Hon. Al Dover / Superior Court Judge to Mediator

Louis Goodman / Hon. Al Dover - Transcript

[00:00:03] Louis Goodman: Welcome to the Alameda County Bar Association and the Love Thy Lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Louis Goodman. Today we welcome Judge Al Dover to the program Judge Dover served on the Nevada County Superior Court from 1987 to 2007 and has set on assignment in Placer, El Dorado, Shasta, and Plumas counties.

He has numerous awards for his work in teaching and judicial ethics. Before taking the bench, he served as a public defender and worked in private practice. He now serves as a mediator with ADR, where his patience, wisdom, sincerity, wit, and confidence combine with his hide of a rhino to effectively settle difficult legal disputes. Judge Al Dover. Welcome to the Alameda County Bar Association and the Love Thy Lawyer podcast. 

[00:01:03] Hon. Al Dover: Thank you Louis. And just to be clear, the ADR is just me. 

[00:01:07] Louis Goodman: And if we wanna get in touch with you, we can just Google Al Dover mediator and your name and website will come up. Yeah. Okay, great. So thank you so much for joining us.

Where are you speaking to us from right now? 

[00:01:21] Hon. Al Dover: From my den in Nevada City, California. 

[00:01:25] Louis Goodman: How long have you been in the mediation business now? 

[00:01:31] Hon. Al Dover: I started, I thought it was appropriate to start on April Fool's Day, so I did. April 1st, 2008. 

[00:01:39] Louis Goodman: And can you describe what kind of practice you have? Can you talk about what your mediation practice is about?

[00:01:48] Hon. Al Dover: Yeah, I can, because it really, it was really almost a mystery how it evolved. You folks might well know some of these folks, but one of the first mediations I did was for Betty Epstein, who was prominent in the estate bar in San Francisco, and I think the East Bay. She's become a mediator herself. And then another kind of larger firm from Walnut Creek that I think has since imploded.

But I did this kind of high emotional impact, complicated, will and trust dispute. And it was like 13 hours. I was on the top floor of some big building in San Francisco with the sister. It was sister versus brother. The brother had to be two floors below because she claimed he had hired a hitman to kill her.

And it was, you know, one of those, and so it was resolved. And the next thing I knew I'm getting calls from her, but also other lawyers I guess she had talked with and some other lawyers from Walnut Creek. The same thing happened to me in Sacramento when I did a, you know, a pretty another high emotional difficult mediation for the Weintraub Tobin firm and another large firm in Sacramento.

And then the same thing happened and really I just kind of blundered into doing these high emotional conflict, family will and trust disputes. And now I've done probably close to 400. I mean I also do, you know, general civil like you'd expect up here, real estate and business breakups especially professional businesses, but mostly really high emotional contact conflict will and trust matters.

[00:03:39] Louis Goodman: And you're always acting as a neutral, is that correct? 

[00:03:43] Hon. Al Dover: Yeah, just as a mediator. 

[00:03:44] Louis Goodman: Where are you from originally? 

[00:03:47] Hon. Al Dover: I'm from the little village of River Forest, Illinois, which is next to Oak Park, which is much better known suburb of Chicago. 

[00:03:54] Louis Goodman: Is that where you went to high school? 

[00:03:56] Hon. Al Dover: Two years. Oak Park River Forest, and then my family moved to Toronto and I went to York Mills Collegiate Institute.

And if it wasn't for a lawyer that's now in San Francisco named Mark Vanderhout, who was my backdoor neighbor in Toronto, I'd still be in high school in Toronto. He taught me how to study. I had never studied, really, ever. It is funny really, 'cause my mother called his mother and says, Jesus, Albert's doing terrible in school. And Mark's mother said, well, send him over. And Mark said to me, how are you studying for these tests? You know, there's only three. It's like a quarter, a quarter and 50%. I said, he said, how are you studying? I said, what? He said, no, how are you studying? I said, what? So he really taught me how to study and he's become a, he's a big-time immigration lawyer, you know, toward the end of his career, although he'll never stop working, in San Francisco.

