17. Delivering Justice With Compassion: How Attorney Guy D’Andrea Gets Justice for Sexual Abuse Survivors | Top Sex Abuse Law Firm

[00:00:00] Bobby Steinbach:
Hey everybody and welcome to the Hot Docket Podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about building a top sex abuse law firm. Welcome to Hot Docket. The show where we talk about winning marketing strategies that have built the most successful law firms.

[00:00:14] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Join us every two weeks for the latest trends and tactics to grow your law firm.

[00:00:19] Bobby Steinbach:
So for today’s episode, I, I think this is the second time we’ve talked about trauma informed approach to these types of cases. It really just drives home that it’s a need to do, not a nice to do. That along with this concept of like measure, measure, measure twice, cut once for these types of cases and do your due diligence so you have all the facts.

[00:00:40] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yeah, I, I think the process in a lot of these cases is totally different. And also I feel like clients are oftentimes better served. When a lot of the cases end up with one firm so they can negotiate on behalf of a larger group In many instances, it might make each individual case stronger as well, too.

[00:00:59] Andrew Nasrinpay:
So, I think that’s why you see in a lot of instances, um, a lot of abuse firms rely very heavily on referrals. And I think the process on the call center side also lends to, like, trial lawyers having a lot of the contact with the clients and it not working with the call center like a mass tort shop typically would.

[00:01:22] Bobby Steinbach:
Yeah. And, and I guess finally, like, this isn’t a case type to dabble in, you’re like playing with people’s lives and, uh, there’s too much that can go wrong if you don’t know what you’re doing.

[00:01:32] Andrew Nasrinpay:
These case types are super interesting because, uh, one, they help out a lot of people. And two, a lot of firms have gotten into them recently that wouldn’t necessarily be the best firms at handling these types of cases.

[00:01:48] Andrew Nasrinpay:
And today we’re joined with a firm that’s known as a powerhouse in the space.

[00:01:51] Bobby Steinbach:
Yeah, I think on that note, it, it feels weird calling some lawyers, good lawyers, but you do feel good helping out sex abuse firms because the, the cause is noble. So with that, I’m going to introduce today’s guest. We have with us Guy D’Andrea.

[00:02:13] Bobby Steinbach:
Guy, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. Guy is a partner at Laffy Busey, a personal injury firm based out of Philadelphia. Um, and as we said, today’s theme is going to be about building that sex abuse docket. So, Andrew, why don’t you, uh, ask the first question we got here.

[00:02:30] Andrew Nasrinpay:
So, obviously, uh, building a sex abuse docket and navigating high profile, uh, child’s victim act.

[00:02:38] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Claims and abuse claims are very different than a run of the mill PI or mass tort case. Can you walk us through the background of yourself as an attorney and give a bit of a history about the firm?

[00:02:50] Guy D’Andrea:
Sure. So I was a Philadelphia district attorney for eight and a half years. I sort of navigated my way through working on various types of crime, including child sexual abuse, violent crimes, and ultimately was promoted to homicide, where I spent my last about four, four and a half years at the DA’s office.

[00:03:12] Guy D’Andrea:
From there, I knew that I wanted to continue working with victim survivors of crimes of all sorts. And I didn’t really know that there was a practice that was out there in terms of of. real civil remedies. I mean, I, you hear of cases, but I didn’t know that it was an actual practice area that you could really fully get into and not do other things as well to sustain, you know, your, your staff and your employment, all of that.

[00:03:40] Guy D’Andrea:
So I found Laffy Boosie, who was doing tremendous work in the space and had a dedicated entire team to just working with, Crime victims, survivors. And so joining that, continuing that fight for survivors and continuing now to go after the organizations, the institutions that allow the abuses, the assaults to occur.

[00:04:06] Guy D’Andrea:
And still being a voice for those survivors has been and continues to be so immensely rewarding and it’s it’s just such important work And I know

[00:04:17] Bobby Steinbach:
that as a former prosecutor Um, you were pretty heavily exposed Uh to these case types and what have you what’s been the difference in pursuing? Some of the civil claims versus the criminal claims.

[00:04:28] Bobby Steinbach:
Like do you get the same level of satisfaction? Yeah

[00:04:31] Guy D’Andrea:
In many ways, I get more satisfaction doing the civil side of things. I still love the days when I was a prosecutor, still some of my greatest friends. And when I was in the criminal prosecution world, you know, in my mind, if a woman or a man or a child was sexually assaulted or raped or, you know, killed or, you know, Or shot or whatever it may be.

[00:04:51] Guy D’Andrea:
My view of justice was the perpetrator needed to be punished, which is true. And I still heavily believe that right. But what I never really fully appreciated that is when the case is over criminally. The victim survivor, or if it’s a murder victim, uh, the family leaves the criminal courthouse, and it’s like, that’s it, right?

