:03):
Everybody has a different palate, smells.
Charles Lew (38:04):
Well, we all have... You know what I would think about? I would think we all have different memories. So I think whiskeys, bourbons, whiskey, now whether other bourbons, scotch-
Bob Simon (38:14):
The Brown Chronicles, the Chronicles of Narnia.
Charles Lew (38:16):
Well they're all stories, man.
Bob Simon (38:18):
It's key. The key to Narnia. We talked about this.
Charles Lew (38:22):
Also you drink a bourbon or a rye.
Bob Simon (38:24):
Yeah, yeah.
Charles Lew (38:24):
And you say, "Oh, this hit me like-"
Shaheen Wallace (38:26):
Reminds me of this.
Charles Lew (38:27):
"2011, blah, blah, blah." You try it, you say, this hits me like this. I try, I say, this hits me like 1982.
Shaheen Wallace (38:35):
Yeah.
Charles Lew (38:36):
Scotland drinking with my papa. So the real story is it's your expression. What's your particular expression when you drink this?
Bob Simon (38:44):
His story.
Charles Lew (38:46):
Not his story or mine or any whiskey.
Bob Simon (38:50):
It's his story.
Charles Lew (38:52):
Yeah. What's yours?
Bob Simon (38:53):
My story.
Charles Lew (38:53):
Yeah. What's yours?
Bob Simon (38:55):
Man, look at this man. You're getting deep.
Shaheen Wallace (38:56):
You know what I'm talking about?
Bob Simon (38:56):
Is this a Machiavellian play? What is it? Machiavellian?
Charles Lew (38:59):
Machiavellian.
Shaheen Wallace (38:59):
It's getting philosophical. I like it.
Bob Simon (39:01):
I don't know if I like it. You guys want to talk about sports or something? Poems?
Charles Lew (39:07):
So it's you drink it how you like it. That's the most important message and you expression, your feeling of it is what you feel. Not mine. Not mine as a whiskey expert. Yours as a life expert.
Bob Simon (39:22):
As a novice.
Shaheen Wallace (39:24):
Which brand is this?
Charles Lew (39:25):
That's Balvenie.
Shaheen Wallace (39:26):
Because you might need to call them, because that's a commercial right there.
Bob Simon (39:28):
There you go.
Shaheen Wallace (39:31):
That's the commercial.
Bob Simon (39:31):
Marketing is losing their mind right now. We're going to get to the core of you just at the end of the episode here.
Shaheen Wallace (39:35):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (39:35):
So we talk about 15 years from now. How long have you had your practice now? Three, four years?
Shaheen Wallace (39:40):
It's going to seven...
Bob Simon (39:41):
Seven years.
Shaheen Wallace (39:41):
Seven or no, eight years in March 26th.
Bob Simon (39:45):
You've been doing it as solo plus one.
Shaheen Wallace (39:48):
Solo plus one as of '21. But it was solo for the first six and a half years.
Charles Lew (39:54):
Wow.
Bob Simon (39:55):
So why do you want to get to that point where you have 10 or 11 other mercenaries working for Shaheen Z Wallace?
Shaheen Wallace (40:03):
So we can try more cases and I'm not trying all the cases.
Bob Simon (40:06):
And there you go.
Shaheen Wallace (40:07):
Right.
Bob Simon (40:08):
What is your role in this cog?
Shaheen Wallace (40:10):
So I'm the general, but I'm a Roman general in that we have troops, but I'm still in the battle. Right?
Bob Simon (40:23):
Man, I've never heard this. This is good. I like it.
Shaheen Wallace (40:25):
Come on, man, I be putting you all-
Bob Simon (40:26):
I feel like you ChatGPT'ed this. What was that called?
Charles Lew (40:28):
I think you ChatGPT.
Bob Simon (40:30):
I think you were like, "How do I tell a successful story? Talk about a general in Roman."
Shaheen Wallace (40:34):
It's the stuff right?
Bob Simon (40:35):
They didn't even have bourbon.
Charles Lew (40:38):
No. Wait, Roman General, you're a Roman general.
