How a Trial Lawyer Built a Legacy Beyond the Courtroom

I don't really like lawyers. Or they'll come out and say, "I don't really

“vibe well with them. There's just different kind of people." And yes, when you go through law school,”

it actually breaks down the way you think about stuff and rebuilds the way you think. So yeah, we do change through law school, but I educate everybody that says, "You hate us until you need us." Mark Chavez is a seasoned courtroom tested, respected trial attorney, and founder of the Mark Chavez law firm. He specializes in criminal defense, personal injury, and Title IX defense, drawing on over 12 years of experience as a former prosecutor. The biggest learning that you can do

is dive into the deep end, headfirst, run into the brick wall, you're going to make mistakes. But there's no shame in asking for help. I've tried over 200 jury trials and I still reach out to a mentor. Don't be timid about it. Because you're going to make mistakes. Everybody's made mistakes.

“I still make mistakes today. I'm 20 years into the career, but you have to understand.”

[Music] Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host for today, Jason Tyler, and I'm joined by Mark Chavez of Mark Chavez Law firm. Mark, welcome to the show. Thank you. I greatly appreciate you having me on. I appreciate you being here. So we're going into, we're about to go into filming your episode for America's top lawyers.

First of all, how do you feel? I feel great. I feel great because it's an easy message to get across.

I love that. I love that. There's one thing that I ask all of my guests on the show. What would you say is like the number one thing you want people to learn from your story? The number one thing, and it vibes well with the production of America's top lawyers, talk about benefiting the future of the profession. In my whole law firm's mission, the whole philosophy is based on a legacy that's not laid yet because we believe in teaching young

interns, young people who want to go to law school, who want to be future lawyers, constantly teaching and bringing in the youth to show them what we do. Kind of setting the foundation to pave that path forward. Correct. Correct. In the biggest philosophy, the biggest statement that everybody, the younger generation that's worked for me, I tell them this. Don't be like me. Be better than me. Because what's the point of being like me if there's an opportunity

to be a better person? And I heard that statement one time through an Instagram story or whatever it was. And it sets up to the effect of when your father dies, you truly lose the one person in your life who wanted you to be better than them. And for the most part of my life, that sounds true, except I said to myself, now that doesn't have to be the way. It doesn't. I can have people who work for me that aren't related to me, that aren't my own personal children, still want them to be

better than myself. So I want to take a second here, just kind of walk it back, walk me back to a younger mark. Right. What got you into law in the practice of it? I'll be honest with you. It's a combination of a couple family members and uncles that were lawyers. Favorite movie was a few,

“a few good men. Oh, it's the courtroom drama. And you kind of have that thought of that's what”

I want to do. Like that seems passionate. And I've always had the ability and I'll also always

love learning about the art of persuasion. I read Aristotle and I'm not going to sit here and act like an intellect. It was the hardest book I've ever read, but some of the philosophy's he talks about and the way that you go about persuading individuals, not arguing with them, but persuade them, it just had a calling towards me. And there's a little bit of psychology in that as well. Absolutely. And I tell a lot of people and I'll be very open and honest about who I am. I'll tell

them. I'm not your one book smart attorney. I know great colleagues of mine that can rattle off Supreme Court cases because they remember them. That's not me, but I'm the type of lawyer that I read people. I read the way they're looking at me, the way they respond to what I'm saying. And it comes in handy with jurors. I'm incredibly handy. To go back to your movie example, I want to go to the opposite end. You ever watched the movie Devil's Advocate? Absolutely. That's

like the exact opposite side. Sure. And when you think about lawyers, that's like my comfort

They have this kind of perception of the field of law. They think of lawyers and they think, "Oh, there's a lot of paperwork, there's a lot of, it's very acidic, it's very, a lot of numbers, a lot of things going on. What do you say to the person that is considering getting into the field of law but might be kind of on the fence about it?" Well, I've read it to a lot of people in all walks of life that at some point in the time out here, I don't really like lawyers.

Or they'll come out and say, "I don't really vibe well with them. There's just different kind of people." And yes, when you go through law school, it actually breaks down the way you think about stuff and rebuilds the way you think. So yeah, we do change through law school, but I educate everybody that says, "You hate us until you need us." And I will get calls of all kinds of issues whether a handle it or not. And they say, "Well, what do you think I should do?" And my stock answer,

“whether I'm asking them to retain me or other attorneys is it's simple. You have to hire lawyer”

because they know what they're doing. Like it's a profession and people don't like to get lawyers involved because people say, "It gets complicated." Well, it's going to get more complicated if you don't. So those people thinking about going into law, we get educated and we serve specialized areas so that we can help people in need. Think about it. When people call on lawyers, they're

most likely facing the most critical time in their life, whether good critical, bad critical,

high stress, higher professional to help alleviate that stress. I liken it to because my family comes from law as well. My grandfather was an attorney in Jamaica and you know, all my aunts and uncles, they all practice down there. But I liken it a lot to you're about to go into a

“decision that you wouldn't be comfortable making alone. Exactly. And that's what counsel is there for.”

