Pasadena Criminal Defense and Personal Injury Attorney Ted Tedford sits down with Rob Anspach and shares his thoughts on establishing liability, negotiating the legal system, pain management, mentoring, integrity and self-care on episode 230 of the E-Heroes podcast. This is Part 5 of 5.
Rob Anspach:
I’m going to switch gears here a little bit just to talk about cars. I’m not a big fan of Tesla. I’ve driven in them. I’ve, I’ve gone to the factory tour. I just don’t think they’re the safest cars out there.
Ted Tedford:
No, definitely not. I’ve seen a ton of those Tesla car accidents already where it’s, it’s quite obvious that it’s not user error.
Rob Anspach:
Right. You know with most gas powered cars they have an engine and motor mounts, which are going to help slow the crumple or the accident, Teslas don’t have that. They have this empty trunk space. And there’s nothing but your legs that are going to get crumpled, so not a big fan.
Ted Tedford:
No. And not to mention the automated driving features that people, maybe they misuse them, but I don’t think it’s necessarily misuse because I think that even Elon Musk has come out and talked about how these cars should be able to drive themselves. Yeah. And that’s just not true. It’s not the fact. And as a result, we have people dying and getting injured every day.
Rob Anspach:
Here in Pennsylvania, we have a lot of deer that jump out in front of cars. I don’t know if they’re that big of a deal in California, but there are dogs and cats and a lot of times the sensors on the EVs that, especially Teslas even in auto drive, they’ll try to slam on the brakes to try to save that animal. Well now the car is in an accident. To me it’s like, Nope, I’m just going to smash right into the cat or dog. Because to me human existence is better. At least in my point.
Ted Tedford:
Well, I mean, I do, I think so, and I think the problem with Tesla’s automated driving system is that it creates a false sense of security. And then you tend to have these weird type situations where people are reading a book while they’re driving down the highway, or I’ve seen video on YouTube of people in the backseat while the car is driving. And you can’t tell me that they can, they can do anything about something that happens very suddenly.
Rob Anspach:
And now Tesla’s getting into building semis and I just can’t imagine having those on the road. The liability on those is going to be enormous.
Ted Tedford:
I had an attorney tell me 10 years ago that by now personal injury lawyers and especially ones that handle auto cases were going to be obsolete because of everything that Google and Tesla and all of them were doing with automated driving systems. And I laughed and I said, no, that’s not going to happen.
Rob Anspach:
No. And the amount of EV cars getting into accidents are starting to exceed the gas powered cars.
Ted Tedford:
For sure.
Rob Anspach:
We’re going to need lawyers well into the future. I’ll be long gone. You guys will still be around. <laugh>,
Ted Tedford:
<laugh>. I’ll be with you, <laugh>. It’ll be the next generation.
Rob Anspach:
We got a few minutes. Let’s talk about the next generation. What’s some of the things that you’re doing to leave that legacy for the next generation of lawyers?
Ted Tedford:
You know, what’s interesting, one of the things that I get a lot of pleasure out of is mentoring other lawyers. And I’ve done that my whole career. I was lucky enough to have a couple of attorneys who were senior to me that took me under their wing and they tried to teach me how to be a lawyer the right way. Be a lawyer with dignity, with ethics, and really take care about your clients. I’ve tried to pass that onto the next generation to the lawyers that work in my office and even a lot of my opposing counsel. I had this trial I just finished in San Jose, the prosecutors in his early thirties, and he’s a tremendous lawyer. He was very good but very unhappy in his job. And he’s reached out to me since the trial and he wants to get together, he wants to talk and he wants to learn about what I’ve done and, and how I stay positive and how I am able to be happy in this business.
Rob Anspach:
Yeah.
Ted Tedford:
I thought that was very interesting.
Rob Anspach:
And I think with everything that you do for your clients, staying happy is the key. But most lawyers can’t do it for, for this amount of time and not feel the burden.
Ted Tedford:
Well if you can’t, I mean, I’m only 30 years old. The white hair and everything <laugh>. No, I get it. I’ve talked to many lawyers, I’ve talked to my family members who say, “we don’t know how you do this”. I mean, day in and day out year after year. And I think that it’s important to take care of yourself. I can’t stress self-care enough in this business. You can’t become dependent on drugs and alcohol. You can’t neglect yourself. And so I try to take care of myself. I work out at least three or four times a week and meditate and do all the things that I can to sort of insulate myself from the stress and the pressure so that I can continue to help my clients.
Rob Anspach:
Yeah. I can’t even tell you the last time I even drank a beer. For me it was like all my friends were like come to my party, we have… and I was like nah, I think I’ll just stay home.
Ted Tedford:
Don’t get me wrong, I still like cocktails, <laugh>. But it’s not an everyday thing anymore. Like when I was a kid and thought it was a lot of fun to party, but now it’s all moderation.
Rob Anspach:
Yeah. And I think that’s the key. And this is great. We could probably talk about this all day long. And absolutely. And my listeners will probably be amazed at the stories that you would tell. What I want you to guys to do, if you’re listening, please go to, www.tedfordlaw.com, read some of the blogs because they’ll have a lot more stories in there, and learn about Ted. And if you’re thinking about going into law or being a lawyer or even learning how to have more compassion being an entrepreneur seeTed. Ted’s an E-Hero. So thanks. Thanks Ted. And for everyone else, we’ll see you on the next episode.
Ted Tedford:
Appreciate it. Thank you.
This concludes the interview.
