Outlaw Lawyer discusses latest on several big cases nationally plus the Supreme Court.

This week on Outlaw Lawyer, Joe and I talk George Floyd, Alex Murdoch, Ghislaine Maxwell, and new cases coming before the US Supreme Court.

And now, Outlaw Lawyer. The Outlaw Lawyer's Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your hosts. They are managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. 46 combined years experience.

Offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, and Gastonia. We talk legalese each and every week. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate and also referee between these two.

But we get into the topics. If you've got something going on with you from a legal standpoint and you've got questions, well you can give the firm a call. Here's the number.

Jot it down. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Just leave your name, contact information, briefly what the call is about, and an attorney from Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can also email the program questions at theoutlawlawyer.com.

We can use those questions in future programs and always check out the website theoutlawlawyer.com. Gentlemen, welcome in. I've missed you. Morgan, you doing well? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had COVID yet?

No, I have not. Two shots and a booster and I mask up quite a bit. Yeah, yeah. I haven't gotten my booster yet, but I didn't feel too good. We went skiing and came back and I was a little under the weather for a couple of days and never got tested or anything, but I'm hoping that was just a regular cold. Where'd you go skiing? We went to Wintergreen this time. I hadn't been to Wintergreen in 20 years, but we got up there.

It was a few weeks back. We got up there right before a big snow and I'm about 6'2", 260, so I'm pretty dangerous on skis. The picture of health.

No way. No way you're 260. Have you weighed lately?

255, 260. I think that's the perfect BMI for my height, though. 60 pounds of that is his robust immune system. That's why he doesn't need the booster.

That's why he can't catch COVID if he tried. But I haven't skied. We skied last year for the first time in a long time. I got boys all kind of in that 12, 9, 6 range and wanted to make sure they were comfortable. That's my parenting plan. I want my boys to be able to go anywhere and do anything and at least have something to reach back on.

This is part of my plan so that when they go skiing in youth group or college trips, they'll know how to ski. They won't be afraid of it. So we did that, but we all got a little something on the way back, went with another family and never tested, but hopefully it was just a cold and it came and went. But I know a lot of folks here at the office, we've seen a lot of the Omicron come through and seems like everybody's getting it. Joe, you've dodged it here lately. I have ducked it here lately. I did not do a great job of ducking it early on. It hit me in the face several times. I think that's probably the reason why I've been able to duck it lately. You catch it so many times and it decimates you. I think you just get used to it and then there's not much it can do to you after that point. I've been fortunate enough to duck it. Like you said, a lot of folks around us, a lot of folks in the office, a lot of the clients we work with, tons of people have come down here lately with Omicron. Knock on wood, fortunately, seems to be a bit milder than what we saw before.

It doesn't seem to be quite as intense. But yes, my goal is to continue to duck it. How unlucky can you be, man? I've got to believe that at some point I just stopped getting it and my family stops getting it and right off into the sunset of health until the next terrible disease comes out. I had predicted to my wife, we were talking about this and I predicted that this week, if people kept getting it and testing, we would just, I'm not a mandate guy. I'm not a big fan of shutting stuff down. But at some point, we won't have any bodies to do anything.

Everybody will have to take a week off just to get back into play. But yeah, I was just curious. I feel like everybody has it right now. So I've been watching that and then I've been watching, I grew up here in the Raleigh, Garner, Fuquay area. And Joe, we know you're from the Clayton, Garner area. I've been thinking a lot about this has nothing to do with the law, by the way, guys.

This is just something I've been thinking about. I can't remember ever being this down on an ACC basketball season being from this area. We got tickets to state games. I'm not going, I might not watch it on TV. I know Carolina, they're not doing really well, which is great for me.

I have no problem with that. But you know, and Duke, I guess Duke's Duke. Duke's doing okay, Joe, from what I can tell. But Duke's Duke's doing just fine, Josh. I have never been this, did they beat Clemson? That was last night, right? Yeah, they beat Clemson.

It was a closer game than you would think, but they were down a starter. So we can't be too upset with them. But I think what you're trying to get at, Josh, and I agree with you. It's not just state. It's not just Carolina.

What it is, is the entirety of the conference. Like, I can't remember a time that top to bottom, you know, outside of Duke, obviously, that there's been so much just mediocrity, man. There's no, the lack of ranked teams. And you know, you can look at, I mean, Miami's playing pretty well right now. Florida State's playing pretty well right now. Of course, Duke's playing pretty well right now. Outside of that, it's a crapshoot, man. And some, you could, you would think that might be more entertaining. Like, there's a lot of parity.

Anybody can beat anybody. But I just, I just think it's boring, man. It's high with you.

It's really lost my interest. You know, the Panthers this year were really bad, and state football was really good. Had a lot of fun with state football, which is great. I'm happy for you.

You deserve that. So I'm happy for you. And looking forward to next year. Basketball, you know, the guys are playing as hard as they can. Like, I don't think the, you know, I watched the state team.

