My BarStory S03E02 - Judge Charles L. Patton and Richard S. Koblentz

Just how much has the practice of law changed in the last 50 years? We're going to learn how much from two men who have practiced here in Cleveland for more than half a century.

Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Charles L. Patton, Jr. and Richard S. Koblentz have seen it all, from dictation machines and ashtrays, to Zoom meetings and AI. Has it been a change for the better? Listen as two old friends share a history of downtown and of Cleveland's legal community.

Transcript

Brennan Donnellan (00:05):
This is Brennan Donnellan, media Director for the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association. Welcome to another My Bar Story podcast. We've got a good one for you this week For anyone who wonders just how much the practice of law has changed in the last 50 years. Listen, as two old friends take you back through their long legal careers in Cleveland, there are plenty of legends and landmarks along the way.

Richard Koblentz (00:30):
My name's Rich Koblentz. I am a 49 year lawyer, and I'm here with a fellow 49 year lawyer to speak about our bar story or our, our legal story with Judge Charles Patton of the Cleveland Municipal Court. Good afternoon, judge. How are you today?

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (00:44):
Good afternoon, rich. My name is Charles Patton, as you said, I'm a lifelong clevelander. Went to Howard Law School in Washington, back in Cleveland for 49 years practicing law, and it's good to be here. Okay.

Richard Koblentz (00:57):
And we talked about some of the things that we've seen that's different since the time we started practicing. One of the things we talked about as we were coming over here is the different locations to the Bar Association. When we first started practicing, the Bar Association was on the south side of St. Claire right around the corner from the engineers building, which is now, well, actually the Bar Association site was where the Marriott Hotel is on St. Clair at Ontario. Then the Bar Association moved across the street to another former building the one 13 building, which Charles and I remember was a very ugly looking green Ohio Bell building right at the right on St. Clair the north side of St. Clair just east of, just east of Ontario. The Bar Association. Then moved over to the Galleria and then has now come to one Cleveland Center. And that brings me to another thing that we've been told to see what's different. And that is the skyline of the city of Cleveland.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (01:56):
Skyline's changed tremendously.

Richard Koblentz (01:58):
It really has. The building we're in was opened up in, I believe, about 1986. The gallery opened in 1987 but the Key Center opened up the the first big building in, in Cleveland after the sixties was what's now the Huntington building was the BP building originally. The key tower went up and opened in 1990. The Federal Courthouse opened in, I believe about 2002, if I'm not mistaken. We now have the Sherwin Williams Building, which is another addition to our skyline.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (02:30):
A grand addition. Yeah. Looks

Richard Koblentz (02:31):
Good. So, I mean, we have the really, we were talking about the only big buildings that were here beside Terminal Tower were Erie View, and then the other one was the Rhodes Tower that stood out up on the Cleveland State campus.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (02:42):
Do you remember the first time going into the Justice Center, looking out the window?

Richard Koblentz (02:49):
I remember the first time going into the Justice Center and being unbelievably happy that we had a justice center and looking out the window, yes, but talk about the Justice Center when we started. And I started as a guy that, you know, made a living out of going down to 21st Street and getting criminal assignments hopefully. And then running around the courts were located prior to the Justice Center, which really opened for business full-time in 1978. Was, there were two courthouses on East 21st Street, one at 21st, and Payne, which was the Cleveland City of Cleveland Jail, <laugh> there were courtrooms there. And that was the criminal court for the municipal court, just north of, there was a tower that was the jail tower and the criminal courts building, which housed six court rooms. Also, the probation department was there down in the basement.

Richard Koblentz (03:44):
And I tried cases in that, those courtrooms that would go down there, 'cause the arraignments were all held there. There were four courtrooms in what was called the Mott Building at that time, the welfare building that's now jail two on Santa Clair. And then there were courtroom in the well, the municipal court had their civil C rooms in City Hall on the third floor. And at Lakeside we had the common police court rooms several on the first floor. Judge Bernie Friedman's room was there. Judge Francis Sweeney's room was down there, judge Ell. There were four civil four common police courtrooms on the first floor, second floor, there were two common police C rooms. And there's also the Court of appeals and probate court, all, all there. And then the third floor were common police courtrooms. The fourth floor was law library.

