Neama Rahmani protected corporations, prosecuted cartels and now he fights for the little guy

0:32 Hey. Everybody and see your killer country. My name is Brittany Ransom and this is When Killers Get Caught, a podcast devoted to deep dives into the killers we love to learn about. But in season three we've been taken one-on-one with people who are closely linked to crime where have been affected by their connection to the justice system. And today we have the opportunity to talk to someone who is prosecuted over 1000 criminals as a former federal prosecutor who work with the FBI. His name is Nema Romani. He's currently the president and cofounder of West Coast Trial Lawyers in Los Angeles, CA. And if you're a big fan of watching news coverage or crime TV, there's a chance you've probably seen him already commentating on the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial, Britney Spears Conservatorship, Court TV, pretty much every major news station. And most recently, I recognized NEMA based on him talking about one of his entertainment cases right now. I'm really excited to have you here today and talk about your life and your experiences over the last 20 years. Welcome to the podcast Emma Brittany. Thank you so much for having me.

1:37 What a great introduction I'm super excited to be on. So I have to ask you about this because it's huge news in my circle. I'm a plus size lady and so I've been all about the body positivity and love over the many years and you are representing. Several of Lizzo's former dancers, and that's a huge deal. Among me and my friends. I actually read a Deadline article about you like a week or two ago where you said I've prosecuted drug cartels, so we have no plan to back down. And then you said let's see if Singer can actually try a case in the courtroom instead of the media. I'm laughing because, you know, I always try to keep a professional. I like Marty.

2:22 We've litigated cases in the past. We have other cases together. Right now he's representing one of Olivia Wilde or Jason Sudeikis, maybe both. We're representing one of their former employees with nanny. So, you know, often times it's a small legal community. We go up against the same people. But what I would say is Lizzo, Lizzo, her spokespeople and her lawyer, they're taking a very aggressive, frankly mean stance against our clients. And we have four of them calling them all liars, saying none of this happened. You know, when we filed this case, I thought it'd go in one or two ways. I thought that, you know, Liz would come out, maybe apologize that she's made some mistakes.

3:05 You know, we're not perfect. You know, we'll do things better going forward. But she's denying that any of this happened and calling our clients liars. What do you think about that? She put out. I was surprised. Yeah. I thought it was very tone deaf. Victim shaming, You know, you're talking about, you know, she's all about positivity and advocating for a woman and plus size woman and a woman of color. But these are our clients, right? And she's calling them all liars. So I was surprised. I thought she would take a different approach. Right. We've seen celebrities recently when they messed up. Look at, you know, Ashton Kutcher and Mira Kunis, right?

3:48 They wrote letters of support for Danny Masterson. They came out and apologized. You know, we saw Drew Barry. Right across the ticket line, you know, she apologized. You know, that's what I was expecting. But you know, sometimes look people, they double down in their lives and it's a narcissism or whatever the case may be. But it was a surprising reaction. Well, now you've also got the scary word countersuit, because that for that scares me. I mean, what do you say to your clients when you hear from this huge name in media? We're coming after you next. Well, look, they have to win first and I have no, I have no, I have no problem trying this case because you know, I believe our clients. I believe their stories. I think, you know, jurors are gonna like them and believe them as well. And I think this is going to be exposed and more and more people are coming forward.

4:36 There's people who have said they want to be witnesses. There's people that have claims, but maybe they're outside the statute of limitations, but they can talk about some of this conduct and there's gonna be more clients as well. I mean, you're going to see, Brittany, this isn't the end. Usually when people you know mistreat others, it's not just one or two or three. That tends to be who they are. And I think people are starting to understand that the Lizo you see when the cameras are rolling is not the Lizo the employer. That people that I actually had to work with her, what they experienced was very different. Well, you've got a lot of experience, I guess with like dealing with celebrities now it's a it's a small frame for me because I'm just a little influencer. But I've come in contact with people and they're like, wow, you're really nice.

5:18 And I'm like most people aren't. Apparently not. Apparently a lot of people are really terrible in Hollywood, and I had no idea. Do you experience. Yeah, that's unfortunate, you know, And it's, yeah, it's unfortunately people in positions of power, sometimes you misuse that power and instead of, you know, bringing others up with them, they kick them down. And I'm not saying it's just limited to one particular case or client, but this is a problem in Hollywood and you know, for many years it was rich, old, white, right. But it's not limited to that. You know, there are people who don't fall in that category and they engage in misconduct because they think they can, because they think that frankly, their employees should be happy to be there, to be happy to have. A job, right?

6:08 What an amazing opportunity you got to be on that TV show that won an Emmy. Exactly. You know, you're on Lizzo's reality TV show and you know, like I said, these are these are dancers that probably wouldn't have had an opportunity elsewhere in Hollywood. And that's something that they've admitted Lizzo gave them their chance and that's why they're so heartbroken to be treated the way they were. Right. Well, one of the things you mentioned to me in our private chat is that your firm only accepts about 5 to 10% of the cases that come across your desk. And you said you have about 25 lawyers there. So how do you decide? Because I'm sure there's a lot of people knocking on your door. Yeah, we get hundreds of calls every day and we can only accept the small number because, well, for a few reasons, we only want to take righteous cases.

