Rich Ruohonen

[Theme Music Plays]

Rich Ruohonen: One of the things I instituted at my firm is we we call it “Fight Club” … You can’t agree with freedom of speech, but only agree with it if you say it in a back room, in a locker room where no one’s gonna hear you … Same in a courtroom. I am the one who always is willing to try something new.

Narrator: Welcome to “Celebrating Justice,” presented by the Trial Lawyer’s 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: To kind of share your origin story … really about why you wanted to become a trial lawyer.

Rich Ruohonen: To be honest, it sort of just happened. I I’d always been told growing up parents, you never you never give in, you always want to win every argument. And I got, you know, I heard from a lot of people you should be a lawyer someday. And then you know, just kinda in high school started thinking about it, did a mock trial in high school, and I was like, “Yeah, I kinda like this.” And then I originally thought I wanted to be like a business lawyer, maybe a sports agent, something with contracts. And then I so I’m going to law school thinking, try maybe being a business corporate lawyer kind of thing. And then I took my first business law class and wasn’t for me, it’s just too boring. Like I’m I’m pretty outgoing and I just I didn’t want to be behind the scenes. Wanted to kind of get out there and help. I always believed in helping people too. So I ended up getting a job as a clerk at a law firm here that’s still still around and pretty big and as and they do personal injury. And then I I was clerk in there for two and a half years and I just really liked it. And I liked what they were doing to help people. A lot of different cases, you know, anything from auto accidents, semi-truck, brain injuries, some abuse cases, things like that. So I just tried to get a job in that field. They were not really hiring because they were just fill finishing up all their Dalkon Shield litigation cases. So they had like four lawyers with no cases. It was kind of all wrapping up. And so they didn’t really have an opening, but I ended up applying with one of their old partners and got a job at what was then Pritzker and Associates back in nineteen ninety-six in November and then worked there, became a partner there and worked there for about probably till two thousand nine, so thirteen years or so, and then I joined what is now TSR. When I came on, it was — it was Terry and Slane and we went to Terry, Slane and Ruohonen, and then we had TSR and TSR time. So that’s that’s kind of the development. I’ve been here ever since, two thousand nine. So going on in seventeen years now. And you know, I do primarily personal injury stuff. Do some products work. I do a lot of abuse cases. I got pretty well known for daycare cases. So when kids are abused or injured or hurt at daycares, that’s that’s one thing I became kind of well known for because of one specific case, which we’ll probably end up talking about at some point. And so I handle a lot of cases like that. I probably have, you know, fifteen right now that and most of those are on the news because something bad happens at a daycare where a kid is abused or hurt badly. I do also just you know your standard auto accident, semi-truck accident kind of cases as well, and some premises cases, you know, deck collapse cases, things like that where people get hurt on a at a premises for whatever reason. So, and that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. I’ve been a trial lawyer now since forever. I’ve tried probably around 90 cases, maybe give or give or take. I haven’t counted it in a while. But right around there, which is — I mean, I’m sure you know and most people know when people say they’re a trial lawyer, you know, nowadays people who might be working twenty years that consider themselves a trial lawyer have tried five or ten cases, you know. Just doesn’t happen as much. But I I’ve been fortunate enough, especially early on, my previous my previous partner just said, “Go do it.” And I would just take chances. And so one t at one time, I think I tried thirteen cases in about nineteen months, which is pretty much unheard of. And you know, most of them were small because I was just, you know, three years out, four years out, that kind of stuff. But yeah, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve tried a lot of cases. The more successful you get to, the less they let you try. So you know it’s been a whirlwind. A lot of — lot of fun over the years, helped a lot of people, a lot of tough times too. It’s not an easy job, as you as you probably know, especially in trial, which is, you know, I I attribute kind of being an athlete to help helping me with that as well.

Chad Sands: So you’ve been at it for about thirty years then, all on the plaintiff’s side.

Rich Ruohonen: Yeah.

Chad Sands: You just realized you didn’t wanna be looking at contracts and sitting at a desk and found your calling and on the on the plaintiff’s side of personal injury. Yeah.

Rich Ruohonen: Yeah, it’s been great. It’s and it ha we’ve helped so many people and just you know when you’re in it long enough too where you get to see what you did to help people. Like I had a kid who was three when I took his case over and then ten by the second time we tried that case and now he’s, you know, twenty-one years old. I just talked to him a couple of weeks ago and to see him doing so well with what happened to him and just being really successful and a good kid and you he’s not a kid anymore. I guess he’s twenty-one. I still think of that as a kid ’cause my kid is my kid twenty-one, twenty-four, my two kids. So but to see you know, to know that you really made a difference in their life is just been fantastic. And I’ve had several occasions now where I’ve seen, you know, when you’re talking ten years later and you resolve a big case and you help someone and you see that they have a better life now, that’s very important to me. And it makes you f it makes you feel good and it makes you feel like it was all worth it. Even though, you know, being a trial lawyer sometimes you you take a lot out of your own personal life to to get to that, you know, to to try that case or you miss events maybe with your kids or your your wife, your family because you’re in the middle of a trial or because you have to do certain things and work a eighty-hour week because you’re in the middle of trial. And so to see it actually kind of pay off and see that the the people have really, you know, made it through this tough time and they’re living a better life and you at least played a small role in that is makes you feel good.

Chad Sands: Yeah, the sacrifice of especially going to trial and the pressure and the risk and, you know, maybe you’re away from your family for weeks at a time because it’s not close by. Have you at least been able to, you know, show your kids as they’ve grown up maybe and so they kind of understand a little bit like what dad was doing and wh why he was away and when you they were growing up? Do they see that now?

