EP 235 – Dan Callahan – The Keys to Creativity that Lead to Success
The following interview has been transcribed for our readers from rev.com. Please excuse any discrepancies in the transcription.
Eric Bersano:
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Legal Mastermind Podcast. Today I’d like to introduce to you Dan Callahan. Dan, formerly from Callahan & Blaine is now the CEO of Callahan Consulting. Dan, welcome to the podcast.
Dan Callahan:
Eric, thank you very much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Eric Bersano:
I’m very interested in the changes that you’ve had over the last little bit here. So when we first met, you were the managing partner at Callahan & Blaine, and now you’ve shifted gears and gone the consulting route. So can you give us a little background on how that happened, and how things are going so far?
Dan Callahan:
Sure, Eric. Thank you. Well, Callahan Consulting provides two services. One, just like when I was a managing partner of Callahan & Blaine in Santa Ana, I would work with my 12 partners and my associates and help them with trial practice and trial strategies. As you know, Eric, I’ve already set the record in four different areas In California. I have the highest jury verdict in Orange County history at $934 million in a three-month business trial, the highest personal injury settlement in the history of the United States at $50 million. That was in 2007. I don’t know if it’s still the highest. The highest employment for $38 million in Orange County, and the highest insurance bad faith at $57 million in Orange County. And half my time I worked on defense. So the other time I do pretty well as a plaintiff. I do just as well as a defense attorney.
And the key to doing that is old school preparation. You really don’t want to put off things until tomorrow that you can do today, because you don’t know what’s coming tomorrow, and you might be jammed up. So you want to get it done as soon as you can, and do your very best at all times. What I used to do to prepare for trial is, I would start reading things, and I would dictate notes, trial thoughts and trial assignments to other attorneys. Give me this, give me this. And so that as I’m preparing more and more and more, I go back and read out my trial thoughts to make sure I don’t miss anything. And I prepare all my opening statements, I prepare all my examinations. I do everything. So by the time I walk into court, I feel like an 800 pound gorilla. I just exude confidence and the jury sees it, the judge sees it, opposing counsel sees it. And that’s the way you want to go in.
So now when I’m doing it, I’m trying to teach other attorneys, usually solo practitioners, because they don’t have somebody like me that can go down the hall to talk to, and I advise them on what they can do to better prepare their case. And I charge an hourly rate, a reasonable rate, less than I used to charge in California, because not all lawyers in Oklahoma or Louisiana can afford Los Angeles rates. And we worked something out. I’m more into it just to help. I’m not really in it at this stage of my life to make money. I have plenty, but I can’t charge nothing. You know what I mean? So that’s part what Callahan Consulting does.
The other part is when a client needs to have a lawyer in a given community, in a given specialty, I will do the research to find out who I think may be the best two or three attorneys in that specialty, in that community. I’ll then interview them, and then I’ll make a recommendation to the client. And then the client and I will get on the phone with his attorneys, and the client will make a decision as to who he or she wants to retain. And from that practice, I paid a referral fee, just like I used to get when I was referring personal injury cases to someone else. So that’s basically what Callahan Consulting does.
Eric Bersano:
Yeah. It’s an interesting metamorphosis from where you came from, because I see nowadays, whether you’re looking on LinkedIn or somewhere, there’s a lot of people who put themselves out as consultants. And some of these people, they don’t even have their first crow’s foot yet. The track record you had at Callahan Blaine, with the four landmark cases that you talked about, that were all record setting cases, being on not only the plaintiff side, but also having some really good experience on the defense side, allows you to play the 3D chess that I think maybe a more junior attorney who really has this big career in front of them can shortcut some of these things, by using your consulting services to help them with, I assume on a trial, or even maybe just to pick your brain. How does that work?
Dan Callahan:
I’ve done both. I’ve been contacted by attorneys during trial, and they tell me what’s going on. And I’m a pretty quick study, and I can give them some advice. I’ve also been contacted by attorneys where they’re in the middle of a lawsuit in the discovery phase. I can give a recommendation. One that comes to mind right now is, let’s say you want to have an insurance company pay the cost of defense. And let’s say that you can send out interrogatories, and you can send out request for admissions. So what I recommend you do is send out request for admissions, no interrogatories, just admit that you have not suffered this, this or this, or admit to the plaintiff. Admit you have suffered damages for A, B, C and D. So [inaudible 00:06:25] sure. I’ll admit. Yeah, I suffered that.
