What happens when a lawyer who knew he wanted to practice law at age five, graduated magna cum laude in three years, clerked for a federal judge, and then built a 180-person personal injury firm spanning seven Midwestern states decides the next chapter looks like running the whole operation from Puerto Rico using AI tools his peers are only just beginning to understand?

In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Michael McCready, founder of McCready Law, about the first 24 hours after an accident and why talking to the other driver's insurance company before calling a lawyer is one of the most common and costly mistakes injured people make. Michael explains why insurance adjusters are not your friends, what happens when someone waits more than 10 days to see a doctor, and how his firm uses a dedicated case manager system — plus an app, automated texts, and educational videos — so clients always know exactly where their case stands without having to chase down their attorney. He also breaks down how AI is being used right now at his firm to process biomechanical engineering reports, identify flawed assumptions in expert testimony, and draft demand letters in a fraction of the time it used to take.

They also discuss how Michael recognized he was the bottleneck holding his own firm back and what changed when he finally let go of control, the four-tier attorney development system he built to keep great lawyers from leaving, why Washington University Law School put him on their AI Board of Advisors, the story of the burned foster child whose settlement money paid for college 13 years later, and why $500 million recovered over 30 years is really a story about doing a good job for a lot of ordinary people — not winning jackpots.

Michael McCready is the founder of McCready Law, a personal injury firm with offices across seven Midwestern states and over 180 professionals, operating remotely from Puerto Rico.

Connect with Michael McCready:

mccreadylaw.com

LinkedIn: Michael McCready

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Michael McCready

00:46 Why he picked up and moved the entire operation to Puerto Rico

01:33 Running 180 professionals across seven states — what that actually looks like

02:19 Does each office practice personal injury exclusively — and how do micro-cultures develop

03:02 Knowing at age five, graduating in three years, clerking for a federal judge — then walking away from a partnership

04:37 Building trust in your team as the only way to stop being the bottleneck

05:04 Is every office strictly personal injury — and why general practice is gone

05:39 I just got hurt in an accident and I'm scared — what do I do in the first 24 hours

07:02 Why personal injury lawyers charge nothing upfront and only get paid on recovery

08:02 The other driver's insurance company is already calling — should I talk to them

09:09 How insurance adjusters ask questions that quietly shift blame onto you

10:16 How do I know if my case is even worth pursuing

11:52 I went to the doctor a month after the accident — how strong is my case now

13:09 Why McCready Law will not take a case with no medical treatment in the first 10 days

14:15 Walk me through what happens after the first call — the case manager system explained

16:29 How to determine what the initial settlement demand should be

18:23 Grading offers A through C — and when to fight versus when to settle

18:52 The case manager system and why it is one of the biggest differentiators

20:30 Technology in the client experience — app, automated texts, and educational videos

22:42 How long does a personal injury case take and what is happening during all that time

25:04 Over $500 million recovered — what that number actually represents

26:54 The burned foster child who called 13 years later when he turned 18 and was going to college

29:05 Washington University AI Board of Advisors — what that actually means for legal practice

30:42 How AI builds demand letters and helps prepare for insurance negotiations

32:19 Real example — using AI to find flawed assumptions in a biomechanical engineering report

34:22 The AI hallucination problem — why lawyers are still submitting fake citations in 2025

36:00 Why AI predicts instead of thinks — and what actually causes hallucinations

37:52 The audit system McCready Law built to ensure every AI output has a human in the loop

38:15 From one person to 180 professionals — the moment everything changed

39:18 If you cannot find the bottleneck in your firm, it is probably you

39:49 The four-tier attorney development system and why transparency keeps great lawyers from leaving

42:17 How to reach Michael McCready and McCready Law

#MichaelMcCready #McCreadyLaw #PersonalInjuryLaw #TrustcastShow #AIinLaw #LitigationAI #InsuranceCompanyTactics #PersonalInjuryAttorney #LawFirmGrowth #PuertoRicoLawyer

What happens when a litigator who fell in love with trial work through a mock trial team in college works his way up to running one of Michigan's oldest and most storied law firms — a 170-year-old institution at the center of the American automotive industry — and then realizes that leading a 175-attorney firm and trying cases in courtrooms across the country are not just two different jobs, they sometimes require two completely different minds?