6:53 You know, we're we don't want to take cases that we can't help people or or cases that we can't win. I like to be honest with my clients. And the other is there's different types of firms. Some firms will sign a bunch of clients, maybe send some demand letters and you know they might drop the case if they don't get paid. Wow. When we take a case, we anticipate taking it all the way to trial. That's how we think. So, you know, when I meet with the client that says they've been mistreated by their employer, I tell them honestly, we may have to try this case. We're going to prepare the case to go to trial. Now, not that many cases go to trial. Oftentimes the defendants settle. The clients may not want to tell their story, you know, in a very public way at trial.

7:39 But you know, the reason, you know, I told Lizo's lawyers to bring it and let's try the case is, you know, I have clients who have been very open about telling their story, and they're happy to do so in a courtroom. Not all clients feel the same way. So now that Lizzo is saying that she wants to try the case, I'm thinking, great, we're going to have a trial and the entire world can decide who's telling the. Truth, right? Because I could tell you, Brittany. With a settlement, sorry, sorry, when I was going. To say with a settlement, doesn't that mean it can be closed? Yeah, it's all confidential and usually there's a payment in exchange for non disparagement or confidentiality. That's oftentimes how these work. So when you have the opportunity to go all the way to trial as a lawyer, that's something that you look forward to. That's why you went to law school. So, you know, there might be some lawyers that want to settle.

8:27 They're afraid of trial. But you know, Liz, they're talking to the wrong person. I mean, I love trying cases. Look, I like trials so much. I go on TV almost every day and I'm doing commentary and other people. So don't you think I would like to? I would like to try my own case. Yeah. And my other thing is like, since some of these people like Liz, a huge media personality, I mean, what kind of Internet hate or even things mailed to your office, things like that. Do you get that from your work? Yeah, I do. Yeah. I could tell you that most of the the folks who have been covering the Lizzo case, I mean there's been some nasty things said publicly, but most people haven't taken that personally, fortunately.

9:10 Like it's all business, right. Everyone's entitled to someone to advocate on their behalf. I would say the, the, the most hate I get is from covering the Donald Trump case. I mean, it's just, and when I say case because I mean, case says right, Is it. Yeah, he's got 4 criminal cases in the middle of a civil trial right now. So obviously, look, he's a big story and I'm a legal commentator. So I'm going to be talking about his cases and I'm going to say it like it is. It's not political. And I'm not saying he's going to win or lose the presidential election. I stay in my lane, but I'm going to be talking about the cases. And there's some people that refused to believe that there's the possibility that the former president committed a crime or committed multiple crimes. So that's usually where I get most of my kind of hate mail. It's related to the political cases that I cover. Now, Speaking of the Lizo case, you said her people said they want to go to trial, you want to go to trial. So reasonably, when do you think we might actually get to see this go to trial?

10:11 Well, I think Lizo's team, they might be talking about of both sides of their mouth. And the reason is they didn't, you know, we demanded a jury trial. They agreed to a jury trial, but they filed an answer and they're trying to get this case moved into a private arbitration. So, yeah, obviously we're going to oppose that because we think that the public has a right to know and I believe in our jury system, but they're going to try to, you know, hide this away, have some secret private arbitration handle this. So we'll see if we do get that trial. I think that's going to be one of the big issues in. The case, Well, we chatted about what you're doing right now, talking about Trump, dealing with Liz and a couple other cases. But I do want to tell our listeners about kind of where you came from.

10:54 And one of the the big things in your bio is you went to UCLA, you graduated from Harvard Law at 22 years old, makes you one of the youngest graduates in 200 years. And then you got recruited into this massive law firm. Can you kind of explain what life was like for you at that moment? So when I went to law school, it's kind of like the movie in the firm. These big law firms show up and they recruit you and they offer you a lot of money. I mean, I was, you know, a law student. I was 20 years old. I was making more money than I could possibly dream of. So I ended up going after law school in one of these firms that was a lawyer firm, massive firm. At the time, it was the largest law firm in Los Angeles.

11:34 I don't know where things are right now. And, you know, you end up representing corporations that have a lot of money. So my clients were Disney and Marriott and, you know, huge company. But yeah, but you're defending them. You're defending them oftentimes against the little guy or a smaller company. And, you know, ultimately we were hired by the Catholic Church to represent them in the sex abuse cases. And, you know, I hated it. That's not why I went to law school. And that was sort of the motivation for me to leave. I always wanted to be a prosecutor and become a judge. That was always my career goal. So, you know, I was looking to, you know, leave, join the government, and the opportunity came up for me to join the Department of Justice, the US Attorney's office. But, you know, I didn't have the best experience working at what we call big law, the huge corporations, just because I did not like representing those types of clients. I like helping people and, you know, pursuing justice. And that's something I was able to do as a. Prosecutor OK, that's definitely your next step, your federal prosecutor in San Diego.

