Michelle Simpson Tuegel on Representing Survivors, From Criminal Court to Civil Justice

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Welcome to Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, the podcast where we elevate the stories of the plaintiff's bar and dive into the key trends shaping the civil justice system today. I'm your host, Ray DeLorenzi, and in each episode, we'll bring you insightful interviews with leading attorneys, expert perspectives on current legal events, and in-depth discussions on the issues that matter most. Now, let's jump in.

It's important for lawyers to take on unpopular causes sometimes and clients who maybe people don't like, but it's part of our process, that everybody has that access to legal representation and that they have a zealous advocate.

Ray: Hey, everyone, welcome to a new episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR. I'm your host, Ray DeLorenzi, and today I'm joined by Michelle Simpson Tuegel of the Simpson Tuegel Law Firm in Dallas, Texas. Michelle is one of the leading advocates for sexual assault and sexual abuse survivors in the country. She has a really interesting background, coming from criminal defense to the civil plaintiff's bar. Michelle, thanks so much for joining the podcast today.

Michelle: Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Ray: I want to talk about, first, I always like to get sort of how people grew up and became who they are. And yours is, I guess, a cleaner line, that you were a daughter of a trial lawyer in Texas, in central Texas. Tell us a bit about your exposure to the law at such a young age.

Michelle: Oh, goodness. My dad being a lawyer definitely impacted me a lot. And I have two younger sisters who are also lawyers. He was a personal injury plaintiff's attorney. He still practices, actually. I say was, but we're still working with him as of today. I received emails from him this morning. We're in separate law firms, but we partner on some cases, and he's law partners with my husband. But my dad really loved, and still loves, being a lawyer. He loves being in the courtroom, representing real people.

And he came home and talked about his cases and his trials a lot. And I remember my mom pulling us out of school to go watch him in trial in the local small courthouse in our town. And my dad would be in trial so much that we thought it was a place, when we were really little, that it was a town called Trial. And so, definitely those early years of how he brought it home, but in a good way, that he loved what he was doing, I think really led all of us straight to law school.

Ray: So was there any pressure, or not even pressure, even unspoken, like, you're going to be a lawyer, you're going to law school?

Michelle: There was no question there was pressure. He was like, y'all are all going to be lawyers. And it's interesting, because I have been able to weave in media with my work, but I wanted to be a broadcast journalist. And he was like, you're going to go to law school. And looking back at that, I think that broadcast journalism is so interesting, and I have some of it weaved into the work that we do now. But I love being a lawyer, and I love representing real people. And sometimes your parents push you towards a path that they know is good for you. And I have to say, I told you so, because all three of us are really glad that we're lawyers.

Ray: So the way law is practiced today, many lawyers, even on the civil plaintiff side, are never in the courtroom. And it sounds like your father, and even you, which we'll get into in a bit, you're in the courtroom a lot. How did that... when you got to law school, did you have a different view of what being a lawyer is like, oh, you're just in the courtroom all the time, when in fact being a practicing lawyer is not exactly like that?

Michelle: Yeah, I think that was an adjustment. And I realized the modern day being a lawyer, most lawyers are not in court all the time. And I did summer jobs with law firms, realizing I'm going to go to this big firm potentially, and I'm not going to see the inside of a courtroom for five years. And I remember getting an offer at this medium-sized, wonderful law firm in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And I told my dad, I said, I can't work there. I'm just going to be writing memos for years and doing legal research. And I want to be in a courtroom representing real people like you did, frankly. And the path for me to do that, for a lot of young lawyers now, is to be in the criminal courtroom. And you get that immediate trial experience, very repetitive, all the time, of representing real people, especially on the criminal defense side. And so that's part of what led me down that path.

Ray: So, to weave a little bit, I know you had an athletic career as a world-ranked water skier. And look, I'm like an East Coaster, so I never would put central Texas and water skier together. Tell me about that experience, but also, I'm always interested in athletes who become lawyers, because I think they have this other gear. So just tell me how you got into that, and how did you become world-ranked in the first place?

