Vegas Law Talk

Kevin Krall 0:00
You're listening to special programming sponsored by Stovall and Associates law firm. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jas and more, the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Leslie Stovall 0:24
Morning, this is Vegas law talk. This is Leslie Stovall. And today I have the pleasure of having the Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford as a guest. And it's a real pleasure. Mr. Ford, how are you today? I

Unknown Speaker 0:36
am fantastic. Delighted to be here. Thanks for having me.

Leslie Stovall 0:38
Today is we're in sort of the middle of the election season, it seems to me you are standing for re election as the Attorney General of Nevada.

Unknown Speaker 0:49
That's right. That's right is not quite the middle for me. I've been running for re election for a long time right now. And you know, we're in a sprint and toward the finish line.

Leslie Stovall 0:58
The primaries for your office are set for what date the primaries on June 14. And I know you'll come through the primaries. You're an excellent candidate, and it's the god's ears. And so the general election, when is that? So that's going to be November the eighth. Now, are you facing any opposition in the on the Democratic ticket?

Unknown Speaker 1:21
I have a primary against the gentleman who ran against me for this seat, I guess three years and a few few months ago, he's running against the same guys running against me now. So I have a primary? Well,

Leslie Stovall 1:32
I think you'll get through the primary. I don't think that's going to be an issue. You have opponents in the general election. They both of those individuals, this is a position that requires a licensed attorney. Is that correct?

Unknown Speaker 1:47
It does now it did not four years ago in Iran. And in fact, the gentleman who ran against me four years ago does not have a bar license. And so we'll see what that means relative to his appearance on the ballot this time. But yes, right now you have to have a bar license.

Leslie Stovall 2:00
You know, it's an interesting story. You can go out in rural Nevada and find justice of the police who are not lawyers. That's right. A lot of them are retired law enforcement, like hire patrol, for example. And then, we used to have a city attorney here in Las Vegas, not in Las Vegas, I'm sorry, in North Las Vegas, his name was George Franklin. Okay. And he was city attorney up there for years and years. Was that a lawyer? Well, I don't remember. I don't think he was or he did not go through law school and came into practice. But those were long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. So I was really interested in your background, I did not realize that you hold a doctorate in education. Could you tell our listeners how that came about? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 2:53
absolutely. So you know, not patting myself on the back. But I have several degrees, and most of them are in education. I used to be a teacher, before as a lawyer, went to undergraduate school, studied math education with a minor in Spanish. And when I graduated undergrad, I became a teacher. My first teaching job was down in Austin, Texas, at a middle school. When I went to my first graduate school, I taught school in Virginia, Northern Virginia. And they went, I went to Ohio State to get to continue continuing education there. I taught school there as well. So education has been in my background for a long time. And in fact, with my PhD in education, my initial intent was to open up charter schools, an international system of charter schools, as I say, I speak Spanish. And so what I wanted to do was open up what I call the Carter G. Woodson, international school system that had schools in stateside that were in inner city locations, Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, you name it with counterparts in Latin America. And there will be a required study abroad trip during the junior year I had this whole plan laid out. And so that's what I wanted to do with education was opened up charter schools and in require international experience. And

Leslie Stovall 4:04
everybody you know, international travel for young folks is a wonderful thing because they get to see other cultures, they get to see how folks interact exact in different environment and different political systems and social systems. And

Unknown Speaker 4:18
that was my experience. The first time I ever got on an airplane was to go study abroad in Mexico. I was 21 years old. I got on a flight and college station to connect through Houston headed to Mexico City to catch a bus down to Puebla, Mexico, where I studied abroad there. So it's been a fantastic experience. My children, my oldest son has studied abroad in Venezuela, and pardon me in Argentina. And yeah, it's a wonderful experience.

Leslie Stovall 4:43
Now you have a doctorate in education and while you were studying for your doctorate in education, you also attended law school.

Unknown Speaker 4:53
I did I did. I was attending law school and my PhD virtually simultaneously. My first year was all PhD work. My second and third years were predominantly law school work. And then my fourth year of my PhD, my third year of law school was a combination of both where I took classes I wrote my dissertation, and I graduated in 2001. With both my law degree and my PhD, well, you

Leslie Stovall 5:14
know, that's quite an accomplishment. Most people I know that are writing a dissertation, it becomes a full time endeavor. It's anguishing at times. Absolutely

Unknown Speaker 5:22
was anguishing at all times. And it was like having a full time job. And I had a full time job, several in fact, not all full time, but several jobs during that time period, because I was also married with with one child and one on the way. So we, we've, we've experienced a lot in those early years of my education.

