- You know most firms would put you in front of the bar and
have your license stripped. You lied to a client
and he figured it out. - Yes, exactly! Don't lie to a client. You should not lie to a
client and defraud them. (upbeat music) Hey legal eagles, D. James Stone here teaching you how to think like a lawyer. Today we're tackling a fan favorite, highly requested, Suits. Now I've never seen a full
episode of Suits before but I'm guessing from the title that it's about a group
of men who wear suits. You can tell I'm very
perceptive about these things. As always if you see any
legal or factual inaccuracies please leave me a
comment below in the form of an objection. If you object I will get
to it and I will either sustain or overrule your objection. But let's dig right in, oh and by the way stick around until the end of the
episode where I give suits episode one a grade for legal realism so you won't wanna miss that. But without further ado let's dig in to Suits, episode one. - First of all Gerald if you think anyone's
gonna touch this deal after your bad faith you're mistaken. Second the way our agreement works is the minute Cooper signed the deal which gave you everything you wanted our fee was due and payable which is why at 7:30 I
received confirmation of a wire transfer from escrow indicating payment in full. - Wait, is the deal done or not? No transaction on the planet would have someone transfer a huge amount of money before the deal is consummated. Now, there are companies that
deal in this sort of thing they're called escrow companies. If there is an amount that
is going from one company to another then you give your money to an escrow company. They hold it until all the
deal terms are complete and then they turn it over
when certain criteria are met. If any lawyer's drafted a
deal that had a wire transfer going before the terms are complete that's probably malpractice. So this is crazy. I don't know what deal
they're talking about but that would not happen. - We got paid before
Gerald signed the deal? - What are you talking about? This is a memo about some
fire drill on Tuesday. You're the blue team captain. You get to wear a fire hat. - Okay, alright so what
this person has done is called fraud. He has made up facts that are not true in order to induce someone
to enter into an agreement. When you induce someone based on fraud that is called fraud in the inducement, and when you commit
fraud in the inducement that deal is null and void
because you fraudulently got them to enter into a deal. So, if this deal goes through
and the other guy finds out that he's been lied to
in a fraudulent manner that deal is no longer done and it would be unwound
and the whole thing would just blow up. So that's not good lawyering. Good lawyers don't lie, good lawyers use the facts as
they exist in the real world to make sure that all the
parties get their best deal. They do not lie in order
to consummate a deal. That is bad lawyering, that is malpractice and it might be a crime. - [Teacher] I got it. - Alright, so he's an LSAT cheater. And he hid his test so
that no one would know that he cheated. - Hey. Hey stop! You in the cap. (intense music) - This is really interesting. LSATs or the Law School Entrance Exam is very important. Its how you get into a good law school. It's how you get into any law school. So it's not surprising then that given how important the LSAT is there is some cheating. Now the board that offers the LSAT has tried to combat cheating so they require you to
bring in a drivers license or other valid form of
ID and they check that when you enter and when you leave. But sometimes people get around that. Given how important it
is it's not surprising that there are some really
nefarious people out there who are going to try to game the system and try and get a good LSAT score because it can change the
course of your entire career. (intense music) - [Man] What did you get me? - What I said I was gonna get you, a 158. - I told you I wanted a 175. - I told you only one out of a hundred people can score that. - That's right if you score a 175 that means you're in the 99th percentile. Actually you're well
into the 99th percentile of the LSAT. It's scored from 120 points to 180 points. So if you score a 175 that means that you are basically in the 99.5 percentile. That is very, very high and
so he's not exaggerating when he says a 175 is only procured by one out of a hundred people. And he said he scored a 158. That's not a great score, that's probably in the 80th or 85th percentile so not bad, but certainly not a score that's going to get you
into one of the top tier law schools out there. So it's funny that he's
complaining about the score that he cheated and got from this guy. - We need people who think on their feet, not another clone with a rod up his ass. - Harvey the fact that
we only hire from Harvard gives us a cache that's
a little more valuable than hiring a kid from Rutgers. - You went to Harvard Law. - I'm an exception. - Find me another one. - Alright so the recruiting process is a fascinating process in law school and with firms that I
could talk about for hours. Suffice it to say there
are firms that only hire from certain schools. Now there probably aren't any law firms that hire only from Harvard. You're probably gonna
hire from the top five or the top 10 or the top 20 law schools, but there are law firms
that are very picky about where they get their
summer associates from. Now a summer associate is
a law firm specific term. It means someone that's in law school, usually this is someone who is in their second year of law school, their second year summer and they're basically
interning for the firm. And if you like that person
at the end of the summer then you'll give them an offer
to come work for the firm when they graduate from law school. That's what they're
saying when they're saying they are looking for a summer associate. That's a very common thing
for big firms to look for. So it's cool that they
get that lingo down. That's absolutely accurate. - Great thanks. - Okay. - Dot, we're gonna need
