66. John Hickey – Hall Estill – Cannabis Law in Oklahoma

John Hickey:

I first was focused on why banks couldn't take cannabis accounts. And I spent a good deal of time looking into that. But in the course of that, I started having conversations with people in the software industry that had software tracking systems for grow operations.

Robert Wagner:

From HoganTaylor CPAs and advisors, I'm Robert Wagner, and this is How That Happened, a business and innovation success podcast. Each episode of the show, we sit down with the business and community leaders behind thriving organizations to learn how business and innovation success actually happens. Hello, and welcome to another episode of How That Happened. Thanks for joining us today. If you enjoy the podcast, we'd appreciate you subscribing. You can click the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast and it'll be delivered to you automatically every two weeks when the podcast comes out. And we'd also appreciate if you gave us a rating.

So again, wherever you listen to your podcast, just click on the ratings button and we would love for you to do that. It helps other folks find the podcast as well. So our guest today is John Hickey and John is a shareholder with the law firm of Hall Estill, it's based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He handles a wide variety of litigation matters from commercial litigation and construction law disputes, to bankruptcy, labor and employment, and real estate. He has experience in both federal and state courts involving complex and multi-state cases. John has over 30 years of experience and as Hall Estill's lead shareholder for the cannabis law practice, which is an area that we want to focus on in our conversation today. John graduated from the University of Indiana and earned his law degree from the University of Tulsa. John, welcome to the How That Happened podcast.

John Hickey:

Thanks Robert.

Robert Wagner:

Glad you're here. So you and I have known each other for a long time, longer than we want to admit at this time I think. So all back kind of previous lives, previous employers and things. And my recollection of working with you was it was going to be about bankruptcy, it was going to be about employment law, things like that. But in the intervening years, you've gotten involved in the cannabis industry. So in the spirit of the podcast's name, how did that happen?

John Hickey:

Well, so my first and only grandson was being born in Portland, Oregon in January of 2015 and I was in Portland at the time. My son in law was working for Dope Magazine selling ads. And Oregon had just passed a recreational marijuana referendum and I became interested in the business. I first was focused on why banks couldn't take cannabis accounts. And I spent a good deal of time looking into that. But in the course of that, I started having conversations with people in the software industry that had software tracking systems for grow operations. I met with some growers. First time I'd ever seen a grow operation. I talked with people in the processing business. And just after a while decided that it was a great opportunity for a cutting edge business. And then I got into it a little deeper.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

Real quick, I'll tell you a short story about seeing my first grow operation. It was up in the mountains in Washington state and I drove up there with my son in law and I was expecting to see fields and fields of marijuana. And we're driving up and I don't see anything, we're pulling into the driveway. There doesn't seem to be anything around. And we go inside and they're growing, in about a four or five hundred square foot room.

Robert Wagner:

Right.

John Hickey:

And that was their operation. And in the middle of the table, on a coffee table in the middle of the living room, were four big pickle jars filled with buds, and I was sitting there thinking, oh my God, we're going to get arrested. Oh, wait a minute. It's legal. And there was a real adjustment there to understanding that, yes, it's not against the law in that state. Of course, federally it's still illegal.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. So this started out as just a curiosity, an intellectual interest? Am I hearing you right? You did all this kind of pre-work and study and background just as an intellectual exercise for you?

John Hickey:

Yeah, pretty much. It did turn into a little bit more than that. I became interested in putting together a group of investors, which I did. Raised a little under a million dollars, bought a farm outside of Portland, built two 2,800 square foot greenhouses, light deprivation greenhouses, refitted a pole barn into a nursery. And began growing marijuana in 2016 and probably had about four crops in 2016, and then we're getting ready to move into 2017 and things kind of changed. My partners were convinced that they could do it better than I could. As it turned out, it was good for me to give up the reins because I'm not a farmer, I'm a lawyer.

Robert Wagner:

Right.