Michelle: Yeah. So, how I got into water skiing was, Texas has a lot of big lakes. A lot of them are man-made, some are natural. But I grew up in a small town called Bridgeport in Texas, and it's north of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We're not that far from Oklahoma. And I grew up on a big lake. It wasn't a busy lake, it's not a lake that everybody knows, but I grew up on the water in that community, and my dad just liked water skiing. And we found out that water skiing had competitive tournaments and didn't fully understand how the sport worked. It's a really small sport, and I just started working my way up. A lot of kids in sports that are smaller like that, they have families of generations of people that had competed in that sport. And I was not from a water skiing family, but my dad loved it. He just liked to do it. And so we started doing tournaments. I say we because me and my middle sister competed, and just really loved it.

I remember I wasn't immediately good at it. I had some years where our whole family would travel somewhere like Florida for the Nationals, and I would get last. But kind of like in my legal career, I kept at it. And I was a really hard worker. I think I had some athletic talent too. I'm tall. I like to train. I like to work out. I always have. I'm sort of a hyper person. And so I just kept working and eventually worked my way up to the junior U.S. water ski team, and then competed for the United States in the World Championships. And water skiing does have a World Cup tour, sort of like snow skiing, but smaller, and got to compete around the world. And that was a really incredible experience that I got to do that for the years that I did.

Ray: You learned work ethic as part of that that made you a better lawyer? Or you always had that work ethic, and that's what made you a good water skier, and also a good lawyer too?

Michelle: That's a good question. I think that innately I do have a certain work ethic that I have, even as a kid, when I got last at nationals and decided I wanted to try to be one of the best water skiers in the world, and that just took a lot of work. I remember being out in the water in Texas in the middle of the winter, and my parents were in their snow ski coats, and I was jumping in the lake. And so it just requires a level of grit and push and hard work that definitely transfers in the practice of law and in representing clients in tough cases, and not being afraid to take risks.

Ray: So, speaking of tough cases, you go on to be a criminal defense lawyer, which I think was more common to see plaintiffs' lawyers do. And I think it's maybe becoming a little less common. But I know you mentioned before wanting to get trial experience. What else drew you to that part of the bar?

Michelle: You know, I didn't have this master plan mapped out that I would do criminal defense and then become a plaintiff's lawyer. What drew me to the work is that I really wanted to represent real people. I looked at maybe being a prosecutor, but I was so drawn to the client part of the work. And when you're representing the state, you're representing the state of Texas or the United States, the victim is not your client. And I wanted to represent real people and to have that connection and to tell their stories. And criminal defense provided that early opportunity to do that, in cases that can be really tough to win, impossible to win sometimes. And when I started in criminal defense, one of my mentors said, we're really going to have to redefine winning, Michelle, because in criminal defense, it's going to look different than winning as an athlete or winning like you see a lawyer on TV. Winning sometimes is humanizing your client. Winning sometimes is getting them less than the maximum. And so there were a lot of lessons that I got to learn in that work that have carried over into the work that we're doing now.

Ray: So you grew up in a household where your father is a plaintiff civil lawyer trying to get justice for their client. Did you ever have sort of doubts on the criminal defense side? Like, you're representing real people, but like, dude, am I doing right by the situation?

Michelle: Yeah, I mean, I had hard cases where there were many cases where I struggled with what I believed my client may have done, or I thought that they did based on the evidence. But I, as a lawyer... and my dad did handle a handful of criminal cases when I was growing up. It wasn't the majority of his practice, but I think when I was in middle school or high school, he handled a really unpopular murder case in our small community. And I think that one case just gave me a picture that it's important for lawyers to take on unpopular causes sometimes and clients who maybe people don't like, but it's part of our process that everybody has that access to legal representation and that they have a zealous advocate. And that doesn't mean we get to make up facts. It means that we do the best with the facts that we have to represent that person well, and to make sure that the decision makers, whether it's a judge or a jury, understand that that's a person. It's a human being, no matter what the other facts are. And so I tried to keep that at the center. I think I did learn some of that from my dad. But there are definitely cases where it gets particularly hard to do that.

Ray: Tell me about your first trial you handled. And was it something that you look back on, or was it just a moment in time?

Michelle: I think my first trial... so I went a little while doing criminal court appointments, and I wanted a trial, but you can't make your client go to trial. They were taking the plea, and I was like, dang it, I just want a trial. And so I was practicing in Waco, Texas at the time, and I started just volunteering myself. And I didn't have as big of a docket. I worked for a law firm, and so I cleared that with them and said, I haven't gotten a trial yet. I really want a trial. And so I just started advertising to the local bar that I would try a case for free with anyone who would take me.