Rich Ruohonen: For sure. I mean, like they they know, you know, my big cases, some of my bigger cases that were tried in the last, you know, fifteen years when they were ten or older, they they knew we were trying to help someone and now they know more about that ’cause they’re older now, so they understand. And I actually would tell my kids the story even when they were younger and try to see if they could help me come up with a way. ’Cause sometimes looking at it from this innocent perspective, yeah, it really makes you realize maybe you’re you got this curse of knowledge as a lawyer. I I remember one time, I’ll just give you a quick example. My my daughter, I told my daughter that I was trying this case where this guy was suffered an electric shock injury. And I’m having to explain it to her. And it was a case where the city pounded in a pole into my guy’s backyard without checking where the the lines were buried. And it went into an electrical line that was coming into his house and he touched it. He was like, “What is this?” And then of course he gets this severe electric shock. And I I’m sitting here, how do I how do I tell these people that he got hurt by this? Because he’s not dead, but he had this brain injury. And I asked my daughter, she said, “Well, what are you doing?” And I said, “Well, I’m working on my closing argument on this case.” And she goes, “What happened?” I said, “Well, you know how the TV’s on right now. And if you you know, I tell you you don’t put anything in that outlet where we plug them in that shows us and, you know, you know, that whole thing that we teach.” And he goes, “Did he put a fork in it?” I’m like, “No, but someone put something into it and then he touched it.” And she’s like, “My gosh, there’s is he alive?” And then and then I say to her, “Well yeah, but I gotta convince them, you know, what to do.” And she goes, “Why don’t you just ask his mom how have he’s hurt?” Again, yeah. Actually — right. And I’m sitting here thinking, yeah, like ’cause I was prepared — I just said I was put prepared for my closing, but it was before trial. It was when I was preparing for trial and I said, “Well, we’re gonna call his wife.” And he goes, “Well, what about like Uncle Brian would tell you, like, say if you were hurt, you know.” So it’s just that whole thing where they come up with these ideas. And so I told that story in my closing that even my daughter knew how dangerous this is, right? So I told that story and that was my closing argument and I got a a really good verdict on a really tough case in a in a very rural county where —

Chad Sands: Yeah.

Rich Ruohonen: — there’s a lot of people saying you aren’t winning this case. You know it’s — I so a really kind of cool story about really listening and thinking about what other people say because sometimes I think we think we know it all and we know how we’re gonna explain it. And it I just boiled it down to even a kid knows. Yeah. And that’s what I said. That’s how I finished my closing. Even a — I think she was ten or eleven at the time, I said, even a ten-year-old kid knows how bad this is. And the judge who tried that case actually nominated me for ABOTA, which is American Board of Trial Advocacy. And he said, you know, “Rich won this case that I didn’t think it could be won in in the city of Glencoe, Minnesota here,” which was rural. He said what he did and his closing and everything was just phenomenal. It’s just something that people don’t think about. So so that was that was a real interesting way to to look at it.

Chad Sands: In a good way to kind of s break it down and communicate and tell the story to a jury so they can also kind of relate and understand. Yep. Well, I don’t know how many billboard lawyers there are out there or how competitive is, especially, you know, PI is competitive no matter where you go, I think. But what would you say makes you unique as a trial lawyer?

Rich Ruohonen: Me personally, I mean, I think it is this thing. Like I’m a pretty world level curler. I just got back from the Olympics and I just became the oldest US Winter Olympian ever. Yeah. And so I have been curling my entire life. I took a little bit of time, you know, from the competitive real competitive scene off when I went to law school because it was almost impossible to do that in a little bit when I went to college because you’re traveling so much. And then a maybe my first year of or two of become when I was a lawyer, because you know, back then that was expected you’re working sixty hours a week minimum and and nothing less. So but I really back —

Chad Sands: Yeah.

