Episode 12: Adrienne Grover
California Court of Appeal, Sixth Appellate District
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Show Notes
Justice Adrienne Grover of the California Court of Appeal, Sixth District, discusses her path to the bench and her views on the justice system. She also gives sound advice for both advocates and lawyers aspiring to become judges.
Relevant episode links:
California Court of Appeals Sixth Appellate District
About Justice Adrienne Grover
Justice Adrienne Grover
Adrienne Grover was named to the Sixth District Court of Appeal by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. in 2012. Before her elevation to the Court of Appeal, she was a Judge of the Monterey County Superior Court from 2002 to 2012, serving as Presiding Judge in 2009 and 2010. Justice Grover handled trial court assignments in criminal law, family law, drug treatment court, juvenile dependency, and mental health.
Before her appointment to the bench, Justice Grover served as the County Counsel for Monterey County, and as a Deputy County Counsel in Monterey and Calaveras Counties, working primarily in the areas of land use, water, transportation, and local taxation. She was an associate at the San Francisco firm of Long & Levit before beginning her work in the public sector.
Justice Grover received her law degree in 1990 from Santa Clara University School of Law. She received her bachelor’s degree in Linguistics from the University of California-Berkeley and pursued graduate studies as a Rotary International Foundation Scholar at the Universität Bamberg in Germany.
Justice Grover has taught Real Property at the Monterey College of Law, where she continues to serve as an adjunct faculty member. Through the education division of the Judicial Council of California, she regularly serves as faculty in courses for new and experienced judges on ethics, communication, and access to the courts.
Transcript
In this episode, I have Justice Adrienne Grover from the California Court of Appeal Sixth Appellate District. I'm so pleased that you could join us for this.
I appreciate you thinking of including me. Thank you.
We're going to start a little bit with your journey into the law, how you decided to become a lawyer. I know it might be a little different in your case because you do have some lawyers in your family. Some folks don't.
I have one lawyer in my family, that was my dad. As a result, it was the last thing I wanted to do. There was no way I was going to be a lawyer. It was a long time coming. He didn't share his work a lot with me. I could observe it from a distance and I thought, “That sounds dry. Maybe you're always involved in disputes or something.” It didn't appeal to me at all. It was through talking to other people who would give me a different take on it, like, “No, legal training is a way that you can help the community. If you're committed to social issues, it gives you tools to do all kinds of things.”
It broadened my view of it a little bit more than looking at what I could see him doing. Finally, he's the one. He was reluctant to talk to me about what I should do. Finally, he said, “You'd be good at it. You would like it.” He gave me permission. He said, “If you don't like it, don't follow through. Quit after the first semester. Whatever.” It turned out to be different from what I had originally thought. I have enjoyed it ever since. It is true that it is training that gives you the tools to do so many things.
Also, what it means to be a lawyer is so different depending on what practice you do. It's a very different thing. There's a lot more variety in that than most people think.
That's a nice thing, too. You might want to be a litigator and be in the trial court, handle appeals, work on documents and transactional things, help people in a legal aid capacity or something like that. It is probably one of the most broad careers that anyone could pursue.
What law did you practice before the bench?
I was in a litigation firm. I'm grateful for the introduction to that structure and the things that we did, but I wanted to do work that directly impacted my community. I started looking into public sector law jobs. At least back then, they were hard to come by. People had a lot of job satisfaction, so there weren’t a lot of turnovers.
There weren't a lot of new jobs being created. I did end up getting a job in the Calaveras County Counsel's Office in the Sierra Foothills, a very rural community, small office, small community. Only one city in the county. There were no traffic lights in the whole county, but it was a three-person office. Immediately as a young lawyer, I was able to do all kinds of things. I took on a lot of responsibility that you wouldn't get that soon in a larger office. I moved to the County Counsel's Office in Monterey County and ultimately became the county council. It was great practice and I will put in a plug for going into municipal law or other public law offices because you do get an amazing variety of issues and a lot of hands-on experience.
Did you also take the cases all the way up if there were? There's a lot of new issues, novel issues often in those cases. Did you take appeals as well as trial work?
You don't know where the opportunities are going to be, so seize them when they come to you, but be open to all kinds of different paths or detours.
Sometimes, a couple of them. Particularly, I worked a lot in the land-use area. Also, in some water issues, transportation issues. There were cases that we did have the opportunity to participate in the appellate level two.
Did you happen to clerk for a judge anytime or did you go straight into practice?
