Michael Meehan - No Cuffs

Love Thy Lawyer - Michael Meehan - Transcript

Louis Goodman 00:05

Hello and welcome to Love Thy Lawyer, where we talk to real lawyers about their lives in and out of the practice of law, how they got to be lawyers and what their experience has been. I'm Louis Goodman, the host of the show, and yes, I'm a lawyer. Nobody's perfect!

Michael Meehan is admitted in California, Tennessee, and Kentucky. He supervises the managing attorneys in the Kavinoky law firm, better known as No Cuffs. He supervises the development and cultivation of future firm leaders, and he has personally represented criminal defendants in all stages of the proceedings. He served as a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County and as a reserve deputy sheriff. Michael Meehan, welcome to Love Thy Lawyer.

Michael Meehan 01:03

Thank you for having me, Louis. Pleasure to be here.

Louis Goodman 01:05

I'm very happy to have you. You are intimately involved with a lot of my very serious competition. So maybe I can learn something that'll help me out here.

Michael Meehan 01:18

Not too much, I hope.

Louis Goodman 01:21

Where are you from originally?

Michael Meehan 01:24

I was born in New York, but at the age of one, moved to the San Fernando Valley down in Los Angeles, and that's where I grew up.

Louis Goodman 01:31

And where are you talking to us from right now?

Michael Meehan 01:34

River in San Rafael, California. That's where I live and do most of my work.

Louis Goodman 01:39

Do you have your office in Marin County as well?

Michael Meehan 01:42

I really work mostly from home. Ever since the COVID 19 shutdowns it's a lot easier to work from home. And I've pretty much worked from home my whole career because of my kids.

Louis Goodman 01:53

Can you describe what your practice is?

Michael Meehan 01:56

Throughout the state of California we're only a criminal defense law firm. We focus primarily on DUIs that we do take any other type of criminal defense cases. And we have offices or lawyers in all the major cities throughout the state.

Louis Goodman 02:10

How many attorneys do you have in the firm?

Michael Meehan 02:13

As of today, we have 18 full-time attorneys that are employees that work and go to court for us. There's another five attorneys that just do intake calls for the firm.

Louis Goodman 02:25

I know the name, NoCuffs.com. And I know that that is something that you work with, and I also mentioned the Kavinoky law firm. So can you explain like what the relationship there is and how that works?

Michael Meehan 02:40

Our company, the Kavinoky law firm was started by Darren Kavinoky about 20 years ago. About 15 years ago, he obtained the rights to 1-800-NoCuffs, the phone number, and that's sort of a brand that he uses to market our firm and to get clients.

Louis Goodman 02:57

And how long have you been working with that firm?

Michael Meehan 03:02

About 15 years now.

Louis Goodman 03:03

You said that you were born in New York and then you moved to California. Is that where you went to high school?

Michael Meehan 03:10

I did. I went to Chatsworth high school out in the San Fernando Valley. Growing up, I didn't realize that Chatsworth was the porn hub of the world, but I found after I moved away.

Louis Goodman 03:22

Well, after you graduated from the porn hub of the world, you went to college. Where'd you go?

Michael Meehan 03:28

UCLA.

Louis Goodman 03:30

And how was that experience for you?

Michael Meehan 03:31

It was great. I couldn't be more happy with my experience at UCLA, it was my favorite time of my life.

Louis Goodman 03:37

What'd you do there besides take the classes?

Michael Meehan 03:41

Oh, pretty much anything outside of the classroom was my focus. I think mark Twain said, "Don't let the classroom get in the way of your education." And I took that to heart. I was very involved in student government orientation, the fraternity system. Pretty much anything you could be involved with at UCLA, I was involved with.

Louis Goodman 03:58

At one point you were actually student body president there.

Michael Meehan 04:01

Yes, I was. My senior year I got elected to be student body president. It was a contentious election, but I ended up serving a full term as student body president at my senior year. I really enjoyed that.

Louis Goodman 04:12

What's the student body population of UCLA? I mean, there's a lot of students there.

Michael Meehan 04:17

23,000 undergraduates.

Louis Goodman 04:20

And what made you want to take on that kind of responsibility?

Michael Meehan 04:24

I think it's, I really liked helping people and I liked getting things done and I felt that. I could help make the student government more focused on the students, was my goal. And so I had been a general assembly person, which is sort of a Senator type person in the student government. And then the next year I ran for student body president.