[00:05:14] Guy D’Andrea:
There are some victim services, of course, but they dry up, and then it’s just, you know, on to the next case. Whereas on the civil side of things, It does a couple of things. You get to actually get information on what organizations knew, what institutions knew, what businesses knew about people, uh, that are predators and pedophiles and rapists, right?

[00:05:36] Guy D’Andrea:
And you get to have discovery that you never would have gotten in criminal court. And in addition to that, in being successful to your client. Yes, of course, you’re going to potentially shut facilities down or have policies and practices changed. But so many of our clients need way more than that. Mental health treatment, sometimes inpatient rehabilitation, all sorts of things.

[00:05:58] Guy D’Andrea:
Well, many of our clients don’t have the financial means to do that. So in civil litigation, you can provide them With a remedy that could allow them to get that mental health treatment, maybe get the car that they needed to get to work so that they don’t have to be stuck in the area in which maybe the abuse or the assault occurred.

[00:06:19] Guy D’Andrea:
And there’s so many other avenues that you can sort of operate in to help the survivor in a real Tangible way that doesn’t just include sending the perpetrator to jail or punishment, which again is important But you actually get to to do something for the survivor

[00:06:37] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yeah, I, I think that side of it is often overlooked where some people might look at it and think of it as like a personal injury lawyer or an ambulance chaser or what, why is cash going to change?

[00:06:49] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Um, but it, it really does help on the rehabilitation side. So not only on the criminal side, are you, you punishing the abusers, but you’re also better able to help the victims. with the civil side.

[00:07:01] Guy D’Andrea:
No doubt. And I’ll just share it in this. I mean, it’s anecdotal, but it’s a real life story without giving away any confidences.

[00:07:07] Guy D’Andrea:
But I had a client who, um, horrifically, uh, and all of it’s horrific, but just so many levels of abuse and trauma from sexual to physical to what was described as outright torture at the hands of a particular facility. This child was there from the age of eight years old, um, until he aged out at 18, right?

[00:07:30] Guy D’Andrea:
And so, what, no education, no family connections, in a state that he had never lived or belonged, is basically just thrown out of this facility after being so horribly abused. So, you know, besides turning to drugs to cope with the pain, he became homeless, and ultimately, though, joined in a lawsuit that we had against this facility.

[00:07:51] Guy D’Andrea:
And we could help him through that process, get him services while the case was pending, right? Um, and then ultimately, with the resolution we were able to get for that young man, who was back to being homeless again for some of the services, were shut down. But, he now has a house, he has a job, he’s back on his mental health medications.

[00:08:11] Guy D’Andrea:
Like his own house that he owns, right? And, and, it’s, the money’s protected some of it so that he gets, he gets, uh, A portion every month for the rest of his life, so he’s taken care of. Otherwise, if there wasn’t civil justice, I don’t know where he would be right now. I really don’t.

[00:08:29] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yeah, those stories are really great to hear.

[00:08:31] Andrew Nasrinpay:
And, are, are there, uh, plans that are typically set up like that? Or do most, uh, victims end up getting like a lump sum

[00:08:41] Guy D’Andrea:
settlement? Yeah, so, we all, one of the big things, But one of the major things I think if you’re going to be in this space working with survivors is making it clear up front. And this is going to answer your question, but making it clear up front that the trauma, the sexual abuse, the physical abuse, so much about that was taking control and power away from the survivor.

[00:09:01] Guy D’Andrea:
Right? And so when they come to us for a civil case, we want to make sure up front that they are alerted and know right from the beginning that yeah. This process can give you so much of that control and power back. And that includes if there is a resolution, how it is that they want to receive any financial compensation for the harms that happened to them.

[00:09:22] Guy D’Andrea:
So you have to go through all the options with them. Don’t, you can’t just throw, here’s X amount of dollars and here’s your check. If that’s what a client elects, that’s what a client elects. But if you’re doing it right, It’s sitting down with them with financial planners with advisors who can say, here are other options and so many of our clients when hearing the options really being heard and listen to their needs, what they actually need, right, they will sit down and they will work, walk through or work through what a structure can do from them because of how customizable it is and how there’s no tax implications when you put your settlement through the structure, which can pay a Survivor in all different ways, whether it’s monthly, yearly, biweekly, right?

[00:10:09] Guy D’Andrea:
They’re completely customizable and it just provides a level of security if your client elects that. The biggest thing though is again with giving power and control back to your sexual assault. or physical assault surviving client is to make sure that they know their options and they are choosing what’s best for them.

[00:10:27] Guy D’Andrea:
Of course, with advice from us,

[00:10:29] Andrew Nasrinpay:
what do you think your firm does better than anyone else? And what’s kind of driving that success?