I went straight into practice.
Some judges have clerked themselves prior to joining the bench and get that insight that way.
It's not something that I had my sights set on, so I went right into practice.
From practice then from county counsel position to the bench, did you join the trial court bench first? How did you decide to do that? How did you decide, “I'd like to switch to the bench?”
Yes. It was a complete surprise to me. That was something that I didn't foresee even as I was practicing. I loved being the county counsel and being involved in all the issues and advising the board of supervisors and working directly in making regulations, defending regulations, all kinds of things. It was one of our local judges who I was talking to about getting an order signed. He said, “Do you have a minute?” He told me he was planning to retire and he wanted me to consider applying to take his place. It was a complete surprise. I did not see that coming and had not thought about it as a career path. That was a pivotal change there.
That's lovely, especially a judge in front of whom you were appearing who had seen your work, who then suggested that to you. A lot of the stories I hear from women who've joined the bench is they say, “Somebody else suggested this or recommended it or pointed it out to me, then I went for it.”
It's not a bad thing because there is an adage. Anybody who wants to be a judge, maybe they shouldn't be, which is not true, but it is something that you sometimes allow to come to you rather than setting your sights on it.
Also, humility is a good character trait to have as a judge as well. It's good to have that. There are some people who would say from the beginning or from the time they started law school, they knew or were very interested in becoming a judge and had this path laid out that they thought was the path to becoming a judge. One of the things that's helpful and I've learned from interviewing women on the bench from all over in this show is that there is no one path. Even if there might be a perfect path, it isn't. People come from so many different practices and they come serendipitously sometimes to the application process. It's only for those who didn't plan from their infancy. You can still look into it.
Part of that is there are so many variables. It boils down to the right place, right time and as someone told me, “It's the right person in the right place at the right time,” but you don't know where the opportunities are going to be. Seize them when they come to you but be open to all kinds of different paths of detours rather than saying, “I'm not going to take that chance because it might affect my ability to become a judge.” No, I think the more opportunities you take, the more experiences you have and the more contacts you're making will probably enhance that path.
That's a common thread as well. There's some service, whether it's directly through your job as you had at county council or if you're doing bar service or community service or some pro bono work. There's usually some service aspect that is a thread through someone's career that leads to a judicial position.
You think about it because there's some connection to the community there, whether you're appointed or elected. Either that's something that the governor's office wants to see and that's something that the legal community supports or that's something that people in the community will want to vote for or identify you with.
No matter which selection process, that's important. Most often, you hear it regarding appointments, but that's true as well. If you're running for an elected office, people want to see this isn't the first time you thought about doing something for the community. That's important there, too. Were you on at the superior court or municipal court at that time?
Superior court. In fact, I was appointed in 2002. There were no more municipal courts by that point.
That's what I was wondering. I can't remember the time that it moved together all into one superior court. How was your time on the trial bench and what kinds of variety of cases did you hear?
I loved the trial court. It is truly one of the great jobs in the world, trial court judge. I was on the trial court for ten years. When my mentor judge was retiring and encouraging me to apply, I was appearing before him in civil matters, civil on motion, civil litigation, written mandate, things of that nature. One of the reasons perhaps that he was encouraging me was looking at the local bench and saying, “We need to preserve some civil expertise.” I went into it thinking, “Great. I will continue in some of these practice areas and primarily civil.” That's probably not the case for most people. The reality is that the majority of work of the courts is in the criminal arena.
That was a surprise to me. I remember the governor's appointment secretary when I was talking to him. He said, “Why do you want to be a judge? What are you going to bring? We need civil expertise on our bench.” He laughed and he said, “You wouldn't touch a civil case for at least five years. You're going to start out with doing it on whatever,” which I guess I didn't appreciate at the time, but once you get to the trial court, you realize rather quickly for one thing you go where you're assigned.
If your expectation is, in my case, for example, I went from being the head of a law office to going where you're assigned and putting in your request for vacation time that might not be granted depending on the senior people getting it first. That's a bit of an adjustment. That was a surprise to me that starting in 2002. From then on, the vast majority of my work has been criminal. It's nice to be able to do both. It has been both a surprise, a welcome surprise. I've been content to work in criminal and civil cases.
That's part of the breadth of the bench as well. Exactly that. Even if you come and bring a certain experience to the position, you may not be hearing those kinds of cases for some time. I know commonly yes, criminal assignments or family law assignments or things like that are the first things that you would have. Sometimes people stay in those because they enjoy those, as it turns out.