Louis Goodman 04:43

At some point you went to law school. Did you take some time off between graduating from college and going to law school or did you just go right into law school?

Michael Meehan 04:51

No, I took a break. I'm not big on planning ahead, so when I graduated UCLA, after being student body president, I really didn't have a plan for what I was going to do next. And fortunately, I got a job at UCLA and I was also, like you mentioned earlier, reserve deputy sheriff, and that sort of drew me in and eventually brought me into going to law school.

Louis Goodman 05:12

How much time did you take off between the time you graduated from college and the time you entered law school?

Michael Meehan 05:18

About 3 years.

Louis Goodman 05:20

And at what point in your life did you decide or know that you were going to be a lawyer?

Michael Meehan 05:27

There was an event that happened when I was on patrol as a deputy sheriff, that sort of kicked me in that direction quickly because what I thought was injustice. Well, I'll give you the story. I was on patrol in Lenox, which is a sheriff station. It's the area in LA that Inglewood didn't want, so it's not a great area. I was at a domestic violence call and a woman I was trying to talk to pulled out a bayonet and tried to stab me with it. And we eventually were able to get her to drop the weapon and arrest her. And I was in full uniform and had everything an officer would have, I looked like a regular officer. So the gun, belt, everything. And we arrested her for assaulting a police officer and a couple of months later, I never heard from the DA to come testify at the preliminary hearing. So I called the DA and said, "How come you never called me?" And she told me that we would resolve the case. And I thought, okay, well, how much time did the woman get? And she told me she had gotten time served. And I asked her, well, how much time was that? And she said, one day. And I was frustrated or really upset because I thought that I could have killed her, which I'm glad I didn't. And, but that she only got one day for trying to stab a police officer seemed like that was not reasonable. And so at that point I decided I was going to go to law school, become a prosecutor and make sure that things were treated right. And people were protected. But after becoming a prosecutor, I realized there's a lot of other factors that go into play when you're trying cases.

Louis Goodman 07:07

So where did you go to law school?

Michael Meehan 07:08

Loyola Law School down in LA.

Louis Goodman 07:11

What did you think of actually being in law school after having seen the law from a different perspective?

Michael Meehan 07:19

I really enjoyed it. I liked the Socratic method a lot, and I liked being able to argue with professors. I enjoyed that part of it. So I eventually, I didn't like being cooped up in the classroom as much, so I did a lot of internships when I was in law school.

Louis Goodman 07:35

Do you think that having taken some time off and worked in a legally related field helped you focus once you actually got to law school?

Michael Meehan 07:45

Oh, absolutely. I think it actually gave me a lot more perspective than a lot of the people that came right from college had, because I think you see more of the world than you did when you're in college so you can see there's a lot more perspectives that you would have from someone who'd never really been out in the world.

Louis Goodman 08:01

You graduated from Loyola. How did you get to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office?

Michael Meehan 08:07

I did a lot of internships in the LA DA's office in law school. And my senior year I spent a whole semester there and then summer after I graduated while I was studying for the bar, I worked there also. And then at the end of when I got my bar results, then I was offered a job, which I was very happy and very fortunate for doing, being able to do that.

Louis Goodman 08:31

And what sort of work did you do as a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney?

Michael Meehan 08:35

Well, I started out in their main DA's Office downtown and just did a lot of like handoffs from the other DA's, like preliminary hearings and minor things. And then I went to an actual satellite courthouse where I handled everything from arraignment all the way through trial, which I enjoyed a lot.

Louis Goodman 08:53

After you left Los Angeles DA, what did you do?

Michael Meehan 08:57

I moved, because of a relationship I moved to Kentucky, and went out there and the goal was to become a lawyer out there and work out there. But I had to take the bar again out there in order to become a lawyer because there was no reciprocity. So during that time I was waiting to take the bar and pass it, I ended up working or starting at a hair salon with my partner at the time and grew that business into a pretty successful company.

Louis Goodman 09:27

So you got some experience being a businessperson.

Michael Meehan 09:32

Oh, absolutely, yes. And working with hairdressers is definitely a different type of employment group than normal, than you generally deal with with lawyers. Much more challenging than lawyers.

Louis Goodman 09:44

Really?

