Transcript
Jacqui Ford
My goal is to allow you to walk out of our services, a better happier version of yourself than you are today.
Sonya Palmer
Tell your truth, own your story and live your values in and out of the courtroom.
Jacqui Ford
We treat the entire person and we give them the tools that they need and very holistic way.so that when the case is over, whether they have to go to prison, whether they get the privilege of staying in the community that when they walk away from this experience, they are a better person than they are when they walked in.
Sonya Palmer
According to a recent survey, only 19% of managing partners in U.S. law firms are female. We would like to see that change. Hello and welcome to LwHer the show where we celebrate the trailblazing attorneys and entrepreneurs who are changing the game for women in the legal. Be inspired by their stories, learn from their mistakes and look forward to the future. They’re helping build for the next generation for woman in law. I’m Sonya Palmer, your host and VP of operations at Rankings, the SEO agency of choice for personal injury lawyers. This is LawHer Jacqui Ford is a literal powerhouse in her six years as an Oklahoma County public defender, she represented over 3000 people charged with felonies in one year alone. She took 11 cases to court and was awarded the peer nominated Clarence Darrow award, the Heisman trophy for law in Oklahoma. The youngest person to receive that award. She stood at the podium knowing she could make a stronger impact ethically and with better resources for those who need it most. Jacqui is a graduate of the Trial Lawyers college, a top 100 trial lawyers for three years, a top 40 under 40 and a recipient of Kelly Beardsley criminal defense award. Over the past decade, she has owned and operated Jacqueline Ford Law, a defense firm where the goal is to not have repeat customers. She teaches, speaks and mentors around the country. And Jacqui is currently running for district attorney, the first woman, in Oklahoma county. But before all of that, her very personal experience with the legal system set the trajectory for her career. Let’s dive in.
Jacqui Ford
I was born and raised in Oklahoma City. lower middle class parent background. As I started getting older and things happen in life. My dad, when I was pretty young, was convicted of a felony. I can track the path of my family’s success and struggles. And they’re directly related to that felony charge. Lots of things come along with felony convictions. He lost a very good job with stable retirement and benefits and all of those things pile on here, financial pressures on my parents’ marriage And his life just got very hard. And when his life got hard, my life got hard and my sister’s life got hard. They divorced when I was, preteen and we struggled, and we lived on the wrong side of the tracks, if you will. And our engagement with law enforcement and lawyers rarely had a positive impact on us. And so I was blessed though with smarts and academia school was very easy to me. So even though I was not making the best choices in the world I was always able to address. My education was very important to my parents and I knew I was college bound. So when I graduated high school in 1997, I went on to college at Oklahoma State University. I majored in business administration and marketing, and I was convinced I would be an entrepreneur. I wanted to be my own boss. I had a little bit of a resistance to authority if you will. it was there that I found my love for the law. Taking business classes, learning about sexual harassment in the workplace, title nine, what are the HR responsibilities? How do we protect people knowing that they have to come here every day and spend time with the folks that they may not otherwise want to spend time with. And I became very inspired by a couple of law professors and they, one of them suggested to me one time that I should consider law school. And that was a crazy idea. I was the first person in my family to ever even go to college. And now we’re talking about me going to law school and I don’t know why I have this belief, but I just thought that lawyers came from Harvard and Stanford. And it had never really dawned on me that, a poor girl from the south side, Oklahoma City. And so I took the LSAT, my God, I passed. And I went to university of Oklahoma and there was no doubt in my mind. As soon as we started that criminal law was where my passion was always wanted to be a helper and I’ve always fought for the underdog, no matter what, whether it’s in sports or in real life, I cheer on the people who are not likely to succeed, probably because I related to them a lot in my youth. So that’s how it started. I tell people when they ask me this why criminal law and I just wanted to be the lawyer that I wish my dad had . I wanted to be able to provide services to not only the offenders, but recognizing that the choices we make here have a generational impact on families. It’s not just the offender and the victims of crimes. If there were any, now he didn’t have a victim of a crime. He was convicted for possessing $20 worth of marijuana in the eighties. And that conviction follows him today. And so knowing the way it impacted our lives and set us up to not be able to move to the right neighborhoods, to go to the right schools, I feel the consequences of his choice and of his conviction. And so I want to be able to provide services to my clients that are different than the services that were provided to him.
Sonya Palmer
Thank you for sharing that. I think with criminal defense lawyers, you are often meeting and seeing people at some of the worst points in there. It’s sometimes the worst day of their life and to be able to help them navigate that I think is very noble and it’s very important. So I,
Jacqui Ford
Thank you very much.
Sonya Palmer
So let’s talk about law school. So you said you went to University of Oklahoma for law school. Was it what you were expecting? Would you change anything about it? The experience,
Jacqui Ford
I don’t think I had any expectations, like I say, I was the first person to go. So I got a bunch of fear, which was law school was different for me. I never really had fear in school. I, I was always the smartest person in the room, so I thought, and academics just came very easy. So I never had to study the shell shock of law school was having to study and not being able to just get away with. Memorizing the chapter and regurgitating it onto an exam really have having to invest into the studying and learn it long-term instead of cram and flush. So that was the first year kind of shock was, Oh, my gosh, I’m no longer. Even in the ballpark of the smartest person in the room, I’m in a law school with 180 people who have spent their whole lives and my 180 and my class husband, their whole lives being the smartest person in the room. So it inspired some competitiveness in school for me that I never had before. And that was fun, but I had a great experience. So OU was very clear that they did not want us to work during our first year. That was a challenge for me. I had working since I was 15 years old. Pretty significant hours and making good money. So that was hard. It was the first time I ever had to dip into student loans. I was able to work my way through undergrad and pay while I worked. And again, I had some scholarships for grades and things like that. So that was very different, but I loved it. I’m not sure I would go back, but simply because it was hard work,
Sonya Palmer
Oh
Jacqui Ford
But I had a great experience and incredible mentorship from some of our professors. So I stay in contact with today.
