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Show Notes
In this episode of “Celebrating Justice,” trial lawyer Kaitlin Nares shares her inspirational journey from a fourth-grader wanting to become Ruth Bader Ginsburg to becoming a successful civil rights and personal injury attorney at her own firm, the Nares Law Group.
Her childhood fascination with law translated into a passionate career in civil rights, ultimately leading her to work on the landmark Central Park Five case. Kaitlin discusses her role in securing a $40 million resolution for the wrongfully convicted men and highlights the subsequent establishment of the Innocence Project at the University of Colorado Boulder by one of her clients, Corey Wise. This significant case marks a lifetime involvement, spanning her early childhood to her mid-level attorney years. Her unique career path also includes being featured in the documentary “False Confessions,” showcasing the adverse effects of coercive interrogation tactics.
Kaitlin also highlights her transition to personal injury law, where she leverages her civil rights background to address issues like police brutality and brain injuries. Her commitment to advocacy continues as she fights to change laws, ensuring better protection for vulnerable individuals, such as children injured by caregivers without proper insurance coverage.
In her “Closing Argument,” Kaitlin emphasizes the importance of balancing a demanding career with personal life, having founded her own law firm to achieve this balance.
Chapters
1:22 – Why did you want to become a trial lawyer?
9:07 – What makes you unique?
13:02 – A case that matters.
15:40 – Kaitlin’s “Closing Argument”
Takeaways
- Following a childhood dream can lead to a fulfilling and impactful career.
- Working on high-profile cases can have a lasting impact and lead to significant social change.
- Highlighting and addressing injustice through various platforms, such as documentaries, can raise awareness and drive change.
- Transitioning skills from one area of law to another can provide unique perspectives and advantages in addressing complex legal issues.
- Balancing career demands with personal life through innovative law firm practices can lead to better client outcomes and personal satisfaction.
Transcript
[Theme Song Plays]
Kaitlin Nares: So it all starts back and I have a specific moment, which was when I was in the fourth grade, you had to dress up for what you wanted to be when you grew up. And I put on my older sister’s high school graduation gown and I went in to be Ruth Fader Ginsburg and I gave my whole spiel about her life and how Marty was such an important cornerstone into her life and propping up to be the woman that she was in society in the legal context.
And ever since that moment, I just hitched on that I was going to be a lawyer. I was going to be a civil rights attorney. I was going to change the world as Ruth Bader Ginsburg had. And I just had this concept from day one. And what was great about it was I had that concept going into law school where most people are like, I have no idea what I’m going to do. I like knew from day one, I wanted to be a civil rights attorney. And when I got the offer to join one of the most premier civil rights attorneys in Manhattan and work on the Central Park Five case, it kind of felt full circle. And the first thing I did when I got that offer was talk with my mom and we talked about the fourth grade presentation. So it was really great. I love that that was part of my experience and a story that I could tell that it came full circle. Wow. And so right out of the gates, you were working on a pretty high profile case.
Chad Sands: Can you tell me some stories about that and what it was like, you know, being a fresh attorney?
Kaitlin Nares: Absolutely. It was a dream come true to be able to work on this case because what deserving gentlemen to be working for. And so if not a lot of people know about this, the Central Park five case was one of the preeminent cases in our, let’s say civil rights history. And I’ll go back down in this, in the record books for this. It happened in 1989 in Central Park where a young woman was very tragically assaulted and raped in Central Park and the wrong people were arrested, convicted, and spent numerous years, we’re talking 13, 14 years, for crimes they didn’t commit. Ultimately, they were exonerated, and that’s where my story starts. So 1989, when this event happened, I was one years old, right? They are exonerated when I’m in high school. And the civil case starts when I am a newbie attorney, and I get the pleasure of working on that case. And it ultimately resolves when I’m a mid-level attorney and really get to be involved in that case, working on that case. It stretched a lifetime. It stretched all the way from me being one years old to when I am now pretty much a mid-level attorney at a law firm. And we were able to get a $40 million resolution for those five gentlemen. My client specifically, Corey Wise, used his proceeds to start the Innocence Project at the University of Colorado Boulder. Hence why I’m in Boulder right now. We followed him here and what a great opportunity to kind of start and set roots from Manhattan to Colorado. Loved it ever since. Loved being here and working as an attorney here and owning a law firm here.
