Sarah Klein

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Sarah Klein: It doesn’t look the way you think it’s going to look… Whether you’re a child or an adult who’s sexually abused is a death of a thousand cuts… He took his own life the day that he was charged… Being a survivor, having gone through a civil lawsuit myself brings a very unique set of skills….

Narrator: Welcome to “Celebrating Justice,” presented by the Trial Lawyers Journal and CloudLex. The next gen legal cloud platform built exclusively for personal injury law. Get inspired by the nation’s top trial lawyers and share in the stories that shape our pursuit of justice. Follow the podcast and join our community at www.triallawyersjournal.com. Now, here’s your host, Editor of TLJ and VP of Marketing at CloudLex, Chad Sands.

Chad Sands: And when you’re ready, just kind of tell me the story about why you wanted to become a trial lawyer.

Sarah Klein: So I grew up in a small town called Lansing, Michigan, very small community. It was back in the late 70s and 80s. Everybody left their doors unlocked. Everybody was playing outside until it got dark and your mother rang a dinner bell. And my neighbor invited me to bring a friend day at the local gymnastics club. And so I went, it was like an open house. We bounced on trampolines. We jumped into the foam pit, had a great time.

My mom signed me up for gymnastics classes and I loved it at the beginning. It was a lot of fun and I progressed rather quickly. By seven years old, I was on what they call the pre-team and by eight years old, I was on the competitive team. Around that time, 1988, the gym was in an old abandoned high school and a young man by the name of Larry Nassar entered the gym and asked our coach for a position as a volunteer athletic trainer. And he was not yet in medical school. He wasn’t a doctor. He had just graduated undergrad or was about to graduate undergrad and said he’d like to volunteer around a bunch of little girls in leotards, which still, you know, should have been ragged. Red flag number one. And so he was set up in this abandoned high school in a back room that was separate from the big open gym. It had a big heavy metal door like you would see like those old high school doors with like the push bar from like “Saved by the Bell” era or whatever —

Chad Sands: — from my era of high school.

Sarah Klein: So that was exactly where they thought was a great idea to put a 20-something year old man who brought a massage table called the treatment table and he was set up back there separate from the gym and separate from whatever parents could see going on. I think we can fast forward a bit and understand what happened there. It took many decades for what Nassar started in or around 1988 to be stopped, to be arrested, to be charged and to plead guilty to sexually abusing children under the guise of medical treatment. I had been a lawyer for over a decade when I went to court to testify against Nassar and going through

My own case, I saw a real need for women and survivors to be representing children who are sexually abused. And so I stepped into that world and have been doing it ever since.

Chad Sands: I guess you had dreams of being a world-class gymnast. Were you like on the uneven bars or was the floor routine your specialty or what? Tell me about your love of gymnastics.

Sarah Klein: Yeah, so back in the day, you were not allowed to specialize in one event over another event. You were all competing, all four events, as all around gymnasts. And so I did everything. My favorite, I would say, was the floor exercise. I had very cute floor routine music and got to kind of dance and bop around. And I would say I loved gymnastics at the beginning. I came to absolutely hate the sport of gymnastics.

The vibe in my gym was extremely abusive, notwithstanding what Nassar was doing. Right. was very aggressive, very abusive, terrifying. And that was the tone. And then we would get sent back to Larry’s room where we would be met with warmth, kindness, snacks. And what I thought at the time was real love. This was somebody I saw five days a week, every week, every year for years upon years upon years upon years. So you become in a way like family members. I went to Larry Nassar’s wedding when I was about 12 years old. And so I think the culture of the sport was really perfect for the scene of a crime, right? Like you’ve got this terrifying, dominating, screaming, nasty coach, and then you’ve got this really nice, sweet, safe, I say that in, in quotation — “safe” — safe guy there to meet you with kindness. I will note that my coach went on to be the 2012 Olympic gold medal winning team coach of the fierce five. And then he died by suicide in 2021 when he was charged with 24 counts of child abuse by the Michigan attorney general’s office. So what he was doing finally caught up to him.

though he took his own life the day that he was charged.

Chad Sands: Wow. So it wasn’t just Nassar. It was also your head coach who was also part of the Olympic team. I did not realize that. Yep. In high school, you, I mean, obviously your feelings for the sport changed. Did you, did you walk away from it early on before, like in high school, or did you just hang in there? Or when did you kind of walk away from the sport that you loved at the beginning, but grew to despise?

