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The Velvet Hammer™ Podcast
Trial lawyers can be real people, too—and this podcast proves it. The Velvet Hammer™ is back, and this time, Karen Koehler isn’t going it alone. Known for her fearless advocacy, bold storytelling, and, yes, even the occasional backwards dress moment, Karen is teaming up with Mo Hamoudi, a lawyer, poet, and storyteller whose empathy and resilience add a whole new dynamic to the show.
Together, they’re pulling back the curtain on trial law, diving into bold topics, heartfelt stories, and the messy, hilarious moments that make trial lawyers human. This is an unscripted, raw, and fun take on life inside—and outside—the courtroom.
The Velvet Hammer™ Podcast
Confronting the Money Taboo in Plaintiff Work
Episode 23: Confronting the Money Taboo in Plaintiff Work
What happens when you’ve spent your whole life avoiding money, and now your entire job is to ask for it in the name of justice?
In this episode, Mo Hamoudi opens up about how childhood poverty and betrayal shaped a deep discomfort with money. He was taken advantage of by people who claimed to care about him. He learned early on that money could be a weapon. And then he became a plaintiff lawyer.
Karen challenges him: “Money is not a dirty word. If you're embarrassed about it, the jury will feel it. The defense will see it. And your client will lose.”
Together, they unpack how the civil justice system forces us to put a price on the unthinkable, like the loss of a child. “When you say a child’s loss is worth nothing, you destroy the very idea of what it means to love unconditionally.”
They also delve into the power dynamics within the plaintiff bar. The more money you have, the harder you are to wear down. And the more seriously you’re taken.
Mo’s working to reframe his relationship with money. Not as betrayal. But as fuel for justice. Karen thinks he’s about 20 percent there. And that’s better than zero.
🎧 Listen to Episode 23: “Confronting the Money Taboo in Plaintiff Work”
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Hosted by Karen Koehler and Mo Hamoudi, trial lawyers at Stritmatter Law, a nationally recognized plaintiff personal injury and civil rights law firm based in Washington State.
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Well let's talk about.
Karen Koehler :Our last episode was too spicy, we can't even air it. We were just totally spicy and Mike said we can't air it. It was too controversial, we would have made too many enemies. So today we're going to talk about a much more placid subject.
Mo Hamoudi :Yes, yes, I woke up in the morning and I was like, uh, we said a little too much on that last one.
Karen Koehler :I would have been fine with it, but whatever.
Mo Hamoudi :Okay.
Karen Koehler :All right. Part two of money.
Mo Hamoudi :Yeah.
Karen Koehler :So we got through part one and I outed you on the fact that you're very uncomfortable with money, so you've been doing some personal uh journey.
Mo Hamoudi :Yeah, yeah, I mean, I have a coach and I work with my coach on professional personal development, and the topic of money has come up and what I have learned is that money is a source of trauma for me and that's a challenge when you are working as a plaintiff's lawyer and part of your goal is to get money for your client.
Karen Koehler :Can you, are you comfortable sharing with us? An example Like what do you mean? Money is a source of trauma for you.
Mo Hamoudi :You know one, I've been financially taken advantage of multiple times as a young person. An advantage of multiple times as a young person. And we didn't have money. So for me, when I was going to get money or go earn money, it was something that I like, created a value system around that had to do with escaping the reality of my house. That money was the solution, that that resource was a solution to reduce suffering.
Karen Koehler :So your house was a source of abuse for you.
Mo Hamoudi :Abuse, but also poverty.
Karen Koehler :Okay, and you wanted to get out of your house.
Mo Hamoudi :Yeah.
Karen Koehler :And you saw money as being a route to escape.
Mo Hamoudi :Right.
Karen Koehler :And you got money.
Mo Hamoudi :And I did immediately.
Karen Koehler :As a how old person.
Mo Hamoudi :Like 18, 19 years old, I was making thousands of dollars a month. And I did immediately as a how old person, Like 18, 19 years old, I was making, you know, thousands of dollars a month.