Bob Simon (40:40):
Did they have bourbon back then in the roman times?
Charles Lew (40:45):
No, no.
Shaheen Wallace (40:45):
No. See?
Bob Simon (40:45):
I knew it was bullshit.
Shaheen Wallace (40:45):
They had wine, they had...
Charles Lew (40:45):
They had mead.
Shaheen Wallace (40:45):
Mead.
Charles Lew (40:48):
For sure.
Shaheen Wallace (40:49):
Tankards of mead.
Charles Lew (40:51):
How do you not know this as a DnD guy? What did drink in the tavern? Come on.
Bob Simon (40:56):
Fucking ale.
Charles Lew (40:57):
Ale and mead. Yeah.
Bob Simon (40:59):
That makes sense.
Charles Lew (40:59):
But you were a Roman general.
Shaheen Wallace (41:01):
So I have the troops and we go to war, but I'm still fighting. I have no intention of sitting behind a desk, just delegating. Which is also kind of why we're trying to involve more tech into the practice. Because a lot of the things that we can get done, sounds terrible, but we don't need to hire people to do like we used to, 20 years ago.
Charles Lew (41:22):
We talk about this all the time.
Shaheen Wallace (41:24):
So I'm just trying to expand my reach without increasing overhead and also trying to keep us as light, as nimble as possible. Right?
Charles Lew (41:32):
There you go.
Shaheen Wallace (41:33):
So they're like, "Yo Sha, we need four lawyers in Georgia because we have a death case on a truck."
Charles Lew (41:36):
No doubt. I love it.
Shaheen Wallace (41:37):
I'd be like you-
Charles Lew (41:38):
General point, point.
Bob Simon (41:39):
See this is the same. This is my dream. This is what I've done probably the past eight years at my firm is play general like this. And sometimes it's you come down and you fight. Sometimes you do it as we call it, jump under grates. Sometimes I got to go in and do it.
Charles Lew (41:53):
But it's an ego thing you do. At what point do you-
Bob Simon (41:56):
So I got rid of that ego long ago and I think this is the number one problem trial lawyers is that ego stands in the way.
Charles Lew (42:01):
I agree.
Bob Simon (42:02):
You have to be able to[.
Charles Lew (42:02):
So how do you not be pulled into that?
Shaheen Wallace (42:06):
It's a family.
Bob Simon (42:07):
I don't know what to tell you man.
Shaheen Wallace (42:09):
Since-
Bob Simon (42:10):
You feel like you can win every case you want to do. But-
Shaheen Wallace (42:13):
Since I don't have a family, I have to find a different way to not let my ego get in the way. And it's funny you said that, because my ego is what got me into the practice.
Charles Lew (42:19):
Okay.
Shaheen Wallace (42:20):
Right? So quick story. Most people wanted to go to law school that I went to law school with. They wanted to go since they were kids. "I want to be a lawyer when I grow up." Not me. Guess what I wanted to do?
Bob Simon (42:32):
Weatherman.
Shaheen Wallace (42:33):
Nope. Try again. Guess what I wanted before I went to college?
Bob Simon (42:35):
Preacher.
Shaheen Wallace (42:36):
Nope. Give it another shot.
Charles Lew (42:38):
Sports commentator.
Bob Simon (42:40):
No. Oh, god, I know this. You wanted to make serial in Wisconsin.
Shaheen Wallace (42:45):
I wanted to fly F-18s for the Marine Corps.
Bob Simon (42:47):
No.
Charles Lew (42:47):
Wow.
Bob Simon (42:48):
No you didn't.
Shaheen Wallace (42:48):
That's what I wanted to do.
Bob Simon (42:49):
Fucking top gun over here.
Shaheen Wallace (42:50):
That's what I wanted to do. So I wanted to fly specifically F-18s for the Marine Corps.
Charles Lew (42:54):
Are you too tall though.
Shaheen Wallace (42:56):
No.
Bob Simon (42:56):
Colorblind.