In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Paul Mersino, CEO of Butzel, about what to do in the first 48 hours when a top salesman quits and starts calling your clients, why deleting emails you think are harmless before litigation starts can cost you the entire case through a legal doctrine called spoliation, and what separates the 3% of business disputes that actually go to trial from the 97% that settle along the way. Paul explains how a temporary restraining order works in real time — sometimes filed by Thursday afternoon and argued by Friday morning — and why the mistakes companies make before an employee leaves matter far more than what they do after.

They also discuss business divorces and why even sophisticated executives become emotionally irrational when a partnership falls apart, how Paul filed an amicus brief on behalf of Chris Kyle's estate in the American Sniper lawsuit after watching the movie and feeling compelled to do something, what appellate argument looks like when a federal judge peppers you at the podium for two hours straight in Utah, how to preserve a trial record for appeal without the other side knowing that's what you're doing, and why automotive supplier disputes with $125 million on the table taught him that the size of the number is never what makes a case feel heavy — it's knowing that a loss means people lose their jobs.

Paul Mersino is the CEO of Butzel, one of America's oldest law firms, founded in Detroit in 1854, with nine offices across Michigan and Washington DC.

Connect with Paul Mersino:

butzel.com

Detroit, Michigan

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Paul Mersino

00:41 Taking over a 170-year-old firm at 39 — the conversation that made it real

02:52 A top salesman just quit and is already calling my clients — what do I do in 48 hours

04:01 How enforceable are non-competes in 2025 and how has the law shifted

05:20 Trade secrets versus non-compete — how do you know the difference

06:43 What if the employee just carries everything in their head — how do you prove misuse

08:06 The fastest legal tool to stop a former employee — the TRO explained

09:30 What happens in the 14 days after a TRO is granted — mini trials and evidentiary hearings

10:30 The mistakes business owners make in the first week that kill their own case

11:47 Someone I've done business with for years just breached a major contract — what's my shot at recovery

12:45 Business divorces — what litigation looks like when a partnership falls apart

14:44 Walking clients through what litigation actually feels like before they commit to it

16:04 When one side wants to settle and the other won't budge — how do you move them

16:49 Counseling versus lawyering — and why the distinction matters in business disputes

18:24 What do you do when your own client is the unreasonable one

19:48 What separates the cases that win big from the ones that don't

21:31 Bench trials versus jury trials — how Butzel decides which to pursue

22:12 Automotive supplier cases with $125 million on the line — what that kind of exposure feels like

23:51 Telling opposing counsel that your client will lose their business — does it ever work

25:49 A trade secret case where the evidence looked bad — how the truth became the defense

27:03 The cover-up is worse than the crime — spoliation and destroying evidence explained

28:43 What a preservation order looks like and when the duty to preserve actually begins

29:18 Deleting emails before litigation starts and what the court does with that

30:42 Filing an amicus brief for Chris Kyle's estate in the American Sniper lawsuit

33:17 How the Eighth Circuit quoted his brief verbatim when overturning the multi-million dollar verdict

34:31 Defending trial wins all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court and the Federal Court of Appeals

35:51 What appellate argument looks like — two hours at the podium with a federal judge in Utah

36:39 Why you generally cannot introduce new evidence on appeal

38:30 Preserving the trial record for appeal and why you need appellate counsel early

39:30 Is Paul still taking cases while running a 175-attorney firm

40:25 Who is the ideal Butzel client

41:51 What Butzel does and doesn't handle — and where white collar defense and immigration fit in

43:15 Nine offices, eight in Michigan, one on K Street in Washington DC

44:02 How Butzel takes cases across the country through pro hac vice admission

#PaulMersino #BusinessLitigation #TradeSecretLaw #TrustcastShow #DetroitLaw #AutomotiveLaw #BusinessDivorce

What happens when an attorney who spent 20 years defending insurance companies in personal injury trials, serving as a research attorney inside a California courthouse, and building legal experience across major firms finally walks away from fighting — because he realized he has a counselor's heart, not a litigator's — and builds a practice around the one thing most estate plans quietly get wrong?

In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with David Scopp, founder of Meaningful Legacy Law in Monterey County, California, about why a will alone does not avoid probate, what probate actually costs on a $3 million estate versus setting up a revocable living trust, and why there are roughly $50 billion in lost assets sitting with state governments right now because heirs didn't know what their parents owned. David explains how the step-up in basis at death can eliminate millions in capital gains for a family that inherited a Silicon Valley home bought in 1980 for $100,000, what a lifetime asset protection trust does to shield children from divorce, creditors, and bankruptcy, and why his own mother-in-law paid $8,000 for a perfect estate plan that still required probate because the house was titled wrong.

