Scott Frost

Scott Frost: Get back up, strap on your boots and get out there… I’m really focusing on making sure that the clients are taken care of… To serve on active duty, to serve my country… And there I really learned the nuts and bolts of how to try a case.

Narrator: Welcome to “Celebrating Justice” presented by the Trial Lawyers Journal at 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 triallawyersjournal.com. Now here’s your host, editor of TLJ and VP of marketing at CloudLex, Chad Sands.

Chad Sands: Welcome back friends to “Celebrating Justice.” In this episode, we welcome trial lawyer and former JAG officer, Scott Frost. From discovering his love of law at an early age in a mock trial to serving in the US Army trying court marshals around the world, Scott’s journey has been anything but typical. To get to the stories, I asked him, why did you want to become a trial lawyer?

Scott Frost: I remember that I wanted to be a trial lawyer when I was very young in grammar school and I was in a play and the play was unique in that it had a real case. I’ll be honest, to this day I can’t remember what side I was on, but I do remember that it was realistic because the audience was a jury and I was one of the lawyers. We actually won.

And so I remember that feeling because you’d present the case and then you allow the jury to basically say who won or lost. And I don’t know if it was really a popularity contest or not, probably not, but I was convinced that I had won. And so I remember that feeling of not only being winning, which is always important.

But that feeling of knowing that you could come into a situation and really make a difference as to what’s going to happen in people’s lives. And so from that beginning, I always wanted to be a lawyer. Honestly, I always wanted to be a trial lawyer because there’s all types of lawyers and we need all kinds of lawyers, but there’s a distinct difference between trial lawyers and everybody else. I don’t know if we look at the world a little differently or if we’re just masochists because, you know, we spend a lot time away from our families. To be a really good trial lawyer, you got to be really dedicated and you have to study the craft. So from that point on, when I was in that play as a young child, I always was like, it really would be fun to be a lawyer. And it’s turned out to be that way. I had some roadblocks in the way because no one in my family were lawyers. No one in my family had actually graduated from college. 

So I had to really figure out how I was gonna get to where I wanted to be, which was to be a trial lawyer. And along that route, I also decided that I wanted to serve in the United States military, which was actually very helpful because I was able to get in a special program where it allowed me to become a lawyer. To serve on active duty, to serve my country, but also to do what I love, which is to try cases. And so I was able to serve six years on active duty in the United States Army as a judge advocate. And there I really learned the nuts and bolts of how to try a case. And in the Army, they teach you how to really do analysis, but also how to really understand the rules of evidence and how to get things into evidence and the fundamentals of how to be a trial lawyer. And so that was a great experience that prepared me to then leave the United States Army and go out into the civilian world and represent people. And that’s what I’ve done since I left the army. I’ve spent the last 30 years or so representing people that have been harmed by traditionally corporate negligence, defective products, mainly asbestos, benzene, and other types of products where most of my clients all get workplace cancers. And what’s unfortunate is that all of my clients that get the workplace cancers will eventually pass away from those diseases. And so all of that kind of led me to where I am now, where we specialize in trying cases that are very important cases to make sure that we don’t allow society to continue on with the mistakes that they’ve done in the past. And so that’s where I went and where I’ve kind of gone now.

Chad Sands: Amazing stories along the way, I’m sure. I remember when I was in elementary school, I did one of those mock court cases too. I forget if I was on the plaintiff or defense, but I remember I had like a plastic tie that had film negative in it popcorn, because I also wanted to maybe make movies. I ended up going to film school, but I think I should have went to law school in hindsight.

Scott Frost: Well, that’s the interesting thing. A lot of people would have done that is a lot of people when they hear that story, like, well, why didn’t you want to be an actor? And I was like, man, that’s boring. That’s the thing I really liked about being a lawyer. Prior to that, I wanted to be a pilot and I didn’t recognize at the time that my wearing glasses might be a problem. When I found that the law, I was like, man, I would have been a terrible pilot because I would have been so bored. The being a trial lawyer, the interesting thing about it is that it’s always something different. You never get bored and it’s always intellectually stimulating. And so that’s why I really enjoy being a trial lawyer.

Chad Sands: What makes you unique as a trial lawyer? There’s a lot of guys out there. How do you set yourself apart or how do you kind of see yourself separating yourself?

Scott Frost: I think that the big difference between myself and other trial lawyers is that I’m focusing on making sure that the clients are taken care of. And that includes not only throughout the trial, but throughout the case. And what I have seen is that a lot of times the clients kind of get lost in the shuffle.

