Ronald Burdge, Laura Skidmore, and Nathan Burdge

00:00 My name is Laura Skidmore. I'm 30 years old. It's June 20th, 2010. We're in Dayton, Ohio, and I'm talking with my dad.

00:14 My name is Ron bergeon. I'm the Dead.

00:21 I was wondering why you decided that you wanted to go to law school.

00:29 I was in.

00:31 College in San Diego

00:34 And I had gone there to get into broadcasting.

00:41 I had this notion that I wanted to be a disc jockey and that you could actually the idea that you could actually make money playing records on the radio and making wisecracks and and entertaining people just struck me as a great way to make a living.

01:03 I knew that I couldn't sing. So I'm never going to get in the rock band never be a rockstar, but I can play the music. I figured that part I could do so I went to San Diego to get into broadcasting and while I was there.

01:19 I guess maybe a year after I got there and was taking all the courses the basic things and everything. This retired Federal Communications. Commission are named a h Rex Lee came there and I was assigned to be his student assistant I ask for it because I wanted to be around him cuz I thought this guy is a big-shot. This guy's from the Federal Communication Commission that runs all of the radio and television industry. He's one of the seven people who were in charge of that for the entire country so I could probably learn a whole lot from him.

02:00 What I didn't realize was that in getting to know him and talk with him. I got an interest in the legal side of it and part of that interest came because

02:17 I was told that you can make good money being a disc jockey, but you can make a lot better money being a lawyer and so being at that age. I thought well that sounds like a good idea in an oligarchy can have the best of both worlds. You can be in the radio business and be a lawyer but that that didn't quite turn out the way I expected because they the law schools that I apply to and I picked a couple of them to go to I feel that all the applications and everything and then I took the law school exams the entrance exams and I got really good scores on that and then as I sent all of it in and I was all set to go. I got a notice that I didn't exist San Diego State and had this is the early days of computers and San Diego State had basically erased me from their computers, so

03:17 Here I am with this really good law school entrance exam score and I've got my target set on George Washington UCLA some and a couple of others and some really good law schools. That would get me into the broadcast engine industry, but I don't exist. I have no College records until I can get in and by the time they restored the computer records it was too late to get in and the only place I could get into was University of Dayton and the only reason I can get in University Dayton is because I grew up around here my mother and father were total basketball nuts and back in those days University of Dayton basketball game for broadcast all the time on local television.

04:07 So I wrote a letter to the Admissions Office at University of Dayton talking about how I absolutely loved watching University of Dayton basketball when I was a kid, I never watched much of it that I could stand, you know that the most interesting part of watching UT basketball when I was a kid with the popcorn that we got now when I went to an actual basketball game in high school, I enjoyed that but that wasn't University of Dayton, but the only way I could get into law school was to butter him up and make it sound like I really want it in there because I really loved going to UD. Well I got in

04:45 But I never got into broadcast law. They didn't have it in Dayton Ohio back. Then that was a very specialized area that only existed in a few colleges in a few law schools. So even though I was in broadcasting in California and was having fun doing that and pick Lee College broadcasting when I went to law school and basically stepped away from broadcasting and never got back to

05:10 Man instead like many things in life you you turn left instead of right and your life goes on a totally different direction without really even knowing it. But at the same time, it's usually the way you're supposed to go. You just don't know it when it happens. You think you're making your own decisions and you are but the reality of it is there's a place you're supposed to end up.

05:37 And with me I ended up being and doing pretty much exactly what I was supposed to do.

05:43 And I love it, but it's not broadcasting, but I always loved broadcasting.

05:51 So how did you get into consumer law because when I tell people now who are in who are lawyers? I have a few friends who are lawyers when I say, oh yeah. My dad's a lawyer. Who is he and I tell them a thing. Oh my gosh. That's your dad are amazed that you're my dad. So how did you get into consumer?

06:18 A few years ago Ashley 2004

06:23 I was at a seminar where I was given an award consumer lawyer of the year and I had to give a speech.

