Sidebar: Tipped Wage Hike Paused + DOJ's New 'Anti-Weaponization' Fund

This is the Block Club Chicago podcast, and it's our sidebar edition. What's that? Well, every other Saturday or so, we release a podcast about law stories in Chicago or ones that affect Chicago ends. Today, we have Patrick Dolan, our employment lawyer from Contean Dolan Law, and Mike Leonard, federal defense attorney from Leonard trial lawyers. I say this time, you guys are always the ones here. Is that what you made a face of me just now, Patrick? Yeah, I thought every time we were here, but maybe not. No, no, you guys will, you're the sidebar host.

It's my understanding. Mike, you, uh... Mike, are we supposed to be here? I'm just happy to be here, John. Yeah, he's a little feisty to begin the show today. I'm not a complainer like Patrick. I'm not complaining. We'll see it come out during the show today.

We'll see how this goes. We had some news this week that I just want to touch on first because it is an employment law story in the city. The city council on Wednesday decisively moving to delay a plan. planned phase out of the sub-minimum base wage for tipped workers for two years. Mayor Johnson, that was one of his most significant wins during his first term so far in office. This doesn't go back in time, but it pauses the raises where they are at $12.62 an hour. Chicago's standard minimum wage is 1660. Essentially, the sub-minimum wage was on a pathway to get to the standard minimum wage. It's a little confusing, Patrick, but essentially restaurants were, I don't want to say

they all didn't want to do it, but the restaurant lobbies didn't like this because they had to pay more out of pocket, right? Yeah, that's exactly what it is. And it sounds like the restaurant lobby won. I mean, because that lower wage number that employers and restaurants were allowed to pay, it really saved them a lot of money. But the reality is, tips were not making up the difference. Certain sometimes to get these restaurant workers to minimum wage. That's why, you know, legislation was passed to close it. Can I just make sure everyone understands that? So if the standard minimum wage is Chicago is 1660 an hour,

no matter what servers were going to make that, they were going to make it from a combination of their sub-minimum wage, and then the difference had to be made up in tips. And if they didn't get to 1660 an hour averaged out, the restaurant then had to get them the rest of the way. Does that make sense? It does, and that's pretty much it. But the problem was oftentimes they didn't get to minimum wage.

In restaurants, oftentimes, didn't make up that difference. Well, that's not fair. Well, I know that's not fair. Right. And now is the whole point of eliminating what I consider to be the tip credit. The credit employers have in terms of how much money under minimum wage that they're allowed to pay. So now what the restaurants appears have successfully done is stopped the closing of that gap. I guess freezing it temporarily.

I'm not really sure how long. We'll see. But at least it's a win right now for the restaurants. Absolutely. Now, some tipped workers, well, I shouldn't even say that. I've heard that some tip workers were afraid of the sub-minimum raise because they feared that people would tip less if they knew that, hey, it's not longer this giant imbalance of how much they make less than the minimum wage that people that go to

restaurants would know, hey, oh, they're actually making close to the minimum wage now. I'm not going to tip as much. I don't think there's much evidence that that has actually changed. No, I think studies have shown quite the contrary that, first of all, most people don't even know about the tip credits. They don't even know about the difference, let alone, you know, enough to change the amount they're tipping. But there's no evidence of that. I think the larger more legitimate concern is that restaurant workers were not paid minimum wage. And that's why the gap was supposed to be closed. I guess now we're going to freeze it for a while. There's a rumor that Mike Leonard's the best tipper in all of Chicago. Is that true, Mike?

Very true. Hey, I always give my 20 to 25%. I'm a good tipper. I'm a good tipper. But what I think is unfortunate is, according to at least the Tribune's version or take on this, it's freezing the increases for two years at certain restaurants and also freezing them for four years at other restaurants. So it just kind of shows you, sadly, who has the power of the restaurant.

restaurant lobby versus the individual worker. And so I don't buy this thing that if they make more, people a tip less. I mean, nobody at a restaurant sitting there going, I wonder if they're making eight or 10 an hour, and I'm going to judge my tip. I think that's complete nonsense. But I think they had good political cover because restaurants are, at least according to the statistics are struggling.