Sonya Palmer
Any notable ones, any lessons you felt like they really passed on to you or something that made an impact?
Jacqui Ford
From the undergraduate standpoint, his name was Dr. Jurek. And he and his wife were both lawyers and he had a very interesting way of educating. And one of the things he said to me, he called me one of the smartest people in the room. And he said, your biggest problem is you’re probably one of the smartest people in a hundred mile radius and no one has ever challenged you. It is my goal to spend the next two, two years. I’m taking every opportunity I can to challenge you and to challenge the status quo. And so I really, I embraced that competitive in nature. I’ll take that challenge fast forward into law school. My con law professor was perhaps one of the scariest professors I ever had. His name’s Rick Tucker, we’re friends on social media still today. I tease him. He sometimes teases me back. He used to call me Scalia because I was a heavy con textualist, and I’m five foot one . Would not consider myself conservative, especially at that time of my life. And so I resisted that a lot, but I learned to embrace that as well. And he said he would set us down, on breaks and talk about not being convinced of the law school lie, that it wasn’t always going to be easy, that we were not guaranteed to make a ton of money so that we really needed to focus on the things that spoke to our heart, because this work was going to be a lot of stress, no matter how much money you were making, there was gonna be a ton of stress. So he really emphasized finding a quality of life and finding a quality of representation that you could be proud of. And I was very much encouraged to take up space. I think our first art class was the first class at the university of Oklahoma that had more than 50% female first year students. And so we were very proud of that. The OU legal clinic, which offered pro bono services to folks going through divorces and custody battles, as well as in the criminal world was run 100% by women and so I owe a lot of my success to Cindy Foley and and her partners and Terry and Amy, these women who really set my path for me to be as successful as I wanted to be. I was winning awards in criminal defense prior to even getting out of law school.
Sonya Palmer
Yeah. I love that. following your heart, finding your true values, like why are you really doing this? Cause it’s necessary when you get into the weeds? what is the best part of being a criminal defense attorney?
Jacqui Ford
Man, I think the best part of being a criminal defense attorney today is the amount of mentorship that I can offer to other young lawyers. I oftentimes say the one thing I’m better at, than being a lawyer is teaching. For many years, I was burdened with the weight of the system and the betrayal of the promise of American freedom and, innocent until proven guilty and all of those things. When I realized that was great in theory, but not very effective in practice, I became really, I was depressed. There were times in my early stages of my career where I would drink too much and I would not sleep enough. I was not taking care of my body because. I tend to have some empathy and empathic tendencies. And I would take on the pain of all of the people that I served and it became too much. I was very lucky to be introduced to a couple of very powerful training programs. I’m a graduate of the Trial Lawyers College. I’ve been on faculty with them since 2015. I work . With Leslie Overton who founded Mind Over Law and I think has saved lives of so many of my lawyer friends, or at least enhance their quality of life and really learning how to take care of myself so that I can be the best version of myself. So in the depression and the pressure and the overwhelm would take over, I felt to give to myself what I needed was. Sort of being selfish and that it wasn’t going all in. And I really had to train that out of my brain. And one of the things I tell young lawyers every day is to be selfless. We must first be selfish. And so one of my favorite parts of practice today is being able to help train young. We are so that they don’t go down that path and don’t sit in that darkness and the pain of depression that I suffered from for several years prior to that, it’s fun to talk about the awards. It’s fun to talk about the acquittals, but they’re far and fewer between now because my opponents know what time it is. And I don’t get to go to trial very often anymore. Once the ego steps aside of the wins, my, my favorite part is being able to keep families together to be able to heal a client who comes in even innocent clients, people are not wrongfully accused by accident. We have done something that has left someone feeling some kind of way for them to justify being able to wrongly accuse us, whether That’s sexual allegation or domestic assault allegation, or even just being treated poorly by the police. We have to look internally at what about our behavior has brought us here. It’s not to say that they deserve. We can empower them so that when they leave our services, they do not come back into our revolving door. And we at my firm pride ourselves and having, I can count on one hand in 10 years, how many times I’ve had a client come back because we treat, Yeah. thank you. We treat the entire person and we give them the tools that they need and very holistic way. If they need counseling, I give them counseling. If they need spiritual guidance, we get them to a place that can offer that they need drug and alcohol treatment, mental health treatment, family counseling. I put them in a position to be the best version of themselves so that when the case is over, whether they have to go to prison, whether they get the privilege of staying in the community, Either they get the dismissal or the not guilty that when they walk away from this experience, they are a better person than they are when they walked in. And that’s our goal. I tell them that in the very beginning, my goal is to allow you to walk out of our services, a better happier version of yourself than you are today.