[00:04:58] Louis Goodman: Now when you graduated from high school in Canada and finally figured out how to study, where did you go to college? 

[00:05:07] Hon. Al Dover: It was a cold night in Toronto when I was applying, and so it was between Miami and Arizona. In Arizona, you know, had a better reputation as a party school at the time, so I went to Arizona.

[00:05:21] Louis Goodman: What was that experience like? Did you find the party there? 

[00:05:24] Hon. Al Dover: Oh yeah. Arizona was a fabulous, fabulous place to go to school. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. I regret not having gotten an education, you know, if I could go back to school and actually go to school, I would. I like learning, but really, I wasn't ready for college. Not really. I had a great time. 

[00:05:45] Louis Goodman: Well, when you got done tapping all those kegs in the desert you ultimately went to law school, is that correct? 

[00:05:51] Hon. Al Dover: I did. I got into the University of Arizona Law School by the skin of my teeth, 'cause remember it was during the war, so there's a lot of people applying to law school.

I think there were 2100 applications for 105 seats or something like that. And uh, 

[00:06:06] Louis Goodman: which war are we talking about? Spanish American, or 

[00:06:10] Hon. Al Dover: Pretty sure it was Vietnam. I got in but I couldn't afford to go. The dean said to me, well work in the state for a year and get in-state tuition. So I more or less did that and then I reapplied and then they put me on like the maybe list, like the alternate list.

And I marched into the dean's office and I, I mean, to this day, I don't know why he didn't have me arrested. I don't even know if I was wearing a shirt, I might just have had a leather vest on, jeans and sandals and I went, dean Ayers, you told me to work, you know, apply. You know, what do you mean? Maybe? And he let me in. I don't know if he, you know, if he regretted it, but he let me in. 

[00:06:56] Louis Goodman: What did you do in that interim year? 

[00:07:00] Hon. Al Dover: Oh yeah, well. The part I'll really talk about is, I worked at a, what would today probably, I don't know what it would be called, but it was a, a leather store, but it also sold, sold all kinds of other goofy paraphernalia, and I was the world's worst leather craftsman.

I finally learned how to make a belt and, and I worked at the Peace of Mind clothing store. I pumped gas at the economy gas station, and then I worked in a theater of ill repute as a projectionist for a while also. So those are kind of the jobs. I had four, and I think I might have grossed almost a hundred dollars a week. 

[00:07:41] Louis Goodman: But it was enough to get you through your tuition at the university of Arizona.

[00:07:47] Hon. Al Dover: That, and I borrowed money. So you know how we look at what people are borrowing today to go to school. I borrowed $1,500 a year. Then when I graduated I had, I think I paid $35 a month back and it maybe it was, I don't know how many years, but it was years and years, and it was no burden at all. It was remarkable, 'cause I see what these kids are suffering today and it's just distressing. 

[00:08:16] Louis Goodman: Yeah. It certainly is. When did you first start thinking about being a lawyer? 

[00:08:22] Hon. Al Dover: I never thought about being a lawyer. Never. What happened is I was in business, international business law my last year in college and a professor, and I'll never forget it, his name was Tindle. He said to me, he said, you know, he said, Al, I think you may have an aptitude for the law. Maybe you should think about it. It was right at the time when you could think about taking the LSAT test. Well, nobody had ever told me I had an aptitude for anything except having a good time. So when he said, you might have an aptitude for something like that, I went, okay, I'll try it. It worked. I mean, I was able to get in. 

[00:09:07] Louis Goodman: You graduated from law school. Can you kind of tell us a little bit about your legal career after law school and up until the time that you took the bench? 

[00:09:18] Hon. Al Dover: Well, I'll just tell you briefly what happened. I was never much of a student. I'm a really good crammer, but I'm not much of a student.

