Escape From L.A.

We almost live as close to Los Angeles as we do to San Diego. I think if it weren’t for the traffic in the LA basin, we might think of Los Angeles as our nearby city. Occasionally, and especially when we plan international travel, we look at the flights coming and going from LAX. It always surprises me when we can’t do considerably better either in terms of schedule or price flying out of LAX rather than SAN, but I’ll rack that up to the strength of the San Diego air service rather than any weakness in the options involving LAX. Whenever we’re heading anywhere more than a one day drive around San Diego county we invariably have to go through the LA basin. That includes when we are going to Las Vegas or Utah or almost anywhere. The biggest reason for that are the combination of the Mojave desert and the Anza Borego desert, as well as a couple of briny lakes like the Salton Sea. I always dread driving into the LA basin somewhat because of the sprawl that it represents, but mostly because of the always-busy traffic, which never seems to let up regardless of the time of day or night. It’s somewhat surprising how rarely we go to LA. Both Kim and I have friends and family in LA, but unless you count visiting Kim‘s sister Sharon and her husband Woo in Camarillo, we really don’t go up that often.

Several of the expert witness cases I’ve had required me to come up to LA to either do a deposition or give testimony. That’s what I’m doing this week. It so happens that the lawyer representing the respondent in a FINRA arbitration does business from his office in LA.(actually, one of the coastal beach towns that is part of LA). Well, this arbitration is being held in law offices in downtown LA and yet I’ve been asked to stay in a hotel in his beach town near his office so we can talk on the commute downtown. This struck me has a reasonable request because, God knows, I have no interest in going and staying at some expensive hotel in downtown LA. I should’ve known something was amiss when the lawyer asked me several times if I was really OK with staying at this beach town hotel he recommended.

This hotel is in the sprawl of Los Angeles and could probably be almost anywhere. It’s basically one suburban strip mall after another with occasional small hotels and restaurants here and there. Nothing too severe, but equally, nothing particularly nice about it. I drove my electric truck up for 100 miles and, given its mileage limitations, I thought it was best to charge the truck for my return trip when I got in. I found an EV charging station right across the street from the hotel so before checking in, I sat in my truck, listened to the end of today’s hearing via a zoom audio connection, trying not to be too obtrusive. Then, realizing that the hotel didn’t have any food service, I decided to grab a bite at a little Italian place that happened to be situated right next to the charging station. I actually had a pretty good meal of penne à la vodka and then drove over to the hotel to check in. This is a $185 a night hotel in a major city. That should tell you everything you need to know about the quality of the hotel. The truth is, the room is just fine, and has all the basics for one or two nights, but to say that it feels like what the world thinks of when it thinks of LA, would be an understatement. What do I mean? Begin with the first room I was given. It was a duplex with a spiral staircase up to a bedroom loft, I immediately decided to switch rooms. Who needs to be stumbling down a spiral staircase in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. I asked for another room on one level and was given a standard double queen room with a big flatscreen TV. I know from recently pricing these TVs at Costco, this is now a $350 item which is really quite amazing given that I spent $6,000 for a much smaller unit than this, when the plasma TVs came out 25 years ago.

Tomorrow morning, I will run across the street to my lawyers office at 8 AM and we will drive together into downtown LA where the hearing is being held. Even though I booked two nights in this Beachside hotel, I am hoping that we will finish with my testimony in one day, and that I will be able to slip out of LA in the dead of night.

But no such luck. I spent an hour driving into downtown LA and then seven hours in the hearing and while I did get on the stand to begin my testimony, I had just finished my direct testimony when 5 o’clock was upon us. It was clear that my cross-examination would have to take place tomorrow, but the opposing attorney decided to use the 15 minutes left of the day today starting in on me. Part of the job of the opposing attorney is to do everything he can do to impeach me as an expert witness. That means it gets nasty, and sure enough he laid into me like a pro, making me go through the cases I have acted as an expert on and reminding the arbitrator of all the things I hadn’t done as an expert witness. I find that funny since if you are light on domain experience and heavy on expert witness experience that’s hardly a winning strategy. I think I’ve gotten to the point where I have both, extremely deep domain experience and now with 15 or 16 cases under my belt, lots of good experience giving testimony. Nevertheless, it was his job to make it seem as though I had barely any experience. He also managed to mention everything that I hadn’t done for instance never having been an investment advisor rather than having just managed investment advisors. And then, of course he ended on my personal favorite, which was a purposeful recitation of the Bear Stearns hedge fund debacle, which is always fun to remember.

None of this was new and I’ve certainly survived this all before, but I won’t tell you that it gets easier being dragged through my own personal failures yet again. You think I’d be used to it by now and in a way I am, but also in an important and probably valuable way, these episodes remind me to be humble and recognize that I’ve had my share of setbacks in my career. But I carried on and actually got in a lot of good licks in terms of debunking the opposition’s position and I feel in total, we are in a much stronger place than they are and I fully expect That our side will prevail in this arbitration.

I’m staying another night at the lovely beach hotel having ordered dinner from GrubHub and watching two old Tom Hanks movies on TV. Tomorrow, I will drive my truck in to downtown LA and do my best to figure out the parking. I will go early to avoid getting in a panic over, figuring out where I have to go. We start at 10 AM and I would expect that my cross examination and any redirect will be done in less than two hours so that I will be on the road by noon, hopefully a little bit ahead of the normal Friday “escape from LA” traffic. This will be the end of my involvement in this case and I will have put in about 75 hours in two months. At this exact moment, my busy hearing schedule of the last two weeks has left me with little to do in the expert witness arena for the next few weeks, at which time I will hope that there will be another case that will kick up and demand some of my time. The nature of this beast is that you go from being very busy to being very quiet. Feast or famine as they say. Snake Plisken would understand.