Shaheen Wallace (42:57):
Nope. I have 20/20. I have eyes like a hawk, right? But I realized that my gifts are writing and talking. Right. But I was like, yeah, "Who can make money doing that?" I wasn't even thinking about law school. So I go to college-
Bob Simon (43:07):
The fuck kind of career is...
Shaheen Wallace (43:08):
So I go to-
Bob Simon (43:08):
Which changed? When did this happen? You were just like, I'm not doing F-18s.
Shaheen Wallace (43:08):
So check this out. So I go to college and it's my sophomore.
Bob Simon (43:09):
Where did you go to college by the way?
Shaheen Wallace (43:16):
John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.
Bob Simon (43:18):
Wow.
Shaheen Wallace (43:19):
So I go to college my sophomore year and we took this field trip, day trip, to civil court in the Bronx. And there was a personal injury trial going on. And I was in the courtroom and I was watching them try the case. I'm like, how old are you in...
Bob Simon (43:34):
21.
Shaheen Wallace (43:35):
21? Yeah. I don't know shit about the world. I don't know what trial means, what liability and damages is. But I'm watching the trial.
Charles Lew (43:40):
This is good.
Bob Simon (43:43):
This is good stuff.
Shaheen Wallace (43:43):
And I'm like this, I'm the lady. She was toe up from the floor up. This lady was hurt bad. But I'm watching plaintiff's counsel and I'm like, "Yo, this guy is not good." I wasn't impressed.
Charles Lew (43:54):
He's not a Bob Simon.
Shaheen Wallace (43:55):
You would think the motivational stories, you watch somebody that was killing it and you want to be like them. I was like, "Yo, this dude is ass. I could do this better than he could." And then my ego was like, "All right, you said it. Now you got to go do it."
Bob Simon (44:08):
There you go.
Charles Lew (44:08):
So that's your affirmation right there.
Shaheen Wallace (44:12):
So I went straight to... It's from the day I started law school. I was like, I want to try cases as a personal injury attorney. And then I got into the practice and then I was like, "Yo Sha, your ego can't carry you for the next 20, 30, 40 years. You have to find something more substantial. You have to find a purpose in this."
(44:29):
So it went from being ego driven to people driven. How can I help people? Because when you think about personal injury law, a lot of people think about the substantial verdicts and the money that you can make doing it. And I ain't going to lie to you, when I first heard about it, I was like, "You can make how much doing this?"
(44:51):
And I said there's got to be more. And the day I realized this was actually a flashback to high school. So my senior year in high school, I had-
Bob Simon (45:11):
Still at New York? Set the scene. You're still in New York?
Shaheen Wallace (45:13):
Yep. Here you go. Watch this. So this is my senior year in high school. And we are about a week or two out from graduation. And we all kind of get that anxiety, like, yo, we just want to cross the stage and be done. About two weeks, about a week before that, a week and a half before that, one of my good friends and three of his friends were all killed a car crash right before graduation.
(45:48):
And there was one survivor, there was like four, wait, one, two... There was four or five people in the car and one person survived. And we had lost three people right before graduation. I'm talking seniors ready to graduate.
(46:02):
And then we had... There was another kid, his name was Bobby [inaudible 00:46:05]. He was the only other person in my high school that was going to go to my college with me. Everybody else is going to SUNY Buffalo or wherever. He was the only person that was going to come to college with me. And he was a skinny kid that had a heart problem his whole life. And the way he would introduce himself, he'd go, "Hi, my name is Bobby [inaudible 00:46:22]. You want to see my scar?" And then he would open up a shirt and show you a surgical scar.
(46:26):
And what his thing was, he loved, he had wanted to be a firefighter, but obviously he couldn't physically be a firefighter. So when my friends passed in the car crash, we're doing vigils and stuff at the scene of the crash. And he's on his bicycle every night. Riding past the riding past the spot, making sure stuff is set up for the vigil, making sure that people know the vigils are at, what time it's at.
(46:48):
When I tell you he's got a police scanner on the radio with the police department, the fire department coordinating. And then three or four days after the vigils were done, he passes away.
Bob Simon (47:03):
Fuck.
