Advisory Opinions - Live from Alabama

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Former U.S. Assistant Attorneys General Stephen Boyd and Jody Hunt, as well as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama Prim Escalona join Sarah Isgur for a live recording of Advisory Opinions at the University of Alabama. The Agenda: —An update on the Alabama IVF ruling —To go to law school or not to go? —Private practice vs public service —Relationship and mom advice in high-stressed jobs —Audience QA Show Notes: —Chevron Deference discussed on Advisory Opinions. Today's episode is supported by Burford Capital. Follow the link to learn more: http://burfordcapital.com/ao Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You ready? I was born ready. Welcome to Advisory Opinions. I'm your host, Sarah Isger, and we are live at the University of Alabama Law School with an exciting continuation of this podcast being Alabama-centric, as it was in the last episode. It will continue with a slightly different Alabama flavor. I have three guests with me at the podcast today. We have Stephen Boyd, Jody Hunt, and Prim Escalona. They are all Alabamians, Alabamans,

whatever you'll call yourselves down here. We're gonna talk career, family, law, and we'll finally settle the debate over whether to go to law school that David and I have been having. You'll note that David is not here for this podcast. So I think we all know who's gonna win this this one. Um, per usual, we'll hold our normal podcast and we'll have some questions at the end before we jump into our panelists, though, some interesting updates on

our last Alabama podcast. If you remember the Alabama Supreme court, uh, ruled in a way that put IVF in question in the state. In vitro fertilization, the University of Alabama Birmingham, which is one of the largest, if not the largest, medical providers in Birmingham, certainly, said that it was putting all IVF procedures on hold following that decision. So that was very expected. And in the last podcast, I mentioned that while I hated the policy outcome of this decision, it could actually be proof of the system working if the state Supreme Court says, here's how we read the law the best we can. But then the legislature steps in and is like, here's what the law is. Here's what the policy should be moving forward well as of now there has been a bill filed uh in the alabama state legislature which is in session for another few weeks and i talked to a political expert in alabama

who tells me that this actually does have real legs it's by chairman of one of the committees he's a republican it's a short bill that will basically just say IVF is protected in the state of Alabama. If that happens, it will actually be proof of the concept of reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone and perhaps a model for the U.S. Congress to step in and, you know, do stuff when they don't like what the U.S. Supreme Court says instead of vilifying the U.S. Supreme Court on cable news and continuing to not do their jobs. So that's an exciting update.

We'll definitely keep you up to date on how that bill progresses. In the meantime, I think the smartest, or rather the least smart thing that could happen is for any of the parties involved to try to appeal this to the Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court. I already talked about how there weren't

a lot of federal options that were particularly viable coming out of the Alabama Supreme Court decision. But also, if you leave the door open to the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court can change this, fix this, reverse this, it gives the legislature an out to say, well, we'll just wait and see what the U.S. Supreme Court does before we have to step in and do anything about this. I think it would be very dumb. Put the pressure on the legislature. Keep the pressure on the legislature. It doesn't actually count as reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone if you like pull the truck up with the wolves, but keep the gates locked and just let the wolves look at Yellowstone. So we'll see how this goes, but it makes it all the more fun to be in Alabama this week. Very Alabama-y. So panelists, with that, I thought I'd explain a little how I know each of

you. Stephen Boyd here was the Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice for Legislative Affairs. And in many ways, you were my counterpart. I did public affairs, meaning the media, and you did legislative affairs, meaning Congress. Our offices were both on the first floor, and I know exactly how long it takes to run from my office to your office at full sprint. Also, at one point, my necklace broke halfway in between our offices, and it was like a bead necklace, and I had to go find every bead on these marble, huge wide marble hallways. It took like an hour.

It was very difficult. So we'll talk about what, how you got there and what you did after in a little bit. But you were like my guy in the box hole there for my entire time at the Department of Justice. And you flew down to Birmingham with me today. And we drove, you gave me a wonderful tour of the Vulcan. There's a dude in Birmingham, if you haven't been, it's a giant statue of a Vulcan,

which I didn't know was a thing. I thought that was maybe from the Marvel books or something. And his products are exposed when you look at his behind um and that's really interesting in birmingham that's your takeaway from that was my takeaway that's the biggest thing uh next up all right jody we're coming to you next jody hunt was the chief of staff for jeff sessions at the department of justice and the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division. Jody was also very much in the foxhole, especially as Chief of Staff.

And I think I talked to you every single day, if not hour, in most of those days. And surrounded by Alabama accents. Between you and Jeff Sessions, I understood a good 20% of what was being said at any given point. Your daughter goes here to the University of Alabama Law School, even though you are an Auburn family, which the only way I can relate is in Texas, we have UT families and A&M families. And it doesn't even matter if you went to the school, It doesn't even matter if you went to the school.

You're still... Your family has certain loyalties. And I can't imagine an A&M dad having a daughter at the University of Texas. So I'm sorry. It's lovely that you still speak to her. I think that's really big of you. Next up, Prim. Prim, you were in the Office of Legislative Affairs with Stephen Boyd. Prim, you were in the Office of Legislative Affairs with Stephen Boyd, but then just spun right off and became the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.

And you're running a big office in all these cases, the criminal docket, the civil docket. I mean, do y'all do bankruptcy? Yeah, also bankruptcy. And you're still at the Department of Justice, which is also a fascinating little piece of this. So we'll get to all of that. But first, I want each of you to sort of walk through the arc of your careers, starting from law school, how you end up at the Department of Justice and what you then went on to do after. Steven, starting with you. Well, thanks for the crowd. Great turnout tonight. So thanks for being here. I had the really good series of good fortunes, some of which I think was a result of hard work

and maybe some skill, but a lot of it was just being in the right place and building relationships with the right people. And my path is unusual and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. But it's been wonderful for me, and it started here at school. And when I graduated from here, the first day that I came to school, I, like most people, assumed that I would pursue a fairly traditional path in law practice.

that I would pursue a fairly traditional path in law practice. And for me, that was August of 01, probably started orientation mid-month. And within a few weeks, just down the hallway, actually, we watched on TV as September 11th happened. And for me personally, that was a significant change in kind of what I wanted to do. So I left here, graduated, and then went straight to Washington. Had a great fortune to get a very low-paying, low-level job with Jeff Sessions. Emphasis on low-paying. And I essentially wrote the mail for six weeks, six months, I should say. And over time was given more and more responsibility in the office and moved up and got involved in some different things, started working in communications.