And I'm going, you know, this law school, it's okay, but how do you be a lawyer? So what I did is I just started going downtown in Tucson. That is where I was at the time. There were some great lawyers practicing, I mean, great lawyers. And I would just go and watch him. That's how I, 

[00:09:45] Louis Goodman: At the courthouse? 

[00:09:46] Hon. Al Dover: Outta my, yeah, at the courthouse.

And then I met one of them. I met one, I'm laughing 'cause it was a kind of funny story about how I met him. But I met him and he, you know, he hired me to be his clerk. So that was my first job. Then I worked for him when I graduated for about, not quite two years, but I really wanted to be a trial lawyer and I went, you know what, I'll never get enough trial experience this way.

So I went to the public defender's office and I had, I tried 11 felonies my first year as a public defender and you know, that was the deal. That was how you learned. You, you were a da or you were PD if you wanted to get into a courtroom. 

[00:10:31] Louis Goodman: Well, I think that's still true. 

[00:10:33] Hon. Al Dover: Probably. So I did that for a couple of years.

I did a very large murder case. It was the first highway patrolman who was an undercover agent ever killed in the line of duty. And so I was the defense attorney in that case. And after that I had just met the woman in California I was chasing, so I chased her here to California and then took the California bar. Passed, don't know how, and then became the assistant public defender here in Nevada County for a couple of years until my wife said, you know, this is nice, but you're not quite making enough money for us to pay any of our bills.

So, so I went, well, okay, I don't know. Let's see what's next. And I went into private practice here in Nevada City. But the timing was just good. I was fortunate. I was really the only really seasoned criminal defense attorney in the area. And so a lot of people just referred cases to me. So I just was, you know, I just had a great practice.

And then in 87, the judges of which there were three, said, you know, there's gonna be an opening and why don't you think about applying? And I did. And at the time it was a justice court, it wasn't a muni court. It was a justice court, so I was appointed by the local board of supervisors and that was, it was Duke Magen's era, if you remember.

So when I went to rookie judge's school, it was DA, DA, DA, DA, DA, AG, AG, criminal defense Attorney, DA, DA. 

[00:12:06] Louis Goodman: What did you think about being on the bench? How was that, how was, what was that experience like? 

[00:12:10] Hon. Al Dover: Now, it's really wonderful. I mean, look, there's a couple of things. Any lawyer knows the practice of law also includes the business of the practice of law, and a lot of us never signed up for being business people and weren't particularly swift at, at least I wasn't. But it was nice to be able to leave a business behind and go to work and just focus on trying to do your best to do the right thing. That's what judges do, you know, go to work, try to do the right thing. It's a gift. It's a gift. I felt like I was semi-retired, leaving the business of the practice of law, and I enjoyed being a judge.

You know, this isn't, this is Nevada City, so in Grass Valley, so it's not like you're dealing with horror story after horror story. It's also not LA you're not assigned to go out to, you know, to the far corners of the county, to listen to arraignments all day, or, you know, just be doing prelims and pomona, whatever it is. I mean, it was fun.

[00:13:19] Louis Goodman: At some point you decided that you were gonna retire, you were gonna leave the bench and open up the mediation practice. Can you talk a little bit about that decision? 

[00:13:27] Hon. Al Dover: It's so interesting. There was a real disincentive to stay on the bench after 20 years because if you did, I think, if I remember correctly, they kept taking out the money for like social security to no benefit to you.

You had already maxed out. It was just kind of like, like a waste. And also I was ready for a change and I had taken a course while still a judge doing civil, from the Strauss Institute, Pepperdine, they came up to Butte County. We had a little rural judges’ group and they did a mediation training. And I've done a lot of teaching at the judicial college and taken a lot of classes. But this really jazzed me. I mean, it was really exciting. And when I went back to my court, I really changed the entire way I did settlement conference to look much more like mediations really meaning I gave it a lot more time. I was more interactive with the parties. It was very different and I thought I could, I like this.