They also discuss blended families and the Clayton election structure, why none of us want to face our mortality and that's the real reason most people never do this at all, how a two-hour life and legacy planning process walks families through the design of their plan without the jargon, and why David's training in mediation, mindfulness, and yoga makes him better at the hardest part of this work — sitting in a room with a family that hasn't talked about any of this yet.

David Scopp is the founder of Meaningful Legacy Law in Monterey County, California, serving families throughout the state with estate planning, trust administration, and legacy interviews.

Connect with David Scopp:

meaningfullegacylaw.com

215 W Franklin St., Suite 204, Monterey, CA 93940

Phone: (831) 291-5958

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to David Scopp — and the Ellis Island origin of the name Scopovich

00:33 Spending 20 years inside the legal system before building something completely different

01:01 When he first realized most estate plans are quietly setting families up to fail

01:53 My parents have a will — aren't we covered

02:05 What a will does and what it cannot do — and why probate is expensive, public, and slow

02:43 What happens in California when someone dies with no plan at all

03:18 How long does probate take in California — one to three years depending on the county

03:45 The revocable living trust as the alternative — and why funding it properly is everything

05:29 When do you need a trust versus just a will — the $200,000 and real property thresholds

06:21 How to retitle assets into a trust — and what happens with an outstanding mortgage

07:22 The $50 billion in lost assets sitting with state governments right now

08:54 Retirement accounts and the Secure Act 2.0 — why you don't retitle them and what you do instead

09:52 Blended families, competing interests, and the Clayton election explained

11:48 How a split trust structure works when each spouse has biological children

13:22 How difficult is it to set up and what does it cost

14:41 The real cost of probate — 5% of the gross estate, not the equity

16:20 Why conflict and creditors show up when probate is public

17:08 How long does trust administration take versus three years of probate court procedure

18:39 What the two-hour life and legacy planning process actually looks like

19:53 Why so few people do this — mortality, education, and thinking it's only for the wealthy

21:27 The detailed design interview — what questions get asked and how decisions get made

22:23 Does David litigate — and what happens when there is a contested estate

23:37 The commercial property family with a trustee they didn't trust

24:46 The $8,000 estate plan that still required probate because of a titling mistake

26:01 How long he has been doing estate planning and when Meaningful Legacy Law was founded

26:44 Estate planning is not just for the wealthy — where that myth comes from

28:02 Capital gains, step-up in basis, and the Silicon Valley home bought for $100,000

30:44 Lifetime asset protection trusts — protecting children from divorce, creditors, and bankruptcy

33:07 How mediation training and mindfulness change the way he practices law

34:30 Having two boys and how that shifted his thinking about legacy

35:10 The Endangered Species Act law review article — Emerson, Thoreau, and why nature still matters

36:52 What he wants his legacy to be — and the legacy interview service he offers clients

39:54 What is next for Meaningful Legacy Law

#DavidScopp #MeaningfulLegacyLaw #EstatePlanning #RevocableLivingTrust #ProbateCalifornia #TrustcastShow #LegacyPlanning #CaliforniaEstateLaw #TrustAdministration #BlendedFamilyEstatePlan

What happens when a CPA turned serial entrepreneur realizes that injured plaintiffs are being financially destroyed while waiting for justice — not because their case is weak, but because the insurance company has every incentive to delay and the plaintiff has rent due, medical bills stacking up, and an attorney who legally cannot give them a dime?

In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Wayne Rubin, founder of Mint Legal Funding and Mint Legal Advisors, about the $100 million in litigation advances he has arranged, why the non-recourse nature of these advances makes them categorically different from a loan, and how bad actors in the industry have given litigation funding a reputation it doesn't always deserve. Wayne explains why he sits between the funding company, the plaintiff, and the personal injury attorney as a buffer — managing client expectations, reducing paralegal workload, and serving as the best PR arm the attorney never had to pay for. He also breaks down the 16% every six months rate structure, how the 2X cap works over three years, and why he deliberately holds back funds in tranches rather than dumping everything in at once.

They also discuss the commercial litigation side through Mint Legal Advisors — where small companies with legitimate patent claims get crushed by large corporations using litigation fatigue as a strategy, why Blackstone-level institutional money is now entering the space, what dark money and disclosure debates are doing to the regulatory landscape, and how case cost funding is quietly emerging as a non-recourse option for trial attorneys in Texas and Florida who need to fund expert witnesses without leveraging firm capital.