John Hickey:

And I was spending probably about two weeks out of every month up in Portland running the farm.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

I didn't anticipate doing that. I had Oregon partners who were going to be operating the farm. Unfortunately, their processing business was pretty challenging for them and so I was forced into the role. And as it turns out, it had unintended consequences. When 788 passed here in Oklahoma.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. So was this Troutman Farms?

John Hickey:

Right. Troutman Farms.

Robert Wagner:

Right. So just doing research, I sort of found that in the backgrounds.

John Hickey:

I'm impressed.

Robert Wagner:

So just a little bit of a sidetrack here, that's the first time you'd run a business. Is that accurate? I'm really asking, what did you learn running a business? I guess.

John Hickey:

I learned it was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

There is a tendency, or was a tendency, particularly among the people that were getting involved in it for the very first time, that it was a get rich quick scheme. And that millions of dollars were going to be made in the very first year. Well, it didn't turn out that way.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

There's a lag time between the time you first get your clones and put them into rooms to flower and harvest of about six months. And so you're without any income for the first six months. The capital is a lot more intensive than you'd think. Getting the environment just so for the greenhouses was a challenge.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

We had all kinds of issues. We had a CO2 burn, we had mites, we had all kinds of things that we had to challenge, but we were dialing it in and we were getting better quality product. In terms of operations, I didn't handle the plant and I had hired other people to do that. That is a real challenge, finding the right people. But when it came to operating the business itself, it wasn't a whole lot different than any other business. I've been involved with businesses, even though I haven't run one for a long time. So I knew about payroll, the insurance, just the general day to day operations of what needed to be paid for, those kinds of things.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Okay. So that's great stuff. So you alluded to Oklahoma passing a marijuana law. And so how did that change things? Oklahoma seems unique. I may be wrong about this, but again, just doing some research, the number of licenses have been issued for facilities, whether that's grower facilities or dispensaries, it's a huge number, over 12,000 of these licenses. I was reading, there was an interesting statistic about there's a, I guess it's not call a user license. What's the license in Oklahoma if you want to be able to use the product?

John Hickey:

Yeah. That's a medicinal card.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. So there's one for every 25 people or something. It's more dense than McDonald's is in terms of penetration into the population. So what's happened in Oklahoma and how are you playing in it?

John Hickey:

Well, a little bit history. In late 2017, there were some rumblings about 788 and some other referendums that were circling about possibly passing medical marijuana. I had been hired by a client to kind of follow it through the state legislature in 2018. And then of course it passed in May of 2018. There are no limits on the number of medical marijuana licenses that can be issued. That is unusual. Most states have limits. One of the few that did not was Oregon, but recently within the last couple of days, their legislature has passed moratorium on any new licenses because of the problems that they were having, which are very similar to what's happening here in Oklahoma. There's a saturation of the marketplace. We have nearly over 9,000 growers.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

Some at various levels, some 80,000 to 100,000 square feet. Some at 10,000 to 2500 square feet. So the levels of output, they vary from grow to grow. But Oklahoma is probably the single most liberal state in the union, oddly enough, for the growing and selling of marijuana. No limitation on the number of dispensaries, as you can see on every street corner.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

Processors, it's not quite as many. Growers have exploded. The price started out in 2018, it was about 2,800 a pound. Right now it's hovering between 1300 to 1800 a pound. Some people are not even able to get that price. There are some things that have happened in the market that, again, happened in Oregon. Oregon is uniquely situated, as is Northern California, for big outdoor grows. And many growers have tried growing outdoors here in Oklahoma, which is more of a challenge, but they're doing it anyway. And when their product hits the market, it drives the price down because their product prices per pound are somewhere in the neighborhood of about 300 to 400 dollar a pound. So it's very competitive. It's definitely oversaturated. And then as a result of that, of course, when you're growing a lot of marijuana and you can't sell it through dispensaries, where does it go?

Robert Wagner:

Yeah.

John Hickey:

It goes to the black market.

Robert Wagner:

Right.