Karen Koehler :And you did this through.
Mo Hamoudi :Working in real estate, working with a group of people who were involved in real estate, and doing very good at it, and then you found out. I found out that they were taking advantage of me.
Karen Koehler :What does that mean?
Mo Hamoudi :They were. They were misusing um my name and uh for you know, just inappropriate purposes.
Karen Koehler :You know, like you know and um well, we don't want you to go to jail or them to go to jail, so but it wasn't, it wasn't like fraud level kind of stuff it wasn't fraud level, it was just what I would call um misdealings, not acting in good faith.
Mo Hamoudi :And what ended up happening was that, you know, my mom realized and she confronted them, confronted an individual, and said you know, you need to fix this problem, and then told me to, you know, and I left the job. And I left the job. And then the second time was, I owned a business when I was in my early 20s, a very successful clothing business up in New York City on the Upper East Side, and I'd purchased a business from a friend, and when I purchased it, I was told that the business was worth X amount. And then what I learned afterwards was that the amount was misrepresented, the inventory was overvalued and there was inventory missing, and I hadn't even gotten my own lawyer. I made the deal with him, with a lawyer that he selected, and what I felt I mean he was much older than I I felt that I was being mentored and that he would invite me over to his home, I would have dinner with his family.
Mo Hamoudi :I didn't have anybody in New York. It was a very challenging time for me, so I felt as though I was part of the family, and I recall a conversation I had with though I was part of the family, and I recall a conversation I had with him when I confronted him about this and I naively but that's how I felt I said, well, I thought I was part of your family and he was like you're not part of your family and he was like you're not. And I remember hearing that and I remember feeling terrible. Yeah, um, I mean, those are just those instances kind of like taught me that money has a tendency to do things to people, and um, and and so Money is the root of all evil.
Karen Koehler :I guess it's the root of all evil, but it brings out the worst in people sometimes, um and so my relationship with money at that point was but it wasn't just that it was bad that that there was, you know, it was that you felt that money you money in your case amounted to betrayal and loss of safety.
Mo Hamoudi :Loss of safety, betrayal. I mean I guess I don't know Mike. I mean, oh, wise sage Mike. I mean you know I'm a sensitive guy. You know I'm a sensitive guy. I want people to know that I'm a good, kind person and value me for that. And somehow money ended up confusing all that.
Mike Todd:Yeah, I mean you said something in that or two where you felt like you were part of his family, two where he felt like you were part of his family, and I think I mean I had that a lot when I was first breaking out into the music industry and working with bands where you start to feel like you're part of a team and it sounds like in that situation you quickly realized that you weren't part. Well, he said you're not part, and was he using that as an excuse for, you know, not being truthful?
Mo Hamoudi :Maybe I. I kind of took it as a hey, there is a personal relationship and then there's a business relationship and those two things don't overlap. And I think you're confused, Mo. You know, like, wake up. It was that kind of reality check for me and, whereas I think that I blurred the lines I just had, the tendency to my whole life, and I think that's easy for someone who wants to be.
Mike Todd:I mean, I think you know when you're, when you have trauma early on, you gravitate towards people that you feel are consider it that way and you've been sort of, I mean, in the instance of money. Then there's this extra factor that's laid into it. It's not just that you're not part of the family, it's that you don't deserve to be treated fairly.
Mo Hamoudi :yeah, maybe that's it that's a good part that's a I mean. I think that what that did, those events culminated into my decision to follow what I believe to be my moral compass and not have money be part of that component, and so I went and represented poor people.
Karen Koehler :Yeah. So what did Sherry do? Oops, what did your coach do?
Mo Hamoudi :What did my coach do? What did my coach do? What did your coach do? Well, my coach was like well, what were you doing when you're representing poor people? What are you doing? I was like I was pursuing justice, I was trying to bring them peace. And then she said well, are you doing the same thing now, and what are you trying to do when you're trying to pursue money for your clients? I said I'm trying to help them find justice, help them find peace. And then she said well, then why don't you pursue that for yourself? And then I was floored. I kind of sat there silent. I was like because I don't think I deserve it, and kind of have been pursuing it my entire life for other people, because I don't think I deserve those things. I mean, I've never lived with peace. I don't know what that means for me.