to streamline this. Give each guy a hard time
before you send them back, keep me awake if they say
something clever, cool? - Okay. What are you looking for? - Another me. - Okay this is great. He's interviewing the
law students at a hotel which is exactly where law
students tend to get interviewed for these, what are called
on campus interviews. Now I went through the
process in Los Angeles. I assume the process is
pretty similar in New York. The law students all enter
their names into a lottery then you send everyone to a hotel. You get a bunch of
associates or junior partners in the law firm to hang
out in a hotel room. The law students come in and
they conduct their interview. So, so far that aspect
of the recruiting process in law school is spot on. It's so funny, I've never
seen that in a TV show before. - So Chip, what makes you
think that I'm gonna let the whitest man that I have ever seen interview for our firm? - Because I have an appointment. (upbeat music) - And lawyers have all kinds of criteria as to how they choose
people for callbacks. These are screening interviews. They're just going through
dozens, if not hundreds of law students and if they like you then
they send you for a callback where you'll be interviewed
by a bunch of attorneys at the law firm itself. So you're really churning
and burning in the hotel and it's funny that
this guy has a criteria of they have to say a witty remark. - If you want this job so much why don't you just go to law school? - When I was in college it
was my dream to be a lawyer. I needed some money
and Trevor convinced me to memorize this math test and sell it. Turns out we sold it
to the Dean's daughter. I lost my scholarship, I got
kicked out of school I... I got knocked into a different life. - There's some truth to that. In law school, and
especially when you're trying to become a member of the bar they look at your moral character and if you have a blemish on it you're going to have to explain it. Now, a youthful indiscretion
with no follow up conduct and no criminal record,
I don't think that's gonna be a huge barrier
to becoming an attorney. You will have to explain it to the board but it shouldn't preclude you from entering into the
profession for your entire life. You just have to explain it. Explain that you're not going to do something like that again. - I need a grown goddamn man. - You give me this and I
will work as hard as it takes to school those Harvard douches and become the best
lawyer you have ever seen. - I'm inclined to give you a shot but what if I decide to go another way? - I say that's fair, but sometimes I like
to hang out with people who aren't that bright, you know, just to see how the other half lives. - Move over, I'm emailing the firm we just found our next associate. (upbeat music) - The problem here is that
he has ethical limitations as well and if he is
knowingly sort of conspiring to have someone who's
not a member of the bar participate in these activities that is a huge problem both for Mike, but also for Harvey because he's the one that's sort of knowingly supporting it so he may run into ethical issues himself that might result in him
losing his bar license by knowingly hiring someone
that isn't an attorney to do attorney's work. So big problems there for both of them. - Gerald Tate fired the firm. - So you're taking my promotion away? - You know most firms would
put you in front of the bar and have your license stripped. You lied to a client
and he figured it out. - Yes, exactly! Don't lie to a client. You should not lie to a
client and defraud them. And, oh my God, he's a
client, not the opposite side. Why would you even lie to your client? You're not even trying to close
a deal from the other side. I mean you have an ethical obligation to do what your client wants or to get the outcome
that your client wants. To lie and defraud your
own personal client? He should be disbarred for that. That's crazy, don't do that. Pro tip, don't lie to your client. - No more shenanigans. You do one more thing that
isn't straight as an arrow and instead of covering your ass I'll put you in front of the bar myself. - Mike. - Hey, who's ready for a great first day? - I'm gonna have to let you go. - That's probably a good
thing to do at this point. - For lying to a client
and if they find out that I lied about you
going to Harvard they'll-- - Oh, and by the way, the
whole partnership model of a law firm means that the partners have joint and several liability. So if one of the partners
conducts some horrible fraud on their client, the whole
partnership is at risk at that point. So, you know, you gotta be really careful and you have to worry about
what your other partners are doing, so to cover up for a partner who is defrauding and
ignoring their own client to bully them into a
deal, that is not good. This firm is not going to
exist for very much longer. - I'll um, I'll give you your promotion, but you have to do something for me. - [Harvey] Anything. - Just digging it deeper. - Pro bono. - Anything but that. - Harvey, pro bono cases
are how we as a firm show that we care about
more than just ourselves. - I'm not saying we shouldn't do them, I'm saying I shouldn't do them. - And it's how you-- - A lot of lawyers feel that
way about pro bono work. You generally have an ethical obligation to do some pro bono work during the year so you can help those who
can't afford the large fees that most law firms command. But that being said some
lawyers really hate doing it. Some lawyers really like doing it because you can get experience that you wouldn't otherwise
be able to procure like going to trial more often than not or working one on one with a client. When you're a junior
associate you often don't get those opportunities. But if you're a senior
partner you can understand why they don't wanna take that away from their billable practice. Still, kind of a dick move though. - One night he says
that if I sleep with him he's gonna take care of me in the firm and if I don't he's gonna fire me. - So what did you do?
