EP 620- Old School Cool with Dan Ryan Part One

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to The Jury is Out a podcast for trial attorneys who want to sharpen their skills and better serve their clients. Your co-hosts are John Simon, founder of the Simon Law Firm, Tim Cronin, personal injury trial attorney at the Simon Law Firm and St. Louis attorney Eric Vieth

Tim Cronin:

Welcome to another episode of The Jury is Out. I’m Tim Cronin.

John Simon:

I’m John Simon,

Tim Cronin:

and today we are delighted to welcome an old friend. I’ve known Dan for 15 years. John, you and Dan go back much further than that. Dan Ryan, a local excellent attorney here in St. Louis. Welcome, Dan.

Dan Ryan:

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Tim Cronin:

Dan, why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about yourself?

Dan Ryan:

Okay. Well, coming up in October, I’ll have been practicing as a plaintiff’s trial lawyer for 34 years, which I can’t believe I started out with Casey and Maror, both excellent trial lawyers. I thought I wanted to be a prosecutor, and I just started working as a LawClerk for them and started liking this trial work. I’ve been a plaintiff’s lawyer, plaintiff’s trial lawyer ever since I started. I’m still trying cases. I’m kind of wrapping up my firm, but I’m now working for a great firm, great guys, a great guy, bill Holland at Holland Injury Law. You’ve probably seen some of his commercials around, but Bill’s a great guy. I’m grateful the opportunity that he gave me and I get to keep practicing law, but don’t have to run a law firm. Yeah,

John Simon:

I hear you. Dan. Did you have a career before, before you got into law?

Dan Ryan:

Yeah, it was kind of weird. I had always wanted to be a lawyer. I applied, I went to St. Louis U and I majored in Foosball, and so I didn’t get into law school and I tried like hell. I eventually got accepted on a waiting list at UMKC, but it took three years and it was like I’m a poor boy from North St. Louis and living with my mom, and she’s like, Hey, you got to go get a job. We can’t keep waiting around for this long. So I gave up on it. So I did get a job, and so I did a lot of different things. I ended up being a security guy from May company, undercover, catching shoplifters, which was a lot of fun, and I attended bar, et cetera, and I had

John Simon:

That’s great training, by the way. Both of those things are great training for what we do.

Dan Ryan:

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And so a good buddy of mine, Jack Diner, was a prosecutor out in the county. He comes into theBar, and I’m Tim Barr. My wife at the time was sitting down there next to him and she mentions to him, Dan, he really would like to get into law school. And he goes, oh, really? He goes, yeah, well, I know Christine Shai, Dean S Shy is sl. She goes, I’ll get him in. And so I went through the process again, took the LSAT and all that stuff and submitted the application. And one of the things you had to have for the application was a referral letter from three people. Well, two of ’em came in, but I called Dean Shy or their admissions people. I said, well, what’s going, everybody else is going to start law school in 25 days, whatever, what’s going on with me? Oh, your application’s incomplete. And I was like, what the hell do you mean my application’s incomplete? Yeah, Jack Diner didn’t send his letter in, so I called Jack and I was like, the guy who

John Simon:

Encouraged you?

Dan Ryan:

So he sent it in, but I couldn’t get in that semester. And she said, well, maybe we can start you in the spring or whatever. Long story short, she ended up getting me into that semester. I had no orientation. I knew, didn’t know what the hell I was doing sitting in that law school class, the night school.

John Simon:

How old were you when you started law school?

Dan Ryan:

29, I think. Yeah, 29. Married two kids.

John Simon:

Did you go full-time? Did you go night or part-time?

Dan Ryan:

I went night for three semesters and anybody who can graduate law school on the night program and work, you’re a better man than me.

Tim Cronin:

I started night too, Dan, I did it two semesters and then I switched to full-time and did summers to make. I was like, I can’t keep working. And then going at night,

Dan Ryan:

They actually may company fired me because they said I was studying at work and I was a little bit, but

Tim Cronin:

I absolutely was.