Then now you’ve got an admission, you set out the interrogatories. Once they’ve admitted that they have suffered such a thing, they now have to come up with some answer to support that. And then you can take that and go to your insurance company and say, “Hey, there’s a potential claim here for something that’s covered under your policy. So you have to pay the cost of defense for me to be able to defend this lawsuit.” So all that is if you send out a request for admissions, you’re probably just going to say, “Admit you have not suffered any damages for this.” You get a denial. You’re just going to get all denial. Denial, denial, denial. So if they refuse to admit they haven’t suffered it, it means they claim they have suffered it and you’ve got the duty to defend. I did set nationwide precedent back in the early nineties on getting patent infringement covered under a slip and fall policy, and that was amazing. I did it that way.
Eric Bersano:
Yeah. How did that work?
Dan Callahan:
Well, under the general liability policy, it’s coverages for bodily injury and property damage, but also personal injury and advertising injury. And back in the day, the definition of advertising injury included unfair competition and piracy. Well, okay. What do you think patent infringement is, but unfair competition? And we’re not talking piracy on the high seas. We’re talking piracy of intellectual ideas. So I won that one. It was written up in the Wall Street Journal, and I used to go around the nation telling patent firms, “Here’s how you do it.” It’s a little bit more involved than I just said, but still. So I tell them how to do it, and they wake up in the morning and go, “Wow, that was brilliant. I can’t remember how to do that. I’m a patent lawyer. I’m not an insurance lawyer.” So I would handle cases all throughout the US on summary judgments for patent insurance coverage.
Eric Bersano:
So tell me this. With all of your success, how much of it would you chalk up to creativity? So obviously you have to know the law, right? All the attorneys out there worth their salt know the law, but how much of it is that kind of creativity that you have to have?
Dan Callahan:
Well, Eric, you really asked a question there, because creativity is key. And if I may just give you two examples. I’m in California, and a friend who has a construction company in Arizona, he sent materials to a job site and he’s not getting paid. So he wants to get paid. And I said, “Well, did you serve the owner with the 20-day notice that’s required?” You have to give the owner notice that you’re providing materials. He said, “20 day notice? What’s that?” “All right, so can you just go to the job site, pick up your goods, drive around the block and drop them off? Because you have to give your 20-day notice, 20 days either before or after you release the materials.” He said, “No, it’s all locked up in the warehouse.” Well, in talking with him, he told me that the subcontractor was insolvent. He couldn’t pay his bills as due.
And I remember from the UCC, that if you buy materials on credit while insolvent, the seller can reclaim those goods and get constructive possession. So what I did is, I wrote a letter and I told the owner that we sold these to someone on credit while insolvent, and we are reclaiming possession. And the next day I released possession, although they never left the warehouse. So I then sued him. I went to court and I explained to the judge, follow the bouncing ball. Here’s how it goes. And I brought up the authorities on reclaiming constructive possession and releasing it. The judge agreed, and then the judge gave me mechanically and [inaudible 00:10:18], the owner had to pay twice for the goods. That’s creativity, right? And one more. So I represented SBA Lender who lent money to this company in Orange County. They had a huge warehouse in fact, but they’re not paying.
And we were concerned if we just did the normal way, serve them with a complaint that all the goods and inventory would head for the border. So instead I went, and I did a notice of repossession under UCC-9-504 I think it was, which is self-help repossession. But I did it on legal sized paper, and I made it look like it was a form and I filled in the blanks. And then to make it better, I signed my name. It had my name notarized, and my signature notarized. So now I’ve got this document. And then I went [inaudible 00:11:11], this is before everybody had a cell phone that they could take videos. So I hired a guy to come on down from LA, and we come… Oh, first I stopped at the Irvine Police Station and got the police to come with me. I said, “Can you come to make sure there’s no breach of the peace?” He said, “I’m coming to make sure you don’t breach the peace.”
