Waiting For The Verdict

The trial ends, the courtroom empties, and then comes the part nobody romanticizes: waiting for the verdict. After weeks of jury selection, motions, testimony, and closing arguments, we’re left staring at the one thing we can’t influence anymore. The jury takes a Memorial Day weekend pause, and that small delay turns into a magnifying glass on stress, control, and the way trial work gets under your skin.

Karen and Mo describe their feelings as they wait.

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Hosted by Karen Koehler and Mo Hamoudi, trial lawyers at Stritmatter Law, a nationally recognized plaintiff's personal injury and civil rights law firm based in Washington State.

Featuring Mike Todd, producer, audio engineer, and the Disembodied Voice of Wisdom & Reason.

Produced by Mike Todd and Kassie Slugić.

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Karen Koehler
https://karenkoehler.com
https://www.instagram.com/k3thevelvethammer/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-koehler-thevelvethammer/

Mo Hamoudi
https://www.instagram.com/mo.hamoudi/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mo-hamoudi-77a38733/

Stritmatter Law
https://www.stritmatter.com

Transcript

Trial Ends And The Wait Begins

unknown 0:00

Okay.

Karen Koehler 0:01

On Thursday we finished a three week jury trial. Three weeks because two of them were selecting the jury and arguing motions.

Mo Hamoudi 0:12

Okay.

Karen Koehler 0:12

A week and a day of the actual trial itself, testimony. And on Thursday we did closing arguments. We did. Ended at 4 50 something. Court normally closes at 4 o'clock. The jury was excused to begin deliberations or figure out what it was going to do. And there's never trial on Friday, but court is in session on Friday, and the jury is always expected to deliberate on a Friday. They decided not to deliberate on a Friday because it's Memorial Day weekend. And so they uh left at 4 30 and decided that they would come back first thing Tuesday morning, which today is Tuesday morning.

Mo Hamoudi 0:52

And they start at 9 30 in the morning.

Karen Koehler 0:54

So the cool thing was that we didn't have to think about this, at least I didn't much have to think about it because Friday normally we would have had it gone down and wait, and then when you would worry that they were gonna try to hustle to finish before the weekend, and now we know that they want to take their time. And they also like having a vacation. We know these two things about the jury. Um but today is today and it's happening right now. Well, it's 9 30.

Losing Control Feels Awful

Karen Koehler 1:28

We have 20 minutes before it starts getting deliberated. What does that feel like?

Mo Hamoudi 1:35

I mean, what does it feel like? It feels like one, we don't have control, so like you're giving up control over something you've spent two years working on and preparing, and you've given it to twelve people to decide. It feels uneasy.

Karen Koehler 1:58

Um let me amend that. It sucks. It feels horrible, and it it's the worst part of the trial, in my opinion. That feeling.

Mo Hamoudi 2:09

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 2:09

It's you've done it everything you can, and you're just now you have no input whatsoever. And your client is sitting there worried it's gonna affect their life. They have suffered not only the initial incident, but through the whole litigation.

Mo Hamoudi 2:27

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 2:28

They've come and told their story to strangers, a story that they didn't even tell. Really, their own selves. They s they quote, uh as one testified, I threw everything away into a black figurative black garbage bag and and try to tuck it away as far as possible in my in my mind.

Mo Hamoudi 2:50

Well, now that you put it that way, it does suck.

Karen Koehler 2:52

It sucks so bad.

Mo Hamoudi 2:54

It does suck terribly bad.

Karen Koehler 2:55

Okay, that was number one. We'll keep we'll come back to that, but okay, issue number one, it's we have no control and it sucks.

Mo Hamoudi 3:04

I feel good. Honestly, I

Wanting Justice Versus Wanting To Win

Mo Hamoudi 3:07

thought we did exceptional work. We put on the best case possible under the circumstances. So I feel good about the effort we put in, you know, the work product. So at the same time, I kind of have like conflicting feelings. Like, you know. I you know, I spoke to somebody on Friday about it, about this sucky feeling, and um she said to me, What do you want out of it? And I said, I want I wanted to make sure that the clients were able to sit and talk about what they experienced under their own terms, as much as possible. And I want justice. And she responded with you have that one way or another, regardless of the verdict. I don't know if I totally agree with her, but I see what she's saying.

Karen Koehler 4:05

That's because you gave her false information.

Mo Hamoudi 4:08

What do you mean I gave her false information?

Karen Koehler 4:10

You want to win.

Mo Hamoudi 4:12

Well, no.

