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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
Crossing the Moat - Building Trust Between Attorneys and Clients
In this episode, Karen Koehler starts with a client who was permanently disfigured and how fast the defense tried to dig through every corner of her life. From medical records to private history, nothing feels off-limits in discovery. Karen and Mo Hamoudi talk about how invasive that process can be, why lawyers need to know everything (even the parts that hurt to say out loud), and how to build trust with a total stranger when the stakes are personal.
They get into what it means to “cross the moat,” how lawyers can earn their way inside a client’s world without crossing boundaries, and why most of what defense lawyers dig up never even makes it to trial. Karen brings her Spock-level “mind-meld,” Mo brings bartender-level empathy, and Mike Todd reminds everyone that giving up control is what makes trust so hard in the first place.
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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.
Produced by Mike Todd, Audio & Video Engineer, and Kassie Slugić, Executive Producer.
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I know you're wondering what we're going to talk about.
Karen Koehler :Like always, I had an interaction this morning with a lovely client and what involved is she'd been disfigured, permanently disfigured and scarred following a terrific incident Terrific in the negative sense due to negligence, and the defense was getting her and her husband's medical records and all other records that they could. These are younger people and the issue was well, why is this relevant? And so that set my brain off, because this conversation happens with most of the clients At some point. They say, well, how is that possibly relevant? And I say, well, all they need to show is that it could possibly lead to the admission of reasonable I mean of relevant evidence. They don't have to show it's relevant, it possibly could be relevant, and it doesn't even have to possibly be relevant, it just needs to possibly lead to what could be relevant evidence, basically everything.
Karen Koehler :So in discovery you have no safety zone.
Karen Koehler :When you bring a lawsuit at least here the judges don't protect you from invasions, and I can tell you like this happens dozens of times every year to our clients.
Karen Koehler :So when we start representing someone, we say you need to tell us everything, even if you don't think it's relevant, that you might be ashamed of or anything, and people invariably don't initially because they don't even know you. So I wanted to talk about that, which is what it's like to have to trust a total stranger instantly. We have a fiduciary obligation to our clients. Right, we are in a relationship with them instantly. That's governed by protocol and rules of professional conduct. But, from a human standpoint, we are expecting our clients, who have never met us before, to open their guts and tell us the things that they're most deeply concerned or worried or shamed about, that are probably completely not relevant to what's going on here, but that the defendant might get their hands on to try to make them so uncomfortable that they want to settle the case. Most of it never ever gets to trial, like 90% of this garbage that they'll look out for. You know, I call it garbage, not that I'm trying to disrespect life, because there's no such thing as a perfect plaintiff. We don't want that.
Karen Koehler :But, they'll spend so much time looking for rats, searching for cheese, and once you find the cheese and you're looking for more cheese, going all these different rat hole trails. That's what the defense does. So I wanted to talk about what that must be like for a plaintiff who's at their most vulnerable. They've been injured or someone they love has been killed and terribly injured in our case, for a plaintiff who's at their most vulnerable. They've been injured, or someone they love has been killed and terribly injured in our case. And now you need to somehow remember and say everything bad that happened to you so that your lawyer knows, so that they can protect you during this process called litigation.
Karen Koehler :I thought you might have some insight on that, and I had a second conversation with one of my best friends who has been my friend since kindergarten. Liz and we were talking about boundaries and she had it described to her as you're the princess in your castle, which I like that the princess in the castle and it's like you have different levels of people that are in your intimate circle. You have people that are on the other side of the moat Moat, you know the castle and then there's the moat around the castle.
Mo Hamoudi :Okay.
Karen Koehler :You have those kind of people which are not you know. You have people are on this side of the moat but not inside of the castle walls. You have people that are in the castle walls but not inside of the palace. You have people that are in the palace but not inside your quarters. I love that description. I know that there's many other ways of coming up with these descriptions, but when you hire an attorney, they're on the other side of the moat, you don't know them and they don't know you, and you have to let them all the way almost instantly, and you know this from being also a public defender. Yes, they need to let you inside your princess chambers. You might not call them princess chambers, but I call them princess chambers.
Mo Hamoudi :Princess chambers.
Karen Koehler :So, so, what is that like for somebody to have to do that, and how can we as lawyers make that process better for them?