Dan Ryan:

But that’s why they got

Tim Cronin:

Most of the time.

Dan Ryan:

So like I said, the thing of it is I came from a poor background and we didn’t have a lot of money, and so I sold my little house in Baden, moved in with my mom and my wife and two kids incurred 120,000 and student loan debt. It took me until I was about 50 to pay off anyways, and that’s what I did. I started back at day school, left night school, and it was like I tell people law school was the hardest thing I ever did, but I also tell young students, I said, just do the damn work. Okay. If you do the work, you’ll get through it. Okay. And theBar exam, that’s just a test of your anxiety. Whatever that day causes, you’ll get through theBar exam too. So that’s kind of what I did. As John,

Tim Cronin:

As I understand it, you majored in pinball?

John Simon:

Yes. Yeah. I have a actually similar background, but also a similar experience in undergrad where I went to St. Louis u undergrad. I will just tell you this, there was a bar that had a couple pinball machines and a co-op at the time, and I would spend a lot of time playing pinball. So much so that the old days, I dunno if they still do it, but they have the high game who has high game? You could put your initials in the machine. I had the high game and all the machines in theBar and at the co-op. Wow. And seriously, if I would have spent that time studying, I probably could have got a medical degree in addition to my undergrad in business and accounting.

Dan Ryan:

Well, things have worked out. The other thing that I wanted to mention, I always mention this too, is I’m in Jefferson City at the old Ramada end that’s gone taking theBar exam. Okay. Or getting ready to take theBar exam. So we take the written part was first you got people throwing up in the bathroom, people running. I mean, it’s just crazy just because they’re nervous and they’re afraid. And so I get through that. So we, you guys know the multi-state multiple choice thing, and that’s always hard as hell. And so I’m 29, all the rest of these kids are a lot younger than me and Oh, what are you going to do? Are you going to study for the most? I said, no. I said, the Cardinals are on. I’m going to drink a six pack and eat this pizza

Tim Cronin:

The night before the exam.

Dan Ryan:

Yeah. And I’m going to

Tim Cronin:

Bed in between the first and second.

Dan Ryan:

Yeah. I told ’em, I said, you guys think if you’re not ready.

Tim Cronin:

Yeah.

Dan Ryan:

If you think you’re under pressure, just listen. I’ve got two kids, a wife, I sold my house and I’ve got debt already that I got to take care of.

John Simon:

What else can we pile onto

Dan Ryan:

This? So if I don’t pass, I don’t know what the hell, I’m screwed, whatever.

Tim Cronin:

So hide the scene from my cousin, Vinny, you’re biological clock. What else?

John Simon:

So I remember when I took it, it was a buddy of mine from law school. We drove to Jeff City together and we had an agreement that we weren’t going to say Juan Word about any kind of issue or the top. We weren’t going to discuss either. We either knew it or we didn’t. So we did the same thing. We had rooms at whatever the hotel was, and we were sitting in one of the rooms. We went and got some beer and iced it down in the wash bowl. I’m saying, put ice on it thinking, well, I have a couple beers. Well, two turned into three, three. And so I woke up, I had wonderful night’s sleep. Woke up the next morning, just a little slight headache a little bit. But it was wonderful fog. I felt great of fog. I remember walking in there and geez, there’s like 600 kids in the room where we take it. And there was somebody that we had the moderator and he was sort of like a drill sergeant, yelling and screaming and adding to everybody’s anxiety instead of doing the opposite, trying to calm people down. And he was barking out these orders about this and pens and all this stuff. And I’m like, what in the hell? What’s this guy getting his kicks out? It was just crazy.