Wayne Rubin is the founder of Mint Legal Funding and Mint Legal Advisors, based in New York.

Connect with Wayne Rubin:

Mint Legal Funding

Phone: 516-222-6468 / 516-906-9006

New York

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Wayne Rubin

00:44 Coming into litigation funding as an investor and seeing the David versus Goliath problem

01:53 Why injured plaintiffs are financially squeezed between two opposing forces

03:32 How insurance companies use delay as a deliberate strategy

04:22 Why attorneys are legally prohibited from funding their own clients

05:11 Why most people don't know litigation funding exists — and the negative effect of bad actors

07:14 What makes a bad actor in this space and how they exploit non-recourse advances

08:41 What an advance is versus a loan — and why the distinction matters legally

09:26 Mint Legal Funding versus Mint Legal Advisors — the two companies explained

10:09 How brokers and principals work in the litigation funding ecosystem

12:00 Who backs the money — family offices, private investors, and now institutional funds

13:35 Commercial litigation funding — when small companies sue large corporations over patents

15:14 Funding legal fees off balance sheet and what that does for an undercapitalized plaintiff

16:08 Litigation fatigue as a corporate strategy and why funding counters it

17:31 Dark money, disclosure debates, and the regulatory conversation now happening nationally

18:06 Joe Smith can't pay rent — how the mechanics of a consumer advance actually work

21:30 Why Wayne serves as a buffer between attorney, client, and funding resource

24:00 Why working with an agent instead of going direct is the real secret sauce

25:24 How Wayne bets on the attorney as much as the case

27:38 Consumer funding versus commercial funding — two different disciplines

29:07 State-by-state regulation and why case cost funding is only available in some states

30:26 How fast can a plaintiff get cash — 48 hours in most cases

31:32 The rate structure — 16% every six months, 2X or 2.5X cap, three-year overlap

34:55 The primary benefit for attorneys — reducing client management burden

37:22 How Wayne markets primarily to personal injury law firms

38:31 The educational challenge of changing the industry's reputation

39:02 How client calls are handled and what Wayne tells a plaintiff who can't reach their attorney

41:50 How to reach Wayne Rubin and Mint Legal Funding

#WayneRubin #MintLegalFunding #LitigationFunding #PersonalInjury #PlaintiffFunding #TrustcastShow #LegalFinance #LitigationFinance #ConsumerLegalFunding #CommercialLitigation

What happens when a 13-year-old who gets caught stealing lumber from a job site to build a tree house ends up working off the debt swinging a hammer — and that summer job turns into a construction engineering degree, two companies, $500 million in projects, and the final home ever designed by the architect who drew Bill Gates' house and Steve Jobs' house?

In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Richard Hubbert, founder of Great Estates, about what transparency actually looks like in custom home construction, why the McMansion trend of the 80s and 90s left thousands of families with unsellable homes, and how he keeps clients from destroying their own budget through scope creep when an architect's vision or an owner's trip to a showroom starts pulling the project sideways. Richard explains why he walks into competitor job sites in new markets to meet the superintendent and ask who the good subs are, why he refuses to be a guinea pig for new building materials no matter how good the pitch sounds, and what you should do when a builder gives you a number 30% below everyone else's.

They also discuss the Fairmount Water Works renovation — a historic site connected to Grace Kelly's father — how a Wellesley connection to the executive vice president of Penn launched the company from garage-based estimating into institutional construction, why working with Peter Bohlin at 88 years old with pencil and paper and no cell phone is one of the greatest privileges of his career, and the one piece of advice he gives every client before a single line gets drawn: build what you're going to use.

Richard Hubbert is the founder of Great Estates, a luxury custom home builder based in the Philadelphia area serving Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and select remote locations.

Connect with Richard Hubbert:

greatestates.com

Phone: 215-416-2503

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Richard Hubbert

00:50 What a young craftsman understood about building that boardroom executives never will

01:30 Growing up doing projects with his father — plumbing, electrical, masonry, and carpentry with no internet

03:55 The tree house, the stolen lumber, and the builder who said work it off instead

07:26 Three summers swinging a hammer and watching every trade from framing to electrical

09:24 His father's advice — think about why there are no older carpenters on the job site

11:00 Construction engineering, graduating at the top of his class, and landing at a third-generation Philadelphia firm

13:59 When a third-generation company starts robbing Peter to pay Paul — and why he walked

17:00 The marketing woman who offered to back him at 28 years old with nothing in the bank