12:47 There's got to be two way different worlds. Oh, completely. The way I describe it is when I was working at the big firm, miserable every day except the twice a month I got paid. When I was a prosecutor, I was happy every day. Except that's why someone like, oh, no. So took a huge, huge pay cut. Yeah. To pursue justice. And it it was awesome. You know, we were on the border. This was, you know what I thought at the time, it's still, it's still continuing. But this was the heyday of drug cartel violence, so we're dealing with drug and human trafficking cases. It was awesome. I loved it. Amazing job.

13:28 But then I had a couple kids and then so I did. I stopped doing the DOJ work. I went to the city of LA did you know, public corruption and government ethics, campaign finance, election law work for a while And ultimately started my own firm. Because, you know, I sort of reached a crossroads where I couldn't work for the government anymore just because I had two young kids and childcare costs a lot. My wife's a lawyer for foster kids, so 2 government lawyers and two small kids living in LA which couldn't really make ends meet financially. Now, with the work that you did for, you know, as a federal prosecutor in San Diego, I spend my, like most of my time researching the kind of cases that you've prosecuted.

14:17 And some of them are really intense. There have been times that I stepped away from my computer and was just like I need a break. I don't want to see any more crime scene photos. I don't want to read anything else from these people. So I guess my, my my big question is how to use stomach. The things that are heinous that were part of that job. Like it was hard. I mean, there were certain things that I absolutely hated doing. I did not like child porn cases and I didn't like sexual abuse of minors cases. I just Crimes involving children are just really hard and handled some of those cases I didn't like. Those are the. Ones that affect me the most, too. I mean, you're dealing with child victims.

14:59 I mean, what's worse than a kid that's been the victim of a crime? Yeah, you know, but when you're dealing with other types of violence, like some people hate it, some people didn't like amassing onto drugs or trafficked people or, you know, the violence that accompanies all that. But, you know, I liked it. It was interesting. I was working with great agents, federal agents, right. So look at FBI or Gea or customs or Border Patrol. And, you know, we were, we were keeping the American people safe. So certainly a lot better than defending corporations. Absolutely loved it. Greatest job in the world. If it wasn't for finances, I'd probably still be doing that or be sitting on the bench as a judge somewhere.

15:42 Let's talk about, I guess, some of your really big cases from that time period. I mean, obviously the huge one is you helped take somebody off of the America's Most Wanted list. Yeah, so this was someone who was a murderer, drug kingpin here in California. And you know, he was involved in a drug related murder, fled to Mexico. So we spent some time looking for him and through the help of, you know, cooperators, it took a long time, years We were able to identify where he was in Mexico, literally at a map we're able to go in there and arrest him.

16:22 So spent a lot of time working on this case, was really proud of the work that we did, kind of flipping folks and ultimately we were able to get one of the more dangerous men in the United States and Mexico and put him behind bars. I mean, that's a major. Yeah. The other thing was, I noticed that when you were the director of enforcement for the LA City Ethics Commission, they said that you got some of the highest fines in years in terms of, I guess, finding corruption. Yeah. So, you know, I loved being a prosecutor. You know, when when I put the department justice work away, I ended up being the enforcement director of the city of LA, the Ethics Commission. So that's basically a watchdog that oversees the mayor, all the elected officials, high level employees of the city of LA And you know, I was able to oversee a couple big elections, Eric Garcetti's election, I mean, this was, this was a while ago and you know, we would investigate these candidates, we'd investigate these elected officials and we'd go after them.

17:34 So it could be an administrative action. It was criminal. We work with the DA's office to prosecute them. And really so turned out after I left that city of Lai mean, anyone that lives in LA or is familiar with it, it has had such a problem with corruption. You're talking about council members, multiple under indictment, going to prison for years, taking bribes. I mean, it's really bad and it continues to get worse. So I did sort of learn and understand, you know, that political side of things and how much really, if you kind of look behind the curtain, how dirty it really is. I remember a case gosh this was had to have been like early 2 the aughts so, but I remember was specifically a police station. There was a woman who was like the like a 911 operator and her daughter was a prostitute, which I don't think she knew at the time, but apparently.

18:32 Almost all of the police officers who worked in that district had seen her, and she was a minor. And I just remember like a lot of people lost their jobs and then they picked a new police chief and then that one lost their job too. Like, is that what we're talking about, those kinds of cases or even worse? Yeah. So when you're dealing with that type of corruption, we've gone after a lot of, you know what we think I respect for law enforcement, former prosecutor. But I mean, there's some law enforcement types that should pay a lot of money or even be behind bars, right? I mean, I believe no one is above the law. I don't care if you're a police officer, you're a president, you're a former president, you're a president's son.

19:16 I think the law should apply to everyone. You know, when I was doing the ethics work for the city of Lai, oversaw all the politicians, there was a separate police Commission that oversaw Ltd. So that was kind of stuff I was dealing with, you know, the mayor, deputy mayor, city attorney, controller, all the City Council members. So anyone that was kind of in that world was under my supervision. The police was a whole nother Commission with someone just like me that was overseeing them on that stuff, definitely. Needed somebody like you in my state because in our capital we had an entire slew of politicians who were just using money for random things.