Family law is often assigned to more experienced judges, at least in our county. As a colleague of mine now retired from a different court said, “That's the high platform diving of judging.” You need some foundation, whether from practice or judicial experience in criminal law, simply because that's so much of the work of the courts. You'll find yourself working in family law or juvenile dependency or working in all kinds of assignments that you didn't even know existed, maybe as a litigator because you're focusing on your one practice area.
You see the breadth of everything that's covered in the courts.
It’s very revitalizing and energizing at a fairly mature point in your career to all of a sudden be thrown in and you're doing something new. That's part of the appeal I think of being on the trial court.
The best advocates are really engaged.
That's a good way of describing it, too. At a certain point, you do have to gain a level of expertise in an area as a practitioner and you don't have those as many a-ha moments as you do when you're learning a whole new area again and diving into that. That is a benefit of the judicial position for sure at that point. You were on the trial bench for ten years. How did you decide that you wanted new challenges or that somebody approached you again regarding the Court of Appeals?
It was someone on my current court retiring and encouraging me to apply for her position, which I did. It shows you the importance of mentorship and encouragement.
In that case, which you had appeared in front of her as well or did you know her from bar association things? How did she know to reach out to you?
I had known her as a colleague on the trial court. She went to the Court of Appeal. When she was ready to retire, she suggested that I put my name in.
Did you take her position or another position?
Technically, I took another position because there were two vacancies at a similar time.
It gave you the impetus and you knew there were openings, so it all worked out. That's so fascinating. That's the first time I've heard that it was a judge or justice on the court itself that suggested that in both circumstances. On the Court of Appeals, that's very different. It's much more cloistered first of all, but then the trial court. There is still a huge variety of cases.
In fact, you get maybe a broader variety because you're not sitting in a single court assignment. Still in my court, easily more than half, something probably approaching 2/3 of our cases is criminal, but you will have everything else. You'll have civil family, juvenile, probate, all kinds of things. There’s tremendous variety in the Court of Appeals.
I'll mix them together because you're getting all of them. I'm thinking in terms of opinion writing as well, so you would write opinions, but they're not published opinions at the trial court level but the Court of Appeals, some of them are published for precedent-setting. Do you approach published opinions and unpublished opinions differently when you're drafting them?
As a general matter, no. If you know going in, this is a significant case and it will be published. There's a lot of attention paid to how you're articulating everything about the case, but we try to do that. I try to do that with even unpublished opinions because you never know when you're going to get a request for publication. I had one where I didn't realize in that particular industry how common this issue was. You've already filed the opinion. You want to make sure that it's publishable quality to be able to grant that when you're persuaded that it should be. We try to do in very narrow routine matters where everyone's entitled to an appeal of right, but we don't have to explain as much about the existing precedent.
We can rely on it because the case is very similar to cases that have already been divided. We will try to do that by memorandum opinion or something a little bit briefer. Otherwise, when dealing with multiple issues, some of them are fairly new or less common. I don't think there's a lot of difference between the unpublished and the published opinion in terms of the quality of the analysis and what goes into it. Now, with all the opinions online, everyone can see unpublished opinions. In the old days, they were mailed to counsel and that was it. Now, everyone can see it. Even though they can't cite it or rely on it, sometimes they'll want to see what the reasoning was. It has narrowed the gap between published and unpublished status.
That's a good observation because people will look at it if there isn't a published decision that explains an analysis or how to apply it in a particular circumstance. The natural thing is to say, “It's at least an unpublished opinion.” Some court somewhere has done this exercise that I can track and maybe help me out in my briefing. It's available to everyone quite easily. They're going to look for it. That's true. In terms of brief writing and also the oral argument, I'll ask the question with regard to both of them. What are 1 or 2 things that lawyers appearing in front of you could do the most to help you? Both with writing their briefs on appeal and also with oral argument.
Pro tips for brief writing, take the time to write a shorter brief. There is that famous quote that's been attributed to a number of justices. I don't know whose it was, but it was, “If I'd had more time, I'd have written a shorter opinion. If I'd had more time, I'd have written a shorter fill-in-the-blank.” Take that time. Write what you need to write but then do take the extra day to go through and try to tighten it so that you're being succinct.
Sometimes people will see the final product of a brief and say, “That looks very simple. I could do that.” You think to yourself, “Only after 15 or 20 drafts and this and that.” It should look simple and obvious and it should track and follow and all of that, but it isn't simple. It takes time to do that.