For example, I had one client of mine. He was a very religious man and he had spent his entire life helping others. He had spent his entire life building houses for other people and doing construction work for other people, making sure their apartments or their houses were nice. And he even did missionary work where he went to Tonga to build missions for the Tongolese. He had done all this and I went and met with him and spent some time with him. He told me that even though he had built many a house and he’d built many a mission, he had actually never owned his own house. I was like shocked by that because this was a very talented man who’d done a lot of work for a lot of people over a long time. He had never owned his own house. Through the trial process and the verdict that we got him, the first thing that he was able to do was to buy a house, to make sure that his wife, when he passed away, was taken care of. And there is no feeling that’s better. mean, winning is great, but knowing that through all the hard work that you did, that your client is able to finally achieve a major milestone in their life through the work that you did is really amazing. And so the distinctive edge I would say that we have is that we put the clients first and that I’m always trying to make sure that the client is taken care of and that no matter what decisions we make as trial lawyers, we take into account the client and their client’s interests.

Chad Sands: You deal with some heavy stuff in terms of these asbestos cases and there’s kind of a final verdict for these people coming outside of the courtroom for them that they can’t avoid. How’s that kind of taken a toll over the years? There’s a unique beast to that. It’s not a motor vehicle accident necessarily.

Scott Frost: I’ve had friends that all the time say, you’re kind of like dead man walking because your clients are all going to pass away. And I will say that for probably the first 10 years of doing this work, it’s profoundly affected me. My father got cancer himself and he passed away and that affected me even more because he had a very similar disease to most of my clients and he did what they did. He went and sought treatment from everywhere that he could and did really well for a while and then unfortunately passed away from it. Again, through workplace exposures. It’s been a process of really dealing with those emotions because it’s very hard because you get to know these folks, get to know their stories, get to know their families, and then you have to sit there and watch them. I had one client who was six foot four, was running five minute miles before he got sick and then ended up weighing a little bit more than 100 pounds. And just to watch him go down and have him communicate that to me. And sometimes, you know, the best thing we can do is just listen to the clients and listen to what they have to say. Make sure that we take care of ourselves. And that’s the biggest thing that I learned is that you’ve really got to not separate yourself from the clients, because if you do that, then you won’t really represent them well. Go ahead and take some time to yourself. And I’m fortunate that I have three small children. And so whenever I get depressed, I can just go and see them and see their smiles and know that, you know what, no matter what, they know that their dad’s out there fighting for another family to get justice. And we talk about that. I talk to my kids about that. I tell them when I have to go away, because sometimes I’ll go away for a trial and be gone for a month. And when you have young kids, they really don’t understand that. They’re like, “Dad has to leave.” And so I talked to them and I said, “Well, I know Dad has to leave because he’s got to go help another family and make sure that they’re taken care of and that they have a house and that people understand what actually happened to them.” 

I think that process has been long, but I do think it’s important that as trial lawyers that we really take care of ourselves because if you’re not taking care of yourself, then there’s no way that you can take care of these clients. I don’t really believe in work life balance, but what I do believe in is making sure that you take a little bit of time to yourself and to your family to really reconnect. Because then when you go into a courtroom and you speak on behalf of the other family, you can’t but help but think about your own family. And that brings power to the courtroom. And I think that having kids has really helped me in focusing in on that, understanding that, and giving me even more power in the courtroom.

Chad Sands: I would love to chat about maybe a couple other things that kind of shaped your career a little bit. Let’s go back to your time in the army and as in JAG. Is this like “A Few Good Men” playing out in real life?

Scott Frost: It was very similar. I was a prosecutor and I was a defense lawyer in the army. And then my last year I spent as assigned specially to a U S attorney’s office where I tried a double federal capital murder case. So as you might be able to tell from that quick sketch. When I was in the Army, I basically tried court martial cases. I was a prosecutor first, and I had the nickname of “Judge Dredd” from the Sylvester Stallone movie, where I was hardcore and was a prosecutor known to make sure that we hung him high. At that point, I was in a unit that was what we call a deployable unit, which means that we could be anywhere in the world in 12 hours. And so that created a unique situation where folks tended to get themselves in trouble. So I prosecuted a lot of cases during that time period and I got so good at it that they said, you know what? I think you should be a defense lawyer.

Chad Sands: You’re putting too many people away. So you’re the Kevin Bacon?

Scott Frost: I was first Kevin Bacon and then I became a defense lawyer. Did that at Fort Hood, Texas, which Fort Hood at the time and probably still is the largest army installation in the world. So there was a lot of shenanigans happening, which is exactly what I wanted. That’s why I asked to go there. They wanted to send me to Germany and all these nice places. And I said, you know, I really want to be a trial lawyer and try cases. So send me where the action is and send me there. They did.

Chad Sands: You sharpened your skills on the prosecutor side in a lot of ways. Then you went to the defense side, standing up for Santiago, Lieutenant Weinberg. And then I think it was in 1999, you went to Thunderhead Ranch. Can you tell me a little bit about the Gerry Spence Method?