19:58 You know, got to love that. Unfortunately, the tail as all this time, you know there's power and it can be corrupting here and around the world, so I don't know what the answer is. Why people in town of 50,000 need a private jet anywhere? You don't need that life. Yeah, I don't understand that at all. Yeah, no, definitely. Not but like you said, you take a huge risk and you open your own firm. You want to switch gears entirely to personal law. Got to be scary, but you said that you needed to. Kind of do better for your family. What's that look like? Yeah. So my wife and I, when basically we couldn't afford to both work for the government, we sat down one day and she told me that one of us needs to get a real job and that one of us is me. So my real job, that means go back to the private sector and make money.

20:48 Actually, I'm gonna be honest. I almost went back to the farm. They're talking about coming back. And you know, there was a, there was a lot of money involved. And you know, fortunately at the time, my current partner's name is Allen. He actually recruited me at a law school. He was a young attorney at the time at the same firm, big law, young attorney. He recruited me at a law school and he left a few years after I joined. And he started his own firm, small firm. He teamed up with the public defender, buddy of his. He was doing everything, family, law, immigration, criminal, whatever came through the door, the more and more he started doing plaintiffs work. So employment, personal entry, representing people are saying bad it happened to them and doing like contingency, which means wasn't charged an hourly or retainer, just a percentage of what he recovered. So it happened that at the time that I was looking to go back, he approached me and he convinced me to start a new firm with them.

21:42 He's like, listen, don't go back. You're not going to like defending corporations. You're not like defending criminals. We can represent the victims. We could represent plaintiffs. And I said, I'm like, why would I do that? I'm not going to be that guy on some billboard or bus bench. That's just not me. It's like, no, it's not going to be like that. You're going to be helping people. It's like being a prosecutor but actually getting paid. And that kind of goes back to that 510%. We have the luxury now of choosing our clients, choosing our cases. If I don't feel it's a righteous case, I'm not going to take it With plenty of business. You can, you know, refer them to other lawyers or refer them to the local Bar Association. We'll help them out. But unless I personally believe in the case, and if I think it's a just case worth pursuing, I'm not going to take it. OK, one of my things that I've been doing lately is I like your LinkedIn posts and you, I kind of scroll through and I'm like, look at all this stuff they're doing. This is awesome.

22:42 I saw that it said that, you know, I'm a nerd. What can I say? That's the best kind of people. I mean, gosh, there are so many. Like you sued Charlie Sheen. That was another big one. We we, we. That was, yeah. He had Liz's lawyer. So. No, No Way. And Marty Singer two, yeah, he had singer, yeah. So Singer represented Sheen on that one. So yeah, like I said, he's someone that, you know, I've dealt with. And again, sometimes it gets, you know, like I always try to keep it professional, but on the other hand, I want to protect my clients, you know, both in the courtroom and in the media. So like, so hopefully we can we can keep things professional. But yeah, I mean, I've dealt with Marty and his team before, so.

23:27 And then there was the case where you represented female inmates who've been assaulted by a sheriff's deputy while in police custody. Yes, so we've done that. We've done a lot of sexual assault cases. We've done a lot of police misconduct cases, civil rights cases, death cases where officers have killed someone. So I mean, what we've done a lot. You know, I've sued the Department of Justice, my former employer, for race discrimination I need. To know about that one, yeah. So I mean, we sued. It was. It was someone that was retaliated against because, you know, the allegations were, he's retaliated against because his wife was Latina.

24:09 And, you know, at the time there were some allegations of racism at the US Attorney's office of the Department of Justice. So he sided with the victims of race discrimination. And his supervisors changed his review, put a letter of reprimand in his file for no reason. So when I said prostitute Carta, I didn't sue the Department of Justice. You know, we sued. You know, we file, we're litigating, and then you know, we won the Department of Justice. They took it all back. They took a lot of reprimand, back changes, evaluation, everything to what it was before, before the retaliation. They paid for all our costs, everything. So what?

24:50 Happens for that guy though, at that point. I mean, you don't feel comfortable working there anymore, but you know what I think now they know. Look, if they mess with him again, just cuz he's a white guy, doesn't mean that. But he's a lawyer himself, that he's not gonna lawyer up and he's gonna fight back. So if we feel that there's a case, that's a righteous case. I don't care who it is, who the defendant is, We are gonna represent the victim because that's what we do. One of your reset posts on LinkedIn that I really like. We should post about Kanye West or correction. Yay, twist it up. You and ya are because of the multiple cases that you had against him or, you know, defending people who worked for him.

25:36 Yeah, I spent a lot of time litigating against Lay Yay or Kanye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West. So we represent several of the teachers of the Donda Academy that he founded, folks that he recruited and ultimately fired because they stood up for the students. You know, if you kind of read the allegations and the complaint, Kanye didn't like windows, Kids were eating on the floor or eating sushi. And the teacher said, whoa, this isn't right, this isn't safe. It was exposed to electrical wire. And when they complained, you know, he would just fire. The thing is, we also represent. We're mandated reporters. We have to say things if we think kids are in danger. It's kind of part of the job.