06:31 And when I did I said then how I got into it.

06:38 And I never forgot how I got into it. I was still

06:44 Like I think I was just finishing up law school and after I pass the bar.

06:51 Almost the very first client who came into the law firm. I was working at with a guy named Carl Fry and I don't remember his wife's name now, but he had it bad Chrysler.

07:02 He came in and he was given an appointment with me because he said he was there to talk about his problems with his car and what the laws were they could get help with getting out of this getting rid of his car and the other lawyers who were there?

07:20 One of them have been practicing for a couple of years another one for a couple years more than that. And another one it would practicing for like 15-20 years. None of them had a clue about what am I what law might be applicable and how to help him out of it. So, of course, they threw into the new guy figuring that fresh out of law school. I probably know more the law and maybe have a better idea. Carl came in he started talking about his Chrysler in the problems. He had and hand me a booklet.

07:51 And it was a booklet with a picture of a lemon on the front literally a lemon a drawing of it and it was from the state of Maine and it was called The Lemon guide and he said here this might help you figure out some of the laws. I must have looked as green as he probably thought I would end so he left and I started reading through the booklet and I was absolutely flabbergasted about these laws that existed that I hadn't heard of in law school and it was nobody knew anything about it and really talked about and I started doing some more research and came across to another law that Ohio had that I found out later every state has what's called udaap laws unfair and deceptive Acts or practices, but Ohio's was much stronger than some of them and what made a remarkable was that nobody was doing anything with his loss.

08:48 And I felt a lot of Sympathy For Carl because the first new car that I ever owned which was a 1966 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia the engine blew up on it when it was still brand new and my father went to the dealer and argued with them because I didn't know what to do and I was just a kid and they weren't going to do anything for me and he got them to fix the engine for me.

09:20 Then years later. I bought a new car that also turned out to be a lemon and I started arguing them on my own on that but when car was sitting there, I knew what it was like to have a bad car.

09:33 And I thought well, this is a chance to do something and learn something that apparently nobody really knows anything about what got me into consumer law was Carl Frey and the book he gave me which didn't even talk about all the laws we have now, but it talked about a couple of laws that people weren't doing much with back then and I remember when we had his trial in his case went to trial when we had his trial.

10:07 Here I was with the attorney from Chrysler who is a fellow who was probably sixty-something then and had been practicing for probably a good 30 40 years. And here I was a kid Hood literally been practicing no more than a year or two or three and I remember at the end of that trial which we won at the end of the trial Tobias was his name he came up and he said, you know, this is the first time I ever had to go to trial on one of these and I talk to myself my goodness here. I am literally brand new and I can go trial against the guy has been practicing law for 30 or 40 years and beat him and I thought this is pretty good. I think I could enjoy this and so I kept right on that it

10:54 Well, my next question was going to be if you ever had second thoughts about being a lawyer but it sounds like at least once you got into it and maybe he did did you have second thoughts before then?

11:09 Yeah, I did and it is is curious when I look back on and think about it. I had second thoughts about being a lawyer two times.

11:23 One of them was when I realized that and I don't remember when this was but I I remember it donning on me that both of my kids were growing up and I wasn't seeing as much of it and being a part of as much of it as I wanted to or I felt like I should and it bothered me a lot at that point. If I had had another alternative way of making a living I probably would have walked away from it, but there really wasn't any other way. I have been away from broadcasting for so long that I didn't have a clue about how to go back and do that.

12:08 And then nothing else I'd ever done in my life really trained me to do anything or to make a living in a way that I felt. I could have a shot at it. So I was pretty much stuck with having to go on with that the second time that I had second thoughts about being an attorney actually.

12:33 Probably is only during the last year or so.

12:37 And that's probably only because I'm at this the end of the career instead of the beginning in the oven.

12:46 For probably the last 15 years.

12:50 Just about every time I would ever see my dad. He would always say don't wait too long retire retire and enjoy what you got and enjoy the life you have before you find yourself at the very end of it having worked every single day of it and not enjoying everything around you and the people that you love so much.