And then I was on the Judiciary Committee for a little while when he was the senior Republican on the committee. And we had Sotomayor and Kagan nomination hearings while we were there. And one thing led to another. I went to work for a very, at the time, very young, new member of the House of Representatives, Martha Roby, whose dad is Joel Dabina, which some people in this room probably know, and was there for six years or so. And was there for six years or so when then-Senator Sessions and then-nominee Sessions called and we talked.

And he was about to go through a confirmation hearing in the Senate to be Attorney General. And that sort of reintroduced me back into that orbit. And that's where I met Sarah the first time. And that led to an opportunity to be nominated by the president to serve as the assistant attorney general, Senate confirmation for the first part of 2017. And that's where, in that period, which we can talk about, reacquainted with PRIM there at the department and had about four, three and a half years of serving in that capacity. And the job there is really to protect the department, protect the litigators and the prosecutors and investigators from political interference while also providing to the

Congress the sort of access information and oversight that they are legitimately entitled to. So it's a balancing act in a lot of ways. And after that wrapped up, I went to serve as chief of staff for Tommy Tuberville from the other school in the Senate for two years. And then following that, joined a small consulting firm based in Huntsville. And we do a lot of work in Washington helping aerospace and defense and law enforcement firms work with the government. Is that called lobbying? There is some lobbying.

Yes, absolutely. Small consulting firm. It's not McKinsey. Tiki. Got it. Cool. But an interesting point about that, and I think it's something I would definitely just reinforce is my partner, one of my partners in that firm is a guy I went to law school here with. And there's no way back in 20 years ago we ever would have thought that would have happened.

But it did. all these things is, as you move through your career, whether it's something sort of untraditional like mine, or more traditional law practice, or you go clerk or whatever, the people you meet and the relationships that you make, and the way you go about your business on a day-to-day basis, follow you forever. It opened doors down the road that you would not imagine would happen. And I'm lucky to... Everyone here definitely falls in that bucket. And I'm lucky to everyone here definitely falls in that bucket and grateful for it. All right, Jody. All right. So I have a longer distance to cover.

Yes. Her point is that I'm really old. So the career path is different and longer. I'm really happy to be here, really really with friends who I worked closely with at DOJ. And when I say we work closely together, it was truly in the trenches on a lot of things working with these guys. So that's fun and great to be here because of course my daughter's here at Alabama Law. So thank you for having me. Appreciate it. So my path was a little bit different than the one that Stephen laid out there. I had never planned to go to law school.

I got a master's degree in international affairs and was thinking about doing foreign service or maybe teaching. And after I got my master's degree, like, well, everybody wants a PhD to teach. And so even if you can teach with a master's, I'm not going to be highly sought after in the job market. And when I was trying to figure out what to do, somebody said to me, why don't you go to law school? Because it opens a lot of doors for you. We were just talking about this. Sarah will have some views on this issue. But that's actually what motivated me to go to law school is that it would open doors for me. They said, you can still do foreign service if you decide to do that.

You could still teach or you could do a host of other things. And that made sense to me at the time. And so I went off to law school, went to Columbia. I have this accent because I've spent many years, formative years in Alabama in a rural town in northeast Alabama, Boaz. My parents were missionaries, so I grew up overseas. But when we came back to the States, we lived in Boaz and I had high school there. I went to undergraduate school in Birmingham at Samford University and then off to Columbia to law school. And after law school, because of my interest in... I clerked, by the way, in the Northern District of Alabama for a federal judge, James Hancock in the Northern District.

And I went off to work at a law firm, a New York-based firm in the D.C. office. And I chose that because that office was a small office but did a lot of work in international claims and arbitration. And I knew I didn't want to do the transactional side, and I'm trying to combine my interest in international affairs with litigation. There's not a lot of ways to do that. So this White & Case was the firm I went to. The DC office at the time had 21 attorneys, if you count all of us, the partners and associates, and did a lot of that international claims work. And so it was an opportunity to know, fit something that I was interested in. And I spent years there where I met my now wife. And she was in graduate school. And after graduate school, got her residency in Atlanta. So, we picked up and left for her. I left my job in D.C. to move to Atlanta for her residency. And I had to sort of change

course in what I was doing, practicing law, because there wasn't a lot of international claims and arbitration work out of Atlanta. So I joined King & Spaulding there and did a lot of product liability and some commercial litigation in Kingalding. And after I was there for a while, I had this nagging sense that I wanted to be in public service for a long time. It hadn't sort of been an opportunity for me before moving to Atlanta, just because I was at that point, I thought early in my career and then moved to Atlanta. But at this point, our twin sons were born, and my wife was from Maryland, and we didn't have any family in Atlanta, even though we really liked living there. I actually answered an ad in what was then the legal times

for a trial attorney position at the Department of Justice in the federal programs branch of the civil division. I had no clue what that was. I called a partner with whom I had worked at White & Case in D.C. who had been at DOJ. And I said, what do you know about this office? She said, it's a fantastic office. You got to go there. So I applied. We picked up and left Atlanta, moved back to Washington, D.C., and I joined the Department of Justice as a trial attorney. And then a lot of times it's, you know, where you are and who you know at the time and things happen in a way that sometimes you don't reach out for. And one day there was a change in administration. So I joined the Department of Justice in the Clinton administration, into the Clinton administration.

I was in a career position, not a political position. And then there was the Bush-Gore election battle, and the new administration came in. And one Sunday afternoon, I'm sitting at home, and I got a cold call from somebody who was on the DOJ transition for the Bush administration said, I heard about you from a law partner at my law firm. And it happened that this law partner, she was a great friend of mine in law school. And she was now a managing partner of Latham Watkins in Chicago. And at the time had headed up all of their associate programs and he was an associate and she saw that he was going to DOJ transition and she said, you got to look up my

friend Jody Hunt who's at DOJ. So, he cold called me literally on a Sunday afternoon and asked me all these questions and the next thing I know, they requested a detail for me to come over and assist with transition. And then while I was sitting in transition, the job, the director job in my office where I came from was, came open and I applied for it. detail, I was selected for that. And so I became a director of the Federal Programs Branch of the Civil Division. It's a career position. And I held that position for 15 years. Loved the job. It's a great job. And then one day, totally unexpectedly, I got a cold call in early February of 2017. I'll never forget it. I had a group of attorneys coming into my office. I was scheduling a call. We were getting ready to defend the first travel ban that had been put in place already at the beginning of the Trump administration. Our office was responsible for handling all of the high profile challenges to federal programs and constitutional challenges.

