Episode Details

Gino Brogdon Jr. is an Atlanta trial lawyer, award-winning mediator and entrepreneur who has spent his career learning how people think, negotiate and make difficult decisions.

In this episode of Sports ’N Torts, Gino joins Josh for a wide-ranging conversation about the experiences that shaped his career and the lessons he has learned from more than 2,000 mediations.

Gino shares the unconventional path that helped him launch his own law firm—including working as a personal trainer before and after his day job and saving the $15,000 he earned to start his practice. That story leads to one of the episode's central ideas, advice passed down from one of his wife's mentors: “It's either triumph or tuition.” You either succeed, or you pay for an experience that teaches you something valuable.

Josh and Gino also dig into the importance of relationships and trust in the practice of law, why lawyers may have lost some of the ability to simply pick up the phone and talk to each other, and what thousands of mediations have taught Gino about reading people, negotiation, credibility and human behavior.

The conversation gets personal as Gino discusses how becoming a father changed the way he experiences emotionally difficult cases, why authenticity matters when working with people going through tragedy, and why even his trademark three-piece suits are part of showing people that he takes their case seriously.

Along the way, Josh and Gino talk AI, psychology, trial experience, mediation strategy, brackets, the value of reps, the importance of understanding how your actions are perceived by the other side—and why sometimes the best education comes from the things that don't go according to plan.

Show Notes

• Why Gino's mediation calendar stays so busy
• The importance of following up after mediation—even when the case doesn't settle that day
• Why lawyers actually answer the phone when Gino calls
• Building relationships through the small touchpoints that happen along the way
• Why trust between lawyers has changed—and whether that has contributed to the rise of mediation
• The lost art of simply picking up the phone and calling opposing counsel
• Why having lunch with the lawyer on the other side can change the entire tone of a case
• Why Gino views mediation as a process rather than a single day
• Mediation briefs vs. a candid pre-mediation phone call
• What tone and conversation reveal that a written brief never will
• How Gino uses AI to prepare for mediations
• Why he doesn't want AI taking over the part of mediation he loves most
• More than 2,000 mediations and the value of reps, intuition and professional judgment
• Gino's path through Morehouse, UGA Law, the U.S. Attorney's Office, Judge Steve Jones, Barnes Law Group and the Cochran Firm
• The advantage of trying different areas of law early in your career
• Getting thrown into trials as a young lawyer and learning about juries, people and value
• Asking for more money—and being given the opportunity to earn it by trying cases
• Why experience can be valuable even when the dollars aren't
• “It's either triumph or tuition.”
• Working as a personal trainer before and after his day job
• Saving roughly $15,000 from personal training and using it to start his own law firm
• What personal training taught Gino about motivation, positivity and working with people
• Whether lawyers sometimes need to show emotion and anger so their clients know they're fighting for them
• Why posturing isn't necessarily a dirty word
• Zoom vs. in-person mediation
• The value of simply walking into the other room, shaking someone's hand and showing some humanity
• How failing to do that can change the entire temperature of a mediation
• Gino's psychology backgro