[00:00:00] Welcome to founding partner podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Hawkins. Really excited about today’s guest. Longtime friend of mine. We used to practice together way, way back in the day that I was talking to somebody earlier. That was probably one of the funnest firms I ever worked at. But yeah, maybe we’ll tell some stories about that,
Dax Lopez: Little too fun. It’s no longer around.
Jonathan Hawkins: exactly.
But yeah, so welcome Dax Lopez. He is a former judge here in Atlanta Metro area, and he’s Retired from the bench and now he is a plaintiff trial lawyer. So Dax, why don’t you introduce yourself? Tell us what you’re up to nowadays. And we’re going to dig into some of your past exploits here.
Dax Lopez: So my name is Dax Lopez. I’m a partner at Del Campo, Grayson Lopez. We have a small office in Dunwoody, Georgia, where we practice basically wrongful death and catastrophic injury. Type cases we don’t do a volume practice, so, you know, we have a very small number of cases, but a lot of our cases do involve either really [00:01:00] catastrophic, horrible injuries, lifelong permanent injuries or someone unfortunately has died because of negligence of someone else. These are very complex cases. We do product liability cases, we do premises liability cases, we do medical malpractice. So, usually our, and trucking cases as well, but usually the, the more complex cases. tend to end up on our, on my on my file system. And we ended up working on these cases and hopefully if we get a chance, we’ll try them where we are trial lawyers and we try cases.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, so the three name partners, do you have any other attorneys? What kind of staffing do you have?
Dax Lopez: No, it’s just the three named partners. So Tony Del Campo founded the firm originally with his now partner Randy Grayson, they were college roommates back in the day at Emory. And then they each went their separate way after law school. Tony started out in South Carolina, worked his way back to Georgia and became a.
Fairly prominent plaintiff’s attorney before he became a state court judge. So Tony was [00:02:00] the first Hispanic state court judge in the history of Georgia. I was the second. And then Randy did a spell at a big firm in Texas and then made his way back to Georgia as well. Ended up working at Alston Byrd for a few years before he went out on his own. And those guys teamed up about 10 years ago and started a firm with one other guy who’s no longer here. And then I was on the bench at the time. And before they pulled me on. Right now though, we only have three lawyers and three, three staff. So we have two paralegals and one case manager slash receptionist. So we’re very lean and very mean.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, and you’re you’re hitting some big verdicts. We’ll get to that later. So that’s that’s good. So, so let’s go way back man Let’s go. Let’s go way back. So even before law school, so You you do not grow up here right in the US
Dax Lopez: Well, born in Puerto Rico.
Grew up in Puerto Rico until I was six. Yep. So I lived in Puerto Rico until I was six years old. Moved to Georgia, Augusta, Georgia in 1981. Not a Mecca of diversity [00:03:00] in 1981. It was very much black and white, very few Hispanics. People did not know what Brown could do for them in 1981. And so, we moved to a really kind of a outskirt of, of Augusta, a place called Martinez. Well, I thought it was Martinez because it’s, it is Martinez. And so I remember I show up to school my first day, I don’t speak English. Very nervous going to my elementary school and I see the name Martinez Elementary and I got real excited because I thought someone there might speak my language and they quickly corrected my pronunciation.
It’s Martinez. Martinez, Georgia,
which incidentally I’ve come to learn is named after Jose Martinez, a Cuban who used to own all that land, but of course no one called it Martinez. So it’s still to this day, Martinez.
Jonathan Hawkins: they probably said it more like Martin is
Dax Lopez: That’s right.
I still, I still can’t say it right.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So what was that like, man? You come in here, culture shock, you’re, you know, it’s not a [00:04:00] completely small town, Georgia, but it’s smaller town. I mean, what was that like?
Dax Lopez: Well, in 1981, I mean, it’s fairly small. You know, it was, it was difficult. I’ll say that. It was, it was not an easy transition. I did not speak English. My brother didn’t speak English. My parents spoke English, but we didn’t speak Southern. So we didn’t understand, you know, the accent and the twang and, you know, everyone’s talking about the dogs and they’re like, the what?
You know, the bulldogs had just won a national championship a year earlier. So it was, it was, everyone had UGA flags and my parents didn’t understand this whole obsession with dogs. And, and they still didn’t know what it was. And I remember going to like, you know, the Waffle House and And didn’t understand why there’s a whole house for waffles.
I mean, it was just, it was a different time and a huge culture shock for us, but we quickly acclimated. The other thing that was interesting is that no one really talked to us like our white neighbors, our black neighbors, no one knew what to do with us. You know, no one knew anything about Puerto Rico.
They didn’t realize we’re part of the United [00:05:00] States. They just thought we were some, some foreigners. We would always get asked questions like, how’d you get here? We’re like on a plane and they’re like, really? You have planes? I’m like, yes. And what’s the currency like? And we’re like, you know, what’s the exchange rate?
We’re like one to one, it’s the same currency, you know, things like that. Growing up my whole, my whole childhood is pretty much like that. But we were only there for about a year and then we started moving. I lived in about six or seven different States growing up. Mostly in the South although we moved in Pennsylvania and Illinois lived in Chicago for a year, but I lived in Kentucky and Alabama and Tennessee and also lived in, out in Kansas.
So it’s kind of all over, but we kept coming back to Georgia. Georgia was kind of a stopping point that we kept moving back to. And I ended up going to high school here in Georgia, actually, in Cobb County, in the Keatron High School, class of 1994, go Indians. And so Georgia just kind of felt like home cause it’s the first place we ever lived. Slowly, my family from Puerto Rico started moving to Georgia, which was interesting. I had several family members that [00:06:00] moved here and still live here to this day. So Georgia kind of slowly became a a place where I called home even before moving off to law school and all that good stuff.
Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s talk about that. So law school, I don’t know if I’ve ever asked you this, but why law school? Is that something you always wanted to do? Or was it like a lot of people, you just didn’t know what else to do?
Dax Lopez: No, no lawyers in my family. I would have been fifth generation engineer. Come from a long line of engineers. My grandfather did not speak to me for a year when I decided to go to law school, cause he very much wanted me to be an engineer. You know, moving here in, in the early eighties particularly to the South shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that there were, you know, as today, there were still a lot of racial issues.
Particularly back then, I mean, 1981 is only, you know, 15, 16 years removed from the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. So it’s not a long time. Some towns still weren’t acting right in the early 80s, as you might imagine. And so I just kind of had this interesting perspective coming here, being [00:07:00] a US citizen, but being very much treated as an immigrant. As a foreigner, as an other, and just kind of realizing the power of the law and the existence of the law early on in my childhood. I just, you know, for some reason I was just very interested in, in equal rights and civil rights, the civil rights movement you know, the historical aspects, even at a very young age.
I just, I was. Completely fascinated by this idea that the law could somehow grant equality where it didn’t exist before and that you might have a venue, a forum to go and fight for your rights under the law in a, in a courtroom was, was incredibly fascinating to me. And so as, as far as I can remember, six, seven, eight years old, I wanted to be a lawyer. I mean, that’s, that’s, and it never wavered and it still hasn’t to this day. I’m still very happy with my choice.
Jonathan Hawkins: Wow. That’s pretty cool. I’ve never heard that. So, that’s cool. So you ended up going to law school. I know you went to Vandy, I think undergrad and law school. And then after that, what, what’d you do [00:08:00] after that first job out?
Dax Lopez: First job out, clerkship. So I clerked for a federal judge in Puerto Rico actually. So I had an opportunity to go back to Puerto Rico after, you know, living in the U S since age of six, I hadn’t really spent any significant time back in Puerto Rico. So it was a nice way to reconnect. With my family that was down there with my culture you know, I was very lucky that my parents forced me to speak Spanish in the home.
So I was able to maintain my Spanish here in the U. S., even though it was very difficult to do so, to be honest. And so I got an opportunity to go clerk for a federal district court judge for a year and a half in Puerto Rico, which was fantastic. I mean, if you ever get a chance to, for young listeners who are in law school, you know, If you get a chance to go clerk in the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, or Hawaii, I highly recommend a tropical location for a federal district court clerkship.