Sarah Klein: grew to despise it pretty early on. So it didn’t get that far. But at a certain point, it becomes your identity when you’re an elite athlete and you’re in the gym 40, 45 hours a week, you’re the girl at school who’s the gymnast. So that becomes like your identity. and so while there were times that I absolutely should have walked away, or somebody should have pulled me the hell out through injuries and surgeries and being so scared I would throw up and all this stuff. I stuck with it because honestly in the mind of a child, I felt like I had no choice. I didn’t know who I was without it and I thought I would get in trouble if I quit by my coach and I would lose all my friends because my gym friends were my best friends and I wasn’t really normally integrated into my public school because I was never there.

Chad Sands: Yeah.

Sarah Klein: So I didn’t feel like I had a choice.

Chad Sands: It seems like it’s kind of a perfect storm in terms of the environment and the coaches and the young girls and everything that’s going on. Do you think that since your time that it’s evolved and gotten better or do you still think it is still, you know, the same environment for lack of a better word?

Sarah Klein: And throughout litigation with USA Gymnastics and the Olympic Committee, we fought like hell to try to implement strength and safeguarding measures within the sport. I have to say that I’ve never been satisfied with that. And I’ve never seen real leadership in positions of authority in the organization that I trust. They recently hired yet another CEO of USA Gymnastics who’s a 30 something, 40 something year old man. I don’t get it. I don’t trust it. That’s just me.

Chad Sands: So you went to college, but when did you start to kind of think about, “I want to be an attorney?”

Sarah Klein: So my stepfather was a judge and he was on the bench for almost 30 years in Detroit, Michigan. And so I had a front row seat to what that looked like. I did not specifically know what I wanted to do, but it was pretty soon after I graduated from college. I took a couple of years to live and work in New York City. I went to college up at Columbia and kind of palled around New York for a couple of years and then began applying to law schools.

Chad Sands: You’ve been doing it for a while now. What do you think makes you unique as a trial lawyer?

Sarah Klein: Well, I think what makes me unique is the very, very niche field in which I work given my lived experience of wearing all the hats. I only do child sexual abuse civil cases. That’s all anybody at my firm does. We do nothing outside of that. That’s all our firm does. And my boss has been doing these cases for 30 years. So I think the depth and the breadth of knowledge about how to do these cases and talent in doing them is really amazing at our firm. But I think being a survivor, having gone through a civil lawsuit myself brings a very unique set of skills and real knowledge of how you are being entrusted to walk your client through arguably the worst thing that’s ever happened to them and hopefully do it in a way that leaves better off than how you found them, leaves them empowered, stronger, and more comfortable using the voice that’s been taken from them when you’re hurt as a child.

Chad Sands: And you were known as victim 125, is that correct?

Sarah Klein: Yes.

Chad Sands: And were you an attorney as part of that litigation and a survivor who spoke up in the courtroom? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Sarah Klein: Yeah, so no, because that would be a conflict of interest. I was a plaintiff in that lawsuit. We had an amazing team of lawyers representing us, though I was a lawyer for many years by then. So I do feel like I was asked to and successfully played the role sometimes of intermediary and being able to really explain to some of these families and little girls in very kindergarten language, a very complex legal situation. And I am also a mother. I was a mother at the time. My daughter was two years old when I went to court. And so there was something special about being able to nurture.

some of these other survivors of Nassar who are much younger than me. So no, I was not officially in any capacity, but I do believe I was able to kind of wear multiple hats.

Chad Sands: Can you talk a little bit about the toll that it takes on a survivor and also what this idea of justice is, you know, after going through something like that? Is it just holding people and the companies and corporations accountable? I also think about all of the Epstein stuff that’s going on right now. Can you just talk a little bit about the toll that it takes on somebody and that as you went through litigation and got some verdicts, what that justice felt like and how you kind of saw that.

Sarah Klein: Being sexually abused, whether you’re a child or an adult who’s sexually abused, is a death of a thousand cuts. You keep living, you keep breathing, but there is a death of really multiple things. For me, it was the death of a childhood. It was the death of innocence. It was the death of getting to consent to my first sexual experience. There’s a reason we talk a lot these days about trauma and it’s aftereffects. It’s a real thing and it’s something that never ever leaves you. So even, you know, at this stage in the game, I still engage in therapy. still engage in, you know, conversations with other survivors and other healing modalities. It’s something that you don’t ever become free of, but you do learn how to manage it in ways that can lead to a very full and happy life.