Chad Sands: Wow. And so I did read a little bit about the false confessions. Tell me, tell us a little bit about that documentary and what that process was like for you.
Kaitlin Nares: Absolutely. What a fun experience being filmed for four years in Manhattan. I will say just being followed around with a movie camera on subways and in court hearings was a really great experience. So the documentary, False Confessions premiered at a lot of different film festivals, LA, New York, and even in Denver. And it was a great opportunity for family and friends to be able to see it. And what it does is it does a chronology of basically four cases and the stories of us working on these four cases and the trials and tribulations that our clients went through. So all of them have a common theme of false confessions. I did work as an expert in false confessions when I was in Manhattan. And it’s a terrible story of many people being put in a room with law enforcement and using tactics on them to get even the most innocent of persons to confess to crimes they didn’t commit. And so our clients range from children to young adults. It didn’t matter who you are, these tactics work and they have been known to work to make innocent people confess. One of the fun parts of this was that myself and Jane, the lead trial attorney, we actually had these tactics used on us to see who would confess first to certain things. It’s very unfortunate. They were very good tactics to get you to question things, to make you feel like it was in your best interest to say that you did things that you weren’t supposed to do. It’s been deemed unconstitutional since with the work that we did on these four cases. If anybody hasn’t seen this documentary, I highly recommend it. It’s called again, called False Confessions and it was produced by a wonderful Danish crew and it was an excellent four years having it filmed.
Chad Sands: My God, I’m asking more stories questions. Can you tell me a story about a false confession that you’ve heard of that is just–
Kaitlin Nares: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the false confessions that was just horrible that happened was it was actually a Denver case and it happened to a child that was just not even present. Was the wrong person, wrong time, not even there. He was brought in on suspicion. Again, this was a minor child and he was subject to hours and hours and hours of interrogation. They claimed that there was evidence putting him at the scene when there was not, that there was friends of him in a booking room next door that were confessing about him that they were not there. It was just a really unfortunate story. And guess what? It was completely filmed. Every single bit of that confession and the interrogation process was filmed. It is objectively when you look at it as harsh as it can be, anybody would confess under the circumstances. And this young boy was convicted at trial and spent many years falsely imprisoned.
And so that was another case that’s featured in the false confession movies that we were able to be a part of. So the work that we’ve been doing in making sure that these interrogations of minors are filmed, that is discovery that is produced immediately, and that it can be held up under scrutiny and a potential motion to dismiss is very important. And anything that we can ever do to help that is a big priority. And the Innocence Project, based at the University of Colorado Boulder, is really on top of this and working for advocacy of children.
Chad Sands: You hire professional interrogators to have them put these tactics on you just to see what the result would be and how it felt and what are some of the tactics they use?
Kaitlin Nares: Yeah, absolutely. And so these tactics are trained across the country, but primarily they were used by the NYPD in New York. And so we got former officers to be able to do it to us, but really what it is, is it’s a grooming technique where you really kind of start the process, making people feel that they’re in a safe place, that they didn’t mean to do what they did, and that it’s okay to talk to the police officers. Then slowly, after that trust is built and that amiability is built, then it starts turning into, you know, we do have evidence placing you there. You know, we have video, we have DNA evidence. We have other people that were there saying you were there in their statements. And then it goes into more aggressive tactics of turning the chairs, you know, facing each other, telling them what will happen if they don’t confess the outcomes, right? Life in prison, know, statutory minimums, what’s going to happen, how it’s going to affect their family. And it’s this dance that’s done. And I can’t even tell you how many people have falsely been in prison because of this. Obviously, I’ve worked on many of these cases, which is filmed in that documentary, but it was a very amazing experience to learn about this, to advocate for people, and to try to make change.