Michael Meehan 09:46

Yes. When people feel that they're an artist, they don't always feel like coming to work on time as a good idea, so it's definitely a challenge for me.

Louid Goodman 09:54

And then you also took the bar in the state of Tennessee at some point.

Michael Meehan 09:59

Actually in Tennessee, I was able to, they have reciprocity with Kentucky, so I didn't have to take the bar again. I did take the bar again in Arizona and I passed it there, but I never got sworn in because we were moving a lot at the time so I moved to different states, but I did practice in Tennessee for quite some time.

Louis  Goodman 10:18

What was the path that led you to your current job?

Michael Meehan 10:23

The current partner, when we were moving out to California, I had quadruplets while I was in Kentucky.

Louis Goodman 10:29

Wow!

Michael Meehan 10:30

Yeah, so when we were moving out to California, I really wanted to stay in criminal law. And so I applied and actually there was a job opening at the Kavinoky law firm.

Louis Goodman 10:42

And what did you do initially at the Kavinoky law firm?

Michael Meehan 10:46

I was a managing attorney, which is what we call the attorneys that go to court. So I was practicing in Northern California with another attorney and doing a lot of different counties up here.

Louis Goodman 10:57

How long have you been with Kavinoky now?

Michael Meehan 10:59

Almost 15 years now.

Louis Goodman 11:00

Wow. So that's a relationship that's really working out well for you?

Michael Meehan 11:06

Yeah, I mean, I think for the last 14 years I've been telling him how to fix the company and now I've just been moved up to a position where I can make the changes. So a lot of times, I think he was just ignoring my suggestions, but now that I'm in management I get to implement them and hopefully make the place a better place.

Louis Goodman 11:24

We'll have to get him on the podcast and see what he has to say about that.

Michael Meehan 11:28

Exactly.

Louis Godman 11:29

What do you find challenging about managing attorneys?

Michael Meehan 11:36

Well, I think one of the challenges is that everyone does their practice differently and it's not always different that it's wrong. I don't like being micromanaged, so I don't want to micromanage other people, but oftentimes when I see that there's a better way to do it, it's hard for me not to step in and tell them how to do it as much as to let them learn from their mistakes. So that's a challenge and also I think that everyone has a different work ethic and how much time are they're going to put into a case or how much time they spend with the clients, and so that's always a challenge too, because it's not, there's a lot of different ways to finish a case or to deal with the case and oftentimes you'll end up at a good result, but maybe the route's different. So I find that challenging and then also too, dealing with clients who are complaining about the employees is always a challenge too. When they're not getting the responses they want or the clients aren't getting what they expected.

Louis Goodman 12:32

When people call 1-800-NoCuffs, they presumably talk to one of your intake attorneys.

Michael Meehan 12:39

Correct.

Louis Goodman 12:41 

Do they actually come in and sit down and have an interview or do you manage to do most of the signups over the phone?

Michael Meehan 12:49

I think most of the signups end up coming in over the phone. I mean, with COVID coming in, it's been like almost a hundred percent, but most clients, since our main office is located in LA, the phone calls are often the only time they deal with the intake attorney is through the phone. Because a lot of times it's like a DUI or something that's more minor that some of the clients have actually moved back to out of state or they were here on vacation and left with a citation. So we deal with it that way but I would say a majority of the clients are all over the telephone.

Louis Goodman 13:22

Do you ever have a problem where somebody talks to an intake attorney, they really like that intake attorney and then they find out they're being represented by a different individual in court? And how does your firm deal with that?

Michael Meehan 13:38

Well, we've had that sometimes, but most of our intake attorneys have been with us for quite some time. One of our main things in our firm is we're a team. So they'll tell the client upfront that they're not going to represent them in court. I think it's particularly easy for them when I'm the attorney, because they're in LA and I'm up here. And they can explain it, but it's oftentimes if they ever have a problem, since they're attorneys, they can always call their intake attorney who will either help solve their problem or get in contact with me. So there's never, we don't break the bond. And the good thing is that they've been with us so long that they're not promising things that can't be delivered, because they'll know how we as the managing attorneys will tell them if a particular court has a particular policy so they don't make a promise, like in one court, you have to plead guilty. They won't say, oh, you'll plead no contest or something and discussing the case.