They're not being lazy. They're giving it their all, you know, so it's hard to be out. Well, I had an unfortunate injury, man. You can't plan for, you know, arguably your best player to go down.

And I mean, that's tough for anybody to overcome. But I tell you what, I started thinking about this really hard because the other night we watched, for those who listen often, you might know I've married into the Bills, right? So the Buffalo Bills, not my home team, but I'm married into Buffalo Bills fandom. My family's big Josh Allen folks, but I watched that Bills-Chiefs game. I was like, I have never watched, besides the state Carolina football game this year, like, I can't remember the last time I watched a college game with that kind of energy, that kind of wild momentum swing. So that was a good game. Well, that was an unusual, I mean, you're not going to watch any, there's very few games in any sport at any level that are going to match that game. And just the insanity of it, just sheer insanity. Well, it'll last the last minute and a half of regulation.

I mean, I've never seen anything like it. And people are going to be talking about that particular game. But not only that game, guys, you mentioned it the entire weekend. All the other games were decided by, you know, a field goal, I mean, in last second, and there were upsets and there weren't a lot of, you know, a ton of points.

But man, the crescendo is the end of the weekend. I mean, I'm sitting there going, holy cow. Yeah, it was nuts, man. I tell you, you know, Josh, I know your wife's a big Bills fan. I know you guys probably felt like a lot of stress and a lot of tension during that game. I can tell you who had more stress and tension during that game, and that was sports betters.

Because that was just the back and forth, man. It was just insanity. What was the, I don't know what the line, what was the line on that game? The line, I want to say that the line was, I think it was, I think the Chiefs were favored by two and a half points, if I'm not mistaken. Or it may have been, it may have been three points, it may have been somewhere in that range is what it was. It was not, they were not a heavy favorite. I think they anticipated being a pretty close game. But yeah, crazy, man.

Crazy. It will be tough for this coming weekend's games to top the games from last week. But very super entertaining, man. Makes up for the doldrums of the ACC here lately. Yeah, I was just going to jump on the ACC guys and just agree with you. When we only have, as a conference, one in the top 25, and it is Duke, and you see postgame press conferences from Hubert Davis where he's concerned about the energy of the team. And I mean, these are things you just don't hear in the Atlantic Coast Conference. And you know, we get pounded on when it comes to football, but we always have basketball to hang our hat on as being the elite conference. And this year, we are not.

If you don't, if you don't have basketball, I don't know, I don't know what you got. I mean, that's, that's what we're known for. I have taken some solace, the hurricanes keep grinding it out. They seem fine. You know, what am I thinking about the law? I think that's an understatement.

I think they are doing fantastic. But yeah, so when I'm not thinking about law, I take solace in sports. And, and, and so anyway, I guess since we are the outlaw lawyers, we should talk about the law today. We've got a couple of things on deck. We're going to talk a lot of updates. There's been a lot of things over the past couple of weeks, things that we've talked about before that are kind of moving through the legal system. I think it's important.

I think the media does a bad job of this. I think it's important to keep up with them and see what's happening in the appeals process. You know, it's, it's more than just a one one shot story, a lot of these things. And so US Supreme Court's doing a lot of stuff too. They've taken a lot of cases. It's kind of going to, it's going to be an historic, depending on what side you fall on here will be, whether it's good historic or bad historic, but it's going to be a historic US Supreme Court session.

So lots to talk about. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, the outlaw lawyers, they are at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, again, managing partners there and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, 46 combined years experience between the two of them. And they have offices, well, almost on every corner, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, and down there in Gastonia. If you've got a legal question of your own and you need some answers, here's a number for you. 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Leave your name, contact information, a little bit about what you're going through and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and hopefully have answers to your questions. And you can also send your question to the program questions at the outlawlawyer.com and always go to the website and check it out. The outlawlawyer.com. We have a lot to get to today.

We're back right after this. Back on the outlaw lawyer and Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your host, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, 46 combined years experience. And again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, and Gastonia. They're the managing partners at the firm and the practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Guys, a lot of cases you want to update.

So where do we start? Well, Morgan, the Jelaine Maxwell trial wrapped up a couple of weeks ago. I think we talked about it on the show. She was found guilty of a couple of counts. Just a reminder, that was a federal criminal trial.

Not only some of these things we talk about are happening in state court and Joe, we've talked about it before. These federal trials don't get a lot of times the same coverage as a state trial just because of they're not as accessible, right? The judge might not allow cameras in a courtroom in a federal court. They try to protect jurors in a different light. So reporters, even I guess if we assume that they're trying to do a really good job, access is always a problem, federal versus state.