Scott Frost: When I was still in the Army and it was unique at that time because I had to ask the army for permission to let me go because at that point it was a month long course. And I’ll be honest, it was surprising the army let me actually go. At that point I had a very progressive boss and I was a defense lawyer so it matched with what they wanted to do. I somehow got them to agree to do it. I remember I wrote my, I don’t know if they still do it or not, but you had to write a letter where you explain why you wanted to be considered and allowed to be there at Spence’s ranch. And at that time, Spence was there every single day. It was a unique situation, but I wrote my letter saying why I wanted to when I was sitting as a defense lawyer in Bosnia. When you’re in a foreign country doing peacekeeping, I think you really get to the heart of what you want to be. And so I was fortunate that I was selected and then went to trial lawyers college, the Spence method at this time and learned an awful lot about myself probably more than being a trial lawyer, but it was a great experience and I met a lot of great people and I was in a unique position because I was in the army and I believe at that time I was the first JAG to go through. I think there’s been others at this point. But I was one of the first ones to go through. So they didn’t really know how to handle me because I had short hair and I had, we call them birth control glasses in the army. They’re these army issued glasses. So I had a buzz cut and birth control glasses. I spoke very abruptly. So it was an interesting experience for both sides, but I learned a lot. I was fortunate to see Gerry Spence when he was probably in his prime, not that he probably couldn’t go out and kicked most people’s butts now, but it was a very special time and a very special event.

Chad Sands: I’m interviewing a handful of people who’ve gone through Thunderhead this season and also a couple former Army guys as well. I know it’s hard to choose one because you’ve been doing it for a long time, but maybe you could actually share two stories about cases that have a significant impact on you. I mean, I’d love to hear one that’s tied to the asbestos work that you’ve done and then also maybe one that is outside of that kind of focus that had a significant impact on you.

Scott Frost: Going back to my military time when I was a defense lawyer, I represented a young African American client who was the driver in a drive-by shooting. The prosecutors thought that the case was a slam dunk because their theme was, he’s the driver in a drive-by, driver in a drive-by. If I heard that one time, I heard it a thousand times. And the one thing I will say about the military justice system is that it’s very unique in that if there really is a reasonable doubt, then as a defense lawyer, you really are able to talk to highly educated people and get them to understand that our system of justice is based on everybody following the rules. You’re military officer sworn to follow the rules. And when you go back into that jury room and for one split second, you have any doubt, then you’re required under your duty to find the person not guilty. That was something that took me a little while to really hone that argument down. But it really would be interesting to see because you’d see their faces and their looks and they would just be like, yep, he’s right. This is the way it is. This is our duty. We’re sworn to this. This is what we stand for. And so I had this client that was the driver during a drive-by shooting that had occurred, the shooter was actually a non-commissioned officer that was sitting next to him. The other unfortunate fact for us was that my client also was sitting next to a 12 gauge shotgun. But in doing the analysis of the case and talking to all the witnesses and just looking at the physical evidence, I was convinced that the client had no idea that this was going to end up in a shooting. And he was a large, large individual. I think he thought it was going to be an old fashioned beat down. He was a big guy and you bring your friend who’s bigger than everybody else with you and I think that’s what he really thought was going to happen. Next thing he knows some guy’s reaching out the side of a car popping off caps. So the prosecution kind of overreached in that case. They convicted one guy. I watched that trial and I kind of knew where their evidentiary flaws were. In our trial, I made the proper objections. I kept out certain evidence. And I also was able to successfully argue to the panel that they’ve charged him with a knowing act and we don’t really know and you don’t know and I don’t know and nobody knows whether he really knew this or not. And if you think for one second you’re not sure, then guess what? You’re duty bound to find him not guilty. He was found not guilty. One of the more interesting things that I’ve ever seen in my life was his mother was there. His mother was this beautiful woman who worked as a greeter at Sam’s. But she was a very large woman with a very large voice. And while the jury was deliberating, she was outside while we were in the courtroom and you could hear her just lighting him up, going up one side or the other. She told him to not hang out with certain people and that’s all these bad people and you’re a good boy and what were you thinking and just really going up one side, the other. And I remember that the person that was trying the case with me was like, Do you think we should go like stop her? And I’m like, yeah. And I’m like, you know what? It’s either going to help or hurt. I don’t know, but I think mom’s got a right to go at her son. And I think in retrospect, I think the panel probably heard it and they probably were like, holy cow, man, we’re not going to be able to do anything that mom’s not going to do to him.