It does not suck. It is a lot of fun.
Jonathan Hawkins: So what, what is that? I mean, the litigants that come in there, is it, I mean, are they speaking English or Spanish or both, or how does that, how does that go down?
Dax Lopez: It’s a federal district [00:09:00] court. It is by law and by local rule required to be in English. So the lawyers must speak English. The jurors must be bilingual, which is interesting because then you get a more educated juror in federal court and Puerto Rico is sort of a very interesting jurisdiction. In the local Commonwealth courts, there are no jury trials in civil cases. So they’re all bench trials. So all the big plaintiff’s attorneys like me wanted to be in federal court, which is, which is backwards from here, right? In Georgia, all the plaintiffs attorneys want to be in state court, particularly, you know, a state court not federal court. And, but in Puerto Rico, you only got a jury trial in federal court.
So everyone’s trying to find a way to get diversity jurisdiction. A couple of lawyers got in some trouble because they bought my apartments in Miami. And then every one of their clients had the same address in Miami because diversity jurisdiction is as of the day of the filing of the complaint.
So they only had to live there at the beginning and the commencement of the action. And so [00:10:00] just, you know, someone finally realized, and those folks were actually prosecuted for fraud and spent a little time in federal prison. But that is sort of a quirk of Puerto Rico that everyone wanted to be in, in federal court.
So we got to see some phenomenally good trials, personal injury trials, every kind of trial you could imagine because everyone wanted to be in federal court.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s cool. So you’re there for, you know, just 18 months, two
Dax Lopez: Yeah. About 18 months. That’s right. Yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: so after that, did you come back to the States? What, what’d you do
Dax Lopez: I did. So I had a couple of options, you know, like I said, my family moved around a good bit. When I was in college in law school, my parents lived in Alabama, then they moved Subsequently moved to Washington, DC when I was in my second year in law school. And so I was kind of trying to figure out, do I want to be in DC where my family is?
But, you know, there’s always that chance they’ll move again. Do I, you know, I had opportunities in Alabama where we had lived for several years and I had opportunities in Atlanta. So I’d clerked in all three cities and had some offers and. And, and all three. So it kind of was interesting. I [00:11:00] just sort of decided Atlanta was a great sort of just a midpoint between small Southern town and big DC type, you know, urban area. Because in DC, everyone’s an attorney. So it’s really hard to stick out, right. You know, just thousands and thousands of attorneys. Birmingham was a little too small, probably. For, for what I was looking for. So Atlanta would just kind of have that mix of just great Southern town, big enough, you had sports teams and a lot of nightlife and culture and and, you know, I had family here in Georgia.
And so I figured this would be a good place to come. And I had an offer at Holland and Knight, a big international firm. And that’s where I got started after my clerkship.
Jonathan Hawkins: And what kind of stuff are you doing there?
Dax Lopez: So I was placed on the product liability team. So it was early 2000s. If you’ll recall, there were two really big recalls nationwide at the time. It was the Ford Explorer and then the Firestone tires that were on those Ford Explorers both got recalled. And so we were, I was on the Firestone team for most of my early career.
And so there are [00:12:00] hundreds of lawsuits, if you might imagine recall suits. So I learned, you know, sort of the product liability, tire litigation work. Is what I spent a lot of my time doing. I did employment work, represented the city of Atlanta. I did a lot of condemnation work. I did just business relations work.
So it was great. Cause I got to do a little bit of everything. I tried some cases, business litigation cases, condemnation cases and you know, got to work on all these product cases, learned about personal injury and, and ins and outs of these tire cases. And so it was, it was a good starting point for my career for sure. And I was there for three years. And ultimately decided I wanted to do a try more cases. And so sometimes at big firms, as you well know, you just don’t get to try as many cases that you’d want to, especially if you’re not doing insurance defense type work which we, we did not really do at Holland and Knight. So I went to a small boutique firm called Ashe Refuse and Hilt. And particularly because I wanted to go work with William Hill who I still maintain is probably the best trial lawyer I’ve ever encountered, seen, or been [00:13:00] around. And he was just an incredible mentor. And so I met Hill and he recruited me and I decided to go work with him and I got a chance to try some cases with him and really sort of learned how to try cases being around him and trying them with him.
So that was, that was a great experience for me.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I forgot you did that tire litigation. You know, my first law firm job was, was defendant Michelin tire. So I did a lot of those tire cases too. And it was around, it was around the same time. Now they weren’t subject of a recall, but you know, the cool thing or the interesting thing I found.
That ultimately sort of got me a little bored with it was, you know, it was the same case every time, basically it was, they sued the the car company, whichever one rolled and then they sued the tire company and there was only like three experts in the country on each side, so you only, you know, it’s the same three every time and then
Dax Lopez: On every
Jonathan Hawkins: it was the funny thing is you could trace.
The evolution of their theory of the defect. And it would change, you know, over time, you know, it was this for a while. And then they [00:14:00] figured out that doesn’t work anymore. And they switched to something else. And it was like, it’s the same thing every time. So
Dax Lopez: time that hasn’t changed. That’s still the same.
Jonathan Hawkins: yeah, yeah, well, now you’re, now you’re on the other side.
So,
Dax Lopez: And one of our biggest cases, since I joined the firm was a tire litigation.
Jonathan Hawkins: you know, I got to ask you about this story because I probably have. misremembered it in my mind, but it’s one that I occasionally tell without naming names. But you’re also, so you’re, you’re, you’re one of the few hispanic jews around, right? So, and that’s a key to this story because at one of your firms, we’re not naming names here, but you were given an assignment on Christmas or something.
Right? Tell me about that story. So I can remember,
Dax Lopez: Yeah, it was you’re right without naming names. We had a big fee arbitration. That was coming up in January of the following year. And it’s like late November. And we get on a call with the arbitrator and we’re trying to figure out deadlines for briefing and all that good [00:15:00] stuff. And yes, the arbitrator is like, look you know, talking to me and my partner Hey, once you guys turn over your, you know, just turn in your brief, you know, first week in January and, you know, after the holidays partner’s like, no, we can do it.
We can do it late. You didn’t do it. You know, December 26th. And the arbitrator is like, well, you know, that’s the day after Christmas. Like, I’m not, I’m not even gonna be in my office. Like, you know, take, take the holidays. Don’t, don’t worry about it. And the partner was insistent that we would, that would be our deadline.
Our, our self imposed deadline would be December 26th. And I’m looking at him. I was like, look, I know I’m Jewish, but I don’t want to work Christmas either. And sure enough, man, I worked Christmas Eve, Christmas day. I’m, I’m, I was taking. Edits, cause he did not let me email it to him. He made me physically bring him the brief on Christmas day in the afternoon and he made me sit out in my driveway in his driveway while he read it and did edits, and then he walked, he didn’t even let me sit in his house, [00:16:00] walked it out to me at my car, handed me his edits and asked me to go input them that day. And so I went to the office Christmas day. And and was inputting his edits on Christmas day. So we could turn in this brief on December 26th, which to this day, the art, you know, I remember when we got to the hearing, the arbitrator is like, y’all really could have turned that briefing first week in January.
I didn’t even read it until like a week ago, you know, putting
Jonathan Hawkins: and this is a true story. I’ve got some others that are true stories. I can’t imagine, and maybe it still happens today, but I can’t imagine any associate today doing that stuff, man. It’s hard enough. Get them to come into the office. Yeah,
Dax Lopez: They’ll quit before they do that. Absolutely.
yeah,
No. I mean, back then you just, we didn’t know any better. Right. I mean, that’s kind of, you did what you were told and you know, we, I remember being called out of a vacation. I mean, I only got like a four day vacation, but I was remembering like day [00:17:00] three, you got to get back to the office to work on this issue.