Leslie Stovall 5:40
Well, it's my understanding you married your high school sweetheart,

Unknown Speaker 5:43
a college sweetheart, right? College. It's an interesting story, because I was at a different college than she was. But we were both sweethearts from our respective colleges. She was in law school, and that made her I was still an undergrad at Texas a&m. And that's actually why I went to Austin and taught school right after I graduated because she was at law school in Texas and at the University of Texas. And so I met her and we married a few years later, and we've been married 26 years now.

Leslie Stovall 6:08
How did you guys get along? If she you're an a guy, and she's along? You know,

Unknown Speaker 6:12
I told her she married up, what can I say? Don't play that part on the air. Okay, don't say that. But on the air. I always like to reach back and help those less fortunate. So

Leslie Stovall 6:25
that's funny. So your, your your wife is a lawyer.

Unknown Speaker 6:28
All she is she's a general counsel over at Nevada State College in Henderson.

Leslie Stovall 6:33
I see a lot of students coming out of Nevada State College. Yeah, it's a great institution. Yeah. They're a baccalaureate program essentially, or school or do they have a graduate program?

Unknown Speaker 6:42
I believe they have some graduate programs as well. Obviously, they do have baccalaureate degrees in several areas as well.

Leslie Stovall 6:47
Tell me about your legal experience or the listeners about your legal Sure. Sure. So

Unknown Speaker 6:51
I've been practicing law. So this year, where are we in 2022 for 21 years now. Most of my practice has been in private practice. My first two years out of law school were as a federal law clerk, first to a federal district court judge in Detroit. And then to the reason why I was brought here was to clerk on the ninth circuit with Judge Johnny Rawlinson and so

Leslie Stovall 7:12
well, I remember judge Rolison when she was at the district attorney's office. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 7:16
yeah, yeah. So my wife and my wife actually got a clerkship with her first. We were already married at the time. And we were interviewing with Judge Ronson at the exact same time, literally sitting across each other, just like you are my my wife and I were sitting next to each other with the judge in her chair. And she had asked me a question and say, so Adrian, what do you think about this? And I wouldn't answer and then she'd say, and you Burna. Brenda would answer. And then she says, So Brenda, what do you think about this? And she'd answer and she looked at me and say, and you Ayran. So it was a back and forth. And we both ended up getting job offers my wife to start immediately in Mediasite, after I finished my district court clerkship. And so those are my first two years of law, practice. And then I moved into a law firm down in Dallas, Texas, practicing School of Law, an area that combined my PhD and my law degree representing school districts and universities and educational institutions. And are you doing Title Nine work? Absolutely did. So my dissertation was on Title Nine, my dissertation was on Sue school board liability for student on student sexual harassment, under Title Nine. So I did tell non work there. And then I went over to a larger law firm, and practice there for four years, three or four years. And then we came here, came back here in Oh, seven, I joined Snell and Wilmer became partner there. And our practice for around eight years. During that time overlapped with my opportunity to serve in the State Senate. And in 2015 or so I moved over to Eglin Prince. So my and that was the first time I went to the other side of the V so to speak, I'd always been on the defense side of the V, representing corporations and things of that sort and then moved over to the plaintiff side and ultimately was elected to this position. And I've been practicing law in the public sector, you can say, for the last three years and four months,

Leslie Stovall 8:51
how did you enjoy your term in the state legislature?

Unknown Speaker 8:55
Oh, thoroughly. I really enjoyed that. I mean, I've, I've always been drawn to public service in one way or fashion. Again, I was a teacher. That was my first profession, right. And I've always looked for opportunities to serve the community and serving in the state senate was a job of a lifetime. I began as chair of the Natural Resources Committee. Two years later, I was elected minority leader in the State Senate. And two years after that I was elected majority leader in the State Senate. So when I ran for this office, that's the position I held at that time, majority leader in 20. In 2018, and then I was elected. So here we are,

Leslie Stovall 9:26
and there you will be certain of it well,

Unknown Speaker 9:30
your lips to God's ears.