And so I was gathering the attorneys in my office to have a call with DHS. And I got this phone call on, number showed up on my screen. I didn't know it. I knew it was an Alabama number, but I didn't know who it was. So I didn't pick it up. But I'll never forget it when I listened to the message in a very distinct voice. It was, Jody, this is Jeff Sessions. Would you please call my cell phone? I'd never met Jeff Sessions. I didn't know Jeff Sessions. But he had just gone through the confirmation hearings, was about to be confirmed attorney general, and to his credit, wanted somebody on his staff. He had people from the Hill, but he didn't have anyone with DOJ experience. And he wanted somebody to

be his chief of staff who had DOJ experience. And some people, me, I guess, because of my accent. So people assumed when I became his chief of staff that we knew each other for a long time. These are two Alabama guys, but we did not. And so he asked me to breakfast the next morning and I met him for breakfast. He talked to me about being the chief of staff and I told him I would do it as long as I didn't have to give up my career position because I really loved my career job. He said, great, that's what I want to hear. And I said, I'll do it as long as I can help you. So I became his chief of staff. I literally sat down at my desk two days before he was confirmed. And I was like, what's a chief of staff supposed to do? It's a very different role for me.

A lot of issues early on in the administration. I don't know if we have a chance to talk about those or not, but a whole lot of things like the recusal issue and the Comey firing and the hiring of a special counsel and all those kinds of issues. But at some point, while I was his chief of staff, they needed somebody to lead the civil division, the Department of Justice. And because I had been in the civil division a long time, he came and asked me if I would be interested in that. And so, again, I never thought that that would happen. I didn't reach out for it. And I knew if I took that position, it would mean that I would have to leave my career slot. So I took that political position to lead the civil division. And I did that for two years. And I had great fun working with these people here. And what do you do now?

It kept me out of trouble a lot. Well, actually, so you did a couple of things before you've landed where you are now. You, for instance, were Cassidy Hutchison's lawyer. Yeah. So, so I, when I left, um, I, I left the department of justice in July of 2020. And, um, I joined Alston and Byrd, um, and I worked there for, uh, almost three years, years, two and a half years. And while there, I had the honor to represent Cassidy Hutchinson, who some of you may know was one of the January 6th witnesses before the January 6th committee.

Our firm represented her pro bono in connection with those hearings in January 6th. She's now written a book called Enough. It's an interesting book. You should read it if you get a chance. Fascinating. I'm now back at my alma mater, Sanford University, as a general counsel in Birmingham. I've been there less than a year. I joined there in March of last year. The guy who was the general counsel there before I was, he and I had clerked for the same judge, Judge Hanscock, in the Northern District. He was retiring from the position and is my alma mater.

I thought this is a great, at this point in my life and career, it's a great opportunity for me. So I'm learning a whole lot now about higher education and issues that come up in higher education that I never knew about. So that's sort of my arc of my career. A couple notes on that. One, I feel like the Jody Hunt story is your accent can open doors, even when you don't knock on those doors. Very Alabama story. Two, yeah, for those who don't

know, Fed programs at the Department of Justice is a little like when the CIA has a sign out that says Department of Agriculture. Fed programs is basically the SG people listening are going to be mad, but it's sort of like the secret solicitor general's office in the department of justice. It has all those cases first, basically. And then the SG's office will take some of them down the line. But yeah, it's a, the Fed programs title tells you nothing about the fact that that's where any appellate nerd wants to go. Yeah, it's great.

Really, the issues that you get there. So at Federal Programs Branch, we would handle all of the cases in federal district courts all over the United States. the United States, no matter what jurisdiction they were in, we would decide whether we were going to handle the case or whether we would assign them to a U.S. attorney's office to handle. It doesn't work the same way on the criminal side of the house. But on the civil side, the civil division at DOJ decides, are we going to handle this or we're going to have the U.S. attorney's office handle it? So we get the first cut on that. There's some interesting stories about that too, where the Southern District of New York, which we call the Sovereign District of New York,

would try to exercise its own jurisdiction as if it were somehow different than any other jurisdictions. There's a lot of great stories at some point I can tell you about. Yeah, and we'll have a whole other panel of just SDNY people telling you how much Maine justice sucks. And then EDNY will tell you why SDNY actually sucks. And we'll have a whole DOJ throw down. And we'll take a quick break to hear from our sponsor today, Aura.

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for Mother's Day. Listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $30 off plus free shipping on their best-selling frame. That's AURAFRAMES.COM. Use code ADVISORY at checkout to save. Terms and conditions apply. All right, Prim, all I want to hear from you are war stories of putting the bad guys away. Birmingham can be a murdery place. So in theory, you've got some really interesting cases. Wow. Okay, do you want my background? Yes. Yes. So before I went to law

school, after I graduated from undergrad in 2001, I went and worked in DC for Jeff Sessions. And I had the same job Stephen basically had where I wrote a lot of letters. And so I was there for September 11th, Anthrax, the Beltway Sniper, basically everything. Chandra Levy? Chandra Levy. The apartment was right down from mine. I got confused for Chandra Levy one day because I had really curly hair that summer and was out and around the hill. And I was like, yes, Chandra Levy is hiding on the hill where no one will see her.