Sonya Palmer
When you’re dealing with people on their worst days and the types of consequences they’re trying to have to deal with, to, okay how do I evolve? Or, what’s the best outcome of this. And I love what you said about education. It sounds like instead of, teaching or teaching someone how to be a lawyer, you’re teaching someone how to handle being a lawyer and in a lot of professions, unfortunately lawyers probably significantly being empathetic, can make you a good lawyer, like it’s, that’s part of what gives you an edge and allows you to serve your community. But then it also is what makes it so difficult. So it’s such a balance when you don’t have that empathy, you’re probably less effective. So it’s tricky. is there any misconceptions about defense attorneys you
Jacqui Ford
Oh my goodness. Some misconceptions are that we’re here to get our clients off. What, whatever that means that we’re vouching for the behavior that we want bad guys to walk free. I think that’s a really unfair judgment. Anybody. Who professes to be a scholar of the law or believe in the constitution or this American dream, this experiment that we’ve all been engaging in for hundreds of years to have anything other than the utmost respect for people who are willing to stand up for the voiceless just tells me that you’re not serious about having this conversation. Prosecutors and law enforcement officers and defense lawyers come together with this idea that it’s us versus them. And I’ve been guilty of that. I’m certainly not perfect. But it is not, I have really wrestled with who was the villain in the case, who’s the villain in our system. there a villain and me, where does that exist? How am I perpetrating this stereotype so that I can help educate others? And it’s taken some time, but I have built some incredible relationships with law enforcement and with prosecutors and the judiciary by modeling for them that my role is not to vouch for, or get the bad guy off. But rather my role is the only reason that their role matters without a criminal defense lawyer who checks the prosecution. This country was founded on the idea that the government needed to be checked and that people were not getting a fair trial. That is why America exists? And you cannot get a fair trial without a zelous Defense. And so I oftentimes say to law enforcement, listen, man, I’m law enforcement too. I’m enforcing the law against you. I’m enforcing the law against the prosecution. And I am holding the judge accountable to enforcing the law against you all as well, and to protect all of us in a fair and unbiased way. So once we take the villain masks off of our opposition and just recognize that the only way the system works is if all of us are working together in a zealous advocate way on behalf of our clients or the people we represent, then we don’t have to be friends. We don’t have to go to dinner with each other or anything, but we can have a mutual respect for the fact that the only reason we get to be proud of the work we do is because we’re being held accountable by opposing counsel, even when they’re mean.
Sonya Palmer
Yeah. What if fresh perspective? Because, courtrooms you have a winner, you have a. And very competitive people enter into that sort of arena. It’s almost athletic to a certain extent, and us versus them, someone’s got to win. And what a disservice that probably is to most people involved versus then, everybody’s there to work together and there are systems in place to make sure that works effectively.
Jacqui Ford
People ask me sometimes. How do you feel Jacqui? When a guilty person gets aquitted let me go, I feel like the system must have worked, the only way a guilty person is found, not guilty by a jury is not because there’s some loophole, right? People say, oh, the defence lawyer found a loophole. I don’t know what a loophole is in the law. I’ve been doing this for a very long time. I’ve never found a loophole. What I have found, however, is that people who might be rightfully charged should not be convicted when the police failed to follow their policies and procedures, then the prosecution fails to follow their ethical obligations and discovery obligations. And when the judge holds them to their standards, that they’ve sworn an oath to hold and a jury upholds their oath to only convict when they’re proven beyond a reasonable doubt. And if a bad guy goes free, I sleep just fine because it actually. As counterintuitive as it is, it gives me faith that the system works because innocent people get convicted every day. And I don’t think a whole lot of prosecutors are losing sleep over that. I’m losing sleep over that. I’ve lost some sleep over knowing that a victim didn’t receive justice and that’s not okay. And if a victim isn’t receiving justice, I refuse to accept responsibility for that because my duty is not to the victim law enforcements duty. is to the victims, the prosecution studios to the victim, but the jury’s duty and the judicial duty and the defense duty is to the constitution of the United States. And when it works, I don’t feel guilty about it.
Sonya Palmer
Is there a specific case that sort of stands out to you? Like why you do this? Something you’re really proud of that you can discuss.
Jacqui Ford
Sure. There are a number of cases that I’m really proud of. Somehow I have created a niche and my community that I represent a lot of offenders who are accused of abuse, sexual, or physical abuse. And as a person who has experience with that, it is important for me to do a good job, even though sometimes it’s hard because my inner 12 year old abuse victim was like, what are you doing, Jacqui? The power of accusation in those cases is so big. And prosecutors rightfully argue that the reason that it’s hard to prove these cases is because they happen in secret. That is true. Oftentimes abuse happens behind closed doors without witnesses. The counter to that is false allegations happen in secret too. And when we’ve created a system that doesn’t need the same level of evidence, because it happens in secret to meet the burden. We cannot forget that false accusers know that and women do not fight like men fight. Very rarely do you see women swinging on each other on the playground and then getting up and shaking each other’s hand, you bring me to blows and we are never speaking again. The way women fight is a much more emotional fight and it’s not always women. And so I don’t want to cast that stereotype, but oftentimes we see men falsely accused of allegation sounding and sexual abuse for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it’s she feels ashamed or she feels betrayed by him. Perhaps it’s, there’s a divorce and we need to have this custody fight and this is the best way for me to get my kids so that I can move on with my life. There are all kinds of reasons why it happens. But the false allegation happens with as little evidence and in the same dark place, because it happens in our minds and in our hearts, which we cannot take a picture of and present to a jury. Some of my favorite cases have been standing firmly behind that the innocent men and young men and holding the system to account, we do it in a way that I can feel proud of and that my client can feel proud of. That is contrary to the prejudicial the way we think that we defend these cases. If a person is bringing false allegations of these types, they have been hurt. They are hurting while they are in court. Whether they’re cognizantly aware that they’re telling a story that’s not true or not. And sometimes. By the time we get there, we believe the story we’re telling. I defend these cases with the same honor and dignity that I expect my clients to be prosecuted with. And we try to model for the jury how to accept that this is not a truthful statement without having to condemn the accuser. And so I remind jurors often that this is not a, he said, she said, and you have to choose. Who’s telling the truth. This is the state of Oklahoma against the accused. And the only question you have to answer is not, is she lying? It’s have they met their burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt with the shadow around the credibility of this witness. And we don’t have to judge her. We don’t have to call her names. And I refuse to judge and call women names in these cases because I understand. What they must be feeling if they’re willing to make these kinds of allegations. So it’s become my niche. It is not always a popular conversation to have, but if we can defend false allegations and defend fair accusations with the same fundamental principles of constitutional rights, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, integrity and investigations, integrity, and prosecutions, then we should all walk away from whatever decision not jury makes feeling good and proud of ourselves. And I do not believe that I’ve ever left a victim feeling more hurt than she felt when she walked in or an accuser feeling more hurt when she left. Then when she walked in and I take great pride in that I’ve had jurors literally hire me after sitting on one of my jury trials because of the Grace that I gave in the case that they had the opportunity to observe. And they wanted that kind of lawyer to represent them or their loved ones. And that makes me incredibly proud.