So now I have a truck, I’ve got a forklift on the back of the flatbed truck, and we come up to the back. And I’ve got Officer Cluck. I’ll always remember that name from the Irvine Police Department, and I have the videographer and myself coming. I have a three-piece Navy blue pin striped suit. And I won’t go in there, and I’m telling the videographer, “Get that guy. Get that guy.” And then as I come, I said, “Look, I’m here to repossess all the collateral belongs to the SBA. Now if you help me, I won’t sue you, but your CEO,” whose name I’m not going to say, “we’re suing him.” So he went ahead, well this is collateral, this is collateral, this is collateral. So we took our forklift, picked all this stuff up, put it on the back of the flatbed until our forklift ran out of gas, but they pointed out their own forklift.
So we used their forklift to pick up our forklift, put it on the back of the truck, and we loaded everything up and left. So we went out and had a beer after. And then when I got back to the office, I get a phone call from this lawyer. And he says, “Is it true? All you had to do was say no?” I said, “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” He goes, “Well, congratulations on your sting.” So my client got the result they really wanted for very little charge in comparison to going through the regular process.
Eric Bersano:
It’s almost like you know the psychology. You know if you just show up there with just a random piece of paper, you’re not going to get anything. But the paper, and it’s notarized, and you’ve got the police there. You’ve got this overwhelming presence which short circuits maybe what someone would’ve typically done.
Dan Callahan:
Right, exactly. There’s a lot of examples such as that. And I think creativity is the way it should go. No one should just go lockstep through the CCP, the California Code of Civil procedure. You don’t just do it this way. You try to think in advance. My statement about just send out the request or admissions, and rely on them just to say deny, deny, deny. Admit you have not suffered any damages for emotional stress. Deny. Oh, so you’re saying you did. All right, explain. They explain. I go to the insurance company, I get a defense.
Eric Bersano:
So now that we’re on the topic of creativity, I’d like to talk about the three videos that you have on callahanconsulting.com. So I’ll let you explain the themes behind the three of them. And anybody who’s listening to this, go to callahanconsulting.com. They’re all on the homepage there where you can see them. But can you let the audience know where that came from, and the motivation behind it?
Dan Callahan:
Well, there’s three. One of them is Magnum P.I., the other is Mission Impossible, and the third one is Rocky. And the idea is to make something entertaining, while at the same time touting your experiences and your wins. I really like every one of them. I don’t really have a favorite. I do like the fact that Mission Impossible, I’m jumping out of an airplane with a parachute. Well, you can’t jump out of the airplane. It looks like it. Or I’m coming down out of the ceiling to try and get jewels or whatever. Rocky, oh, my God. That Rocky was something, because the guy they had me after, who I was fighting with is amazing. He’s built incredibly, and he can do flips, jump up, down everything.
Eric Bersano:
Yeah.
Dan Callahan:
He was so much fun.
Eric Bersano:
I watched that one. I love the tearaway suit.
Dan Callahan:
Oh, yeah. [inaudible 00:15:06].
Eric Bersano:
That’s a great piece. And yeah, there’s a point in that, the Rocky one, where he does some type of a barrel roll flip, something that was a little bit too athletic for me to even keep up with my eyes, but they’re all very entertaining.
Dan Callahan:
But at the same time, I’m touting my various wins, in the various times I’ve been named Trial Lawyer of the Year. In Orange County, I’ve been named Trial Lawyer the Year three times. I’ve been named Trial Lawyer of the Year on a national publication. So I’m touting that as well. So it’s entertaining to watch, while meanwhile you’re getting my victories. And I don’t know any other lawyers doing that.
Eric Bersano:
Yeah. Well, I think it does accomplish that. Because if you just put something up, if anybody who’s got an attorney profile online has bullet points of where they went to school, and here’s a couple of my awards, and I worked on this case. And it all just blends together, but you’ve got some really big accomplishments. And by putting them in front of somebody in a creative way, I think it’s going to stick better. It gives them something to remember.