19:35 Starting from a garage with plywood for a desk, cleaning job sites at midnight

21:32 The Wellesley connection that opened the University of Pennsylvania and changed everything

23:00 Getting certified as a Women Business Enterprise and landing the Fairmount Water Works

25:59 How the company grew — from fit-outs to institutions to pharmaceuticals to luxury residential

27:28 Working with Robert Stern and then Peter Bohlin — the architect who designed Bill Gates' and Steve Jobs' homes

29:11 The one thing every client building a $2 million home wishes someone had told them first

31:30 How Great Estates runs transparently — every cost open, every allowance explained

34:23 Scope creep — how architects and owners both do it and how Richard stops it

37:18 How to know if a builder is low-balling you to get the job and kill you on change orders

40:00 Reputation is everything — and the contractors playing the change order game won't be around long

41:04 Why Richard refuses to be a guinea pig on new building materials no matter how good the pitch

43:00 The LP siding story — and why proof lives in time, not in the product presentation

45:22 Owning an architectural millwork company and why he shut it down

48:43 Katie Hubbert as VP and marketing director — building the business together

50:39 Geographic coverage — Pennsylvania, New Jersey shore, Martha's Vineyard, and why Florida requires homework first

53:43 How he researches a new market — pulling over at job sites and asking the superintendent for the inside scoop

55:34 How to reach Richard Hubbert

#RichardHubbert #GreatEstates #LuxuryHomeBuilder #CustomHome #PeterBohlin #TrustcastShow #PhiladelphiaBuilder #CustomHomeConstruction #HomeBuilding #ConstructionTransparency

What happens when the guy who generated $100 million running webinars for clients like Russell Brunson looks at his own ad workflow, realizes 70% of it is pure administrative waste, teaches himself Python and machine learning, and then builds a proprietary AI platform that cuts creative production time by 80% — and gets founders their first winning ads live in under two hours?

In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Joel Erway, founder of Inspired, about why creative fatigue is the silent killer of Meta ad campaigns, how Meta's platform is already grading your ads before a single impression is served, and why most founders quit Facebook ads not because they don't work but because producing enough creative to feed the algorithm becomes a full-time job they never signed up for. Joel explains how Inspired pulls from Meta's public ads library, trains itself on your brand in under 60 seconds from a single URL drop, and then automates the entire workflow from market research to creative to one-click deployment — without ever requiring you to log into Ads Manager.

They also discuss why only 10 to 20% of ads actually become winners and what that means for volume strategy, how e-commerce brands spending $200,000 a month are actually your best source of ad intelligence even if you're in a completely different industry, why agencies are getting outsized value from the platform by producing higher quality creative at scale, and what the one-on-one onboarding process looks like when Inspired builds your first 30 to 40 ads for you before handing over the keys.

Joel Erway is the founder of Inspired, a Meta ads creative platform, and a veteran webinar strategist who has generated over $100 million for clients through paid advertising.

Connect with Joel Erway:

Inspired platform

joelerway.com

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Joel Erway

00:30 The real problem when a founder is spending $10,000 a month on Meta ads and can't scale

01:28 What creative fatigue actually looks like before it shows up in your ROAS

02:21 From mechanical engineering to sales to full-time entrepreneur — the 14-year journey

04:16 Why Joel bet on Inspired as his next chapter after a decade as the webinar guy

05:50 Why vibe coding and building an actual multi-tenant SaaS platform are completely different things

07:28 What creative fatigue looks like before the ROAS chart tells you

08:20 How Meta grades your ads before serving a single impression

09:28 How Inspired works — from URL drop to brand analysis to campaign build

11:09 Who says Facebook ads don't work and why they're wrong

13:43 Drop your URL, train the system, scan the ads library — step by step

15:30 Why Joel looks at e-commerce brands spending $200k a month for ad intelligence

17:20 How Inspired recreates winning ads in your brand voice in one click

18:30 Automations that build and queue your ads so you only log in once a week

19:33 How fast can a client go from onboarding to winning creative in the feed

20:08 Why one-on-one onboarding matters before making Inspired fully self-serve

21:00 Why founders who realize it takes 15 hours to build ads simply stop doing ads

#JoelErway #Inspired #MetaAds #FacebookAds #AdCreative #TrustcastShow #CreativeFatigue #PaidAds #FounderMarketing #AIMarketing

What happens when a patent attorney who grew up swinging a hammer on construction sites, tried seven IP jury trials covering everything from reusable coffee cartridges to cherry cultivar genetics, argued before both the Federal Circuit and the Ninth Circuit, and now plays bass in a Seattle indie rock band decides to explain the single most deadly mistake startup founders make before they ever call a lawyer?