Rich Ruohonen: — at it hard in the late nineties, early two thousands and just would work from the road whenever I could and and you know, I I gave a presentation about what why being a athlete is like a a world level athlete is like a trial lawyer and how they’re similar. When I became president of the Minnesota Association for Justice and I honestly believe it. It’s, you know, there is a lot of kind of similarities and traits to to being in a like a week-long Olympics or a week-long world championship where the roller coaster, you’re going up and down, you have these good days and bad days and good moments and bad moments and you’re working sixteen-hour days on a trial and as an athlete when we’re in those situations we’re out on the ice for eight hours a day and then we’re practicing at night and you’re reviewing some stuff that just happened in the game, maybe on video review and stuff. And you just get this, you know, it’s it’s just tough. It it gets it wears on you. And then of course it’s harder the next day when you have a bad witness or a bad thing happen. Same with losing a couple in a row. And I remember in the worlds in two thousand eighteen we had lost I think two games in one day and we were we had to win like five in a row to make the playoffs and and and that’s where you feel the stress and you you feel it all and but I I I you know you get interviewed and I said, you know, “Tomorrow’s a new day. We fight to the end. We’re not giving up now.” And we won five in a row includ including beating the number one team in the world on national TV in Canada because that’s that’s a big sport for them. And on that Thursday night to qualify for the playoffs. So it it’s just, you know, that’s a big part of it. I also think you know, the one thing that we do differently, I think at my firm, and I’m not saying a a lot, but I think a very large majority of lawyers do not do this is practice. Whenever I’m playing curling, and more rocks I can throw we call it, the better. The more I can sit and just fire repetitive, get that body memory, that kind of stuff really matters. But then when we come into, you know, being a — a lawyer, people don’t practice. They think they can walk in and give an opening statement or give a closing argument without having ever said it, without having ever done it before. And well, like one of the things I instituted at my firm is we we call it “Fight Club.” If you’re gonna give an opening statement, you gotta sit in front of 20 of our employees who have a different perspective than the law, like more of a more likely a juror type ex perspective, even though they might be a tiny bit biased because they were for a plaintiff’s firm. But still, you can lean learn a lot about, you know, did this make sense how I said this? And we call it “Fight Club” because you don’t get any compliments. You got to give this on your first draft or whatever when you think you’re ready. And then when you’re done, you get ripped apart and then you give it again. When you go f all those mistakes and the next day you give it again or a day or two later. And that, you know, one of my biggest cases in my life, I think I gave my opening — we ended up with a thirteen million dollar verdict, but we I think I gave my opening over ten times. And the last time my partner said, “It sucks.” After my tenth time. And then we just changed a couple little things and he was awesome. Was like, “Now it’s it’s off,” right, you know. And when I gave that opening I sat down and I said, “It’s over. It’s gonna be at least 10 million,” and we still had two weeks left to trial. I knew it because I knew I had the jurors and and if I don’t practice that opening 10 times it doesn’t come out like that and it’s just the way we did it and the emotion and you know telling the story so people are visualizing it it’s it all matters in this business and you know I’ve been pretty fortunate I think I’ve won twenty-seven trials in a row, right around there, over 25 now. And I think it is a testament to that hard work and kind of knowing, you know, the more you practice and the more you you put into it. You know, because when I’m in there, I give it my all just like a just like a game. I, you know, and and the more I get upset with the way someone’s treating my client, the harder I work, and I already out outwork most people. So you know, to me, that it that matters, you know, just having that familiarity. And once you’ve also tried that many cases, it ki some of the arguments become kind of second nature where you’re just there, I said that in this case and it just pops into your mind, right? On how you say stuff. So I I think, you know, that familiarity too like kinda it it it reduces the stress and the anxiety. And you know, ca familiarity breeds success, I say. So if you it you know, I was at a point early in my career, we’re only tried a couple and they you are more nervous. Now it seems like it’s a little bit you still get that anxious feeling, just like before I start a world championship or a national championship. I throw the first rock. I’m a little nervous or anxious, I guess, but you’ve earned that right to be that way. That’s the way we do it, you know, with psychology. And I will say that, that’s another thing that has become really big in my sport. In sports, which wasn’t big back in 2000 to 2010, let’s say, or the late 90s, is sports psychology. And that matters in this business too. Psychology of jurors and what you say and how you say it. And just by the way you say things makes a huge difference. I really believe in that stuff. I’ve read a lot of books on it. I rip off stuff from other lawyers that works too. Just like I hope they use my stuff. You know, that’s why I give speeches, that’s why I talk about it. But I’m also just like every athlete, we’re always willing to try something new to see if we can win. You know, what can we do to make our performance better? Same in a courtroom. I am the one who always is willing to try something new. Yeah. Some argument that hasn’t been tried, something that I feel like is important. And that I can even give one example. I just did this, you know, came up with it about 10 years ago. And I’m sure other lawyers have done it, but I thought of this on my own because I had one juror that I thought was really bad for my case. And I knew he would never shut up in the and he was gonna be the first one to talk. And we had done multiple focus groups and we had a person just like him in it. And what we found is we asked them what they would award on this case. And then before they went into the room, and we found that this one person saying, “I would never award more than a million dollars,” took everybody else who thought it was worth twenty million down to five. Immediately, like because they felt like they were wrong. And so in that case, which I think I tried in 2016 or 15 the first time, I just said, “Hey, here’s what you should do, ladies and gentlemen. I’m not telling you how to run your deliberations, but one of the biggest problems is sometimes you get one person that might, in a case like this, say, ‘I’m not given anything more than five million.’” And of course, I set that at the bottom right there, right? And I said, but the rest of you might think it’s worth 20 million, but this one person says, “I’ll never award more than five million.” And now you think, am I wrong at 20 million? Right? Am I wrong? And but I’ll tell you, what if the other six people thought 20 million too? And it was this guy that’s wrong. And course I said guy. And I kind of looked his way. I didn’t point at him, but I like looked at his way because I knew that this was the guy. And then I just said, I said, “Here’s what you should do. You should all write it on a piece of paper and throw it in the middle before anybody says anything. Write down what you think this is worth. You know, each question on the verdict form,” I said. “And you’re gonna probably see that the other six of you are closer than that one person that might have spoken up first.” And then what does that do? That also makes him think, maybe it is only worth five maybe it is worth at least five. And it makes him think, I don’t want to yell out first either, and got a thirteen million dollar verdict on that case, you know, so I think having the the guts to try something new in a big case and really, you know, think about it. Does it make sense? And and because it had happened in our focus group, which is another thing, you know, you don’t get to that point if you don’t take the effort to run a focus group. And we had done, I don’t know, six on that case probably, and we learned a lot each time. You know, we learned that some of one of the biggest issues the defense thought was a huge deal was no big deal to anyone on any of our focus groups. And we were like, “Okay. Great. Now we know it doesn’t matter.” And they made a big deal of it in the trial and the jury’s like, “We don’t care.” I think the there’s this big crossover though between athletics and, you know, having that competitive and that fight to the end spirit, even when you’re tired, even when the chips are down. And I think it that gets you to the next day and curling when you’re a skip, you’re the guy that the quarterback on the team. So it’s physical, but it may not be as physical as the guys who are sweeping all the time. So but you do get that mental just fatigue. And I think in trial it’s really similar. Like how tired you get and how but I just think there’s like that that athletic mentality has helped me tremendously get through those tough times. That competitive spirit and and and those kind of things. It’s really, I think, helped me be a trial lawyer. And also I’ve learned stuff from being a trial lawyer that was that helped my my athletic stuff out. Try you know, this whole thing about sports psychology. I was using that as a trial lawyer before I was using it as an athlete. But then when we started learning how you talk to your teammates to get the best out of them. I definitely see, like, Gerry Spence is in behind you there. And I there’s this famous YouTube clip or it’s from I think a speech he did one time where he was talking about he was he was cross-examining this guy and he says he just keeps saying and “you’re here to tell us the county wasn’t negligent. The county wasn’t negligent, the county wasn’t” and he just kept saying it and saying it and changing, you know, ask then you’re saying, “but you think the county wasn’t negligent.” And I I’ve showed that to so many people and I’ve said, “Was the county negligent?” And they’re all, “Yeah,” and I go, “What did they do?” No idea. No idea. There was never a fact of what the county did. He was just cross-examining this expert who just wanted to say the county wasn’t negligent. It’s — you know, and you’re just like I r I watched that one time and I just went, “My gosh, I’m a lawyer and I have no idea what the county did, but I know they’re they whatever they did, it was wrong.” Right. And so learning just from people like that, just, you know, great lawyers, great people who’ve figured out why an argument works, you know, and why you say the county wasn’t negligent. Like if I say, “Don’t think about a purple elephant right now, no matter what you do, don’t think about a purple elephant,” you can’t help it. You have to. So the way you frame questions matters too, because your mind has to think about the negative before it can think not to think about the negative. Those are the kind of things that I just think they I think the athletics and and being a trial lawyer really they they do overlap. But I could go on and on, but that’s that’s a few examples of how I think it really matters.