People are eating out less. It's a sign of the overall inflation and economy. So they had the political cover to do it. but not to the average worker. They had the political cover for the restaurants. Yeah. But the workers are the ones are being hurt. Can we just point out that Mike cited the Chicago Tribune on a Block Club Chicago podcast?

It's okay. We all play nicely, so that's fine. Inadvertence, John, I'm not Liu. I'm not a panderer. What were you to say, Patrick? Well, I was just going to say when we go out to dinner, places are packed. So I don't know.

I mean, it seems like people are going out to dinner still. Well, Patrick, let's talk about where you go. And when you go to Panda Express, your wife, on a Saturday night. With all my kids. That's not a great reflection upon the economy. I have a lot of kids. That's expensive.

Yeah, for sure. But it doesn't change how much I tip, though. Yeah. Okay. I do wonder, though, this is an interesting, another battle that the mayor has lost by the city council coming together to form a coalition that would be above the veto threshold, right? And this is really, I think, one of the big stories is that the mayor has issued multiple vetoes and a couple of them have been over.

I said, did I sum that up well? He summed it up well, John, very well. I appreciate that. Patrick, what other employment law stories you want to talk about today? There was a lawsuit filed against J.P. Morgan Chase in New York by a bank executive accusing his female colleague of sexual harassment and sexual assault. There's a lot of very salacious detail in that complaint. It talks about unwanted sexual relations with this female co-worker. Comment she made that were totally inappropriate, touching, request for threesomes. It's really solaceal. And it's a flip of the script because not always, but usually this is a discrimination lawsuit filed or harassment lawsuit filed by a woman against a man. This is different. This is different. And I've represented men who have filed complaints of sexual harassment and sexual assault against both females and males. So it happens, but you're right, it's not, it's not as often. The norm, right? Yeah, for sure. It turns out the female colleague who was accused of this sexual harassment has now turned around and countered. And

claimed against him asserting that these claims were totally false and unjustified, that she's been defamed, that her reputation personally and professionally has been irretrievably harmed, that, you know, her career at J.P. Morgan Chase, and more generally, has been absolutely devastated by this guy's lawsuit and allegation. Is she his boss, by the way? She is not. And that can make a difference legally, but only in terms of whether J.P. Morgan Chase is liable. If she was his boss, generally speaking, J.P. Morgan Chase would be strictly liable for her harassment of him. But since their colleagues, they had to be unnoticed. The fact of the matter is he did file multiple complaints about her to his bosses, said, I don't want to work with her anymore, et cetera, et cetera.

So he has some paperwork at a trail to back this theory up. He does. although there are a lot of folks internally who say his allegations are completely false, and Chase not surprisingly put him on leave, conduct an investigation, which they always do. Is she on leave too then? She was not at the moment, and she was not at the time, because they had to conduct the investigation. They're not going to presuppose that any of his allegations are true, so it could be retaliatory to put her on leave. You're going to say, why not him? Yes.

That's just the way it goes. because the employer in this case, Chase, is more concerned about claims from her that they didn't separate the two. If it turns out that the investigation reveals that, you know, these things actually didn't happen, and they're harming her as a result of baseless allegations. That doesn't seem fair. That's just how it goes. Okay. That's just how it goes.

I just to make sure I understand. He accused her of these things. She was not put on leave. They said, we're going to do an investigation. Now she says that you're defaming me with this. I'm going to counter sue. Which she already did. She already filed in response to his lawsuit. And now he's on leave. Yes. And now he's on leave. Well, he no longer works there. He was put on leave during the investigation. Chase, not surprisingly, determined, you know, that these things were not founded. In other words, his allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault did not occur. Or if they did, they weren't as he described, et cetera. So they found in her favor.