Charles Lew (47:04):
Geez.
Shaheen Wallace (47:06):
And at this point, the whole school is just broken.
Charles Lew (47:10):
Amazing.
Shaheen Wallace (47:12):
And I remember I got the call when I was at home. At first it was hard getting the call my friends passed then it was hard getting the call that Bobby passed and I remember being at home and they said, "We're going to have a memorial service in the school."
(47:25):
And I was the vice president of the student government at that time. And they said, "Sha, we're going to bring everybody to the gymnasium. We're going to fill up the seats, pull out the bleachers, fill out the bleachers, and we're going to have people speak and we want you to speak." I said, "What am I going to say? What can I say?" So we show up to the memorial service a couple of days later and this gymnasium was packed with every... Because everybody loved these two. And I remember Bobby's family being directly in the front.
(47:55):
His name was Kevin. Kevin's family is directly in the front. They were all lined up. And to this day, I can't remember what I said. I do remember that I'd found solace in the scripture and that was coming out, as it's wont to do as a preacher's kid. But I can't remember what I said. But I remember the deafening silence and everybody listening.
(48:18):
And again, I don't know what was going through their minds at the time, but it was the day after and I was talking to my social studies teacher, Mrs. White. She goes, "I was talking to..." she said, "I was talking to an English teacher and she said to me after that service, whatever Shaheen asked me to do, I would've done it."
Charles Lew (48:36):
Wow.
Shaheen Wallace (48:39):
And when I started practicing law, I don't know why that memory just rushed back to me. And I was like, it's got to be more than just, it has to be about-
Bob Simon (48:49):
He's crying. I almost cried. But I look at him and I almost cry again.
Charles Lew (48:51):
I mean, look, this is the type of thing we don't get the opportunity to hear during these type of interviews and podcasts. But man, it's fire. Yeah.
Shaheen Wallace (49:04):
Kevin and Bobby, man.
Bob Simon (49:05):
But you can feel Kevin and Bobby right now sitting there looking at their parents. Don't remember what you said, but you can feel the moment.
Charles Lew (49:11):
You know what? You want to know something crazy?
Bob Simon (49:14):
Is this an Eminem ting? Feeling the moment? You get one shot? Is this where you're going again?
Charles Lew (49:16):
I think so.
Bob Simon (49:16):
Fuck, I knew it.
Charles Lew (49:18):
You want to know where I'm going? But I'll tell you where I'm really going with this and you'll appreciate this, because as much as you'd like to have this cavalier Bob attitude, you're deep feeling dude.
Bob Simon (49:31):
I'm soft.
Charles Lew (49:32):
Very, very deep. You are.
Bob Simon (49:33):
That's true. It's fair.
Shaheen Wallace (49:35):
I don't think you can do this work effectively if you're not not.
Bob Simon (49:38):
Yeah, you got to feel it or it's not real.
Shaheen Wallace (49:39):
Because if you don't feel it, you can't get 12 or six random people to feel it.
Charles Lew (49:44):
That's true.
Shaheen Wallace (49:45):
You can't.
Charles Lew (49:45):
That's true. But to your point-
Bob Simon (49:47):
12 or six? Oh, you have weird shit.
Shaheen Wallace (49:48):
Bro, don't even get me started.
Charles Lew (49:49):
What you said, what he said a minute ago and then going back to the Bob cavalier. But Bob's a feeling guy. You mentioned something five minutes ago. What did you say? What kind of general?
Shaheen Wallace (50:02):
I'm a Roman general.
Charles Lew (50:03):
All right. So do you want to hear something crazy, because he said that-
Bob Simon (50:06):
Is this that Roman fingers, Russian hands thing?
Charles Lew (50:08):
No, let's going back... Let's go back. See? There you go. Bob goes back to this cavalier.
Bob Simon (50:13):
I don't want to get emotional.
Charles Lew (50:13):
I'm going back to the historical, dirty side. During the Roman Empire, one of the things the Roman Empire used to do was, when a conquering general, such as you described yourself, would come home and they would be paraded throughout the city.