26:21 Oh, absolutely. I mean, as you know, teachers, doctors, I mean, you have to report any safety issue and the allegation of abuse. So, you know, we're fortunate to be representing those former employees of Kanye and Donda, we have another employee of his that was, you know, kind of a contractor, security guard that we recently filed, not a teacher. A different case. You know, I was a legal commentator on the Kanye and Kim documentary for HBO, so and the part of it's just kind of being in LA and around all this small legal community. But I've had to spend a lot of time learning about Kanye West recently. I maybe more than you ever wanted to know, I'm sure. I'm sure you know when it's folks like Lizzo and Kanye, usually it's not the first and it won't be the last, so. That's sad though, especially like people that a lot of people look up to.

27:22 And I know they say, you know, never meet your idols, They'll let you down, yada yada. But there's not a, like, the whole country's kind of in a crisis right now financially. I mean, you see what's going on with the state of the the, the country and figuring out our finances. That was supposed to be done three months ago. But you know what I mean? So like, people want a little bit of something good to listen to or hold on to, and then you find out that the the person you like or the music you like is made by somebody who's. Awful, You know, it's it is sad, I agree. But you know, this is really our system of justice. So but I'm not going to put Kanye West or Liz O in jail. It's not a criminal case, right?

28:05 So when someone harms someone, right, someone sexually harasses someone, someone discriminates against their race or their medical condition, our civil justice system, all there is, is the payment of money damages. That's it. There's nothing else I can do to Kanye and Lizzo. I can't make Lizzo eat a dirty banana, you know, out of one of the, you know, sex show workers in Amsterdam. Like some of the things she was making, some of her employees do, allegedly. It's just it's not an eye for an eye system. All I can do is they can tell their story and a jury decides, listen, you've been harmed.

28:46 This is how much I think the harm is worth. So people say, oh, this is just about money and you know, some money grab like that's the only option that we have. If you've been harmed by your employer, if you've been hurt by someone, even if the police kill someone you know, if it's an accident, you still might be negligent. I mean, all you can get is money. Now obviously, look, if you're talking about criminal conduct, that's an entirely different story. But most of these cases that we're talking about, it's just not criminal. It's civil and civil. The remedy is money. Now you do a lot of commentary. So have you heard about this Disney lawsuit that's people are talking about right now? Somebody what lawsuit are we talking? About this is the one about the water slide that the the lady it was.

29:31 Well, OK, so the press is saying. You know, it's over a wedgie, but oh, this is a wedgie. Wait, I mean, this person had like, their intestines go where they weren't supposed to. That's like, yeah, I did. I did read about this one. This is just in the past day or so. Yeah, I did read about this. What I will say is, look, I represented Disney. And no, I, I, I I've been on both sides. I could say that. Listen, jurors really like Disney, at least here in California where I am, they they tend to win a lot of the time. So I am not saying that the wedgie didn't happen. I'm not saying that the person wasn't hurt. They may well be hurt.

30:14 It might be a completely legitimate case. But Disney's one of those defendants that jurors like, so that's that big case. They go to trial. You could better have your experts that are going to support what you're saying because the jurors think it's just a wedgie. It's not a good case, obviously, if there's that abdominal issues, GI issues, I mean if there's serious medical problems caused by this and there's a failure to warrant, then it is a good case. Yeah, as soon as I saw, like the way the media referenced it, I mean, my mind went straight back to McDonald's. And coffee. And I went. That was one of those cases that when I learned what it actually was about, I was horrified. Yeah, I mean, people don't realize. I mean, that McDonald's coffee case, that was serious burns, real serious injuries.

31:01 It's not like, you know, you spilled some coffee and you got, you're closed or you got like a dry cleanup. I mean, you know, I think the insurance industry and these corporate defendants, they have a lot of money and they spend it, you know, trying to argue that all these cases are frivolous. And look, I'm not saying there aren't some frivolous cases. Like people lie, people do things for money. We as lawyers try to vet through that. And like I said, hopefully that's in the 90 plus percent of cases we reject. But there are some people that are really, really hurt by corporations and their lives are forever changed and they're entitled to justice and not, you know, anything less.

31:43 Because I'll tell you this, I mean, Brittany, every single one of my clients, every single one, I ended the Case No matter how much money they got. They say, you know what, Nima, I would give this all back if this never happened. I don't feel pain if I don't have to suffer the rest of my life. I mean, there's no dollar amount. I didn't lose a loved one. I don't have to suffer this embarrassment, this harassment, this discrimination. So, you know, I would be wary of corporations that try to avoid responsibility by trying to frame all these clients. That's frivolous. Are there any companies that you think do the right thing usually like? You could say offhand, like these guys usually handle things correctly. Yeah, I will say that there are some companies that I've never sued. They have really good compliance in place, right? But some companies, I sue a lot more because they'll just cut corners and they don't care, you know, about sexual harassment training and racial sensitivity training and kind of doing the right thing that's required by the law. You know, same thing with, you know, certain insurance companies.

32:48 There's some that, you know, make a claim, they pay the claim, you know, and I've never just sue one of their clients because they do the right thing. There's some insurance companies that will lowball or deny the claims and we got to sue them all the time. So it's really kind of a top down thing and it depends on the defendant, depends on the company. OK, yeah. I just, I don't know. I think it's like a regular person. It's kind of scary. And I know a lot of people just opt to quit or, you know, leave a company because the idea of having to get an attorney and do what your team would need to do for them just seems. Financially impossible for regular people and lawyers are so expensive. You know, when I was doing defense work, you know, the monthly bills were sometimes millions of dollars a month, not to say our cases would be that much. But lawyers, even the cheapest lawyers are going to cost you thousands of dollars.