- I went to human resources. They said they investigated, couldn't find anything
to support my claim. I wasn't looking for a payoff. All I wanted was for it to stop. Can you help me? - Uh, yes. Yes, I can. - So generally speaking
there are two types of sexual harassment. There is the hostile work
environment sexual harassment where by the actions of someone it creates an environment that is
non-conducive to working that makes people feel uncomfortable such that they can't work there, and you know, that's
generally referred to as creating a hostile work environment. You're not allowed to do that. But the second type of sexual harassment that is really less common
because it's so much worse and so much more explicit is
quid pro quo sexual harassment which is what this person describes where you are conditioning
a job or a promotion or some perk on some sexual favor and it's a really terrible thing. It definitely happens. Thankfully it's more
rare than it used to be. So if that client is to be believed that is a classic case of quid
pro quo sexual harassment. Totally illegal, but it's
very hard for victims of that kind of harassment
to prove what has happened because it's a classic
case of he said, she said. - I don't know how to fill out a subpoena. - Come on genius. How hard is it to fill out a form? - Donna, can you show me
how to fill out a subpoena? - Absolutely, and after that you want me to show you
how to wipe your ass? - It's funny because
you should already know how to do both those things. - No, no. No summer associate
would know how to do that just right off the bat. Now true, he could look at the form and he could probably
muddle his way through but the funny thing about
that is if he files a subpoena with the court, or sends a
subpoena to the other side and signs it, he has effectively
pretended to be an attorney and engaged in the
unauthorized practice of law which would get basically
all of them disbarred, especially him. So everyone there at
that firm has obligation to make sure that he does it right and they shouldn't be chastising him for not knowing how to
fill out a particular form and in fact for any summer
associate if they fill out a subpoena or discovery request then an attorney's gonna have to review it and sign it and if you sign
that you are basically saying that it's as good as
if you did it yourself and it is accurate and
it complies with the law and you can be sanctioned
as if you wrote it yourself. You cannot allow a summer associate to take credit or practice law. So all their asses are on the line here. They should not be
chastising him for this act of filling out a subpoena. - Okay, I have two words for you. Absolutely beautiful. - You think you're the only
one who can charm a client? - Categorically stunning. - So what most people don't
know about being a big firm attorney is that without
clients the firm can't operate. So generally there are a couple
different types of partners. One are the partners that
just bill like crazy. They're often the best attorneys. They're the ones that
really put in the hours and they're bringing
revenue into the firm. Now there's another type of partner which are the rainmakers,
the people that more focus on bringing clients in. Now both of those types
of partners are important because without clients
there's no work to be done. So often an attorney's job
is not just the nine to five court pleadings and
dealing with transactions. There's a lot of client management where you have to make sure that there are more clients coming in so that you have work to do in the future. - They filed a motion to dismiss the case based on our lack of evidence. - Good. - Good, what do you mean good? - They don't wanna hand over the files. You pressed where it hurt, you're looking in the right place. Did you think they wouldn't fight back? - Well, I... Now that you mention it. - Oh. - Alright, so that doesn't
make any sense at all. A motion to dismiss is
a motion that you file on the basis of the pleadings. So, they're the plaintiff here. They file what's called a complaint which lays out their whole story. That she was fired and
the other side is allowed to either file an answer
to that or file a motion to dismiss in most jurisdictions. The part that doesn't make any sense here is that the motion to
dismiss takes the allegations and the complaint at face value. So there's no evidence at this point. There's been no opportunity for discovery, it's also been just a couple of days so these things take months. But you can't file a motion to dismiss on the basis the other side
doesn't have any evidence because no one has
gathered any evidence yet. So that doesn't make any sense. - I care about this woman. She's got nowhere else to turn-- - And you can't help her by yourself. - I can, I just prefer not to. - This is a really good example of why you would never hire someone
who did not go to law school and doesn't have any legal experience. The law and being a lawyer
is all about application. It's not about the memorization of facts. I can go online and I can look up what the rule is, what the law is. I can look up the case law. I don't need to have a photographic memory to make a good argument. I will look up the
authority that is relevant. The idea that this guy would
be a cracker jack associate simply on the basis of
reading a bunch of law books makes no sense and it's
why, realistically, he needs to ask for help from
people who have experience because they're the ones that can help him because they've been in the trenches on this kind of stuff. So, it's good of him to ask for help. That's what a junior associate should do but he's not gonna be a good attorney just on the basis of having a good memory. - Okay, you're asking