My apartment was actually two apartments down from hers, but not apartment buildings, two apartment buildings down. So when my mom came to visit, she was like, why is there a yellow ribbon around that tree? And I was like, well, that's where Chandra Levy lived. Every mother wants to hear that. Yes, exactly. So I worked in D.C. for about four years, decided to come to law school, came back to Alabama and came to law school here. It was wonderful to be back here. I love law school. And then after I graduated, I clerked for Judge Pryor on the 11th Circuit. After that, I went to a law firm in Birmingham, Maynard Cooper at the time. And then from there, I got a call from the state AG who asked me to come be the

deputy solicitor general for the state of Alabama. So I went down and did that for a stint. And then I got a call from Dean Randall at the time, who was the dean of the law school, and he asked me to come teach at the law school. So I did that for a time. Then I went back to private practice. And then in 2017, I got a call from then AG Sessions. He said, I hear you would love to come work for me again. And I said, I sure would love to go work at Maine Justice. And so he was like, well, let's get out the book and see what else is available. We went down the list together on the phone. And he, so I went up and worked in the Office of Legal Policy for a little while, where Stephen also was until his confirmation. And then Stephen went to be the AAG of OLA, Office of Legislative Affairs.

And so I said, please take me with you. And so I went down and was the principal deputy, which is basically the number two. So you hear the briefcase and handled a lot of policy, but also did confirmations. So in hearings. So I was basically if you look from that time of anybody who's testifying in front of Congress, Stephen and I are in the background. So we're the basically the B-roll of all of those major events. And so I did that for about three and a half years. And then in July of 2020, then Attorney General Barr asked if I would like to go be the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. I said, sure. So I came down and took that job and was then court appointed in November of 2020.

And so I've served in that role ever since. Will you explain a little bit why some U.S. attorneys are Senate confirmed and then leave at the end of an administration and why some are court appointed? Yes. And why you're still in the job, basically? are court appointed? Yes. And why you're still in the job, basically. So traditionally, U.S. attorneys are what we call PAS, so Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed, which means that the president appoints them, nominates them, the Senate confirms them, and the president signs their commission and they're appointed. Those are political positions. And generally, at the end of an administration, those political positions turn over. If someone vacates that position before the end of that administration, the administration can nominate someone new to come in and be presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed. and Senate confirmed, someone who is currently in what's called the first assistant U.S. attorney role in the office can then move into an acting U.S. attorney role, or the attorney general can

appoint someone to come in and be what is called an interim U.S. attorney. And so that interim U.S. attorney appointment lasts for a certain number of days. I believe it's 120 in a non-election year. And then at the end of that 120 days, the judges who sit on the district court for that district get to appoint who they would like to be the U.S. attorney. And so that is a court appointment. like to be the U.S. attorney. And so that is a court appointment. And then that court appointment lasts until someone is nominated and confirmed through the presidential, nominated and confirmed. Waiting for a Humphreys executor challenge on this one, Jody. So I just, this made me think of a very interesting anecdote because from time to time when new administrations come in, they decide, how are we going to get rid of the holdover U.S. attorneys the question arose when I was chief of staff to attorney general early in the Trump administration, when there's

considering what are the different paths to moving the U.S. attorneys out so we can put in people that we want in those positions. And so at one point, I got a call. We were in the middle of trying to decide this, and I got a call from the White House Counsel's Office that says the President's decided that he wants to fire all of the U.S. attorneys and wants to do that today. Almost lunchtime, Jeff Sessions was in Alabama walking the Timberlands with the Secret Service. And so I had to try to reach him to explain this directive we just had. I literally had to call the Secret Service guy. I had to get him in the woods and talk to him. the woods and talked to him. Then I called to the deputy, the acting deputy attorney general's office and said, we have a mandate and it has to be done today. They were all out at lunch together. So they had to come in from lunch. And then we had this process where we let all of the U.S. attorneys know that they were being let go that day. And, you know, getting the communication

out and how you deal with public affairs. I was also at lunch, by the way. I was enjoying my lunch very much in Houston. My Tex-Mex finally... Nope, had to leave that lunch. So that afternoon, it just happened. It occurred to me and I hadn't thought of it before. But our boys were home for spring break and they were headed back. This was a Friday, March the 10th, if I remember correctly, of 2017. It was a Friday, but I remember thinking, gee, I should have thought of this before. So I called back to the White House Counsel's Office and I said, you know, my boys are home.

Could I get my family in to see the president this afternoon, possibly? And they're like, why don't you finish this U.S. attorney thing first and then we'll talk about it. And so later in the afternoon, I got a call and they said, come on over. And it took a while to get everyone together to get over to the White House. And my phone was ringing before we got in there and says, where are you? The president's waiting on you. So we actually got in there and I showed him, I have a picture showing him one of the letters of one of the U.S. attorneys that we were firing. And he's looking at the letter and reading it and nodding.

And I won't tell you which letter it was, but I have that. All right. So a debate between David French and me is that whether to go to law school. Now, you guys have already made this decision, but you haven't necessarily decided what's happening after. So I have generally taken the position that you should go to law school if you want to be a lawyer. And if you know what that means, David has generally taken the position that you should go to law school if you want to be a lawyer and if you know what that means. David has generally taken the position that law school opens doors. If you think it sounds fun, go for it.

Figure the rest out later. I have retorted that that's how you end up a very unhappy big law associate alcoholic. And David has said, look at all these people with nontraditional careers. They obviously came from somewhere, you know, race IPSA. So, um, I will admit that this panel seems to be more David-esque than most, but I want to ask each of you the question, uh, you know, what is your recommendation? Where do you fall on that? Does law school just open all sorts of random doors or is there that sort of pressure to go into big law? a practicing associate attorney in civil litigation or the equivalent in tax or whatever those other practice areas are. It's not antitrust. That's made up, as we know.

But where do you fall on that, Stephen? Well, I think, and I talked to a lot of folks who are considering going to law school, try to be helpful, mentor to the extent I can. And my answer has been the same forever, which is you just have to have a business plan. Like it has to make sense for you. There has to be some idea about what happens next and what's it cost and are there loans involved and all these sorts of decisions. And you should also know,

that's what I would tell anybody who's making a decision, like find a way to actually talk to a lawyer about what they do every day, because it's not, you know, law and order necessarily. You know, we got off the plane, you were behind me. And so you didn't see this, but they had the add up for the last Jack McCoy episode of law and order. It's going to be 400 episodes with Jack McCoy. It'll be a big deal for you. It will be. Yeah. End of an era. So I just think you have to think through it. I mean, and it's a little weird coming from me because I'm the one who has the probably least traditional

sort of route. There are other ways to do it. My first day here, I remember an orientation, we were in the big rooms down the hallway and the Dean stood up and he said, you know, raise your hand if you think you are not going to practice law. And of the couple hundred, 300, whatever, how many people it was, like two people raised their hand. Were you one of them? No. Is that because you didn't want to raise your hand? You're not a hand raiser.