[00:10:35] Guy D’Andrea:
Sure. So our crime victim team is just about exclusively made up of former prosecutors. So they have a real. understanding of the background of these types of cases on both sides of the law, criminal and civil.

[00:10:51] Guy D’Andrea:
And so why that, why that’s a benefit, um, among other things is because so many survivors who are a survivor of sexual violence or physical violence have never been through the criminal justice system before. And they don’t know, and it’s scary and it’s, you know, all those feelings, what happens at the courthouse.

[00:11:08] Guy D’Andrea:
We can walk them through that. We can be there at their side because, and this isn’t a knock. To prosecutors, I used to be one, but the prosecutors don’t represent the survivor, right? They represent the municipality, the state, or the country, right? They don’t represent an individual. So having a trauma informed, trauma trained former prosecutor by your side, you know, proverbially holding your hand through the process, that is Clients have expressed so much gratitude from that because it takes that stress, that fear, at least in some part of way, all of our lawyers are trauma informed.

[00:11:42] Guy D’Andrea:
Our supports stay up the same. It’s knowing how to just engage with, speak with survivors, making sure everything they do is comfortable, not putting any pressure on them, right? When they meet with me, it’s not a problem. Here, let me hear your story. Here’s a contract that’s never going to happen, right? I want to make sure, and everyone does here at this firm, that the survivor’s making choices, informed choices that they’re comfortable with, right?

[00:12:08] Guy D’Andrea:
They’re not getting something thrown, you know, at them, like, you need to sign here. It’s taken the control away. If you do that, let them that you let them vet the process. Make sure they’re comfortable with you asking the survivor. Do you have a preference? Simple things. Do you have a preference between speaking with a male or a female attorney?

[00:12:27] Guy D’Andrea:
Right? And honor those preferences and choices. Um, making sure if you’re having a meeting in office, I know there’s so many things are done by zoom now, but yeah. If you’re in office something as simple as before shutting that door to that office Making sure the client or prospective client is comfortable with that, right?

[00:12:46] Guy D’Andrea:
Because maybe the sexual assault happened in a closed room and that could be very triggering Understanding up front just asking what are the triggers people don’t think of things, right? I’ll give you an example. You learn things all the time a particular soft drink Was a trigger to one of my clients.

[00:13:04] Guy D’Andrea:
I didn’t know that and I didn’t ask that question and I was drinking it in front of him and it was a soda, a particular kind and that was the soda his abuser was drinking when I could right before it did and had a very distinct smell. And I can see the change in him. And I’m like, you know, what, what’s the matter?

[00:13:20] Guy D’Andrea:
What’s going on? And he then expressed that. And so now it’s making sure I was doing it, but being even more specific, right? Knowing what those things are, documenting that so you don’t mess up, right? Or you don’t say something or do something that’s going to be traumatic for your client. Um, we really try Uh, to the best of our ability to never have our client have to repeat their truth over and over and over again, right?

[00:13:46] Guy D’Andrea:
We want to make sure that, because the survivor, think about it, if, if, especially if the police are involved, they’ve told, presumably, a detective or a police officer or both, then they told a prosecutor, then they went to maybe a preliminary hearing, Where they’re cross examined by a defense attorney and questioned by a prosecutor and now they’re telling all of them and the judge and then they’re telling the next DA who’s going to handle the trial at the next level.

[00:14:09] Guy D’Andrea:
So by the time they get to us, they’ve now told their truth, I mean, an umpteen times and that in and of itself is a form of trauma. So we need all the details, but we really try to limit how often we’re asking about it, right? Getting and capturing the details from the client up front if they’re open to doing that.

[00:14:28] Guy D’Andrea:
Uh, can be really helpful in the, the months or years to come in the litigation so you’re not having your client constantly repeat that traumatic event and making it very transparent to them though that at some point through a deposition, which will prep for, uh, you’ll have to be deposed. Um, and just, I know this is a long answer, but one of the very unique things that we do here that, I have not seen or heard of another firm, maybe but one or two doing this and I’ve presented on this is at times more often than not deposing now your own client.

[00:15:00] Guy D’Andrea:
It’s unheard of right when I present my lawyers think I’m crazy that I would ever. Why would you ever depose your own client? There are so many benefits to that. That’s a whole side topic, but there are so many benefits to it. Um, and it sort of changes the whole dynamic and nature of the case if you do that.

[00:15:16] Guy D’Andrea:
And that’s just some of the things.

[00:15:17] Bobby Steinbach:
Yeah, this concept of being trauma informed, this is the second time that we’ve heard it. Uh, talking to folks such as yourself, and it’s seeming pretty clear that it’s pretty much like a must have if you are representing sex abuse survivors. How it Important. Do you think it is that we start getting judges and um, like potentially even defense educated on trauma informed approaches?