13:17 And probably somewhere in the last year. So what principle my answer to him whenever he would say that was always I still like it. I'm still enjoying it. As long as I'm having fun. That's what I'll probably do.

13:31 And then some somewhere probably around a year ago. It occurred to me. I'm probably not having that fun the way it used to be. And so that has been in my mind since then because it's it's not as much fun as it used to be but amazingly

13:51 I was in court on a trial probably two months ago.

13:57 And with an Associate attorney and I was going to do the examination of an expert witness or expert witness on the case in the cross-examination of their expert witness. That was all I was going to do.

14:10 And it all came back. There was something about being in a courtroom and being in control of that and and examining a witness and asked me if the right way it is. It's like jousting verbal jousting or fencing that's probably a better example of a verbal fencing where you throw question out and you're jabbing at them and they give you an answer back and they're trying to jab back at you and at the end of that exchange you gotten the questions in the answers you want and so as as I was getting ready for this trial I thought oh man. I really this is really going to be good.

14:58 And then the trial got postponed by one day and I had a conflict and couldn't do it. So instead I literally had to give my entire outline of everything and everything. I would have figured out how to ask questions and how to get into say things. I knew I was going to catch him in and and expose the the faulty logic had been using in his testimony and everything. It was all set and I had to give it to somebody else and they had all the fun.

15:24 I said what my dad said is still true the same thing it can be fun, but it's not as much fun as it used to be.

15:36 So how much longer do you think you will work or what kind of future do you think you're going to retire all at once or ease into it?

15:48 I don't know that I'll ever retire course with the way the economy is gone and and Investments and and retirements and everything else that me and a whole lot of other people were counting on having evaporated pretty much that's not really anything that is likely to happen as soon as I would like it to be

16:11 But in the last

16:14 In the last few months or so, we've been talking about making plans and getting things in place. I'll probably work another 3 years give or take a little and when I see happening is essentially moving myself away from the lawyer trial business more into the other thing that I love doing, which is teaching teaching and talking to other lawyers. It would be an absolute shame to let

16:47 The the the people who need to know how to handle themselves in this profession just simply walk into it and and deal with it and not really do it, right.

17:06 A young lawyer has no clue now how to walk into a courtroom and do much of anything when they come out of law school used to be you would come out of law school and you would go into working with another Law Firm or you're beginning Law Firm for a few years, but now with things being what they are that doesn't happen nearly as much as it used to be. There's a lawyer who was just assigned. She's the third lawyer on this case.

17:35 That we're handling.

17:38 She represents the car dealer and she going to law school last fall.

17:46 That's only a matter of like 6-8 months. I mean, that's what she got the admitted to the bar. She's in her own law firm with two others. They got out with her.

17:58 They have no clue what they're doing. They're just trying to get by it looks great and they got a nice website and I'm sure they're officers. You're nice and everything, but when it comes to going into a courtroom and handling yourself, it is not like the rest of life it is you got to do things, right? You have to be careful yet be prepared. And if you if you aren't then you look bad and I think one of the things that I've enjoyed so much about being a trial attorney is I would always take every case personally and it was always important to me to win because at the end of the day when those people would leave that courtroom

18:46 Who are my clients they walk away and they go back to their life and the only chance they have of getting back to the life that they want is in your hands and whether you're talking about.

19:00 Straightening out a a car problem or you're talking about someone who is ripped off by a private school or someone who had invested money in something and just lost it all because of some scheme or whatever you talking about helping people straighten out their lives and that only you only get one chance to do that when you got a case with them and so it's important to try to get it done. Right and that's not always easy. I still love it and I still love the idea of helping but now I'm beginning to think that the place where I need to be is helping other lawyers learn how to do what can be done right when you see a lawyer in a courtroom. Who knows what he's doing. It's just incredible to watch it truly incredible to watch.