I liked settling cases as a judge and I thought the mediation training really said to me, it just spoke to me. So, you know, after about a year in the assigned judge program where I went to all these other courts, I said, why not? That's why I started on April Fool's Day. I said, I know I'm just a little town judge.

Who knows? Maybe I'll make a few bucks here or there, but you know what the hell give it a shot. And just had my nephew build me a website and just that was it. And then like I already told you, I got lucky with doing a couple of cases for lawyers that were prominent in their bar associations. Those associations are pretty tight knit, pretty, you know, they're not that big even in the big cities in terms of the, you know, estate, estate bar.

The probate litigation bar. Just happened then it just happened.

[00:15:30] Louis Goodman: What is it about, you know, practicing law, mediation, judging? What is it about being involved in the law that you really like? You, you know, you've, you've been here a long time. You've been doing it your whole life. You know, obviously there must be something about it that keeps you in this world of law.

[00:15:49] Hon. Al Dover: You know, I think, what do we all, I mean, most lawyers become lawyers in some large measure to help people. I mean, it's a helping profession. And when you also are engaged in either being a judge, being a mediator, you're really trying to, in my view, I mean, my, I've tried to make a lot of my life about trying to reduce suffering.

I know it might sound a little, you know, wishy-washy, but that is me. That's what I really want to do. And so I get just a lot of satisfaction. I have a lot of gratitude and a lot of satisfaction in terms of seeing that if you can get this weight of this conflict off the backs of these people, especially children, families, it's very gratifying.

So I get a lot of satisfaction from it. I enjoy it and I like people, I like interacting with people, and I like the complexity of the human condition. I mean, you learn a lot when you do this work. 

[00:16:56] Louis Goodman: If a young person were just coming outta school and thinking about a career, would you recommend the law?

[00:17:00] Hon. Al Dover: Oh, absolutely. I have so many times, and I'll tell you primarily why there are so many ways to be a lawyer. You can really find the lane that suits your character, your personality, your goals. You know, you folks know you don't ever have to see the inside of a courtroom. If you don't want to, you just practice a certain kind of law, if you wanna be a litigator, practice that kind of law.

So I think it is a fabulous, fabulous profession to choose. 

[00:17:32] Louis Goodman: I wanna ask you kind of a two-sided question here. What is the best advice you think you've ever received, and what advice would you give to that young lawyer just starting out in a practice?

[00:17:47] Hon. Al Dover: I think some of the best advice I've received was from, from judges, especially from a couple that said essentially to me when I was a new judge, judge Robert Weill, you know, while he wrote the book, I think on civil litigation before trial and maybe several others from Los Angeles, he said, you know.

He had just lectured for like an hour. He put his arm around me, we're walking down the hall and he said, you know, Al, just help the lawyers. Just help 'em. It's hard work. And so, you know, it's not, he's not saying, you know, pick favorites. He's not saying do anything unethical. He's saying just do what you can to help the lawyers help their clients.

And it's kind of just, it was just kind of just that simple. And you know, I think advice for young lawyers is, look, there might be a few exceptional genius, you know, lawyers out there, but honestly, you know, 80, 90% of us, you know, we're doing our best. We're working our butts off. It's all about preparation to me.

And so what I say is prepare. I mean, my thing when I was a defense attorney was, you know, and I say this with a, I guess a modicum of maybe too much pride, but I said, nobody's gonna know more about that case in that courtroom than me. Nobody. Not the other side, not the judge, nobody. And that gave me the confidence to go into a courtroom, relax, actually really enjoy myself 'cause I have done the, I had done the work. And then when you do get those surprises or those things that happen, you know, you're far more comfortable responding when you know you've done all you can to prepare. It kind of frees you up to, you know, if you've gotta rethink something to do that. Preparation. 