You know, that's right, Josh. We talked about the fact that these federal trials don't seem to get the same level of coverage. And I think a lot of that, like you said, is to do with the lack of access. And we as a society, when you're looking at secondhand accounts and roughly sketch drawings of the proceedings, it doesn't capture our attention. It doesn't captivate us quite as much. But even beyond that, man, this is something that we talked about should be super interesting news and something that you would think would be getting heavy coverage in the media. And it didn't seem to get the same level of coverage, especially in the U.S. as it did in other places. It wasn't as heavily covered as we anticipated it might be. And yeah, I don't know if it's a combination of factors, if it's the fact that there is that different level of access, that reduced level of access from if it was a trial where you could have recording of every single thing taking place or the subject matter. I don't know exactly what it was, but strange to say the least.

You know, my undergrad, I know I mentioned this before, when my undergrad was focused, I was an English history major and English with a focus in journalism over at NC State University. And so I always find it interesting how things get covered. And this one, she was convicted. She hasn't been sentenced yet, up to 65 years in prison.

I think most people are estimating she gets a lot less in prison than that. But so I don't even know where I first caught wind of the juror who was talking to somebody over. I can't remember what the outlet was, but they were interviewing a juror and the juror basically said that they had not revealed. I guess one of the questions on the questionnaire for prospective jury members was, have you ever been a victim of sexual assault? Obviously, something the defense would want to know during war, dire on when they were picking a jury.

And so this person had not revealed that information. And then in an interview, this juror mentioned that they used that. In fact, they had been a victim of sexual abuse and that they used this experience in getting the jury to all come together and convict. So this actually ended up being a big deal.

The defense attorneys had no notice of this. And so the current news on this trial, the story is that they have, you know, Maxwell's attorneys have requested a new trial. And I can't remember where I got first wind of this story.

I picked it up somewhere in my normal routine. So American news sources. But then I had to go to the BBC and Al Jazeera to really get what I think is good coverage of that. But yeah, it's just interesting. It should have been a bigger story than it was. I think there's some conspiracy theories out there why it wasn't getting coverage, but I don't usually buy into conspiracy theories. I think it's just, you know, it's just the way it is. But it's odd that you have to go international to get good coverage of a U.S. event, a U.S. trial. Yeah, it's a little disconcerting, but I'm glad you were resourceful and you could go pull that information for us and bring it back.

Bring it back to the states for us. Any time I'm going to Al Jazeera for news, you know, it just feels and even though they do a good job on a lot of stuff, you know, not to disparage them, but it always feels weird when I can't go to AP or New York Times or The Wall Street Journal or even the CNNs and the Fox News. So anyway, so that was that was one thing that we've been following closely and we'll continue to follow it. I think they probably got a pretty good argument for a new trial. We'll see what the judge does and how the appeal process goes. But, you know, just out of left field, new trial, you know, it's crazy to me, you know, but it's it's facts that came to light after the fact that wouldn't in theory have maybe affected the outcome if they had struck that juror with that knowledge and put a new juror in place.

But I want to spend a little bit of time. Bold prediction is that the the if there is a new trial, granted, it gets 50 percent even less coverage than this trial did. I think it'll be even less, less covered and less in the public eye. That's my prediction. Well, that's a good prediction because that's going to be hard to call you out on. It was 65 percent less coverage, Joseph.

Be hard to measure that one. Of course, we had a show here recently where we talked about Alec Murdock, the whole show we had. He gets upset if you don't pronounce his name.

Yeah, I was doing that during the whole show. I think mispronouncing his name. Alec Murdock to be well, he got more charges this week.

Right. So he's got 19 more charges dealing with stealing from his clients, stealing from his trust account. We talked about as a as attorneys. That's like the worst thing you can do.

You know, you murder somebody. I think the bar will look on that lighter than you stealing from your own trust accounts. That's a super big no no for attorneys. And he's got it was like 19 more counts and eight and a half million dollars. That that he had taken from clients above and beyond what he's already charged with. So this guy's story is not not getting any better. I would say that it's going poorly for him. And it looks like my notes show these new indictments actually bring bring his total of charges to 71 total. So he's got to be looking at he's got to be getting close to breaking some kind of record, man. That's a so you're saying so you're saying so you're saying the potential to turn this thing around in his favor.

Not very good. No, it's funny. This this is this is off topic and it's random. But it reminded me somebody I don't remember who I'm so active on social media sent me a tick tock.

And, you know, we love the tick tock, Josh. And it was it was an attorney had a client in court. And it was a bond hearing. And the client had had 69 previous convictions. And the attorney, he was like his argument for bond was that sounds like a guy that that showed up to court 69 times to me. And he agreed with it. He's like, you're right. Hey, that's correct. So this guy is not a flight risk.

Sixty nine. He's Murdoch's got him beat by two, man. I just this story just you know, we waited a long time before he talked about it just because I wanted to see everything kind of come to fruition. And so his, you know, his wife and his son who were murdered, those are still that's still being investigated. There's no he's not charged with that. There's no charges, you know, filed right now for their murders. But, man, you just wonder how someone kept something like that going this long and how, you know, I would imagine in a presumably opium opioid induced haze to like, you know, that's that's I don't know if we should be impressed by that, but had to be a stressful life, man. Had it not even mentioning the supposed, you know, the alleged ties to to murders within the family.