19:51 And I imagine that the people who have never been in courtrooms much don't quite recognize it for what it is, but it is really an art and it's just always there's nothing like that moment when you have somebody on the witness stand and you ask a question and they give an answer and you know you got there is nothing like that. Same thing with a jury. I remember that Riley had a while back where I was in closing argument and I was I was giving the closing argument statements and exclamation everything else with Jerry and

20:25 I remember what was so unique about it. I wish I did something I've never done in any other case before or since and I only reason I did it was because I felt I already got this jerk. We already got this case. I just need now to sit down and explain to him why we got it and I decided I wasn't going to do with the way I done every other case and the way I've done all of them since then instead and I asked the judge beforehand if I if I could do it and he said it was okay cuz if you don't do it and so I asked me if it was all right. He said yeah. I also went to a closing argument. I came up. I walked up the way the podium was standing where you're supposed to stand when you give closing argument to the jury.

21:08 And I pushed it aside and I made a few remarks that I was making a said. You know, I've been standing for three days now if it's all right with you folks. I'd like to just sit down and talk about what I think here and I pulled a chair up no notes no nothing and just sat in front of the jury and a chair.

21:29 I just talked to him.

21:31 Talk to them in a tone of voice very much like this about what the case was about and why it was right and why we were on the right side here and what General Motors was saying was wrong and why it was wrong and everything else and it was one of those times where you look the jury in the eye as you're telling it and you're talking with them about it and you see and you know that they see it and hear it and know it just like you do and that you're right. There are so few times in life where you can be sure. You're right about things anymore.

22:11 That was one of those times and what was even more fun about it was it when I got totally finished with it?

22:18 And I stood up and push the chair back. The defense attorney had no idea how to deal with it because he had never seen or heard of anything like it either and so he know was going to go to the podium and Beast if I need my do that so he just set up on his table.

22:37 Which was further away from the jury and made it look like he was in a sitting in school or something and it didn't come off nearly as well. But

22:49 What I'd like to do is to in the next couple of years move myself into that position to where I'm mentoring and coaching and teaching lawyers how to be a lawyer now to handle clients and deal with all aspects and particularly what to do in a courtroom now in active

23:13 Is that really the funnest thing over all that? I think I've ever experienced consistently in life. Was that moment in a courtroom when you're in control and you know, you're in control and you see the first sign that someone else in the room knows you're in control to cuz that's when you know you did right.

23:36 Thank you for talking with me. I wish we had more time. I'm sorry. I took it all up. You're the one who's supposed to be talking. Thank you.

23:47 My name is Nathan Burge. I'm 36. It is June 20th, 2010 or in Dayton, Ohio, and I am talking to my dad.

24:01 One of the first things that I

24:04 What kind of wondering about is how does your life looking back on it? How does your life compared to how you thought it would be say when you're working right? Get out of high school. You're just getting ready to start your adult life and how you thought it would be how does it how does it compare to what you thought it would be?

24:26 It's a whole lot better when I was I remember very clearly coming out of high school. I had a 59 Ford Fairlane. It was the best thing I had in my life at the moment.

24:40 And I was I was going to go to college.

24:44 And work my way through and pay my own tuition and all the rest of that jazz and I had no clue what I wanted to do or what I was going to be or where I would end up absolutely none. I just want to go to college because I knew that you had to have a college degree to be able to make a decent living and I just took general education at the outset. The general course has nothing in particular then I got interested in journalism only because I took this speech class.

25:21 I can still remember that the professor's face. I took this speech class because I had taken some journalism and public speaking in high school. And so kind of entertaining and is a public speaking class and the first day of class.

25:40 He would call each person up to the front of the class.

25:47 And you would give him one word and they had to talk for 3 minutes.

25:53 With that word being what they started with and basically what they were going to talk about.

26:00 And it was intimidating as all get-out because this is real college now and when my name got called, you know, you're always glad when your name isn't the first net worth of scenario, but course the problem is sooner or later they get to you no matter where you are. So they called my name and I walked up and then he said chloroform.