Chad Sands: Well, besides being starring in an award-winning documentary and working on a high-profile case like the Central Park Five, what makes you unique as a trial lawyer?
Kaitlin Nares: I think it’s just that it’s this uniqueness that I turned these civil rights, the civil rights experience that I had, and I opened up a personal injury law firm because what I noticed was the training that I had in the investigative front, really digging deep into evidence, number one and foremost for me was how can I change the world? How can I change the laws? Bringing that perspective into a traditional personal injury law firm, I think really has changed the game. And also, I know we’ve talked about false confessions, but a lot of work I did was police brutality cases. And I gained an awareness and sophistication to brain injury cases doing that. And I brought it to my law firm. So my law firm specializes in brain injury cases. And what is unique about us is this perspective of investigation, figuring out what happened, holding large companies accountable for putting profit over safety. Sounds pretty familiar, wasn’t I holding NYPD and major government municipalities accountable for their tactics. And so it’s bringing the civil rights perspective to traditional personal injury law firm, I think has remarkably changed the game. And it’s noticeable in our outcomes, how we’re doing cases. And we want to be a change maker. We want to hold large companies accountable for putting profit over safety, resulting in devastating and traumatic brain injuries to our clients that are going to affect the rest of their lives.
Chad Sands: Some of those stories about some of the brain injury cases that or any case that you’ve had really that had made a big impact on you?
Kaitlin Nares: Yeah, absolutely. So one of those unique things that’s really trying to make us change agents is there is no requirement when you have a nanny or a babysitter come into your house. There is no requirement that your homeowners insurance cover that. And so we have a devastating case where catastrophic injuries happened to one of my infant child clients caused by a nanny that was in the house and there’s no insurance to be had. And so one of the change agents that we want to do in this world is we want to require homeowners to cover nannies, to cover babysitters. I mean, talk to any family in the Denver area where we’re based. They’re using nannies, they’re using, you know, in-home pairs and babysitters, and no one understands that there is zero coverage here if anybody causes catastrophic injuries to their child. So we’re trying to use this case to change the laws. Again, advocacy is first and foremost what we’re about. And that goes back from the start, right? That goes back from my civil rights days.
Chad Sands: Is that specific to Denver then? The legislation in your state?
Kaitlin Nares: Absolutely is not specific to us. so there is no requirement that homeowners and insurance cover these people in the house and any injuries that can be caused by it. And so I’m talking State Farm, I’m talking Progressive, I’m talking Allstate. I’ve looked at all of these homeowner policies and there’s either in flat out exclusions and saying that we do not cover any injuries caused by any caregiver.
And so we want to change the law and it’s going to take a big case to do it. That case is in current litigation. And so this is just one aspect of that, that we’re trying to hold companies accountable. And we do it every day. I have so many stories of how we are holding truck wreck companies accountable for blatant violations of supervisory requirements, hiring requirements, training requirements. Again, these are things that they know about this, they’re putting profit over safety and causing catastrophic injuries. So any way that we can change the laws regarding regulations from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act on large trucker companies, we’re trying to do that too. Advocacy first and foremost is number one for us.
Chad Sands: Can you share a story about a truck case that you’ve had where the negligence or what the company did kind of blew you away?
Kaitlin Nares: Absolutely. So there was one case in particular where at the end of the day, let me say, Chad, that these cases are about society as a whole, not so much my clients. And my clients are first and foremost understanding of that and want to change the laws. So let’s look at all the things that this company did to affect society as a whole. So first and foremost, they hired a driver that was completely unqualified. He had been fired from a previous job for multiple violations of the Federal Military Safety Act and basic regulations of the road.