And then the the botched suicide scheme. There's a lot going on, man. That's a busy guy. There's a I can't remember that I can't the name of the song leaves me, but there's a good country song that talks about, you know, being able to sleep at night.

I think that's an Aaron Tippin song. But for reals, man, if I can't go to sleep at night, like I'm done, like I need like eight hours of uninterrupted sleep in my old age. Or I can't I can't I can't do it the next day. So I don't know how you live a life like this.

Google search shows like 72 country songs about not being able to sleep. I couldn't I couldn't help you. All right. All right, Joe. Now type in beer and country songs and see how many songs come up.

We're going to we're going to have more results than Alec Murdoch has fraud charges. The I think the one I'm thinking about, it's I think it's Aaron Tippin. I can't remember the name of the song. It's killing me.

It's not that you've got to stand for something song. Yeah. But anyway, he talks about, you know, the good old fashioned.

If you live your day so you can lay down and sleep, you don't have any worries or concerns. You know, you've done everything you can do like. But anyway, I don't think our friend Alec Murdoch. His name's not even spelled like that. It's not even it's not it's not spelled like that. And honestly, I almost dislike him for that pronunciation more than I do the crimes, to be honest with you. As a man who who has for my whole life mispronounced even the most simplest names. I mean, that's something I don't know if I got like a phonics problem or I don't hear right. But I'm going to mispronounce 50 percent of the names that come before me. And that just really trips me up when your name doesn't sound anything like what it's spelled like. You know.

All right. Aaron Tippin, you've got to stand for something. That's the name. That's what it is. That's what it is. So Alec Murdoch's got a lot going on and we'll keep an eye on him because that's just an interesting story, especially if you follow true crime type stuff. That's you know, that's just interesting. But the other officers in George Floyd, you know, they have a they have a federal case going on now.

They were charged with denying Mr. Floyd his civil rights. And so that's kind of kicked off. And of course, the defense is doing everything they can on that one. That's going to be interesting to watch, too. You know, the Chauvin has got his federal charges coming up to obviously guilty at the state level. But we're watching those officers.

So it's there's three of them. And they're charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights. That trial has is well underway. Of course, they're blaming their blaming Derek Chauvin because he's already been convicted.

And obviously he's the one on the video that you see taking the most action. Of course, their charges stem from their inaction. I think that's going to be a tough case for the prosecutors. These are always kind of tough. So this will be a really interesting one to watch, probably one that will dive deeper on once it's done.

Kind of take a look at what was presented for the jury. But it'll be interesting, I think. Yeah, I agree.

Tough. I think it's a tough case for the prosecution, not just because it's it's difficult, because you're looking like you said, you're looking at inaction. You know, they're not the primary actor in this situation. You're looking at their inaction. And you put that together with the potential public pressure that's going to be associated with it just because it is such a hot button item.

And I agree. An unenviable task for the prosecutors there. Yeah, I'm not bold enough to make a prediction on that one yet, too.

I haven't I haven't seen enough. I don't know which way it'll go. Just just it's just going to be difficult for the prosecution. But anyway, we'll see how it turns out and we'll keep everybody updated.

It's things we're we're going to keep an eye on. You're locked into the outlaw liars, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. I'm again, managing partners, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, but managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Forty six combined years experience and offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. If you've got a legal question of your own, call this number. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave some contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can also email your question to the program easily by typing in questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com and send it to us there. And please check out the website, the outlaw lawyer dot com. Speaking of Whitaker and Hamer, we're going to talk about the firm coming up next. Back on the outlaw lawyer, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing attorneys at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm are your hosts. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. They have well, they have they have attorneys at all of these offices that can help you if you have a legal situation. Number to get in touch is eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. And just leave your name, contact information. And again, a little bit about what the call is about and an attorney will be back in touch with you.

You can always email the show questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. Gentlemen, take it away. Well, I want to explore something, Morgan.

We were talking at the break here and again, doesn't have anything to do with law. But Joe, I don't think you like country music. I mean, that's fair.

That's fair. I think as I get older, I can appreciate some country music more so. Not a fan of any of the newer country, which I think is actually a sentiment that a lot of older country fans actually share with me.

But it's a it's it's this is a really random story, but it's a product of growing up. My sister, very sweet, sweet lady who I love very much would would we would ride to school together and we would take turns choosing who got to control the radio and to torture me. She would put on country music.

She'd sing at like the top of her lungs. And I always hated it after that. So that's what a sister should do.

Right. Torture. It was terrible.

It was terrible plan on her part. A lot of resentment that I've worked through over the years. Yeah, it's fair to say, man, I'm not a huge not a huge fan, but it's not my least favorite genre of music. It's like my second least favorite. So, well, you know, growing up, I did not I did not like I grew up in the late 80s, early 90s. I did not like country music growing up violently, did not like country music growing up and then got into college, was going through a breakup. Somebody gave me a best Hank Williams Jr. CD and then old country took over. It took over everything I listen to. So new country, though, new country is anything past like ninety eight for me, maybe ninety six. I don't like it.