26:23 Now I had no clue what in the world. That was I figured that it probably had something to do with making grass go green. So I decided to play with that and I remembered talking about grass turning green in the importance of chloroform in our life and how it brightens up the world and how it got a Minit I went on for like 3 or 4 minutes and I went beyond the time that I was supposed to I know that and it was comedic people were laughing and and I just sort of enjoyed playing it that way and making them laugh and then in retrospect I think to myself how in the world could you talk about 3 or 4 minutes over something like that for god sakes and at the end of it that the Prof was laughing too and at the end of it when I was going back to sit in my chair and was getting ready to call the next time. He said, you know, you are to go down and sign up for the newspaper cuz that was great and I thought well that didn't sound bad.

27:23 I did and that got me into journalism and that got me into broadcasting and that got me into law school and that got me into being a consumer lawyer have a curious part is that none of those were straight lines in every single case? There was a point where I turned left instead of right and it led to the next thing if you'd chosen some other word. I probably wouldn't have had a clue what to do then either. It'll probably wouldn't even enjoyable or funny or anything and I probably wouldn't have gone to the newspaper. But I did if I hadn't gone to the newspaper, I wouldn't have gotten interested in journalism and in writing and then in talking and hearing about radio.

28:14 And if I hadn't gotten into the radio part, I wouldn't have run into the guy who got me interested in going to law school because instead of being a disc jockey you can make more money if you knew radio and you didn't broadcast law so I did that and if it hadn't been for the University erasing my transcripts so that I didn't exist and couldn't get into law school. I wouldn't have gotten I would not have ended up in the Lost Girl. I went to my went to University of Dayton because everybody else was full up by the time they restored my credit credit my

28:49 Scores and such were such that I should have been able and would have been able to get into one of the two top broadcast law mass communications law colleges law schools in the country.

29:02 But I didn't expect as far as my transcript goes. So once again, I went left instead of right and when I got to UD UD they didn't have any of that.

29:16 But then I ran into literally at a store in Franklin.

29:23 Jim Rupert

29:25 And he was the head lifeguard at the swimming pool where we went when we were kids and he asked what I was doing. I didn't know it was a lawyer and he invited me to come out and and work in his office if I wanted to while I was going to law school. Once again, it's like fate but it really isn't fate. It's the way it's supposed to turn out. You just don't know it at the time and every step along the way took me to where I ended up being none of the steps were where I planned on going but back at the beginning coming out of high school. I didn't have a clip absolutely not

30:04 And if you would told me back then that I was going to be a lawyer. I wouldn't believe it let alone if you had told me that I was going to be working in an area of law that nobody at work again before I got there and do something with it. I wouldn't believe that either.

30:23 I thought you were smoking some of those things I heard about on radio, but hadn't yet run into myself.

30:29 I was looking forward to it.

30:36 What age do you think you grew up in 18, you know is the age of adulthood, but when do you really think you grew up?

30:44 I didn't grow up at age 18. I'm not sure many people do grow up at age 18 when I was 18.

30:53 You you can get drafted but you couldn't vote you could open a credit card account someplace if you had a job, but what they didn't tell you was that you weren't legally responsible for it until you're 21 course, they fixed all that by the time I was Way Beyond those years, but I didn't grow up then.

31:16 When I was 18, I grew up a little bit when I was 19 or 20 grew up a little bit more 21, but didn't really grow up there X I'm told I still haven't grown up and I think there's some truth to that. I think that if you keep your humor about you and you realize that in the long run, you know you just here and you just need to enjoy every minute that you can whatever you can.

31:51 That sometimes you'll stumble across the fact that the people who sometimes enjoy their moments more than anyone else in the room are people having grown up.

32:02 And whether those are little kids big kids to make a lot of difference. There are things that I still do that. I do just simply because it's fun and because they they remind me of things when I was little

32:16 Which I had and they also remind me of things. I probably shouldn't do anymore.

32:23 I think that.

32:25 I probably grew up though.