[00:15:42] Guy D’Andrea:
It’s so important and you know, incredibly important. And so many people think, well, what does that mean? What’s the process? Right. And it’s like, there’s like, I don’t want to say pushback, but it’s like, is it really necessary? And it is. And it’s, I don’t want to say it’s simple, but it’s truly understanding and appreciating Who the client is from either a socioeconomic background, cultural background, what happened to them, understanding the way certain questions that are asked, how they can present and feel to a survivor, and just being cognizant, among other things, of that, right?

[00:16:17] Guy D’Andrea:
So, if you need to ask a question that may appear without context, right, to be offensive or triggering, you know, front load that. Tell them why you’re asking the questions, right? Explain to them, whoever the client survivor is, the process and why you’re doing this. Because if you explain questions to them and understand those questions that may by their very nature be triggering, you can front load it.

[00:16:42] Guy D’Andrea:
And have that you can see almost the relaxation from the client. They don’t like talking about this, no doubt. But just explaining that to them. And knowing that there’s going to be times where even if a client’s being unreasonable in your mind as a lawyer, right, the trauma they went through, you have to know how to respond to that in a way that you maybe wouldn’t respond to someone who hasn’t experienced this level of trauma.

[00:17:05] Guy D’Andrea:
And it’s just, it’s really, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s really being, I mean, I’m super hyper simplifying this, but, It’s being the best case of being self aware, right? Whatever the best version of that looks like, it’s just, are you self aware? Because if you have a survivor coming in, you, it can’t be a, tell me who did what, when, and how, like, if you do that, like, you know, do not do this, go do some other type of law, right?

[00:17:30] Guy D’Andrea:
Because you can, He served a little more direct and a lot of other areas of law. This is not that space.

[00:17:36] Bobby Steinbach:
Yeah. And, and on that topic of like the horrendous trauma that a lot of these folks have gone through, Laffy Busey has grown a great reputation taking on some of these well known traumatic cases, everything from Sandusky to the massage envy cases.

[00:17:50] Bobby Steinbach:
Can you tell us a little bit more about the firm’s work on these high profile cases and how those changed the branding and reputation of your firm?

[00:17:57] Guy D’Andrea:
Absolutely. So, yeah. And I, just to be clear, I mean, I worked on the Penn State Sandusky case, but the massage envy cases that has been sort of mastered by Stu Ryan, Alec McMaster, um, Allie Stooplin, who’s now one of not new attorney, but newer attorney in our firm.

[00:18:16] Guy D’Andrea:
Uh, they have absolutely done an amazing job on those cases. And then sort of, um, on the other side of the crime victim team, you have Mike McFarlane, Jill Roth, uh, working on sort of the, the other massage cases, which is the handed stone cases. Um, so the work on those cases have been. monumental. Uh, Philadelphia, in terms of the massage envy, we filed cases in, in the Philadelphia sort of, um, massage envy cases that was several years ago.

[00:18:45] Guy D’Andrea:
And then we learned so much through that litigation and then Buzzfeed, um, picked it up and ran a whole expose. And then we saw how pervasive this was across the country, not just Philadelphia, not just Pennsylvania, across the country. Right. And so many of it, and I’m not being specific to massage and be necessarily, but so many of these organizations, when you get into them based upon how large they are, just don’t have the proper policies, practices, protocols in place, simple things that can be done.

[00:19:19] Guy D’Andrea:
Um, and exposing different organizations, not only get civil justice for your client, but you see real change is always the real change for the right reason. Rarely. Sadly, and maybe that’s the pessimistic side of me, but the change often comes because these organizations, these different organizations and these insurance carriers get sick of paying out settlements because of the failed practices and policies and negligent hiring and retention of a lot of these organizations.

[00:19:47] Guy D’Andrea:
And so they make those changes, right? I mean, they should have had those changes in place from the very beginning to try to at least prevent this. Um, But these changes are happening and seeing these changes working in these organizations connecting with the different nonprofits that work with survivors really has allowed us from a national perspective to handle all sorts of cases that are either high profile or not, but especially the ones that have allowed us to shut down boarding schools, daycare centers, daycare Things along those lines that didn’t make a mistake, right?

[00:20:19] Guy D’Andrea:
They had years, if not decades, of pervasive either child abuse or other forms of abuse or neglect and assault. And so that, you know, having that, these high profile cases have allowed us to even go into other areas where I think there’s a major impact, uh, in protecting these survivors, especially the children in some of those boarding school cases I was just talking about.

[00:20:43] Andrew Nasrinpay:
So you brought up some interesting points there, and I kind of want to circle back to what you were talking about before, where you were highlighting some of the differences, um, in how these cases are litigated. Can you give us some examples about how these cases are litigated differently than something like personal injury or mass tort cases?