Mo Hamoudi :It's really hard for somebody to do that. I mean, they're coming to you because of a need and then that need has to then be justified. Need has to then be justified, and then you're asking them not only to justify the need, but you're asking them to justify maybe this is a little dramatic, but their entire existence. Like, tell me all. That's really difficult, but it's par for the course. Is that the right way of saying it? Par for the course, yeah.
Mike Todd:I think so Okay.
Karen Koehler :I mean, mike, let's start with you. Okay, something happens to you terrible and you have to go get a lawyer and they say, well, you have to tell me everything. So the difference between criminality and what I'm talking about, plaintiff, is that at least the criminality is related to a specific event and it's a little bit more.
Mike Todd:Well, and the some evidence can be excluded, Like sometimes their past record won't be allowed or something like that, where what you're talking about is the plaintiff coming in.
Karen Koehler :I have emotional distress that opens up the world, because what about if they're a drug user? Or what about if their mommy was mean to them?
Mike Todd:yeah, whatever there's, and they were all, or they got in a heated argument with someone in a public place and it was filmed and now it's on the internet or they have an anxiety disorder, yeah.
Karen Koehler :Or if they suffered abuse, yeah, or if they had you know um, like you said or if they have weird sexual proclivities or something like that or if they had were an alcoholic, of course. No, you're not even adding to this.
Mo Hamoudi :Look at, mike, I are riffing here, because you guys are really good at this.
Karen Koehler :I mean all of that comes in.
Mike Todd:And all of those are things. I mean, I'm not an attorney, but all of those are things that I have heard have happened, that the defense has used, whether or not. Well, almost always, most of that stuff has nothing to do with the case.
Karen Koehler :And we're able to keep most of it out of the trial because it's such a distraction. But sometimes some of it comes in. I tried a case with a person that was an alcoholic before and it was all about alcohol.
Mike Todd:And I'm sure you've had a case where someone didn't tell you stuff that came up.
Karen Koehler :Yes, but why wouldn't they tell you stuff? Think about it.
Mike Todd:Because it's really hard to do that.
Karen Koehler :And this is what I'm talking about is like we want them to instantly tell us.
Mike Todd:And you don't. I mean, let's just, for the sake of this argument, say that I'm the client. I don't want to. You know, maybe this is stuff that I haven't told my partner, Maybe this is stuff that I haven't told anyone ever Like we have seen, gotten the medical records and seen STDs from.
Karen Koehler :That only their doctor knew about, yeah, non from from outside the marriage yeah.
Mike Todd:Um, or you find out that there's a affair going on, yes, something like that, which they also don't want to talk about, because it's this most secret thing that they're keeping in their life.
Karen Koehler :But the defense will weaponize it. Oh, of course, and this is why a lot of people don't want to pursue litigation.
Mo Hamoudi :There's some things you can ask the judge to protect, if you can. If it's something so profound that, like you haven't disclosed it to your family and it's clearly has nothing to do with the injury you've suffered, you can move to ask the judge to protect it. But here's the problem.
Karen Koehler :The lawyer needs to know, so they can do that If you don't tell the lawyer. That's why the lawyer wants to know. The lawyer needs to know everything, so the lawyer can be very proactive and try to keep most of it out and do this stuff. But when you're in your mind thinking, well, this isn't related and so I don't need to talk about this, that's natural because we're outside the moat, they don't know us. That's what I'm talking. So Mike has talked about you know, has helped us, so we're outside the moat. All this stuff is going on. How do we just, how, as a person, do you just say everything to a person that's outside the moat? What? What has to happen for that to have to occur?
Mo Hamoudi :There has to be rapport. You have to build a relationship with the client.
Karen Koehler :The person outside the moat has to somehow very quickly.
Mike Todd:Get themselves across that bridge into the walls of the castle.
Karen Koehler :And into their private chamber.
Mike Todd:Eventually into their private chambers.
Karen Koehler :But I mean the walls of the castle and into their private chamber eventually into their private chambers. But I mean you, why it can be very strong and why it can also be potentially disastrous, as in. That's why I don't handle and never wanted to do the domestic cases, because my mother did and I would watch them instantly connect and then you know then something you know the other spouse is being bad and doing this and this, and all is well until things aren't well and then the lawyer becomes the target of the client, because you're not only in the personal chambers, you are almost like a family member, you are too entwined, there are boundaries.