to look at private files without any evidence of your assertion. - Yeah, but the only way
that we can find the evidence is to look at those files. - It's a rickety argument. - But is there precedent? - Oh my God this is such
a stupid discovery battle. Discovery allows you to get
evidence from the other side and you don't have to
make a positive showing in order to get that evidence as long as you can demonstrate that the evidence that you could potentially get is related to the allegations that
you've made in your complaint or are related to
defeating those allegations or are relevant to your
defense in the case then you should be able
to get that information. You know, bounded by
things like privilege. You can't get things that
are necessarily privileged or trade secrets or things like that, but if there was a rule that
said you had to have evidence before you can get
evidence well no lawsuits would ever happen so this is, this is a stupid argument
that they're dealing with. This is not the kind of discovery dispute that you're gonna deal
with as an attorney. - I'd like to think
Herman would come to me before it even got to an investigation. - I saw that, that should be stricken. - Well, what if Herman did
come to you, your honor? - There's nothing to strike. There's nothing on the record. (laughs) - By firing him under false pretenses. - You really think that little of me? - I wouldn't trust you as far as I can throw you, your honor. - Hand over the files today, that's it. - It's a little ridiculous
to hand over the files today. Usually you would have several
weeks to go over the files and then turn them over. You have to be able to review
them before you turn them over to the other side. You have to check for
things like relevance. You don't just get access
to millions of pages of documents just by requesting them. But this whole dispute is kind of insane. Every civil case goes through
what's called, discovery. It's the process by which
you ask the other side for information and the other
side has to turn that over unless they can show that
there's a reason not to. Sometimes that reason is
because it's privileged, sometimes that reason is
because it's not related to the lawsuit. And even if they were able
to get that information it wouldn't relate to the
claims that they're making? But you always have to
engage in some discovery and it seems like this
company is just saying, you have filed a sexual harassment claim against our company and
you should not be entitled to any documents whatsoever. Well, as you can imagine,
that doesn't fly. You always need some
documents and the company that is the defendant
is going to be the one who possesses those documents. This is a dispute that would never happen. - [Rachel] They're trying
to bury you in paperwork. - [Mike] Well, they picked the wrong guy. - If they didn't, I did. Get
it done by the end of the week. I gotta run and charm a new client. - Yeah, so this is a tactic
that actually happens. You often seen big companies
try to bury the other side in paperwork, especially
if they're going up against a small firm
or a solo practitioner that doesn't have the
infrastructure to be able to review all of these documents. However, any major law firm, and this appears to be a major
law firm in this TV show, has in-house document review systems and what they allow you to do is to scan thousands and sometimes
millions of pages of paperwork and to run word searches on it. Not to mention this kind of tactic of trying to bury the
other side in paperwork is highly disfavored by
federal and state courts. And if a party tried to do this to me and give me a huge dump of paper files I would turn around and
go straight to the judge and say, this is ridiculous, they're trying to drive up our costs and ask them to give it
to me in electronic form. Or if I couldn't do that
then demand that the court give me a court order ordering them to turn
it over in electronic. - Two months later I was fired
for having a bad attitude. - This is ridiculous. - Wipe that smirk off your face. You're not even supposed to be here. - You really don't want
that guy in the room during this deposition. No good can come from that. - After working for Devlin Macgregor you then went on to
waitress at Hooters, right? - Yes, I did. - A place that advertises the sexuality of its wait staff, correct? - You'll have to ask them that. - I'm asking you. - And she's not answering. - Alright, this is good. This is actually what a
deposition looks like. You sit in a conference table. You've got attorneys on either side. Sometimes you have a party representative and you have a stenographer
who's taking down everything that's said
for the official record. So this is a fairly
accurate representation of what a big firm deposition looks like. - I'm sorry, you were
arrested in your past and you lied about it here under oath. Is that making it seem
different than what it is? No answer, alright. - At this point Harvey and Mike should be objecting like hell, they should be instructing
the witness not to answer and they should be
chastising the other attorney for bringing up this subject which was a criminal
matter when she was a minor but also was under seal. How did this guy even
get that information? I don't know the rule with respect to whether or not she can be found liable for perjury in this particular context when the subject was sort
of off limits to begin with but all of this is wrong. They should be up in arms, they should be shutting
this deposition down. None of this should be on
the record at this point. - You can save your breath. There's no way I'm testifying
at the hearing tomorrow. - That's not why I'm here. I know what you did.