Sonya Palmer
Grace is a very important thing to have. I think, in the world today, grace and mercy are undervalued. I’m not an expert. I do think that it is very important to untangle false accusations out of respect for actual victims of abuse. That’s that’s my take on it as an observer in a lot of ways, but I do think that it is very important to sort those out of respect or justice for people who have actually been abused.
Jacqui Ford
And there are very few lawyers that take these cases anyway, because they feel right and they worry that your neighbors are going to judge you for that. And they don’t want to be on the news for that. And those cases tend to be on the new. More often than your average DUI, right? So it requires a lot of deep work. It requires a lot of personal work. I have to work on making sure that my personal experiences are not intruding on the story that I’m telling. And that my biases aren’t intruding upon the story that I’m telling. And there are even fewer women who are willing to do it. And so somehow as a young public defender, who is willing to try these cases, because back then, it wasn’t, I’ll be honest, wasn’t particularly honorable. There are only so many cases that go to trial murderers, sex cases, and big time drug cases are really the only cases go to trial all the time. And I was hungry. I was hungry to be in a courtroom. I was hungry to get litigation experience. I wanted to practice my craft. I couldn’t get experienced fast enough. And so I started trading my cases here at the public defender’s office. You don’t have, DUI, public defenders and domestic violence, public defenders, and murder, public defenders. You do it all. Our boss was a big believer that we were not going to be one trick ponies. And so I started getting to where I would trade. A lawyer would come to me and say, I’ve got this case. I really don’t want to do it. I don’t know if he’s guilty or not. I just can’t even handle the discovery. I can’t even read it. And so I would trade off, five or 10 general felonies to take that one. And that’s where it happened. And it happened from an eagerness to get in the courtroom and an eagerness to. And lawyers back when I was young said, you’d better slow down. Lawyers only have so many trials in them. Don’t waste them all now. And I thought they were crazy. I thought there’s no way I’m going to be one of those people who drops dead in the middle of their closing arguments, romanticize that idea 16 years in having lost some friends, so have dropped dead
Sonya Palmer
Wow.
Jacqui Ford
while still practicing law. I no longer romanticize that concept. And I’m not as eager to get in. I think those senior lawyers were right. I think we only have so many in us.
Sonya Palmer
Pace. So pace is important. Noted. All right. Let’s talk about Jacqui Ford law firm that you opened in 2011. How, what made you decide to open your own firm?
Jacqui Ford
So at that point in my career had been practicing for five years. I had been at the public defender’s office the whole time, I was trying cases like a maniac and I was tired. it was not the best time. At the public defender’s office, we did not back then have the level of comradery that I hear a lot of my public defender friends across the country that have that you’re just supportive of each other and all of these things. So in 2011, I was awarded the Clarence Darrow award, which is in Oklahoma, the Heisman trophy of criminal defense. It is you’re voted on by your peers, nominated by your peers and the board of OCD. DLA the Oklahoma criminal defense lawyers association grants that award almost every year, not every year, if there’s not a qualified candidate. I was on a terror in the courthouse. Every client that wasn’t getting a go home, three recommendation was getting set for trial. And I was on one. I think I tried 11 trials in that year. Every single one of them were a win and winning at the public defender’s office, doesn’t always mean an acquittal, but a huge number of them were an acquittal. They highlighted one of my cases where every witness that mounted the stand told lies that were unnecessary to tell. And by the time we were done on cross examination, I invited each one of them very nicely and politely to turn around and bank the apologize to the jury for perjuring themselves on their direct examination. And every single witness at the end said, I’m really sorry, except for one police officer. But I said that’s okay. we all know So it was a wrongful allegation of on a murder case. He was acquitted. I was being celebrated by my trial partner who had been side-by-side with me and every single one of these trials, we were trying some back to back in the same week, jury went out on Wednesday morning. They went up to deliberate. We called in a new veneer and started doing board dire while they were deliberating. They’ve got a verdict. They go out, they come down, we take the verdict, they go back. It was crazy, but we were we’re hustling. And so when I was awarded the award it was at our annual bar association meeting. The criminal defense group was there. And I, the keynote speaker that night was a gentleman named Kirk Bloodsworth, who was wrongfully convicted and had recently been exonerated from death row his story Oh, just thinking about it now, it just gives me chills. He’s got an incredible story. And after he shared all of that, they proceeded to give out the awards. I was the youngest person in Oklahoma to ever win this award. And I was female and I was a public defender. It was like the trifecta I’ve never heard befroe
Sonya Palmer
Yeah, that’s incredible.
Jacqui Ford
Thank you. And I looked out about who was there, took note of who wasn’t there. And I thought to myself who out in this room, do I want to be more like, and there were some real serious trial lawyers God’s here and. I made a decision right then and there that I wanted to start practicing law the way I felt in my heart, it should be instead of the way we were forced to do it as public defenders and as public defenders, they’re triage nurses or doctors right there in the emergency room, they’re dealing with gunshot victims and heart attacks, and they’re just patching and patching. The kind of lawyer work I wanted to do was neurosurgery. I wanted to treat the whole person. I wanted to hire experts. I wanted to delve into real stories. The street fighting was getting tired and a lot of the public defense work is like that. I would be handed a case a Monday morning and I was picking a jury Monday afternoon. I’ve never met the client. That’s just not, that’s not okay. It’s unethical and it didn’t feel good. Now I was winning. My ego was full, but my heart was not. And so I spent a lot of time thinking about it and I would have been a public defender. For the rest of my life, had the work environment and been different. And had we been given the resources from the court to adequately represent these people? It is a shame. It is a shame. The way court systems treat public defenders and the lack of resources as they’re willing to embed, invest into the poor people who are oftentimes the targeted class for wrongful accusations and trumped up charges. And I couldn’t live with it anymore. So I opened my own practice. And started surrounding myself with these just trial lawyers And that’s when I got introduced to the trial lawyers college and started doing national training programs and meeting lawyers outside of my community and learning how they do it when they actually have the resources. And then I just came back here and mocked that even though we didn’t have the experts that they would have, I spent hours studying expert reports from other jurisdictions and how are they handling this there? And I would just take everything I needed to have an expert for. And I would become an expert the best that I could and just cross examine from that place. We didn’t have the tools to do that at the PDs office. And so that’s, it was when the moment became real that I got to be the lawyer that I wish my dad had.