I'm not a hand raiser, but no. I thought, why are you here? And the answer was, they had their reasons. But the point being, most people people and I think most law schools think they're training litigators and lawyers and attorneys. And that's what it's designed to do. The idea you just go to law school because it seems like the good next thing to do or you just don't have any other great plan for your life. That's a bad idea. Did you need to go to law school? Well, I wouldn't know any of y'all if I didn't, because I wouldn't have gone to the Department of Justice.

I mean, I'm super glad I did. And once in that job, although we were not trying cases to survive in that world, you had to have the understanding of what was going on. So, yes. I don't think there has been a Department of Justice senior leadership team where the head of Ledge Affairs and the head of Public Affairs were both attorneys. Barbara Comstock was the last attorney to hold the Public Affairs spot. I'm trying to think of who was Ledge Affairs September 11th. But anyway, that's all to say, I thought it was incredibly helpful for both of us to have law degrees because I think whereas normally people in the department

will try to law talk over the people without law degrees. We were sort of like, no, no, please tell me the citation again. Obviously you needed a law degree. That's not the question. But when you're giving advice to people, you didn't know you'd end up in this job. I know. I went to law school to not practice law. Oh, you're one of the hand raisers. I mean, I didn't raise my hand. So I was working in DC doing policy and I worked for Jeff Sessions, like I said, and he would say, I moved up and became a legislative assistant. And I handled healthcare and education and labor and pensions on the committee. And so he would have all of his legislative assistants lined up and he would say, this is Arch Galloway.

And he was an army ranger and well decorated. And this person is an environmental engineer who has like a Ph.D. And this person is a lawyer and this person is a doctor. And he was like, and then here's Prim. She graduated first of her class from Wetumpka High School. And that's how he would introduce me at every meeting with constituents. And so I had done that for four years and I thought, gee, I probably need to credential myself. None of there's anything wrong with Wetump to high school. It was a great place. But I probably need to credential myself a little bit. So I went to law school with the idea that I would get credentialed and I would go back to D.C.

And in fact, I applied to Georgetown and even considered going at night so that I could continue working for Senator Sessions. But when I came here for my visit, Carol Andrews, who is the professor here, was like, well, that's a stupid idea and you can't do that. So you have to go full time. She was like, and you'll come here. Okay. But I fully intended to graduate and go back to D.C. and have a non-legal career. What's your favorite job out of all the ones you've had? My favorite job I've ever done? No,

the post law school job. Oh gosh. I have every job for different reasons. I'm one of the weird people that I loved law school and I loved practicing law. I liked being in a firm. I liked being at the deputy SG. Um,

I liked teaching. Um, but I think my favorite job was probably in the Office of Legislative Affairs. I tell the story that when I went to Wetumpka High School and was from a small town and that was back in the 90s. And even then, we couldn't have backpacks that were solid. You had to have a mesh backpack for security reasons. And so I can still remember going to college and being on the quad. And I had my first LL Bean backpack, which was what you wanted back then. And I remember walking across the quad of college and thinking,

like, this is the coolest thing. Like, it will never be cooler than the fact that I'm at college walking across the quad with this backpack. And the second time that I felt that was when I walked in the doors of main justice. And that's true regardless of the administration you work for. I've now worked for two administrations. I've worked with three attorneys general. And just across the board, being able to work for the Department of Justice and do commission of that office in leg affairs. It was amazing. The job I have now is such an honor and a privilege. And so I have to say that like working at the department is probably my favorite job. All right, Jodi, someone asked you, should I go to law school? You say?

I say absolutely, because it opens a lot of doors for you. And you heard me say that when I was sort of giving you the, because I had not, I had not planned to do that. As I mentioned, it was, I didn't want to go to law school, actually. But the person who was talking to me was making sense. And so, you know, it does open doors. And so that, that led to all these things happening in my life and my career that otherwise wouldn't have happened. So I'm and I and I pinch myself a lot because I feel so fortunate to have had many, many great, you know, opportunities in my career that are things that just happen to come my way. What's fascinating in your career trajectory is you've actually had the most traditional legal career in a lot of ways.

Set aside the chief of staff blip, if you will. Did you enjoy private law practice? Not as much as I enjoy being at DOJ. Yeah. Because I didn't like the business side of it. And I'm not knocking it because, you know, it's important. It's a business and a lot of people are good at it. But I didn't like the business aspect of private practice. And I enjoyed a lot of the

matters that I got to work on. I mean, when I first, the first job that I had, you know, there was a lot of talk back when I, I don't know if they still do this, but talk about associates going to big law firms and doing a lot of document discovery. Well, there is that. But, you know, I got to do some fascinating things. I got to work on, you know, claims against Iraq arising out of the Gulf War and, you know, travel to Saudi Arabia and to Turkey and, you know, conduct investigations and put arbitration claims together. So that was really fascinating stuff. I did class action stuff and another life at a different firm. So I thought I had interesting things that I got to work on. I did some big tobacco stuff that I never imagined getting to do. But it's just funny

for a guy who thought it was about opening doors, like the door that opened was in some ways the most traditional path, even to get to the Department of Justice, right? Go to White & Case, go to King & Spalding, end up at the Department of Justice, and now you're a GC. Right, exactly. You're right. I took a very, you know, I didn't, I did do, I did practice law, even though I never planned to do it. Okay, next set of questions before we open this up to the audience, perhaps. I want to shift a little bit to the personal side. Boyd, you've had a series of high-profile jobs, high-stress jobs. You and Breck are just two of my favorite people.

Any relationship advice of how you find work-life balance with high profile, high stress jobs while maintaining a marriage to a woman who is so out of your league? Totally out of my league. Absolutely. Well, you know, generally speaking, we've been on the same page about that uh as we've through our marriage uh i think communication is in any relationship is the key and where we've i think done well about this is where we've had good communication and when there have been that's where it's been rougher is because communication wasn't good that's probably just

seems a little over simple, but... And when you say communication, like setting expectations, like, hey, just so you know, for the next 18 months, I'm not gonna be home for dinner and I'm not gonna see you much. Or communication like, I love you. Yeah, both. Okay. Yeah, both.