[00:19:56] Louis Goodman: What kinds of things do you look for or what kind of things can lawyers who are appearing in front of you as a mediator, or for that matter, when lawyers appeared in front of you when you were sitting as a superior court judge, what sort of things do you look for, did you look for that we, as practicing attorneys could use in our own practices to be more effective in front of courts?

[00:20:26] Hon. Al Dover: Well, you know, again, a lot of times it's not hard to see if somebody's really prepared or not in a presentation. I'm talking about like as a judge. So if the lawyers, you know, don't look prepared, don't look organized, it's not hard to see that. And it's disappointing to see. And I can also tell you, you know, the flip of that is.

As a judge, I love nothing better than to watch good lawyers work. I loved it. It was like a gift to watch talented people work. And you know, the flip is, it was painful to watch bad lawyering, you know, just painful. And as a judge, you, you know what, how much can you do about it? You have, you know, know I'd have, you know, my lip half chewed off, you know, sometimes, but it was hard.

As a mediator, the same is somewhat true. The difference is, you know, you don't, as a mediator, you're not listening to decide anything. You're really listening to understand what's this about? How do I help these folks help themselves? And so it's a entirely different way to listen and it's a very different interaction 'cause you're, you know, interacting with the folks as much or more than the lawyers.

So for me, in mediation, I wanted the lawyers to, and oftentimes I had talked to them before the mediation started, to really let me know what they wanted from me. You know, do they want a more facilitative, do they need a more evaluative, do they, you know, again, help those lawyers. What do they really need from me?

So I looked for that kind of candor and then I again I hoped that they would've had, you know, candid conversations with their clients to not skew their expectations and to help them be able to get on a good business footing to make a decision. Does this proposal look better to me than litigating?

So you wanted to see that that work was done.

[00:22:34] Louis Goodman: Do you think the legal system's fair? 

[00:22:37] Hon. Al Dover: I think the legal system has a potential, all the potential, to be fair, I think that's, you know, that's kind of a giant question. It's hard to, it's hard to parse. It's, so I kinda look at it like this, in terms of being like in the criminal realm where people get public defenders, so they have lawyers and resources to investigate cases. It's not like they have all the resources of the state, but it isn't, it's probably about the best we can do. The civil realm concerns me more when I saw the big moneyed interests just try to really just kinda run roughshod over folks that, you know, weren't as well moneyed and would just try to take advantage of that, that that always was, it was distressing. I mean, it's just kind of distressing to see, and it's not hard to see from time to time. So the system certainly can be fair. I mean, jurors have always, I think for the most part, done their best to be fair. But sometimes, you know, money matters, you know, can skew or create outcomes that aren't necessarily fair.

[00:23:53] Louis Goodman: Judge, I'm gonna have a few more questions for you before we finish the podcast, but right now we have two other people on the podcast, and I'd like to give them an opportunity to participate by asking a question or making a comment to you. Let's start with Joseph Rosenthal. Mr. Rosenthal, do you have a question or a comment for Judge Dover?

[00:24:13] Joseph Rosenthal: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity. I am involved now in a recreation mediation on a med mal case. And I wonder on the side of the plaintiff, and I wonder, I'm also a physician by the way. I know quite a bit about the case itself. I wonder how much of expert opinion do you need in an arbitrational mediation case versus a regular legal procedure? 

[00:24:51] Hon. Al Dover: Lemme see if I understand the question. How much, in other words, how much information do you want professionally? 

[00:24:58] Joseph Rosenthal: Specifically, how much expert information? Because, you know, I am kind of an expert, not exactly on the area of the subject matter of this event, but I know quite a bit about what is involved. How much of an expert opinion do I need to get in order to convince a mediator in this case?