- What are you talking about? - You never worked for Devlin Macgregor. And you were never harassed by Mr. Hunt. - That's a lie. - Look, I can tell you that
I've got the canceled checks or the wire transfer
- this doesn't make any sense. Okay, here's why this
doesn't make any sense. They're hinting that the other side hired a witness to
testify that the defendant sexually harassed her in
some sort of quid pro quo sexual harassment, and then
she was going to basically purger herself and admit
to not being truthful about a prior crime when she was 17. That doesn't make any
sense because her testimony is still on the record. She testified that he
sexually harassed her. So they hired someone to provide evidence for the other side. Now true, they might have
to deal with the fallout of her being shown to be not
the most trustworthy person but that testimony is still on the record. They hired someone, they paid someone, to give horrible testimony
about the defendant. They're not even witness
tampering right, it's crazy. - Wire transfer from your
account to Joanna Webster's. Phone records with Joanna
Webster prior to her testimony. And an affidavit stating
you paid Miss. Webster to falsely testify. - But, again, she falsely testified against the people that hired her. That's not even the way
you'd wanna witness tamper. They paid someone to give
testimony against themselves. It's totally insane. - What do you want? - An admission of guilt and a guarantee that
you'll obtain treatment before working again. - Again, there's nothing
for him to admit guilt for, except maybe witness
tampering if that is an actual criminal crime. This is a civil case
for sexual harassment, quid pro quo sexual harassment and he needs to pay the plaintiff money and there might be an
admission of liability but the most important thing is that he's gonna compensate her for the wrongs that she's done. That's how the civil system works. You put people in jail
to punish them for crimes against really the state,
and the people in general. You are civilly liable for things that you've done to an individual. In this case, sexual harassment. - [Judge] All rise. - That was Suits, episode one. A lot of things going on there, a lot of moving pieces. So how does it stack up
against the real world? What grade does it get? Well, let's see. In terms of the recruiting
process in law school that it gets spot on. And there was a lot of
brilliant legal arguing marred only by the fact
that every single one of those attorneys
would've been disbarred. So all and all I give it a B minus. They get some things right but
a lot of the legal argument is wrong and all of those
attorneys would've been disbarred. So, if you like this
video please subscribe for more legal analysis and
I put together a playlist with all of the legal reacts series. If you like this video
you'll love the other videos on A Few Good Men, My
Cousin Vinny, Law and Order. So click on the playlist and I'll see you in the next video.
TL;DW
He reacts to the Pilot (S1E1), the best in the entire series. A lot of things like the Law School interviews and a few lawyer tactics are accurate and on-point. The character portrayal by the cast is phenomenal.
However, a lot of stuff is pure fiction and never happens in real life, which is expected since it’s a TV show.
Harvey defrauding the client in the first 5 minutes of the show, Harvey putting EVERY single partner in the firm at joint liability when he hired Mike along with the opposition hiring a witness to testify against themselves are some examples of things that would NEVER happen.
We should be thankful the show is not 100% true to life, law practice is boring AF irl.
That was actually really informative and entertaining. I actually through the whole thing in one go. He gave the episode an accuracy grade of B- and said some things were spot on like the hiring process for the interns.
What I found interesting was how he was quite lenient to Mike when it came up up that he didn’t know how to do certain things. That a second year summer intern wouldn’t know how to do those either and considering that Mike wasn’t actually at law school people at the firm should be more willing to comb through the work he’s doing and assist him.
I really like this guy!! I’ve seen a lot of his other videos. He’s intelligent, cute and articulate.
“This firm is not going to be around very much longer”
Proceeds for another 8 seasons
If you are into this type of thing Dr Mike does this with dr shows