Richard Koblentz (04:33):
And we used to have to wait as a criminal defense lawyer for when to bring them to bring our clients over from the jail. And just as an aside, how things have changed, and it's not at least any sort of corruption as his open sheriff make Sheriff Ettrick used to have his people sell clam bait tickets. And if we didn't buy ca clam ba tickets, we'd be lucky to get our clients over to Lakeside from 21st Street for a nine o'clock pretrial by three 30 in the afternoon. But also I'd have, I had many times I'd have three Pretrials set at the same time. And one of the things Charles and I talked about is the proclivity of judges to set everything at nine o'clock in the morning. I'd have three pretrials. I'd have one at 21st street, one in the mock building, and one at Lakeside. And I'm a 26-year-old kid who could not afford to get anybody mad. And I'm running between all those courtrooms. So things have, when the Court Justice Center open, honest to God, we felt like we died and went to heaven, heaven, everything in one place. It was just unbelievably great for us.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (05:34):
I took a tour of judges chambers on the top floor Yeah. Of the Justice Center. I looked out and I could recognize Shaker Square. Yeah. There were no tall buildings looking east. And I could recognize Shaker Square 'cause it sits up kind of high. It's Shaker Heights. Right. And I looked out the window today as I was coming over here and saw the Sherman Williams building. It got capped off a month ago. Coming along fine, but I cannot look through the city skyline beyond Huron. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, that's the way the city's grown. Well,

Richard Koblentz (06:11):
I know that's changed. Well, we moved and one of the things we can talk about is how things have changed. I am now a suburban lawyer. Our, we moved our firm back in 2018. We moved out to 77 and Rockside, and I was talking the other day to my partners none of whom were with me at the time, but I remember we got a case in, I got somebody who hired me back in about 19 90, 19 98. And he came in and was referred and he said, this is a serious case. And sometimes you just need a downtown lawyer. And now I realize I'm no longer a downtown lawyer. But you know, firms, there were hardly any, there were some suburban lawyers, but almost all of us were downtown back at that time. 'cause You had to be near the courts. And that goes into a lot of the technology changes we've seen. And Charles, I mean, I know your courts been changed quite a bit by technology. If you wanna talk a little bit about it.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (07:05):
Oh, technology's a wonderful thing. Me, we do more cases by Zoom than we do in person now. And, and trials with the, the, the, the big TV screens and evidence being displayed for the jury on the screen, as big as the wall in your office. It's, it's amazing what they can do and how much information they can get up online quickly. So you, you've gotta keep up with the technology and I, we have no idea where it's gonna go next with ai. And it's amazing future improvements.

Richard Koblentz (07:42):
I'm, I'm sorry. Well, the technology's amazing. Just yesterday we had a conference, a big part of our practice is professional responsibility. We have a matter with the Columbus Bar Association. And they had sent a draft complaint up to us to be certified by the Board of Professional Conduct. We got on a Zoom call with them. We had four people from Columbus in different locations. And my partner and I he lives in Madonna County. And I, and six of us were on this one Zoom call, able to see each other, able to talk and able to go. And, you know, 10 years ago we'd been driving around to Columbus to have that meeting. So the abilities of what the technology has done and what it's allowed us to do. And I think, frankly, at least for me the real spur of that was Covid.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (08:27):
Oh, yes, that's true. 

Richard Koblentz (08:29):
You know, it just, I, I never heard of Zoom before Covid, to be honest with you. And we had it set up because my phrase, we bugged out of the office when everything closed down back in March of 2020. But it has really made a huge difference. But also all the technology. I mean, when we started we had Rotary do phones just even the messaging and how people got ahold of you is then there was voicemail. We didn't have any voicemail. But then you got voicemail, then there was pagers, then texting, then email. And what it means is that, you know, you're available now 24 7. That's good. And it's bad. And the bad part is, and I try to talk to my clients about this, and I think lawyers should realize it too, in my mind, the most, one of the most important features we can bring to the table in our representation of clients is the ability to think.

Richard Koblentz (09:27):
And when I do seminars one of the things I'll ask, at least back when we were doing them live, just because I get a kick out of it, is how many people have ever gotten a call that said, I sent you an email 15 minutes ago. What's wrong with you? And I get at least, you know, a a bunch of people laughing and people raising their hand. We live in a society where people want something right away, and sometimes right away is not the best way to do things. The analogy I use is that, and I, it, it works great, you know, with people who cook. And I'd say primarily women. I don't mean to be sexist about that, but I'll say to 'em, if you're supposed to put a roast in the oven for five hours at 200 degrees, do you put it in for one hour at a thousand?