And also like, hey, you know, going to this, you know, family event is really important to me. So make it happen. I'm not asking you to do it every time to me. So make it happen. I'm not asking you to do it every time. This time, make it happen. Stuff like that. I think for the most part, it's been fine. There were days at DOJ where the days were really stressful

and really long. And probably in a self-defense way, my way of dealing with it was to pretend it wasn't happening. Just do the mission and get it done and that's that. And over time... Do you mind if I tell the story? You were living on the hill at the time and you would come out to your car

and it would be broken into and nothing would be taken and there'd be a knife on the front seat as we're working on the Russia investigation, forussia investigation for yeah there was definitely some harassment that occurred one time i came home and all the wires to our house been cut that's weird and you know that's when you take off your like work hat and be like how does my wife feel about living in this situation you know uh she's a trooper she She is amazing. And, uh, we got through all that, but, you know, I think, I think if you're going to go and maybe the, the kind of analog is big law firm, a lot of hours, it's really important to you. If, if you can communicate about why it's important and how long it's going to last and why you're doing it at this point in your life,

that's going to help you out a lot. What you don't want in any relationship, particularly with a spouse or a significant other, is built up resentment. Because if you're doing your thing and you're at the firm and you're making a bunch of money and you think you're doing everything right, but the most important person in your life is at home or doing something else

and they're getting resentful about it, that's not a good situation. I'm I'm really happy to say that I don't think it was a problem for us but I've seen that happen you know um and you know you can't you can't do those sort of jobs without having a completely supportive amazing person with. I was lucky in that respect. Prim, you have long been a mom role model for me. You have young children. Now that I have young children, I have no clue how you've done any of this, particularly when we were at DOJ. But even now, I'm curious what advice you have for me now that I'm drowning. We've all been leading up to this moment, by the way. This entire panel was just for me to get to ask Prim this question.

So for everyone's information, I have four children. They're all girls. They range in age from my oldest is 11 and my youngest is one. So I have an 11-year-old, a nine-year-old, a four-year-old, and a one-year-old. And I had my four-year-old when I was working in D.C. at OLA. In fact, it was, AG Bar was confirmed on February 14th, 2019, and my four-year-old was born on March 7th, 2019. So I was very pregnant during that entire process. And then I had my youngest child follow me as attorney. So I think Stephen's right. You have to have a really good partner, have an amazing husband who is flexible and willing to help out in a lot of that. Outsource a lot of things that you can outsource and, you know, try to focus on what's important at the moment and try to make that matter. So is my house clean? Absolutely not. Looks like the crime scene occurred.

Do I spend time with each of my children every day? Yes. Also, I think it's really important that not just your partner, your spouse is on board, but the people you work with are on board. I work with amazing people now. We're a very family-friendly office. And if they need to deal with an issue at home, I support that. They support me when I have to do that. When I was in DC, it was long hours. It's a very family friendly office there, too. I recall one time I was at home with the baby at night. It was like nine o'clock at night and Stephen needed something. And so he was calling. And so I was on the phone with him and I had the baby on my hip and she started like babbling.

And then I think you had your phone and speaker because your dog started barking in the background. So the baby and the dog were talking to each other while we were trying to have a work conversation. But the more you can just be upfront with the people you work with and set expectations, to me, that's the best. I've always had a ton of support in that.

And Jodi, you have three grown children who have watched all of these parts of your career, but they were fully able to read newspapers, for instance, when you're chief of staff at the Department of Justice, when you're going through Senate confirmation, when you're representing Cassidy Hutchison. I'm curious how you talk to your kids about that sort of thing, how you set an example for them through your work,

how you think about that, I guess. Prim and I are sort of, I think, still in the throes of the small people, small problems. You're kind of in the big people, big problems. throws of the like small people, small problems. You're kind of in the big people, big problems. So I hope that I set some good examples for my children. I think I was thinking about your initial question. I think my wife would probably say, my wife, Lori and McKenna's here, my daughter, she can vouch for this, but probably say you never really reached that good work-life balance. For a time, when I was at a firm in Atlanta, I remember she was referred to, Lori was referred to as the work widow because I was gone all the time. Monday through Friday, I was in a different city working on a case full time. And I would be in Atlanta. I would fly in Friday night and I would leave on Sunday afternoon.

And she had a daughter and toddler twins? She had, at the time we had twin sons and, you know, we had no family support mechanism there. And, but she did, she did manage to, you know, play alto. This is a big thing in Atlanta, alto tennis. You know, every neighborhood has its own tennis, and she never played tennis. And so she hired a Swedish tennis star, a guy named Per. And, you know, everybody's like, hey,, hey, she's getting really good at tennis. So I think she would say, I never achieved that balance. Even at DOJ, the job I had at Fed

Programs, we had Blackberries back then. And the thing would go off constantly because we're dealing with emergencies, TROs and things like... Temporary restraining order for our listeners. Yeah. So an example, we were getting ready to go to dinner one night and we had planned with friends in Georgetown. And I was in the shower, got a phone call that somebody was trying to stop the execution of Saddam Hussein. So, like, I spent the whole, like, trying to get ready, riding in the car, go down to dinner, and everybody's sitting there. And I go outside, and I'm on the phone trying to talk to our attorneys about how we're going to handle this challenge. So, it was constant. My wife was so wonderful.

Like, you know, I did try to make the kids, you know, events that they had. McKenna was a gymnast. Lori homeschooled her for a while, you know, because of the gymnastics schedule. And then, you know, I would try to get to, I would try to find a way to schedule. If they had a sporting event to go to, I would go to it, even if it meant I had to go back to the office to finish up whatever I was doing, because I didn't want to be the one who just didn't make the events. But I'm sure there's a lot of ways that my wife, if she were here, would tell you that I could have been a better set, a better example that I actually did. But it is it is difficult. You have to sort of find a way to make it work. And as moms who are, you know, you face it too with your work and being a parent. And you've got the same issues trying to manage it all.

It's not easy. Mostly the house just stays a mess, right? Yeah, that's the first thing to go. All right, let's open up to questions from you guys. Who wants to go first? It's always hard to be the first questioner. Yes. Well, you each spoke very fondly of your time at Maine DOJ.