Sonya Palmer
You mentioned that earlier and just how. You approach your clients and not just necessarily like fighting a criminal charge for them, but then thwarting what got them there in the first place and then attempting to shut it off before they can do the repeat, like rinse and repeat that public defenders. See so often. So you can actually, you have to start a law firm in addition to becoming an attorney to make the impact, that you set out to make. So I always admire that.
Jacqui Ford
I’m not sure I would have had the courage to do it without the business background, but again, there was no way I was going to go work for some, I love my male colleagues, but I was not going to go make some man rich on the back of my hard work. My vision.
Sonya Palmer
Jacqui beat the odds in Oklahoma. Only 22% of law firm equity partners are women. I wanted to know what challenges she sees that keep that gap from closing.
Jacqui Ford
That’s a good and tough question. I don’t know why that is in big firms. The women that I work with in the criminal defense world and in the family law world we’re very much connected. Almost all of them are girl bosses. And I think there’s a difference in personality and it may, maybe there’s some correlation causation happening in families and where you’re focused in your priority is maybe it’s in not having the trust in yourself to have a business background, to be able to launch the firm what I hear young, especially young women lawyers talk about is, I don’t know how to do this. And depending on where you are in the community, if you’re sitting in an office by herself, there might be some security concerns too. One of the things I hear a lot is you’re so lucky you have Jason and Jason is my investigator who you’ve had 15 years of law enforcement experience, and I am lucky. But it’s not like he walks around with a gun. You know what I mean? We don’t have any problems around here, but that fear of being alone, I think the fear of lack of mentorship the need to go in and see how someone else is doing it in the beginning, that need is natural. I think you want to go in and work for somebody else and see how they’re doing it. But if you don’t have the self-confidence to take what you’re learning and risk the leap, then you will forever work. Whether it’s for a male boss or a female boss, you will forever work making somebody. Wealthy and for me. So when I came out of law school, I was offered a job Right. out of the gate, where I was going to make $85,000 a year. I can wear jeans and a hoodie to shirt. I didn’t have to make rain. I didn’t have to deal with clients. I was just going to be doing title opinion stuff. You have to understand Sonya , that is more money per year that my parents made combined at the years, they retired. Like I couldn’t even comprehend that money. And I knew then that if I go do that, I will get hooked and I will never come back to the $35,000 a year, a public defender’s job. So I had to be forward enough thinking for myself to know, I don’t want to get addicted to the money and the lifestyle, cause I’ll never walk away. I think there might be some of that happens. You go into a firm, you get very comfortable there. You learn your systems and they’re like, oh, I’m not sure I want to take the risk. The only reason that I can see to not do this is that your passion isn’t in being your own boss and doing it in your own way. And that is perfectly fine. I have an incredible female associate who started with our firm in January. I am so grateful to have Kristen. She is amazing. She makes it rain with her client. She helps me with mine. I love her energy in the office cause I’ve typically employed men. And she’s great. She has zero desire to be the boss. Great. That’s okay. She doesn’t want the marketing responsibilities. She doesn’t want to be doing these calls. She doesn’t want to have to pay the bills. She doesn’t have to worry about payroll, and that’s great. If that’s not your jam, then this probably isn’t for you, but I’m a big dreamer. I want it all. I want it right now. And I want to do it my way and I do not like being told no. With those mentalities. I didn’t quite frankly have a choice, but to work for us, and so what I would say to those who are sitting in fear and they want to try it, but they don’t have the courage to try it. As you have to find other women in your community. And even if they’re not in your community, call me, I will hook you up with great women across the country. Cause I have a couple of networks that I work with and all of us are female law, firm, owners and bosses, and we help each other. Something happens, when we’re younger, our teens and twenties and, girls tend to fight and all of that. I never had a lot of good girlfriends. I grew up one of the boys. And so being in an all male field and litigation, which was very heavily male dominated was never a problem for me. Cause that’s how I grew up. The gift that getting older and becoming my own boss gave me, was finding other women like me and learning to trust them. And our community in Oklahoma city is unbelievably supportive. We straighten each other’s crowns. We help each other out. We feed each other cases. Susan Karnes Curtis started that girl attorney network, which I think is phenomenal. We’re very active in that group. And we just have to be curious. So if there’s a fear that’s holding you back, you have to lean into the curiosity, find people around you who are already doing it. We want to help. We want to increase that number. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was asked how many women is too many. Not until there’s nine, right? Why are we not have 84% of the market? Do we need it at all? Do we need more than 20% sure. Am I happy with absolutely. not. I’m not happy with 50 women rule the world, and there is space for us to do that. I am, I’m running right now for a political office and I am the first woman in my community to run for this seat. And people are like, what are you doing? Yeah, what I’ve always done. I see a problem. I’ve got some great solutions to this problem. We’re going to lean in and offer the community an opportunity for change. And we’re running for Oklahoma county district attorney. There’s a lot of questions around why would I do that? I’m happy to answer them today or another day, but I am very proud to be the first one. To run for this office. And I’m very hopeful that we are the first woman elected to this office because times they are changing and men are here for it too. This is not an us versus them kind of thing. Men are here for, to some of my strongest supporters say it’s time for women to take the reins because we’ve been doing this for a long time and we’re failing.