So get back and you just got to cut your vacation short and come back to the office. Can’t imagine doing that today either. It’s
Jonathan Hawkins: yeah. You know, it’s funny. The folks I know that have sort of been through it. I think you go one of two ways. One is they feel like they got to haze someone else just to get them back. But I think most people say I’m never going to do that. Some, some younger attorney.
Dax Lopez: just not fair. It’s not, it wasn’t right then, it’s not right now.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, so moving on. So you, so you left at some point you left Hill and his boutique and that’s where we ended up being, cause we ended up working at the same firm and I’ll call it a business boutique And so, and, and we did, I guess, a wider array of, of litigation there. And, and I do remember another story that happened there.
Well, we got lots of them, lots of good ones, but half of them we can’t tell.
Dax Lopez: The non disclosure agreements
prevent us from
Jonathan Hawkins: but there was another story I remember [00:18:00] was I don’t know if you remember this, but somehow you got a default judgment because the other attorney just, I don’t know what happened and it was a pretty big one. I can’t remember how big, but it was, it was significant.
And then of course, and it had been in default. I mean, long in default. It wasn’t like it was just a missed by a day or something. Yeah. And of course, I think our client, your client was like, yeah, we’re taking it. And then opposing counsel, I think started freaking out and started sending you, Hey, let’s do these stipulations.
I can’t remember exactly what it was. And then, and, and finally, you know, he’s trying to insert, you know, that we agree to open default and all this stuff. And you’re like, no, I’m not agreeing to that. And then finally he sent you a draft that you said, yeah, you can sign my name. And that’s not what got filed.
Do you remember this?
Dax Lopez: what I want. Yeah, that, man, I think we had to go in front of the judge and like, You know, those are the kinds of stories where then the judge is like, well, we’ll just, you know, edit the, the, the agreement or whatever, [00:19:00] and not like throw the dude under the bus. Right. I mean, that is the, that is one of the, the craziest, sneakiest, most horrible things you can possibly do to, to someone.
And then just to have a judge be like, ah, we would just, we can just change it. I
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, we’ll just open default. Well, I remember, I
Dax Lopez: like,
Jonathan Hawkins: think like another partner at his firm got involved and there was like some 80 page affidavit where he just fell on the sword big time. I mean,
Dax Lopez: I mean, and that’s what you need to do to begin with, like, you know,
not when you’re facing sanctions I thought you were going to start talking about the story when you and I both had children that were about to be born,
Jonathan Hawkins: no, that’s a good story too. That’s a good one. I love that one.
Dax Lopez: You know, Jonathan and I have kids that are very, very close in age, like weeks, I believe, or weeks or at least a month in a, in a close in age. And so this happened to be the summer where the judgeship became available, became open, and I was going through the application [00:20:00] process for the judgeship, and we were in the middle of a very contentious It was a lender liability case against one of the big banks in town. And we had this lawyer on the other side who just, I mean, talk about unreasonable. That’s probably one of the most unreasonable lawyers we’ve probably ever dealt with. And so I kind of sent out this email to everybody saying, Hey, my, my wife’s due date is June, the week of June 8th, June 9th. And I’m just not scheduling depots or hearings or trials that week.
And you know, I’m happy to work with y’all on scheduling on any issues, And, you know, we’ll get everything done, but just that week, I’m going to be in the hospital and you’ll be enjoying the birth of my daughter. And pretty much everyone responded as you would expect. Everyone’s like, congratulations.
Absolutely. We’ll work with you. But there’s always that one lawyer who just can’t, can’t do that. And so. I got this very nasty email about how I was trying to delay the litigation and, and they wanted to take depositions all that particular week. We wanna set all these depos that week [00:21:00] and I can, you know, I called that lawyer and said, Hey, you know, we can extend discovery.
There hasn’t been a single discovery extension in this case. You know, I’ll work weekends, whatever we need to do to get it done, but just not that week. And this lawyer was very insistent that that was not gonna be the case. And, and so. Ended up noticing a bunch of depots for that week. And so I go to my good friend, Jonathan Hawkins, whose wife was also pregnant at the time with twins. But I think she, you guys were a few weeks or like a month behind us. And I asked Jonathan to cover those depots. And I tell the story all the time at CLEs. And I said, look, I could have taken it to the judge, but, you know, I just don’t like taking piddly things to judges. I want to go fight about substance, not about things that we should be granting professional courtesies to our, to our brothers and sisters across the aisle. So I asked Jonathan to cover the depots for me, and he very graciously agreed to do so. But I remember we were. My daughter was born June 9th, and I remember later that day or the next day Jonathan’s wife had a medical emergency. [00:22:00] I remember you guys went to the, you guys went to the hospital as well.
So the depots got canceled. And I remember getting the nastiest email. I mean, we’re. You know, picture this, I’m standing there with my newborn daughter in one hand and the old school blackberry on the other, right? I mean, it’s 2010. We still had blackberries. And I’m reading this email from this attorney about how Jonathan and I conspired together to to cancel these depositions. And, you know, when I tell the story at CLEs, I said, yes, Jonathan and I conspired to knock up our wives at the exact same time. So they would be born nine months later in this exact same timeframe so we could cancel depositions that hadn’t been even noticed. But yes, that was the, that was the theory of the conspiracy. So I called that lawyer up from the hospital and I said, look, you you know, my, my colleague is having a medical emergency with his wife and this is, this is a real emergency. This is not fabricated in any way. And most lawyers would be showing some concern for him and his family. And now instead of writing [00:23:00] this incredibly ridiculous email, and I told, I told this lawyer straight up, I said, look, the way I was taught how to practice law. By older, wiser attorneys is, you know, you always have to give those professional courtesies for life, life’s milestones, right? Births, deaths, weddings. These are the things that, you know, are important to us as humans. And we need to, you know, be watching out for one another. And if, if our colleague across the aisle has a birth or a death in the family. You know, you, you give them those extensions. Obviously you shouldn’t abuse that privilege, but we certainly weren’t. And I was like, look, and you just never know where I might end up. You know, just our professional relationship. You don’t know one day I might end up at a firm that you might apply to. And, you know, I’m certainly going to think about this, or I might become general counsel at a company that you one day may want to represent you just never know where we’re going to end up in our professional careers and how our paths will cross in the future. At that point, I wasn’t even [00:24:00] thinking judge, like that wasn’t even on my, my radar. And lo and behold, two months later, I got appointed to the state court of DeKalb County. And I saw that lawyer the very next day in a deposition on that case. And the lawyer congratulated me. On my new appointment and said to me, and I’ll never forget I hope you remember how easy it was to work with me. And I was like, Oh, don’t you worry. I will never forget you. So I tell, I tell folks in CLEs all the time, the lawyer you abused today might be your judge tomorrow. So just be, just be careful how you treat others in this profession. Cause you just never know how, how that might come back and hurt you.
Jonathan Hawkins: So true man, so true. I’d forgotten that story. That’s such a good one. That was a scary time. That was a really scary
Dax Lopez: No, your kids were in the NICU for a while, weren’t they?
Jonathan Hawkins: well my daughter stayed there for like four and a half months after she was born. Yeah. That [00:25:00] was scary. She’s, she’s fine now. Everybody, she’s fine. She’s 14, about to start high school.
So, yours
Dax Lopez: is mine because we’re in the same time. Yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: grow up fast, man. It’s crazy.
Dax Lopez: they do.
Jonathan Hawkins: So that’s a good segue. So, yeah, so you, you ended up on the bench from, from that firm. Only the second Hispanic state court or court of record. I will say it here in Georgia judge in the history of, of Georgia. How was that man? What was the, how was that transition?
I mean, you’re going from working a lot, working cases, having opposing counsel, all of a sudden, you know, as I’ve heard you say, your jokes just got really funny at that point. Right.