Dan Callahan:
I think so too. And those videos are fun to do. I’d love to say that was my idea, but I was introduced to this couple that came up with the idea of how I can separate myself from the regular, the norm. And we brainstorm what kind of videos we can put together. And so I love to take credit for it, but I think it’s also just good to listen to other people’s ideas.
Eric Bersano:
Yeah, take it and run with it. So I’ve got another question. So your consulting services sound like anybody who is a young aspiring attorney obviously is going to be able to learn a lot from you, whether it’s a 10-minute conversation, or they hire you to help them with the trial. What would you say to somebody who might be a little bit more seasoned? I think some of the things that you mentioned were getting on panels, speaking engagements.
Dan Callahan:
Oh, certainly.
Eric Bersano:
Bar events. Yeah. Can you cover that a little?
Dan Callahan:
Well, the way I started out my career, I was with a big firm in Hawaii for a couple of years, a big firm in Newport Beach for a couple of years. Then I opened up my own shop. So I had to get my name out there. I started writing an article for the Orange County Business Journal that came out once a week. So now the name Dan Callahan is out there. Then I went to the Orange County Bar Association, said, “Hey, I have an idea for some seminars on trial practice.” And I get the best trial lawyers from California and beyond, because they all want to speak. These guys, they want to be on panels. So they’re not doing you a favor, you’re doing them a favor by putting them on the panel. So I’ll put these panelists together and then also put myself on the panel. So anybody out there in the audience is saying, “Well, he’s a big shot, he’s a big shot. Oh, that Callahan must be a big shot.”
So now I’m getting exposure. And that’s how I got my first jury trial by doing one of those. They had tried it once already and got a mistrial. They brought me on 17 days notice. And it was a three-week trial and we won. So getting on panels really helps. And then another thing, when you do take a case to trial and you win, don’t hide the fact. You’ve got to do a press release. Right? Here’s one example. I had a three-month jury trial that I thought I was probably going to win about $50 million. So the jury came back on a Tuesday afternoon around three o’clock. And I said, “Your Honor, rather than read the verdict tonight, we had 16 jurors. We didn’t lose at one. And you picked the name out of a hat, who’s going to be the [inaudible 00:18:57], and they’re visibly disappointed. Why don’t we read the verdict in the morning? And your clerk can ask them to come back.” Three of the four did. And it’ll give us an opportunity to talk about the settlement.
Did I really want to have that opportunity? No. What I didn’t want to have is a verdict read at three o’clock in the afternoon. It hits the newspaper, some half-assed story. And the next day, it’s yesterday’s news. So instead I went back to the office, I put out a press release, got the courtroom filled with reporters. And to my surprise, the jury came back with $934 million, not $25 million or $50 million.
Eric Bersano:
That’s one of your record setting ones, right there.
Dan Callahan:
Yeah.
Eric Bersano:
Yeah.
Dan Callahan:
So now the courtroom is filled. Both of these companies are publicly traded. Both of their stocks were frozen within 15 minutes. I had ample opportunity to speak to all the reporters to get really good stories out there. So it was really well done. So what that shows, you’ve got to be able to get the word out to other lawyers and clients, et cetera. People have to think of, “I need a lawyer. Who am I going to call? Well, that Callahan. I think Callahan is good, because I keep hearing that name, Callahan.” You know what I mean?
Eric Bersano:
Yeah. Well, all the earned media that you got. That’s a little bit beyond creative. You’re thinking so many steps above what somebody… Somebody else would be happy that they just know that they’re going to get a good result. And you’re like, no, this is a moment in time. And how do I give myself the best chance to really stand on the soapbox, and in this case, in front of a bunch of press to really talk about this great verdict?
Dan Callahan:
Right. I’ve also done a press conference. And we represented a client who had been ripped off by his attorney, and we did a press conference, and it was well received. It went everywhere. I did another press conference. We represented the families of four individuals that were killed in Fallujah. They worked for Blackwater. They’re ambushed, they’re shot, they’re dragged behind a car, they’re hung from the bridge or the [inaudible 00:21:17] river, and they were burnt. It was terrible, just terrible. But I went ahead, and I got the word out about this case. And by getting the word out about the case, we put a lot of pressure on Blackwater. In fact, actually, I wrote a letter to Nancy Pelosi, and I had her start a congressional investigation into Blackwater. So that put a lot of heat on Blackwater, which then resulted in a settlement.