[00:25:22] Hon. Al Dover: Yeah, this is actually a very, very nuanced question and complicated. So let me just see if I can give you a sense of it as a mediator. And people are trying to ask themselves the ultimate question, does this proposal look better to me than litigating? Okay. So to do that, if they have certain expert evidence that is gonna weigh, say more favorably as it's, you know, as it's understood by both sides to a plaintiff, well, guess what? You know, that should, that should help generate a little, you know, a little more, you know, money toward, toward a plaintiff and, you know, and then vice versa. So I think all people can do really in a mediation, what they do is you look at everything that's there, all that expert opinion, your expert, their expert, and then you ask the lawyers, you know, it's kind of like, well, what do you.

What do you think? What's the worst thing that can happen? What do you get if you win? What do you get if you lose? How much do you have to spend to find out? How much time's it gonna take? And when you kind of run through this analysis, you know, you kind of run through the case analysis. Here's the strengths of my case, including expert opinions.

Here's the weakness, here's their side. What's our risk analysis? How many times do we think we're gonna win outta 10? You know, you do this work and then you say so this is what would look better to me than litigating. So those opinions, those expert opinions, all matter and they're filtered through that kind of analysis with all the other evidence to say, is this, is this changing my analysis of what I wanna settle this case for? I hope that answers your question in some part. 

[00:27:33] Joseph Rosenthal: Yes, it does. You does that This is a, this is arbitration as a result of the contract between the claimant and the healthcare facility. But yeah, it answered the question. Thank you very much.

[00:27:47] Hon. Al Dover: Okay. You're welcome. You're welcome. Yeah. It's all part of, every opinion, everything really in a case is all part of, to me, what I really encourage everybody doing is do your case analysis. What are the strengths of your case? What are the weaknesses of your case? And of course one of the funniest things I've ever seen is these eyes light up when, when I say, well, what are the weaknesses of your case?

And somebody looks at their lawyer like, we have a weakness? We don't, we're not winning for sure. And I'm going, somebody needs to take a little time out and have a little conversation, you know, and so, and that, that's happened a few times that it's, you know, I, again, it's a bite your tongue thing and hope somebody has the right conversation.

Yeah, guess what? You can lose in litigation. 

[00:28:33] Louis Goodman: Thank you, Mr. Rosenthal. Thomas Butzbach, do you have a question or a comment for judge Dover?

[00:28:40] Thomas Butzbach: I have two questions and I have one comment. The first question is, how do you get to mediation? Is it, is it the court suggests that you go to a mediator or do you decide to go to mediation before you decide to somebody, for example?

[00:28:57] Hon. Al Dover: So there's, that's a great question and it's actually a complicated question, but to start with, mediation is a voluntary process. So it really means that the sides just say that any two sides go are saying are talking. So the lawyers are talking, they're going, you know, it's gonna cost a lot of money.

It's, we know it's gonna take a year or two, whatever it's gonna be. Is this case suitable for mediation? Meaning, do we have enough information even now? Before we invest in discovery and do all this to try to resolve it ourselves in many, many cases, Tom, the answer is yes. I've done lots of cases where the parties haven't filed suit yet.

And, but they're ready to exchange enough information to be able to do the work they need to do, to have a sense of what it should settle for. So yes, you can do it voluntarily. Anytime both sides agree, let's go pick a mediator. Then secondarily to that, I would just say to you, you know, there's lots of mediators with lots of different skill sets, and so also picking a mediator becomes important.

Also, yes, there is mediation that you are sent by a court where there's going, you must mediate. There's also lots of contracts these days, especially in real estate that says. You have to mediate before you sue. If you don't, you can't get attorney's fees. So there's those contractual provisions in more and more cases.

And then at the Court of Appeal, and I do quite a few mediations for the Court of Appeal. Cases has already been tried. Somebody won. Somebody lost, they're on appeal, and the Appellate Court does an analysis and says, we think this case is su, it would be good to go to mediation. And then they'll order the parties to go to mediation.

[00:30:45] Thomas Butzbach: And who pays for that? 