32:28 Mostly

32:33 Around 1990

32:36 92 around in that time frame. I don't think when I got married to your mother that I really had a clue about what life was like

32:51 And how to handle life

32:57 I'm not sure either one of us kid frankly, but

33:02 I think it was when when that marriage came to an end, which I know is hard on both both you and your sister but when that came to an end.

33:15 Within a couple years. I realized that I needed to grow up and I needed to be responsible, but I needed to find a way of enjoying life and having fun and at the same time do it as a grown up and in and recognize that you're stuck with some of the problems of being older when you go older.

33:41 You can get away with doing foolish things when your 13 you can get away with it. When your 17 gets harder when you get to be 18, + 20, + 21, + 25 + 30 + all the numbers that come after that.

33:53 But what is also very interesting is when my father?

33:58 When he was around 65 or so 70 even then.

34:04 He had a streak in him of childishness. That was absolute fun. Absolute Joy because it was you would do pranks. He would even pay play pranks on neighbors and things that were just funny just entertaining just humorous, you know, and

34:27 I don't know. What do you call that being grown up or not being grown up or you just calling enjoying life? Because man Aid he really I think grew up also when he reached into some of his later years.

34:52 What do you think from a from a scientific Hearn and Ben is perspective. What's the most amazing thing? You've seen that you never would have dreamed of?

35:04 You know that in your life.

35:12 What is one of the most surprising things to me that I have seen?

35:19 From when I was coming out of high school to now.

35:28 Is the ability to be connected to anyone and anything?

35:34 What do you want to be? You're not sometimes?

35:39 It it used to be that when I would drive someplace as a teenager or in my 20s or even in my early thirties, you'd get in the car and you could go somewhere and you had the radio and that's what what you had there was no cell phones. That was no Communications. There was no two-way radios. There was no none of that jazz that you work with on a regular everyday basis in life.

36:06 You just had the radio down retain you.

36:09 Cell phones when those came along and I've had a cellphone just about since they came along back in the round 84, so they became very common place 82. I think all of a sudden you could talk to anybody and anybody to talk to you.

36:32 Then the phone's became even more advanced and now with the iPhone which I resisted getting initially Lindsay got hers first and then I got mine after I realized how easy it make phone calls. But what I've noticed is that you get all of this interconnection that you have with your computer at your desk or your laptop. If you have you probably don't remember the first laptop, she may have seen them. I had a laptop and it was 9 p.m. Laptop and it was easily the size of a nice good Hefty briefcase and it weighed like 16 18 lb

37:17 It was having a Dickens man. And that was a portable laptop for goodness sake nothing like what you got now all that interconnectedness that you can now have is just not the same and it changes everything considerably and it's like Star Trek.

37:36 Captain Kirk flipped open his phone. Now. We really do have the phones that you can flip open or not, and it is like Star Trek.

37:48 What a historical figure do you admire the most?

37:52 And why?

37:59 I think that Abraham Lincoln is probably the one historical figure that I look at in history who had more problems to deal with than anybody and who like so many people who are put in a really bad situation and they managed to make things come out. Okay, and then as everything is hanging there together and getting by then all of a sudden he dies or is killed or whatever and then he's everyone saint

38:38 And yet at the time he was alive. He was not nearly a quarter the sainthood that he achieved upon his death. But at the same time when you look at what he went through and what he had to do and and the Very notion of the way he grew up and everything is just really remarkable that a guy who who literally would walk miles to get a book and then bring the book home and read by candlelight or by fireplace.

39:08 The fat kind of a person could go to be present. I wish I could happen now. I think that those people have something that you just don't get the the way people grow up nowadays with computers all around them and everything is phrase. I heard the other day called the flattening.

39:27 The flattening of the brain human beings now know just a little bit about a whole lot of everything but they don't know they don't not a lot of know a whole lot about any one thing that there's not the depth of knowledge that people used to have and part of that. I think it's the fact that you got all the computers in the connectivity and all the rest of that stuff.

39:57 Okay. Okay. Thank you very much.

39:59 We need to go out to dinner.