[00:21:02] Guy D’Andrea:
Sure. So in terms of litigation, I mean, you have to know up front from your client. No, we’ll obviously know your jurisdiction, right? But know from your client right up front. Is this an anonymous filing or is your client using their name? Right? I’ve had people come to us afterwards, you know, maybe they didn’t have a great relationship with the, their first attorney and look at the complaint maybe that was filed.

[00:21:27] Guy D’Andrea:
And I say, Oh, so you’ve decided to be public with this. And that’s, you know, if that was your choice and it was like, I’ve had so many clients say, I didn’t, what do you mean public? What was the other option? Right? Which was shocking to me because that’s like a, I mean, that’s the most simplistic thing you can do for a sexual assault survivor.

[00:21:42] Guy D’Andrea:
In other words, file under a pseudonym. Not every jurisdiction allows it or some jurisdictions fight back, but being transparent. Right? It’s, it’s for, for a survivor of violence, whether sexual, physical or otherwise, transparency and trust is, is paramount, right? There are other cases, other types of PI work where it’s like the very first question out of the client’s mouth is, how much money are you going to get me?

[00:22:09] Guy D’Andrea:
Right? That’s the first question. I have so many other types of cases. I can count on one hand after hundreds, if not more cases, How many times a client’s even initiated the conversation about money, right? Now, ultimately you have to have that conversation because that’s the remedy in civil cases, right?

[00:22:26] Guy D’Andrea:
But it’s so often, I mean, not so often, it’s like 99%, at least from my experience. That doesn’t come up from the client. And when asked about it, maybe at any point in the litigation, most clients will say, I’ve never even thought about that. And they’re being sincere, right? And so knowing that being transparent, really sort of walking them through the process in verbally written.

[00:22:49] Guy D’Andrea:
So, you know, we send out a whole welcoming packet. That in, in some of it in painstaking detail, really details every process. The clients really like that. They have something tangible. They can hold on to and read when they’re like, you know, my attorneys told me we’re in the written discovery phase. Let me go back and look at what that means.

[00:23:07] Guy D’Andrea:
And then I’ll ask questions. Right. And they get to ask questions on their own time after processing the information. Um, What’s very different is understanding that trauma survivors process information at times very different. You might have an hour long call answering 30 or 40 different questions and then you’ll two hours later get a call or text from your client.

[00:23:27] Guy D’Andrea:
Can we do that again? Right? And you don’t really see that in. I’m not saying you never see it. You just don’t see it as often in other types of P. I. And it’s knowing if you want to do this space, you can’t be like, Oh, I can’t believe I have to do this again. I just had no. It’s leaning back in and having that conversation you literally just had again.

[00:23:46] Guy D’Andrea:
And then making sure that there’s follow up notes to the client. I mean, there’s just, there’s, I could go on and on and on. I don’t know how much you want me to go on, but it’s making sure all of that. It’s working with the client to feel comfortable as possible, uh, for their deposition. And that can be said to be true in any PI case.

[00:24:03] Guy D’Andrea:
But it’s especially true in these cases because they’re going to be asked about some of the most personal, potentially embarrassing, humiliating things of their lives that maybe you don’t have or see in a, you know, a car accident case or a slip and fall or something along those lines. I’m not disparaging that they need justice to it’s just a different sort of mental headspace, understandably.

[00:24:26] Guy D’Andrea:
So when you’re dealing with the trauma of especially sexual violence

[00:24:31] Andrew Nasrinpay:
and as a firm. Staffing and creating process around that is totally different. So it’s not, it’s not easy to just add that department if you’re a personal injury firm. So I think it’s, it’s very interesting for you to walk, walk through that with, uh, other lawyers that would listen to this podcast.

[00:24:47] Bobby Steinbach:
Absolutely. So it sounds like, You guys really do your due diligence when it comes to onboarding clients and walking through that process with them. Uh, can you maybe just give us a little bit more information about this? No stern, no stone unturned, uh, philosophy around investigating a case.

[00:25:04] Guy D’Andrea:
Sure. So, so many of our cases, um, either have a criminal component or will have a criminal component, meaning the perpet, the individual perpetrator or perpetrators, uh, may very well be in the criminal process.

[00:25:16] Guy D’Andrea:
So right up front, it’s making sure that as a civil attorney, you don’t do anything. That will jeopardize the criminal case if that process is there is being started or has been started, right? I see so many of the firms, there’s a prosecution happening or about to happen and then they file their civil suit.

[00:25:33] Guy D’Andrea:
Unless you have to because of statute reasons, uh, it just really can have a detrimental impact. So instead, it’s you being with that client. Uh, for all of those years, potentially, maybe a year to get the criminal process done, making sure you have all that documentation, making sure you have the investigative file from the detectives and the prosecutor’s office.