I got there yet. I try to like some stuff. We went to that 96 cut off point random.

But I like your specificity there. We went to that Luke Holmes concert. I tried to like it. I wanted to like it so badly. You were miserable, man. You were like you were in physical pain. I remember looking at you and thinking, does Josh is his appendix going to explode?

I was worried about you. Well, you know, I think if I understand correctly, like that guy's born in North Carolina, he's a North Carolina guy. He's done really well for himself. Played the bars up at App State. He's an app state guy. I want to root for him so bad, man.

And I guess I still am. I wanted to be successful, but I didn't know what you can root for him. You can root for him and then just, you know, not be the biggest fan of his music. I think you can we've talked about separating the artist from the art on here. And if you can if you can still be a fan of the Cosby show, you can be a fan of Luke Holmes, the person.

Well, this is like reverse Bill Cosby, right? Because I'm separating the art and not liking the art. So it's the same concept, though, man. It's the same thing.

It goes both ways. Well, for some reason, if Luke Holmes listens to the outlaw lawyer, I really I'm a fan of you personally. And one day I hope to grow to the point where I can enjoy your music that everybody seems to like. I tell you, and I'll just make one comment about Luke Combs. And I do like country music. Did not grow up liking it.

I was classic rock, hard rock and then kind of got into country. But but Luke Combs and and again, country music fans will cringe when I say this. I want to say his first 10 releases, not you know, all of his songs that were released went to number one. And I don't think that's I mean, that's that's incredible. I mean, that's George.

And it might and it might be more than that by now, but it just seems like everything he released went to number one. And this is a guy that was playing the Klondike Cafe up in, you know, up in Boone for quarters. I mean, it really is an incredible story.

And Eric Church also cut his teeth up in Boone, too. Yeah. And that's another guy.

I've seen him a couple of times. And and man, I'm just not there yet. I'm going to get there. It's work. I'm going to get the key to success for an artist is for Josh Whitaker to hate their music strongly.

And if they if you can get that, I think you're on your way to doing big industry 20 years from now. I'll be there. I'll look back. That's why I think you're struggling with it right now. I mean, this is a curveball right out of the I mean, the pure blue.

I mean, you're throwing that at Joe. You know, country music. The well, you know what? I actually want to talk about this segment, Morgan. I know we were about five minutes in and I haven't gotten there yet, but I wanted to talk a little bit. We talk about a lot of legal topics. That's the that's kind of the purpose of our show here. We want to talk about legal topics that maybe don't get covered in the news quite the same way an attorney might might look at it.

And so we did that some first segment. But we're also me and Joe, we're practicing attorneys. Like you say, we are the managing partners of Whitaker and Hamer.

Whitaker Hamer has six offices. I think we're going to have some announcements in 2022 about some new locations that we're going to be branching out into here in North Carolina. So we've got a lot of exciting news.

It's going to be a good year in 2022. But Joe, I was I was doing kind of our year end evaluation of what we took in as a law firm, what we spent most of our time handling. And so the final stats were pretty impressive. You know, we've we've got six offices, which we're very proud of. We've got nine attorneys, over 30 support staff. And last year we did a lot of real estate transactional work. So if you're buying a home, you're refinancing, you've got a real estate issue, a homeowners association issue. You know, real estate law took up a lot of me and Joe's time.

We did that. We had over 4000 residential and commercial real estate closings in 2021. And that's that's a pretty big number.

If you don't if you're not in the real estate law attorney game, that number might not mean a lot to you. But that was 4000 clients that we helped purchase a home, refinance a home, buy an office building, buy investment property. So that was a lot of people with that. That's not even that's just the tip of the iceberg. You know, there were thousands of other clients that we help with all kinds of things. Right, Joe?

That's right. You know, we our goal kind of for the firm has always been to to be the community's law firm. You know, not you know, we're not a true one stop shop. There's things that that we don't do that that you are going to have to go to someone who really specializes in that field.

You know, we don't touch any kind of medical malpractice. There's some other things that we don't do. But for the very most part, you know, any any kind of legal need that you have, you know, any any day to day legal need that you may come across that you have a need for in your life. The goal has always been, you know, come to us. You know, we're right here in your community. We're trying to be in every community, frankly, that we can be.

And we don't want you to have to go out of town to take to get whatever help you need. And we want to be very, very adaptable, very broad and the things that we can assist you with. And I think we've done a good job of, you know, adding folks to our team and really kind of spreading our wings on the things that we do do. And and just trying to kind of broaden our horizons to to help a wider range of issues. So we you know, some of the practice areas where we help people in 2020 when I was just going back looking at it. But we handled and I won't I won't do numbers here, but a ton of traffic tickets, criminal charges. We handle a lot of family law. So helping folks separation, divorces, child custody. We also helped a lot of people, businesses, so asset purchase agreements, membership, interest acquisition, things like that. The firm helped a lot of clients with personal injury. So folks have been in a car accident. You don't have to always call the folks that are advertising on TV.