And so we’re getting ready to start and before the last thing he says is, are there any questions? And yells it out. And one of my buddies way in the back from in my class, raise his hand and goes, yeah, where do we go to get signed in or to get sworn in? Sworn in? So we kind of broke the attention a little bit. So the worst part part about that whole thing was when you and I took it, you had to call telephone number. They didn’t publish a list to get your results. You had to call a number and some live person would look at the list and your name. Busy signal. Yeah, no, yeah, it was busy. You did. It was busy for eight hours. But then you’d give them your name and that person would go, let’s see, Simon. Kind of like that. And then my cousin Paul was in my class, Paul Simon and Jay is before P, right? And she goes, oh, here it is. Paul Simon. I immediately thought, shit, I’m not on there. She passed out my name and I went, no, it’s John. And she goes, oh yeah, John, it’s on here. I hung up that phone and handed down to the tavern on the corner.

Dan Ryan:

Well, when I found out I was working for Casey Meyercord, as soon as I got done, I went back to work and Steve knew Hort knew Tom, and I can’t think of the guy’s last name. Who was the clerk of the Supreme Court?

John Simon:

Tom Simon?

Dan Ryan:

Yeah. Okay. It was Simon was Tom Simon.

John Simon:

No relation.

Dan Ryan:

Okay. And that’s who told you that’s who would have to tell you or whatever. And the results weren’t going to come out for two days. And Margo goes, I know Simon. We’ll call his ass up right now. He’ll tell you. So did he call me and told you? He calls him and ask him. And at the time, they were putting my name on the door for the law firm and stuff. And so Meyer Gore comes out and so, Hey, you better go get a screwdriver and take that name off the door. And then he told me that I passed. But it was like, you jerk.

John Simon:

So I started out at one of the bigger firms in St. Louis doing defense stuff, and I didn’t clerk for them. I was the only attorney that hired 13 new lawyers the year that I started. And I was the only one I had clerked for an accounting firm. I thought I was going to do tax stuff. And so I show up first date of work and I don’t really know anybody. And I hadn’t clerked with the rest of the clerks. And so I’m starting to kind of figure out what I’m supposed to be doing. I never really worked in a litigation

Dan Ryan:

Firm.

John Simon:

And anyway, then you got theBar exam and everybody kind of took off to study and I felt bad they were paying me. So I went to work every day up until theBar exam. But the worst part was there’s 13 of us in that class. And you wait, what? Two, three months to get the results back.

And we would be, anytime everybody, anybody would bring it up. My stomach would be announced. I’d like, oh, what the hell? Can’t pass. So one day, about a month after we took the exam, one of the older partners took several of us new lawyers, the new associates to lunch, and we’re sitting wherever the hell we’re at, we’re sitting there talking and somebody says to the partner, Hey, what happens if somebody doesn’t pass theBar exam? And I go, I’m choking on my food. And the partner looks at him and says, well, I don’t know. That’s never happened. I thought. So what I did when theBar, the day theBar exam results were available by phone. I packed up my entire office, thought you put everything in my office. So I didn’t need to return. I left everything that the ID saw the desk. That’s great. I went to my three room apartment. Margie and I, my wife lived in a four family flat in South City, and we were in the second floor and we had one of the phones, no cell phones hanging on the wall. And I sat there at the kitchen table middle of the day and I’d ring it. And with that busy signal hanging up again was like, I couldn’t conceive of a more torturous, anxiety riddled method of the whole thing. It was just like crazy.

Tim Cronin:

No, we at least were able to click on a link, but then everybody, that whole day would be, it would crash and not be up, but then you could pull it up and see the whole day.

Dan Ryan:

John reminded me of one other story and she’d kill me if I didn’t tell it. Jill Bulwark, who’s my old partner, and I love her, a great lawyer. She was pregnant at the time, taking theBar exam. Everybody else when it was over wanted to go get hammered. I didn’t want to, I just wanted to go home. And so Jill said, will you ride home with me? And I said, yeah. So she’s driving big, she’s hugely pregnant and she’s driving to St. Louis and every 10 minutes she’d say, I know I failed. I know I failed. So finally I said, if you say that one more time, I’m going to kick your pregnant ass out of the car and leave you there. So don’t say it anymore. She passed, obviously.