In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Tim Billick, partner at Practus LLP, about why disclosing your invention before filing — even just telling a friend under no NDA — can gift your idea to the public domain permanently and there is absolutely nothing an attorney can do about it afterward. Tim explains the difference between patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets in plain English, why getting a patent is only the beginning and defending it is where most founders have no plan, and why the 90% prep, 10% execution rule he learned from his brother building high-rises in Chicago applies just as much to trying a jury trial as it does to pouring concrete.

They also discuss the Echo Brands reusable coffee cartridge case where both sides accused each other of infringement, Tim's team won the verdict and got the competitor's patent completely invalidated, the bizarre plant patent dispute where Washington state cherry orchardists were sued by the Canadian government over genetic data on late-blooming cherry varietals, why storytelling matters more than facts when you're presenting to a jury of strangers, and how a 90-minute search report that costs a couple thousand dollars can save you from spending 18 months and $20,000 on a patent that was never going to survive.

Tim Billick is a partner at Practus LLP in Seattle, handling patent prosecution and IP litigation for startups and creators in software, mechanical, construction, and FinTech.

Connect with Tim Billick:

practus.com

Seattle, Washington

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Tim Billick

00:48 Queens of the Stone Age softened up with keyboards — what Thief Motif actually sounds like

01:28 Seven IP jury trials and why nervousness is your friend in the courtroom

02:28 The three buckets every IP client falls into

04:28 Is it unusual to do both transactional and litigation IP work

05:44 How Tim ended up with an atypical career that spans both

06:24 Pacific Northwest clients — Boeing, construction, FinTech, and software

08:05 Why Tim stays away from biotech despite Seattle's deep biotech scene

09:00 Software, mechanical, and construction — how his background informs his practice

11:17 The most common and most deadly mistake founders make before calling a lawyer

12:07 Public disclosure and how patent law is brutally unforgiving about it

14:30 Why the government's position is simply: thanks, you gave it to us

15:34 Once you have the patent, you still have to defend it — how that actually works

17:38 How litigation experience informs how Tim drafts patents in the first place

20:07 The spider web of infringement — making, selling, and indirect liability

22:25 How to make a patent defensible and hard to blow a hole through

23:04 90% planning, 10% execution — the construction adage that runs every case

24:00 Why a patentability search is worth every penny

27:33 When do you need a patent versus a trademark versus a copyright

29:12 Trade secrets — the dark side of the moon explained

32:04 What actually constitutes a trade secret and how you protect it

34:41 The Coca-Cola formula — the perfect trade secret example

35:51 The Echo Brands coffee cartridge trial — how a five-day win came together

38:00 Why you present a story to a jury, not a set of facts

40:24 What was actually happening in that case and why both sides accused each other

43:22 Invalidating a competitor's patent and what that did to his business

45:08 Washington orchardists versus the Canadian government — plant patents and cherry genetics

47:16 Late-blooming cherry varietals, genetic testing, and statistical margin of error

49:39 Getting bumped from the case when the insurer appointed their own counsel

50:33 How to reach Tim Billick

#TimBillick #Practus #PatentLaw #IPLitigation #StartupPatents #TrustcastShow #TradeSecrets #SeattleIP #PatentTrial #IntellectualProperty

What happens when a firm that defended the Hollywood 10 during McCarthyism and pioneered shareholder litigation in 1945 is still in the fight 80 years later — now as lead counsel on the Capital One data breach litigation, with a dismissal rate of 8% against a national average of 46%, recovering hundreds of millions for institutional investors who often don't even know they're entitled to it?

In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Josh Ruthizer and Adam Savett of Wolf Popper LLP about what portfolio monitoring actually is and why most pension funds still aren't doing it, how the claims filing rate on class action settlements can be in the single digits meaning the people who do file collect a dramatically larger share than they otherwise would, and what the difference is between a stock that tanks because of market risk and one that tanks because somebody was lying. Josh walks through the full lifecycle of a securities class action from initial complaint through lead plaintiff appointment, discovery stay, motion to dismiss, and eventual settlement or trial. Adam explains how he once found a $53 million uncashed recovery for a mutual fund complex that had completely missed the filing.