Dax Lopez: you get better looking and a lot funnier. When you take the bench, all of a sudden, everyone’s your best friends. That’s for sure. I want to real just quick backup and just kind of tell you how that kind of came about. Just quick story, how I became a judge is just because it ties into my law partner. So as I mentioned, my law [00:26:00] partner was the first Hispanic judge in the history of Georgia. He was appointed in 2002 by then Governor Roy Barnes. Tony had been a plaintiff’s attorney, he was a young guy, I think he was 32. When he beat, when he took the bench and so that just happened to be the year that I moved back to Georgia to start my, my job at hall the night. And so it was really exciting in the Hispanic community, you know, never having had a judge. And also happens that that same year was the first year we had the first state rep and the first state Senator first Hispanic state rep and state senators who were elected to the general assembly. So it’s kind of an exciting time in the Hispanic community.
We’re kind of getting a lot of firsts that year. And that’s kind of what I. Came on the scene here and as a young attorney and started, you know, kind of working my way through the organizations and Hispanic community. And so Tony and I became friends pretty early and became a mentor pretty quickly. And so he and I were in touch and we were on the same boards together and we, we kind of worked together and they spent community. And so a few years later fast forward to like 2009 Obama’s president. Tony was on a short [00:27:00] list for potential elevation to the federal bench. And that’s when he called me and I was the president of the Georgia Hispanic Bar and that’s kind of around the same time I was joining our former firm. And. He kind of said to me, look if I do become the first federal judge, Hispanic federal judge in the history of Georgia, I kind of want to make sure that another Hispanic takes my spot on the state court, cause you know, the first and only, and I was like, yo, that’s great. Who do you want me to call? I’ll start recruiting whoever you need me to recruit. And he, you know, that’s kind of what he planted the seed. And he said, you know, I think you’d be a great judge and I think you should consider it. And up to that point, I had never, ever thought about it. Never considered it. I’d clerked for a federal judge, several of my colleagues at Holland and Knight. judges are still on the bench. The honorable Susan Edline, state court of Fulton County and the honorable Sarah Doyle and the court of appeals were partners that I worked for at Holland and Knight. So several of my good friends had gone onto the bench and I still had never considered that as a [00:28:00] potential career path for myself until Tony sort of planted that seed unfortunately for him. Some of it, when he was younger when he first came to this country from Peru, there was a period of time where he was undocumented. And because of that. Some of the senators here in Georgia would not blue slip him. So because of that, the Obama administration would not consider him as a potential viable federal judge nominee because they just would never get blue slips. So, that’s just kind of interesting cause that’s, you know, Tony’s really the person who sort of put that bug in my ear and then he sort of helped me, you know, when there was an opening on the court. He called me up and said, Hey, opening, opening’s coming available. No one knows yet, go ahead and start putting yourself in a position to go through the process. And so, you know, I got a little bit of a headstart on some other folks and luckily it worked out and was able to get appointed, even though the same organization that Tony and I served on the board, the, the [00:29:00] GALEO had just sued governor Purdue at the time on some voting rights issues. And so when I was going through the process. Of the judicial nominating commission and then the short list. And then you got an interview with the governor. We had just sued him
and that was his first and only question. Hey man, I see that you’re on the board of Galileo. You guys just sued me. And I was like, yes, sir. He’s like, were you Were you in the room when they made that decision?
I was like, yep. And did you vote for it? Like sure did. And you know, I just told the governor, I just, you know, as, as a, as a lawyer, I just don’t believe anyone’s above the law state of Georgia Governor’s included. If, if, if we feel that you’re violating the law in some way, you have to be held to be, you know, held to be accountable for that.
And we were successful in that lawsuit ultimately. But I’ll give Governor Perdue a lot of credit. He ended up. Still appointing me despite that. I think if you, if you remember Jonathan, I kept coming into your office the day after the interview, like every 30 seconds, like, man, I wish I hadn’t said that, or I wish I’d said [00:30:00] this or like second guessing everything I said.
I, and I think I was in your office when the governor’s office called as I recall, they came and get me. In your office. And and I went back to my office, talked to the governor for all of 40 seconds and came back to your office and said, I think I’ve just been appointed.
Jonathan Hawkins: Nice.
Dax Lopez: I wasn’t a hundred percent sure.
Cause it was a very short conversation.
Jonathan Hawkins: that is, that was awesome. Did he ask you to dismiss the lawsuit?
Dax Lopez: Federal, federal court, man. I was a lowly state court judge.
But to answer your question, yeah, when you take, make that transition from practicing, being a practicing lawyer to a judge, particularly I was very young, I think I was 34. At the time, you know, one, like you’re, like you said, everyone all of a sudden is your best friend.
They want to know you. They, you know, they want to take you to lunch and take you to get beers or whatever, because everyone wants to know the new judge. And and I, like I said, I was very young and a lot of people in DeKalb didn’t know who I was because I was working in Fulton. You know, I worked primarily Fulton.
My practice for a very long time was [00:31:00] more national not very Georgia centric, but very national, you know, cases all over the country. So it’s a lot of people were like, who the hell is this guy? And so I, I get on the bench and I immediately start thinking about all the things that ticked me off as a lawyer, right?
Like sitting in a depo and having a opposing counsel who is obstructing the deposition, right? Or, you know, being involved in litigation when the other side’s not turning over all the documents or, or not responding to your discovery requests. And I started thinking, you know, I want to make sure that my courtroom is, is efficient and I want cases to move.
And those are the kinds of things that slow cases down, right? When you’ve got people who are playing, you know, discovery games and having all these shenanigans. So I created a pretty early on a pretty comprehensive standing order that I put in place. And there’s still a lot of judges have adopted since then.
So that’s
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, to cut you off real quick, I remember that that was, you were one of the first, maybe the first to do that. And that was pretty groundbreaking at the [00:32:00] time.
Dax Lopez: Yeah, on the state court, for sure. I was the first one on my bench and my bench had seven, you know, seven judges and none of the other judges had it. It was, it was pretty common among the federal judges, you know, judge Batten had a really good one. And I sort of plagiarized a lot of his and just sort of adopted it and, and, and edited it for the state court, you know, put the state court rules and all that good stuff. But it really much was very much a, Here’s how I view discovery, right? You are not going to go to deposition and instruct your witness not to answer unless you have a really good faith basis. You’re not gonna do all those rote objections that everyone does and every single discovery request and then not turn anything over.
You need to tell them what you’re withholding based on the objections. And I, you know, it was very much a, do not follow motion to compel. You will call my chambers every time there is a discovery dispute. And we’re going to get to the bottom of it on the phone and we’re going to keep cases moving.
And I gotta tell you, in 11 years on the bench, I probably had two motions to compel the whole time that were actually [00:33:00] formally filed because I instructed the parties to do so. But every other dispute was resolved on the phone. And guess what? Cases did not. Linger or die on my docket. They move quickly and pretty quickly within my, my third year on the bench, I had the smallest civil case counts and it remained the smallest civil case count for the remaining eight years.
I was on the bench and the day I left the bench, my case count was, was half as much as some of the senior judges. So I had 790 civil cases on, on my docket where some of the more senior Older judges had 16, 1700 cases still on their dockets because we just kept cases moving all the way to resolution, baby.
I mean, you just keep them moving because how the cases resolved. Trial dates, you know, is the number one, you know, motion or trial date. That’s how cases get resolved. And so we, we ruled quickly on motions and we put things on trial calendars and we kept you on, on those trial calendars. And I specially set everything, which few judges would [00:34:00] do that. Specially set every single civil trial was specially set.
Jonathan Hawkins: is you know, there’s a few things I really liked about when you’re on the bench. I don’t think I ever actually came before you.
Dax Lopez: Some of our partners, some of our former partners
Jonathan Hawkins: yeah, but, but I do remember, you know, That’s one thing. I mean, especially when you have witnesses from out of town and they say you’re on a trial count, three week trial calendar, and it’s just not fair.
It’s not fair to your experts, to your witnesses, all this stuff that, so that’s, that’s really a good thing. The other thing that, that you did. And I remember reading about it from time to time in the, the, the legal newspaper is you weren’t scared to like sanction lawyers where, you know, a lot of the state court judges, cause they’re elected, they really, they want everybody just work it out and they don’t, they don’t want to come down hard on anybody.
And you weren’t afraid, you weren’t afraid.