33:47 And that's just the bottom line. You know, minimum, minimum start going to trial 10s earning hundreds of thousands of dollars. So you know what we do is we don't charge anything upfront. We're only paid if we win. So we have an, we have an interest in the case and if there's any cost, court costs, experts, everything, we advance all that. So we accept your case. You're not going to pay anything out of pocket if we lose, Well, we'll lose once in a while, rarely, but we lose. We absorb all the costs. The client will never ever be out of pocket. They don't have to pay us for attorney fees. And if we win, then we get paid and you know, the costs are repaid, but we advance everything. So you know, I I tell folks that obviously crying a lawyer is an important choice, but at least if you're hiring us, the finances aren't something that you have to worry about because it's a no risk situation to you.

34:41 Now, since you deal a lot with people who are working, do you have advice for people who who might find themself in that position? Like you feel like you're layered. It's your job. Did something that they shouldn't have, whether it be discrimination, you know, violence, anything like that, Yeah. My number one advice in any type of case is contact a lawyer, most of them in our space, they will offer a free consultation. OK, trying to handle a case on your own. It can be a Fender Bender. It can be a workplace issue dog, but it's the worst thing you could do, you know, just like, I don't know, I'm not gonna go fix my own car, You know, I'm not gonna go, you know, clean my own teeth. And you know, it's just, I think, a mistake. People try to handle these claims on their own. Look, I get it.

35:33 People don't like lawyers as a distrust of lawyers, but we really kind of want to make, and the reason I do a lot of what I do, the commentary and the social media, is I want to make a law understandable. I want to make it accessible, and I want people to pick up the phone, you know, if there's an issue. Because a lot of the problems we see are employers or companies, insurance or otherwise, that take advantage of people, whether they're not represented. So that's my number one advice. Talk to a lawyer. My #2 is if there is an issue at work, you know, you got to document it. You know, you got to report it to HR. A lot of the claims are based on notice, right? So something's going on behind the scenes. Someone's being racist, someone's actually harassing you, you know?

36:14 And the complaint doesn't happen, or it's verbal. It's not the same as a written complaint. So those are my two pieces of advice. Consult the lawyer and make sure everything's in writing. All right. Now, I want to pivot a little bit because one of the things that I think both you and I care a lot about are wrongful imprisonment in the United States. And I definitely would like to talk to someone about that. Yeah. I mean, obviously as a prosecutor, my greatest nightmare was to put an innocent person in jail. I was a big believer in Justice Blackstone's theory, and he was a a judge way back in the UK many years ago.

36:57 But he said that it's better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent person suffer. And obviously it was olden days. So they're talking about men. But, you know, if I had any doubt in my mind about a defendant's guilt or innocence, I would not prosecute that person. Now, I'm not saying all prosecutors are the same. And innocent people are convicted in this country all the time. And there's guilty people that get away and there's guilty people that say they're innocent when they're not innocent. So, you know, I hope that, you know, if there's any prosecutors out there listening or law enforcement types and they have any doubt, listen, just do the right thing. It's better to let the person go than to wrongfully convicted innocent person.

37:42 Now, are you connected to any of the organizations that work on that right now? Obviously everybody knows the Innocence Project, but there's a lot of other ones too. Yeah, I mean, they do great work. I don't do any criminal work anymore. I'm one of the few prosecutors that I don't touch criminal offence, so I'm only doing civil plaintiffs work. But yeah, I mean, I will represent victims if they've been wrongfully accused and exonerated and because the police misconduct. So, you know, we do have some cases that are like a kind of a criminal component or the D A's office is prosecuting, you know, the person who's responsible for like a sexual assault or rape or something of that effect.

38:26 But I'm just not doing criminal offense work. Because even though those people are innocent, I just like being on offense. It's just a personal decision as opposed to being on defense. It feels like I think I saw something recently that said that something along the lines of like only 3% of criminal cases are ever closed and that just feels like a real breadth of cases that are criminals are just doing things. I mean, how do we get better at that number? How do we do better at getting more convictions? And not messing up. I mean, you're talking. Yeah, you're talking to a former prosecutor, right. So, you know, I think a lot of people should be prosecuted. I think a lot of cases aren't prosecuted. That should be.

39:11 I think if you break the law, you know, you there should be some accountability. So if you're talking to someone that thinks there should be more prosecutions, I'm on that side because I think it's important to keep to, to keep people safe and to make sure that perpetrators pay a price for what they've done. And I guess I have to ask this cuz I feel like it's the same kind of question I would have asked my parents. How do you feel about executions? It's hard. You know. I think on one hand, like I said, you never ever, ever wanna execute an innocent person. Right. That's like the worst of all.