Louis Goodman 14:33

You've been practicing law for, you know, a fair amount of time now. What do you really like about practicing law?

Michael Meehan 14:39

Well, I like the being able to help people and get them through the process. I really like the interaction I have with the attorneys in court. I know that you miss it a lot more when the COVID came in and you couldn't be around people. But I really enjoy that, I enjoy going into court, talking with people, waiting for the case to be called and dealing with the DAs. I really enjoy all that interaction and comradery.

Louis Goodman 15:03

If a young person were just coming out of college and thinking about a career, would you recommend the law as a career choice?

Michael Meehan 15:10

I would recommend it with caution. I would tell them to go work with a lawyer first, because I think a lot of times people have this ideal of what the job of a lawyer is and then they get into practice and they're so bogged down with debt that they find it's maybe not for them. I'd rather them see that upfront decide maybe that's not their career choice.

Louis Goodman 15:31

Well, that kind of leads me into my next question, which is how has actually practicing law met or different from your expectations about it?

Michael Meehan 15:41

Well, I thought all lawyers were really rich, so that differed a lot because it's not quite the road to wealth I thought it would be. I also think that there's a lot of, the practice of law is a lot more delayed and it doesn't seem to me, when I went to law school, I was looking at it from the perspective of a police officer so I thought it was very black and white. They committed the crime, they're guilty and they'll get the result. And so I think that there's a lot more nuance than that, which I think is good from my perspective as a defense attorney, but it's different than what I thought it would be when I went to law school.

Louis Goodman 16:19

One of the things that I was really interested in, in talking to you is because you're an attorney who's really involved in the business of practicing law and the business of running a law firm. And I'm wondering if you could talk about that a little bit, how that's gone for you and how maybe that met or differed from your expectations?

Michael Meehan 16:42

I think my perspective of owning a business also helps with that. I think that a lot of times when I was doing private practice and representing clients myself as a sole practitioner, you always hope the business would take care of itself. And so you would believe people when they promise to pay you and then they ultimately don't or they won't pay you until they get their next case. And I think that you get bogged down. If you trust people too much, you ended up getting taken advantage of. So that, I found was a good perspective. I think I was never good and my strengths was not collecting money from people. So in the sense of when I was working for the firm, I prefer to get a regular paycheck and not have to worry about paying the rent each month. Working in the business in my current position, it's really important to look at what our standards are and what we expect to collect before we go to court on a case. And it's a lot more like cut and dry it, rather than you believe more people and take more chances because we have to make sure that we're paying everybody in the firm. I think it's good to have that perspective because it's a lot easier to get stuck on cases that take up so much time that you're not getting paid enough for them, whereas our firm tries to make it so that we don't do that.

Louis Goodman 18:03

Yeah. I have a couple of comments about that. Well, one is that I don't know how I would sleep at night if I had 18 attorneys to worry about paying. I mean, it's just an enormous responsibility and I take my hat off to you and your partner for being able to run that kind of a business operation. There's a podcaster named Neil Tyra. I'll give him a little shout out here and he has a podcast called The Law Entrepreneur, and I think it's a great podcast for anybody who's an attorney to listen to. But he really feels that it's malpractice on the part of law schools to do nothing about educating attorneys in terms of how to run a business. And you're someone who got some experience running the business with a hair salon, but I'm just wondering if you had a comment about that.

Michael Meehan 18:58

Oh, I totally agree. I don't think that the law schools talk about what it is to run a law firm or a business or making payroll. And I think that if they did that, I think one, it might discourage people from going to law school because they would understand that it's a lot more difficult than just being good at your craft because you have to pay people. And it's also, there's a decision people make when they want to hire an assistant or hire another lawyer, if they can afford to pay them and they can have a stable job. So I definitely think if people had more of that perspective, they would know it going in because I know when I was practicing at the DA's office, I got a paycheck regularly, but when I went out on my own it wasn't there unless I was really working hard to find new cases. And so it just distracts you from doing the law and practicing the law. So I definitely think they should teach that.

Louis Goodman 19:51

Is there anything that, you know now that you really wished you knew before you had started practicing law or started being a managing attorney for a big firm?