Karen Koehler 4:12

You want to win for your client. You would never have filed a lawsuit if you didn't think you were gonna win. You would never have had that client take that amount of time out of their lives and give them hope that they could prevail. You would never have put and invested this much time and money from the law firm resources into a case if you didn't want to win. You want to win fiercely.

Mo Hamoudi 4:32

Yeah, I do want to win, but I think what she's saying is that she can say whatever she wants.

Karen Koehler 4:38

You gave her false information.

Mo Hamoudi 4:39

I didn't give her false information.

Karen Koehler 4:40

Yeah, you said you wanted justice to occur and you wanted the client to be to be good.

Mo Hamoudi 4:46

To be good?

Karen Koehler 4:47

To be able to have their say.

Mo Hamoudi 4:48

Oh. Well, I mean, money justice. I mean, justice is money, you know. I so that that's an acknowledgement of the justice, and then this acknowledgement of them being heard. I think she just is not a lawyer who deals with what we deal with, and she's trying to provide perspective. No false information.

Karen Koehler 5:06

Okay. I think that you didn't sleep

Coping Styles After Closing Arguments

Karen Koehler 5:08

well last night.

Mo Hamoudi 5:08

I didn't sleep well. I actually slept really well.

Karen Koehler 5:10

And I think that you are you are too controlled for my liking. I'm all over the place. I hate this part more than anything. My whole insights, if I were to just let them do what they want to do, would turn to gibberish mush. I am a controlled person, so I am getting through everything. But this is the absolute worst period of time. And if it lasts long, I've had I've had it last up to well, Decks was over two weeks.

Mo Hamoudi 5:42

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 5:42

Um, and I've had very long deliberations, like weeks of deliberations I've had that come back in two or three hours. Um, and neither one of them feels good.

Mo Hamoudi 5:54

Yeah, I mean, obviously I want us to get a positive verdict, but what I'm saying is that like trying to focus and place energy into something I can't control is like causes stress for no reason. Like I can't control it. Like, why why stress about it? I guess I understand you want to.

Karen Koehler 6:11

Are you stressed about it?

Mo Hamoudi 6:13

Um I mean, I told you I'm conf I've I've like a one sense I feel like we did it we did a damn good job. Like we we put on a frickin' good case. And then on the other side, we've given up control. I don't like that feeling. I don't like being out of control. So it's like I have to sort of reconcile that, but if I place too much of my focus on feeling out of control, like that's not good for me.

Karen Koehler 6:35

Okay, that's an admission that I will uh agree with because your comments when we left courthouse were nothing but I'm really worried about the statute of limitations. They're all about, you know, are we gonna lose, are we gonna lose this case over the statute of limitations, which by the way, expired 47 years ago. Um, if if it wasn't a child sex sexual assault case under the special exception for if they uh were aware of the defendant's negligence, you were very worried and very scared. So what has happened, I suppose, over the weekend is that you have put on a coping mechanism that involves this calm zen state, which I don't really recognize in you. But but that's okay, right? Like the reality is, and this is for people that wonder about what trial lawyers feel like, and for actual trial lawyers. This is the worst part, bar none.

Mo Hamoudi 7:32

Well, I think you're leaving out that you know, on Friday I had to go do something, and then like it totally revamped my entire weekend. But yes, when I look, uh when I leave, I go like I think about like where are we where were we vulnerable? Like I think about that. Like when you leave a trial, you do this. I mean, I'm always like, could we have done more on this? Can we have done more on that? You constantly are in that.

Karen Koehler 7:57

I don't do that.

Mo Hamoudi 7:57

I do that.

Karen Koehler 7:58

You know what? You're special.

Mo Hamoudi 7:59

No, I'm not.

Karen Koehler 8:00

No, here's why. Because I am an invulnerable rock who has no capacity for true emotion. I have no real empathy. And and I sever. That's how I cope.

Mo Hamoudi 8:18

You compartmentalize.

Karen Koehler 8:19

I completely have to sever it away.

Mo Hamoudi 8:21

You are an AI robot.

Karen Koehler 8:23

I literally, I literally walk out of trial. I've been criticized for this before by other lawyers who say this is completely wrong, but it's the way I do it. I do not ruminate. I don't allow myself to, I don't see the benefit of it. It's already happened. Like, oh, if I had done this or if I had done this, I need to just know when I'm doing it that I did every single thing that I thought could be done. I mean the royal I, all of us. We, I should have said we, that we did every single thing that we could have done. We left no stone unturned. We did a fabulous job. And I'm always gonna be good with that. That's one of that's one of the qualities of having this rock-like severed mind approach. I do not go back and replay it in my mind, which would only cause me more anxiety.