Chad Sands: For sure. Yeah. Watching film, you know, locker room talk. You know, there’s the the Russell Wilson quote I used I always like to reference, which is separation by preparation. And yeah and then yes, obviously I assume, you know, it’s it’s it’s cold where you live and where you grew up, but I’m curious, how did you get into curling and why curling?

Rich Ruohonen: My dad is from the range in that’s the where the mining industry used to be in it’s called the Iron Range. That’s where the mining industry used to be. It’s northwest of Duluth, it’s Gilbert, Eveleth, Biwabik, Chisholm, these small towns where, you know, forty years ago the mining industry was huge up there and so that’s —

Chad Sands: Mine f mining for what?

Rich Ruohonen: But granite or ore or mostly now nick there’s some nickel mines up there that they’re trying to open and things like that. But generally was ore iron ore. And curling was big up there. It’s a Scandinavian area, you know, and and curling’s big in Europe. It started in Scotland on the lochs, but really was in in Scandinavia, you know, Norway, Sweden, Finland, I’m Finnish. And so he started curling there when he was a kid, or young anyway, played a lot of his life. And then when he moved down to the cities, so it’s about three hours away, two and a half hours away. He joined a curling club and kept on. It was kind of a tradition. My great grandfather curled and my grandfather as well. Mostly my grandfather, my great grandfather, just a little bit. And it’s sort of a family sport. I started at about 12 years old and really liked it. I was also though playing basketball and football in high school and tennis. So and I played one year of D three college tennis, not not a big deal, but you know, but I decided, hey, I just want to curl. And then once I could work around it with my career. You know, I played pretty competitively when I was younger, even into college for a little bit, but then it became too much with law school to play at that level and and being a first couple year lawyer. I wish we had what we have today back then, which is hearings by Zoom, talking to your clients by Zoom, because that has made my last five years since COVID basically way easier because judges finally think you do they don’t have to wait in your court you don’t have to sit in my courtroom for four hours waiting for a 20-minute motion. And we can just I could be working at my desk or even in my hotel room. I’ve done motions for my hotel room, you know, when we’re on the road for curling. And of course my partners have been really great and they cover stuff for me if I need it and I’ll cover stuff for them in the summers more because I’m curling a lot in the winters. And so it works out pretty good. But that has been a big difference to be able to be, you know, to work on the road and to be able to continue to curl. Although I did play a lot, you know, from two thousand basically to to even before COVID, that twenty years. So went to a couple of world championships, went to like twenty twenty-two, twenty-three national championships for curling, won two of them, took second like six times, I think. I went to f eight Olympic trial or seven Olympic trials total. Six men’s and one mixed doubles. And a lot of that is impossible if you can’t, if you’re not willing to work on the road. I mean, I have a game at 10 o’clock, get up at seven, work for an hour or two, go to my game, come back at our hotel room or Airbnb and work for four hours, then go to my next game. You know, so one of the things I always try to do is when I’m on the road is use every minute I can to not screw around and get some stuff done. And I can be gone for five days and still put in pretty close to full time by doing that, especially if you count the weekends, throwing those extra hours in, you know, or working on an airplane on a three-hour airplane ride. I’ve written I wrote a closing argument on an airplane because I had a a trial to a week and a half after I got back. So, you know, those kind of things you just gotta use every minute you can and but like I said, with being able to log in from computers, which we’ve been able to do for a longer than just COVID, but just to you know, not have to be here and tell a judge, “Hey, can we do this by Zoom?” Which most of prefer now, frankly, I think. At least around where I am. So being able to do that’s helped a lot, obviously, to continue to do it and still be a senior partner at a law firm with a big caseload. So that’s why I’ve been able to still curl, you know, through into my fifties. I’ll I’m fifty-five tomorrow. So —

Chad Sands: Happy birthday. Yeah. But it but it sounds like it’s kind of like it was in, you know, your family and you guys probably curled as a family, I’m assuming, like growing up and that’s kind of how you originally fell in love with it. It was kind of inherited. It’s in your blood.