(50:32):
Now we have to understand that the Roman generals at this time, they weren't the NBA players. They were the NBA superstars. This was the Kobe, the LeBron.
Bob Simon (50:42):
Marcus Aurelius.
Charles Lew (50:43):
Yes. They were gods, they were demigods. So they would be paraded through the city and as they were being paraded through the city, they would hire or they would employ an individual to walk behind them. And that individual would walk behind them. And do you know what the individual would say?
Bob Simon (51:01):
You farted. See, I went back there.
Charles Lew (51:03):
You went back.
Bob Simon (51:04):
I was just testing.
Shaheen Wallace (51:04):
What'd they say?
Bob Simon (51:05):
They would say memento mori.
Shaheen Wallace (51:07):
Memento. Remember death.
Charles Lew (51:08):
Memento. Exactly.
Shaheen Wallace (51:09):
This guy's a...
Charles Lew (51:11):
Listen, I know this. Why do you think I'm going there, Bob?
Bob Simon (51:14):
We had a previous podcast. We talked about his character for... When he was a kid going up, his name in Latin was coward. His brother named his character.
Charles Lew (51:21):
Yes. I'm very familiar.
Bob Simon (51:22):
He was laughed at for years as a child.
Charles Lew (51:24):
Unfortunately, I know-
Bob Simon (51:25):
Core memory being laughed at as a child being a coward.
Charles Lew (51:26):
So they would say memento mori, which essentially would mean remember you're going to die.
Bob Simon (51:31):
That's awesome.
Charles Lew (51:32):
Right? So basically as these individuals were being lifted up.
Bob Simon (51:36):
Eventually you're going to die.
Shaheen Wallace (51:37):
You have to wait [inaudible 00:51:39].
Charles Lew (51:39):
No, but to your point, they were being lifted up to the position of a God or a demigod. Someone would say to them, "Remember you are going to die. You are essentially not a god or a demigod."
Bob Simon (51:51):
I feel like somebody should walk behind us and say that. And then also play our music. Our theme song.
Charles Lew (51:54):
Play our theme song?
Bob Simon (51:55):
So Shaheen, we're going to wrap this up, bro. Listen, pleasure to have you on the show. Of course we're so happy you travel in. But we got to learn, the critical question here is what is your bourbon of proof? And that we ask the question is, where do you like your tolerance and which one do you like out of all of these? And you could pick a spirit that you had recently. It could be your whole, I mean, it's open for you.
Shaheen Wallace (52:14):
My bourbon of proof, interestingly, is not the whiskey or a bourbon, it's a rum. So yeah, again, my whole family's from Jamaica and we went to the Appleton Rum Estate.
Bob Simon (52:26):
Okay.
Shaheen Wallace (52:27):
And I can't remember what casket was, but I mean you could taste like the sugar cane. It wasn't sweet, but it just felt right. It felt like Jamaica.
Bob Simon (52:39):
There you go.
Shaheen Wallace (52:39):
And it was just perfect. When the weather's warm. Smooth Appleton rum.
Charles Lew (52:44):
That Appleton rum.
Bob Simon (52:45):
That's good.
Charles Lew (52:46):
Is that a okay answer?
Bob Simon (52:48):
No, it's a great answer. I actually think spirits are how you grow up, what your grain with and that's what speaks to you. So with that we'll end Shaheen, Jamaican me crazy. Thanks for coming on to Bourbon of Proof.
Shaheen Wallace (52:58):
Absolutely.
Bob Simon (52:58):
Thank you for having us at the firm.
Shaheen Wallace (52:59):
Thank you, sir.
Bob Simon (53:00):
Thank you. Another absolutely pre-
Shaheen Wallace (53:01):
Absolutely.
Bob Simon (53:02):
I'm going to finish off the Caribbean cask. Cheers.
Charles Lew (53:05):
I finished.
Bob Simon (53:06):
Yeah, you did.
Shaheen Wallace (53:06):
Do you just-
Bob Simon (53:07):
He threw it over his shoulder. That's all.