And I got a couple chances and got to try cases with a couple different lawyers. I can't remember which one was first, but I think one of the first ones, it was actually a felony trial with another female lawyer who was like, I'll take you. And her name was randomly also Michelle. And me and Michelle tried this case together in a small county outside Waco, Texas. It was an unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, being a tractor, which is a felony in Texas. He had gotten on his neighbor's tractor. I can't remember all the facts, but I was so nervous. And there are a few points in the trial... it was a really kind trial judge, which not all are, but he's retired and off the bench now. But I remember a few times during the trial, he pulled me to the bench and he was like, do this. And I was like, thanks. And so I started my practice in a really... Waco was smaller than it is now, and the surrounding counties are really small in central Texas. It was an incredible bar, and I just got to learn from a lot of people in that bar. And it was really central to my growth as an attorney.

Ray: So how'd your client do?

Michelle: I think he was found guilty. I can't remember. We tried hard, and I remember the jury was out for a while, and I really felt like that was a win. But, yeah, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, being a tractor. That was my first very Texas story, I feel like.

Ray: Switching gears here a bit to the more serious. I know you also did capital defense work. And tell me about the weight of that work.

Michelle: Yeah. I knew that I wanted to, and one of my mentors was kind of known in Waco, a guy named Russ Hunt Sr., for trying a lot of the capital cases. And he was one of the lawyers that, before I even started working for his firm, I volunteered to work with him on some capital cases. And in Texas, you have to be qualified to be first chair or second chair, but to be second chair, you have to have experience trying those cases, being involved in capital defense. And so Russ brought me in on several cases, first as third chair, and then I eventually got qualified as second chair, and then eventually, really, Russ and I were just splitting the case, and we were kind of operating both as first chair, because you can't try capital murder cases with one lawyer. It requires two, according to Texas law.

And so I started trying capital cases. Not all of those cases did the state of Texas seek the death penalty. I probably tried maybe 15 murder and capital murder cases, and tried three death penalty cases. We're in Waco, and those cases, they're really heavy, and the weight of what is at the end of it, and literally your client's life is in your hands in a very literal sense, was always something that makes you lose sleep. It makes you just work around the clock. It's just a different level of responsibility, no matter what the facts are. That's how I felt about it. And I hope that all people who are doing that type of work feel that way about it.

Jury selection, those cases in Texas, at least, is done individually. So you talk to one potential juror at a time. So jury selection, in and of itself, in those death penalty trials would sometimes be anywhere from four weeks. We had one that was eight weeks, where we were just in jury selection for that long, talking to one person a day, one person, and they would actually go sit in the witness box, and both sides would be able to have this... sometimes it would be a two-hour conversation, because people's views on the death penalty are really severe on both sides. And we have to know that before we seat a jury in those cases. And I learned a lot about jurors and jury selection from getting that level of questioning and discussion with individual potential jurors too. But it is heavy work. It is work where you wonder if you're making a difference. It is work where you are under-resourced, because we were usually court appointed. We didn't have a public defender's office. And you do the best you can with the time and the resources you have, but it never feels good enough.

Ray: Does the relationship you establish with your client, or rapport you establish with them, differ than your run-of-the-mill criminal defense type work?

Michelle: It can. I mean, one capital client I had in particular, I really believed that that was not something that he should have ever been in the position where the state was seeking the death penalty against him. And he was just bright and young, and had no prior felonies, and was not a person who, even the state said, had pulled the trigger. So he was being charged as a party, which it's mind-blowing still to me that someone can get the death penalty as a party, basically an accomplice, in Texas. And the time that you have to spend to prepare your clients in those cases and to understand their background and their life, because a big part of death penalty and capital defense involves what's called mitigation work, which is... there's a high likelihood in death cases that your client is found guilty, for a number of reasons. And so then the task is mitigating and trying to prevent the death penalty with information in the second punishment part of the trial about the client's life. And you only know about the client's life by spending a lot of time with your client and their family.

Ray: So, after spending time in the criminal defense bar, you then pivoted to doing civil plaintiff work, which is not uncommon. But was it a gradual shift for you, or did you just make the hard pivot, and why?