What does an investigation look like? Are they hiring lawyers like? you to dive into this sort of stuff? Yeah, I've done a number of investigations for companies like Chase, and it's always good to hire an outside investigator. You get sort of an arm's length from that investigator. You can either use the results or not use the results. It's up to the company. There are a whole bunch of different reasons for both, but they want somebody outside to conduct the investigation because they think it's more fair, and they can use it if it's in their favor, which oftentimes it is, as a defense under the law. But even the though that's an outside and hopefully an independent voice, I'm not saying you would succumb

to this, but other lawyers, one might wonder, could they succumb to the independent dish? Because who's writing the check to the lawyer? I mean, that's one of the calculations, right? It is. That's a big issue. And trust me, I've had some pressure from the, you know, companies that have hired me to determine things in a certain way. And the fact that they are paying me, I can't, you can't get around that. I mean, it's just, you know, there's some inherent bias that can be argued by the plaintiff's lawyer that I was not fair, et cetera. But I have a job to do. I mean, if they don't like my findings,

they're just not going to hire me again. But I'm not going to, you just can't compromise your own reputation and judgment for the sake of this employer who wants you to find that the allegations of harassment did not occur. You just can't do it. Why do you think this story is important to talk to the Block Club Chicago audience? As Chicago resident, I mean, we're not into the JP Morgan world that much. But there's an impact here too, right?

There is an impact. And I think what it would, you know, the issue that I think is fascinating here is juries. What do juries do with this? We have a male complaining about sexual harassment by a female. The law, both criminally and civil law in the employment world, says, hey, jurors, you know, don't use bias of any sort. There's one standard in terms of whether this was consented to or not consented to. We don't want you as males sort of, you know, looking at this from your perspective, females, with a different perspective.

We want an unbiased juror to look at this and say what happened. That's the same thing with employment laws. You know, we can't focus on a characteristic like gender. You have to treat everybody the same. But to me, what's interesting is that's not how juries typically work. Look at the most recent Harvey Weinstein verdict where he was acquitted. Every female, actually, there was a mistrial. Right.

Every female juror decided. in his favor. When they pulled them afterwards. Yes. Most male jurors decided in her favor. So what you have is the reality is juries aren't devoid of gender biases when they look at situations like this. So I think this is an interesting case. And I wanted Mike's perspective as someone who deals with Chicago juries all the time. Wake up, Mike. How do you deal with this? This is a really interesting issue. It's a great case for a jury. I mean, juries would actually, I think jurors would love to serve on a case like, like this. I mean, there's so many interesting issues. I mean, number one, the fact that their peers, co-workers severely in my mind undermines this case. You know, the typical scenario is

my boss is requiring me to do these things. I'm doing them because for fear of non-advancement, demotion, getting fired, when your, when your coworker peers, to me, just from the get-go, it doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm not, how can I be forced to do sexual acts with a coworker? who has no control, no power over me in terms of promotion, demotion, termination. So I think it's a huge problem for the plaintiff in the first place. But the issue you just hit upon is a great issue. This whole thing of bias or what the courts like to call implicit bias. So as you know, now it's in vogue to read jury instructions to the jury

that talk about the concept of implicit bias. It says something like, we all have biases, you know, that are, you know, rudimentary to ourselves, you know, blah, blah, blah. And it tries to instruct and encourage the juries to kind of put those aside and just decide the case on the merits, which is kind of, I'm sorry, it's funny in some ways because reading them instruction that you all have biases, but you're all going to put them aside now is kind of absurd. I mean, it's good. I think that they say that. I think it is important to say that. You don't?

No, I know. Look, there was some version of this jury instruction always. You should never decide the case based upon prejudice, simple. things like that. Now they say implicit bias. But like you can't tell somebody, hey, you have an implicit bias. Put it aside. First of all, what is that implicit bias? What are you telling me to put aside? You know, what are you saying to me? You know, so I don't think it's a really instructive instruction in the first place. But I think jurors would love to be on a case like this because there'll be tremendous, tremendous issues about, first of all, is the plaintiff credible? You know,

did these things even happen? Did he have to? engage in them. Does that make sense? A lot of people won't believe it makes sense when it's not your boss. And then secondly, they'll enjoy the countersuit, which will be decided likely as part of the same case, you know, for defamation. But one issue you didn't talk about, which a lot of times is sort of barred. It'll be interesting to see he'll file a motion to dismiss the defamation claim saying, look, when I make an allegation in court, it's privileged. I have to prove it or disprove it, but you can't assume me for defamation because they make an allegation against you. If I make a statement outside of court, if I go online and make a statement about you, then you have a claim for defamation.