John Simon:

Yeah. And then later on in my career, I think I was in my seventh year, I was at a different firm doing plaintiff stuff. And my boss, the managing partner, without asking me, discussing it with me, signed me up for the Arkansas bar exam. It was a 3D exam and you had to take the whole thing, man. It was George Fit Simmons. George,

Dan Ryan:

Yeah, George, yeah.

John Simon:

Great, great guy, great lawyer. And George comes in and goes, Hey, I signed you up for theBar exam. We opened a little rock office and they needed somebody to be licensed in Missouri. And they picked me. I was the youngest, most recent grad from law school. And I said, George, I don’t have time to study for theBar exam. And he said, well, John. And I said, no, I’m not going to study for it at all. If you want me to go to Little Rock and take it, I’ll be happy to do that. And that’s what I did. So I went down there, and again, the experience was completely different because I’ve been practicing for seven years, there’s no pressure. And I’ve taken the Illinois bar in the Missouri,

Dan Ryan:

And

John Simon:

I’m convinced that if you would just get a good night’s sleep and not study even, I agree, you’d be better off than it’s just like you were saying, I think it’s more than anything a test of how you handle your anxiety.

So I go in and I didn’t bring anything with, I didn’t bring anything to look at or study. I just figured, hell, I’m just not going to study. What the hell? And it was a three day, two days essay and one day of multi-state. And so I go in just calm as can be in these other, it was the first time takers were all in. It was the first part of the first year taking it. So anyway, the first time takers are there, just nervous as shit, just bouncing all over the place. They’re reading little notes in the hallway and they’re getting ready to go in and sit down. And I’m sitting there with coffee, reading a sports page. I’m just reading the USAID to whatever it was, whatever newspaper. And so I go in and on the seat, a couple seats over to the right, there was this young woman who was moaning through the test. She’s going, oh, the question, I didn’t want to mess with her head. Or please, can you please be quiet? But finally I was literally thinking of getting up and moving, but then I thought they’d think I’m doing something improper appropriate,

Dan Ryan:

Right. Cheat or something.

John Simon:

So the first day she was doing all of that moaning or making noises or whatever, and she didn’t come back. That’s what I thought you were about to say. It was we came back after lunch, we had an empty seat sitting there. And then of course there was another young woman who looked like she was 17 years old. It turns out she was 17 or 18 years

Tim Cronin:

Old. Oh, she’s a genius.

John Simon:

And so each session was like three hours and she’d finish in 45 minutes and walk out of the room. And I talked to some of the other students and said, who the hell is that? And they said, yeah, she can’t even practice. I think you had to wait till you’re 21 to practice. But they said she got through undergrad at 14. She was just brilliant. Holy cow. And I’m sitting there praying to God, they don’t grade my essay reading

Tim Cronin:

Hers. She probably left theBar exam to go start medical school and then begin her residency and fellowship for neurosurgery

John Simon:

And then for an extra $20, the wonderful state of Arkansas will tell you what your score was, not just if you pass and I’m saying I’m keeping my $20, I don’t want to know. I wouldn’t want to know. There’s a story about that from attorney Joe Jamma torts, the king of torts. And he recently passed away. He is considered to be one of the best attorneys who’ve ever practiced

Tim Cronin:

Anybody who hasn’t done it. Just Google Texas deposition. And Gil boy

Dan Ryan:

Got in a

Tim Cronin:

Fight.

John Simon:

Yeah, Joe May, Joe, Joe, Joe and I met him in person. He was in an organization that I’m in and he came and spoke to us. He was retired from that organization. There’s a story about him, I dunno if it was in his book or if he told us he was a second year and his buddies were in their third year and they were studying for theBar exam and he wanted to go out drinking and partying and they didn’t want to do it. They were like, Joe, for God’s sake, we got the damn bar exam. We can’t be going out. We got to go study for theBar exam. And he was arguing with him and he made him a bet, like a hundred bucks or something that he could go in with no studying and take theBar exam as a second year. And he did. And he passed it and were, I think you needed to get a 70 or something. And he got a 72 because they gave him the results. And after he got his results, he said, damn, I overstudied.