John Hickey:

And we've seen some of that lately. There was, just a couple weeks ago, 10 grows that were shut down by the Oklahoma Bureau of Dangerous Drugs and Narcotics. And they allegedly were selling on the open market. I don't have any doubt that they were.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. All right. So I said at the opening, before we started recording, we don't do politics and things here, but how did the, what's often quoted as, the reddest of the red states, Oklahoma, end up with this liberal law, you think?

John Hickey:

Well, an even more interesting question is how did it become so radical?

Robert Wagner:

Yeah.

John Hickey:

Chip Paul was one of the authors of this. I talked with him after it had been passed by the state and he focused his attention on the opioid crisis. And it was heavily supported by veterans. Because no doubt that the product has medicinal purposes.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

We're just beginning to scratch the surface on how that impacts various medical conditions. But I think that is probably where it gained the most traction. And Chip Paul will tell you that he made it as liberal as possible thinking that the state legislature would reign it in.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

And they've been slow to do that. That's now beginning to change. It'll change here in the upcoming legislative session.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

There's some very aggressive bills that are now working their way through the legislature that will have a huge impact on the business.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Well kind of a legal question here, and you alluded to this. We've got states that have legalized it, either recreationally or medically or both, probably many flavors of that, still illegal from a federal standpoint. HoganTaylor's position is that we're going to continue to kind of stay away from it until something happens at the federal level because of this kind of conflict that we have in the law. So how do you help clients walk that line? I mean, you're giving advice in a state that it's legal, but it's still federally illegal.

John Hickey:

That's a really good question. And a lot of it has to do with the impact of the various businesses that normally you would be doing business with such as banks, accountants, primarily insurance, getting trademarks. Bankruptcy is not an option.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

So the federal illegality, it impacts pretty much everything that a marijuana producer will have or face, your marijuana business will face. And so we kind of navigate them through those processes to allow them to try to act as normal as you can as a business, given all the challenges. One of the biggest, aside from the banking, which is beginning to become a little more relaxed here in this state, there are several banks throughout the state that will bank cannabis.

And I think it's a really a myth about whether or not banks can bank cannabis. It's just a matter of the level of due diligence that they want to engage in.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

Because it's a higher level, right? And it takes more people and it's more expensive. But one of the biggest problems with being involved in the marijuana business from the federal illegality side is IRS code section 280E. The IRS will not allow cannabis companies... Well let me put it this way, the IRS taxes cannabis businesses on their gross revenue, as opposed to their net revenue.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

And the only deductions that a cannabis business can take are cost of goods sold. For a cultivation company, cultivation businesses and processors, there's quite a bit of cost of goods sold. They still can't deduct a number of things, but for the most part, rent can be deducted, labor can be deducted, legal expenses cannot. But for dispensaries, the only cost of goods sold, with a few exceptions, is the cost of buying the product.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

So you can't deduct employees, you can't deduct rent. And so you're effective tax rate for dispensaries, it can be as high as 40 or 50 percent.

Robert Wagner:

Right.

John Hickey:

So, we try to get them through that process and work with them on the operating agreements to ensure that the operating agreements don't say that you're complying with federal law. Lease agreements that clearly allow people to engage in the marijuana business on their premises and have special provisions regarding licensing and continuing to allow the businesses to maintain their licensing. And there's a whole host of things. And of course the tax side, I'm not an accountant. I don't really handle the tax side, but if you're a lawyer in this area, you have to understand it, even if you can't give advice about it. But there's a number of firms that do step into their role and have provided advice.

Robert Wagner:

Right.

John Hickey:

So it's kind of a cornucopia of problems and issues that are all derived from the fact that it's federally illegal.

Robert Wagner:

Right. Yeah. It's very highly specialized. Probably will continue to be as we go forward. Again, you alluded to this earlier, too, we saw this with our clients, so many of our clients contacted us about this business because it looked like the hot new thing. In Oklahoma, you have these oil booms and busts and when it's booming everyone wants to figure out how to own the oil well. That's what it seemed like. How do I get into marijuana business? And again, we were taking a hands off approach to that. So where do you think this is going to go? I mean, you've already sort of alluded to there's too many. There's too many people or too many different businesses involved. Is there going to be consolidation? How's that going to shake out, do you think, in the near term?

John Hickey:

Well, it's going to be a variety of factors. On the dispensary side, there are a lot of people that didn't reserve for taxes. And soon they're going to shut down because they can't afford it.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

Prices are dropping and they can't afford to. Finding a good product, that's been a challenge. For the cultivators, and really that's where it really starts, is that there's a lot of businesses out there that... Well, let me just say it this way, because you can't really be in this business without understanding two things. One is that many of these businesses are run by, we call them stoners. I mean, there are people who smoke their own product and they're really not business people.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

And then there's a whole sector of businesses that are truly business people and they're the ones that are going to survive. And there are a number of them. Some of them here in Tulsa. One in particular in Bixby, I won't name names, but they have very good quality product. They're very well run companies, run by in one instance, an owner who got his master's degree from OSU. And he's got a master of business degree or the MBA from some other prestigious place and he runs it like a business.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

Those people are going to be able to weather the up and down of the initial storm. A good example of how it works is Colorado. Colorado started out much the same way as Oklahoma. And now they're down to about eight to 12 primary companies that provide most, if not all, of the product for the Colorado market. And the Colorado market, of course, is recreational.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

And, as you say alluded to something that was kind of interesting in Oklahoma and that is for this state, in order to get a card, you don't have to have a qualifying medical condition. In every other state in the union, a patient needs to have a qualifying medical condition in order to get a card. And so what's happened here is that it's become quasi recreational.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

I think there's over 400,000 cardholders. And my own theory is that there's another 150 to 200,000 people who don't have cards, but they live with people who do.

Robert Wagner:

Right.

John Hickey:

And if they need a cream or [inaudible 00:24:09] or a tincture or whatever, or a vape pen, they just have somebody else buy it.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

And there's nothing to prevent that from happening. And it's very difficult to discern who's not a card holder, who is a non card holder when they're using it discretely.

Robert Wagner:

Right. Right.

John Hickey:

And so it's just another example of how Oklahoma is quite different from the rest of the country. But I think eventually, we're already seeing it now where cultivators are going out of business. They can't withstand the pricing. There are bigger and more efficient grow operations that are coming online. And they're taking out the little guy with a few exceptions.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

That one place in Bixby I was telling you about, they're a very, very good boutique shop and they're still commanding 2,300 to 2,500 dollars a pound, but they can only do four crops a year.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

And the volume is not that great. And those people will continue to exist, but they're going to become fewer and far between. It's going to take a good, well, depending on what the legislature does this session, it's going to take a good two years, maybe three before the market becomes normalized.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. So last question on the cannabis route, what's your prediction about federal law?

John Hickey:

As long as the Republicans hold the Senate, it ain't going to happen.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

And Biden's got enough on his plate right now to have to use any political capital to have his vice president break a tie in the Senate. It's not high priority, obviously, with what's going on now. So I think it's not likely that it's going to become federally legal unless the Democrats do well in the midterm and the Democrats control both houses in 2024. At that point, I think the chances of it becoming federally legal are likely. And just so that the listeners understand, marijuana is a schedule one drug along with heroin.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

Schedule two is cocaine.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah.

John Hickey:

I mean, it doesn't belong on schedule one. And that's where I think when we're talking about decriminalization, we're talking about moving it from schedule one to schedule three or four. And that will open up the way for banks to take fundings, HoganTaylors of the world to feel comfortable that they can provide services to marijuana related businesses and the IRS to back off on 280E. But I don't see that changing, particularly if the Republicans gain control in 2022 and 2024.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Okay. That's a fascinating conversation about cannabis and about the industry, but let's talk about you and your career. So what was the catalyst for you becoming a lawyer?

John Hickey:

I graduated from Indiana University and I was tending bar at a place called Nick's English Hut.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

And I had moved to California, to Los Angeles, for about three months where my family had moved about a year before and hated LA. Talked my boss at Nick's into giving me a plane ticket back to Bloomington, flew back to the Midwest. And was tending bar for a couple years and after two years of that, I thought I need to do something else with my life. And I thought I might be good at this. And it turns out I did okay.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Yeah. So you chose the University of Tulsa, right?

John Hickey:

Well, I think it chose me.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

I applied to seven different schools. Six of them were east of the Mississippi.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

I had never been to Tulsa, didn't know anybody here. I got a qualified acceptance. I had to take it within a certain period of time. If I didn't, I lost it. I hadn't heard from the other schools so I took it. Came down to Tulsa in August of 1980 site unseen and went to school at TU.

Robert Wagner:

And then never left.

John Hickey:

And never left. Always thought I would, but nope. Never did.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah.

John Hickey:

And I'm never going to.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. That is great. So I want to talk a little bit just about your industry and the litigation business. Our podcast is about success. It's about innovation. We're interested in how things are changing. Is the litigation business changing? Is there disruption coming? It seems like it's been about the same for quite a while. Now there's technology that has impacted the presentation of exhibits and things like that, but is anyone trying to disrupt that market?

John Hickey:

Well, COVID had a huge impact on the market.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah.

John Hickey:

The civil trial docket was completely disrupted for nearly two years. And then there are some other things that have kind of come onto the scene that have created problems at the federal bench level here in Oklahoma. Once McGirt was ruled on, the federal courts have now been forced to have to retry criminal cases. And I talked to a couple of the federal court judges, one in particular, Judge Heil, in the eastern district, and he said that their civil docket was nonexistent. That if you wanted to get a federal court judge to hear your case, you were going to be waiting quite a long time.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

The state court system has always been similar to that in the sense that it took a long while to wind your way through the process. And I think that more and more people are moving toward arbitration. In the employment area, particularly, but also since I stopped doing work with you, Robert, I moved into the construction law area and also did complex commercial cases. And then of course there was my 15 minutes of fame.

Robert Wagner:

We're going to get to that.

John Hickey:

Okay. And so we were doing more and more arbitrations and they were supposed to be cheaper, but they're not less expensive unless you have a lawyer who understands how to save money in arbitration. For example, over a certain level, and so your listeners are aware, I'm a neutral for the American Arbitration Association on their construction industry arbitration panel. So I hear cases now, as well as try cases in front of arbitrators.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

And one of the things that the AAA does automatically, if you're over a certain limit, you've got to have a three arbitration panel. You can waive that, and you should waive that, because it's way, way too expensive. Another cost saving measure that many lawyers may not understand because their clients, they want to see the award spelled out, is that you can choose to have what they call a reasoned award, which is essentially an opinion. Give you an example, I did one such opinion on a single family home in Oklahoma City, it was actually in Edmond, and it was 95 pages long. So it took a long time to prepare that order.

Robert Wagner:

Right.

John Hickey:

Or you can get a standard award and that you don't have to justify all of the reasons why you came to your conclusion, and it's a lot shorter and a lot less expensive. You can limit, in your arbitration agreements, as you're drafting those in the contracts that you're working on intentionally limit discovery. Intentionally prohibit the arbitrator from allowing discovery to take place unless all the parties agree, and then only on a limited basis. When I started out with the AAA about three years ago, as a neutral, they're pushing a renewed effort to try to speed up the time with which you get to an arbitration hearing,

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

And to try to keep the cost down. And the biggest way to keep cost down is to limit discovery. And a lot of lawyers will say, well, I can't be ready. I can't prepare it. Well, that's really not true. If you're a good attorney and you know the documents, with one, maybe two depositions, you can get the gist of the case and you can make your case to an arbitrator. Now, there are some downsides to arbitration. The appeals are limited, very limited. And you might pull a bad arbitrator, that's possible, and you're stuck with it. But arbitration does seem to be an alternative.

The other one is for parties to mediate earlier on in the case. Mediators are getting better and better. There's more of them, certainly in Oklahoma. And so I always try to get my clients to consider mediating very early on. And if that doesn't work out, do it again two or three months later after you've got a few hundred thousand dollars under your belt and you paid your lawyer more than you think. Because no matter whether you think you're right or you're wrong, it still costs a lot of money. Way too much money right now to prove your point. And for small businesses, it can be devastating.

Robert Wagner:

Right. Yeah, that's my position as well in working with clients is you're just losing. Even if you have the moral high ground, you think you did the right thing, you're just going to lose. It's going to take so much time, so much distraction and then the cost is just enormous. So it's how can we get to the end as quickly as possible?

John Hickey:

And of course it's easier if you're the one pushing the claim.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

Because you can choose to do it or not to do it. And that's an evaluation I take pretty seriously with my clients early on. Do you really want to do this? Because not only is it going to cost you money, it's going to cost you time.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

And so there is a cost that you're not considering here. And we try to go through that analysis early on, but if you're sued and you have to defend yourself, then it's harder to get out of. I've got a situation right now with a large retailer and they were sued by a woman who is claiming a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act because they told her to put a mask on and she refused. And so they politely asked her to leave. And now she's a pro se, which means without a lawyer, a pro se plaintiff in a lawsuit and it's going to be very difficult to get out of this.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean the nugget that you gave us there was this discovery concept, right. Of limiting discovery and thinking about that in your contract. So encourage folks who heard that to think about understanding that more in a greater detail. I didn't know that was possible. Discovery, it's an area that seems out of control. And now, we from time to time have clients who get sued, obviously. We're in business, so we have clients who get sued. And we'll get a subpoena or we'll get an order saying, hey, secure the documents, basically. And that goes to IT now. I mean, in the old days it was, go control that file cabinet. Right. And now we got to have big processes around that here because you got to think about the email, think about the files and the systems and all this. And it's crazy what happens in that scenario. And, again, it takes a huge amount of time and people's involvement and stuff. So I think that you really piqued my interest with the limiting discovery.

John Hickey:

And if you'll remember in some of the cases that we were involved in, it took months and months to get through discovery.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah.

John Hickey:

But with the arbitration agreements... Let me end with that. The arbitrators are bound by the agreement, the arbitration agreement. They can't deviate from it.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

So if you write it in there, they got to do it.

Robert Wagner:

Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Well, no discussion with John Hickey would be complete without noting his brush with celebrity, as you described it a minute ago. So you had at least a moment in your career where you were a celebrity lawyer, right, or you were a lawyer for a celebrity. And so you represented Garth Brooks in a dispute that he had. So what was that like?

John Hickey:

It was very interesting. And I would say I represented a celebrity, not a celebrity lawyer.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

It was challenging, interesting. I got to know Garth as a person and it was a very interesting trial. I don't know if you know much about the background of it, but there was a hospital in Oklahoma City who had taken a donation from Garth for a half million dollars and they were going to name a wing of the new women's center that they were going to build essentially in Yukon, right across from the Garth Brooks water tower. And he loved his mom very much and it touched him and he did it and he did it on a handshake. And then I had been to doing some work with him on his house out in Owasso with a general contractor out there. And one day he said to me, he goes, hey Hickey, I donated half a million dollars in this hospital, they won't give it back. Can you get it back for me? And I said, sure.

And turned out to be more of a challenge than I thought, but we were able to convince the jury that the hospital never intended to build the wing. And so they found in his favor, gave him his money back and then gave him another $500,000 in punitive damages, something I've never done before. I've never asked for it. Didn't prepare for it. And if you asked me how it went, it was total blank. I could never remember what I said or how I said it, but it was successful.

Robert Wagner:

Right. Okay. That's a great story. So, John, we're nearing the end of our time here, but we have five questions that we ask every guest. So you ready?

John Hickey:

Oh, is this kind of like the actor studio? Do I have to swear?

Robert Wagner:

No, you don't have to swear.

John Hickey:

Okay.

Robert Wagner:

So, so what was the first way you made money?

John Hickey:

I was a caddy at St. Charles Country Club in St. Charles, Illinois.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

And I was about 12 years.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

And that's how I made money initially.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. Were you good at it?

John Hickey:

Yeah, I was able even, from time to time, take doubles, they call doubles.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

Where you carry two bags at one time.

Robert Wagner:

Wow. All right.

John Hickey:

And you make quite a bit more money that way, but it's a challenge, especially if your golfers are…

Robert Wagner:

Right. Spraying balls.

John Hickey:

All over the place. Yeah. It's kind of hard.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Yeah. I saw, I think it was Jack Nicklaus' grandson talking about being a caddy and he says it's all about the three ups. Show up, shut up and keep up. So that was his advice. So if you were not a litigation attorney, what do you think you would be doing?

John Hickey:

Well, early on I wanted to be an oceanographer.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

And then I realized that complicated math issues were not my thing.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

And so I moved into a history and political science degree. I don't know. I one time thought I might be a stock broker, maybe sell commercial real estate. Those would probably be more realistic goals.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. All right. So this might take you back to your bartending. So what would you tell your 20 year old self?

John Hickey:

Be flexible. Don't set your sights on any one thing necessarily. One of the things I've learned in my law practice, and you kind of pointed that out, is that I started out doing bankruptcy in 1984 because the oil business was going down the toilet and there was a ton of bankruptcy so I worked for a bankruptcy lawyer. Then I ended up going to work for a smaller firm. They needed a labor and employment lawyer because they had a lot of small businesses. So I learned that.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

I got into the construction business because I had a client who had a lot of construction work. And next thing I know, I know what a [inaudible 00:45:01] is and I know what the basics of the AIA contracts are and I had a working knowledge of the construction industry. And then of course now here I am doing cannabis work. So I think I would've said, don't be worried about where you end up in life. Just don't get stuck in a rut.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Yeah. That is really good stuff. I mean, just the meandering that your career has taken because you were curious and willing to learn. Right. So what will the title of your book be?

John Hickey:

That's actually pretty easy.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

Because one of the things, I do a lot of nonprofit work. I've been the [inaudible 00:45:54] board for a long time. I've been on the family safety center board. I've done a lot of work with United Way and their community investment cabinet.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Hickey:

On right now, board chair for the OKPOP Foundation. And then my most fun nonprofit, which is being on the board of directors for Octoberfest. But I think that the title of my book would be He Made a Difference.

Robert Wagner:

Great. Great. That's awesome, John. Okay. So last question is, what is the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

John Hickey:

That's a harder one. I think it, and this has become more important as I get older, don't do it if it's not fun.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. Where'd you get that piece of advice or you just picked it up through experience.

John Hickey:

My brother gave it to me.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. All right. What does your brother do?

John Hickey:

He was a contractor. He passed away last April.

Robert Wagner:

Oh. Sorry to hear that.

John Hickey:

Yeah.

Robert Wagner:

Wow. Okay. All right. Well, John, I really appreciate the time today. It's been fascinating. It's great to reconnect with you as well. So if folks want to find out more about what you're doing or want to contact you about something, how can they do that?

John Hickey:

Probably through my email.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

jhickey@hallestill.com.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

John Hickey:

Or they can reach out to me on my phone there at the office.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. Yeah. It's easy to find on the Hall Estill webpage as well.

John Hickey:

Mm-hmm.

Robert Wagner:

So again, thanks so much, John. Appreciate it.

John Hickey:

Thank you. Appreciate it, Robert.

Robert Wagner:

That's all for this episode of How That Happened. Thank you for listening. Be sure to visit howthathappened.com for show notes and additional episodes. You can also subscribe to our show on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast, or Stitcher. Thanks again for listening. This content is for information purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Copyright 2022 HoganTaylor, LLP, all rights reserved. To view the HoganTaylor general terms and conditions, visit hogantaylor.com.