Richard Koblentz (10:11):
And the answer is, that doesn't work real well. I mean, it, some things just take time. And I was even talking to my young partner Nick today, and I said, you know, it's a good thing I'm old because I'm a storyteller. And when I try cases, I would go out and embellish and speak about everything that happened. And I don't know that people have the ability to have to think about that for that period of time and have the attention span. And it's really troubling to me that I don't, I think too often, you know, people want something fast rather than having it done right. And they don't want to take the time to listen and do that. And I think that's, that's a, that's actually a big change, not just in the practice of lives. It's a big change I've seen in society. I, I dunno what your experience is, Charles.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (10:56):
Well, we, as I said in court, we do most things now via Zoom. Not every attorney wants to be on Zoom. So some attorneys want to come in and be in court and have a face-to-face time with the prosecutor and the judge. And some defendants also wanna come in. So the old school people, but the younger folks, we, we get notices out of court dates via text message or via email. Used to be regular US postage mail all the time. And they had trucks that would pick up our mail. 20 years ago when I was becoming a first, first year judge, I was surprised at how much the clerk's office sent over to the post office every day. But the technology is cut into that post office business. And we can, we can get phones on our watches now. So the technology is moving in certain directions and helping out. We hope. 'cause We get a, we're a lot more efficient.

Richard Koblentz (11:59):
Oh, we're unbelievably more efficient. It allows us to do things, just word processing the ability to edit. It's you know, I'm sure that any lawyer here under the age of 60 probably does not know. It'd be what I talked about, a thing called whiteout <laugh>, which was a little you know, it would be a liquid, almost a liquid paper thing that you would take out to go over a mistake so that you could change it in a typing thing. Or you know, just, you know, the whole idea of being able to move things around. I mean, I can talk to my secretary now and that's another thing that's gone. I still have a secretary. But, and say, move this paragraph, move this. And it used to be that, I mean, I was great when I first started being able to take a black pen and change things.

Richard Koblentz (12:48):
'Cause If I talked to a secretary and say, I need this whole thing retyped because of one, you know, one thing I'd have a letter ashtray thrown in my head. And you know, it's really just changed so much that we can do this. The problem with it is, it's goodness bad. Like you say, my office has a rule that they will not gimme something for the fourth time. 'cause I will always find something that I think could have been written better. And at some point you just have to close it up and file it. I mean, but it's now given us that opportunity to do these things and also not have the carbon paper. When we used to have, for example, we used to do in the court of appeals of the Supreme Court, we used to have to have them typed multiple times because you really didn't have copy machines at that point.

Richard Koblentz (13:32):
And they had to be on carbon paper. So the secretary would've to type it twice and get it on. 'cause You could only get maybe, you know, three carbon copies and that would be all. And all of those things were all part of the practice of law that, you know, we had at that time that were different. You have a circumstance where now, or at that point, a question would come up with a judge and he'd say, brief it and we'll come back in 30 or 45 days. Now the question comes up at 11 o'clock in the morning. The answer is, well, I wanna brief it. I wanna it by one 30 in the afternoon and available. And the law

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (14:05):
Clerks, so law clerks do it for us,

Richard Koblentz (14:07):
The law clerk and well, yeah, law clerks do it for the judges. Sometimes the lawyers do it for themselves.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (14:12):
<Laugh>. Yes.

Richard Koblentz (14:12):
And you know, just the availability, the difference in the way we do research. Before we, when we moved out to Independence, I had every Ohio Supreme Court decision since 1803 in book form in my office, every one of 'em, plus other documents. We don't have a case book anymore. It's all electronic. And I remember when we first went to electronic research was at that time was on discs. And this was about 32, 33 years ago. I think it was a compliment because my associates at the time, my, one of my associates and two of the clerks came in and they said, you know, do you mind since we're doing this? 'cause They come to me and said, do we mind? Can we get this? And I'd say, yeah. And we spent the money and they said, well, do you mind if we keep the books? 'cause Sometimes we still need you. Because I never really learned how to do that stuff. I was, and Charles, you've probably adapted to it. I never really did. I was like probably one of the last people that came through law school that didn't have electronic research.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (15:18):
Well, you, you and I were together. Yeah. There were no computers right in the library when I was in law school. And so my skills are a lot less than the new young attorneys coming in in front of me today. And they can look up stuff very quickly. What was the most expensive corner in downtown Cleveland? When we started practicing

Richard Koblentz (15:38):
When we first started, it would've been ninth and Euclid. That would've been the, that was the center of the city really.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (15:43):
You know, a lot of people have no idea how expensive, when we say expensive, it was the highest tax paying real estate in the state of Ohio, ninth and Euclid. And I remember what there was how many banks on the corners?