Rich Ruohonen: Yeah, my first Olympic trials, well, it wasn’t the trials because we didn’t make it. You have to play like in a a regional playdown first to make like the final twenty-four back then was in nineteen eighty-eight and I played with my dad and my brother and one other guy that was a good friend of my dad’s. And we lost in the game to make it to the final twenty-four, which would have been considered the Olympic trials back then. Yes. Right. And so we were one game away and then I I also played in ninety-two and just missed the final twenty teams, I think it was. And then, you know, when I started getting a lot closer was, you know, in that two thousand to two thousand twenty-five time frame where we lost a lot of finals and just never quite got there.

Chad Sands: And so was this last Olympics your first Olympics that you got to ma attend?

Rich Ruohonen: Yeah, I was I w unfortunately I had lost, like I said, I think three or four times I’d taken second. One of those was mixed doubles four years ago. I lost with my partner Jamie Sinclair. That’s where one man and one woman play and together and we lost on last shot to go to the Olympics when I was fifty. So I pretty much thought it was over. And then my men’s team took third. We lost we if we had won one more game, we’d have been in the final two out of three to go to the Olympics. And then so I thought it was pretty much over there. And I I sort of retired, then came back out of retirement after a week ’cause a a junior team needed some help.

Chad Sands: Yeah.

Rich Ruohonen: And then I played for a year with if you know Jared Allen is, he’s a famous Vikings defensive lineman, a Minnesota Vikings. I played with him for a year and we traveled around and played competitively. And then I was going to just basically play for fun in October of twenty f that that fall when we were starting that next season and just play a few spiels with some friends. Spiels are called are tournaments. They’re called bonspiels for that’s the curling lingo. And then this team just asked me to help out ’cause one of their guys got Guillain-Barré syndrome and they’re a young team all in at that time, twenty-four or twenty-five years old. And but they were a really good team and they needed someone to help when their when their skip couldn’t play. And I was sort of a natural fit because it matters in curling that you understand the game and can read the ice. It’s like a chess match and you can lose games just based on your strategy. So I filled out for filled in for about probably played seventy percent of the games that first year. We did awesome. We moved up into the teens and our rankings and then this year stayed on with although the the guy who had the Guillain-Barré syndrome was better. So he he played most of this year and I was an alternate, but I played, you know, maybe twenty of our hundred games or guess, just a guess, fifteen of ninety, whatever it was. And then we made it. So it was awesome. So I was more in a alternate mentorship, coaching. We had a coach, so I just helped out with that, but more the strategy part of it and and got to play part play and end in the Olympics and became the oldest US Winter Olympian ever. So that’s it was — it was awesome. It’s such a dream.

Chad Sands: You got called in you got called onto the ice, maybe a last minute one, but still made history. And I guess what was it like? ’Cause you’ve been at it I mean o again, almost as long as you’ve been a trial lawyer. Thirty years you have been waiting. Did those butterflies really come up when you kind of stepped onto the ice and you threw that first rock?

Rich Ruohonen: Yeah, for me it wasn’t I — you get a little anxious or whatever, but for I wasn’t plotting, I knew the game ’cause I went in because it was already basically over. And so there is — and I wasn’t really nervous and in fact I they go, “Do you wanna” like using before curling especially — at my age, you need to stretch, take a couple practice slides. And when you’re coming in in a game like that, they’ll give you like a minute. But I kinda knew for like I just kinda stretched quick, like pulled my leg up in the back on both sides and then I said, they go, “You wanna practice that?” I go, “I got it. But just tell me what I need to throw ’cause we” — we kinda know based on we take stopwatches and it’s called split times and so they just said, “Throw a 415.” I came up through a 413. It was perfect. Then I threw a 403 instead of a 405, but right there went exactly where we needed to. And I go, “Guys, this game ain’t that hard.” Yeah. That was it. And then I swept the last one right to the middle and we shook hands and it was it was a super fun time and my family was there and you know, like I said, you you know, they’ve sacrificed a little with being both a lawyer and a curler because you’re gone, you know. And they were so proud and just to have my two kids and my wife there and in the crowd going nuts when I got in and a lot of you know, a lot of the guys in curling, we play the same guys every weekend and they are around the world when we’re traveling and you know, I played against some of their dads. So you know, they were like super pumped to see me get in and you know, congratulations. And I said, “Hey guys, we’re gonna play one more game so I can get in.” They’re like, “Go have fun, let’s do it,” you know. So it was pretty cool. And it it it it wasn’t it wa it wasn’t nervous at all, it was more just this like sense of accomplishment. Like I think about like when we I always like to be there when my jury verdicts are read. Be in the courtroom because you know, I don’t know how they do it in other states, but in Minnesota most people just go home ’cause they don’t want to wait for the jury ’cause you have to be down there in case they come out. But and although we do that in some cases, most of the time I wanna s I wanna hear it be read and that’s the most nerve-wracking thing I’ve ever done in my life, is is sitting there knowing that your client’s either about to be really happy right now or really upset. And you know, fortunately I’ve been pretty fortunate the last fifteen years to just have those all be wins, but but you know, getting in that curling game was a lot easier than waiting for a jury verdict on a million-dollar case, you know. I can tell you that. Because I I I mean, like I said, it’s familiarity. Like I knew what was gonna happen. I knew I’d throw it good enough, and if I didn’t, we had already lost anyway. But I was pretty pumped to make both shots and be able to say, you know, I shot a hundred percent at the Olympics, you know. So it — and it was just — it’s just a sense of accomplishment, like that the — the dream, the dream finally paid off and the hard work and the perseverance and and that’s kind of been the story with my life as a lawyer too, you know, it’s been that hard work and that perseverance and and really just knowing that you’re gonna make a difference and and giving it everything you have all the time. So —

Chad Sands: I mean, maybe it’s gonna be like the next Disney movie, you know, of the the PI attorney who finally gets called onto the Olympics.