Karen Koehler :So I mean this is deep, it's deep.
Mo Hamoudi :Well, you asked, this is deep, it's deep.
Karen Koehler :Well, you asked. It is deep. However, where this came from was that our job is very limited by our system of justice.
Mo Hamoudi :Yes.
Karen Koehler :We can't get peace quote unquote or justice unless it's in the form of money in a civil arena, and so the money has to represent justice and peace. Yes, Right. So it's representative and you are still not quite comfortable with that.
Mo Hamoudi :No, and that's my challenge, and I don't think it's a bad thing, I just think that it's something I'm going to work on I don't even think that it's something that's unique to you, I mean, even though your experience is very unique.
Karen Koehler :what I see as a trial lawyer is that people's perceptions about money and trial lawyer and plane of cases is typically pretty negative Until they understand like this is not something gross. Our predecessors who decided to create this country felt that we could have the best civil justice system in the world, which I believe that we do even though it's flawed and that this is how it was going to work.
Karen Koehler :And so, in trying to fulfill the destiny of that vision of having this, basically it allows the people that have nothing to sue the people that have something, and the only way that you can get accountability a lot of time is to make the people that have something give some of it up. That makes a point, especially to a corporation which has no feelings of remorse. The only thing it cares about is its bottom line. So I completely accept that, but many people that are on the jury don't and I think we talked about this before. They'll say well, you know, the life of life is worth nothing because it's priceless. That doesn't mean it's worth nothing, though. That means that it's. No one would want to give up their life for a money figure, but that doesn't mean it's worthless. It means the opposite. It means it's about the most precious thing that there is is life.
Mo Hamoudi :I think that that resonates with me. I think that what values does money inspire? When you're talking about it in the context of someone's catastrophic loss, okay, I can think of it in that light. I think where I'm having a challenge is that what has made me excel as a lawyer and be very excellent at what I do is not to have money be part of the component that drives me to find justice for people, find peace for people. That drives me to find justice for people, find peace for people, and what I learned with my coach was that I am capping myself right by not being receptive to how money can enhance my ability to pursue justice and peace for people. That's the challenge, and I have to confront the fact that it's my problems with money that's stopping that. It has nothing to do with money as an external factor. Money is just a commodity, it's just a resource.
Karen Koehler :So there's kind of two issues. You know, we started off talking about money because I'm interested in, I mean, that is the only thing that I can achieve is money justice.
Mo Hamoudi :Yes.
Karen Koehler :In a capitalist society.
Mike Todd:Yeah, that's. The problem with it is that money from the beginning of time is the representation of.
Karen Koehler :Limited.
Mike Todd:Yeah.
Karen Koehler :Yeah, beginning of time is the representation of limited. Yeah, yeah, in fact, a lot of times they want you to sign off saying we accept no responsibility for this here's here's some money.
Mo Hamoudi :Here's a million dollars yeah but we're not responsible which is my least favorite. I mean, I think that's a problem. And here's the problem. I mean I will only.
Mo Hamoudi :I can only draw from experience that I'm familiar with is that I've had to bring into court men, often facing with what I call disproportionate sentences to go to prison for things that they have done, with their families sitting in a courtroom and they're draped in orange suits, about to go away into a box for many, many years, and they are told do you accept responsibility for what you do? And they sit there in front of everyone, somewhat humiliated, acknowledging all the wrongs they've done. Having the other side tell them everything they've done their entire life that's wrong. Talking about their criminal history, all of that. And then they sit there and fumble through ways through an expression of remorse on their entire life that's wrong. Talking about their criminal history, all of that. And then they sit there and fumble through ways through an expression of remorse. It's the most humiliating thing I witnessed day in and day out. And yet you can come into the civil system and cut a check and not do that Even worse.