Dax Lopez: you don’t know how true what you just said is. The first time I was going to sanction a lawyer, I go to one of the most senior judges on my bench. I’ve been there decades. And I said, look, this lawyer has done [00:35:00] something that I find to be fairly egregious. You know, deceptive.
Like lied to the court, you know, deceived the other side, withheld documents, all the things you can possibly imagine. And I was like, and I think, you know, it’s incumbent upon us judges to, you know, really stand up and and sanction that kind of behavior. You got to curb it. So I’m considering this fairly significant sanction. And that older judge looked at me and said, well, when’s your election? I said, what, what does that have to do with any, I didn’t see that in the factors, I looked at the factors on the legal factors and I didn’t see that one. He’s like, well, you know, the only people who can run against judges are lawyers. And are you sure that you want to rock the boat where you get that reputation where you’re the guy who sanctions lawyers? Because you know, it’s just, it’s just better not to do that. You know, just, just deny their motion or whatever. And I was like, you know, no, because again, I remembered what it was like to practice law.
I’d only been on the bench a couple of years. I still had very vivid memories of [00:36:00] all the, all the shenanigans that happened in litigation. And and I was like, no, I’m good. You know? If this is going to cost me my judgeship, that’s fine, I’m going to do what I think is right. And I ended up sanctioning a very prominent lawyer at a very major firm for a very significant sum of money.
When I say significant, I mean like six figure type money and that I’m sure that’s probably one of the stories you read in the Fulton Daily because it, it certainly made news. But I just felt, you know, like this is just necessary. And I got to tell you that the firm. Apologized to me in the court on behalf of that partner apologized, you know, because they didn’t realize what was going on. And guess what? You sanctioned one or two folks, and I think I sanctioned two lawyers pretty significantly. You do it twice, no one, no one tries it again. And for, I sanctioned two lawyers in 11 years and that’s it. Everyone else is on their best behavior, at least in my courtroom, they’re
on their best behavior. I would hear all the other judges talk about these same lawyers and, you know, complain and [00:37:00] bitch about all the things that they were doing. I’m like, yeah, you know, you got to put the hammer down once or twice and they won’t do it again. I’ll tell you that right now.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s like children. You got to do it once or twice and then they, they straighten up.
Dax Lopez: That’s it. They straighten up. No one tries it. Yeah, And you know, I was contested twice. I had two contested elections in the time I was on the bench. Most judges don’t have one. And so I was just of the opinion. I was like, look, come and get me. I will I will continue to do what I’m doing. Cause I feel like, you know, I run a good courtroom and I, and I think the lawyers, the good lawyers. Know that this is how courts ought to run. And it’s always funny, like people who came up to me and the lawyers who come up to me every once in a while, I’d be like, man, I love your standing order. It’s great that that is exactly right. And then I’d have other lawyers like, man, I really hate your standing order. And I’d look at them and say, well, I wrote it for you.
Jonathan Hawkins: exactly.
Dax Lopez: clearly, clearly you’re the lawyer who wants to, you know, hide the ball or not turn over documents or, or make ups, you know, objections that are obstructive in deposition. So I was thinking about you when [00:38:00] I wrote it,
Jonathan Hawkins: Nice. So, yeah. So another thing I wanted to touch on that that I’ve heard you talk about you know, sort of a you got to see a lot of trials. You got to see a lot of trials and and on the state court, just for people out here who are not familiar with Georgia State Court, which you are judging.
You don’t do felonies, you don’t do divorces, but you do a lot of, you do a lot of. You know, P. I. trials and business trials and stuff like that. So you got to see a lot of stuff, a lot of juries, all that kind of stuff. And you got pretty good at sort of predicting, calling what, what the verdict was going to be.
Not only who won, but even within, you know, a standard deviation of what the amount was going to be, right?
Dax Lopez: So my, my staff and I, we, you know, we, we were very heavy volume court. So DeKalb County is part of the Metro Atlanta area. So lots of cases, lots of big cases and a lot of small cases too. I mean, the bread and butter of every state court is the, you know, the, [00:39:00] Soft tissue injury, car wreck case, the, you know, the less than 50, 000 in damages.
And a lot of those cases get tried. I’m talking like lots and we were trying for a week. I can knock them out one a day. And so we, you know, my staff and I would always play this game where we would all let’s guess what we think at the end of the evidence, just like everybody else, like if we were the jurors, who wins and how much. And we would put it, we would write it down. We’d put it in an envelope and we’d open it after the verdict and see who got the closest. And I gotta tell you, man, we got really good at this. We tried so many cases that my bailiff and I, and my court reporter, we’re getting within 5, 000 bucks of every verdicts.
You know, pretty, we’re pretty dead on in most cases. And that’s just, the Cap County juries are very consistent. You know, there are only probably two cases in 11 years where we were just dead wrong, just missed it completely. But for the most part, yeah, we knew who was going to win. I remember my wife came to watch my last trial was a [00:40:00] big medical malpractice case as a judge.
And she had never seen me on the bench in 11 years. So she’s like, you know, this is your last one. I’m going to come watch. And after the openings, I looked at her, I said, defense verdict. And she’s like, but you haven’t seen any evidence yet. I was like, I’ve seen enough of these and I’ve seen, I looked at the jurors and this is going to be a defense verdict.
And sure enough, man, they were out for 20 minutes. And after a week long trial, it ended up being a defense verdict. A couple of our friends I won’t name any names. I’ll tell you when we, at the end of the, At the the show when we close out a couple of good friends, mutual friends of ours tried their very first case as plaintiff’s lawyers in DeKalb County.
And I always tell the story and I tell, you know, we’ve always reminisced with them because they’re extremely successful plaintiff’s lawyers. Now, I mean, they get massive verdicts. Now they are doing extremely well, but their very first trial. Back in 2012 when they just started their firm they texted me and they said, Hey, we’re trying the case downstairs and one of my colleagues courtrooms come down and watch. So I go downstairs and I sit in the gallery and I watched [00:41:00] their opening, just the plaintiff’s opening. One of our buddies did the opening car wreck case and and I went back to my office. I didn’t even see the defense opening and I texted my, our mutual friend and I said, Hey, defense verdict all day. And he, same thing, wrote back. He’s like, how do you know? You didn’t even see their opening. You haven’t seen any evidence. You don’t know what the case is about. I was like, look, man, I’ve seen enough of these juries. I can tell you it’s a defense verdict. I’m sorry to say it’s a defense verdict. And so he’s like, we’ll see.
So day and a half later, get a text from him. He’s like, plaintiff’s verdict, booyah. And I was like, all right, how much, you know, question mark. And he’s like, two hundy. And like 200, 000, and he’s like, no, 200. The verdict is, you know, 40 percent of 200 is 80 bucks.
Jonathan Hawkins: God. Oh,
Dax Lopez: over at the brick store, you know, drinking our sorrows, drinking our profits away.
Jonathan Hawkins: man.
Dax Lopez: They have since done very, very well. And they’re, they’re an [00:42:00] incredibly good firm, great lawyers, great trial lawyers, but we always talk about that as being their first big trial. And. They’re like, how did you know? And I was like, again, you sit here and watch these jurors day in and day out. You get a feeling about how things are going to go.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So I want to touch on it. We don’t have to dwell here, but you did actually get nominated to be a federal district judge. You got your turn. Like your mentor. I remember that. I remember, I remember talking to the FBI. I remember they came by and it was really sort of weird. It’s I felt like I did something wrong.
They’re asking
Dax Lopez: reason I didn’t get it.
Jonathan Hawkins: they’re like, Has he ever done anything wrong? Like, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but anyway, so, I mean, you, you got fairly far along in that process and you were, you were about to get nominated or you did get nominated, but you got held up that you never got a hearing.