So I think there's going to be some real issues as to whether her countersuit for defamation can go forward against him. She's going to have to rely upon things that he said that weren't in the lawsuit or we're in the lawsuit that he publicly said to third parties. He went online or he talked to his friends, things like that. And I think that's exactly what they have said. And will say and I'm sure they're aware of that issue. But here's what's interesting to me. So the instruction in any kind of sexual assault case or a sexual harassment case, when you're talking about jurors, you know, we have one a standard, doesn't matter if you're male or female, et cetera. I think ignores the reality, as you pointed out, of how people look at these things.

And my question is, why is that wrong? As an employment lawyer, it may sound funny to say, you know, use your bias, but to me it's your life experience. If you're a male in those situations, what is a, quote, objective or reasonable response to those situations? Is it different than a female's perspective if she was the claimant? To my mind, first of all, the instruction doesn't reflect reality at all. So you're suggesting that, look, hey, man, put yourself in your shoes. What would you have done? You would have rejected the advances because she's not your boss, and you don't submit to the same power structure that women have to do? Is that what you're saying?

I'm saying give that some thought. Also, if you're a male who is complaining about sexual harassment or assault from another male versus from a female, that is a very different, frankly, physical dynamic if you're talking about sexual assault. And the question in my mind is, what's the reasonable, objective, appropriate response? You can talk all day long about it shouldn't, it shouldn't different. differentiate whether you're male or female. That's not the case at all. I look at that situation differently when I think about what my wife should have done or my daughter should have done

versus what I should have done depending on whether the claimant is male or female. How can you ignore the reality and put yourself in that? And do you want to, frankly, should you? Well, what you're touching upon is sort of what's the difference or where does a line go between a bias versus life experience? Okay. Of course. How can you divorce those two? Of course you want to tell a jury, like, look, don't decide the case based upon, you know, a racial bias or a gender bias. Of course, of course. But when you give the jury a kind of a nebulous instruction that, hey, we all have implicit biases. We want you to recognize and put those aside.

It's kind of difficult to do. The fact that you have implicit biases is reflective of the fact that you're not even kind of aware of what they are sometimes or where they come from. but clearly people's life experiences, what we always call, we're talking to jury. Both sides always say to a jury, use your common sense. Use your common sense. It might be the defense lawyer telling the jury use your common sense. And the prosecutor is saying, use your common sense. Well, it's really hard to divorce life experiences in your interactions with males and females

and how people behave in the workplace from the issue of how you decide the case. But I want to be really clear about something. I am not talking about gender, race, all those protected characteristics. is what I'm talking about is the, quote, consent issue in a sexual assault or sexual harassment case. That's what I'm talking about. And what is the reasonable, objective thing that a person in that situation should do? And a male looking at that situation in terms of what a male should have done, I mean,

how can you not look at that differently? And frankly, what's wrong with that? Well, and I don't think there'll be any part of the instructions that will stop them from doing that. people yeah but they are though they are though with what the instruction for any kind of sexual assault cases we don't care if the claim it is male or female it's an objective standard did they consent or did they not consent that is just divorced from reality when you're talking about the person deciding whether they consented or not yeah but just to be male or female yeah but just think about the same at the same time they're telling the jurors that you can use your common sense

you can use your life experiences so both are true they're going to get in that let's not decide the case on bias, which nobody will do because they're allowed to use their life experiences and bring those to bear when they're in the jury room deciding the case. And like anything else, the jurors take in individually all the instructions that they get, all the evidence, all the testimony, and it's up to them to put it in that blender of their brain and come out with whatever they think. Well, one of the things that it's hard to do, but you can attempt to try to get to the issue during jury selection.