Leslie Stovall 9:31
That's true. They I'm not sure that many people really understand what a state attorney general's responsibilities are, you know, we see articles or stories on national news about the United States Attorney General, but the Nevada attorney general or other States Attorney General, we don't see much coverage and I don't know if most listeners really understand What that position requires or what your responsibilities are?

Unknown Speaker 10:03
Yeah, yeah, you're right about that. A lot of folks don't know what the attorney general does. I can tell you this. I didn't grow up saying I wanted to be attorney general. That wasn't my ambition. Right. I didn't know what an Attorney General was, or, or does. And, you know, we know a lot of people know that the Attorney General puts people in jail, right, that's part of our job relative to a criminal. Well, that's the law enforcement. That's the law enforcement component, right. And one of the titles I share with other attorneys going across the nation, generally speaking, as the top law enforcement officer in the state, the top cop, so to speak. But interestingly, that's only really about 10% of my job. 90% of my job is what I was doing for 20 years before I was elected to this position. And it's civil work, whether it's suing an entity or a company, such as opioids manufacturers, and ultimately defending the residents of our state against those bad practices. It's sometimes defending a lawsuit against those who sue the state. I advise, I serve as the top legal adviser to all of the administrative officers in the state. Well, not all of them, most of them. The governor is my client, the Secretary of State's my client, all of administrative aid, most of the management of agencies are my clients. And so we do a lot of work in that area as well. Well,

Leslie Stovall 11:12
and when you talk about administrative agencies, those are also the regulatory agencies like HHS,

Unknown Speaker 11:17
and the Department of Corrections, department education, those are all my clients and I have 399 or so colleagues of mine, who we work with, and we try to do our level best to give great advice.

Leslie Stovall 11:30
You mentioned the opioid. I think that's what you were talking about was the opioid claims that were made by the states. There's been a recent settlement in that case as several

Unknown Speaker 11:40
several and frankly, that's one of the proudest moments that I've had, as Attorney General. Let me back up and just quickly tell you that in our office, I announced what our job was. I wanted to put it in one word. So folks understood what I thought our job was. And it's simple. Our job is justice. And that's justice for everyone justice for all. And it's not just the type of justice that manifests itself in an arrest and a conviction. Sometimes it manifests itself in a an exoneration and compensation, right? Our criminal justice system, for example, is made of people, people are fallible, which means our systems are fallible, we can make mistakes. Injustice requires us to sometimes acknowledge those mistakes. And so as Attorney General, I introduced myself to my colleagues as one who viewed justice in his totality, and we view justice through what we call my three C's in the office, the first is consumer protection. The best example of that is opioids. I'm proud of the work that one of the first things I did when I got into office was to expand a lawsuit that had initially only sued one entity to include 50 or so other defendants. And we have pursued justice for those who've been afflicted by the opioid epidemic, through unscrupulous business practices. And we have accomplished five or six settlements or so. And amounting to around $320,000,000.75, of which pardon me about 130 of which has already come in, in the tenure during the time that I've been here, including last week where I announced about $50 million having come in, and we've begun distributing that to our local municipalities and through a through a state agencies to help remediate those issues. So that's the first thing. Now,

Leslie Stovall 13:23
if I understand there are more lawsuits pending? Absolutely. I

Unknown Speaker 13:27
have I have a lawsuit that is slated to go to trial. Right after I begin my second term. It'll be in February of 2024. When this trial, pardon me, 2023 when this trial starts off, and we have, you know, three dozen other defendants four dozen other defendants in that lawsuit, to be sure we're open to settling with them as well, for for an amount that's commensurate with the level of harm that they brought upon the state. But we're we're more than happy to go before a jury and try to hold these these entities and individuals accountable for the the wrath that as we've seen out of opioids,

Leslie Stovall 13:59
they what is the legal liability theory that you're pursuing in these opioid cases? What

Unknown Speaker 14:06
are several, one of which is the deceptive trade practices act that we have in our state here that says that a lot of the manufacturers were engaging in deceptive trade practices when they were marketing opioids, when they were over prescribing opioids when they were pumping pills into pill meals, and that ultimately got individuals addicted? They were they were downplaying the addictive nature of

Leslie Stovall 14:29
denying addiction. They were saying, Oh, if if you have legitimate pain, it's not addictive.

