The Game Changing Attorney Podcast with Michael Mogill

114. Nick Rowley — Relentless Drive & Brutal Honesty

Jun 28, 2022

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"It's in your cells. It's in your DNA. It's a burning, vibrating chord that never stops. It sees injustice and needs to go out and make things right. The righteous fight. That's what the best trial lawyers have in common.” - Nick Rowley

What fuels one of the most accomplished trial lawyers in the world?
Why are his losses the biggest learning experiences?
How did he develop an ethos of extreme responsibility?
What do the best trial lawyers have in common?
What habits keep him sharp in trial and life?
How is he using Ketamine assisted therapy to work through his past trauma?
Building and maintaining an empire of such magnitude is exhausting. After so much success, why continue?

Break the Mold

Billion-dollar victories. Legal revolutionary. Philanthropist. Countless awards. Author. Nick Rowley is a tireless warrior for justice and one of the most accomplished trial lawyers of his generation. Nick's unbridled tenacity — matched only by his defiance — was ingrained by childhood adversity.

"If you can't kill me, you're never going to stop me." - Nick Rowley

Every time Nick was knocked down, he sprung up with more energy — and rage. In the first decade of his legal career, anger both fueled and limited his success. But with time comes perspective. And asked himself a game changing question: Could he shift from aggression to love — and be even more successful?

"And that has been my project over the second half of my career." - Nick Rowley

Today Nick shares the value of learning from our losses, what all great trial lawyers have in common, and how the biggest risks come with the greatest rewards.

Brutal Honesty

When an attorney asks a juror for unfiltered truth, there is a shift in the courtroom. A connection is formed — one based on trust. But creating space for others to be brutally honest does not come easily. The price is vulnerability: giving strangers that have doubts about you permission to think what they want and say how they feel.

When you open the courtroom to honesty based in trust, you are rewarded with a jury that lets down their guard and sees your plaintiff as a human, just like them, deserving of restitution.

Key takeaways:

Get back up. You may not win every case, but even in loss, there are valuable lessons. Every time you are knocked down, you get to choose if you will get back up to fight another day.
Extreme responsibility. When something goes wrong — a case is lost at trial or the settlement is less than desired — find a way to take 100% of the blame, even if you are 1% responsible. Taking ownership of the problem will move you forward.
Care for yourself. To fight injustice and win cases, you need to care for your mental and physical body. Poison your body and see the negative effects in trial.

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Author

Michael Mogill, Crisp, and Nick Rowley