Rich Ruohonen: Well hopefully that’s in the works ’cause I I’ve had a couple of conversations with couple companies. Yeah, so eventually, but those take forever. But it is a cool s it is a cool story to try that hard and that long and and then finally get to make it and break a whatever a ninety-five-year-old record. Some some skier in nineteen thirty. I broke his record from the US. So —

Chad Sands: So I mean we talked about kind of the similarities of athletes, professional athletes in sports and you know, trial law. Is there anything very specific about curling that you could think of that how it applies to plaintiff personal injury? You mentioned like the chess moves and, you know, knowing these calls or the sweeping is like equivalent to I don’t even know, jury selection or something.

Rich Ruohonen: I would say strategy is a big deal in trial and how you say things and when you the order you call witnesses in and setting up your opponent to like and curling I’m thinking three shots ahead. They’re gonna do this. We’re gonna do this. If we get it anywhere here close, we got a shot for three, right? And in trial it’s very similar to that. Like if you, you know, I I think I’m pretty good at setting traps for people thinking it’s okay. I got a good at example just popped to my mind in one of my big cases we were talking about a a future life care plan and we of course gave them all the bells and whistles in our life care plan and they wanted this really crappy one. And he said he said in his closing, you know, and I knew they were gonna go. They just, you know, they’re overdoing it and asking for too much and blah, blah, blah. Well he called it the Cadillac plan. And then I just use that to say you’re damn right it’s the Cadillac plan. They let this happen to this little kid and they want to give him the Yugo plan, you know? And then I drew him on the board and I put a Y on this road that they could choose. He either j he standing between these two cars and he can either take the Cadillac plan that allows him to get the treatment that he needs so that he doesn’t have problems in the future, or you could send him on their plan, their Yugo plan, and that and that’s gonna all blow up. And he thought he was, you know, I kind of knew he was gonna say something along those lines. So I kind of made it clear that, yeah, why shouldn’t he get this? Right. And you have to own it. I think at as lawyers, sometimes we get scared about if you don’t believe what you’re asking for, the jury’s gonna know, right? And you gotta believe it. And and as an athlete, you better believe you’re gonna make this shot. ’Cause if you don’t believe it, you ain’t gonna make it. You know, that just saying like I just owned it and said, “Yeah. You damn right he should have the Cadillac plan. They don’t want him to have it. That’s why we’re here.” And so I think those are the kind of things that I think you can learn from I learned from my sport to get in there and to really set people up because it is like a chess match. And I don’t think I think trial’s like that too. It’s thinking ahead. It’s watching the video and curling and knowing that this is how this opponent is going to play. And thinking about, you know, when when I’m in a deposition and I got someone that objects all the time, you know they’re gonna be that way in trial too. So I I c I got ways to let a jury know that, you know, people object when they want to hide the truth. I don’t object. I hope you’re not gonna hold it against me. You know, I was — say that right to a jury, you know, things like that where you just kinda you kinda set them up and then they play right into it. In fact, one time I said that in voir dire, like, you know, hey, I don’t I’m not the kind of lawyer, this isn’t like TV where, “Objection, Your Honor.”

Chad Sands: Yeah.

Rich Ruohonen: And then some big moment happens because the judge is just gonna say, it’s the same as questions who come in. And then I’ll re push in a different way. So I’m not one to really object very much. And then I had a but you know, some people and you look at will. And then he immediately objected on cue and I said —

Chad Sands: See. And then there’s a classic Demi Moore line from “A Few Good Men” where she strenuo strenuously objects. Not just objects, but strenuously objects.

Rich Ruohonen: Yeah, yeah. So anyway those are you know, those are things that I think, you know, curling just being an athlete and doing that stuff, you’re always thinking ahead a few moves. And I think that helped me in in this. And you know, frankly, a lot of what I learned in sports psychology over the last ten years, I have now applied to the way I talk to jurors and talk to people because you really have to learn. Like in curling I had a good example of this. I have a I had a guy on my team a few years ago who if I would say “you got this, this is an easy shot,” he’d freak out because I said it was easy. And to me, if it is an easy shot, you could tell me it’s easy. I’m gonna make it. That makes me have more confidence. But to some people saying this is an easy shot, they go, “No, it’s easy. If I miss it, I miss — if I miss it, I miss it. We’re in trouble. My gosh, I can’t I can’t miss it now.” And they get freaked out up here, right? And so — and we really work on what does our teammate want to hear? And I think of that as a jur, like what what do — what does a judge want to hear? What is a what does a juror want to hear from me? What is important? How I say it, especially how I say it. If I say my client didn’t have the red light, my client, Mr. Jones here, he didn’t have the red light. I guarantee you you’re seeing him running through a red right now. You know, he didn’t run the red light. You see that. I say my client had a green. I didn’t have a red. You say that. It’s two different things that your client is looking that that the jury’s immediately seeing in their mind. It goes back to that don’t think about a purple elephant. I mean, it goes right to that. So those are the things you have to be really careful what you say. And and you can use that to your advantage if you know and if you understand. But if you don’t believe that and you don’t you don’t read those books and you don’t understand psychology, those things don’t it ends up it ends up hurting ya. Yeah.

