Transcript of Episode 56, with Jim Buxton

Scott Glovsky:

Welcome to Trial Lawyer Talk. I’m Scott Glovsky, and I’m your host for this podcast where we speak with some of the best trial lawyers in the United States. We simply have great lawyers tell great stories from cases that had a profound impact on them. So let’s get started. I’m very glad to be hanging out with my pal Jim Buxton, who’s a wonderful lawyer, wonderful human being, super talented guy, and Jim practices in Oklahoma. He does criminal and civil work. Jim, thanks for being with us.

Jim Buxton:

Thanks for having me.

Scott Glovsky:

Can you share with us a story of a case that had a profound impact on you?

Jim Buxton:

Stephanie and TJ Chartney came to me about four years ago with a problem that I don’t know how I would’ve dealt with had it happened to me. They were a young couple and their home had been destroyed and nobody would help them. I believe they’d been to a couple of lawyers before me and they were rejected. Said, “your case ain’t good enough,” or whatever it was. I remember developing this relationship with them. I came and I heard their story. As we grew closer, just like any relationship, like ours, ours didn’t start off as friends. Hell, we didn’t know each other. But over the course of time, Stephanie and TJ we would meet and talk and develop this relationship, and I’d go to their home, or what was left of it.

Their house was destroyed by sewage from a city government, and I’d go sit in it with them, and smell it, and feel it, what it felt like. We developed this real close personal bond, which is good, but by the time we get to trial, she looks over at me right when we’re waiting for the jury and she says, “I don’t care anymore.” And at first I was just hit like, “What do you mean you don’t care about the outcome?”

Scott Glovsky:

Reverse roles with her.

Jim Buxton:

She says, “Jim, what you just did for us …”

Scott Glovsky:

You are her.

Jim Buxton:

Yes. She said, “Jim, what you just did for us, who cares what the outcome is? It doesn’t matter. All we wanted was somebody to hear us and fight for us.” And getting out of her role, she broke down in tears, she and her husband, and we’re from Oklahoma, and it’s hard for Oklahomans to ask for help, in my opinion. We’re just doing ourselves kind of people, get through any kind of situation. We don’t need anybody backing our asses up. And to realize that all of my clients want is to be heard and for somebody to fight for them had a profound impact on me. I was like, “Okay.” So, we’re waiting and the verdict comes back and it’s a really good verdict. So, everything’s happy and the story ends well. Then, the appeal comes and the case, part of it, gets where we have to go try it.

So, I’m recommending that we probably should try and settle the case, and she goes, “Jim, do whatever you want. I told you already, you’ve already satisfied my needs.” And so, that’s probably the closest connection that I’ve ever had with a client. That story of them and the trust that they had in me, and just believing in me because I heard them, it was profound.

Scott Glovsky:

So, take us more into the details of the story.

Jim Buxton:

Of the story of the case, or the story of-

Scott Glovsky:

Yes.

Jim Buxton:

Well, we do a bunch of government cases where I sued the government for failing to maintain their utilities. Literally, when things go wrong with the sewage line, it blows it like a fire hose into your house. Imagine a fire hose of sewer with turds and every unimaginable thing you could imagine, and the sewage system being blown all through your home. Who do you have to sue? The government. And so, maybe what I think is how they arrived at me and feel the way they felt about me was because, if I reverse roles with them, it’s the rejection, right? Not only the betrayal of what the city did, by pumping their house full of raw sewage and not cleaning it up, but then, they tell them, “Turn in a tort claim, we’ll take care of you.”

And you go when you fill out the form just like they want, and then they never hear anything again because the statute says, it’s deemed denied if you don’t hear from them. So, then they wait and they wait and they wait, and then they eventually call a lawyer. Most lawyers won’t handle cases against the government, at least going on the offense against them. So, they get rejected and rejected until they can find us. We don’t take every case, but we try to help the ones that we can. And so, that’s what is just so profound, Scott, and I don’t know if I’m answering your question the right way. But that’s how my connection was, that they just … my eye, it’s on a prize that’s not the same.

Scott Glovsky:

This sense of rejection and needing to be heard, where does that come from in Jim Buxton’s life?

Jim Buxton:

Lots of places. I oftentimes feel that I’m not heard, and it came from being the youngest in my family, I think. From just the world we live in where nobody takes the time to look somebody in the eye and just listen to them and connect. I yearned for that. I don’t know about you, but I yearned for a legitimate connection. I don’t know if it’s so much as being heard, like I have a lot of problems with listening. Don’t listen because there’s so much going on in the world, so much chatter and chaos. I think it’s just so refreshing when you have just a connection. I think that’s what I mean by being heard. Like I can hear you right now and you haven’t said a word.

Scott Glovsky:

So, behind that there seems to be a loneliness.

Jim Buxton:

Being a trial lawyer is lonely. You’re a trial lawyer. Are you lonely?

Scott Glovsky:

Absolutely.

Jim Buxton:

Yeah. I feel alone oftentimes when I’m surrounded by other lawyers. Oftentimes, I don’t feel hurt, and if I look really deep inside, is that my need? Is that my ego? Probably.

Scott Glovsky:

Do you think lawyers ever feel alone in the courtroom?

Jim Buxton:

Yeah. Do you?

Scott Glovsky:

I guess the better question is, do lawyers ever not feel alone in the courtroom?

Jim Buxton:

Right. I was trying to think. I was saying this the other day to somebody, I said, “This is how I know that I’m supposed to be a trial lawyer. Like every time I do it, I’m nervous. I’m scared. All these feelings and all this stuff comes up.” But if you keep doing it over and over again, those things don’t stop. I would think surely by now this would be over with, but it’s not. But when you say alone in the courtroom, what I think about is being in the zone, you know what I’m saying?

When you’re totally in the zone, you’re alone, and you hear about it like, and maybe it’s because there’s no cell phones in court. There’s nobody able to get ahold of you, right? Unless you reach out to them. There’s a calm quiet to that chaos for me. I feel alone, but I also feel, if I’m really dialed in, that that aloneness makes me or allows me the gift to make a connection with each person, right? And that’s something I try and do every time.

Scott Glovsky:

Well, if we think about jurors who live in the same world that we do, on the same Facebook and social media, and bombardment of information, who must also feel alone.

Jim Buxton:

Yeah, it’s a great point.

Scott Glovsky:

So, how does that relate to connection with the jurors?

Jim Buxton:

Well, for me, if I’m truly alone or feeling that way, or scared, or confused, which I am every time. It took me a long time to call myself a trial lawyer. I didn’t think I tried enough cases. Like I told you, I figured I’d be through the nervousness, the awkwardness, the screw-ups by now, and I’m not. But that’s what connects me with jurors. If I reverse roles with the juror, I’m like, “This is insane. I’m being pushed around like cattle. I’m having to make friends immediately, all these people.” It’s just a whole awkward process. Where else other than your home perhaps does a man walk in in a robe and tell you what to do?

It’s a weird situation. We don’t have somebody here in the corner typing down everything that we’re saying. We don’t have some lady with a, what looks like a box of Kleenex, pulling random names out of it. It’s a unique environment in and of itself, that while being alone is scary, you should welcome that aloneness. Now that I’m thinking about it, you should welcome that aloneness, because it gives you a chance to connect.

Scott Glovsky:

And if we assume that the jurors are just like us longing for real connecti