Sonya Palmer
In addition to being an attorney, in addition to running a business, you are also campaigning. So fill us in a little bit on the campaign and what you’re hoping to accomplish.
Jacqui Ford
So Oklahoma county is ripe for change. All of our cities have experienced a little bit of disruption over the last couple of years, whether it be from, compute community resistance, to police, to the pandemic to the massive amounts of over-incarceration and tax dollars. Being spent housing offenders who are non-violent Oklahoma incarcerates more women per capita than any country on earth.
Sonya Palmer
Why?
Jacqui Ford
We incarcerate more women than any country. That is a really good questions. Why is that? And who are we prosecuting when we’re bragging about our conviction rates and here we’rewe’re prosecuting victims of abuse. We’re prosecuting victims of poverty. We were prosecuting mothers and daughters and sisters who we failed to offer services to who we failed to be supportive of when they were in crisis. And we are using those numbers to pat ourselves on the back about how strong we are on law and order. It is unacceptable. 85% of all people incarcerated in the state of Oklahoma have a diagnosed mental health illness and, or a substance abuse problem. There is one treatment program in the department of corrections. We have 77 counties. People think about Oklahoma, small we’re big. We’re very spread out. We have a lot of prisons. We have one prison that has a meaningful substance abuse treatment program that has limited beds. We are not providing the services. To the people in our community to empower them to be the best versions of themselves. We are missing a really rich opportunity to meet the criminal justice system has two prongs, punishment and rehabilitation. When it comes to the offender, prosecutors will say it’s three pronged cause you have to deter. But deterring a drug addict from being a drug addict is as ridiculous. You’re not going to deter a drug addict for being a drug addict. You’re not going to deter a mentally health field person from being mentally ill. So we have a couple of choices. We can continue down the same path of lock them up and throw away the key, which was, the policy in 1994 and using the incarceration system as a new way to classify citizens, or we can lean into helping them be the best versions of themselves. We can start using the criminal justice system as an opportunity to get better, to get healthier and to strengthen our families in conjunction with when we use those resources to take care of these people, the pot, the limited amount of money we have to prostitute now becomes available to prosecute actual violent offenders. And our conviction rate in Oklahoma county is abmismal it’s good for my ego, bad for my community. We are letting dangerous people back into our community because the prosecution’s failure to, to allocate resources in a meaningful way, the prosecution’s failure to engage ethically and discovery exchanges result in lots of things that result in bad guys going free. And we are not focused on dangerous criminals because we’re focused on the increase in numbers of convictions. So I did an interview just a couple of weeks ago with a law enforcement officer who does this great little podcasts and live streams that live on Facebook. And one of the questions he asked me, he said, so you’re willing to lose. And I said, no, I’m willing to invest. I’m willing to lose the cases that I can’t make. Obviously we should all be willing to do that. I’m willing to invest in our community to stop the revolving door in and out of the incarceration system. And we can’t fight every battle all the time, but I’m an educator. It begins with education and it ends with fair and equitable prosecutions. And that pipeline from the education system to the incarceration system is a very clear line. Our educators have some work to do over here. I can help influence that as I have for years. We haven’t really talked about that, but I teach at colleges and national programs all over the country. I love teaching, and now we can come over here and teach from a prosecutor. How to prosecute with humanity and integrity and focus our attention on what makes our community less safe. And once our community feels more safe and citizens feel more safe, what happens to mental health issues? They go down drug and alcohol addiction issues go down, domestic violence issues go down, and now we’ve created a better world and it’s not to open the flood gates of the prison systems. And let there be chaos. It is to focus our attention on smart justice, to prosecute people as an entire human being and recognize the decisions we make. Not only affect the offender and their families. They affect every single person that participates in our process. The victims, the witnesses, the police, the lawyers, the jury. . Who we compel out of their homes and out of their lives and their work and force them to come into our courtrooms and digest that, which we can not work out. We owe it to them to do better. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to our children and our children’s children. And that is our vision to be able to create a smarter, more humane, yet powerfully effective prosecution in Oklahoma county.
Sonya Palmer
You have a very clear path ahead of you. Are there any important dates, anything like that coming up?
Jacqui Ford
Sure. So we are in a massive fundraising effort right now. Our primary election is in June, 2018. I did not intend to use this, but since you asked, if you’re interested in helping my vision, you can go to Ford, the number four, da.com Ford 4 DA.com. You can contribute their maximum contributions per individuals, 2,900, but every bit matters. A name recognition. We have four candidates for four candidates, three old white guys,
Sonya Palmer
Yep.
Jacqui Ford
Whose vision is not to create powerful and positive change. So we have to fight them and a major election cycle when they might ID and get into every voter. And that’s what I’m not sitting here lawyering or in the courtroom. That’s what we’re doing is knocking on doors. So financial contributions go a long way. And our goal is to model how this works and inspire change in communities all across the country.
Sonya Palmer
Jacqui’s firm was born from her desire to make a stronger impact and fortified by her values. But even the best intention to law firms require business development and marketing. Her initial marketing journey was pretty Rocky before connecting with Megan Hargroder of the marketing firm Conversations Digital. I wanted to know more about that relationship and how her marketing strategy has evolved.