Richard Koblentz (16:00):
Well, there was, there was the Union Commerce Bank, which then became high, which then was brought up by Huntington. The Cleveland Trust was there. And then National City had a building right on the corner. So there were, there were three banks and three corners were were banks. Yeah. And the other corner was the Citizens building and the Schofield Building.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (16:17):
Yes. And there were so many attorneys working.

Richard Koblentz (16:24):
Well, Jones Day was in the Union Commerce building. Right. The Union Commerce building at that time, which is, I it didn't it, I dunno what they're calling it now. The it's,

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (16:34):
They're remodeling out drove by yesterday and stuff like that.

Richard Koblentz (16:36):
Yeah. Honey. Well, Huntington's now badged, what was the original BP building. But they had their badge on their, from Union Commerce. But actually, and hopefully they haven't done anything. The lobby of the Union Commerce building was absolutely gorgeous. 

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (16:49):
Best, best bank lobby in the world

Richard Koblentz (16:51):
Was unbelievable. Well, and the only thing that would rival it would be the, you know, would be the, the bank, the Old Society bank, which is now Key Bank in the old building, which is a national landmark right. On public square. I mean, the tower is built around that building. They, when they built it, they couldn't touch it because it was a national landmark. Yeah. And that was, I think, if I'm not mistaken, the largest building in the country that had no structural steel in it.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (17:20):
Oh. It was the tallest building between New York and Chicago when it was built. Yeah. But I, and it, it was built that way because it was the first building downtown Cleveland to have an elevator in it. Right. And that's why I got to be as tall as it was. And then Mr. Jacobs, former owner of the Indians built the tower next to it. Right. Which was also the tallest building when it was constructed between New York and Chicago

Richard Koblentz (17:44):
Replacing the terminal tower. Correct. Which had been the tallest building when it was built back in 19 29, 19 30, I believe it opened. There were more Fortune 500 companies in the city of Cleveland than there were in New York. This was a huge, huge business. Help

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (17:59):
That's hard for a lot of people to think is a real story. 

Richard Koblentz (18:04):
It's really,

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (18:05):
But it was true.

Richard Koblentz (18:05):
Yeah. I mean, this was really a huge commerce hub. And it was sort of toward the end of that period when we started you know, but you go back to, you know, the period of say, you know, 1910 to 1950, this was a huge commercial city. And very well, the population city of Cleveland, if I'm not mistaken, was well over a million in 1950 when the year you and I were born.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (18:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Richard Koblentz (18:33):
And you know, and it was, and really as I know it, talking to the guys who were the old timers when I started, which means that they're younger than I, they were younger than I am now. But the old timers at that time well, tell me, it was more prestigious to be a Cleveland municipal court judge than it was to be a common police judge. That was a bigger, that that was a bigger deal.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (18:53):
Yeah. The city, the city was bigger than the county. Yeah,

Richard Koblentz (18:56):
The city was the main thing.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (18:57):
Yeah. Yeah. So the county was rural <laugh> farmlands. Oh,

Richard Koblentz (19:03):
Yeah. And you know, so as it grew up, it was really, you know, it was really a big, big difference in the things that we've seen. And, you know, just thinking about, you know, the differences of so many things. And, you know, one of the things we talked about before was the way that we get our, our records and from, from court reporters

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (19:23):
A big change there.

Richard Koblentz (19:24):
Yeah. It used to be that, you know, the court reporters would have, and it was a cottage industry of, I would say probably 99.9% women who would be stay-at-home moms who would make a living being typists for the court reporters. What a court reporter would do was take take the case and, you know, take the evidence. And I remember when I was a little kid, I'd go down there and I'd watch it. I was always fascinated by the hieroglyphics that you'd see on the machines that they had at that time. But then what would happen is the reporters then would read their notes, dictate them into a dictaphone, and then send the tape out to a typist to have it typed. So if we had a rush transcript, we were talking a month, you know, the differences that the technology has wrought having, you know, a staff has almost become a thing of the past.