Eric Bersano:
Now, how do you attribute this creativity? Are these things that just come to you? Or do you say, “All right, I’m up against the wall here, and I need press,” or “I’m going to need a politician.” Is there a process to that? Or does it just come to you?
Dan Callahan:
I think it just comes to me. I don’t have a process.
Eric Bersano:
Can you teach it? Can you teach it though?
Dan Callahan:
I think I can teach it. You don’t just sit down and say, “Okay, I’ve got to be creative here.” Your mind is always trying to think for something creative. And when you come upon something, then what you have to do is act on it. A lot of people don’t take the next step of acting on it. They may have a thought, but they don’t do it. So I encourage when I speak to people, creativity, and taking it in their own hands to be responsible for creativity.
Eric Bersano:
And it sounds like you’re good at trusting your instincts too. So you’ve got an instinct to do this. It’s maybe not been done before, some of the attacks you’ve taken and they’ve been successful. Do you have any examples on the other end? One that you crashed and burned on? Or have they all been successful?
Dan Callahan:
I do not have any examples of a crash and burn, because you won’t crash and burn. It may just fizzle. You know what I mean? If you try something-
Eric Bersano:
But that’s good, because now people can be more risky, to know that, hey, you can be creative. Try something a little bit different. If it doesn’t work, like you said, it’s a fizzle. It’s not a crash and burn, but every once in a while you’re going to get one of those viral moments. Or it might get you that big landmark case that gives you a name.
Dan Callahan:
Right. Well, the examples I gave you previously about the 20-day notice and the grafting, the UCCM [inaudible 00:23:36] law. That had never been done before. So that’s created the idea about doing up a document. In fact, it wasn’t a fraudulent document. I cited the code section I was going under. I just didn’t say self-help repossession, but I put it on a legal sized piece of paper, and they got Officer Cluck. So yeah, it was just different examples of creativity.
Eric Bersano:
Now when you’re talking about getting people, speaking engagements on panels, or speaking at local bar associations or some of the even larger conferences, are there any tips that you would give somebody? Do they have to come up with a creative presentation? Or is it just outreach, outreach, outreach? What would you say is the best-
Dan Callahan:
Yeah, Eric. I’d say it’s more outreach. You don’t have to be creative in your presentation and panel. Usually you’ll take one aspect of the law. If we’re talking about trial practice, maybe you take the section on voir dire that I do. While the judge is talking to the jurors, telling them the basis of what to expect in a jury trial, I’m memorizing their names, going down one row, like Mr. Martinez, Ms Gonzales or whatever. And I get the first row, the second row, the third row, and I start jumping back and forth, and jumping back and forth until I have them all. Then when I’m asked to get up, I go up there, I have my notes, but without looking at my notes, I’ll have detailed plans where I want to go in the voir dire. But what I’d like to do is, I’ll start out with juror number eight.
I’ll say, “Mr. Morgan, I’d like to ask you a couple questions,” without looking at notes. Then I’ll go to juror number three. “Mr. Garcia,” and ask some questions. “Do you agree with what Mr. Morgan said?” I don’t go juror one, two, three, four, five. I bounce around. So then they know that I should be asking them a question anytime. There’s no pattern here. So they have to pay attention. Also, I’m calling them by name. And they go, “My God, this guy memorized everyone’s name. How does he do that?” Well, people like to be called by their name. It’s respect. And it’s easy enough to do if you just do it at the right time. So I’m not the best guy with names, Eric, but still I can memorize that many of them.
Eric Bersano:
It just sets you apart too. I think like you said, it’s respect. If you took the time to memorize their name, and then they noticed you memorized everybody else’s name, you’ve already differentiated yourself from the other attorney.