Mike Todd:you can admit that you did it in an attempt to not have to cut that check.
Mo Hamoudi :Yeah, that's the tough one. That's even worse. So what drives me to want to go to trial against a corporation is dragging those witnesses through an examination that makes them feel what my clients felt in those courtrooms. That's what drives me, but unfortunately that may not be in the best interests of what the values of our civil system are, which is cash. That's what I've got to work through, because I have to make decisions that say yeah, but here's what I think.
Karen Koehler :Okay, I think that the burning desire which we just you know we had to, we had to mitigate that burning desire because we settled the case, yes, but the burning desire we had to do that, yes, to go public, which drove us, that was realized by the defense yeah, and, and that's what scares them when they know that that's what you want to do more than anything else and your client is along with that. The client wants that accountability.
Mo Hamoudi :Yeah, then you've got to do it. I mean, you're ethically responsible to the client's needs. I hear you.
Karen Koehler :But sometimes the client's going to say, sometimes just knowing that is going to make the defendant corporation pay more money, pay more money, pay more money.
Mo Hamoudi :Yeah, I think that's sort of the struggle of my coaches. Is that the way I view money is actually helping get more money, because I don't care about it?
Karen Koehler :Money is not a dirty word. It cannot be a dirty word. So many people are so uncomfortable with it, and so what I asked Mo to do was to figure out why you're uncomfortable with it. Because you can't be Not in this profession I was Initially. I didn't know how to ask for damages, I didn't know how to demand them, I didn't know how to rationalize or talk about them or love them. You have to love I mean, this sounds horrible, but you have to love the concept of money, justice, in order to do this job. And if you're apologetic, if you're concerned or worried or self-conscious about it, if you're embarrassed about talking about money, what do you think is going to happen?
Mo Hamoudi :Okay.
Karen Koehler :You're going to communicate that to a jury.
Mike Todd:That's right, not just that, you're going to communicate it to the defense and they're going to know.
Karen Koehler :That too.
Mo Hamoudi :All right. So you have a case and you have a loss of a child All right. How do you ask for money for the loss of a child and the parents are sitting there?
Karen Koehler :in a courtroom.
Mo Hamoudi :How do you do that? Can you help illuminate us?
Karen Koehler :there is no loss worse than loss of a child. Okay, it is not a trite saying, okay, it is like a part of you has just a physical part of you has just died and will never be back. And they have not lasted as long as you. They should have lived longer than you. You would have laid down your life for that child. It's unlike a spouse Even a spouse as bad as a lifetime spouse is there is still nothing worse than losing a child, a child that you sacrificed for, that you nourished from the beginning, that you watched from the moment they were teeny.
Karen Koehler :It is excruciating, unbelievable, unbearable. And when you think about putting a price on that, it is abhorrent. You recoil because who could ever put a dollar amount price on the life of the most? It will never be enough. But in our justice system, that's what the law tells you is your job to do. You have to do that. How are you going to do that? Enough value, money, value on that child's life. You disrespect that parent, that family. That life is gone for nothing. You damage, you do more damage. You do as much damage sometimes as a child being gone Because you have failed to recognize what that was and in a society that has morality and goals and aspirations and says things like love your family and family is so important.
Karen Koehler :When you say that a child's loss is worth nothing, you are kind of destroying the underpinnings of our society and what it means to love unconditionally. It's that important, I'm not done so. You need to put a value on that loss and you say, well, it's priceless, but we value things that are priceless. All day long. We put values on things that there haven't been values for all day long. When you use a cryptocurrency, a little piece of a coin can be worth a million dollars. For what? What is it? It can't breathe, it can't hug you, it can't hold you, it can't love you, you can't touch it.
Mike Todd:Cryptocurrency you can't even touch.