What are survivors looking for when you file civil lawsuits? I mean, you’re looking for accountability. It’s one thing to know yes or no in the criminal courts. Yes or no, did he touch the child or not? Yes, he did. But the bigger question is how the hell did this happen for so many decades when so many complaints were made, when so many people tried to speak up and were told that they were wrong, that they were crazy?

or that if you do come forward in the case of an Epstein, you’ll never be believed. He’s the most powerful, the richest in the case of Diddy. You’ll be destroyed if you come out against them. And so we’ve seen just a tremendous momentum, I think, in the last couple years of survivors coming forward anyway and naming the cover-up and naming the people who covered it up, naming the institutions who covered it up.

and really trying to learn about how something happened. And I think understanding all the levels of failure can help a survivor wrap their mind a little bit more around like, okay, this wasn’t a me thing. This was a systemic thing. And when the FBI and the DOJ are sued successfully by the gymnast for covering this up and putting this report in a drawer and doing nothing about it, you start to feel vindicated, and you start to get your power back. And so that’s what I think civil lawsuits in these cases are about is turning the tables, letting the survivors sit in the driver’s seat, letting them name the people and the entities who failed them and really uncovering the multiple levels of failure. That piece.

It is what I see as justice. And I think that’s what every survivor deserves.

Chad Sands: Absolutely well said. So your firm and yourself specialize in this very niche practice area, for lack of a better term. And I’m sure in addition to your own story and case, you have seen a number of very powerful clients and stories come through your guys’ office. Can you share a story about a case that really had an impact on you?

Sarah Klein: Yeah, I think one that’s somewhat recent is a pediatrician pedophile who got his medical license in the 1970s testified that he began abusing kids under the guise of medical treatment in 1974 and was not arrested until 2018. Multiple, multiple, multiple complaints over the years, including in the late 90s three credible accusations made by three little girls who were told they were wrong, they were crazy, they were just in it for money. The medical board removed the doctor’s license for a year or two. And then once the doctor, the prominent member of the community who everybody supported and stood behind because he would never touch a child because he’s on the school board and he goes to our church, when he raised enough noise, they gave him back his license.

And he kept doing it to hundreds of more kids up until the end of 2017 when he did it so overtly that even he knew he had to drive himself to the police station and turn himself in, which he did, then pled guilty, then admitted to being a pedophile, then admitted to doing this for 40 years. That case in particular is extremely striking to me because like

Often with Nassar in the later years when he was a doctor, parents were in the room. Parents were right there. It was so sinister in the way both of these physicians were doing it that everybody was confused. When you use the right language and you explain it in a way that should not raise any flags to a parent and you’ve groomed them into trusting you, it doesn’t look the way you think it’s going to look. It’s not a dark alley. It’s not him having sexual intercourse in front of the parent with the child. It’s much more sinister than that. It’s, need to check this, to check this, to make sure that this is okay, to make sure that they’re advancing properly puberty wise, and “I’m gonna release this muscle, which is gonna help their lower back pain.”

I’m just here to help. I’m just here to help. I’m the doctor. I’ve got this. I’m just here to help. And so I think that case is particularly striking because that could be any parent. That could be any parent. I’m the mom of two girls. I take my kids to the pediatrician and that could be me, you know, who, who trusts the doctor, trusts the institution where the doctor works, the hospital where they work and trust that when they say they’re doing this to help this, to help this, to help this, and it’s medical, that could be me who believed it. And so I share that story to try to help your listeners understand how this literally could happen to anyone and no one. I don’t care how much money you make, where you live, how fancy your kid’s private school is, how smart you are, how close to the doctor you’re standing, no one is immune.

Chad Sands: Unbelievable. Do you think the Larry Nassers of the world in that doctor you just described, do you think they checked the box when it comes to being a complete sociopath and having no regard for other people in terms of being able to do something like that, literally kind of in broad daylight in front of the parents, as you explained?