In my view, longer is not better. That's not to say that we don't give all the adequate time to digest a lengthy brief and sometimes it has to be long. Sometimes when you know it doesn't have to be that long and it is. It doesn't affect the outcome, but it makes my life easier if it's succinct, tight, lively, well-written, crisp, brief. The other tip appellate briefs that I will offer is to pay attention to your headings and subheadings with an eye toward what your ultimate table of contents is going to look like because here's the insider view. If I pick up a set of briefs or now, read them online, or I want a quick introduction to what this case is about, I will often go to the tables of contents first and read how the argument read, what is this case about.
The preparation of a table of contents is sometimes a task that is either done automatically by software or given to a paralegal. When crafting the headings, if you do it with an eye toward stringing them together so that you can look at a 1 or 2-page table of contents and get the idea of the case, it's helpful for me and any other justice who looks to that, the first taste of what the case is about.
I do the same thing. I start the brief with the headings. I make sure that's my outline and I make sure the headings all make sense together. Is there anything missing? If I read that, would I know the whole story and how those arguments into really? If not, then we need to fix them because that's the first thing I read too when I get the other side of the brief. I open it to the table of contents and review that. Sometimes the contents don't match the table of contents, like what the heading says doesn't match the argument underneath it doesn't encapsulate it. I find that to be the shortcut way that I use as well. It's heartening to hear that you take the same approach with that.
It's something that gets neglected sometimes. It's one more opportunity to give the elevator speech about what your case is about.
What about oral argument pro tips?
One of the most important things is to be the expert on your record because that's something where we might want to dig in with you. We might want to clarify something or we might be under a mistaken impression about some aspect of the record. Being the expert on it so that you can either correct us, send us in the right direction or have the information that we're looking for us, that's extremely helpful. The other oral argument tip is to try to be conversational with the court.
By that, I don't mean jocular or informal but listen to the questions that are being put to you and address that question rather than, “That has to do with one of my canned arguments here. I'm going to answer it this way.” Listen to maybe the nuance of what we're trying to get at because we could be divided about something, wondering about something. We could be giving you your last opportunity to straighten us out about something or we could be using the question to maybe get to another place in the case or get the benefit of the more nuanced analysis. It’s important to listen to the questions and engage in that conversation with the court.
A formal conversation, not informal. To listen is important.
The best advocates are engaged that way. They are enjoying the conversation. It's an interesting exploration of this topic for them. You can hear that they are enjoying the opportunity to engage with us about things and persuade us. That's where the best advocacy comes from.
See the world as others see it. It's a healthy place to start and a healthy way to look at where other people are coming from.
Do you know that being on the bench is different than being in practice in terms of certain things you cannot do when you're a judge that you could do as an advocate, especially in the community? I've also heard people say that being a judge opens the door for other kinds of leadership, whether that's being able to bring people together in the community or convene people around issues. I was wondering what your view was with regard to leadership on the bench.
There are opportunities to certainly improve the function of the courts and the legal system by looking for opportunities within the courts themselves. That might be participating in committees or policymaking, procedure making in the courts or looking at your own court and saying, “There's a need here.” There's a group of litigants here who would benefit from a particular program or a court for veterans who find themselves in the system or juvenile drug court or designing programs to help families who come into the dependency system and look holistically at what people need.
There are opportunities to lead by identifying needs and innovating around how the courts function so internally. As you say externally, suddenly, “You're judge so-and-so, you do have greater access maybe.” A bigger megaphone sometimes, but it's by virtue of the job. It's not that all of a sudden you have more to offer or your ideas are better. You're the same person with the same experience, but suddenly, you have a status that may be perceived as being elevated somehow.
That is a two-sided coin because, on the one hand, it does give you the opportunity to engage maybe differently with a higher profile in the community, but you need to be careful about that because if you've got the bigger megaphone, you need to be circumspect about what you're saying with it. There, in particular, judges need to be careful that they are only participating in things that either have to do with the legal system and its improvement or that somehow they are not lending the courts authority or prestige to an organization or an issue, so that their participation as a judge isn't what's driving it. It's them as individuals bringing ideas. They're bringing ideas and experiencing input but not bringing prestige or status somehow.
That's why I was saying there's a fine line when you are outside the court. That's why the best description, at least that I'd heard, was this convening dialogues. If you call and you have honorable in front of your name, somebody who's more willing to agree to have a community meeting or to at least come to discuss issues, then you need to step back from that, but at least, you've created a space for those discussions to happen.