Jacqui Ford
So in the beginning, I didn’t have time to do any of that. I didn’t really know what it meant to market as a lawyer. And I had some really negative marketing experiences. I will tell you Megan from Conversations introduced the two of us. I don’t know if she told you this, but she likes to tease me, but when I first came in contact with Megan, my first communication was I hate marketers. I don’t trust you. I have zero interest in dealing with you. I’ve had three. It has been a horrible experience. I would just assume run on word of mouth because I had shoveled out. Tens of thousands of dollars a year to all these companies that were just selling me a bill of sale, there was nothing that they were offering and then they were going right next door and offering my competitor the exact same thing. And and then I’m stuck in these contracts I can’t get out of. And all of the promises of the relationships that they were going to build in the branding were just broken and I was fed up and I was doing pretty good because I built a reputation within the legal community. People knew where to send somebody if they needed a scrapper, and Megan laughs and she’s I understand exactly what you’re saying. What I hear you saying is you don’t want any contracts and you don’t want to have to work work building this website that isn’t gonna work for you. And I said, that’s right. And she said, would you give me 90 days? And let’s see what we can do. And I have not looked back working with the women at conversations has been an absolute, it is a friendship forever. Like I care about these women and they care about me and they care about my success and their loyalty is important to me, so we talk once a month and so they know what’s going on in my life. They know what’s going on in the community. I’m very actively involved in my community. I’m on TV, quite a bit, doing expert stuff. So they know, and anytime something like that’s going on, I can just shoot them a text or email and say, Hey, I’m going to be on channel four tonight. Here’s the link, here, this thing is happening at the Capitol. I’m going to go there, get us a couple of action shots, make sure you take Grace with you, do this, do that. And so we worked together as a team and I think It’s been, and. She would be able to know the answer. I think six years, seven years that I’ve probably been with her now. I feel I’m not under a contract but I would not leave those girls for anything because they are part of my team. They are part of my brand. And without them, I don’t think that our message would be out there. In the same way, they empowered me to tell my truthful story, I was embarrassed.
Sonya Palmer
They’re good at empowering.
Jacqui Ford
Yeah. I was nervous. She was like, you’ve got to tell your dad’s story. I was like, I don’t want to tell my dad’s story. I don’t want people to know that I was poor and uneducated and came from a family. What if they find out that I’m an imposter? And so we joke around about our imposter syndrome and my martyr syndrome. We talked about that too. And we changed that story. And when I changed that story in my life, my marketing changed that story. when i became Became more mentally healthy. My marketing became more healthy when I started being free to tell my truth, my marketing became about the truth. And so it’s, hand-in-hand I don’t know. I know some lawyers do about it and I know a lot of lawyers who spend countless hours doing it themselves. I just couldn’t justify that. I, and I say to young lawyers when they ask and they do, what do you do about marketing? Who’s your marketing first? And I said you can’t have her. Cause she’s loyalty branded to me. But you have to find a marketing company that you trust. That’s the same as hiring a lawyer. We’re spending really harder money on SEO. I don’t even know what she does. It’s like magic. But whatever it is that she does, I have to trust it. And I’m selling to the lawyers, the same idea that I sell to. Hiring a criminal defense lawyers like hiring a brain surgeon. You better trust the person who’s going to cut your skull open and trust that they’re going to put you back together in the right way. And if you don’t go find somebody who you do. And I think that’s a really important part of hiring a marketing branding company, because the experience is only going to be as quality as the company that you’re working with. And if they are not invested in you, then there’s no amount of money you can pay them. That is going to make this profitable.
Sonya Palmer
A hundred percent that what you described as that’s what a marketing agency, digital marketing agency even should provide. They are trusted experts that you can just send on their way and trust them to do what they’re supposed to do. And then, you get the leads. That’s how it’s supposed to be. And I agree with you. We do legal marketing, we hear that from our clients all the time, we don’t want a contract, you don’t have to have contract, what are you doing? Like we’re getting you the front page of Google. So I, yes, that having a partner in your market, The sleep like lawyers who have the lawyer. And then lawyers who own firms that then have to run a business. I hurt for the people that are trying to do it themselves because legal industry’s extremely competitive. It’s probably, it might be the most competitive industry for
Jacqui Ford
And don’t, they change the rules on you guys. Like every
Sonya Palmer
All the time.
Jacqui Ford
I can’t keep up with the new algorithms and what Google’s doing and what Facebook’s doing. Who has time for that? I’m so grateful. There are people like you that do. Otherwise, I just don’t think I would not do it. And I probably wouldn’t be as financially secure as I am. The marketing that we engaged in helped me build my solo practice. When I started, it was just me and my high school, best friends and not the front answering phones. And since then, we’ve hired associates. We have a full-time investigator. I have my own building now in every office in this building is occupied by somebody who works for Jacqui Ford Law. So it’s not just making me money. I’m taking care of these people and their families. They don’t have insurance. They’ve got kids to take care of and we get to do that because the work that’s being done in the magical land of marketing that I’m so grateful for. I can never, I don’t think I would be able to do that without a good branding.
Sonya Palmer
Yeah, I think we’re excellent. And your reputation has led a lot of people to you. I do believe the pandemic accelerated that for smaller firms It’s, I don’t think you can get away without doing it anymore. Like you once could. It’s just, it’s there’s too much. Everyone just got pushed online. we see Google attempting to shift based on the amount of like queries that are now coming in because everything came online, I love that Jacqui has developed a relationship with her marketing team that allows her to do what she does best practice law Jacqui is firing on all cylinders. I wanted to know how she keeps grounded in what can be a very stressful position.