Sarah Klein: I can’t answer the question about why somebody becomes a pedophile other than the word compulsion. Like any addiction, perhaps they can’t stop. so, you know, does it take a sociopath to be sexually attracted to a child? Probably, probably. But I’m not a psychiatrist or mental health, you know, professional. I don’t know the brain science of what makes somebody do something so evil. But the reason I’m comfortable using the word evil is A, our children are our most vulnerable assets. And B, the way in which it’s done is such a mental mind F that it takes advantage of humanity. And so in that sense, I can say it’s absolutely evil. Whether they’re a sociopath or just, you know, I don’t know what the diagnosis is, I don’t know what to say, I don’t know.

Chad Sands: Well, I think they are, so I’m going to check the box. know, you’ve been on this crusade for a long time, many years. If there’s one kind of message to share to other people, adults, children, or just kind of the general public in terms of this whole narrative around kids and sports and sexual abuse… what are your kind of thoughts looking into the future and what you’re working on now and how do you feel about the whole mission?

Sarah Klein: Yeah, I mean, I think we’re making some progress. I think in the work that my firm does, what we’re able to do is shine a big, huge spotlight on where things have failed, the entities who have failed, and hopefully send a big message that if this happens on your watch, you will be harmed and there will be repercussions on an institutional level. But does that mean it’s going to stop? Pedophilia, does that mean it’s going to stop children from being sexually abused? I don’t think so. I mean, I think it’s going to continue to, as long as pedophiles exist, as long as that’s a thing, it’s going to keep happening, which is why we’re busier than ever. There never comes a day where we say, got to go look for that next case. If anything, it’s the opposite of that. But I do think, you know, by sending these messages, hopefully, some entities are cleaning up their acts, putting better safeguarding policies in place. So I always say you can’t do this work if you’re not hopeful, because if you’re not hopeful, you would curl up in a ball and cry. This is really, really, really hard work. It’s not for the faint of heart. And so you have to have that heart of hope. And I have that. And I do see healing and I do see things turn out for the better.

Chad Sands: I interviewed Rob Bellot, who was the lawyer who became DuPont’s worst nightmare and took on the PFAS litigation. a common thread was that it’s in the documents, that it was in the truth and the facts came out of the documents from the companies themselves. And it’s almost as I see the same thing here that these companies and organizations are either turning a blind eye or, you know, it’s like they know what’s going on, but they still don’t take action. Do you think that’s a fair reflection of what you kind of go up against in your guys’ litigation?

Sarah Klein: Yeah, mean, pedophiles do not exist in a vacuum. They would not be able to successfully abuse kids under the guise of medical treatment for 30 years, 40 years, you know, whatever, if there weren’t folks that did look the other way, if there weren’t major fractures in the institutional policies, and if there weren’t then folks that you believe should be the safest folks in the country, like the FBI and the DOJ.

who then so far down the line of what went wrong, again, chooses to do something wrong. So it’s not just the pedophile, it’s everything else around him or her.

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Now here is this episode’s “Closing Argument.”

Sarah Klein: I would hate to say that each one of our cases has similar threads because there’s always a unique set of facts and there are unique souls affected by child sexual abuse. However, I think it is important to note that there are themes. There are themes of am adult having unfettered access to children and harming them. Safeguarding policies failing. From an institutional level, there being no policies or policies that aren’t followed through upon. I feel like I have done this long enough that you can pick up the same set of facts and plop it down in a different town, in a different place, with a different perpetrator, with different people in positions of authority, different entities, and you are going to find the same themes of what failed. Knowing that, and because we see that same set of facts and things happening and being able to be plopped down, why aren’t we doing better? There are red flags everywhere. Open your eyes and start noticing them. We as adults are entrusted with keeping kids safe. It’s not about our reputations. It’s not about whether or not we’re going to ruffle feathers if we speak up. It’s not about if people like us or not at the end of the day, if we’re calling something out or someone out that does not feel right. This is about kids. There is no higher stake in the world than compromising a child in any way, shape, form. So I challenge adults to identify the red flags, to understand the themes, and then to take responsibility to protect the child. It is not the child’s job to protect themselves. Children are not tiny adults. They are children and it is our job to keep them safe. And there are things that every single one of us existing on planet Earth can do in terms of our part in achieving a world where children are no longer harmed.

Narrator: You’ve been listening to “Celebrating Justice” presented by. CloudLex and the Trial Lawyers Journal. Remember, the stories don’t end here. Visit www.triallawyersjournal.com to become part of our community and keep the conversation going. And for a deeper dive into the tools that empower personal injury law firms, visit www.cloudlex.com/tlj to learn.