Chad Sands: Let’s get back to, you know, some of the cases. You know, you’ve as you said you’ve almost done a hundred jury trials. Can you share a story? I’m not asking you to necessarily pick your favorite child here, but could you share a story about one case that really had a impact on you that you really carried with you and you always think back to?

Rich Ruohonen: Yeah. I and some a couple of the examples I’ve given happened during that this case already, but probably my most I guess the case that’s meant the most to me was helping a three year old child who was raped out of daycare by an older kid. And it was took a long time to because it takes a while to find out how bad the child’s gonna be hurt permanently in the future after something like that. And it’s mostly psychologically, not physically at that point. But he was beaten up and raped at a daycare where he wasn’t watched for over an hour. And that case, you know, came in in I want to say it was in 2009. And I had to follow it for many years while we’re waiting to try to get, you know, what’s what’s the care plan we’re gonna need? This is the Cadillac Yugo plan. And when we sued it out, we tried it. We had to take multiple depositions. I mean, I don’t know, thirty maybe depositions. We had several experts, and you know, we were told you’re never getting more than a million dollar verdict in this case. And like I told you before, you know, you have to believe. You know, in Minnesota, people say you can’t ask for more than five million. No jury’s gonna do that. I said, “Says who?” You know? And you had to make yourself believe it for a while because we all come from that mentality here, you know, like, my gosh, we don’t have these bigger verdicts here. We don’t and it’s because nobody asked for it, right? We we eventually ended up proving that it happened and then it was more about the the amount of damages, right? After we took multiple depos, we were and we had some video of him beating him up, but not he took to a different part in a in a playland to to rape. And so we had it was a battle. I mean, the biggest battle you can imagine in litigation for two and a half years ’cause they kept asking for continuances and it kept being granted and it was a mess. And then and my whole goal was just to help this kid. I mean, I I could I’ve been involved in some of the priest abuse cases and you see what happens later in life to some of these people and how their lives will never be the same. And I think part of that’s because they don’t get the treatment and the help that they need while they’re young. And so that was what I had hoped for. And my goal is to get that money so you can get that treatment. So you do overcome those early difficulties in life. And we don’t just push it under the rug and wonder why twenty years later later the person’s, you know, attempted suicide, depressed, drugs and alcohol. And so that was a big deal to me. And I grew to love this family. I still talk to them. And it meant everything to me and then we got a thirteen million dollar verdict and then we had it taken away by a judge thinking it’s too much money. That’s all.

Chad Sands: Is is that all he kinda said?

Rich Ruohonen: You know, try to use a opening statement error, even though the defense said it the defense never objected till the a day later, once they knew they were in trouble, they objected and the judge flat out said, “Both of you pushed it in your opening. Hey, you know, just — just we’re gonna have things closer to the vest.” Not a single another error motion, anything. And then, you know, it’s taken away. And I —

Chad Sands: Verdict is is taken away.

Rich Ruohonen: Yeah, like too much money, and maybe it was because of this comment made in opening, or maybe it was because of whatever. And I’ll leave it at that. But le needless to say, I think there were some other issues. But and so we retried the case and we had a seven million dollar verdict. But of course they soft selled the way they they they brought in a woman to help try it because it was two guys before, and they weren’t as sympathetic to our plight as they should have been, and I think the jury hammered them for it. And then things changed a little bit. They took a way different tack in the second trial, which probably played a role in reducing the damages. Plus, they know your whole playbook, so now you have to come up with a different way to to deal with the exact same case and the exact same facts. And so we tried it again and got, I think it was a six and a half million dollar verdict, but they ended up paying over more than that with interest and costs and all that. But it was it was a big change, right? In the the amount, but it was still enough to help take care of this kid and not what we had hoped and not what we really thought the damages were. But we got a great result and the kid’s doing great right now. And so for me to see that he’s the exact same age as my kid, he’s within a month a month of my son. And to know that that happened to someone who could have been your kid, I think that was part of, you know, why I wanted to win so bad. And I’ve never worked harder on a case. And I worked pretty hard, but I’ve never worked harder on a case. I’ve never been so emotionally involved in a case in my life. And when that was taken away from us, I was devastated. It’s a tough thing to overcome because you felt like you finally helped this person. But then, you know, it made you work twice as hard on the next trial just to make sure you got a good result. So for me that was life changing. That’s probably also why I became the kind of the daycare lawyer in Minnesota. You know, getting these kind of cases sent to me. I reduced my fee for kids too. And, you know, so for me it’s a big deal to, you know, help help try to make the community safer. And I’ve and I, you know, I’ve testified to the legislature about daycare stuff and had meetings ’cause I think we need some laws changed and all of those things really, really matter to me on a on a human level, not not a lawyer level. You know, I want I want kids to be safe. And I think we could do a lot more. In Minnesota, we passed a law last last year that helped a little bit make it more safe and that’s going into effect or maybe has already. So, you know, those kind of things are all super important to me. And I’m willing to take the time to even go testify if I need to to talk about what what changes need to be made at daycares because I’ve seen it all. I mean, I’ve seen kids get drugged so that they’re sleeping all day so that people don’t have to watch I had that case. It’s just amazing what happens at some daycares. Now there’s a lot of great ones, don’t you know, I like you just have to but every now and then there’s a couple that just you’d be amazed at what I’ve seen. And so that’s that matters to me to help kids out. Make sure that the next kid isn’t hurt at that same daycare and that they make changes. That’s the case. Now that’s the one I think about all the time. That’s the one I I I’m glad. It makes you feel great to be a lawyer ’cause you did the right thing and you worked so hard on it. Tried it twice, not just once, two week-long trials each time. You know, that’s a ton of work, but it was worth every every minute of it for me.