And I know that was at the time you know, not fun. And so, you know, I don’t want you to dwell on it, but you know, there’s silver linings and, and, and different doors have opened. I think you’re doing way better, [00:43:00] but we’ll get to
Dax Lopez: course. Yeah, that was an interesting process. You know, my name had sort of been floating around for potential federal judgeship since like 2012. And you know, there was an opening in 2012 and, you know, Georgia has had two Republican senators at a time, the white house was Democratic with Obama in the white house and they just couldn’t get on the same page as to who they wanted on the bench.
The white house and the senators can get on the same page and they were having a hard time. And so my name starts getting floated as a potential consensus. You know, I was, I was a Republican at the time. I am no longer a Republican. I can say I’m a proud Democrat. Go Harris. And, but at the time I was a Republican and that helped me get my judgeship in 2010 for sure. But in, you know, my name starts floating around and ultimately they went with now Chief Justice Mike Boggs, and that’s who they nominated in the 2012, 2013 timeframe for that spot, and then I watched my good friend, Mike Boggs, go through that process that was not. You know, it was not kind to, to him.
They had said a whole lot of horrible things [00:44:00] about him. He had a really contentious Senate confirmation hearing, which is just, was brutal that, you know, maligned his character and, you know, he’s a good man. He’s a good person and he’s a great judge. He sort of didn’t deserve what he, what And so when his nomination was clear that it wasn’t going to go through, he wasn’t going to get a vote and it was withdrawn by the White House, ultimately, after hearing, they were sort of back to, you know, step one, like, you know, what do we do with the spot and, you know, about early 2015, maybe late 2014, my name starts popping up again and I get a call and now we have a different Senator, you know, we have David Perdue, who Sonny’s cousin.
So then Governor Perdue’s cousin is now the U S Senator. He’s the junior Senator. And we had Senator Isakson who was an elder statesman, wonderful man. And so they start, you know, kind of the process anew and I get a call and a lot of the Senator Perdue people had worked for Governor Perdue. And so they all knew me cause I went through the [00:45:00] process with them. And so I kind of got that call from his office, from some, You know, a mutual friend of ours, you and I both know very well, called me and said, Hey man, would you be interested in, in sort of reputting in for this? I know you’ve been considered in the past. And I was like, you know, no, I’m good. I saw what they did to my friend, Mike Boggs, and I’m not interested in putting my family through that.
And I’m having a good time on state court. And while it’s very humbling to be considered for that kind of position, I just don’t think I, you know, the politics of it all, and just didn’t want to go through it. And, you know, I had a long history of advocacy for the immigrant community. Yeah. Sort of what got me, you know, we ended up suing governor Purdue about was voting rights.
And then we got some immigration reform issues that we were working on. That’s how I got to know Senator Isakson, quite frankly, as I lobbied his office for immigration reform. And so I was like, you know, I just don’t feel like I’m the right candidate. I’m going to get. You know, the, the way the Republican party is right now, they’re very sort of anti immigrant and I’m not, I’m not interested in kind of putting my family through that. And they’re like, no, it’s, you know, it’s a [00:46:00] done deal. It’s going to be you and two other names, two other judges, whoever the white house picks. That’s it. It’s a done deal. Everyone’s, everyone will be in agreement, but both senators have pre cleared these three names from these three judges that we’re going to submit. And we’re good with all three of y’all and whoever the, we’re gonna let the White House pick one of these three names. And so I was like, okay, you know, so I talked to my wife and she sort of, she sort of said, look, yeah, You’d be the first ever federal judge, Hispanic federal judge. And if it’s not you, who’s it going to be?
You know, you’re the only state court judge. Like there’s not a whole lot. We didn’t have a lot of bench strength back then. And so I was like, you know, all right, so I’ll, I’ll put my name in. And if the white house picks it, all right, we’ll go through the process. But I really didn’t expect the white house that I know who the other two people were and they were excellent, excellent jurists, they still are to this day, and I really firmly believe that one of them was going to get chosen. And Somehow, some way the White House decided to go with, with my, with my nomination. The other two judges were appellate judges. One was on the court of [00:47:00] appeals. One was on the Georgia Supreme court. And I was this lowly state court judge in the mix. And so, it’s funny, I tell the story every once in a while.
I was at Disney world with my family. I get a call from the Department of Justice and I thought they were calling because I was working on some access to justice issues regarding interpreters the need for interpreters in courtrooms to, to help people understand court proceedings and all that good stuff. So I was working with the Department of Justice on those issues. So I thought that’s what they were calling about. This young lawyer from the Department of Justice gets on the phone and starts talking to me about questionnaires and background checks and the FBI and how they got to move this process quickly. And I’m like, hold on, what are you talking about? You know, I’m literally standing outside of space mountain with my boys. And and they’re like, yeah, no you know, for the, for the federal nomination, I was like, oh, okay. So you guys are doing background checks on the three of us. Great. He’s like, what are you talking about? I was like, well, I know there were three names and, you know, do you all do checks off on all [00:48:00] three? He’s like, no, we typically only do the check on the nominee. And I was like, hold on, say that again? And he’s like, look, he finally, he realized, and he’s like, has no one talked to you? I was like, no one has called me. He’s like, well, let me, let me start over. Congratulations. You’re the presumptive nominee for the federal district court bench in the Northern district. And we, we got to get your, Your process going pretty quickly. Cause we want to get you nominated quickly. And I was like, Holy cow. So, the next few months were whirlwind, you know, you did the FBI, the FBI did a whole background check.
You got to do these questionnaires. You got to open up your entire life. There’s like no. Guidance from the White House or from the senators, you’re kind of just on your own. You get no information from anybody. You’re just sort of left to your own devices, devices. And you get called to the White House, you go meet with some staffers and they talked about the background check and what the FBI found and ABI, ABA does its thing and they rate you and, you know, hopefully, luckily I got rated qualified for the bench and [00:49:00] But ultimately I got nominated by Obama in July of 2015, which coincidentally had to be, happened to be three weeks after Donald Trump announced his run for the presidency. And if y’all recall that far back, cause I know a lot has happened in the last nine years his number one issue was immigration.
And how Mexicans were rapists and murderers. And, you know, they’re not sending us their best. They’re sending their murderers and their rapists across the border. And that really, you know, sort of set immigration as the forefront issue for that presidential election. And all of a sudden my background became real relevant to a lot of these Republican senators who are jumping on the Trump train, including Senator Perdue. Who very quickly jumped on Donald Trump’s bandwagon, and all of a sudden immigrants were the worst thing ever. They’re all murders, they’re all killers. You know, they’re, they’re just not good people. And I just kept thinking, it’s like, man, the entire backbone of the Georgia economy is built on the backs of these immigrants. You know, agriculture is the number one industry in the [00:50:00] state of Georgia by far. 60 billion plus industry. And guess what? It’s not you and me who are out there picking the onions or the, or the peaches or, you know, any of the other crops, it’s these immigrants from South America and Central America. And we would not function as a state without these folks. And I just really, really hurt. To hear them being demonized and I had to be quiet and I couldn’t say anything because I was a nominee and you’re not permitted to speak. And, you know, all of a sudden I become the most activist nominee in the history of Georgia.
There are websites dedicated to my destruction, national anti immigrant groups and white supremacy groups were were targeting me. And it was, it was nuts. It got ugly real fast, for sure.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I know that was not fun. And, you know, that would have been quite an honor. But you know, as I said, some doors close and others open. So that brings us to sort of where you are now. So now you got to reunite with your long term [00:51:00] mentor, Tony del Campo. And you guys are, like you said earlier, you know, doing high end players, contingency work.
And you know, you, you know, Pretty, pretty quickly, I think, after you joined the firm, you went and tried a case and, and got, popped a, a big one. It was like a 77 and a half million dollar MedMal verdict, right?
Dax Lopez: That’s right. So yeah you know, potential, I think she’s a friend of yours. Natalie Woodward went to Georgia. Natalie and I went to high school together and we’ve been friends for a long time and we have kids the same age and we belong to the same community pool. And we were sitting at the pool one day right before I left the bench and I sort of mentioned to her, I was thinking about stepping down and, She’s like, if you do, I’m going to call you because I’ve got this case.