They also discuss the information asymmetry that makes securities fraud litigation so difficult in the early stages when you only know what's public and the company knows exactly where the bodies are buried, why ERISA plans may have an affirmative obligation to evaluate litigation not just an option, why doing nothing is the worst thing an institutional investor can do after discovering potential fraud, and what Wolf Popper's 8% dismissal rate actually tells you about the front-end work they do before ever filing a complaint.

Josh Ruthizer and Adam Savett are partners at Wolf Popper LLP in New York, a securities litigation and investor rights firm founded in 1945.

Connect with Wolf Popper:

wolfpopper.com

New York, New York

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Josh Ruthizer and Adam Savett

00:55 What's changed in the frauds Wolf Popper fights — and what's stayed the same

02:04 Josh's path from Proskauer Rose to Wolf Popper via a 2009 downsizing

03:56 If I'm a pension fund trustee and I suspect fraud, what do I do first

05:11 What portfolio monitoring is and why most institutional investors aren't doing it

06:50 Elon Musk and the problem with companies that speak in "almost never" language

07:30 How portfolio monitoring turns a stock drop into actionable information for a client

08:43 How you tell the difference between bad luck and actual securities fraud

09:26 What the federal securities laws actually make illegal — material false statements explained

11:01 Revenue recognition, disclosure of truth, and the elements of a securities fraud claim

12:40 The biggest mistake institutional investors make after being defrauded — doing nothing

13:51 Fiduciary duty and the liability risk of ignoring a potential fraud claim

15:17 Why ERISA funds may have an affirmative obligation to evaluate litigation

17:23 How most funds are leaving money on the table in class action settlements

19:45 Uncashed checks, voided distributions, and what happens to the money people don't collect

22:43 Single-digit claims rates and why filing multiplies your recovery

23:36 The full lifecycle of a securities class action — complaint to settlement

25:30 Lead plaintiff appointment, amended complaints, and the discovery stay

27:30 The information asymmetry problem — you only know what's public, they know where the bodies are buried

29:23 Motion to dismiss, mediation requirements, and why 99% settle before trial

30:30 Why smaller firms can't always sustain the financial weight of securities litigation

32:26 The Microchip Technology case — what made a $9 million settlement winnable

34:30 The $53 million recovery that almost never happened because the fund missed the filing

36:21 Wolf Popper's 8% dismissal rate versus the 46% national average — what accounts for the gap

39:19 How to reach Wolf Popper

#WolfPopper #SecuritiesLitigation #JoshRuthizer #AdamSavett #ClassAction #InvestorRights #TrustcastShow #PortfolioMonitoring #SecuritiesFraud #InstitutionalInvestors

What happens when a woman who grew up in a family of lawyers in Nigeria, graduated top of her class, moved to America at 20 for love, and found herself dropped in the middle of an ocean — no connections, no recognition of her law degree, three babies in diapers, and law school to do all over again — comes out the other side and becomes the fiercest advocate in the room?

In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Ogor Winnie Okoye, founder of Boss Legal Group in Massachusetts, about the miscarriage, the marriage in crisis, and the rock bottom that led to a transformation she now teaches in workshops every Saturday for free. Ogor explains the zone of the UISA — unbiased introspective self-analysis — and why she believes awakening the divinity within each person is not a one-time event but a daily practice that changes how you show up in every courtroom, every client meeting, and every relationship you have.

They also discuss crimmigration — the intersection of criminal defense and immigration law — how a 42-year-old man named Carlos was being deported to Guatemala despite having lived here since age 12 and meeting every legal requirement, the nurse who lied about a healthcare worker slapping an elderly patient and watched her story fall apart in 20 minutes on the stand, and why Ogor goes to jail so often that she recognizes just how many innocent people are sitting there waiting for someone to fight for them the way she will.

Ogor Winnie Okoye is the founder of Boss Legal Group in Lynn, Massachusetts, licensed in Massachusetts and New York. She practices criminal defense, immigration, crimmigration, estate planning, and family law. Her book is Awakening and Unleashing Your Victor. Her free Saturday life planning workshops are open to the public.