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Explore what’s possible at www.cloudlex.com. Now here is this episode’s “Closing Argument.”

Rich Ruohonen: I was in the Olympics for curling. And when I was there, it was the time where a lot of bad stuff was happening in Minnesota. We had a couple people be murdered by ICE. We had people that were afraid to leave their house. Even legal citizens were afraid they were gonna be rearrested and brought to a different state in holding places or even kicked out of the country and deported, whether they’re legal citizens or even green cards. This was all going on when I was about to leave for the Olympics, and I had made a few statements about it, but nothing too significant until we got to the Olympics. And I felt as a lawyer and as a human being, we needed to say something. All of us were from Minnesota. My team and the women’s team, we all agreed something needed to be said. We talked a lot about it. Just, you know, who’s gonna say it and everybody wanted me to say it because I was the old guy. Most of these ladies were in their 30s and the guys were, you know, in their in their mid twenties. We all felt it was important to use our platform and me more than ever because that’s what we do as lawyers. When we have that chance, we need to talk about the rule of law and when it’s not being followed and help people as much as we can. I think it’s part of our duty. We had people here, you know, we’re going to protests and were paying money to get people to get the get food who are afraid to leave their house. I’ve had I had a couple clients that were in that situation. And so we we did what we could to help them on that level. But I felt like one of the most important things I could do at the Olympics was to use my platform to say what was going on in Minnesota wasn’t right. We had a press conference the day before we started, and six of the ten of us were up on the stage being asked questions by multiple media sources about the Olympics and what we expected and and everything. And then we knew this question would be asked because we’re all from Minnesota. And so it was asked about what do you feel about what’s happening with the with ICE in Minnesota and the general happenings and I was ready to talk. I didn’t really prepare anything. I had a note that said, “Thank your family. And we love the US.” And so what I basically said is we we love the US and we love playing for the flag and what it’s supposed to represent. And that the Olympics means excellence, compassion, good competition and friendship. And that we were playing for the US and we love Team USA, but we didn’t love right now what the US was representing, especially in Minnesota. And that this stuff that was happening right before our eyes and our government was telling us not to believe our own eyes, that that’s just wrong. And we’re not that dumb. I also said that we weren’t playing for them, those people who do that kind of stuff. We’re playing for people that have empathy. And have compassion and care about the rule of law and what was happening in Minnesota was wrong and there’s no shades of gray. It’s black and white. I felt that it was important to say that, to make sure that it got out there that we care. And most of Minnesota care. And we needed to do the right thing and we needed to stop this from happening. And that we’re playing for people who care about that. And care about human beings and empathy. So after I gave that statement, it was a little bit problematic from the standpoint of there were some death threats and things like that that we had to deal with, and I expected that. But I was more proud about that than just about anything I had done in my life previously. Just a couple days later, they were even saying, you know, these athletes shouldn’t be talking, they shouldn’t be saying anything. I think JD Vance said if you say something, you should expect bat backlash. And for me, it was about trying to use your platform to do good. But it was also about freedom of speech. And you you can’t agree with freedom of speech, but only agree with it if you say it in a back room, in a locker room where no one’s gonna hear you. And that’s what he wanted us to do. And I thought I felt it was completely wrong. And the moment he said that, you should expect backlash. I got multiple more emails about it. Nasty emails saying your daughter and your wife should be raped or raped by Somalis, one of them said, ’cause that was this constant fight with these people saying that all of our problems are caused by people who are not white males, basically. And so I did feel it was a big deal. I’m proud that I said it. I dealt with the the threats that we had to deal with, but overall I think it made a difference. Two days later, ICE was not fully pulled out of Minnesota, but they backed off in Minnesota. And I was asked about it and I said I’d like to think that it had something to do with athletes speaking out and specifically Minnesota athletes. The other reason I wanted to say it is because what a lot of people don’t realize is the women athletes, they have to deal with a lot more than than us as white males have to deal with. They have people making comments about their body and stalking them and saying, “You just had a kid, you why are you at the Olympics? You should be sitting at home in the kitchen” and things like that. And the stuff that we see with them, I feel for them. So I wanted to take that burden a little bit off of them as well. And when I was making that statement, they were crying and there were reporters in the room crying and — and I didn’t do it for the accolades that it’s brought. I didn’t realize it would. And everywhere I go, people are like, “You’re the guy that said it. Thank you.” And it’s been really f made me feel really good about taking that risk and taking that that chance to use the platform. We had the courage to to speak up and use our platform despite the fact that the current administration doesn’t want you to do that. It meant a lot to me. It’s also goes really to the rule of law and things were happening that were absolutely in violation of the Constitution in Minnesota over and over and over again and it’s wrong. And as lawyers, we have a duty to kind of use our platform when we can and and use do what we can do to help those people. And my firm is is doing a little bit of that right now. I’m proud to be a lawyer. And proud to be a US citizen and proud to have played for Team USA and to proud to be an Olympian. It’s been a fantastic thing for me and a whirlwind, but most proud to just use my platform to speak up. And you should do it too if you have that chance.

Narrator: You’ve been listening to Celebrating Justice presented by CloudLex and the Trial Lawyer’s 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.