Mo Hamoudi 9:09

You're gaslighting me because I am there. I'm right, I'm there right now. I told you I'm exactly I had I am sorry that I don't hit that apex of emotional excellence right after the trial through a process that I went through and I'm now.

Karen Koehler 9:27

I'm emotionally invulnerable. You are emotionally vulnerable.

Mo Hamoudi 9:31

No, you're incorrigible.

Karen Koehler 9:32

I'm emotionally invulnerable and and don't want to be. I need to, I mean, I need to get ready for the next things. So that's that's my way. And honestly, it's got the positives and the minus. The positives, it lets me be a good trial lawyer and do a lot of stuff. The negatives is my interpersonal relationships, and people might get mad at me.

Mo Hamoudi 9:56

Yeah. Yeah. Of course.

Karen Koehler 9:58

Yeah. Mike, you've seen you've seen

Money As Justice Or Validation

Karen Koehler 10:01

so many trials and the aftermath and people waiting for it. And we asked you earlier on, you know, what did you experience when people were getting ready for trial? What do you feel, if anything, when people are waiting for a verdict?

Mike Todd 10:14

Well, it's for me, you know, I don't have uh no.

Karen Koehler 10:19

Well, hold on. If I get involved in the case, I remember you had Withy, you had Calluccio. Well, Callucio.

Mike Todd 10:24

Some of these people didn't try a lot of cases, but No, but I tried a kiss with Calluccio, and it settled two days into the trial, but and read. Yeah. And I never I never did anything that closely with. But a lot of trial lawyers on this firm, when you start it, uh and now So back then I didn't get to see them waiting as much. Like I did that trial with Kevin, that was very soon after I started working there. And it ended two or three days into it. And I I remember it it struck me as very interesting because he was in trial mode. It wasn't there wasn't any of the waiting happening. But there was waiting on the other side because there was an insurance person that I saw every day sitting there watching the trial going on, and they were the ones that made the decision to settle three days in. Or I believe they did. But then every attorney has different ways of dealing with it, like you said. You're freaking out because you can't decide whether or not you made all the right decisions, Mo. You are like a classic, you know, gambling addict who has made the choice and is totally fine because they're already riding the high of what's gonna happen afterwards, which doesn't matter if it's a win or loss. You you've gotten to the end of it and you're actually probably thinking about the.

Karen Koehler 11:56

It is definitely warp, but what a what great analogies.

Mike Todd 11:59

But the one thing that I was gonna say that I thought was very interesting was Mo, you said that uh that the money is justice. And to me, I wonder it's isn't it, especially in a case that's really you know happened a long time ago, isn't it more the truth coming out and the money as a consolation?

Mo Hamoudi 12:21

That's what my friend told me. And and because I was trying to s I was struggling with where I was when I talked to her, I was like, I'm in the space, I'm like, you know, and and then was asked, like, what do you want? Like, and that's what I described.

Mike Todd 12:37

But I yeah, I mean, the truth came out, but I think I mean I don't think that's the case with the I don't think that's the case with every trial, but in in some of them, I think this case.

Karen Koehler 12:48

I would not say consolation. What I would say that it is it is a belated acknowledgement and extremely important that they existed and that this was wrong. Yeah. It's valid it's a validation of of we see you and what you went through, and that was not okay.

Mike Todd 13:06

Yeah, but I still feel like the people actually seeing what happened, seeing the evidence and being able to know that it was happening, whether or not the because the choice that the jury makes in whether or not they award a judgment or not they're not saying that it was right or wrong necessarily, I don't think. But I feel like people seeing the truth are the ones that are able to make that choice.

Karen Koehler 13:40

I mean, the reality is is that is is that unless there is a substantial jury verdict, no one else will see it. Yeah. Other than 10%.

Mike Todd 13:50

I know. It doesn't it's I understand that part. But it's still like I guess for me, you're putting the client through the trial, so it's really just for them, you know.

Karen Koehler 14:01

I never have I've never argued, I mean I've done asbestos, a couple of asbestos cases, but they always settled mid you know, midway. I have not, and they were not this old, um, which seems bizarre to me, because those go way back in time. I have not argued a case like this where the damage occurred, the future damage occurred from when it happened. Um they're still alive, but you know, they're my age. They've lived with the consequences of this untreated, unaddressed

The Time Machine Effect Of Trial

Karen Koehler 14:38

for decades.