Yeah. So you'll have broad range, especially in a case like that, you'll probably have wide latitude to get information about people's biases, prejudices, experiences in the workplace, whether they've ever been subjected to that type of conduct. Did they know others who've been subjected to that type of conduct? So hopefully with a really robust jury selection process, you're able to ferret out some people that are unable to put aside their prejudices. All right. Patrick, it was an interesting story and a debate that could go on for a while. Do you arrest your case? I rest my case.

All right, what do you want to talk about here today? Federal defense attorney? I'd like to talk about the settlement agreement reached in the Trump lawsuit that is creating a fund worth almost $1.8 billion. I think it's important to actually say the exact amount because it's not a one point seven seven six. I mean that's not a coincidence, of course. Correct.

Okay. That's 1776, 250th anniversary of the country. Go on. Wow. I didn't even notice that, John. You're such a scholar. But in any event, we have to kind of peel back the onion a little bit to get to the genesis of this case.

It all starts with a 2026 lawsuit brought by Trump and his family against the United States IRS. and essentially alleging that his tax returns from himself and his entities were improperly disclosed to third party as to media outlets by a contractor of the IRS. Can we just say that is true? Oh, that happened. That happened. you could argue direct control over asking them to award me. He was basically saying he's entitled to $10 billion because a third-party contractor improperly engaged in a criminal act, which was to release his tax return. In general, in civil lawsuits, a defendant's never responsible, with certain exceptions, for criminal acts of third parties.

But that's not true with the IRS. The IRS does allow. It is in the code. the IRS does allow people to sue the IRS for damages based on improper use of tax returns. That has been covered by the New York Times, that there have been cases where people have had their tax information stolen. They have sued the IRS. Now, the president who literally is suing his own government is a complicated matter. I'll give you that. But I'm just saying a layperson could sue the IRS for the release of documents and damages associated with that.

Well, you can, but like any civil case, there's two elements. Okay. First, well, do I prove my claim? You know, is the defendant liable? You know, have I met my burden of proof? And then the second issue is damages. What was the monetary damage I suffered? In this case, the issue would be, what's the monetary damage that the Trump organization or Trump suffered from the release of the tax returns? You can't get emotional distress damages for the release of your tax return. So arguably, there is no monetary damage whatsoever to Trump, the Trump organization or member of the Trump family, some would say, and some have said, and I'll probably say it myself, you could argue it's a somewhat frivolous lawsuit to begin with. Okay, I know you'll

take umbrage with that, John. But start with a case that is, you know, was clearly tactically brought in the first place, and then take the fact that it's being settled, okay? So you have the president who controls the Treasury Department and IRS and, you know, indirectly or directly their attorneys and he's settling the case so to speak they're going to give him instead of giving him money directly he's going to say well hey folks i'm not going to take any money but what you're going to have to do is you have to set up this fund for almost 1.8 billion dollars and then we're going to my attorney general and whoever else we decide is going to set up a blue ribbon committee of people of our choosing five people yeah and then we're going to decide um we're how we dole out money for people who we

the law has been used against inappropriately? I want to rewind just a moment because before we get to the settlement, this actually was appearing before a judge. And I wanted to ask you this question because I was reading about, and Patrick and Wayne too, that in these cases, these civil cases, you have to show like conflict between the parties. Judges are able to look at cases and say, it's like why two friends can't conspire to have a lawsuit if there really isn't friction between the two parties. And in this case, what is the DOJ going to argue for the IRS against Donald Trump? And the judge essentially said, no one is going to be fighting in this situation.

This may not be a worthy case. And she asked the parties to prove there was friction. And I think then they were treated to their own camps and said, well, we don't have friction. We're going to lose. This is going to get tossed out. Well, that's what happened. In short, the judge was troubled by the fact that you have the president, but it wasn't just a president who was the plaintiff's the case.

It was a president, the Trump organization, and members of Trump's family, suing the federal government. So to me, clearly there is a divergence of the parties. You know, they're not all the same. Members of the Trump family, members of the Trump organization suing the federal government. There's no conflict there whatsoever. The conflict comes in if you allow President Trump to be a party who arguably controls the defendants directly or indirectly. So I think the judge was wrong to suggest that the case

couldn't go forward. The judge never made that finding, but the judge just kind of raised out loud on her own like, I am troubled by this. We have to seem, we have a party, a president suing the government and the departments that he's suing. He has director and direct control over. They don't have the normal autonomy, right? So it was a good legal point that she raised. I don't think ultimately the case would have got dismissed by any means, particularly by the fact that the Trump organization and members of the Trump family are also parties. So they can sue the federal government. But they could have kicked him off as a potential plaintiff? Potentially, maybe.