Michelle: There was a gradual nature to it. There was a period of time where I had a number of big plaintiff cases on our docket, and I was still doing criminal defense in Waco, but there eventually became a turn where a lot of my work was really going in the direction of representing sexual assault and abuse victims, and I needed to make that clean break from criminal defense. I usually would explain to my client victims that I stopped the other work that I did. And of course, there was not a conflict in the case, but it just became a lot better to be on one path representing clients who are victims and not also being on the defense side of any cases. And so I eventually moved my practice to Dallas and stopped any criminal defense work when I did.

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Ray: Again, I'm joined by Michelle Simpson Tuegel of the Simpson Tuegel Law Firm. Michelle, I want to talk about when your plaintiff career, your career representing plaintiffs, sort of took off. And then it intersected very soon thereafter with the Me Too movement, and what that was like to be in it.

Michelle: Yeah, I mean, I really think of the Me Too movement taking on a lot of its energy around 2017 related to the Harvey Weinstein cases. And around that same time, we started taking on some of the clients who were abused, some of the national team members, Olympic gymnasts, collegiate gymnasts, and some gymnasts who were based at local gyms in Michigan. We represented a number of them who were abused by Larry Nassar. And those cases really took on and really were in the national spotlight, and took on steam around the time, right after the victims, and during the victim impact statements during Larry Nassar's sentencing. And our cases really started kind of taking on more energy in that 2018 time period, which coincides with a lot of the growth and media discussion related to the Me Too movement. So both my practice kind of exploded in that direction at the same time as the Me Too movement was gaining momentum. And I don't think those were completely disconnected.

Ray: When you were doing criminal defense work, you're largely representing adults. And then when you went to the civil plaintiff side, you have adults, of course, but also quite a few children. And I'm curious about how you navigate the family dynamics and work with and understand a client who doesn't have the maturity to necessarily understand everything that's at play in that kind of situation.

Michelle: Yeah, no, that's a great question. And it is always something that is very individually navigated with each young person or child and the family member who is there supporting them. It differs depending on the maturity of the child and the level of support that they have. But it's hard to navigate, because I usually do pull the child in or have an individual conversation with them, with someone else in my office present too, saying, you're my client. Our interest and our duty is to you. And I want to explain in the most age-appropriate and basic terms what my role is for them. And that differs based on the age of the child.

But then we almost really more have two clients, because the parent is really the one who, when someone's under 18, the parent signs the contract, the parent's helping us in discovery. The parent is usually deposed, just like the child is. And there's just this dual communication that has to go on. And I have a lot of cases where my client turns 18 during the case. And so then you also have to do a switch, where how you handle it changes once you have a legally adult client, and you really have to take a cue from your now adult client of how they want you to communicate moving forward, now that the parent does not have to be involved. And that is tricky to navigate.

Ray: Can you think of an example where, and I guess it's a difference in representing those who are minors, but where they may have been underage, but they played a much more forceful role in knowing what they wanted? And how you navigate that with a parent who is trying to protect their child and the feelings of guilt that may be around what happened?

Michelle: Yeah, I mean, usually, depending on how young of a child we're talking about... I mean, we've represented a number of kids. I try, in our cases where our client is still a minor, to give them some time and space. In the case, I don't rush those cases as much, because we're usually not against a statute of limitations, because that clock doesn't start running until they're 18. And so we normally have also a parallel criminal case going on in a lot of those cases. And I have found letting that process play out, while some lawyers would just jump and file a lawsuit and move the civil case, is often the best thing for a child who needs to mature a little bit to get through the case. And it means that we have to go through our cases slower than we might want to, or than the process might normally look like. But I have had... and my sister started working with me a couple of years ago, and she's my law partner now. And I think she really started getting the hang of that once she joined the firm, because she had done a lot of other personal injury work. And it is a different pace. And it's a pace that sometimes has to be dictated by the child and what's best for them and where they're at and their treatment and their healing process and their ability to even communicate about the abuse, because we need to be able to do that in order to prosecute their case.

Ray: So you've done, you know, mass... events is not the right word, but scenarios like USA Gymnastics, against universities regarding institutional abuse. You did the Vegas shooting case, which is a different type of trauma. And then you've done a single event, like you have probably the record, or one of the highest verdicts, against a hotel chain. When a potential client comes to you, how do you figure out what they want? Because I think this is a misnomer or a misunderstanding, it's not like someone comes in and says, I want to be paid. They're looking for something. And how do you figure that out and help them achieve that through the confines of the justice system as it is?