Mo Hamoudi 14:41

I think there's like something to say about going back in time and like almost ripping time fabric open and going back there and talking about things and trying to understand what happened and revealing it in a public setting. That's like incredibly powerful. I mean, part of this trial for me was like a religious experience. It was it was just an incredible feeling. You literally went into a time machine and went back in time. And like, and I just think that there is like a value there independent of a money judgment that I can't really comprehend or measure, but I know I was living it, and I could see the clients living it, and I could see the courtroom living it. I don't I don't know how you like I don't think I know a lot of people who've been damaged years ago and will never get that opportunity to sort of come in and do that. So I don't know. I just think that that was an incredible experience.

Karen Koehler 15:40

So mean meanwhile, we sit here tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick to tick.

Mike Todd 15:43

That's why I mean that's why I asked that, because now you're sitting here thinking about that. And yeah, and like I said, think if you know, in in in your case, Mo, maybe thinking about things that you would have wanted to change or things that you didn't have the ability to change that you still wanted to, or something like that.

Karen Koehler 16:00

Yeah, like me doing closing and him wanting to do it instead of me. We're gonna talk about other parts of this trial. We're going starting at the backwards first. I think, I think, you know, how does this make how does this experience make you grow as a human being?

Mo Hamoudi 16:17

Me?

Karen Koehler 16:18

All of us.

Mo Hamoudi 16:19

All of us?

Karen Koehler 16:19

When you're waiting for a jury verdict for something like this, when a firm has basically put all of this together, I mean, this is what we've been working for, right? That's our that's a purpose of our job. And being in a trial is kind of the ultimate thing that we do. I mean, it's great when we settle cases, if they're settled appropriately, but being able to be in trial is the real privilege and the challenge and the scary factor because the of the risk, like you said. How does it make us better as human beings to sit here wait for a jury verdict at the end of this whole thing?

Mo Hamoudi 16:58

I think it teaches me at least a little bit about um having faith in each other and the team and the work that we did and um and trusting. I think that's like the learning experience for me.

Karen Koehler 17:14

What about you, Mike?

Mike Todd 17:16

Um, it's always weird for me because sometimes I don't see much about the trial until right before or right while it's happening because I don't work on stuff until you need it at the last second.

Mo Hamoudi 17:27

Yeah.

Mike Todd 17:28

Um but I do feel I always feel a little of the anxiety that Moe's talking about because I've, you know, it in this firm, I've got the less, the least amount of control in those situations. I just get to work with the client and take them back and forth to things and help them and then work with the evidence and

Trusting The Team Through Uncertainty

Mike Todd 17:54

helping you guys and preparing for the trial and setting things up and stuff like that. So you know, when it's at that time, I get to see stuff and I get to think about it and I get to think and I talk to you guys, and I think, okay, God, we're gonna win. Or hmm, I don't know. But I always kind of have anxiety because of that, then because you know, I'm just waiting for it to happen.

Karen Koehler 18:18

Yeah. So I don't think it makes me a better person at all. I hate this part. I don't want to feel it, I don't want to think about it, I just want to do my other stuff. And yeah, I am a gambling man.

Mike Todd 18:34

Yeah, that's the problem too. When you're gambling, it usually happens pretty fast. Now you guys have to wait. You had to wait for four days, and you don't know how many more days they're gonna talk about it. So it can be.

Karen Koehler 18:44

The funny thing is, I'm not a gambler at all.

Mike Todd 18:46

Like no, I know you aren't. That's the thing that I thought was funny.

Karen Koehler 18:48

Um ultimately I have always known, you know, I my partner before here was Pat LePlay, and he was the horse racing commissioner. He owns multiple horses, he would take me to the track. He is a professional gambler. Yeah. Uh he gets the stats and he does all he gambles all the time. And when it came to cases, he couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand the risk of it. Uh, he just, I would drive him crazy because I would just march in there and I just didn't care. So it's a weird, it's a weird thing that you that you notice, but yes, he and I used to talk about it all the time. How can this be that you're the person that is a professional gambler and you don't like the risk of your cases, and I don't gamble even a nickel in a slot machine. I think that is a total waste. But I will sit there and say, do not take, do not settle. That's my advice. Yeah. You got to make your own decision, but my my recommendation is that you do not settle. Let's go to trial.

Mike Todd 19:49

I think that I mean, I think that that's one of the reasons our firm works so well, because we've got a mix of different attorneys that are willing to do the different things and work the best at doing

Waiting Is The Hardest Part]

Mike Todd 20:00

their their part. Yeah.

Karen Koehler 20:03

Okay, we're gonna trudge along now and uh keep going.

Mike Todd 20:07

And wait, and wait, and wait. Okay.