That's a good way of putting it because all kinds of things happen when all of a sudden you're Judge so-and-so. As you say, you have a bit more influence, perhaps. People take your calls, will listen to you, more willing to participate. You'll get invitations to sit on boards and do various things. It's something that, as judges, we always need to be mindful of. Not get carried away and think, “Here I am. I'm so valuable,” when it might be a function of the status because people laugh at your jokes more too.
That's what I've heard, like, “Suddenly I got so much funnier. I don’t know how that happened overnight.”
We all need to remind ourselves maybe that's the phenomenon that's happening.
At the same time, if you can create opportunities for discussions to happen that otherwise might not, you feel like, “I want to try to do that if I can.”
Maybe you're the person who's identifying an issue from your perspective in the courts, from where you see things and encouraging others to take a look at it also.
You have a vantage point to see issues that others might not see, especially regarding the court system. If you see a gap and access to justice or something else, they could use some innovation around that. You're the one that can see that. Advocates of the individual cases may not see a larger trend that you would see. You mentioned in the judicial round to mentor judges in terms of applying to your appointments. Two questions. First, did you have mentors similarly in private practice, in the county counsel's office? Also, is there a particular judge who's on the bench now that you particularly admire or think? I'd like to emulate some of the things that that judge does.
Thinking about my time as an attorney and specifically as county counsel, I was fortunate to have the mentorship of another county counsel. I'll give her a shout-out, Ann Ravel. She was the Santa Clara County Counsel when I became the Monterey County Counsel. At that time, out of California's 58 counties, I think there were probably about five women county counsels. It was great to have someone who had been in the position, who had some more seniority, was more seasoned. She was encouraging and selfless in bringing me along. I know that she's done that for many people at various levels, men, women, lawyers, judges, all kinds of people. I know she's very generous that way and looks for those opportunities.
I was fortunate because I became the county counsel fairly suddenly because of the departure of my predecessor. It was nice to have someone who could give me some guidance. I do look for opportunities to do that as well. There have been a couple of people that I have encouraged to pursue judicial careers. As we talked about, that's what happened to me. It's nice when you can suggest that to people who otherwise might not think about it.
It's important to pay it forward, especially at a certain point in your career. You become more focused on that, thinking, “I'm not going to be around forever. What about the next group that's coming up? How can I facilitate their careers?”
You did ask about whether there's a judge that I admire. The judges that I admire and make a note of their work or precedents are those who demonstrate great courage in the position. As a judge, you need to be so committed to doing the right thing in whatever cases come to you. If it's an unpopular decision that nonetheless the law calls for, that's certainly what you have to do even if it ultimately would cost you your job that people would say, “That's it. I'd rather elect a different incumbent to that position. Fine.”
You have to approach every decision being true to the law. Those judges who are either handling very difficult controversial cases, maybe who step up and demonstrate a lot of courage or who are bold and see what the legal solution needs to be and are not afraid to press forward for it. Those are the judges that make a note of and would try to emulate, certainly if I ever I had the opportunity to do that. Thelton Henderson comes to mind as a courageous pioneer in many ways but also in so many of the cases that he handled and had an eye toward pursuing justice in every case and was not afraid to go there.
He’s legendary for that, as a matter of fact. I'm glad that you fleshed out a little bit of what you meant about courage because that's what I was going to ask, “What does courage look like? What does that mean?” There's a lot of different ways that can show up.
I don't mean to suggest that it's in these high-profile cases where everybody's looking at it. It could be in a very small context, but in any case, it's something that you know is going to be a difficult decision and you have to do it to be true to what the law requires of you.
If you're making that decision on an appellate bench, you have colleagues as well. You have your courage, convictions, and what the law demands, but you would only be a dissent if you were the only one to have that view. Courage also involves the discussions with colleagues at the appellate level in a way I would think. Otherwise, you can't have that be a majority opinion.
It's nice to have the ability to flush things out with two other people and say, “What's the right thing here?” You're at the top of the pyramid in the trial court, right or wrong. You get to make the decision. Sometimes in the Court of Appeals, I think, “I'm right on this case and I'll talk to my two colleagues about it.” They'll say, “Not so much,” so discussion begins. Many times, I'm grateful for their input and feel like, “Thank you for sending me straight,” or other times, you say, “Let's explore this a little bit, or let's hear your argument and you can persuade people.” That is a benefit of the Court of Appeals. You do have two other colleagues to help you refine your viewpoint.