Richard Koblentz (20:12):
It's only people like me that still, you know, dictate a machine and have somebody, you know, and have a secretary type up what you've done. You know, the, the lawyers now all are doing their own work. That's good and bad. If anybody's listening to this for some tips from an old guy, I'll give you this one. It's a good idea to have somebody else proofread what you're gonna file or forward to somebody before you do it, because they will spot the mistakes. When you read a document that you've typed and you've written, you're reading what you know, you should have said <laugh>, you know, you're not necessarily reading what's on that page. And you can make a mistake that way. And when you have somebody in the middle to do that, it becomes much more, it is a lot greater idea that you're going to be able to get something done. Right. And maybe, I dunno, Charles, have you found that the art of writing has sort of gone down a little bit in the way people look at things?

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (21:11):
Well, the art of writing has improved in some ways as a result of the technology. Once again spell check is there, has been there for years. People are used to it now. Artificial intelligence is proofreading documents for you. If it doesn't make sense, they'll try and and improve it. Still, it is still new technology, so it's gonna change. But we, we've noticed I remember having a secretary who didn't wanna move from a machine. She had word processor to a computer. She just refused to do that. She quit her job. And, and I've seen people resist the new advancements in technology my entire career. It happens. And you can't stop it though. And if you don't embrace it, it just run over you.

Richard Koblentz (22:08):
So we've seen quite a few things. And the other thing is, is the costs and expenses of what's happened.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (22:15):
True.

Richard Koblentz (22:15):
We got outta law school student loans were like nothing. People had them. I, one of the things I do if I want to, you know, get somebody, a young lawyer or even a middle aged lawyer upset, is I tell them what my tuition was when I went to law school. I went to what's now Cleveland State University Law School, Cleveland Marshall. And my tuition for three years was $3,000. That's for all three years. And you know, you tell students that now, and you look at this, and one of the shames that we've had in the change, and this isn't just this in the law, but in the way society is, we do not subsidize education as a society the way we did before. Judge Patton and I, at least the way I look at it, we got our lottery ticket punched. We grew up in the golden era. Education was honored by, not only by our parents who want us to get educated, but also by society and by the government. And they did subsidize that so that we could afford to go to school in such a way and not come out either loaded up with debt or not able to go to school at all.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (23:25):
And my tuition in Washington I think there were four or five different law schools HBCU Howard University was subsidized by the federal government started during, after the Civil War by the Freedman's Bureau. And it's still substitute subsidized by the federal government. So I appreciate being able to afford to go to school, but the decrease, the price increases, just like everything else goes up, we adjust. The cost of a college education now is beyond the grasp of many people. Yeah. Well,

Richard Koblentz (24:00):
It's, it's going up. But the cost of education is far outpaced inflation. You know, when I think about something like, you know, what it cost us then compared to what education is now, I was on the board of California Western school of law in San Diego for a number of years. And even 10 years ago, the tuition there was over $40,000. Now, when you look at what it was before, as much as the economy's inflated, and I know, you know, I can be, at least we don't sound like Charles is the guy that said, you know, when we used to walk uphill to school, five miles in the snow and uphill back and forth, we don't tell people that. But my first brand new car was a mobile couples cost me $3,200. And that was, you know, 1972. So you know, those things have changed.

Richard Koblentz (24:50):
But again, education is really the thing that, you know, bothers me to see. And a lot of students, unfortunately make their career choices coming outta law school based upon what their student loans are and having to pay them back. And that, I think is really, is really a shame. And it really has increased the pressure that, and also the cost of increased the pressure in our profession for the idea of how much you produce. Law firms have these metrics and that type of thing. I'll tell you, I never knew how much, I still don't how much I bill in a month. I have no idea. I have no idea how many hours I put in. Now my young partner can tell because we put these fancy computer systems in and done that. But I've never looked, and I'd listen, I'm going, like, my only concern was have we taken enough money to pay everybody? And hopefully it's a little bit left at the end so that, you know, I can take a little bit home. But it wasn't a matter of how much you have to make in all of these, you know, kind of metrics you had to hit that, you know, we now have, you know, coming up from some of, you know, from the law firms and not just the big law firms. It's all, it's all throughout the practice in, in what this has done.