I guess I'm wondering if you got the right offer, would each of you go back under a second Trump presidency? Boyd, you were just quoted in a Bloomberg story about this. So why don't you take that? For me personally, no. I have a lot of respect for people who do want to go back. And I think there are different rationales for that and reasons. And many of them are good. And my own personal assessment is that it's just not something that I could do.

You know, I think this is a really tough question in some sense, because it goes to this philosophical idea of like, well, we want good people in government, but also how much should you disagree with the president and still serve as a political appointee, for instance? And how should people treat people who serve in an administration that they don't agree with, but they wanted good people to serve in government? And it ends up being a question that I don't think enough people struggle with, particularly partisans, as they sort of want to vilify the other side. But then they also want, you know, someone like a Jody Hahn who served in a bunch of career positions to be that person at the front office of the Department of Justice who's been working at the department for decades and really knows how it works? Would you rather have a political hack in that position? And I wish people would publicly struggle more with that sort of first principles philosophical question rather than the knee jerk, they worked for the other administration and I hate them, or

nobody should go into a second Trump administration or everybody should go into a second Trump administration and realize some of those trade-offs. I'm not going to ask you, I can't ask you that question and I'm not going to ask Jody because he likes his job. Next question. Yeah, yeah. Can I just make a comment on this without, I'm not going to ask me that question, but there is a distinction that's been made between career officials and political positions. And, you know, the vast majority of people at Maine DOJ are career officials. main DOJ are career officials. There's been a lot made in recent years since the last administration and now about the so-called deep state. I have a lot of views about that because what I witnessed over the course of more than two decades at the Department of Justice and not just people at the Department of Justice, but working closely

with people in all the executive branch agencies, because the DOJ litigates for them. They can't litigate for themselves. So we work with them in deciding what's the position of the United States in litigation. I worked with a lot of career officials over 20 years. And this notion of a deep state that's out to ruin a president is flat wrong. Are there bad apples? Sure. In any organization, and you can turn that into, oh, the place is corrupt and evil and they're set out to get, that is just wrong. There are people, that's true in any organization, but the vast majority of people there I've seen work very hard to take principled positions across administrations. I saw it. I defended things that I didn't agree with because that was my job as a career official.

because that was my job as a career official. But you raise a very good question and an interesting one. If you're somebody going back in a political position, having served there, I think you'll see a lot of people who've been out there publicly saying they would not, having been in those positions. But I just want to make that distinction between career and political. To be clear, my answer is also no. Yes. I kind of want to follow up on that. So there's a good chance Chevron deference might be on the chopping block or very heavily limited. I guess I kind of want to know what's your opinion and

anyone else's opinion on that possibility with reflection to the larger administrative state? that possibility with reflection to the larger administrative state. Yeah. And Sarah probably got the best insight on that following the issue closely, probably more closely than I have, just because I'm in a new role or learning my job. I think they're likely to modify Chevron deference. I think it will not be what we've seen. How would it have changed your job at Fed programs to not have Chevron to lean back on? And Chevron, for those listening at home, we had a long episode explaining Chevron deference and our deference and the history. And it was super fun, actually, for me. I don't know about for any listener, but definitely for me. But largely speaking, it's the idea that the courts will defer

to the agency about what the statute in question says, including if the agency changes its mind, basically, et cetera. So the agency in some sense gets to determine the expanse of its own power. So if they got rid of that sort of thumb on the scale for the agency to define its own power, how would that have changed your job at Fed programs where you were defending executive branch agency power? Yes, it would have changed it significantly. It would have made it much more difficult to defend a lot of the challenges that we had, because we're defending challenges to federal programs.

And a lot of what we depended on was arguing Chevron deference to the views of the executive branch agencies. I'm not here to argue that doctrine should remain or should not. I'm just saying it would have made the job much more difficult, I think. We wouldn't have been able to rely as heavily as we did on executive branch determinations. This might be an interesting question. All of y'all have attended law schools. And Sarah, I know you've traveled around the country and seen different law schools, but also that whether it is daughter who is now attending law school or even working in a law school at some fashion.

even working in a law school at some fashion. How have y'all seen kind of law school itself change over those several years and whether that is kind of how they are guiding their students versus when they were guiding y'all? And how would you say that should reflect on your questions that you constantly ask on these different podcasts of should you attend law school now versus, say, for example, the question could be, would you attend law school now versus when you chose to going into law school? Prim, what do you think? How has law school changed? You're a professor and a student. It hasn't changed much because this is exactly what this room looked like. But I think from a student perspective, I don't know that it's changed a ton. I think that you actually have more opportunities and you know more going in about what you might do after.

I think when I was going through, it really was almost everybody was there to go work at a firm or go be in the DA's office. And I think now people kind of come to law school for probably a variety or at least come to Alabama for a variety of different career reasons. was very difficult for me to come back as a professor, having been at a law firm and seeing what the expectations law students had about what their life would look like after law school. And me knowing what your life actually would look like after law school. I can remember, and I take criticism very, very well. And so when I got my, you know, you do your reviews for your professors. And one of the criticisms that I got was she sends too many emails. And so I would send an email before class, everyone in my class is saying, this is what I'm going to ask you in class so that everyone can be prepared. So you would know this is what you should come prepared for. And I thought that was very helpful, would be very helpful. And apparently, the law students thought that was just too many emails. And my response was, I appreciate that feedback. But when you

get to a law firm, you wake up and you've got 30 emails from partners telling you to do stuff. And I just thought, gosh, I just don't know if we're actually preparing law students for what their jobs are going to look like after law school. I'll tell you my biggest concern traveling. And I've said this about working on the Hill. I've said it about working in political campaigns, but it's also been true in my experience in law school. school, it was considered something to brag about that I was friends with people who were leading liberal student organizations when I was the head of the Federalist Society. And I very much fear that for the same reason that that's something you no longer would brag about in your sort of social life on the Hill, that it's also something that law students don't really want to do anymore. I actually believe that that's not nearly the problem at Alabama that it is at other law schools. And I think there's a reason for that. I think you guys have a critical mass

of enough people with different ideological values and interests that nobody feels that self-censorship and group hegemony, I guess. But I think in a lot of law schools, it creates a sense of self-censorship from the majority. And then for the minority, almost a need to sort of take on a trolling personality because they're so socially ostracized for being in the minority um in whatever that is and i think it's bad when uh frankly it's a minority on the far left because i think that happens as well and i think we spend a lot of time talking about it happening on the right. But just like, I mean, if you talk to people on the far left about DC or about the media, they'll tell you, of course, if the media has a conservative bias. They don't quite mean it that

way, but they mean there's a conservative small c bias oftentimes, which there is, right? Like they're treated as the French and they are on that sort of ideological spectrum, but a healthy law school atmosphere, people would be bragging about how they have friends in the Federalist Society and the Prison Abolition Club and everything in between those two. And I think to the extent y'all don't appreciate that here, you should, because I think you have a pretty healthy climate that some other law schools don't.