Jacqui Ford
So for me it really starts with my breath. I’m a big believer in meditation and mindfulness practices. Some people think that means I sit funny and breathe for an hour at a time and make funny noises. That is not what it is. Sometimes it is. But as a general rule, we practice breathing exercises here. When you focus on your breath and the breath going into your body and the breath coming out of your body, and you do that for any period of time, three, four minutes your body physiologically can do nothing but calm down. It’s impossible for your body to do anything about that. So I train breathing into my staff. Mike, it’s a lot of fun to say to my ex law enforcement investigator has to take a breath, Take the lights down and we breathe. We shouldn’t take a moment of silence with each other. So we do breathing techniques. One of my favorite is the box breath and per seven hold for seven out for seven hold for seven. I take walks. I think it’s really important to have an outdoor space. When we built this office, I created a really gorgeous right outside these windows outdoor space where everybody hangs out. So I had to gloss myself because I was always distracted. We go outside and we breathe. We get the sun on our face when I have the opportunity. And I’m lucky enough. I love to retreat weekend with my girls. And we do more of that. We do yoga, we do self care, we do facials. And we exercise, your body, I oftentimes say your body is your vessel of justice. And if your vessel is not strong, then the service can not be strong. So we have to take care of ourselves, what we put into our body being mindful of the amount of, alcohol or caffeine or sugar, whatever the vice is. We have to be mindful of that when I’m not feeling my best. I do a check-in what’s going on here? Am I not getting enough sleep? I drinking too much coffee, which happens more often less now than it used to I may eating garbage. So like when I’m in trial, my staff knows I have three places they’re gonna order lunch from every day. Those places are healthy, fresh, low carb but heavy and fuel, having fuel. And my whole trial team eats with me and we don’t go have burgers and fries or any of that nonsense lunches here. When we’re back from the courthouse or eating healthy, it, the gift of being mindful is invaluable. There’s no amount of money I can put on the practice. The morning practice of setting an intention for the day. We utilize slack in my own. And there’s a channel called morning check-in and the check-in is what are we setting aside today? And what is our work for the day? And maybe it’s focus. And in that we tell each other what we need. So if somebody needs to not be interrupted, you have to speak that need, otherwise we’re bugging in here, like the doors shut. They know they can’t come in here right now. 90% of the time that door is open and people are coming and going. So we speak what we need and we give each other space to do it. And when I feel the angst or the anger or the powerlessness or whatever, that’s overcoming me being aware of it as step one, doing something about it as step two, and sometimes doing something about it is just simply breathe and find the thing that brings you joy. I have a room in my office that. The kids call my angel room. I call it my Zen room, but I have paintings in there. Sometimes I paint and I’m talking $5 canvas from hobby lobby and some cheap acrylic paints and some throwaway paint brushes, but finding a way to get creative and put creativity back into the world, makes me feel young. It’s inspiring. It helps me deal with feelings so that I’m not turning to alcohol. I’m not turning to food. I’m not turning to self-destructive behavior. I’m just acknowledging it and letting it be what it is and just sitting with it. And when I love it, it goes up on a wall. When I hate it, it goes in a closet. I don’t rarely throw them away
Sonya Palmer
No.
Jacqui Ford
Because usually I can even go back to the painful pieces and find joy in them once I’m past the pain. So you just have to find your thing, whatever That thing might be before this pandemic, it was three vacations to the beach a year, looking forward
Sonya Palmer
Coming up again. Yeah, soon. I love all of that. I use a lot of that. I. I like I pay attention to like body hacks. I’m always looking for sort of ways to optimize health. And it’s funny to me how things that are fringe to some people like breath, work, the box, breathing meditation now, like medical community has turned their attention towards them because so many people are practicing them and you know what they’re finding out it’s quite effective at lowering stress and like contributing to like heart disease and things like that. Like it helps. So I,
Jacqui Ford
not. So woo woo
Sonya Palmer
person is not so woo. Yeah. Turns out. Yeah, I think treating like a whole, I do the same, the check-in have I had any water today? When was the last time I ate a vegetable things like that. So that was excellent. All right.
Jacqui Ford
You surround yourself with great people.
Sonya Palmer
Support system.
Jacqui Ford
The energy you take in from those around you is every bit, as much as the energy that I give to my clients. And so I don’t want to be an energy vampire to my friends, but those who have positive energy and who are walking this path with me are those that I lean on and I just get to call and say, Hey, can I just vent for a minute? And that vent,
Sonya Palmer
There is important too.
Jacqui Ford
Yeah. And that venting used to turn into a, let’s go get drunk and bitch about our lives, sorry, Sonya for cussing on your podcast. And now it’s usually someone holding the mirror up to me saying, as it really is bad, as you think it is girl, and we breathe through this and where’s the gratitude. I can’t believe I almost got out of here without saying gratitude. We do gratitude lists too. And I think I don’t, I will not lie to you and say that I do it every morning and night, but I do it every day, at least in the morning or the night. And if I can, I try to do it in the beginning because what a great way to sandwich. What am I grateful for at the beginning of the day? What am I grateful for at the end of the day? And that for me, reminds me when I’m tired and when I’m exhausted and when I want to quit or go sell shoes for commission. Cause that would be So much more fun. They reminds me why I do this, right? Because there is a lot of gratitude even when you’re exhausted about the impacts that we get to have on our community and leaving the world a better place than we found it.
Sonya Palmer
Successful criminal defense attorneys require an uncommon blend of empathy, grit, and grace, not just for their clients, but for themselves. When these two worlds collide, it is often the worst day of the client’s life and to show up hold space and perform at the top of their game consistently, as Jacqui said, to be selfless, you first have to be selfish. The only way the system works is if we are all in it together. Jacqui fights for what she believes in opening doors for other women along the way. I love that her bravery and strength allow her to cut new paths for women while finding the time to establish a grounded center. When we care for ourselves, we have the capacity to be our best for others. A huge thank you to Jacqui wood for sharing her story and unbelievable insights with us today, you have been listening to with me, Sonya Palmer. If you found this content insightful, inspiring, or just made you smile. Please share this episode with the trailblazer in your life. And for more about Jacqui Ford, please check our show notes while you’re there. Please leave us a review or a five-star rating. It really goes a long way for others to discover the show. And I’ll see you next week on LawHer, where we’ll shed light on how another of the brightest and boldest women in the legal industry climbed to the top of their field.