Unknown Speaker 14:33
There you go. There you go. And so it's the story, though there were so many different issues associated with with their practices. And we have put forth a complaint and a case that I think is going to lay bare a lot of the the problems that were initiated through the manufacture and sale and distribution of opioids.

Leslie Stovall 14:52
Yeah, it almost seems like the facts supporting a finding of liability have been admitted in many cases, I that seems like it to me because I see the settlements, but perhaps in the settlement they're avoiding making those admissions. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 15:07
you know, I said I'm in school, you know, they neither men nor deny liability, but

Leslie Stovall 15:11
there's $300 million. Exactly. Yeah. Well, it sounds wonderful work that you've directed your office to do. And it's a great benefit to the state i, I tried a wrongful death case out in my county, where a woman had sudden loss of breathing and it was a combination of opioids and Xanax, which is a benzo diazepam. And in fact, the FDA years ago came out this would have been almost 10 years ago, came out with and black labeled that combination of drugs because of sudden respiratory arrest. And there were a lot of people using that combination of drugs at the time. I I'm not sure if they still do, I hope not. The special prosecutions division in your you have a Fraud Unit and special prosecutions unit. What is your special prosecution division do?

Unknown Speaker 16:09
Well, they berries, I mean, some of the things that we assigned to them, for example, related to some of the fraud we saw happening in the unemployment insurance context or in the during the COVID pandemic, in our prosecutions division has limited jurisdiction, though, I mean, as a general matter, we can only prosecute crimes that happen relative to state matters, absent some form of conflict or referral to other agencies. We have some concurrent jurisdiction with some of the district attorneys but they have first bite, frankly, it at the most run of the mill crimes you hear about. But if there's a murder, for example, among prisoners, that's my case. If there's a state actor who violates state laws there, that's that's my jurisdiction, we have elder abuse it within my jurisdiction, we have financial crimes, oftentimes, in my jurisdiction, cyber crimes within my jurisdiction. We have children exploit child exploitation. We have individual work in that area as well. So it's limited. That sounds like a lot, but frankly, it's very limited relative to what district attorneys do, which is essentially everything else. Right. Right.

Leslie Stovall 17:09
Right. If a district attorney declines a prosecution Do you have? Are you able to take a look and make a decision whether to prosecute, there

Unknown Speaker 17:18
are statutes that allow me to enquire with the district attorney or to move if a district attorney does not? So yes, that's your short answer.

Leslie Stovall 17:28
What do you look forward to do in your next term as attorney general? Yeah, well, we