Dan Callahan:
And later on in closing, when I say, “Do you remember when this happened?” “Well, not really, but he’s got a memory.” And so I had this one case against a large New York law firm. It was in San Diego. And I did this little trick. And then he got up and he said, “Well, I’m sorry, I can’t memorize names like Mr. Callahan.” And then he did the worst. He went, juror number one, four questions. Juror number two, same four, juror number three. By this time, juror number nine goes, “Okay, I’m checking out. I’ve got nothing to look at here.”
So you want to keep the jury alert, and when you do your voir dire, you’re there to make friends. And when you do your opening, you’re really doing your closing. Most people are afraid to object during opening. And [inaudible 00:27:00] told, “Don’t object during opening.” So I will go to the line of how far I can go, like the evidence was shown, and then I’ll go past it, and I’ll go further past it. And I can feel in the back of my neck, the other lawyer look at me. But if he’s not objecting, I’m still going.
So I turn my opening more into a closing. And I turn my voir dire, if I can push it towards the theories, I’ll push it more towards an opening, but also smiling at all times. And that’s one key thing. If you have Mr. Morgan who says something you don’t like, you ask the jury panel, “Who agrees with Mr. Morgan?” “Ah, okay. Well, I see you.” Perhaps Mr. Morgan says something you do like. “Okay, who disagrees with Mr. Morgan?” You know what I mean? And how do you know how you differentiate who you want, who you don’t want?
Eric Bersano:
And are you reading body language? Are you seeing who’s nodding along? Are you seeing who peels back when something’s said?
Dan Callahan:
Yes, I try to. And you ask questions that’ll bring them out to find out if they’re really going to be biased against your case. And there’s a lot of times I represented people, a plaintiff’s in a personal injury case that they have some skeletons in their closet that may turn off certain jurors. So you want to explore that. You can’t hide from something that’s going to come out in trial. You’ve got to bring the bad out in a nice way, if you can. But find out how the jury’s going to receive those facts.
Eric Bersano:
Well, we’re just about out of time, but I did want to go down, there’s something that we had discussed earlier before we started recording, which was your lockdown process. Can you get into that, and just let people know what that process is?
Dan Callahan:
Yes, certainly. Well, if anybody listens to this, they’ll come away with this clear message. Winning is about preparation. Preparation is about hard work. So what I do is, I’ll have an attorney prepare the case for me. And I’ll just get it ready to go to trial, and he’ll bring in all these depositions, all the exhibits, everything. And now I have to go ahead, and I go in a lockdown mode, which means, okay, I’m not working on other cases. I’m just working on this. And I’ll read all the depositions. I’ll digest all the depositions. I’ll read all the exhibits. I’ll match the exhibits with the appropriate witnesses and prepare the examinations.
And then when I do that, this is in a lockdown mode. Then I go from being fearful about, “Oh, my God, how do I get my hand around this case? That $934 million break was about circuit boards. I don’t know circuit boards, but by the time it was over, my lockdown phase is over, I’m the 800 pound gorilla. I know everything. So that just helps you exude confidence. And when you exude confidence, and you come into the courtroom, and the jury sees you talking to the clerk and laughing with the clerk. “Oh, you must be somebody on the inside here, because look at him.” Right? The more you can prepare, the more confident you’ll be, the better you’ll do in trial. I actually prefer jury trials, because I can bond with the juries. With a bench trial, the judge may start asking me questions. I don’t want to answer. Hey, I’m a showman here. This is a show, and I can do a show with the jury.
Eric Bersano:
Well, Dan, this has been really enlightening. If there’s anybody else, or anybody listening to this that wants to know more, get in contact you, we’ll put your contact info in there. But anything that you’d like to direct them to, besides the website, which is callahanconsulting.com? Any other places?
Dan Callahan:
No, that’s probably the best place. If they want to look at Callahan & Blaine in Santa Ana, all my victories are still on the website. But also, one thing I can give you that probably people don’t, I’ll give you my cell phone number. If you want to call me, it’s (949) 584-4434. And what happens, I get phone calls all the time. And I don’t answer a number I don’t know. But if they leave a message, I’ll listen and I’ll call back. So I get spam calls, and I try to avoid those. But if somebody wants to get ahold of me at my cell phone number, (949) 584-4434.