I want to talk to you about it. And sure enough, within a week or two from me stepping down, she called me up and said, Hey, I’ve got this case that no one likes. I’ve been working on it for five years, you know, COVID delayed it, you know, for, for those couple of years, it’s pending in the cab. And I believe in it, but none of my partners [00:52:00] do.
And no one else that I know, everyone thinks I’m going to lose. You know, cause it involves a, a drug addicted, bipolar, young man who, who died in what appeared to be a suicide. And just a lot of people don’t like that. She said, the mediator told me I was going to lose, like, take whatever you can get, cause you’re not going to win. She’s like, but I just feel like there’s a case here. So she sent, told me about the case, sent me some of the materials and asked me to look at it. And so I did, I called her back and I said, Hey, Nat I think you have a 50 million case. And like silence on the other end of that line. And she’s like, can you repeat that please?
And I was like, yeah, I think you’ve got a 50 million case all day, every day. If you can prove half of the things that are in these pleadings. You’re going to be just fine and go try your case and it’s going to be great. And she’s like, no one has ever said that to me. And I, and I explained to her why. So the case involved 29 year old guy who had developed bipolar disorder pretty early, 19, 18, 19 years old, which is pretty common is when you [00:53:00] develop this kind of mental illnesses. And as a result of his mental illness, he also developed a drug addiction, which is also not uncommon. If you’re, if you develop schizophrenia or bipolar, it’s not uncommon that you find out that marijuana and cocaine tend to level you out. And so he developed a pretty significant drug addiction. And he was in and out of treatment for 10 years voluntarily.
He’s trying to get better. He was a gifted kicker. He had a, he had a scholarship to the university of Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, all wanted him. He’s a long distance kicker, football kicker, but he wasn’t able to go to college because his mental illness issues were pretty strong. And so he’s trying to get better, trying to get his life back on track and sort of long story short. He finds his way here to Georgia. He was in North Carolina, mom and dad, bring him here to a facility. And the first facility finds the right combination of drugs to stabilize them. It’s the first time in 10 years he’s stable. And then he gets moved to a drug addiction facility and there’s a psychiatrist there who’s supposed to treat both the drug addiction and and the mental illness [00:54:00] and that guy completely just does not believe that.
My, my deceit was actually bipolar. He just says, you’re a drug addict. You’re not really bipolar. Disregarding 10 years of diagnoses from other psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, which all found this guy to be bipolar. And he’s like, you don’t need these mental health drugs. And he discontinues them. And so my guy starts to decompensate very quickly, as you might imagine, the psychiatrist does not tell any of the treatment counselors what’s going on. And so the treatment counselor starts seeing this guy acting out and they think he’s just got a bad attitude. They don’t realize that he is mentally decompensating and next thing you know, they kick him out of the facility.
They’re like, you’re violating our rules and you’re being unruly, which is what you would expect someone who’s decompensating to do. And they literally kick him out of the facility. And three days later he is naked on I 85 in the middle of a psychotic delusional break probably didn’t know where he was, walks out in the middle of I 85 at four o’clock in the morning [00:55:00] naked, lays down in a lane facing traffic, and is run over by three vehicles Almost decapitating him, severing an arm and legs is horrible, horrible, horrible way to die. And I just fully believed having run a DUI court in DeKalb County, I ran an accountability court for 11 years. I was familiar with substance abuse issues. I was familiar with our populace because everyone in that court was a DUI, as a DeKalb County resident. I knew. That all, everyone on my jury, my potential jury has dealt with drug addiction and mental illness.
Just knew that mom, you know, mother, brother, sister, cousin, uncle, somebody in my family or a friend has had drug addiction or mental illness or both. And it’s not, these concepts are not going to be foreign to them. And this is a guy who’s trying to get help. voluntarily and the people who were supposed to help him were the people who failed him the most and led to his death.
So I told Natalie, it’s a 50 million case, every way you slice it. And sure enough, we tried it. 14 day trial. It was a [00:56:00] grueling, very tough trial 14 trial days. We got, You know, get to the end of the trial, 77 million. We asked for the 50 million, which I was true to my word. We asked for 50 million. The jury gave us 65 million in compensatory damages, so they gave us 15 million more than we asked for, plus 11 million in attorney’s fees and 1 million in punitive damages.
So it was a,
it was a good verdict. It was a good verdict.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s, that’s, a good one. You’ve had another big one too, right? You have like a 30 million
Dax Lopez: work. Yeah, last year we, my partners and I tried a case together, very tough case. Probably the largest verdict involving an undocumented immigrant in the history of Georgia. So our guy was you know, older, middle aged guy, 47, had three teenage kids. He had 10 brothers and sisters was in the country illegally, but was working hard, was a construction foreman, you know, foreman. He was supporting like six or seven of his siblings. He was supporting his mom in Mexico. He was, you know, supporting his kids here in the U S just a [00:57:00] hard worker, good guy, just a really hardworking guy. So he and his wife separate and he moves in with his brother and this horrible mobile home trailer park in Clayton County. And the re he and his siblings all live there. He had like four or five siblings that lived in the same trailer park because it was super cheap. It’s like 300 bucks a month. It’s very cheap. But as you might imagine, that kind of places probably doesn’t have nice gates and security and a swimming pool. No, it was just a terrible place to live, but it was cheap. And these folks really spent a lot of their money on their kids. All of their kids went to Emory, Georgia Tech, Kennesaw. Like they were all succeeding and thriving because mom and dad were investing in their educations, but they weren’t investing in where they lived. And so, this, this mobile home park had a long history of, of crime, lots of shootings, lots of armed robberies, lots of car thefts. Actually, there’d been a previous lawsuit where a resident was shot by an intruder who was trying to steal something. [00:58:00] And so we went ahead and we filed suit and it was a tough case because of this. Our guy was staying with his brother off lease. So he’s not on the lease. So. Potential trespassing issues. He’s there for two years. Then the day of the robbery, there’s someone stealing his car in the middle of the day, his sister in law knocks on the door of the bathroom, he’s taking a shower, she’s like, Hey, someone’s stealing your car. He runs out and literally shorts. Nothing else, but he does grab a gun and the gun is inoperable. It’s an antique gun, but he thought we think he was trying to scare the guy off. We don’t think he was actually intending to have any sort of gun battle. No one knew that the intruder had a gun. The kid was a 20 year old kid who’s stealing the car. It was a stick shift. So he’s stalling out, literally trying to get out of this, you know, this trailer park, he doesn’t know how to drive the stick shift and he’s stalling in, you know, out of this trailer park. Trailer park. And our guy runs out and catches him before the guy, the thief is able to leave the facility. [00:59:00] And no one is a witness to what happened there, but there’s a gun battle and our guy is shot and killed right there. And the kid gets away with the car. He’s later captured and was convicted for our, for the death and murder of our, of our guy. So, you know, it’s a tough case that is not a straightforward case, any which way a lot of people are gonna be like, well, if he’d stayed in the trailer, he wouldn’t have been shot. You know, he kind of put himself in that position. He assumed the risk. He was a combatant, you know, everything, the defense, we knew the defense was going to say all those things. And so not an easy case. But we felt strongly enough that people in Georgia believe in the second amendment. People in Georgia believe that you get to protect your, your property. And we really framed it as a, this guy was a hard worker who was supporting a lot of people and this was his only mode of transportation to get to work. If he didn’t have that car, he can’t, Provide for his family and he didn’t have the money to buy another car. So we, we really framed it as he saw his motive, you know, his mode of making money being [01:00:00] stolen, and he was going to try to get it back. So we try to settle the case within policy limits. I mean, we were, we were willing to take very little money. I mean, the family was ready to take. Just a few hundred thousand dollars. There was only a million dollar policy. It wasn’t a lot of money. We were willing to take less than the million. We gave them multiple opportunities to do so. They offered us 25, 000 is the only offer we ever got. It was a week before trial. And I was like, all right, let’s rock and roll, man. And so we tried this case in Clayton County over five days. And the jury just was a great jury. And we. I think did a great job framing the issues and got a 31 million verdicts which they did a portion 20 percent to our guys.