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (26:00):
And where's the help gonna come to educate our population provide healthcare and social services. It's always a tragedy. Every week a lady with mental health problems stabbed a child. The child died, the lady had been in court. I see the scenario every week in the Cleveland Municipal Court mental health issues. And they're not enough practitioners to take care of our mental health problems. Years ago, there were big, big institutional buildings that were mental health institutions. The go, the state of Ohio just eliminated all of 'em. They're all outpatient Now does it need to change? Unfortunately, the judge who handled that case in one of the suburban courts made a comment about he was outta time to leave that person in jail any longer and had to let her out. Then what? Something happened, tragic. So we're gonna have to address that issue.

Richard Koblentz (27:03):
It is a crisis. And you know, I go back to the time when they first put those laws in and they, when they had the institution still before they closed them, and they put a law in that they had a, have a hearing every 30 or every 90 days. And I actually got appointed by the probate court to go out and represent, you know, these folks. And in all honesty, I didn't wanna win those cases because I was afraid to put these people on the street. 'cause I thought they'd either die of hunger or die of exposure. They just weren't in any position to take care of themselves. And we emptied out these institutions, put these folks on the streets, and we've seen what's happened. We finally have started recognizing in the profession mental health and how important it's to the practitioners here. For a number of years, I would feel like I was, you know, out in the woods screaming at people like, you know, late Chief Justice Moyer, that we have to look at mental health.

Richard Koblentz (27:58):
You know, when they first put in the idea of substance abuse, they didn't really look at the whole idea for a while of mental health. And as somebody who's done this for a long time, and, and it's a big part of our practice representing professionals, my experience has been every person I've ever dealt with, they've had either a drug or alcohol problem with self-medicating some underlying mental health condition. And we're now in, I was extremely gratified to see new president of the bar, Matthew Besser bring up mental health at the time that he was inaugurated and say that that's gonna become a project of the Bar Association because it is, and the instance of mental health in our world is far greater than it is in the general population because of the stressors we have. Yes, yes. There's stressors of the job.

Richard Koblentz (28:47):
There's stressors, no offense to from the courts. As I look at it, every lawyer, if they, you know, do anything with the courts has approximately 100 bosses in Cuyahoga County, between co police court, the municipal court, the municipal court, and all the suburban courts. And every one of those people wants you to do what they want you to do when they want you to do it. So you have to, you know, do that. You have your clients who are there, and you know what they're doing is they're dumping all their problems on you because that's the nature of the world we're in. And all of this really combines, and then you have the family stressors and the money stressors. Why aren't you doing better?

Judge Charles Patton, Jr. (29:28):
I'm glad the Bar Association has is addressing that issue with some CLEs and some help for the attorneys. It, it is something we have to talk about, be aware of, and hopefully get more funding into mental health from the state and from the federal government. I run the veterans Treatment docket at the Cleveland Municipal Court and emphasis on treatment rather than punishment, sending somebody to jail. And the Bar Association, both locally, Cleveland Metropolitan Bar and the state bar in Columbus with the Supreme Court down in Columbus are, are both reaching out, trying to make sure judges get assistance who need help. Attorneys get assistance, help is out there and you need to know about it and take advantage of it.

Richard Koblentz (30:14):
Well, the biggest problem, you just hit the nail on the head. The biggest problem is taking advantage of it. One of the things that I try to tell people is, is that if you see somebody with a broken leg, nobody thinks that that person has a moral failing. That is a physical problem, a mental problem, mental health problem is a problem that's similar to that. The only difference is it occurs above the neck. And for some reason, we've gotten the idea that if we have a problem above the neck, well that's a moral problem. I still see a huge resistance amongst a lot of people to to admit that they have a problem and to see that they have that and to get the help that they need. And you know, I have certain tells, if I call a client and their voicemail box is full, that's my first sign.

Richard Koblentz (31:02):
There's depression. If you go back and you see it used to be on open mail, you know, now there's a lot of emails, so you don't see it hanging out. But I, I'd walked into lawyer's office and see like stacks of mail pop piled up and going, like, and you wonder why you got a problem. It's like, you know, you really have to sort, you know, Woody Allen once said, probably somebody said it before him, but used to say that, you know, 80% of success was just showing up. It's amazing how much you get done if you just actually open things up and do it and show up somewhere.

Brennan Donnellan (31:33):
Thank you for listening. Wanna record your own podcast? Visit clean metro bar.org/podcasts. And don't forget about Rock 19 on Saturday, February 8th. Tickets and sponsorships are still available@cleanmetrobar.org slash rock. This is Brennan Donald, media director for the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association. Welcome to another.