I saw one the other day. Well, I won't go into it, Joe, but you can you can call us. We'll help you with personal injury.

But that's not it. We also did a lot of estate planning, a lot of estate administration that's passed away. And we're helping your loved ones probate your will or administer your state. And then just a bunch of civil litigation, all kinds of legal disputes you may run into.

They kind of fall under what we would call general civil litigation. But we we helped a lot of people with a lot of attorneys who spend their time in different practice areas. And we do that on purpose so that everywhere that we have an office, we have someone in most every problem a normal person would encounter in their life. And like Joe said, there are things that we don't handle, but we we know very qualified attorneys and other firms that handle those practice areas. So if you come to us and it's something we can't do, we can certainly get you to the right person.

And so we take a lot of pride in that, like Joe said, trying to really serve the communities where we're located. So, Joe, you weren't you weren't around. You were too young when we first started this firm. But we started the firm back in back in 2004 and started our first office was in was in Raleigh, all falls of the noose. And so we still maintain an office in Raleigh. But since then, we've gone back to Garner, where I spent a lot of time growing up. So we were in Clayton, Joe, where you spend a lot of time and you grew up. I first started practicing in Fuquay Varina, so we're in Fuquay.

And over the past couple of years, I've expanded out to Goldsboro and Gastonia. And I don't know if we're ready to announce it just yet, but fairly soon we'll have a new office to announce. I think I think it's safe to to announce we're going to have a 40. We call it the 40 42 area. The I think it's technically Garner. I think it's technically a Garner.

If you look at the address, it's it's a Garner address. But I've always just referred to it as that that area where, you know, 40 and 42 intersect close to the Clayton office. It's kind of a different it's a different location that that will will hopefully be able to serve folks down that way.

Be a convenient spot for for closings and for consults and things like that. And we're we're super excited about it. We should have that up and going on the Web site here soon. And I think we're looking at at early February being up and operational there.

Yes, that'll be great. That'll be we'll have a, you know, a full service office in Garner, a full service office in Clayton and a full service office in that 40 42 area. And so, again, it has always been our goal. Me and Joe and the attorneys that the workforce and the staff all live and work in these areas and to be a resource for people. You know, we're in this to make money.

Right. I mean, that's that's why we own a law firm. The plan is to be profitable, but we also want to be a resource for folks. So even if you have a problem that we can't help you with, I hope you live, I hope you live your life and you have no problems and you never need an attorney.

But that doesn't happen very often. You usually do need an attorney for something. And I hope that you will call us. And even if we can't be helpful to you, we can get you in the right direction.

We can tell you what kind of attorney you need, give you some names. Again, we want to be a legal resource for you your whole life. And that's kind of been our goal. That's how we've started our law firm and that's how we continue to run it. You know, we want to be useful to you.

And if we're doing that and more so than that, Josh, just piggybacking off of what you said. You know, we we're attorneys and counselors at law and that counselor piece. You know, we're not certified relationship counselors. We're not going to be your shrink.

We're not going to put you on the couch and hand and really dig into your issues. But, you know, that's I think that's one one piece of the equation that that can be overlooked that we kind of try to to pay extra attention to. You know, some of these some of the times that you're coming to see it, it's not always a problem.

You know, you mentioned we don't we want you to have a problem, free life. But but it's not always a problem that you're dealing with, that you come to an attorney to to assist you with. And if you do come with a problem, we know you're in a difficult time.

You're going through a lot. And and I think one thing we really try to emphasize, you know, both of us personally in our practice and then with the attorneys that that work with the firm is is that counselor piece. You know, being trying to provide sound advice, be be someone that that just really treats you the way that you should be treated when you're going through a difficult time. You know, not just like another number or like a billable invoice, something someone that can be just, you know, hit up for billable hours.

I think we really pride ourselves on that individualized attention and given each client the attention and the ear that they need when they're going through a tough time. You're locked into the outlaw lawyers. Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, the power behind the outlaw lawyers. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, with offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And again, going to have, I guess, a Garner to coming up very soon in that 40, 42 area.

So look forward to that. We've got a lot going on on the program today. We're going to get into the Supreme Court when we come back. You're listening to the outlaw lawyer. The outlaw lawyer on the air, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your hosts, they are managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. They have 46 combined years experience and offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. If you've got a legal situation, if you've got a question, we've got a number for you. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information, a little bit about what the call's about, and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can also email your question to the program. We'll use it on a future show. Questions at theoutlawlawyer.com.