Karen Koehler :What is it? We pay Michael Jordan billions of dollars to put his insignia on tennis shoes dollars to put his insignia on tennis shoes. We pay Tom Cruise $120 million to star in Mission Impossible. And you say that we can't put a value on the loss of a child we can. Then I tell him what I think. It is. It's a conversation and it's a two-way. See what I'm doing. It's like I'm asking you to think along with. It's a conversation and it's a two-way. See, what I'm doing is like I'm asking you to think along with me. I'm not preaching at you, no-transcript. You can do that right, because it's not. We're not talking about this. One is worth this much and this much is this much, and this dollar is this, and I want more dollars. That's not what we're doing. We're talking about symbolism and love and being cherished. What is that worth? It's worth a lot. So that's why the defendants don't like to deal with me when I talk about damages, because and it's not even hard- no.
Karen Koehler :It's getting yourself out of the way of thinking like this is just a dollar amount, and I've seen people like they spend a lot of time talking about liability, but when it comes to how you talk about the money, there's some little. You know, there's a gimmick.
Mo Hamoudi :There is a gimmick.
Karen Koehler :There's some kind of a gimmick or there's some short explanation Dollars and cents. You mark it all up there in a line. But that's not what you do, in my opinion, to talk about damages. When I get big verdicts, it's because I did what I do here. I want to talk about it with them and have them think through how we value okay what I just learned from that was that one.
Mo Hamoudi :The way you were talking to me, I wanted to answer inherent questions that were being posed even though you weren't asking questions, so it was a really interesting way, it's a dialogue.
Mo Hamoudi :Yeah, it's a dialogue, but it's a different type of dialogue that causes you to reflect, as you're listening, and the reflection causes you to question your internal philosophies, as you're hearing the person speak and you want to almost ask a follow-up. So when you were walking through that, there was about halfway in I wanted to say I stopped you and you stopped about halfway in I wanted to say, karen, yeah, I stopped you and you stopped me and I wanted to ask, and, and the question I wanted to ask was I agree with you, give me a framework of how to measure that amount?
Mo Hamoudi :sure measure the amount of um, which you describe an unfathomable loss, and and I'm a little bit overwhelmed that's like what I was itching to ask.
Karen Koehler :You have to give them a framework.
Mo Hamoudi :Yes.
Karen Koehler :But that's how you get to it. A lot of people skip that step. They just go right to the framework.
Mo Hamoudi :Yeah.
Karen Koehler :But you've got to get the jury to understand what's being asked, which is, we're not asking you just to put this arbitrary amount on here. That sounds good enough, or right? It's symbolic. What did you think, mike?
Mike Todd:Oh well, I think that's I mean I've seen that in action, like when you were in the Ride the Ducks case going through each individual and laying that out to the jury was very powerful at that time and that was one of the first times that I had watched that go down. And it's very important because it's it's hard for most people to imagine and most I mean most people on juries you're going to run into a lot who don't think that verdict should be that high of a number because they can't understand that and they come in with bias that they think nothing's worth that much kind of stuff. But you know, that's why I always say wait until they're in the seat of our plaintiff, because if they are, that attitude changes really quick and it doesn't matter if they're, you know, liberal or conservative, christian or not, or you know, whatever their beliefs are. It can change on a dime. When that happens and it's very telling to see that in action, what are you?
Karen Koehler :smiling about.
Mo Hamoudi :You know it's. I've seen you close because I've tried a case with you. It's different than sitting in front of you and having you close a case to me, but that was sort of it was revealing in that I felt really connected to you when you were talking to me, even in this hypothetical example, because my style is not to preach. Yeah, you weren't preaching. I'm not a preacher.
Karen Koehler :No, I don't have the dynamism of MLK, Like I don't have that ability to be spellbinding and mesmerizing by giving you know a speech, and I also don't want to. I don't want. I don't want people to do things because I said it. I want to do people to do things because they believe it's the right thing to do, the right thing to do I do. I want them to be, I want them to have a process that's fair, that they can go through and reach it.
Mo Hamoudi :Okay, so going back kind of half circle to the beginning, where we were talking about, what do you think I need to do to get to a space where I can just have a conversation about money through symbolism?