Dan Ryan:

That’s great.

John Simon:

But he did just as a second year, he went and took it and passed it. He goes, how the hell hard can it be?

Tim Cronin:

Overthinking it, I think makes it worse. But he really, the multi-choice practice helps because the more of those sample multiple choice questions you review, they recycle them. But I’m convinced that for the written question, ones, if you’ve been practicing for a while, you’re going to do much better than if you just got out of class. Because it’s really just identifying issues. And this seems like what would be a reasonable

John Simon:

Result. So Dan, you and I, I was trying to think this morning, I don’t remember when we met. It seems like I’ve known you forever.

Dan Ryan:

Oh yeah. St. Timothy’s.

John Simon:

Oh yeah, that’s right. Before, was that pre-law school?

Dan Ryan:

Yeah. St.

John Simon:

Tim’s with our kids at St. Tim’s. You were

Dan Ryan:

Coaching basketball and so was I.

John Simon:

I right. Yeah. Yeah. So we go back even before you started practicing for forever. Yeah. Think I’ve known you forever and we’ve worked on some cases together and they’ve always been fun. I have always, honest to God, I have always had an absolute blast. Me too. Working with you on cases too. And part of it is I think we both have a sense of humor. You got a great sense of humor and you got a hot temper, you get pissed off. You’re kind of like Cronin here telling me, get rid of my temper. Yeah, it works for me. I tried to calm you down or whatever. But it was just so we would have some fun. We had a case that we tried, and I’m sure you remember this. It was that Ford Fire case. Yes. Remember you had the driver. I had one of the

Dan Ryan:

Passengers

John Simon:

And it was a post collision fire case. It was like two, three week trial. Remember when the bailiff or whatever put you on a little card table? Remember the two tables? And they had you sitting there, this flimsy ass card table in between the two tables because he was a plaintiff, but he was also a defendant. And so we didn’t want to defend the defendant sitting on us. And so do you remember what happened? The water, the table collapsed. Do you remember that? And the water was flying. Ice cubes and water all over the, the floor right in front of the jury. The jury sitting there in the class we’re on the ground with towels cleaning it up. That was something, I believe you did that on purpose to garner sympathy with the jurors.

Dan Ryan:

No, actually I was getting my ass kicked so bad in that case. I mean, we didn’t get a verdict against Ford, I don’t

John Simon:

Think. No, we didn’t.

Dan Ryan:

We got just the driver, which was wrong. We had evidence all over the place that Ford was liable. That fire also, I don’t know if you remember this, and I kept it the night before the jury was going to, we were going to argue and the jury was going to get the case. Ford took an ad out of the Post-Dispatch full length ad talking. I don’t

John Simon:

Remember how safe their cars were.

Dan Ryan:

Yeah, Ford and safety and come buy a car from this car dealership here in Missouri, which we found out afterwards was a fraud. There was no car dealership name

John Simon:

That, but like a full page ad in the St. Louis Post dispatch. Well, now we wouldn’t have to worry about that because only like 14 people read the newspaper. You just need to put it all over

Tim Cronin:

Facebook and social media. Right. Well, we’ve been talking to our good friend, Dan Ryan. We’re going to take a break here and we’re going to have him come back for the next episode two. Until then, this has been another episode of The Jury is Out. I’m Tim Cronin.

John Simon:

I’m John Simon. We’ll see you next time.

Announcer:

The Jury is Out is brought to you by the Simon Law Firm at the Simon Law Firm pc. We believe in the power of pooling resources in order to create powerful results. We often lend our trial skills and experience to lawyers around the country to achieve better results for their clients. Our attorneys welcome the opportunity to work with you on your case, offering vast resources, seasoned litigators, and a sterling reputation. You can contact us at 2 4 1 2 9 2 9. And if you enjoyed the podcast, feel free to share your thoughts with John, Tim and Eric at comments at The Jury is Out law and subscribe today because the best lawyers never stop learning.

Continue Reading