Michelle: Yeah, I mean, a lot of clients, when they contact you, they tell you why they're calling you. And so many clients in the context of sexual abuse and assault cases are calling you for really two big reasons I see repeatedly. One, the criminal system has failed them. They haven't seen justice. They don't understand how else they might attain some measure of justice, but they want to understand and explore that. They're not even thinking about dollars. A lot of them don't even know they have a civil claim. They're calling a lawyer who they saw did sexual assault cases, or does these cases, because they want to understand what they can do.

And then the second reason that I hear a lot, which is so incredible, and I hear it in so many initial calls with clients, is: I don't want this to happen to somebody else. And we can't always provide that through the civil process. And that's where media advocacy, frankly, can be such a tool for survivors, because we can't always put them in jail or prison, although we will try, and of course we mandatorily report if it involves a child, and we encourage clients to cooperate with that process, but we don't control it. But by communicating sometimes to the public, it helps others know the risk of that person or that institution or that organization or company. And I do believe it can reduce what happens to other people. And clients call us all the time, and they'll sometimes call when they see another victim of the same perpetrator, and say, I want her to know she's not alone. She's not the only one. And that literal Me Too effect does happen. And it's a huge motivating factor, especially in these sexual assault and abuse cases.

Ray: So you had the Me Too movement, and then you've had these high-profile criminal prosecutions. But then you've seen statute of limitations reform as well. Then you've also seen abortion rights being rolled back in many states. Are you hopeful about the rights of survivors? Is the momentum still in your favor, in the favor of your clients? Or do you feel like you're seeing more headwinds now?

Michelle: I feel like it's really split. I mean, we see things... and I have seen some legislation this year in states as conservative as Texas that are very pro-survivor. But then on the flip side, you see the pushback from some legislators, and some legislators at the very top, who claim to care about survivors and then pass laws or advocate for laws that do the very opposite. And part of the reason our firm has been involved in the pro-choice movement has been that Texas does not have a rape or incest exception for the abortion laws that have been passed in this state. And I don't think that that is the path for every survivor, but the survivors we represent, some of whom are children, and I have represented pregnant survivors, need access to choice. And some of these individuals are not in a place where they can healthfully get through pregnancy. And just seeing what that actually looks like in real life, and knowing that some people need access to that choice, and the public, for the most part, even in Texas, supports that that should be there, that exception should exist. And so we have really been involved in that movement, not only for that reason, but especially because of that reason as it relates to our client base and the people that we support and advocate for every day. Not that that should be their choice, but that they should have a choice.

Ray: So, are you generally hopeful as it relates to representing survivors, or are you in a period of guarded optimism, or is the jury out?

Michelle: I, you know, there are some laws right now pending in the Texas Senate and House that, at least as it relates to my home state of Texas, we'll see. I think politicians can give a lot of lip service to supporting survivors, but let's see what laws they actually push through or don't this session. There's a law called Trey's Law related to outlawing non-disclosure agreements for child sexual abuse survivors, which I absolutely support. And that should be made law. There isn't even that much pushback to it. And if it doesn't get through, it makes you wonder what their priorities are and who they are protecting. And who's their financial supporter that doesn't want there to be non-disclosure agreements for child sexual abuse victims? And so the jury's out. There are some good laws in the works, and there have been a lot of reforms on statute of limitations around the country that have been great for survivors. But with each one of those movements forward, sometimes there's a movement backward. I mean, Colorado passed one, and then the Colorado Supreme Court found it unconstitutional. And survivors in Colorado are still waiting. And right now, they still don't... older survivors who are outside the statute of limitations there still don't have a path. And same in Texas. We don't have that path for older survivors. And so I think that there are movements in some of the right directions. I'm not always sure it's for the right reasons when they do move in the right direction, but I'll take it. And I hope... sexual abuse and assault shouldn't be a partisan issue, but sometimes it is.

Ray: Michelle Simpson Tuegel, thanks so much for joining the podcast today. Really appreciate your perspective, and thanks for all you do for the people you represent.

Michelle: Yeah, thanks for having me.

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