So ultimate verdicts was about 25 million. But that’s still pretty good on
a 25, 000 offer.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s real good. You know, the other thing in your PI firm, so you’re having great success. The other thing that I really like that I think is unique, and I’m not sure anybody else can do it here in Georgia, at least is, you know, you’ve got two former Spanish speaking Latino judges [01:01:00] that do PI work, right?
You know, that is. You got no competition there, right?
Dax Lopez: Yeah, we kind of have a niche for
sure.
Jonathan Hawkins: there’s probably not even a, a one former, you know, Latino judge.
Dax Lopez: the great thing is my partner, Tony was also just the state bar president, like a year I mean he just finished his state bar year as president of the state bar of Georgia so. We’re very small, but we’re, you know, luckily have a lot of high, high profile members of our firm who, you know, we’re doing things in the community.
I’m on the Board of Governors. So all the judges know us, you know, most lawyers know who we are. I’m also on the JQC, the Judicial Qualifications Commission. So, you know, I work to regulate judges who are not acting ethically. So, you know, kind of keeps us involved in the community. So I think people know us and respect us and they know we’re not going to, if I walk into a judge’s courtroom, they know I’m not going to ever say anything that’s going to impact my reputation. I’m not going to lead you astray. I know how hard it is to be a judge and make decisions. And so I’m going to try to make it as easy on the judge to make those decisions. [01:02:00] I think that adds value to our cases and, and to our ability to represent our clients zealously. So yeah, it is, it is a nice niche to have two former judges who understand, you know, How would we have ruled on these issues as we’re evaluating cases that we have those conversations all the time?
Jonathan Hawkins: So you’ve been, you’ve been very gracious with your time. I don’t want to keep you too much longer, but I do want to ask. So for anybody out there, who’s thinking about starting a firm, maybe they, maybe they have started a firm and you can keep it to trial firms if you want, you know, do you have any advice to any folks out there on, you
Dax Lopez: Sure. Absolutely. So.
Jonathan Hawkins: whatever that means.
Dax Lopez: Yeah. So luckily, you know, I walked into an already established firm, so I kind of had a slightly different situation, but it was a firm that was unfinished in the sense that since I’ve joined, we’ve done a lot to make it better. And I’ve also had the experience of my wife as a solo practitioner and I’ve watched her build her firm over the years.
And so I’ve kind of learned from her and watching her struggles in building up her [01:03:00] firm. And, you know, the couple of things that I, the couple of takeaways, and these are things that we’ve implemented is, you know, Your job is to sell your knowledge, right? If you’re a contingency lawyer, you’re not making money unless you’re trying cases or settling cases.
And, and that’s your, and, and part of your job too, is to bring in cases. That’s, that’s a lot. Practicing law, trying to get cases resolved and bringing in new cases. That, that is a full time gig right there. So what I would say is. Don’t be afraid to, you know, get as many vendors as you need to work on that administrative stuff.
I know a lot of lawyers who try to do all the administrative work and I saw my, my wife do it for years and it would just drive her insane because when she’s doing administrative work, she’s not making money. She’s not working on things that are going to result in money. And so don’t be afraid to get good software systems.
We have great, you know, when I joined my current firm, they did not have a good file management system. And it was kind of a free for all on the, on the computer. And I was like, we got to get. So [01:04:00] organized as a firm, so we can work more efficiently on these cases. So don’t be afraid to get good management systems, you know, outsource your HR, your payroll if you, if you have any staff members, you know, you should not be spending too much time on that kind of stuff, your job is to bring in cases, settle cases, work on cases. And anything that takes away from that is really robbing you of time. That is really more essentially and more, more important. So I, and I saw my wife sort of do that in her own office. She finally got to the point where she’s like, I just need, I’m going to, she got software system after software system to make her life easier. She got a virtual assistant, which was amazing. She got intake people in Columbia. So she’s got people in Columbia who she can train to fill out forms. She’s an immigration lawyer. So they can fill out forms. They can do the intake in Spanish and English. And And that take, took that away from her, which was a game changer for her cause it opened up so much time. So I would, I wouldn’t be afraid to do those kinds of things. [01:05:00] If you’re going to hire folks, you can’t do this alone. Make sure you have a good, you know, good paralegal or good case manager, someone who you can trust and is a sort of jack of all trades. You know, I, sometimes we don’t look for, for folks who have specific skills.
What I’m looking for is that person who’s going to take ownership. Of whatever they’re doing and who’s going to try to figure stuff out on their own, who, you know, they’re not going to be the kind of person who ever says, well, that’s not my job. When you’re in a small firm, everything is your job. You know, everything is we, I do everything. You know, I’ll do, I’ll do my own copying, my own filing. You know, we got to do what you got to do to be successful. So you want to try to find those kinds of people. And then I’ve, then we train them. They can, we can teach everything else. I can’t treat you to have a good attitude. I can’t teach you to be a person who takes ownership and who takes initiative. But once I find that person, I can train them on everything else. And that’s been critical for us. And you know, if there are so many [01:06:00] and I know that. I’m sure y’all talk about it with other folks. There’s so many resources out there for sellers and for small firms. I mean, there just are, there’s, there’s software for almost anything.
And with AI now learning how to use AI more effectively to do document reviews or medical reviews, or even draft initial demands. I mean, there are just so many good things to help you manage your time better. And where you’re just editing drafts instead of drafting everything yourself. Right. So I think just those kinds of things, you got to spend money to make money. I think a lot of solo practitioners and a lot of small firms sometimes are just afraid to spend the money on those systems just because, you know, I know it’s, it’s an anxiety, it creates anxiety. But, you know, when you’re able to focus on the things that make you money you’ll be more successful than if you’re spending 50 percent of your time on, on administrative tasks that take you away from the practice of law. So those would be sort of my big takeaways. And since I joined the firm, we’ve revamped the website, we’ve done the marketing differently just [01:07:00] because I think we were doing a lot, you know, Things were a little too loosey goosey, I think it worked for a long time, but with three partners, you kind of had to structure a little bit.
We hired more people I think they were a little afraid to hire more paralegals to work on our cases. I was like, you know, if you build it, they will come. We, we hired paralegals and more cases came in and it’s great and it was, and it’s great for workflow and keeping everyone happy and you’re not overloading one person with every one of your cases.
So, just don’t be afraid to do those things and then spend your time wisely and going out and get more cases. You got to network in this business and if you don’t have time to do the networking and the building of the relationships, cause you’re too busy in the office working on all those administrative tasks, you’re going to be losing money ultimately.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, it’s working. You guys are popping some big ones. So for anybody out there that may have a case in Georgia, they want some trial counsel on what’s the best way to find you get in touch with you?
Dax Lopez: So, our website is dgl del campo grayson lopez [01:08:00] dgl attorneys.com. You can just Google me, Dax Lopez. It’s, there’s not that many Dax Lopezs in this world, so if you Google me, I’m pretty sure my profile will show up. And that’s a lot of what I do is I get called, you know, sort of as parachute council. Since I left the bench, I’ll tell you, this has been the first. Three month period that I haven’t been getting ready for a trial. I’ve tried two big cases, but I’ve gotten ready for four pretty big sizable cases since I left the bench because I was being brought on to cases late in the game. And I was getting ready for these trials that these big trials where cases had already, you know, The discovery was already done.
So I was kind of playing catch up. That’s kind of what I do is I get called by a lot of lawyers, particularly lawyers who have cases in the cab. I know a lot of the judges, I know the juries really well. And that’s kind of, you know, a lot of spending a lot of my time is working on other people’s cases and I love it.
I love jumping into new case, giving you new perspectives, things that maybe you hadn’t considered because you’re so in the weeds. And so I’ve been pretty fortunate that I keep getting those calls and always happy to [01:09:00] help whoever needs help in their trials.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, Dax, man, that’s been fun going down memory lane. Thanks. Thanks for coming on.
Dax Lopez: Absolutely. Thanks a lot.