Absolutely. I'd firmly believe in that. And so off the back of that, I want to talk a little bit about kind of the birth of your, you mentioned your mission earlier in your firm. Where did the birth of that mission come from? Oh man, the birth of that mission, it's a complicated answer and

it's a whole bunch of events of my life that came together. But it all started. I remember my first

year in law school, or my first internship through law school. And to no fault of their own, but when I was an intern wanting to learn the law, wanting to learn what these attorneys did, I sat in a library in no lawyers talked to me, no attorneys told me what they did. Every once in a while, they'll come give me an assignment. And I had no clue what I was doing, I had no mentorship. And I hated it. And I had no clue leaving the internship, what those attorneys

even did, or how they did it. And I said to myself, if I'm ever in that position, a lawyer teaching a young person, I'm going to do everything I can to take them under my wing and take them with me through every journey of what I do from talking to a client, to talking to another lawyer, to discussions at the bench with the judge, the whole gamut of what I do. And at the end of the internship, if that lawyer lost to you, says to me, I don't want to do what you do. Then my internship

was the success, because I've helped at least lead them in a direction that they either know they want to go or don't want to go. So that was one of the biggest starts. And I kind of coupled that with the way I was raised. My mother was an educator for over 50 years. And she loved what she did.

She had passion for what she did. Most important job in the world. They mended that and she believed

that you could save the world one child at a time. And she was right. You're right. So I got that passion of teaching, leading younger people in a direction that helps them find their way. I'll never

“tell an intern or a young person that comes to work for me. This is what you need to do. I will help”

guide them to question what they want to do. And so a lot of that, where we bring in people, to learn, but also work. And a lot of my interns will hear me say this. You're not here to just watch. If you're going to be a part of this, you're going to contribute in a substantive manner. You're going to be a part of a team looking for a goal to succeed. And that all came about when I was more than 10 years into being a lawyer. I was a prosecutor for over 10 years. And I went to this

retreat and the one night of the retreat, we watched this video and it opened my eyes up like you wouldn't believe. And it was a video about finding your why. And when they told me at the very

When you watch the video, it was like my shock were knocked off. My brain exploded and I realized

it's like the blinders come off for the first time. Yes. And I realized at that point that it was

like, I needed a why that was greater than myself. And there's no way that you're going to succeed persevere, achieve, have a legacy of young people until you determine that you have a why a purpose that's greater than yourself. I want to go back and touch on, you know, you talked a little bit about your experience of dealing with, you know, as you were in law school and dealing with other more senior lawyers and being able to look at what they were doing and identify, I know that

“that's what I, I know that's how I don't want to operate, right? And I'm a firm reliever in that”

the way that we progress forward as a collective bunch of humans is it takes a single idea of one person going, I want to do this just a little bit differently, just a little bit better. How can people help identify the ways in which they want to do things just a little bit better? And I'm glad you, you, I'm, I love the question because if you understand our culture and our environment, okay, and I'll take one area practice of law that I, that I do, criminal law,

we have a bunch of criminal lawyers and they show up to court and they talk to prosecutors, negotiate either get a reset, set it for trial or plea bargain. And for the large part of my career, and I did 12 years prosecution, so I saw many defense attorneys do this, and eight years now is a defense attorney. It's the attorney's soul of by themselves. And for the longest time,

“there was one attorney way back in the day, one attorney that would bring in a system with it.”

I never knew what she did. I didn't really talk much with them. I didn't have many cases with them,

but I always saw it, he brought in a system. And then when I hired my first office manager,

and I said, take the reins, what do you want to do? And we molded this deal where my assistance, whether you're a legal assistant, a paralegal or an intern, you're going to come with me to court and we're all going to have a different task, okay? If it's the legal assistant, find out where the client is, take him in the back, just run through what's going to happen today. If we know nothing's going to happen, then go and get a reset. So I can focus on talking to the prosecutor

and doing the litigation. And by doing stuff different, it was very rare to have people join you in court. We have found out that we've been more efficient during our court time. We've been more productive. We've moved stuff faster because not only has those assistance and legal interns helped make us better in court, they've crafted plan that says, well, if we've got a lot of cases set, we need to prepare for them sooner. So now we have an outline of how, if we have a case in two weeks,

they're already working today on what's the latest, what's the next step to move the case forward?