I still don't think that would have happened. Regardless, they came up with a settlement plan. Because, you know, ultimately think about this. In your capacity as a private citizen, if you're harmed, the fact you later become president, your claim shouldn't go away just because you're positioned. case might have to be stayed, put on hold until you're out of the office, but there's still a divergence between the sides, I think. But the judge did raise that issue, offered, I told the parties to brief the issue, you know, submit written submission saying why the case can go forward. The funny thing is, you're asking the defendants who are controlled by the

plaintiffs, arguably, to say why the case should or shouldn't go forward. But what happened was to avoid that whole issue and to get the case done, because this case could, this case could have gone on for years, right? They just said, okay, plaintiffs and defense said, we're going to settle it, and we're going to create this $1.8 billion fund. The Trumps won't get any money, but they'll still get a benefit theoretically, or not so theoretically, that they get to reward people of their choosing who they claim were wrongfully prosecuted by the government. So think about this. You can have an ally of the president who was convicted of a federal crime and And Trump and his group can say, oh, you know, that case never should have been brought, even

though you're convicted by a jury, indicted by a grand jury, and you might have even spent time in prison or might be in prison now, we're going to decide that the government should actually apologize to you and give you money, which to me is absolutely absurd. Now, there are cases in which the DOJ does settle and give money to people. There is some precedent, not in this level, but there are. There are cases where the federal government does pay out people for things that have happened. Sure, just like they do in the state of Illinois. So just take a simple example.

You have a person who's wrongly convicted in Illinois. They have recourse. They can sue, right? This is not quite the same thing. I know. It's quite different. No one's going to be suing anybody. In fact, what's going to happen is people who may have already been convicted of crimes, you know, after a grand jury and died of the case, the case went all the way through to

trial or the person pled guilty because they acknowledge their guilt. And they might even be in jail or prison right now or have served time. And now we're going to essentially overturn all those convictions without a lawsuit and just say, oh, we're going to pick and choose who we think the law was weaponized against. And let's face it, they're not going to be picking 90% or more of the time. It's going to be a Republican who they claim was the law was weaponized against. One interesting nugget is also it doesn't say anything about they only can be reimbursed for legal fees, let's say. They could make up the amount. There's no oversight on the amount out of this fund they could give.

Essentially, you might have a situation. And Democrats, it just happened to be that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had a hearing in front of Congress to talk about appropriations. He just happened to be there that day that this all gets announced. And a lot of Democrats and some Republicans peppered him with some pretty strong questions, including kind of this scenario. what about a January 6th, someone who stormed the Capitol against this government, now we could maybe even financially reward. They may come out ahead for having stormed this government, and here's a payment from that government.

Yeah, it's remarkable. So Todd Blanche was not willing to say that the January 6th defendants, and I represented one, he wasn't willing to say that they would be ineligible. So people who attacked, assaulted, and did other nefarious acts on that day, many of whom, almost all of whom were convicted of crimes, and some of them, many of them who served time in prison, they were all pardoned. And now we're going to say that out of this $1.8 billion fund or thereabouts, that we're going to pay them money for things such as pain and suffering and attorney's fees and wrongful prosecution, which is to me just absolutely. remarkable. Patrick? I know in some cases, you know, the judge has to approve the settlement. Does the judge have any control over what's going on here? Doesn't seem like it. Yeah, it doesn't seem like to me. Can anything be done, Mike?