I'll tell you how law schools change. Brim just talked about emails. All right, Boomer. When I was in law school, there's no such thing as an email. There were no cell phones. I don't even know how we did. But, you know, that's how it's I don't really think as a fundamental matter. doing the same things we did. You're reading a ton and you're working on outlines, right? Putting together outlines and that sort of stuff. I think a lot of that, a lot of the fundamentals of law school remain the same. Law school, whether or not you go to law school, right? Law school does not teach you necessarily to go practice law. You don't show up your first

day at the firm or at the U.S. Attorney's Office or the DA's and you're like, well, I am Perry Mason or Jack McCoy and I am here to, you know, I know everything about whatever this case is that's splendid on my desk. Law school teaches you how to think analytically and it teaches you how to look at a problem and think through that problem. And so that is, I think, the big benefit of going to law school. And if you can kind of take that away from law school and work on that while you're in law school, to Sarah's point, talking to other people, working through disagreements, working through different points of view, then you're learning skills that are actually going to serve you much better than if you book, you know, constitutional law or whatever it is. As Rachel Brand said, who also worked with us at the Department of Justice, who's the one person I think of the senior staff that I haven't had on this podcast.

We've had Rod Rosenstein, Ed O'Callaghan, but yeah, Rachel, who was the associate attorney general, I've quoted her a lot though. So I feel like she's been on. who was the associate attorney general. I've quoted her a lot though. So I feel like she's been on. She just spoke at the National Cathedral this week on a panel on civility, talking about the commencement address

that she gave at George Mason Law School earlier this year about this very topic. And one of the great quotes from that was, right? Iron sharpens iron. Like go find the iron in your class that is gonna sharpen you. And I promise you, it won't be someone who agrees with you. Like, find the iron in your class that is going to sharpen you. And I promise you, it won't be someone who agrees with you. Like, and the more they can disagree with you, the more they're going to sharpen you and you're going to sharpen them. And that's

actually what you should be looking for. To that point, what, if you have an environment where in the school, you've gotten these kind of tribal aspects to the left, left, right, this aisle, side aisle, that side aisle. You know, what can the school do to fix that problem? And I think I agree with what you just said. And Rachel, very wise as always, pointed that out. But what can the school do, the leadership administration, to try to create a situation where those relationships and communications occur because ultimately those are rewarding and make you test your own belief system. I'm curious if y'all have thoughts. I mean, I do think there's a few things. One is just

modeling the behavior, right? At some schools, it's impossible for the Federalist Society, for instance, to find a faculty advisor or to find faculty that are willing to speak at events. The Federalist Society likes to have debates, so they invite in a conservative speaker and then they want a liberal faculty member to engage with that conservative speaker. And the liberal faculty will not participate in that. And I think that's a shame because I think that would be a way to model disagreement, not in a debate, but in a discourse. So I think that's a shame. And of course, I've said this before, but I think the whole admissions policy is set

up to actually create unhealthy environments. Because if your admission system looks for the most activist students to bring to campus, those people are going to be so sure of their beliefs. They're not interested in sharpening their own iron, so to speak, because they already know what they believe and they're not curious. civil discourse instead of activism and leadership and these things that I think we see as good words, but they're not necessarily, especially not at 22. I agree with that. I also think that law schools are still too fixated on numbers in terms of, you know, their medians and things, and they don't actually – they say they take holistic approaches to admissions processes, but I have serious reservations about that. I'll just add my two cents.

You can edit that out if you want to, but they're fixated on it. And in part, too, the U.S. News and World Report is changing. It's this – I'm getting off subject, but they changed their methodology so that it sort of paralyzes schools about, you know, how they're going to be ranked. And so there's still a major emphasis on like standardized test scores and GPAs as opposed to other things that, as you're talking about, they could look for to sort of make sure that they're getting, you know, variety and diversity of students. Lightning round, you know, like. Well, I had a, I had a comment before a question. I wanted to address something that you said back in December that I heard you've been given a little bit of grief for already.

But when talking about Florida State being snubbed in the college football playoff, you said it should be deserving. You guys are just wrong. That sounds like some judicial living constitutionalism. If I've ever heard of it. Well, the college football playoff website under the question,

what is the mission of the college football playoff selection committee says the selection committee's task is to select the 25 best teams in college football and rank the teams for inclusion in the playoff. And then when the college football playoff executive director Bill Hancock was asked about that, he said, I appreciate

your asking that question. It is best. Most deserving is not something in the committee's lexicon. So, I think the selection committee took the best textualist approach to selecting teams for the college football playoff. Interesting. I think we could spend some time going through the text history and tradition of the word best as it was used at the time that those rules were passed. But most importantly, I think you should take from this that even though I was already scheduled to speak at Alabama, knew that I would be here, I did not pander to you and insult your intelligence by giving a fake opinion just to please you and your football powerhouse.

Honestly, y'all should be so great. I mean, you should have paid Nick Saban more for what has happened at this school since his tenure. And it has just skyrocketed in terms of the quality of students that y'all get. I mean, look who used to go to this school. They're on this panel. And now look at y'all here in this audience.

So obviously football has done well for Alabama. No one denies that. But how can best not mean undefeated, sir? It just doesn't. Thank you guys all so much for coming to this live podcast. Thank you to the University of Alabama. Thank you to all so much for coming to this live podcast.

Thank you to the University of Alabama. Thank you to the Federalist Society for hosting us. Such a treat to be here with you guys.