Karen Koehler :Practice makes perfect. I think you need to talk more about money. I think you need to write about money. I think that you need to because there's stigma. Sometimes you know you allow money to you've. You've allowed money to be stigmatized in your life? Yes, and it symbolizes negative trauma. Um, I believe your coach also said that you've kind of defaulted when it comes to money.
Mo Hamoudi :I have. Well, I've done that professionally and I've done that personally, but I'll just be like you take care of the money.
Karen Koehler :Someone else.
Mo Hamoudi :Someone else can take care of it. You don't want to do it, you don't want to touch it.
Karen Koehler :So I think you need to, can take control of of it and stop, stop. You've, you've I don't want to say you've demonized it because you haven't, but you have, you've put it away and you've used your credo of moral superiority. Moral superiority that's fair to less, to to that's fair to kind of diminish it. Good criticism, moral superiority, go on a journey. What I've learned about money, first of all, I need to, I need to really feel that it's part of our justice system in order to ask for it. If I didn't believe it, then I wouldn't do good, yeah, you can tell, I really believe it. Um, so I needed to do that. I need to figure out, like, what is real to me, what, what will make, what is right, what is, and so I have that thing. But the second thing is and you've rejected this every time I've brought it up with you oh, boy, and and part of it is part of the episode that we canceled that we're not sharing with anyone um, which was about elite plaintiff lawyer groups. Oh yeah, um, yeah, again, I'm an older plaintiff lawyer. I've been doing this a long time. Oh yeah, or they're high, because people know I try cases In this kind of dog-eat-dog world of litigation, the power structure is important and we talked about being in or out of an elite group.
Karen Koehler :For someone like me, I literally don't care, and I can say that because, a I have a reputation, but B I also have money. I mean, as gross as that seems, it is a measure of it's seen as and treated as, and it was not inherited right. I have no inherited wealth whatsoever and I was a single parent of three children who had no child support, no alimony, who worked part-time before I got divorced, so it is a leveler. So if someone thinks that they're better than me and they want to take me on, they can try on the merits, but they can't try to one-up me because they think that they can dominate me financially, which is what plaintiff lawyers do. There is a pecking order of that. I'm high up in the pecking order.
Mo Hamoudi :Yeah, I mean. What I can say is that.
Karen Koehler :It's a reality, it's part of the power structure.
Mo Hamoudi :It's what I call the economic structure of plaintiff's practice is what you've just described, and the power starts at the top and trickles down.
Karen Koehler :It's not just plaintiffs Like Elon Musk is coming off of changing our government. Do you think that he would have had a foot in the door if he wasn't a billionaire? No, he would not.
Mo Hamoudi :Yeah.
Karen Koehler :His power comes from his wealth. Wealth.
Mike Todd:Well, yeah, I mean, but power doesn't have to come from wealth. It doesn't. It doesn't. And I also think you know I mean I have, even now, even now, throughout my life, I have not cared about money. Even now, even now, throughout my life, I have not cared about money. I cared about getting respect for what I do and doing a good job at what I do.
Mike Todd:Money comes along with that, but I still don't pay attention to it. My wife takes care of all of our finances. I don't ever look at what I make or what we have. I depend on her to tell me if we're spending too much so that I slow down.
Mike Todd:But I also, and for a long time, I thought that, you know, anything that was judged by money was something that I didn't really want to be part of. And then I became part of this firm and learned more about how money can be used to change things in a positive way. A lot of that was, like you said, I had demonized money. And you know, a lot of that was, like you said money, I had demonized money. And I think that you can still have my personal belief of not being concerned about it, partially because I mean, mo, you came from very poor beginnings, so you know you can survive when you're poor, yeah, yeah. You can survive when you're poor, yeah, yeah. So if you don't have that fear, then they don't have as much power pushing the money as an issue, and you can still know that it that it, that it has power and that you're giving power to your clients by making sure that they get the best results.