That's important in the practice of appellate laws. I know there are sole practitioners, but maybe it's my background being in boutique firms and larger firms or whatever, but I feel like the best analysis and the brief writing and the strategy comes, not when you're looking, doing the research yourself but when you go through the issues and vet them and talk about different approaches or, “What if we argue it this way? No, we should argue it this other way.” That's how you get the most robust thinking and applications in appellate law. I'm on board with that thing in the practice arena as well.
Sometimes it's difficult or less convenient or you think, “I have to change this now?” In the end, I'm always grateful for the input. Maybe it's something that I hadn't seen or maybe it's someone saying, “I don't quite agree with that. We need to structure this a different way,” but the product is always better.
We don't know how long life will last, so you should be content with whatever happens to you tomorrow.
That's usually my goal, too. I'm like, “I want this to be the best brief and the best presentation or the best opinion, in your case.” We have to hash it out to make that happen because my goal is the best end goal. It might be messy on the way, but I'd rather do that and have the best of the best guidance, the clearest position, things like that.
It's gratifying to do that to get it to the clarity that you want it to be. Especially for additional opinions because those are guideposts for lawyers and parties, how do we proceed. It's important to have people thinking about different aspects of it. “This could be interpreted this way in another case. I didn't see that. We don't want to do that. We're deciding the case in front of us.” I have a little lightning-round question. How it goes, what your quick response is. Which talent would you most like to have?
Probably something musical, having a great solo voice or being talented with an instrument. It's something universal about that. Regardless of how polarized or otherwise disagreeing people are, there's something about music that speaks to the human spirit that can bring us all together.
It's like a common thread. Do you enjoy being the listener of the music, even if you weren't singing or playing?
I do, but I also do sing in a choir but as a chorus star, not as a soloist.
What is one trait that you most deplore in yourself?
Admittedly, this is an easy one. It is perfectionism, which has its value to a degree but not too much.
There are upsides and downsides to things. The positive and negative. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability, what would it be?
Mind reading.
Who are your favorite writers or if you don't have favorite writers, what's your favorite word?
There are too many fabulous words to choose from. One of my favorite writers of appellate opinions, I’ll give a shout out to my colleague on the Second District, Arthur Gilbert. His opinions are always worth a read. I don't always agree with them, but I think he's got a great style and appreciation for the written opinion. Nonfiction writer John McPhee can take the most narrow, mundane topic and make it fascinating. Fiction, I have long been a fan of Umberto Eco. I am newly a fan of James McBride and the vibrancy of his storytelling and characters.
That's quite a wide variety of our reading lists, too. That's so interesting. Sometimes you build us out. I like to read a particular thing. I’m all over the board. I think good writing is good writing in all different forms. It's nice to appreciate that. When you said from the Second District, I was right away thinking it's going to be Justice Gilbert. I have the same view of his writing. It's so crisp and it's great. Who is your hero in real life?
I don't know that I can identify a single person, a real person that I would put in that category.
Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you want as a dinner guest?
I'm going to take some license with that question. I know it says in the world, so maybe the reasonable inference is someone living, but I'm going to look broadly at the world and say William Shakespeare because looking at his body of work to the extent it was all written by him. What a feel for the human experience, human nature, romance, history, division, drama, emotions, comedy. What a view of humanity he had, and because this is a dinner party context, it has to be someone that you would want to have a meal with. He would be pretty lively and entertaining.
It's such an interesting perspective on human nature. It's such a wide variety that you would think there'd be a lot of topics we could talk about to be more than cocktails.
My guess is he would be a good consumer of food and beverage also.
Last question, what is your motto? If you have one.
I have a professional motto and a personal motto. Professional motto, see the world as others see it and not that you'll get to their viewpoint, but I think it's a healthy place to start and a healthy way to look at where other people are coming from. My personal motto, which I would put on a family crest if I had one, is memento mori, which sounds a little more better. Remember death, but you have to live in a way so that when we don't know how long it's going to last and so that you would be content with whatever happens to you tomorrow.
That's a beautiful way to end. That's great to remind people to be present and for another one, carpe diem, seize the day. I like both of those mottos. Those are good. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing some of your journey and your insights. I appreciate your being here. Thank you so much, Justice Grover.
It's my pleasure. I wish you success with the project.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.