No, I don't think so. I mean, apart from public pressure, I don't think anything can be done. The judge has no control. Public pressure doesn't work. The judge has no control over parties making a resolution to their case and deciding that, hey, judge, we've resolved it, we want it dismissed. Another kind of remarkable part of the settlement, guys, is that not only will this fund be set up for almost $1.8 billion, but as part of the settlement, it forbids and prohibits the prosecution of Trump, the Trump organization, any Trump family member for any tax violations. So as you recall, some of the, you know, individual Trumps and Trump entities were being investigated for tax fraud and things like that. under the settlement agreement, all those things go away. They could complete immunity. So it's a pretty remarkable and unprecedented settlement, the likes of which we've never seen

and probably will never see again. But is there any theory. I mean, it is the case that there are civil lawsuits that do require the court to bless the transaction. I can think of a number of instances where that's the case. Correct. This is so unusual to me. Is there just nothing you can think of?

of that could be precedent for a judge to say in this circumstance, which is so strange, I am not going to approve this settlement? Or is that just, you can't think of anything. I don't know where a judge would even insert themselves. Yeah, it would be highly unusual for the judge to insert themselves if there's not a statutory requirement. That's what the judge approved. Is there anything that we can like liberally construe as a way for the judge to insert

themselves? Well, I would say no. but maybe there is a yes there. So first of all, what you're talking about, just to the listeners understand, there are certain types of settlements that actually require court approval. For example, a class action

or a wage in our collective action. A lot of employment cases. Things of that nature where the judge actually has to approve and make sure that settlement's fair and look at things like how much of the attorney's getting and is a class really getting a benefit

and is it fair? And so in this case, there's no statute that governs it that gives the court jurisdiction to say, hey, I'm going to disapprove of the settlement because there's no power vests in this judge to approve the settlement, right? The only thing I could think of is a, you know, if you're talking about hypotheticals, some sort of third-party intervener.

What a lawsuit. Kind of a friend of the court, file an action for allow them to have standing in the case. And then contest based upon the issue the judge raised herself, which was we don't seem to have competing parties here. it would be a heck of an interesting issue to raise. I mean, I don't think of what succeed, but that's where you could kind of go if you're kind of using your thinking cap

and trying to get... That's what I was trying to do with you. Like, what do you even possibly see? Well, could you have people sue and say it's misuse of tax dollars, even though court after quarter after court is ruled that that is not standing a misuse of tax dollars because everyone has different interpretations

of where tax dollars go? I'll tell you what. I mean, there's no question that somebody is going to use a legal theory to try to contest it. The question's going to be where and how. I think the only way that I can think of

is trying to insert yourself into that particular litigation, which has actually already been dismissed. So that's hard. How do you resurrect that? So that, to me, seems the most, the only vehicle you could have used is the existing case to say, hey, I'm an amicus.

I'm a party with an interest in this case because there's U.S. money at stake. I mean, if we're thinking out loud, the argument that these are taxpayer dollars, why wouldn't a member of the public have standing to contest it? Yeah, but that's, you know, that was John's point. It's not going to work probably. Todd Blanche said that this is not going to be a partisan by nature, and that Democrats who feel

the same way can apply for that. I mean, in the reality, do I think that's probably what's going to happen? No. He's just saying they're not going to discriminate any applicant from coming forward to make their case to this panel. My curiosity lies in the unfortunate situation where maybe perhaps some could actually have a legitimate argument for being, maybe, I don't know if it's Jan Sixers or not, and this is going to seem like a complete devil's advocate and I'm stretching. But there probably are some people out there.

And I don't know if it's by the quote unquote Biden Justice Department or previous Justice Departments who might have a case. I mean, Mike, you come in here all the time. We talk about laddering charges against some of your clients. We talk about so many cases that you brought forward that you feel are over prosecutorial. I mean, there should be an arm for when you feel like prosecutors have overcharged, right? Well, there is. I mean, it's limited, but you can bring a civil lawsuit to sue the government for a wrongful conviction. It's a high standard in federal court, certainly.