39:53 And the problem. So, you know, in theory, yeah, if someone, like, kills my wife or my kids, I would want them to die. You know, the the question is, you know, is the death penalty from like a public policy reason? So. So that's my person, right? You asked me, someone hurts my wife and kids. I want them to, you know, not life. And no, absolutely. You know, so then the question is okay, Are innocent people ever sentenced to death? Is there a racial component right? Where? Disproportionately black men or put to death or you know, people of color are death penalty qualified lawyers getting the resources that they need, you know, are jurors considering mitigation. So it's really tough, I'd say personally all about it, But from a public policy perspective, I totally understand why people in states like mine, like California, people in the legislature, people who are prosecutors, they don't believe in it.

40:59 It's one of those things I I really do understand both sides. And the second? It's for public policy and and criminal justice reasons. Yeah, I feel like in, you know, cases that are the big ones, like, you know, the big serial killers from the 70s where they had, you know, just giant piles of evidence that could all be, you know, definitively linked, totally understand that one, but. On the other hand, like you said, I mean, when we know that there are people who don't get a fair shake because they're poor or they're an immigrant or they're a part of a marginalized group, then my my brain goes, this doesn't feel right. Yeah. And you really would want it to be for the worst of the worst and not just because.

41:45 And again, I'm not saying that anyone's making decisions for racially motivated reasons, but I mean, we can talk on the Racism is real. You know, implicit biases are real. I mean, it would be naive for me to ignore all that just so. Yeah, you know, justice is colorblind. I wish it was. I mean, I'm an Iranian American, even though I was born here, I've dealt with racism myself at the Department of Justice. So you know, I I understand the arguments on both sides. No, I definitely do too. It's just. I think it's just, it's always whenever I see these cases pop up with someone, you know, 25 years, 20 years, and there was absolutely nothing behind it. It just, it just hits my heart.

42:29 Like here's a person who lost a huge chunk of their life and there's no restitution for that. Like, what could you give that person that would make them happy when you stole a third of their life? Yeah. If you're talking about the folks that are convicted, you know, that are innocent. Yeah. I mean it's it's incredibly sad and it's a miscarriage of justice and it's just like I said, my nightmare as a prosecutor. So far, no one's ever come back more than 1000 people and said that they were innocent, thank God. Or they said they're innocent, but no one's been proven innocent or there's been no kind of credible claim of innocence. But no, it's it's a it's a huge problem. You know, on the other side.

43:11 Think of all the victims that have lost loved ones and never got any cases, have never been solved. Yeah. Yeah, Cold case killers. And, you know, so it's I wish I had an answer. You know, unfortunately as lawyers we're in the business of misery. And I cover these murder cases every week. You know, different ones, terrible, terrible cases. And doesn't make it any easier when I hear the victims, you know, the loved ones who could understand, they testify how important they're their children, their their spouse, their sibling was to them. One of the things that I I saw you comment on fairly recently was parents of school shooters are getting felony charges now.

44:02 I'm very much for it, honestly. I think. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's something that, you know, I've been talking about. You know, obviously there there was the biggest case really is the crumbly case in Michigan. But you know, there's the case in North Carolina where, you know, 6 year old got a gun, the teacher. So we're seeing it more and more now. Yeah, teacher was shot. And the guy it's so hard to be a teacher as is, you know, you're working for not a whole lot of money. You're talking to a preschool teacher, Neema. I mean, you're doing God's work, but it's it's not for a lot of money, so I know. Love my students, but I would love a good paycheck.

44:43 Yeah. So to kind of put yourself at risk of being shot on top of it, not only preschoolers are going to be shooting you, but but, you know, being a teacher is not an easy job. So, you know, I think on one hand we're seeing a little bit of a shift in prosecutors and we've seen this in different types of cases. Right. So you know historically prosecutors, they're risk averse. They don't want to lose. They're expected to win every time. That's why for years in this in this country, you didn't see police officers prosecuting because I'm the Rodney King, right? I mean he's the officers are acquitted the first time around and the feds retry the case and then I think they get two or the four. But I mean, the defense verdict rate and police misconduct cases, I mean, defendants would win all the time. And prosecutors, I don't like losing. I don't like taking tough cases or or representing, you know, rape victims, right, Because often times it's that, he said. She said.

45:40 So this is a delayed report, but we're seeing a shift right now. Prosecutors are being more aggressive. They're they're taking on difficult cases if they're righteous cases, right. So I think some of it is that. But really, in this interview I did with Fox, I think one of the big differences we're seeing is just there is a lot more evidence right now. So I said, what would Derek Chauvin have been prosecuted for George Floyd if the whole world didn't catch it on? Yeah. There were at least 20 different angles of crime. Yeah, maybe not. Yeah, maybe not. Maybe be a free man. Right now, I mean, I remember and I think in some of these cases. Baltimore. Do you remember that case with the guy whose neck? What is his name?