Mo Hamoudi :I really like what you just said, because what you've reminded me of is that why I'm so fearless and that because I don't feel that anybody has power over me, I move comfortably within spheres of power and wealth and I never feel intimidated by those people and I actually feel as though I have a step up on them. I think you do and I think they feel that way, and they feel intimidated by me because I've never been responsive to that kind of structure that you're describing. But one of the things that the coach and I talked about is that she said what really works for you is that you're a really morally ambitious person, and she said that having moral ambitions is a fantastic thing, that money can help you enhance your ambitions and can really help you help in ways that you could never imagine, and that you could do better with it. But it hasn't dissuaded me from confronting my relationship with it.
Karen Koehler :So let me give you some examples that are very specific to plaintiff lawyers. When I talk about the power structure of the plaintiff bar because maybe it is plaintiff-related more than normal life and I have been everything from plaintiff beginner to plaintiff senior and everything in between you are treated differently by the defendants. When you do not have an adequate support system, they know that they can wear you down, that you do not have the finances to withstand. You do get the bigger firms that have the pockets of money. Yes, you are treated differently because you can withstand the onslaught of the defense.
Mo Hamoudi :Yes.
Karen Koehler :You can meet it, so they know that they also. There's a pecking. Like I said, there is a pecking order in the plaintiff bar and I wish that that was true in the plaintiff bar, that you could do your job, do it fantastically and be respected for that and only measured by that. But that's not what happens in the plaintiff bar, because the more funds that you have, the more advertising you can do. For example, yes. You can be on a billboard or a bus.
Mo Hamoudi :Yes and get more clients.
Karen Koehler :Yes, there's all kinds of stuff that you can do, plaintiff bar and I'm not saying that any other bar is different, but the plaintiff bar is a scrappy bar. We only get paid when we resolve cases. And when you're talking about big stakes litigation, which is what we do, like really bad thing case kind of thing, cases that it takes a certain amount of pocket to be able to play that game repeatedly, to the extent that we do. I mean, it's no secret that in the 90s the firm lost a million dollars on tobacco litigation A million dollars in the 90s.
Mo Hamoudi :In the 90s. Yeah, what is? That worth now A lot more, A lot more. 5 to 10, probably.
Karen Koehler :That could have bankrupted another firm or the other firm could not have got it. And now what you see is there's been some leveling of that playing field because now there are these companies that loan money on cases we don't do that almost make. If we have even one client, it's only because they did it before we got to them. We try to talk them out of it. That's a personal loan but we try not to do it. We don't ever do Like. When the Simon verdict was appealed that was appealed two years ago I immediately got letters from finance companies saying oh, we see your $, you know your 40 million, $44 million verdict is on appeal. We can provide financing in the interim. We don't ever do that. So money is very heavily connected to what we do because of who we're doing it against and what we're trying to get.
Karen Koehler :But having said that, I am not driven by money. That's not the core of who I am. I could have retired by now. I'm not. I like what I do. I love what I do. I'm incredibly driven by what I do. The clients would not be happy to hear me say that I'm not driven by money because that's what they can only get is money, and I'm driven by, you know wanting to get them a good result, which means money, but I personally that's never why I've done this job. There's other ways that you can make money. This is like a very rigorous job.
Mo Hamoudi :I think we need to revisit this topic six months from now.
Karen Koehler :Okay, so this is part two.
Mo Hamoudi :This is part two. And then ask me where I'm at and how I'm doing, because it's a process.
Karen Koehler :Well, how do you feel about it after today?
Mo Hamoudi :I feel good. I mean, I feel as though it's an exciting challenge for me to enhance what I do by finding a relationship with money.
Karen Koehler :I feel like you're about 20% of the way there. I like how you come up with these numbers, I feel like you're not at 50%, okay, I'm at 20%.
Mo Hamoudi :I'll take that. That's good enough for me.
Karen Koehler :At least it's better than zero, like the last time. I hate money. What Wait time out?
Mo Hamoudi :Wait a minute. Why did I hire you? Get out of here, Go back to the public defender's.