Michael Meehan 20:02

I think, yeah. I think that knowing just. WelI, think the one thing that a quote I heard once was "You never think through someone else's wallet" I'm not sure if that was in law school or somewhere else, but I often feel that people, when they quote someone a price, they think about what they would have could afford to do it rather than what the other person could afford. We did that in the hair salon where we would charge people $40 for a men's haircut. And I think I wouldn't pay that, but other people said, oh, that's no problem. And so you price yourself for what you're worth, not what they're willing to pay. And then they'll make that decision. And I think that oftentimes attorneys underprice themselves because either they don't have confidence in themselves or they don't think people can afford it, but there's people out there who can, and you're going to do a great job with them. And so I think you should get rewarded for it because we often don't take into account how much it costs us to go to law school and all of our experience.

Louis Goodman 21:02

What do you think is the best advice you've ever received? And what advice would you, or do you give to young attorneys?

Michael Meehan 21:11

You should never sacrifice your reputation for a case or a client. You're going to be in front of these people again and again, and you really don't want to have a reputation of someone who's untrustworthy. And I tell my clients too, to my employees. I said, never promise something you can't deliver. And never lie to the court. It's not worth it. And it'll come back to bite you.

Louis Goodman 21:38

Do you think the legal system is fair?

Michael Meehan 21:40

I don't think it's fair because it's so inconsistent. I think there's such a big disparity between counties, between courthouses, between DAs that the same conduct in one county will not result in the same charges or outcome as it would in a different county. I think in that sense, it's unfair. I think there's a lot of unfairness in, like racial unfairness and other things. But I think that just when I was young and you'd watch like the Dukes of Hazzard, if you got across the county line, it would be, you'd be free to go. Whereas here, if you go to a different county, your charges might go from a misdemeanor or an infraction to a felony, and you don't really know the difference if you don't choose where to commit crimes, you would think. But I just think in that sense, it's unfair that you could end up someplace where you would have a major, serious crime, whereas three blocks over you might not even have a charge filed.

Louis Goodman 22:35

I'm going to shift gears here a little bit. What's your family life been like? And how has practicing law fit into that?

Michael Meehan 22:43

Well, like I said earlier, I have quadruplets, so it's affected it a lot because when they were born, they were in Kentucky and I'm in a gay relationship. So me and my partner were raising quadruplets and Kentucky is not the greatest place for open thought and open-mindedness. So, when we moved to California, they were just about to enter elementary school. So it really impacted my practice of law because I wanted to be at home more. And at the time when I first started working for the firm, the manager had come to be and said, "Oh, you have to stay in the office till 5:30 each night" when we had an office in San Francisco. And I told him, "Okay, well, this is my two weeks' notice cause I'm not going to do that because I'm not going to get home at seven or eight at night.” And then they changed their policy real quickly. So I definitely have tried to make sure that my practice allowed me to spend time going to little league games and spending more time with the kids while they're growing up. Now that they're all in junior college, it's really trying to figure out how to pay for it and do it that way. But I'm less bound to be home at a certain time.

Louis Goodman 23:54

How about a book or a movie that it might be related to the law, or might not be that you would really recommend people read?

Michael Meehan 24:04

I remember before I went to law school, I've read One L. I thought that was a great book on getting the idea of how law school was.

Louis Goodman 24:12

How do you define success?

Michael Meehan 24:14

I think success is being happy and content and not having the stress overwhelm you, because I think that if you're able to pay for things and not have to worry if your check's going to balance, that's going to give you some sense of success, but also being healthy and having the ability to appreciate what you have rather than always be striving for the next thing.

Louis Goodman 24:39 

Let's say you came into some real money. You and your partner came into 3 or 4 billion dollars. What, if anything, would you do differently in your life?

Michael Meehan 24:48

I think I would take more time off. I had some time off before and I wrote a book, a novel that I really enjoyed doing. So I would probably do more of that. I mean, I always tell people I would go buy a lighthouse on the ocean and just write. I think I enjoy going to court, but I probably wouldn't go as often as I do and be more selective in the cases I handle, but I would probably travel more and I would definitely pay off all of the debt that my family has accrued, like for housing and other things and put that all behind them, cause I think that really limits your opportunities in life.

Louis Goodman 25:23

Tell me a little bit about this book that you wrote and is it available?