Unknown Speaker 17:32
have a lot of unfinished work to do. We've been doing great work, I think, and I talked about my three C's I've mentioned one. The second C I'll introduce to you is one that we call criminal justice and reform, criminal justice in the sense of knowing that we have a responsibility to keep the community safe. Everyone wants to live in a community that safe, it doesn't matter, your your race, your gender, we all want safe neighborhoods. And so we focus on ensuring that we have laws that are going to protect individuals in the community from those who would do them harm. But we also know that the criminal justice system hasn't always been fair to everybody, in particular communities in particular, right. And so one of the proudest moments that I had was in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd's murder, I was able to bring together through the and that's one of the greatest powers of this office to convene individuals, we brought together through a a forum that I call the justice and injustice panel, to convene law enforcement, the ACLU community organizations in NAACP, you know, you name it churches, and we talked about the issues and figured out ways in which we could move beyond talking and trying to come up, come up with something practical, an action that we could do. And we come up with a number of bills that we were able to support, two of which that I sponsored. And that passed unanimously. And that's an important notion here. In this day and age, you know, it's difficult to get everyone to agree on anything, let alone legislation like this. And so we were able to pass a law after George Floyd's murder that now authorizes my office to investigate Police Department. It's called pattern and practice investigations where we can investigate police departments who are alleged to be engaging in discriminatory or unlawful policing, against particular communities or entities, or whatever the case may be. And again, that passion animus Lee, because we convened everybody around the table and talked about how we could do this practically in my office is likewise sub subjected to that same pattern and practice visa vie, the federal government. You know, that was one of the things he wrote into the legislation. And the second piece that I've mentioned in the criminal justice context is that we were able to respond in honor. Unfortunately, Breanna Taylor, who was murdered, shouldn't say murdered my apologies who was killed because of the execution of a no knock warrant on the wrong home. And so I sponsored legislation that again, passed unanimously, bed limits drastically the use of no knock warrants in our state. And that falls within the second see that talks about criminal justice and reform. And then the third see then I'll turn to the mic back to you, sir. No, this is it's wonderful. It's a very interesting way to think about the third C is constitutional and civil rights, the protection of all All of them one through I say 28. Some would argue clearly you don't know how many amendments are in the Constitution, because only 27. But I say 28, because the Equal Rights Amendment in my mind has been ratified and is a 20th. Amendment to our United States Constitution. That's a myth that says that women are treated equally under us they cause under our federal Constitution, and it should be recognized as such. And so while it is not yet in our Constitution, per se, we are litigating that issue right now. myself with one of my colleagues, from Illinois, we had a colleague in Virginia before he unfortunately lost his re election, and the his replacement from the other party withdrew himself from that litigation. But we are litigating that issue. But the point I'm making is, every constitutional right is important to us. And we try to protect them all from visa vie our citizens. And that includes a super right the right to vote. And the best example I can provide to you in that regard is our protection of the against the attacks of the UN on the integrity of our elections. last election cycle, I'm proud of the work we did in defending my, my colleague, my client, Barbara Gaskey, who happens to be from the opposite party that I'm in, but we worked together to ensure that the integrity of our elections were intact. And I'm proud of that we were able to put on a safe and fair and free election, the last administration sued the state at least a half a dozen times, and we prevailed my office defeated every single one of those, again, because that falls within the sea of protecting civil and constitutional rights. So those are there's a focus that we've had, and I want to continue those types of things on a going forward basis, our priorities didn't change, because COVID hit us. And although that's a fourth See, so to speak, that thrust us up upon us. But we have work yet to do. And I look forward to continuing that work.

Leslie Stovall 21:44
Well, I've always been concerned about this fair treatment in the state of Nevada, by law enforcement and within the criminal justice system. It's interesting that you now have jurisdiction to investigate. Have you opened any? I know, you can't discuss specific investigations. But is that something that your office is currently pursuing? Well,

Unknown Speaker 22:07
you're right, I cannot. As a matter of policy, we don't confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of an investigation. What I can say is that our office is ready and prepared and willing to put forth the work that we now have the authority to do under this particular statute. And so there we stand in that regard.

Leslie Stovall 22:25
Well, I can tell you when I started practicing, that was 35 years ago, criminal defendants were not given the resources that the prosecutor's office had. And they were always at a disadvantage. And I don't know how anybody can look at the rates of criminal prosecutions and convictions are compared on race, and not conclude that disparate treatment occurs within the criminal justice system. And I just have never seen here in the state of Nevada, an effort to a sincere or legitimate effort to avoid that. disparity.

Unknown Speaker 23:06
Yeah. Well, listen, Dayton back to my times in the State Senate, I work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to improve our criminal justice system. And let me be clear, we have to support our law enforcement in this area, they have just as much right to go home in the evening. So the families as a rank and file citizen does. And in that regard, that's why I have what I call hit, what I say is hit the green button, when it comes to providing opportunities for them to take care of themselves, whether it's through collective bargaining, whether it's through protecting their pensions, whether it's through providing more cops here on the corridor, or whether it's providing new legislation that I sponsor that protects them from those who would target them because they are law enforcement. If an individual is convicted for doing that, they will essentially be paying punish tantamount to a hate crime. And that's legislation that I sponsored. And I do that because we have to appreciate and recognize the importance of law enforcement. But the flipside is also true accountability is important. And I'm I'm proud to say that law enforcement agrees in that regard that accountability is important. They'll be the first to tell you that they don't want one bad apple to spoil the bunch and so worked hand in hand with him to continue to put in our system.