So that happened during deliberations. And then when he was found not guilty, I was kind of like you see sometimes in the movies where mom literally jumped from the back row to come up and hug me. That was a great feeling. And I think it was justice because I don’t think they proved their case. And I don’t think he knew what was going to happen. But the best part about that and the most enduring thing for me is that about a year later, I got a phone call. I’ll just be honest, I instinctively thought because this happens a lot with criminal clients that, oh my goodness, he’s in trouble again. He wasn’t. He was calling to let me know that he had just had his first child and that because of me helping him, he was able to be there for the birth of his child and he wasn’t in prison because everybody else that was in that car was. That made it worth it because I don’t think that kid deserved what they were trying to do to him. He was very appreciative of what we had done and was so happy to be a father and was also committed to being a good dad. And that’s what he told me. He’s like, I understood how close I was to not being able to be here. And I’m going to make sure that my family is taken care of. That’s one story from my days as an Army JAG that always stuck with me that I really appreciated. It makes it easier to do the work because sometimes I’ve had other clients that I walked that didn’t even say thank you. You got to find a way to do this kind of work for yourself and for the system versus wanting a pat on the back. But that one felt really good.

Chad Sands: What about one of the asbestos ones that really stuck with you?

Scott Frost: Every single case that we try in these asbestos cases are really hard and difficult. I think the most difficult one that I’ve done recently was I was in South Carolina for a case and the case was one that involved a young woman in her 50s that got mesothelioma through exposure through the husband and through her father. Those cases are very difficult because not only do you have to deal with the legal issues like causation, how can we prove that that caused her disease since she was never the person working with it. But the other problem you really have is that you have to really dig deep with the husband in this case because there is a lot of survivor guilt. And she had passed away. You’re sitting there with an individual who in their mind at least contributed to the death of their loved one. And this man deeply loved his wife and she was just one of those amazing people and she loved Christmas and Christmas was her thing. And so every time when Christmas comes around, it’s just this acknowledgement of what he had lost. As a trial lawyer, we had to spend a lot of time with getting him to be able to tell his story in a way that would be helpful to the jury to understand the relationship, but to not be overly upset in a way that is not helpful to the case. What I try to do is to make sure that the clients are in a good place and we’ll even use outside psychologists and people to help prepare them to testify so that they can not only get their story across, but the jury can really understand what it means to have a loss. Cancer is something that happens to a lot of people and a lot of families, but the individual losses and what this man lost was truly catastrophic. And the relationship that it destroyed and how it brought stress upon the family of an individual who did the work and felt guilt because of that. We had to help him get rid of that guilt. That was a very instrumental thing that it took us a long time to really help him get to where he wanted to be. And that’s the big thing as a trial lawyer. You got to take the time in order to really present the individual’s case. And I also think the other thing that we were able to do was to help the client feel that through that process, he was heard. I think with these cases, it’s important that the clients be heard and that they be heard in a way that helps them because the trial isn’t really therapy, but it also helps advance the case. That case, I’m very proud of that we were able to help him get some closure and also to help the jury make the right decision and to hold a company responsible for something that was totally irresponsible and should have never happened.

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

Scott Frost: We always hear about the big verdicts. But you don’t hear people talking about the losses. And the losses hurt more than the victories really feeding your ego. The losses in all honesty, they’re people rejecting you as a trial lawyer or rejecting your client in your case. And I’m assuming that most people that are trying cases do it because they really believe in the client in the case. Having gone through losses, I think it’s important that we keep those in perspective. Because you’re not going to win every single case. And I’ve been around a lot of folks that claim that they haven’t lost a case. The reality is, is that some of the best trial lawyers in the world lose cases. A lot of people forget that Clarence Darrow actually lost the Scopes trial, and he’s probably the most famous lawyer that’s ever lived. Just because you lost a case, you need to know in your mind, that you did the best that you could at that moment. If you can look yourself in the face and look your client in the face and look your family in the face and say, you know what, I did the best I could at that time with my training, my skill sets and the facts of this case, then it’s gonna hurt, but you need to move on. Now, if you do that same analysis and you didn’t do that, then guess what? You need to go out and get more training. You need to go out and read some more books. You need to go out and find other trial lawyers and sit and watch them and listen to them and go on the internet and find out what they’re doing and get yourself better. So you never have that feeling again. It’s important that we not only win big cases, we lose not only gracefully, but that we learn if there’s any lessons to be made. And as trial lawyers, I think that’s the most important. If you take a case that’s a hard case and you take it to verdict and you lose, well, guess what? You made our system better. Every day when I was in the Army, I strapped on my boots to make sure the system was better and that people got a fair shake. And if you get your teeth kicked in, well, guess what? Get back up, strap on your boots and get out there.

Chad Sands: That was trial lawyer Scott Frost. Thanks for sharing your stories. To learn more about Scott and his firm, visit his website, frostlawfirm.com. All right, I’m Chad Sands. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

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 more.