[00:30:47] Hon. Al Dover: There's a generally a panel of justices that try to determine what cases look suitable for mediation. In the third district where I am, that's the case. And I think in the sixth, I think down in San Jose they do that. I'm not sure about other districts, but they will send cases out to be mediated.

[00:31:04] Thomas Butzbach: Okay. My next question, you stated that you love to watch great lawyers work.

[00:31:09] Hon. Al Dover: I do. 

[00:31:09] Thomas Butzbach: And you also suggested that being a good lawyer means to come to court prepared. What does a great lawyer do beyond preparation that catches your eye? 

[00:31:23] Hon. Al Dover: I guess it would be beyond preparation. Some people are just talented and skilled at things that you don't see done really well often.

And by that I mean voir dire. I've seen very few lawyers do a creative job with really uncovering biases or, you know, tendencies. Very few really know how to engage people in a way that actually gets them to open up and share things that, you know, they might not really wanna be discussing. But some lawyers are just really gifted at that.

And I always was amazed to just watch those folks work. And then there was, in Tucson, there was Richard Grand. Richard Grand started the inner circle of advocates, the people that won over a million dollars as plaintiff's lawyers. And so here he is in Tucson and I watched him work. I mean, I watched him deliver closing arguments that were, it was like listening to good poetry that I actually would understand. Most poetry, I don't, but he was so, I mean, his words would hit you and they wouldn't hit you here. They'd hit you here. They'd hit here, they'd hit you, and you would go, oh my God, this man's a master. He is a master. He can paint with words.

[00:32:56] Thomas Butzbach: Yeah. 

[00:32:57] Hon. Al Dover: And that 

[00:32:58] Thomas Butzbach: A storyteller. 

[00:32:59] Hon. Al Dover: Absolutely. Right. Absolutely, Thomas. A great storyteller and you know, totally relatable, 

[00:33:07] Thomas Butzbach: Right. Well that was, that's my final comment. You are relatable too. I love your humbleness and I also love your sense of humor. I think that that was very refreshing in this world.

[00:33:18] Hon. Al Dover: Yeah, it's helpful too. You, you've gotta have one in our world. 

[00:33:21] Louis Goodman: Thanks, Tom. Thanks, Joe. Okay. I have a couple of of lightning round questions for you, judge. Let's say you came into some real money, three or four billion dollars. What, if anything, would you do differently in your life? 

[00:33:35] Hon. Al Dover: Well, first of all, Louis, is this a, this any kind of prediction?

I mean, are we, should I go get a lottery ticket? I mean, what? What are we thinking? 

[00:33:42] Louis Goodman: That's a client decision. 

[00:33:43] Hon. Al Dover: Oh, okay. All right. I think if I had that kind of money, I already know. We know there's a lot of organizations out there. There's a lot of foundations out there that do good works, right? You know, feed the hungry, do all these things that you know really need doing.

I would just try to research that and then try to pick those organizations that I could help fund that just reduce suffering in the world. 

[00:34:16] Louis Goodman: Let's say you had a magic wand. There was one thing in the world, you could change the legal world or the world in general. What? What would you wanna do? 

[00:34:24] Hon. Al Dover: Well, I'll tell you this, with the legal world, I would turn it on its head in this way. I think litigation is just the way we have tried to make war, literal war, civil. So, you know, we depose people. We don't just ask 'em questions, we depose them. We don't send out questions, we send out interrogatories. It's really the language of war, kind of made civil and why should the adversary system be our system in family law with children and families?

Why would you take that and put them in an adversarial system, which we do. So my view is it should be wholly flipped, which is a little what I was talking about with Thomas in the way. Why not? Why not have people go as early as possible to see a mediator, to see a counselor to get some help to solve their own problems.

Why should people with robes sitting up somewhere deign to tell people this is your outcome. Why can't the people first try to fashion their own outcome? They're the ones that care. They're the ones that are affected. So I think people should have the opportunity, which is why I like mediation so much. I tell 'em, here's your opportunity to fashion an outcome. It's your problem. Let's fashion an outcome that looks better to you than going into that world of litigation. So that's what I would do. I would flip it. To really have mediation at the start and litigation would be the last, it's like going to war. It would be the last option.