[00:25:54] Guy D’Andrea:
I don’t want to say that I’m disparaging attorneys when I say this, but it’s like, I think too many attorneys are like, I can make money faster if I file this civil lawsuit. That’s probably true. But if you’re really attempting to do justice for this client in every aspect that you can, you shouldn’t be doing that unless you have to let the criminal process play out, get that file, right?

[00:26:17] Guy D’Andrea:
Go through every single record. You can find making sure you have the resources to do. You know, we have former FBI that we use for, you know, background checks and And and really digging in on every conceivable resource, not just in the state in which the crime occurred or the assault occurred. It’s making sure you have the resources where you’re checking all 50 states, any possible alias.

[00:26:39] Guy D’Andrea:
You’re doing everything in that regard. It’s immediately sending any preservation letters, subpoenaing whatever you can up front to get devices, protect those devices, dumping potentially your client’s phone if it needs to be. All of these things are it can be at a tremendous expense. But again, um, If you don’t, if you want to do it right, this is what you have to do.

[00:27:00] Guy D’Andrea:
If you don’t want to do all these things and there’s a lot more I can get into, then don’t, there’s a lot of other areas of law go do that, you know, but if you truly want to, it’s constantly working with the client. It’s oftentimes. Making sure that you understand, you know, the Child Advocacy Center, the CAC, if it’s a child involved, making sure the child’s being interviewed there if necessary, that all mandatory reporting has been conducted or done.

[00:27:25] Guy D’Andrea:
Um, getting up front with any potential whistleblowers, you know, sending investigators out immediately, again, so long as it’s not interfering or messing with up a criminal investigation. But getting those people right away and putting them on paper, maybe an affidavit or an interview with a detect or a former detective or FBI agent and sort of that preliminary investigation scouring the web, making sure right away if the organization has a website, not only are you capturing it live as your client came to you, you’re going to way back machine or any of the other resources and capturing every iteration you can of that website from its existence.

[00:28:04] Guy D’Andrea:
It’s time consuming, right? You have to do it. Um, having people copiously go through any conceivable search term to see what you can find, and it’s amazing how many times you find, like, after searching for hours, there’s this, you know, a gem of a YouTube video that maybe the founder of an organization did that provides you so much ammunition against that institution.

[00:28:27] Guy D’Andrea:
It’s all very time consuming, and sometimes it leads to nothing. But you have to do it, in my view. You Absolutely have to do it. It’s a disservice to a survivor if you don’t. Sounds

[00:28:37] Bobby Steinbach:
like a measure twice, cut once type of scenario.

[00:28:40] Andrew Nasrinpay:
That’s right. For many firms that handle abuse cases, referrals are their lifeblood.

[00:28:45] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Can you tell us a little bit about how your firm wins more client referrals and attorney referrals?

[00:28:50] Guy D’Andrea:
Yeah. So, I mean, from the client referral aspect, it’s the service that you provide. We are in a service industry, period. End of story. I mean, sometimes lawyers don’t view it that way or talk about it that way, but we are.

[00:29:00] Guy D’Andrea:
We have, we have clients that we’re providing a real service to, and you know, this service until the case is concluded, oftentimes encompasses that client’s life, right? So it’s, it’s important to be responsive. I mean, sometimes it’s not. It’s not easy to respond right the same day, but you have to respond in a really reasonable time, especially if you’re working with survivors, making sure that when the messages come through from your clients, that if there appears to be mental distress, you are dropping whatever else you’re doing, so there’s not self harm to that client, right?

[00:29:34] Guy D’Andrea:
Or harm to someone else. So it’s that level of service you need to provide to each client that they, when they’re finished their case, and sometimes win, lose, or you know, somewhere in between. They’re still your greatest advocate because they saw the fight you put up for them. You know, as it relates to, to attorneys, it’s making sure you grow your network going to, and joining the necessary and, and vital organizations that service, Uh, from a, in a whole different capacity, survivors, you know, the National Crime Victims Bar Association is an amazing organization, um, that, that provides so many resources to survivors and does such great work nationally and there you can make a reputation.

[00:30:16] Guy D’Andrea:
I’m using this as an example, but. Make a reputation from, with other lawyers, you know, maybe you had a niche area within the crime victim world, uh, where you’re presenting on or talking on or, uh, giving examples of things that no one’s even ever thought of and it’s showing, you’re showing everyone that you are, at least in some aspects of, uh, maybe a given set of type of cases, an expert expert.

[00:30:40] Guy D’Andrea:
And I don’t mean the broad field of a sexual assault litigation, but maybe a very specific one, whether it’s boarding schools or churches or what to look for, right? You know, how do you hold in or hold accountable the local church, um, against the, you know, maybe if there’s a national or a regional church, well, I’ve, I’ve talked to attorneys who don’t even know you could do this.

[00:31:00] Guy D’Andrea:
You just go to the IRS. Where did the local church get their, um, As an example, their 501c3 status. Well, if it’s from the parent church, right? If it’s from the parent church, what the parent church says to the federal government, to the IRS, we are controlling or supervising this facility, which is why they are, should be entitled to our 501c3 status.

[00:31:24] Guy D’Andrea:
It’s amazing because then what happens is you get this 30b6, the bishop, whoever, but depending on the religion, in the hot seat and they say, wait a second, Yeah, they’re somewhat affiliated in terms of the type of religion they practice, but that has nothing, we have nothing to do with them. They’re independent.

[00:31:38] Guy D’Andrea:
Really? Because it’s interesting, you might want to ask your lawyer about this, because you’re either lying to me right now, Oh, hang on, hang on. You’re either lying to me right now, or you lied to the federal government when you certified to them that this school was being controlled or supervised to you.

[00:31:52] Guy D’Andrea:
You’d be, you’d be surprised how many times you got a bishop sitting there going, I do need to speak to my attorney. I bet you do. Right. And so it’s just like, I mean, that’s, and they don’t expect it. They really don’t expect something like that. I mean, they might start to know it now, but, but it’s having that evidence, right.

[00:32:08] Guy D’Andrea:
And knowing what to look for to prove that sort of connection, that control and supervision or supervision that I know so many lawyers who will be listening to this. Know how vital that is to hold, you know, either a, a, a corporate entity, a parent company, um, accountable for, for an underlying organization.

[00:32:31] Bobby Steinbach:
So can you tell us a little bit more about how your firm is structured to bring the best results for clients across case types? Because, um, just to give you like a sense of, Why we as an organization structured to service law firms, it’s really hard, right? It’s really hard to build practices across disparate, um, areas, whether for us, that’s industries that we might service or for you, different cases, like clients, different jurisdictions, different everything.

[00:33:02] Bobby Steinbach:
How do you guys structure your organization? to, you know, best service your clients across these different practice areas.

[00:33:08] Guy D’Andrea:
Yeah. So our construction, our catastrophic construction team, premises liability team, and a whole host of other things that they do, including medical malpractice, I don’t want to say they’re siloed and we’re not siloed, but like it’s truly, they exclusively are handling those cases, right?

[00:33:22] Guy D’Andrea:
There’s no, uh, I’m never saying I’ve never helped. If a colleague needs help, I’m going to help them, but it’s it truly is. That’s there. That’s the cases they are devoted to, and it’s important because I view that as well as they have a niche area of expertise that allows them to handle catastrophic accidents in a way that I believe is better than someone who’s going to dabble in and out of that.

[00:33:42] Guy D’Andrea:
Same thing with the crime victim side of it, right? You know, we have one, seven, eight attorneys right now on the crime victim side, uh, six support staff, paralegals who are unbelievable, um, dedicated exclusively and solely to representing survivors. And then within that, you know, sometimes by happenstance, sometimes by maybe where your license is, right?

[00:34:05] Guy D’Andrea:
We break that up potentially by, you know, those grounds. In other words, I’m barred in New York. And Pennsylvania, I get pro hocked in where I’m in other states that I’m not licensed in. But for instance, we have lawyers barred in Florida, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, California. I don’t think California yet, but there’s a lot of states where we actually are barred.

[00:34:26] Guy D’Andrea:
So it would be silly not to have a lawyer who is super talented here, handle a case in that state where they’re already barred. So making sure you have a diverse background of licenses within your firm, if you want to practice this, especially nationally, the, the, You know, and then it’s like maybe by subject area, right?

[00:34:45] Guy D’Andrea:
I have had a lot of tremendous amount of experience leading cases in terms of the troubled teen industry or boarding school. And so when a case like that comes along, I’m not saying I just scoop it up and say no one else can do it, but you know, it makes sense that at least I’ll be a part of that or running some of those cases.

[00:35:03] Guy D’Andrea:
I talked about Alex and Stu. It would be silly for me at this point to take on a caseload of massage envy when they’re already doing such great work on that and have done such great work on that. So it’s understanding where everyone’s strengths are, maybe some weaknesses, but not even going to call it weaknesses.

[00:35:20] Guy D’Andrea:
It’s like, what does someone like doing as well? Because I think that motivates people instead of just throwing files at them. And, and making sure you hear from everybody and, and being as collaborative as possible because it’s so important, uh, when you’re working with survivors and, and working on these very intimate, very personal, very devastating set of facts.