“Hmm, if there's a quote that I love that goes with that, if you want to go fast, go solo,”

if you want to go far, go together. Yes, absolutely. I love that kind of thing. And I love that because I do want to say this, when we started that concept and it's now about two or three years into it, okay, there's no lying how the success rate has increased, how the success rate in trial has a lot better. But on top of that, the gratifying part for me is that now when we get a five star review, it's not just me. It's the whole team. Mark in the team

or this person's name, they actually name the lilydees who have helped ease the stress of the client to the success of their case and they're starting to get the credit.

And I always say, we, I am never a mean person and that started when I was a baseball player.

If you understand team sports, you understand, for example, baseball, not everybody's a lead off hit or not everybody's a grand slam hit or not everybody's a starting pitcher. But if you have everybody know their roles and commit to their roles and understand their one cog of the success, then the entire team gets credit and I'm always a wee person. The guy in the outfield is going to save you a lot more than the guy that's hitting the ground. Absolutely. Absolutely. Way more times than

you'd think. And I love your answer to that. The reason I even asked that last question was because I talked a little bit about like how society progresses forward, right? And the law in and of itself is kind of built on the basis of precedent. What precedent has been set in the past that we can base our decision on in the now? But when you, and I, I'd love to get your take on this.

What are your thoughts on, you know, the future of law and how we can take some of those precedents

iron them down and maybe even set new ones as we move forward? And I love that question. I do. That's a great question. In my answer to that is I don't focus on that. That is a very macro question, right? It's like a 30,000 foot view. Yeah, macro. And what I've told my team is this, especially with my wife as it's developed over the years. I have a three-prong line. It's my family,

“my work family, and that's what I call them in my clients. And if I do everything of my passion”

to focus on those three sectors, then at the end of the day, I'm exhausted, I'm fulfilled, because I owe it to my clients not to think how can I change the world, but how can I help you to make your life better regardless of the situation? And so I have to stay grounded in the micro and hope that that approach somewhere down the line changes the macro. Hmm. I love that. I love that. Now, as we kind of wind down the pod here, I have one more

question that I ask of all my guests on the show. We're here at Inside Success. So Mark for the viewer out there who might be a young attorney just getting into practice, that might be working for a larger firm. What is Mark's one key tip for success? For a young attorney. So you're gonna make me pause for a little bit. Thank you, Tom.

“One key to success is you have to, and this is paraphrasing, you know, all kinds of”

things, but run through brick walls. And if it means you have to go swallow your pride and ask senior attorneys for help in guidance, then do it. If you're want to try a case and you believe you're on the right side, run through the brick wall. Don't be timid about it, because you're gonna make mistakes. Everybody's made mistakes. I still make mistakes today. I'm 20 years into the career, but you have to understand what your goal is, what your purpose is, and if you're do that,

and you communicate with your client or your team, then I don't want to say there's not a wrong answer your client's going to be happy with you, because you know, the, the, the, not unfortunate thing, but we all owe it to our clients, right? A lot of you people know this, but the clients are the boss. And we have to strive to achieve their goals. And so if we keep that grounded and we stay focused, and you have a course of action based on preparation, right? You can't just run through a brick wall

without preparing. And hopefully some shoulder pads. I mean, you got a prep for it, right? But the biggest learning that you can do is dive into the deep end, headfirst, run to the brick wall, you're going to make mistakes. But there's no shame in asking for help. Okay? I, I, I keep repeating it,

“because I believe I'm still part of the younger group, the younger group's going to say, no, you”

aren't, but I still have, I still have mentors that I reach out to. Hey, I've tried over 200 jury trials, and I still reach out to a mentor and say, I've got this unique issue. Walk me through how you

handle it for a more dire. And we just spit ball back and forth. You can never be prideful enough

to ask for help or guidance. And, you know, with that, I think we're ready to go and film your episode. All right. I think we're ready to go and do it. But for the people out there and guys, make sure if you're tuned in at this point in the pod, Mark's episode of America's top lawyers will be coming out shortly after this podcast episode air. So make sure that you tune in to get a full deep dive on his story. But Mark, for the viewers out there that are still tuned in,

that are still listen, where can they find you on social media, where can they find you on the internet, where's your website? So Mark Chavez law firm dot com and just survey knows, MRC Mark Chavez law firm dot com. If you search that on TikTok, Instagram, even Twitter, you'll find your locate our site. But Mark Chavez law firm dot com on the web and you scroll through and it talks about our mission and it talks about how we strive to do client first, first class,

attention to the client in what that is based on. It kind of gives, it starts with the mission, but it kind of gives the motivation of where we strive to and how we continue to pursue every single day for every single client. Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, guys, again, I'm going to reiterate it here. Make sure you check out Mark's episode of America's top lawyers. But with that, this has been

another amazing episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. Again, I'm your host Jason Tyler.

Mark, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. I appreciate it. Let's go film your