[00:36:14] Louis Goodman: Let's say you got 60 seconds on the Super Bowl and you had the opportunity to put a one-minute ad out in front of this enormous audience. What would you wanna say in your Super Bowl ad? 

[00:36:29] Hon. Al Dover: My message would be simply to have everybody just kind of ask themselves, what can you do? What can I do? How can I contribute to better outcomes for me, for my family, for my community, for my world? Let's just give it some thought. 

[00:36:50] Louis Goodman: Judge it. Is there anything that you wanna talk about? Anything that you'd like to discuss, anything you'd like to put out there that we haven't touched on? Anything at all. 

[00:37:00] Hon. Al Dover: If lawyers really look at assisting their folks to reduce conflict, get the weight of it off their shoulders, they'll have gone a long, long way to do a great service and that because conflict is suffering. So, you know, that's kind of what I would encourage. I would also encourage, I've seen a lot of lawyers that are, you know, I think they're probably pretty good litigators, but they have no idea how to negotiate. Just no idea. I actually had, this was kind of sweet. I was doing this one will and trust dispute, and the side, you know, I'm in, I'm in separate rooms, so I'm in one room with one side and they say, look, judge, we're willing to give this much money. We're willing to give this much money, but we have no clue how to get them there. No clue. Would you just kind of do this for us? Okay, I'll talk to you in a minute. I went to the other room and they said, look, listen, we're willing to take this much money, but we don't know how to get 'em here. We have no idea how to get 'em here.

Would you help us with this? So now I'm saying to myself, this is great. I'm gonna be in a negotiation with myself the whole rest of the day, and I know that at the end of the day, I'm gonna have 'em like this. And then I know that if having spent seven hours with them, like to get 'em here, that they're gonna go like this.

And I'm gonna say, you did your best. You did great. You got to here. What do you think? Does this not look better to you than spending this to get to litigation to end up with this? You know, we're gonna get it done, but there's a lot of times when lawyers just don't really have a clue on how to negotiate or where they need to get to or how they plan on getting there.

They don't really have a plan kind of going in. 

[00:38:53] Louis Goodman: We touched on this at the beginning of the podcast, but could you tell us one more time the best way to get in touch with Al Dover if someone has an interest in using your services for mediation, or perhaps an attorney who's listening to this podcast would want to get in touch with you for some advice, for whatever reason. Sure. What, what's the best way? 

[00:39:13] Hon. Al Dover: You just Google Judge Al Dover or Albert Dover, or Judge Albert Dover. I have a website. It'll come up and all my contact information is there. 

[00:39:23] Louis Goodman: Judge Al Dover, thank you so much for joining us today on the Love Thy Lawyer and the Alameda County Bar Association podcast. It's been a pleasure to talk to you and thank you so much to Tom Butzbach and Joe Rosenthal for joining us as well. 

[00:39:41] Joseph Rosenthal: A great podcast. 

[00:39:43] Hon. Al Dover: Thank you. And thank you Louis, and thank you guys for being there too. 

[00:39:47] Louis Goodman: That's it for today's edition of Love Thy Lawyer in collaboration with the Alameda County Bar Association. Please visit the lovethylawyer.com website where you can find links to all of our episodes. Also please visit the Alameda County Bar Association website at acbanet.org where you can find more information about our support of the legal profession, promoting excellence in the legal profession and facilitating equal access to justice.

Thanks to Joel Katz for music, Brian Matheson for technical support, Paul Robert for social media, and Tracy Harvey. I'm Louis Goodman. 

[00:40:38] Hon. Al Dover: You know, and I took the LSAT and it's not like I, you know, set any records, but I did better than most of my friends, which says something about my friends.