Mike Todd:They also don't have anyone else to direct their anger at at that point. And you've gotten yourself in really, really close and it's easy to just take all that anger and point it at you.
Karen Koehler :So here we are. You've got to go through the moat, reach the castle walls into it, go into the chamber and maintain a boundary at the same time.
Mike Todd:Yep.
Karen Koehler :Okay, mo, I know that you are particularly good at maintaining boundaries, so I would like you to tell us how this works.
Mo Hamoudi :I just started thinking about when I was a bartender and how people used to freaking, share with me the most deepest, darkest secrets. And I was a bartender, I wasn't even a lawyer and I had whatever you called the moat.
Mike Todd:I had the bar, and here's the process of how it happened but I mean, you've got the alcohol as a lubricant for them talking there that's a very good point, mike.
Mike Todd:Well, the alcohol and you're the one providing the alcohol. Okay, but but even more than all of that and one of the reasons why I think sometimes it's easy for you guys to jump that gap and be able to work, sometimes people feel easy letting that stuff out when it's someone they don't know and also someone that their problems are never going to come from you back into their life and affect them in any way. They can offload it, almost like you're a therapist. In addition to feeling good because they're drinking alcohol, they then can feel good because they've got whatever they had weighing on their chest.
Mo Hamoudi :I think it takes time. I mean, it wasn't like somebody showed up at my bar in the first night and they had a couple of drinks and started Niagara Falls. It took time. They would come back like on a weekly basis. They knew me by my name and then, you know, they would come in and say I'm having an affair and they would just tell me that and sometimes they were sober telling me that that they're having an affair. Or they would tell me something about a deeply personal problem that they're having and asking a 20-something-year-old guy about suggestions about what to do about it.
Mo Hamoudi :I think people want to talk, yeah, I think people want to share and I think lawyers have real. It sounds like a pitch, but you can just tell them. Everything you tell me right now is confidential. It really is. The only reason I need to know is one I need to know you, and the second thing is that the only way I can tell you about what may happen, provide some predictability about what the hell is going to happen, is you've got to talk to me, You've got to speak with me, and I think you have to spend several occasions early on just speaking with the client and not talking about the case. That's just my approach. Other people like different approaches. They want to immediately get into the meat of the case and start talking. I use words like how are you feeling? Because I'm really interested to know how people are feeling. I'm curious about that, but other people are different. I think that I'm very different.
Karen Koehler :I do a Spock mind meld.
Mo Hamoudi :What.
Karen Koehler :You know, spock.
Mo Hamoudi :Oh, you mean.
Karen Koehler :Star Wars. I do the mind meld. I can do it instantly and, you know, I really also believe that I think about back when you were in high school. Were you the kind of person that people just would talk to and tell you stuff, or were you not?
Mike Todd:I was.
Karen Koehler :I know.
Mike Todd:I was a little combo Because I've always kept my cards very close to my vest and I also have the ability, if I want to, to talk to people and they seem to want to talk to me in those situations, but generally I don't like to be around people, A lot of lawyers, and thank you for your frankness but a lot of lawyers you like to be around us. A lot of lawyers. It's different at work, okay.
Karen Koehler :The prototype lawyer. They were not the person that people wanted to talk to.
Mike Todd:No, that's why you need paralegals. Well, no, it's true, it's so true.
Karen Koehler :And, but it's also like so with Vardir, which is another topic, like I need you to tell me your deepest, darkest thing, Like are you a racist? I mean, I need to know those things well and how are you going to get it?
Mike Todd:and that one you're not getting to meet with them. Why, dear, you have just stepped in front of 12, 14 people and and there, and they have to believe you enough to say stuff. And I'll tell you from my experience some of those people look like some of the people on the jury might've not answered correctly to the questions they were asked.
Karen Koehler :And here. So so the way I operate. Well, if you think back, like I said, to high school, it's hard to to you know you. If you have it, even back, then there's something about you that, intuitively, people trust and want to do and there's some obvious things. Number one, one of the most common ones I've done a lot of seminars where I've talked to people and who's the kind of person that people would talk to in high school, who isn't? And yeah, you can kind of see it, and what they typically share is being what they think is one of the reasons I think that they're universals.