Hitting too many things was apparently what he was doing, whether it be other cars or inanimate objects like poles. They hired this person nonetheless. This person committed additional violations of just basic municipal codes and also the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act throughout his term, never reprimanded. In fact, they said, please stop hitting things, never reprimanded, never did any kind of retraining, ultimately ending in the serious injuries caused to my client.
And so it’s just a case like that that happens all the time. And what we’re trying to do is bring case after case, company after company accountable to change the laws and make society aware that when someone is driving a commercial vehicle, they are held to a higher standard and they need to abide by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act, which the most common driver doesn’t know about because they’re not held to it. But these drivers are. And so we know that book, like the back of our hand, thousands of pages. We got it. And it’s important to hold these people accountable.
Chad Sands: Yeah. It always disturbs me a little bit when I see the semi trucks that we know we’re hiring drivers and we’ll pay for your training. And I’m like, are you just trained in like five days and now you’re on the freeway driving a semi at 70 miles an hour?
Kaitlin Nares: 100%, seen it many times. Or if there’s a supervisor, they’re probably asleep in the cab, not knowing what’s going on. We’ve had that case multiple times too.
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Now here is this episode’s “Closing Argument.”
Kaitlin Nares: I was working with a traditional large law firm and I had gone on maternity leave. And I can’t tell you how many times in maternity leave I was asked how my vacation was going and when I was going to come back and it got to the point where I simply wasn’t able to return back at the same capacity I was. I needed some flexibility. I had a four month old. And I said that there just has to be a better way, a better way to run a law firm and give phenomenal service and still be able to have some kind of life work integration. And so at that point I knew I needed to start my own law firm. Funny story. I start my law firm and I find out I’m pregnant again. So I have, at this point, I know that I’m going to have two kids that are 13 months apart. And this is a story that happens to families all over the place.
There has to be a law firm that this could be totally fine and the law firm can run smoothly and clients could get great results and great work being done for them. And so I set out to create the law firm that could exist in this experience. And so what’s different about our law firm is there are two things that I know clients want more than anything. They want clarity and they want transparency. And that gives peace of mind. And a lot of our clients happen to be family members where someone is catastrophically injured. And we know first and foremost that if someone is catastrophically injured in the family, the entire family is affected. Understanding that we’re dealing with families and creating a law firm that can assist families was the biggest concern for us. And so what we set out to do was create a law firm where families could thrive. And so we have people that are available to speak with these families late at night, right? When their kids actually go to sleep. We give automated information constantly talking to them about the next five steps that they’re going to experience. And once they experience those five steps, it gives that peace of mind and we give the next five steps that are going to happen. We created an atmosphere where we had moms with kids and busy schedules working for us because they ended up being the best multitaskers we’ve ever seen. They have an idea of what needs to be accomplished.
They set the schedule that allows them to accomplish it in a very efficient manner. It creates really high satisfaction scores with regards to work and life balance, happiness, all of those things we’re tracking. We have a big thing about client satisfaction and how they are matching us up to common companies that they experience all the time. Starbucks, Target, Apple, all these companies. We want to know how we match with client satisfaction with them.
And we ask the same thing of our staffers: How are we matching up in happiness levels? How are we matching up? Do you want to work here? And would you allow us to represent your family if someone was catastrophically injured? They have to answer yes to that at all times. If they answer no to that, we want to know why, want to know what we can do better. So those are the two biggest things that we care about. So the story of this was really unique of finding out that I had to leave my job because I was pregnant and then immediately finding out I was pregnant again. It tells all this time it happens to everybody. And guess what? My firm ran beautifully nonetheless, and it will run beautifully should any hiccups happen because we run our firm differently. We want to at the end of the day, make sure that everyone wants to work here and that they would in fact want us to represent their families as well.
You can’t go wrong if those are the two questions that we ask on a daily basis. So that’s the story of our law firm. It’s really grown rapidly because we’re just different. We do think we’re the law firm of the future. We do think that you can have a flexible life, that you can have personal, professional, financial growth at a firm, and you can have longevity at a firm and be happy.