Connect with Ogor Winnie Okoye:

boslegals.com

Facebook and LinkedIn: Agor Winnie Okoye

Lynn, Massachusetts

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Ogor Winnie Okoye

00:57 Coming to America at 20 for love and landing in the middle of an ocean

02:19 Her Nigerian law degree didn't transfer — and she had to go back to law school

03:34 Three babies in diapers in law school — and what her family calls her

05:37 Hitting rock bottom in her marriage and what changed

07:23 Winning the jurisprudence award at Suffolk while broken inside

08:23 What awakening actually looks like — the zone of the UISA

10:24 Doing the things that terrified her, starting with trial

11:23 How crimmigration — criminal defense meets immigration law — works

13:42 The 42-year-old man named Carlos who met every requirement and still got deported

15:05 What the 98% success rate reflects — and why the last year and a half has been devastating

17:27 Carlos's story continued — the heartbreak of that day

18:02 Last week's incredible win — the nurse who lied and crumbled on the stand

24:51 How Boss Legal Group works — from bar advocate to private practice

28:02 Free Saturday workshops on life planning and estate planning

32:45 Why a revocable living trust beats a will for most people

39:11 Rapid fire questions — Jollof rice, Celine Dion, and what boo boo calls her

44:09 How to reach Ogor Winnie Okoye

#OgorWinnieOkoye #BossLegalGroup #CrimImmigration #ImmigrationDefense #CriminalDefense #AwakeningYourVictor #MassachusettsLawyer #TrustcastShow #EstatePlanning #ImmigrationLaw

What happens when the first physician ever to serve as America's drug czar — the person who coordinated a $44 billion federal budget across 19 agencies, got naloxone over the counter, and helped cut overdose deaths from a projected 165,000 to 74,000 ahead of schedule — decides his next mission is using artificial intelligence to discover new drugs in weeks instead of decades, starting with a novel compound for opioid addiction itself?

In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Dr. Rahul Gupta, former White House drug policy director and now chief medical officer at GATC Health, about the AI platform that analyzes 400 trillion data points simultaneously across safety, efficacy, and off-target effects to predict whether a drug molecule will succeed with over 90% accuracy — before companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars and years finding out the hard way. He explains how compound 1021, a novel opioid addiction treatment, was discovered by narrowing 80 brain targets to three in the prefrontal cortex using AI, combining those three assets into one molecule, and publishing the results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He also explains why Lloyd's of London entered an exclusive contract with GATC to build debt insurance products around their predictions.

They also discuss why every failed drug is really just a drug waiting to succeed for a different disease, how AI can repurpose shelved molecules for conditions like ALS where patients are running out of time, why animal data fails as a proxy for human physiology and how that's driving the push to phase out animal testing in drug development, and what the FDA is now allowing that makes this the most important inflection point in the history of pharmaceutical discovery.

Dr. Rahul Gupta is the former Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and Chief Medical Officer of GATC Health, an AI-powered drug discovery company.

Connect with Dr. Rahul Gupta:

gatchealth.com

GATC Health

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Dr. Rahul Gupta

00:50 Why walk away from a $44 billion federal budget to build drugs with AI

01:12 One American dying every five minutes — the scale of what he inherited at the White House

02:52 West Virginia, the worst opioid crisis in America, and a 40% drop in overdose deaths

04:10 Getting naloxone over the counter and down to $20 a two-pack

06:41 From 165,000 projected deaths to 74,000 — ahead of schedule and under budget

08:49 Where AI is real in drug development and where it's still hype

09:02 Why 90% of discovered drugs fail and never reach market

10:30 The UC Irvine study — 3,000 molecules blinded and tested with over 92% predictive accuracy

12:00 Lloyd's of London entering an exclusive contract around GATC's predictions

14:17 What prevents a competitor from replicating this — the secret sauce

15:45 Why human data instead of animal data is the core differentiator

17:00 What happens when a phase two readout goes badly — can AI save the asset

18:35 Turning accidental drug discoveries into intentional ones at scale

19:00 The coming revolution in drug approval and regulatory frameworks

21:07 Why animal science fails to translate into human physiology and what NAMS means

23:03 FDA and EMA joint guidance on AI in drug development

23:59 If you have $10 million and one shot — how AI fits into your development plan

25:34 How a pharma company would actually work with GATC Health

27:49 How much of your team's time does this actually require

30:01 What happens in the first three weeks after handing GATC a molecule

31:30 Compound 1021 — how an AI-discovered opioid addiction treatment was born

33:16 What 400 trillion data points actually means in plain English

34:44 Running safety, efficacy, and off-target effects simultaneously

#RahulGupta #GATCHealth #AIDrugDiscovery #OpioidCrisis #DrugCzar #Naloxone #TrustcastShow #BiotechAI #DrugDevelopment #Compound1021