But there are remedies available to people outside of creating a $1.8 billion slush fund to reward people by a panel that is not judges, which is whoever we want to put on the panel with no criteria whatsoever to how do they adjudicate the claims. I mean, if you think about this, you know, there's been sort of analogous circumstances where a big fund has been set up. For instance, the who's the guy that scammed everybody in New York, Bernie Madoe. Yeah, right. There's a fund set up based upon monies that were recovered, but there were criteria and there was a rigorous process of, okay, proving the claim and proving the wrongdoing. And, you know, you could argue there's survivor funds out of major catastrophes that might be

of a public interest. But this is wholly different. You know, you can still sue, right? But this is quite outside the court system. It's just a panel of their choosing without any criteria. Which we don't know who they are. To reward whoever they want. So it's troubling to me and it's troubling to a lot of people.

Yeah. I think it'd be different if there was some other oversight level, like approval of Congress or something where at least people that are beholden to voters had some part in this equation. I guess one could argue the administration is beholden to voters, but that's not as tough or as easy of a sell as saying, you know, your representatives are making decisions. Well, here's the reality. So you got a $1.8 billion fund. If it's really true that anyone can submit a claim, I can absolutely think of clients who I represented who were found out guilty or otherwise cases were dismissed against them.

I wouldn't hesitate because it's the fund exists. I don't think it should go to just allies and friends of the president. I would submit a claim. Are you going to? I mean, I haven't really thought of any specific ones, but I would do it because I represented people and know people who I think were wrongfully prosecuted. Some of them, many of them won their cases, were found not guilty or had their cases dismissed.

I wouldn't hesitate to file a claim on their behalf. and because why should that money, which is going to be paid out, why should it just go to friends and allies of the president? So I wouldn't rule out filing and claim myself, but I don't think this is the right vehicle to do this on a recurring basis. But if it's there, and you can delete the pool. Oh, yeah. And plus we're all really curious to hear how that works out.

I would much rather see a person who I represented who was found not guilty or whose case was dismissed, get money out of that. on than I would a rich fat cat who happens to be an ally or friend of the president. So that's, maybe I'm tipping my hand there. I am curious. Let's talk about it. I mean, you really should.

I mean, I'd love to see it. I mean, you could make similar arguments about the weaponization of the government. You probably have a taller stool to stand on than some other folks. And, I mean, if that opportunity is open for you and your clients, I have to go in front of this five-person panel. Tell me who's on the panel because I don't think we know. Well, I don't think, I mean, who knows how they're going to do it. First of all, the settlement agreement. doesn't have much detail about how this is going to work.

It's just that they're going to create, they say within 30 days a five-member panel, doesn't say how or who it's going to be, and it doesn't give any criteria for how they're going to adjudicate claims, right? So it's all a mystery, but look, there's going to be a vehicle because they're going to have to try to quell the criticism, right, including from people like me. but if we're if the average citizen who was aggrieved is allowed to file a claim we'll do it yeah let's do I look forward to that me too Patrick Dolan Mike Leonard anything about a minute left anything fun you guys are

watching recommending what are you didn't let me rest my case oh I would sorry yeah let me let me do you rest your case I rest my case John respectfully very good your honor I would appreciate it a little bit more there anything you guys are watching you want a shout out really quickly no great what the legal shows are movies? Not just anything. What are you doing? Is there any good legal

service or movies right now? I'm still, I'm beholden to your friends and neighbors. Yeah, that's entertaining. Kind of a legal show. You can argue. I haven't watched that way.

A lot of illegal activity. Yes, that's a better way to put it. But there was a trial against John Hamm. You know? I hear good things about that show. Okay.

It's a great show. For next time, think of things. Okay. Mike Leonard, how can people reach out to you? 312-3806-559. Individuals who are.

are charged with or being investigated in connection with federal or state criminal law cases. We also represent students who are being accused of any type of misconduct by colleges and universities. And we also represent the little guy whistleblowers in civil cases. Patrick Dolan. 312-332-7800. Anybody with a workplace issue, you're concerned about how you've been treated or mistreated and not paid correctly, got a non-compete separation or employment agreement. That's what I do.

Patrick Michael, this was a good one. Michael. Well, I got four more. Michael. Patrick and Mike, thank you guys so much. Thank you, Jonathan. And that'll do it for the Block Club Chicago podcast, our sidebar edition.

And we'll drop another pod on you next week. All the information in the episode, show notes. Thank you.