Leslie Stovall 24:16
Well, I wasn't necessarily accusing law enforcement. I wasn't adjusting you were Yeah, I just want to make that point. And I appreciate it. But when you do take a look at how prosecutions the the result of prosecutions over a long period of time. The fact that certain groups of individuals suffer higher conviction rates than white members of our community. Sure. It's an indication there's a there's a systemic problem. And so I hope that your work in the Attorney General's Office helps resolve that because you know, criminal But all justice, whether it's civil or criminal, makes for a better society. Absolutely. And it's necessary for our republic to work. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 25:10
The community needs to be able to trust the system. And it's difficult to trust the system when facts that you've just, you know, recited, for example, are excellent. And so what we have to do is to figure out ways to augment trust, where already exists to restore it, where it's been diminished, and to create it where it's never existed in the first place. And that's part of what I tried to do with the Office of Attorney General, as the top law enforcement officer in the state.

Leslie Stovall 25:34
Do you see what your future is going to be or over your next term as one of further development in the areas that you've outlined?

Unknown Speaker 25:47
Certainly, and those are not exhaustive to be short, right? That's a non exhaustive list with the work that we do in that we will continue to do. The first two years of my tenure, frankly, were also against the federal government, where we sued the last administration for overreach you know, states rights issues, procedural issues, they want to change the rules without following the processes. And, you know, so sure, I mean, it just depends on what COVID. Again, COVID is an example of us having to learn how to operate through that under different circumstances. And I anticipate, you know, new challenges in my next term as well.

Leslie Stovall 26:21
You know, I have to tell you, the the COVID pandemic seems to have just disrupted a lot, just everybody's day to day life, the activities of government also. And it seems that government is beginning to start functioning. I know, I do litigation, and it's the district courts literally shut down for a year, if not more, and we're just starting to get back up and running. It's been it's been really, I guess, best way to put it painful trying to catch up. And I'm sure that your office had had to manage itself around the starts and stops and getting back into litigation, your Consumer Protection Department, it is covers more than just the opioid, what other areas does consumer protection, anything

Unknown Speaker 27:18
that affects the consumer, you can, frankly, folded into Consumer Protection Division. So we have an antitrust component in our office that focuses on that. We also have agencies within or practices within the Consumer Protection Division that look at price gouging, for example, during emergencies. And that's a law that I was able to pass this last legislative session, telecommunications issues, you name it, I mean, anything that that affects the consumer, my Consumer Protection Division could offensively get engaged.

Leslie Stovall 27:53
It seems like unfair trade practices is really the sword that a lot of agencies are using or Attorney General's are using to try to keep an even playing field out in consumer areas. Do you find that to be true?

Unknown Speaker 28:09
Oh, yeah. I mean, accept deceptive trade practices, unfair trade practices, certainly are are powerful tools that we have to protect our consumers from unscrupulous business practices. You know, before I got into office, you saw our Consumer Protection Division, bring in settlement funds from a from Volkswagen, for example, for selling vehicles that had faulty emissions reports, right. It's that it's that form of circumstance that could also give rise to jurisdiction within that division. And we cooperate and coordinate with other attorneys around the nation oftentimes to come together and do multi jurisdictional multi district litigation. around customer protection issues, opioids is a prime example of that regard. We have several attorneys general on both sides of the aisle working together in this in this issue on this issue, pardon me.

Leslie Stovall 29:01
One last matter, I'd like to announce that on May 3, there'll be a fundraiser for your campaign at the Stirling club. My firm has the honor of sponsoring that. So if any listener is interested in meeting Attorney General Ford in person and you are welcome to join us on May 3 at the Sterling club, you can go on the website and do your RSVP. It's important to support our local candidate. Well, not a local or state candidate. By the way, I You are the first black Attorney General and first black individual to hold a state office. I

Unknown Speaker 29:45
am well at the statewide constitutional office in all due respect to a former Chief Justice Michael Douglas has won at the Supreme Court level but I'm the first older constitutional office and it's been the honor of a lifetime to represent in that regard.

Leslie Stovall 30:01
It is very nice to have you here. And I don't know how thank you enough for taking time out of your busy schedule. I know how busy you are managing your office doing your litigation and also campaigning. So it's been wonderful. I look forward to seeing you again on May 3. And you have my support in the upcoming election and I'm sure you're going to do wonderful.

Unknown Speaker 30:27
Well, that's thanks so much. I really appreciate it. And thank you to your listeners for tuning in.

Leslie Stovall 30:30
You're welcome. You're welcome.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai