In this episode of Legally Bond, Kim speaks with Bond litigation attorney Katie McGraw. Katie talks about how she became a litigator despite initially being interested in tax law, and how she developed her trust and estate litigation practice.
In this episode of Legally Bond, Kim speaks with Bond litigation attorney Katie McGraw. Katie talks about how she became a litigator despite initially being interested in tax law, and how she developed her trust and estate litigation practice.
Hello and welcome to Legally Bond, a podcast presented by the law firm Bond Shannigan King. I'm your host, kim Wolf Price. In this episode we're speaking with Katie McGraw, an associate in the litigation department practicing at Bond's Buffalo office. Welcome to the podcast, katie. It is so nice to have you with us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, tim, I'm very happy to be here.
Speaker 1:All right, I think we're going to talk about how you ran here from court in a minute, so you really had to work to be here. So thank you.
Speaker 2:Yes, in the snow.
Speaker 1:I'll pill both ways. I'll pill both ways In the snow. It's not June for those of you who think that's funny, but yeah, it is late March. Anyway, I mentioned that you're a litigator, but your practice is a bit different than many of the other litigators at the firm. So while you do practice commercial litigation, you also focus your practice on trust in a state's litigation. We haven't talked about that yet on the podcast with anyone, so I'd like to focus a bunch of our conversation today on that what it means to practice in that area, what types of disputes might arise and how often that type of work takes to court. So do you think that's a plan for today?
Speaker 2:Yes, and I came here from Surrogate's Court on a TNE litigation matter, so it is good timing.
Speaker 1:That's great. You are ready to go on this, all right, thank you, all right. So before we dig deeper into your work as an attorney, it is sort of a tradition on the podcast that we start with a few moments asking the guests a little bit about themselves so that the listeners can get to know you. So, if you don't mind, I want to talk about whatever you feel like talking about where you grew up, family, went to law school, undergrad, whatever works for you.
Speaker 2:Sure. So I grew up in Syracuse. Actually, I was born in Philadelphia, moved to Syracuse when I was five, grew up there, went to high school there, went to college at SUNY Geneseo so made my way a little bit west. And then, after Geneseo, I went to SUNY Buffalo Law School. So I made it all the way west, public educated through and through and I graduated SUNY Buffalo Law School in 2020. That time I had already been a summer associate with Bond, so I just continued that came on as a first year associate in the middle of the pandemic and kind of just hit the ground running and have been here since.
Speaker 1:That's great, and you actually were a law student in turn with us when the pandemic actually hit, because I've met you, and then we all went to our separate locations.
Speaker 2:Yes, I believe that you offered to take me out to coffee in March of 2020 and you still have not done that, so I will renew that invitation four years later, in March 2020.
Speaker 1:I will say I confirm that is correct. All of it is that Katie's so busy what I do get to Buffalo is hard to track her down. But I am coming next month so I will send you the dates.
Speaker 2:How about we go over chicken wings instead of coffee?
Speaker 1:I think that's great. Why don't we go to sidelines? Okay, all right, sounds good.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:So a Syracuse dative slowly made your way west to Buffalo. And you did mention the 2022, so that was the year with no graduation and the moving target bar exam, correct? We couldn't decide.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So the bar exam I don't even remember because it's such a blur, but the bar exam must have been moved at least twice, perhaps three times, and so it was a stop and go of studying, to the point where and I shouldn't really admit this but I just stopped studying because I was so frustrated and I just wanted to take it and I said if I don't pass this time, I'm just not going to be a lawyer.
Speaker 1:I think that many of you were in that, because it definitely changed multiple times, that it was online for the first time ever and it had really strict rules about quiet and all of those things, and it's already a stressful situation.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and I'll say just anecdotally so it was the first time it was administered online. I think I took an October of 2020. It might have been the end of September, I don't remember. It was October. Okay, so I call, I live in the city of Buffalo. I called the city of Buffalo. It was like not emergency line, and I just said, hey, I'm taking the bar exam on this day and I live on this street and I just want to make sure that there's going to be like no construction, you know whatever, because they were doing some work at the time and they're very nice at the city of Buffalo. They're like, oh no, you should be good, you should be quiet. I kid you not. I sign on the first day of the bar exam, not a half an hour later. Jack Hammering going on site right outside my apartment on.
Speaker 2:I think they were digging sewer lines. I think they ran out on my first break barefoot screaming at them.
Speaker 3:I was like you guys aren't supposed to be doing this all the time.
Speaker 2:They're like wow, we're union employees, we got it and I was just like whatever.
Speaker 1:So you had the dubious honor of taking the bar exam with Jack Hammering in the background.
Speaker 2:I'm a cat throwing yourself against the door, but yeah.
Speaker 1:I do remember the stories of the cat I did not know about. The Jack Hammering, though. Well, made it through and a lawyer passed, all good. I do remember talking to all of you frequently throughout the course of that time, like it's gonna be okay.
Speaker 2:It's a collective generational trauma I believe that we all share.
Speaker 1:I think it definitely is. I think it is, and we will learn how this plays out in the future. All right, so I did mention that we always start with a background and I really do appreciate that. I think that the guests appreciate it, and Kate and I do too, because we always learned something new about the lawyers. I did not know about the Jack Hammering. So, all right, I mentioned you were in the litigation department at Bond, and at Bond our litigation department primarily focuses on commercial disputes, so defending businesses, schools, manufacturers, colleges and universities in whatever matters sort of may arise in the course of their business. And you do some of that work, don't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, I do A lot of my practices, what we would consider traditional commercial litigation.
Speaker 1:And can you talk a little bit about the types of commercial matters you work on for Bond's clients?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean they really run the gambit Like they. I've kind of developed a little bit of a practice of municipal work, which can be any sort of Article 78 challenge to decision making, whether it's employment related or not, land use disputes, zoning issues. I would consider that maybe it's a subspecies of commercial litigation. The more traditional contract disputes like you got two big contracting parties suing each other with all sorts of claims going back and forth, labor and employment litigation isn't really commercial. But I still do a bit of that, actually quite a bit of that. We do false claims act cases, whistleblower cases on both sides of them, plaintiff and defendant.
Speaker 1:Which is unusual for us. We don't usually do both sides.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that happens a lot in commercial litigation Both sides meaning you may represent the original defendant, but there may be cross claims that you're you're the plaintiff one. So that's why I really like commercial litigation, because it's not standard across the board by any means. Every new case that comes up is so different and it really keeps me on my toes and keeps me constantly learning new areas of law as I never heard of before, issues that I didn't think happened in the real world until they did.
Speaker 2:Now I would say that there is no standardization across our commercial litigation practice. It really is anything that you could possibly think of.
Speaker 1:We can do and do, do and probably have done yeah, absolutely, and that's in both New York state and federal court right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really there's no uniformity. I mean the land use stuff, like the municipal stuff, is almost exclusively in state court because you can make an article 78 challenge under state law, but really other commercial cases it's a mixed bag of whether it's state or federal or otherwise. Even so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which also keeps it interesting, because those aren't uniform either. Right, you have to learn a little bit of both. All right, so maybe we should back up just a little bit. Were you when you were in law school? Did you want to be a litigator?
Speaker 2:No, not at all. So I hate public speaking. I hate the thought of standing up. What I just did in court this morning, what have caused me to have nightmares in law school and I didn't? For that reason, I stayed out of trial team.
Speaker 3:What was it?
Speaker 2:moot core Anything related to litigation. I was like, no, that's not for me. My friends are all doing it, they had a blast doing it. I was very comfortable not doing it and it's funny because I really wanted to be like a back office transactional tax lawyer who essentially never saw the light of day or had to talk to anybody else and that did not happen. And it's very funny to me that I ended up where I am and you're probably gonna ask me how I ended up where I am. Yeah, I was like, was it your son?
Speaker 1:I don't know, is it Jim Roney who did this?
Speaker 2:No, I think a lot of it was need where the firm was, but I frankly, I mean a lot of it was the people that I learned from it, you know, from that very first year. So you know, learning from just really experienced litigators, both on the labor and employment side and onto the traditional litigation department side, learning about how interesting their practices were and how different their day to day activities were than somebody that you know maybe practices and tax or something and I just really took a liking to it, to the people, to the people that served as my mentors, and then to the work. And I think, because I liked it so much, I got to the point where I became comfortable going to court every day, which I would say now I'm in court at least once a week, sometimes two or three times a week, and that's just actual court. So otherwise I may be doing depositions or signing on online and doing arguments online. So I don't know how I ended up being a litigator, but I'm very glad to have landed where I did.
Speaker 1:That's great. Well, we are glad you did as well. I have to say, when I was picking, it was that variety and learning new businesses all the time and new types of disputes that I was like, yeah, this is fun. No, two days are the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll say I can't remember if it was one person that said this. Mean, if it was, who? At least one litigator here, and probably more, said the best part about being a litigator is, compared to any other practice, is you get out of the office more than anybody else, and that is so true. I was in court this morning. So even just the walk down to court which on a not snowy day is pleasant seeing the attorneys that go there, mingling otherwise with people that I wouldn't see in real life attorneys and judges and just getting out and getting to meet more people that are members of the bar locally is, I think, one of the best things about being a litigator, and it really does just break up the day. You're not sitting at your desk all day. Even if you're arguing on Zoom, you're still having those connections with people on Zoom. So that is one thing I really like about the job, and that was something that somebody told me to persuade me to be a litigator. That, I think, has rang true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's good and you will use it someday to persuade someone else. Yeah, all right. So you get to the firm. We have a little pandemic right around when you arrive and after the first few months it's kind of clear you're going to start doing litigation work more and more through defending clients in the civil actions filed in state and federal court. And then the T&E part, where you talk a little bit about trust in the states, and T&E is what we kind of call trust in the states and that litigation work.
Speaker 2:Sure, so that you know, I personally I don't know if everybody would agree with me but I personally consider T&E litigation to just be commercial litigation. I mean, we're generally talking about a lot of money and whether we're representing, you know, the fiduciary or the bank or the institution or the charity, we're fighting over commercial issues more than personal issues. Yeah, that being said, the personal issues are very prevalent in T&E litigation. But as to how I got involved in it, I also don't really know. I think it was a need, I really liked it. So I was like it's got a tax element, it's got a little tax, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'll say I think one of my favorite classes in law school was gratuitous transfers, which is like wills and trusts, and all the tax courses that I took, you know, had elements of gratuitous transfers in them as well. And then I also really liked my tax courses and I just really liked that stuff. It made sense to me. I like that. Everything you know is kind of really old settled law as opposed to newly evolving law, which we don't see often, and it's, you know, it's very formal, the way that wills and trusts are established and the rules that apply. So just because I really liked it. I kind of made that known to people here and what I didn't realize is that T traditional, t&e practitioners who are doing the transactional work, who are doing the drafting, they don't want to go to court.
Speaker 2:So, for them to hear me say I like this and I like litigation. That's music to their ears. Because I think and I think this is true, I think since I started working here, one of our T&E partners has not set foot in circuit's court because, I just go for him and I love it and he.
Speaker 2:It's a symbiotic relationship for sure. You love it, it works fine, yeah, so I you know, and I really like litigating the issues because you get really familiar with them and you have to know the substantive law and it's. I find it actually very challenging as compared to some of the other litigation that I do, and for that reason I just I really like it. It keeps me intellectually challenged, it keeps me motivated and I think it makes the job fun.
Speaker 1:That's great. It gets you into a whole different court, because in New York State that's a different court than New York Supreme or the Federal District Court where you might be typically for the other types of commercial litigation. Do you want to talk a little bit about surrogates court?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the one thing, too, I like about surrogates court is you're absolutely right, it is a different court. It's got a different set of rules. It not only does it have a different set of written rules, but it's got a whole different set of unspoken rules. That is something that people who practice in here we're in Erie County, but it's true anywhere you have these little. The judges have little specific idiosyncrasies and everybody knows that. I swear it's like people have assigned seats in surrogates court because people are there every week.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now I'm slowly but surely have become one of those people that's there every week. I don't quite sit in the front row yet, but I'm working my way up. But I like it in surrogates court because everybody is, for example, everyone's very collegial. So that is one thing that's true in Buffalo generally, whether it's the federal bar, the state bar, but the surrogates court bar is very collegial. It's also really small. There's not a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's going to be much smaller. Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2:There are not a lot of attorneys in Buffalo that do trust in a state litigation. I know almost all of them. I see them in court all the time. For that reason we have really good relationships, even though we're on sometimes on the same side, sometimes on adverse sides of things. I think that that makes practicing so much more enjoyable because it just takes the frustration of nasty opposing counsel out of it. You know, if you get on a time crunch and you need to ask for an adjournment, it's not going to be a problem whether opposing counsel grants that are the judge does. Just practicing such high stakes, high level litigation, but against and with people that are really professional and just generally good colleagues to have in the T&E bar, it makes her a really good combination of an enjoyable practice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, because the best part is that civil practice, the ability to have colleagues and you may be on opposite sides of things, but that doesn't mean it's nasty, that's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I will say it's funny Judge Mosey out here. She says we don't have opposing counsel in surrogates court, we have other counsel in surrogates court. That's true, I think, generally speaking, of just how everybody in the T&E bar treats each other as well.
Speaker 1:That's great. I guess we should say that surrogates court, the judge only hears those. It's specialized from the judge's perspective that the judge is a surrogates court judge and this is her area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the judge and all of her law clerk and all of her staff. This is what they do. There's a lot of really technical procedure involved, but the substantive law also. That is their expertise. That is why we have a separate court that handles these matters. It's like family court that handles family court matters, surrogates court, handles trust wills, other related decedent matters.
Speaker 1:Right, for those of you who know, decedents are people who have died. Just saying that. I'm saying that it seems to me because I've never practiced surrogates court, but just from watching other people do it, it seems like there's a lot more going to court and litigation than sometimes in the litigation, than in other types of matters we have. Is that true?
Speaker 2:I think the main reason that that's true is a boring one. It's mostly because everything in surrogates court, any application that you make to the court, is its own special proceeding, which is like a type of statutory proceeding. For that reason, everything that you do, every request you make, you have to have jurisdiction over everybody that's potentially interested. The way you get jurisdiction is going to court and having people appear. There's a lot of times when you appear and it's not contentious and you're not there to argue something, but you're just there because everybody needed to show up so that the court can grant the relief that you're asking for. But even those appearances, those are good to get out of the office, but they're also.
Speaker 2:For example, this morning I was the last matter to be called. It was calendar call. There was probably 10 matters on the calendar, but we get called last and I got you know. So I got to sit there about an hour, which, sorry, is why I'm late. Other people arguing their motions and going on their citations and hearing about their issues, and you learn so much just by doing that, and I think that that's just so valuable for any level lawyer, but particularly a young lawyer or somebody that's an associate level. For sure I learned so much just seeing other people argue how they argue, what their issues are. I know that if I have an issue that comes up that I saw somebody else argue, I might call them and ask them about it. So I don't remember what the question was, but I think you answered it very well.
Speaker 1:You go Okay, this is why, but you mentioned it a little bit bond and you may be representing banks or charitable organizations, but in these there's people and human emotion in this court, much more often than we might see in a contract dispute, isn't there?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. And bond represents all sorts of parties in these types of issues. So I have cases that are you know. We represent the child that was written out of the will and they're fighting for their inheritance, or the aunt that is accused of taking money under a power of attorney or whatever. It is Like the bank who is the corporate trustee on the case, who is tasked with managing the trust and distributing the assets. But the human stuff really comes into play. I see it the most in will contests.
Speaker 2:So will contest is when you know, obviously somebody dies and they have a will and you have people fighting over whether or not that will is going to be admitted to probate. So either the will gets admitted and we go by the terms of the will or we throw it out altogether. And those are most commonly involved children, you know, children fighting over someone that got written out maybe is going to try to object and say, nope, the will isn't valid. I'm going to get my share in intestines to see. Those are very, very emotional because often if it's in litigation, the siblings do not get along. They cannot be in the same room as each other and they don't want to talk to each other.
Speaker 2:And it's unfortunate, really, because you see these families get torn apart by these litigations.
Speaker 2:But at the end of the day, what we do as teeny lawyers is, you know, not in a disrespectful way, but we try to take the emotion out of it and just say, listen, we're talking about money here and we're going to.
Speaker 2:You know, we're fighting to get you the money that you claim to be entitled to under the will and that's what we're doing. So it is interesting because when you have a contract dispute, I don't necessarily know that I take up emotional stance on one side or the other, other than you know like to win and I generally want to believe that my clients right and fight for their interests. But on the human side of the T&E stuff particularly, it does get really sad because you're talking about, you know somebody, usually a parent, that dies and then you have those emotions coupled with siblings not getting along, all fighting over money and personal effects. I've had cases where you have a long list of all of the items in mom and dad's house and you got to distribute them between people and that is very emotional. So it is definitely, I think, maybe unique to the surrogates court T&E practice, the pure emotional side like that.
Speaker 1:I think that's another great reason that the bar is so collegial, because you can't add another level. This is really human pain and drama. You're right At the crux of it. It's about money or an object or something tangible, but those other feelings over it. You don't want to add more to that. So the bar being so collegial is really important to this being successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's definitely true, and the court, the surrogate, herself being cognizant of all those issues, as well as the cases moved through her court.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm sure her whole team it's really. It's an important piece of it because it does happen in trauma. I mean, you'll hear people say all of the time there's the morning and then there's the aftermath, and that's often what the T&E litigation comes from. Well, I mentioned when we started talking that you were a transplant to Buffalo. You talked about how you slowly moved there, but I want to add that I think you're really committed member of the Buffalo community. You're active not just at our firm and for our clients, you're involved in other ways. So do you want to talk about any of your community involvement?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, I think I totally am a implant in Buffalo to stay, I think to my parents' dismay, but they are in Syracuse, which they love. But I, yeah, I mean I bought a house here a little while ago in the Elmwood Village, which is a beautiful neighborhood in the city of Buffalo, and I like to stay involved in the community as much as I can. I just recently rotated off the board of Open Buffalo, which is a nonprofit that focuses attention to, you know, equality and justice matters on the east side of Buffalo, but the city of Buffalo generally. And you know I always actually look for ways to get more involved in the city of Buffalo and you know, both in the legal and non-legal realms. But I absolutely am a Buffalo I would not say native because I think there would be objections to that, but I am a Buffalo Neon.
Speaker 1:I love that and I know you work. You do volunteering at your law school, at UB Law, and you've worked on projects with them as well, and I'm going to have to assume you're a Bills fan now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so hopefully my parents, who are from Philadelphia, do not listen to this podcast, but I am classifying myself as a Bills fan.
Speaker 1:We got a record of your first. Is that what you're saying? They are well they are Eagles fans.
Speaker 2:So we were really hoping for Bill's Eagles Super Bowl this year, but that did not happen. Yes, I'm a Bills fan. I was saying I'm a Sabres fan. I really like going to the Bison's Games, the AAA team, all sorts of stuff out here. I mean, that's the thing about. Buffalo is not unlike Syracuse, but there is more to do, I find, and it's particularly in the neighborhood I live in. It's just a great place to live. There is a reason we are called the city of good neighbors. I find that to be very true. In fact, peter Wiltenberg, who is a member in our Buffalo office, is my literal across-the-street neighbor.
Speaker 1:I love that and many other folks are close enough by, like Erin Torcello, correct.
Speaker 2:Yes, I spent Christmas Eve Eve Eve at her house during the 2022 Blizzard.
Speaker 1:Yes, because to be a true buffalo-nian, you must have lived through something like that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that was wild.
Speaker 1:That's something that I think people don't understand, even though from the age of five you're in Syracuse. We just don't have blizzards like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I will say I mean certainly Syracuse gets its fair share, sometimes more than its fair share of snow. Buffalo too, the snow doesn't bother me, I like the snow, I like lake effect snow. That blizzard was, it really was once in a lifetime. It was scary and it was. I was very lucky not to lose power, but that was something that I have never seen before in Syracuse or Buffalo.
Speaker 1:It's wild and crazy, but it's part of our charm. At the same time, we lived through it. It has tragedy, which is awful, but you said city of good neighbors and people pulled together, I think really pretty amazingly during that.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. Christmas Day, everyone was out shoveling each other's sidewalks and walking around and dogs running everywhere because there were no cars.
Speaker 1:That's right. Everyone was free and rubbing the streets. Well, here's to a better finale for Buffalo Bills in the next season. Oh yes, let's be at the Super Bowl, I'm ready.
Speaker 2:Oh, everybody else here too.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, thanks, Katie, for joining us today. It's always great to catch up with you, learn more about what you're working on and doing. I owe you coffee and I will send you dates. I hope you'll come back to the podcast again to talk about litigation that you're working on.
Speaker 2:Yes, sure, thanks so much, cam. Thanks for having me. I think we're going to do chicken wings, not coffee.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, that's right, chicken wings, I'm in. All right, thanks, katie. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Legally Bond. If you're listening and have any questions for me, want to hear from someone at the firm or have suggestions for a future topic, please email us at LegallyBond at bskcom. Also, don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to Legally Bond wherever podcasts are downloaded. Until our next talk, be well.
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