[00:35:42] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Going big picture really quick, what’s a commonly held belief about the legal process that you passionately disagree with?

[00:35:53] Guy D’Andrea:
I think a belief that I hear from clients a lot. is that they are shocked that lawyers actually fight for them, that they actually care, right? I think the, the, a lot of the survivors that I’ve worked with, it’s like, we just assumed we’d be going to lawyers who were looking for a paycheck, um, and that, you know, we were a means to that end, right?

[00:36:15] Guy D’Andrea:
And by the time they leave, that is, You know, it’s upsetting for me to hear that because if that’s what’s happening in other areas of law or potentially other firms, it’s upsetting, right? It’s our profession. And it’s, you know, the client is a client, but it’s also, I mean, it sounds odd, but they’re a customer, right?

[00:36:32] Guy D’Andrea:
They need to be treated with the utmost respect, dignity. And they need to feel like they have, I know this is silly, but like a real champion, right? A real gladiator on their side. And if you’re not ready to do that, then again, I just implore people to go do a different type of law.

[00:36:49] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Are there any current cases that you want to shine some light on?

[00:36:54] Guy D’Andrea:
Sure. So, um, there are some boarding school cases from an international level, um, that one of our colleagues here, Mike McFarlane, has been flying back and forth on. He’s been on the news, so I can talk about it, but, um, it’s the Atlantis Boarding School. He’s been actively investigating that out of Jamaica, um, He was with Paris Hilton’s team who’s doing documentaries about some of the troubled teen boarding schools over there on summer.

[00:37:23] Guy D’Andrea:
The trauma and abuses that these Children are suffering. And so, you know, making sure that Children who are U. S. Citizens are safe, not just domestically, but also abroad. It’s very important to us. It’s, you know, it’s important to us. It’s very important to us. It’s Difficult work, especially when you’re dealing with international jurisdictions at times, but trying to find, uh, potentially a US based solution to that.

[00:37:46] Guy D’Andrea:
Um, you know, we have, I mean, so many boarding schools. We just wrapped up the, the Miracle Meadows boarding school down in West Virginia. I mean, there may be additional cases, but right now we’ve, you know, successfully resolved for about 64 children, uh, myself and two colleagues down West Virginia, Jesse Forbes and Scott Long.

[00:38:08] Guy D’Andrea:
That was such proud work. These Children who were just, I mean, I use the word torture and I think I used it earlier because that’s what was happening to these Children. This wasn’t I mean, abuse is abuse. I don’t like to compare traumas, but our experts using the United States and, you know, the international death is definition of torture.

[00:38:28] Guy D’Andrea:
Human torture. That’s what was happening to these Children. It was one of the proudest cases I’ve ever worked on and working with all of those survivors. I’ll be forever forever. Grateful if that’s the right word. I mean, it’s just been so empowering and making me want to continue pushing to bring justice to this troubled teen industry where too many people get involved in it for the wrong reasons.

[00:38:50] Guy D’Andrea:
And the wrong reasons are it’s their view is it’s easy money. And then the Children just get, you know, put aside or horribly, horribly abused. And it’s happening all over this country.

[00:39:01] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yeah, I think you told me about that case before and that, that might be personally one of the worst ones I’ve ever heard about where the conditions they went through were literally unbelievable.

[00:39:12] Guy D’Andrea:
Truly. I mean, it conditions that, that the, the law enforcement, You know, he kept saying when talking about the various forms of abuse and torture that were occurring, it was like, I wouldn’t, he said, I wouldn’t let my dog step foot on this property, right? Like that’s how deplorable it was. And meanwhile, we have children between the ages of seven and 17.

[00:39:35] Guy D’Andrea:
They’re being held. This is a private boarding school being held in solitary confinement, stripped naked, tortured. being forced to urinate, defecate, and have their menstrual cycle, if it was a woman, uh, into a coffee can for weeks, if not months on end, no showering. And that’s just, that’s the tip of the iceberg.

[00:39:55] Bobby Steinbach:
That is crazy. But on that note, thanks for joining us today, Guy. Thank you for having me. It was definitely super informative. And, um, what’s the best way for folks to contact you? If, uh, they have questions or just want to be in touch.

[00:40:09] Guy D’Andrea:
Sure. Uh, they can contact me at my email, gdeandrea, no apostrophe, uh, at lbk law.

[00:40:16] Bobby Steinbach:
com. That, that’s probably the, uh, sign off here. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Hot Docket Podcast. We’ll see you on the next one. We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Hot Docket. We’re your hosts, Bobby and Andrew, founders of MemePug, the marketing agency for ambitious law firms.

[00:40:33] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Have questions about marketing or anything we covered today?

[00:40:37] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Email us at bark at mean pug. com. Be sure to subscribe to learn more.