And you can visit the website at any time. Kick the tires there. Theoutlawlawyer.com. So, Supreme Court, guys, I know you've got a lot to talk about. Yeah, the U.S. Supreme Court, this term, this 2021, 2022 term is shaping up to be one of the most interesting that we've seen in a while. And it's getting a lot of media coverage because of political bents, which is not the goal of the Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court is supposed to be – it's supposed to be apolitical. We all know that's not exactly the case on how folks get appointed and some of the arguments during the Trump years and the Biden years over appointees and people getting confirmed. But we've got ourselves a very active Supreme Court who's not afraid to take cases and have some hard discussions about a lot of hot-button issues. We've seen that already, Joe, with some of the cases they've heard on abortions. That's a big topic. And most recently, and we mentioned this a week or so ago, but of course the court had some tough talk on the vaccine mandate on private employers with 100 or more employees. That was something we saw them – I guess, I mean, strike down would be the best word, right, Joe?

I think that's the – yeah, I mean, I don't know what other term you would use there. I think that's accurate because it's not in effect now. So I think strike down works. And I want to say we predicted that. And if we didn't, then I'm going to say we predicted that. I think we did keep – I'm going to keep our records perfect.

Our perfect prediction record stands. If you go back and you look at the oral arguments on some of what Kavanaugh and the majority – OSHA operates via statutory authority. So Congress has the authority to regulate the workplace, and they have delegated a lot of that authority to OSHA. And OSHA is the one that actually issued this mandate for private employers with at least 100 employees to require the vaccine mandate. And there were some really strict penalties on employers, right? So they were using the private employers to enforce this vaccine mandate. And if they didn't do it by a certain date, a certain time, with certain exceptions, that there were big fines to the private employers. I think it was like 14, 15 grand for every offense.

So it was very heavy-handed. And a lot of people, even if you support the vaccine, a lot of people didn't like this approach. I know I didn't like it as a private employer. I wasn't – we weren't going to be subject to it.

We don't have quite that many employees yet, maybe one day. But anywho, tough talk from the Supreme Court. They said OSHA did not have the explicit statutory authority to do this.

They've never done anything like this before. There wasn't the authority. And so they said no dice. And so I think just the other day, OSHA finally withdrew that mandate.

I'm sure they were looking for another angle if that's something they believe needs to be done. But so that was – you know, that was big news here over the past couple of weeks is the vaccine mandate did not survive a couple of challenges to the Supreme Court. That's right, Josh. Just like we predicted.

Just like we predicted. But there's a lot of – there's some other things going on as well. And I saw the Supreme Court also on Monday agreed to reconsider the role that race plays in college admissions.

Can you talk a little bit about that, Josh? Yeah. So this has always been – I guess we end up using a lot of buzzwords to cover complicated legal theories.

And I think over time we kind of lose track of what these words originally meant. And you've got to do it. You've got to summarize things, you know. But affirmative action is one that you hear a lot in this debate. But obviously, in order to create a more diverse student population, colleges have used race in the admission process to some extent. And there's been a lot of case law over the past 20, 30 years about what colleges can use, how they can use it. And I think everybody is kind of on the same page that a more diverse student body in a college is a good thing.

I think a lot of people disagree on maybe how we get there. And so the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a couple of cases, one against Harvard, one against UNC here in our own backyard. I haven't looked too deep into these yet, but my understanding is these are based on Asian Americans or Americans of Asian descent who were applying and think the process kind of took them down a notch. So race was used in such a way as to prevent them from getting in, which is kind of the opposite of the intent of some of the cases that we've seen come before the Supreme Court before. So this is going to be interesting. If you look at our Supreme Court justices, if you look at the makeup of the court, some of the things they've ruled on, some of the things they've said in public, it looks like race, they're probably not going to uphold.

Again, if we have to get on the predictometer here and predict, it looks like if you support race being used in the application process to promote diversity, if that's something you're for, it sounds like we might be coming to the end of that or it's going to have to be really limited in such a way. But I got a feeling this probably won't survive. That's just my guess.

That's right, Josh. And it looks like the court has actually consolidated the two cases for oral argument and that they're going to be argued early in the 2022-2023 term, which starts in October. So I'm sure that's another one that we'll end up following up on at some point. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firms where you can find them during the week, managing partners there. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, 46 combined years experience.

And again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia show has flown by. We have one more segment to go that is coming up. If you've got a legal situation, you need answers, you need you've got a question, you need an answer to it. Here's a number for you. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. And leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can also send your question to the radio program questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com and we'll use it in an upcoming show. And check out the website, the outlaw lawyer dot com.

We're back to close it up right after this. Back to wrap up the outlaw lawyers, your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, powered by Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They are the managing partners. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

And again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And again, forty six combined years experience between these two guys. Been a great show.

And let's wrap it up. Well, when you talk about the U.S. Supreme Court even even more, there's just so much happening. It's very fascinating, especially if you're an attorney. I mean, I think it's fascinating for for anyone who has the time to follow it, but especially if you're an attorney. Just seeing how the court takes cases, how they handle them and how they get reported on is, again, very interesting to me how things get reported and how things are reported. Differing countries, differing media outlets and this trend we have to politicize the Supreme Court. And I can tell you, just from studying and following the Supreme Court, these justices, they go out of their way to not politicize the court. They want the court to be a, you know, an independent body who kind of looks at things from from a legal lens. So it's very interesting to me.