Karen Koehler :Number one no judgment. That means that when someone comes and tells you something, you don't just judge them and pronounce the cure or the decree of this is what you're doing. So no judgment. Number two no obedient attempt to fix and cure Like. Number three, of course, is listening proactively. Four is eye contact. You know so.
Karen Koehler :They're all connection builders and and so for me, when I call mind meld, that's about how much time I have with a juror, with. Sometimes I've done it with a plaintiff that I didn't think I was going to present in a mass you know tort, or a witness that I didn't you know, someone else worked with that witness. I need to make that instant connection and I also agree with Mo's approach. But that ability to connect instantly, especially with a client early on, I feel like that is so important.
Karen Koehler :And what you said about you know they have there's something prodding them. They have a need, so they know they have to reach out beyond their comfortability to get that need met. They need to understand that we are there in a fiduciary capacity and blah, blah, blah blah. But at the end of the day there's some lawyers that do not do that ever with clients. It is their paralegals or another lawyer in the office. That that's their specialty or something. They just don't do it. And then there's those that really connect deeply and on different levels, in different ways. Mo is one you know Ray Kaler I've talked to you about before you would think like nah, no, he about before. You would think nah, no, he really connects because he spends so much time and he's so freaking smart and straight and unruffled and nonjudgmental.
Mike Todd:Yes, he's had clients stay at his house.
Karen Koehler :And vice versa. And he's so kind he is so kind.
Mo Hamoudi :Yes, he has one of the most tender hearts.
Karen Koehler :I mean, I just will never forget you know him being the guardian of the dog after the client passed away. For like seven or eight years he was a guardian of that dog and he took it very seriously. So everybody has their different things, but I thought that the process of going you know from on oversight coming in and what the client has to go through to do that, how vulnerable they are Well, that's what I was going to say.
Mike Todd:I mean for me I haven't ever had to get an attorney. But you know, last year when I got my surgery I did. Last year when I got my surgery I did. It's for me it's a little bit like they're giving up their power to you and and putting their trust that you will represent them and be their power when, when I went in for surgery, I mean I'm having to trust them with my life. At that time, I mean, my heart was on a machine for a while there and they had to shock me back to life, which my wife was there for and said took a bunch of times and really scared her a lot.
Karen Koehler :I did not know she was there for that.
Mike Todd:Oh yeah.
Karen Koehler :Oh my God, she is a brave, yeah. She was there when they were doing that by the way, mo and I were talking the other day and we were talking about you and your wife and just how cool it is. You know what a great relationship you have and people can't see you because, you know, even I just mentioned her and you know his whole face lights up.
Mike Todd:Yeah.
Karen Koehler :It's just really pretty special.
Mike Todd:She is. But yeah, I mean, that was the thing. For me is that it's giving up control, and that's a really hard thing to do, and I think that's also when people can get extremely frustrated with their attorneys because they feel that they've given up all their control and it's not being used correctly, right, or promptly, or timely, or respectfully yeah, that's all yeah, yeah, I just.
Mo Hamoudi :I just, you were talking about your surgery and I remember you how um concerned you were.
Mike Todd:I remember you oh, I never been. I'd never gone under Like that was. My first thing was I'd never been under anesthesia Like every time I'd ever been on anything like that. It was like the lighter version, where you were still awake.
Mo Hamoudi :Yeah.
Mike Todd:And I mean I've heard it described how it was going to happen. I mean for me that's like you. I mean it was a big fear for me and it was. I mean now having to happen it's still kind of a fear of mine. I mean there's just you're like off and then on again it's really weird.
Karen Koehler :I remember that well, that was what I wanted to talk about today was just putting ourselves in the shoes of our clients and what it takes for them to have to tell us the stuff that they tell us, which is so often completely irrelevant to the fact that someone ran over them or someone you know accidentally didn't pay any attention and set something on fire and burned them up. I mean, you know something, somebody failed to to do what they were supposed to do under their job description and killed somebody you know. You don't think that? Oh, 20 years ago I um had an eating disorder, and now they're going to focus on that because they have pre-existing emotional issues Because they found the records that said that you had that.
Karen Koehler :Yeah, so anyway, that's done Okay.