46:25 Yeah, I mean, his spine was severed because he wasn't properly secured in the back of the vehicle. That was a huge case. Yeah. As I'm a huge believer in body cams for all police officers, I like cameras, ever, cameras in the courtroom, Everything should be ever, never, never. I mean, it protects the officer, protects the public defendants. But you know, kind of going back to your question, I think the reason we're seeing these prosecutions more and more is because there's just more evidence. You know, you have the Crumblies buying their get a gun, I think it was for Christmas, right, or the holidays, post it, posting it on social, posting on Facebook, you know, a 16 year old kid, you know, and so you're seeing more evidence in these cases because of social media, because of cameras. That really gives prosecutors a little bit of of an advantage. I don't think that case we prosecuted had there not been so much public information about Ethan. You know, the school told the parents, hey, he's searching for ammunition on his phone, you know, he's drawing. These are kind of terrible things, you know. So once the parents are on notice, they can't say, well, we didn't know, like, how can we responsible? Because normally criminal conduct, it's not like civil, like in the civil context, Lizo is liable for the misconduct of her employees.

47:52 That's just as a matter of what. You're the boss. You're responsible. That's on the civil side, criminal. It's all about your own conduct, Okay. So like, what did you do? And in this particular case, look, the parents were told that the son is dangerous. Hey, do you want to get him? Do you want to give him some mental health treatment? He's just a kid. And they chose to ignore it. So the argument is, look, you're playing Russian roulette with people's lives and you should be held accountable. Yeah, well, I mean, it's the fact that they got called into school that morning and then they were like, we're not taking him home, just you could have just taken him. Home that would have saved 4 people's lives. At least that day it would have. And look, if you have a gun, it's your responsibility as an adult to keep it locked up.

48:35 Yeah, there's no way Your kid. Yeah, I mean, your kid should be like, how many gun deaths there are in this country because kids get access to guns. Like how many suicide, forget even the accident on the suicide. There's so many gun related suicides because kids get access to their parents. You know, I'm not saying they wouldn't have killed themselves some other way, Maybe they would have. But like your job as a parent is you have a gun, you got to keep it locked. Absolutely. And certainly don't buy your kid a gun who buys a 16 year old a gun. I mean that's just. I get it. People are like, oh, we like to go hunting. I'm like, well then this should be a hunting rifle and not a pistol. Exactly. And it's gonna shoot up with your kid. Yeah. And if it's legal, you better make sure, like, just like you want to give your kid, you know, a bottle of tequila, right? You know, don't give him a gun.

49:22 You know? I mean, the laws exist for a reason. You're a parent. You got to be responsible. You got to keep those things locked up and say. No, I I definitely agree with you on so much of that. Well, what I want to say is first thank you so much for being here. Is there anything that you wanted to to talk about? I know you have a book, which you can definitely. I do have a book. Yeah, I thank you. When I wrote it during the pandemic, I was actually, I got to give credits to Nancy Grace. It was we were talking about. I forgot what it was another George Ford or Kyle right now. It was a commercial. And she's like, meanwhile you've done all sorts of crazy things. You work for the big law firms and the government and have your own firm. You should write a book. And I'm like, you know what?

50:02 I will write a book. So my book is called Harvard to Hashtags. But my journey from being a Harvard lawyer represents big companies government and now just do it every time on social media right with the tick tocks with Instagrams. You can check this out at West Coast trial Lawyers at Neema Rahmani. That's NE AM ARAHMANI. We always do fun things. I just shot a couple tick tocks today. And the book and the book Harvard hashtag every dollar from that book. All the proceeds go to foster children at Children's Law Center. So it's not a moneymaker. I think foster kids are some of the most vulnerable, and they have such a difficult road ahead of them, at least here in California.

50:45 And I know this because my wife's in the system within three years of turning 18. Within three years, more than 50% of these foster kids, they end up homeless, trafficked, in prison or dead. Actually, they don't have much of a chance. One of my best friends. He did this for a pretty long time actually, before he moved on to getting his masters and his doctorate. But his job was specifically to work with kids who are in aging out of the foster system, and they, I think, worked with them until they were 23. They were trying to get it pushed to 24, but essentially helped them get to college or wherever they want to go. Help them learn all the things that a parent would have taught you. I wish there were more organizations like this.

51:26 Across the country because it's so needed. It really is. And it's so sad what these kids go through so like. Life's hard enough to not have anybody in your corner, exactly, without any family support. And then you're right. You know a lot of states, you know, again, things are changing. They're getting, they're getting better and and they're pushing it out like some. Some states are even going as much as 25, but there's others where it's 18 like you're on your own. And what? I don't know. I wasn't very responsible at 18. I don't know about you. You were heading to Harvard, so you might have been a little different from the rest of us. No, I mean, I had a lot of support from my parents. So I mean, my life would have been completely different if they wanted. 18 I was a complete mess.

52:08 I don't know if I would be able to do it by myself. So definite respect to your wife for the work that she does because thank you, it's really God's work. So I'm glad that, you know, even though I went to the private sector, you know, she was able to continue doing what she loves and representing these kids. Yeah. Thank you so much for talking to us tonight. And I'm definitely gonna keep looking for you. I'm sure I'm gonna keep seeing you on TV now that I have a name connected that I smoked to you. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I do a lot of it. So I see this guy everywhere. But yeah, there's ever a legal case. You know me I'm gonna be talking about. I don't care. It's entertainment, true crime, politics. I'm all about it. Or even though in cases we handle. Well. I think that brings us to the end. Thank you so much for coming to speak to us this evening and for the listeners.

52:55 You all have a good weekend. Thanks, Brittany. Thanks for having me.