And part of that, I came to light. You know, there's, I guess, been reported different ways, but I'm sure I always pronounce names. But Justice Gorsuch and Sotomayor, there was a report, Joe, I don't know if you saw anything about this.

There was a report that kind of got into maybe a maybe a civilized disagreement. Justice Gorsuch does not wear a mask during oral arguments or while he's around. He's a he's a guy who doesn't want to wear a mask anywhere. Justice Sotomayor, very concerned from her public statements, very concerned about covid, wears a mask.

I think everybody I think I read everyone. Every justice has their booster and vaccines. It's just this mask wearing thing. And so it seems like there was some disagreement. Justice Gorsuch does not want to wear a mask. Justice Sotomayor does not feel comfortable being in the same room unmasked.

And so she has kind of been participating via phone, via Zoom in some oral arguments. So there was this big flare up that there was some kind of disagreement between them and it got squashed pretty quick. And they said, no, absolutely not.

Everybody can do what they want and we'll figure it out. But they kind of closed ranks. What was what was nice for me is the justices kind of closed ranks. Didn't really talk to the media very much about it. It was an internal issue and they wanted to handle it, you know, like grown ups. And so it did become a big news story. And I was actually kind of happy about that. But it was interesting to follow that for a couple of days and see what was going on. But we're having those arguments amongst ourselves, you know, in workplaces and in schools. And so they're no different from us.

But I don't know. I just thought that was interesting to see see that happen, see how the justices handled it and see how it was reported. So that was that was nice, I thought.

Yeah. Like a peek behind the curtain, man. You know, you get to see the inner some inner workings there. And like you said, interesting how they kind of closed ranks and they shut it down. Also interesting how the, you know, NPR, who reported on this, kind of doubled down on it and stood by. And then kind of like you said, the politicization of all of this. They they kind of added in an added political element in their response and commented on just the general workings of the justices and the court. And kind of accused them of of making stealthy votes, taking after our actions and failing to clarify information for the public.

So they kind of doubled down on their original report and then further dove in to, you know, some of their some of their, I guess, criticisms of the way that the court's been operating. And so very interesting, man. And it kind of raises the point of what our original intent and purpose for our show is. If you listen to our show, of course, you can tell very loose with our purpose.

We go all over the place. We we talk about almost anything that interests us. But the original intent and the kind of, I guess, mission statement, if you would, for the show has always been to examine issues, whether they be current events, whether they be political issues, whatever they may be. But to kind of look at things without bias, you know, from a neutral perspective, as objectively as we can, because of the fact that a lot of the news and information that you get today is so heavily tilted one way or another. And we wanted to kind of dissect things and look at them as an attorney would from a very neutral objective standpoint, presenting both sides of the argument, not really taking strong positions either way based on our subjective biases. And that's really the purpose of what we do here.

Yeah, we really go out of our way. You know, we we look at how things get reported. And, you know, I think the U.S. Supreme Court is one of the most efficient parts of government.

You know, it's a small body. We're not talking about the Congress and the House and the Senate and all the folks in the executive branch. And we've got nine justices. They hear things. Decisions are made. You know, you there's a schedule, you know, you we're going to hear this and then we're going to make a decision and then that that's it. We're going to move on to the to the next thing. And I think that is so rare. You know, we're used to I mean, I don't want to disparage anybody, but I mean, I'm in the private sector.

I'm not in the public sector, but we do a lot of stuff with with with government and just by its nature, by its design, it moves a little slower than than folks in the private practice world. And I like the Supreme Court. They again, we're going to hear this. It's coming before us. We're going to argue about it. We're going to make a decision and we'll talk about we'll do something else next. And so I really I really like that. And watching how different the media is just such a and maybe and maybe it'll it'll all come back together. But it's it's interesting to see how the media gets covered.

And so that's why the story was was so interesting to me, Morgan. But we'll you know, we'll keep an eye on this stuff. It's it's very interesting to Joe and I. And hopefully we can convey some of that passion for these type of topics when we sit here and talk with you.

It's always a lot of fun. Very, very interesting to hear, you know, attorneys that do this on a daily basis. And you guys are talking about the legal issues that everybody is seeing.

They're bombarded with in the media and you guys are right in the middle talking about, you know, really both sides. So very, very interesting. Guys, always great to do the show with you.

We've got a little bit of time. I'm just going to plug right now. If you've got a legal situation that you've got questions about, you can get in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. Here's the number 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186 or email a question to the show. And that's questions at the outlawlawyer.com.

Just leave, you know, brief information what it's about and we'll answer the question on future show. And if you leave information at that 800 number, again, 800-659-1186. Again, contact information briefly what it's about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. Check out the website, the outlawlawyer.com and we'll see you on the radio next week. Now a lawyer is hosted by an attorney licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on the show may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion of the show is meant to be general in nature and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney licensed in the state in which you live had the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on the show are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of the show, contact us directly.