Michael Meehan 25:27

Yes. I wrote a book. It was actually, I was visiting my in-laws over several years in West Virginia, and there's not quite a lot to do there. So, I'd always spent my time reading novels and I thought I could do a better job than that. So over a course of a couple of years, I spent time and I wrote a novel it's sort of a thriller type novel called Keanu. And I wrote it. I really enjoyed writing it. And then I connected with some high school and college friends who edited it for me. And published it and you can get it on Amazon. It wasn't picked up by Netflix as the next movie to make me millions and graduate from the law practice but I enjoyed writing it and I would enjoy writing more of them. Just I found that I have less time lately.

Louis Goodman 26:13

Let's say I had a magic wand. What was one thing in the world, legal world, or otherwise that you could change, what would that be?

Michael Meehan 26:20

I would like to do like wave the magic wand and make everyone have to be empathetic. So when people like, say something, let's say it's racist, they would feel how it feels to the person they're saying it to, or when they're hurting somebody or doing something else that they would feel it instantly. Because I think that would really stop a lot of the aggression and anger that people feel because they would have to feel it themselves.

Louis Goodman 26:46

If someone wanted to get in touch with you. If someone listening to this wanted to be in touch with nocuffs.com firm or with you personally, how would you go about making that connection?

Michael Meehan 26:59

They could, I mean, look me on the state bar website, they could go call 1-800-NoCuffs and ask for me and that would get routed to me or they could call me. My number is on the state bar website. It's my cell phone, they can call me directly.

Louis Goodman 27:14

And what's the website?

Michael Meehan 27:15 

1-800-NoCuffs.

Louis Goodman 27:17

Dot com?

Michael Meehan 27:17

Or NoCuffs.com.

Louis Goodman 27:18

NoCuffs.com. Okay, great. Is there anything that you want to talk about that we have not covered?

Michael Meehan 27:25

It's the one thing that I guess it's sort of unrelated to the law, but I think there's a definitely a distinct challenge with people, same sex couples raising children. It's been a challenge with how people treat them and I think there's also still a lot of bias when gay and lesbian people in the court, sometimes more so in Kentucky and Tennessee. But I think that's just something to be aware of. There's all kinds of different backgrounds of people. And even though it doesn't affect your ability to practice law, I think sometimes people make judgements based on that part of your life.

Louis Goodman 27:58

I'm wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about how that may have affected you and your practice or the business that you're in or the way you've dealt with the courts or the way you felt the courts have dealt with you?

Michael Meehan 28:13

I noticed that there's for the most part, it doesn't really come up as an issue, but when I had the quadruplets, it was national news because it was the first gay couple to have quadruplets through the use of a surrogate. So, and at the time I was in Kentucky and it became a big issue and a lot of clients would say they didn't want to hire me because of that. And then I've also noticed at some times, if I wear a gay pride pin to court and certain more rural courts in the state, you get a lot of second looks and I just think people make it clear that they don't appreciate it. So I think in that sense, it's unfortunate, cause I think that it doesn't affect my ability to be a good lawyer, but it does affect how people treat you. And I would hate for something like that to cause them to treat my clients worse because that's really not fair to my clients. But it's also not something I think I should have to hide nor would I.

Louis Goodman 29:14

Let's say you got 60 seconds on the Super Bowl. Someone gave you a big microphone, big platform, 60 seconds to speak to the nation, really to the world. What kind of message would you want to put out there?

Michael Meehan 29:31

My boss would want me to promote 1-800-NoCuffs, but I would probably tell people that everyone should take the time to get involved in the elections and vote because everything, every person they vote for, it is going to side with our laws are, and that everyone should serve on jury duty they're called.

Louis Goodman 29:51

Michael Meehan, thank you so much for joining me today on the Love Thy Lawyer podcast, it's been a pleasure and a privilege to talk to you.

Michael Meehan 30:00

Thank you, Louis. I really enjoyed it.

Louis Goodman 30:02

That's it for today's episode of Love Thy Lawyer. If you enjoyed listening, please share it with a friend and subscribe to the podcast. If you have comments or suggestions, send me an email. Take a look at our website at lovethylawyer.com, where you can find all of our episodes, transcripts, photographs and information.

Thanks to my guests and to Joel Katz from music, Bryan Matheson for technical support. Paul Robert for social media and Tracy Harvey. I'm Louis Goodman.

Michael Meehan 30:40

But I actually enjoyed, I enjoyed studying in law school a lot better than I did as an undergraduate.