craig mastanuono| Episode 10

Craig Mastantuono  0:00  
Telling a judge your client never had a birthday party is something that, you know, simple, that connects and that anybody can relate to. The process of asking some of my clients these questions makes me realize they've never thought about or been asked these questions before.

 

Aaron Nelson  0:26  
Welcome back to another episode of Sanctuary in the Jungle. I'm your host, Aaron Nelson. Today I'm sitting down with a Chicago-raised criminal defense attorney, Craig Mastantuono. After years of working in public defense in Waukesha, Craig went out on his own, not just to be his own boss, but to build the kind of law firm he truly believed in. His firm now isn't just a practice, it's a culture. At the heart of that culture is a dedication to crisis management through client services. Today, Craig walks us through how his team creates a sanctuary through holistic services. We'll talk about how the ACE questionnaire helps him see the full picture of a client's story and why he goes out of his way to set clients up for success, both inside and outside of the courtroom. Hope you enjoy. Here's Craig.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:16  
Welcome to Sanctuary in the Jungle. Craig, thanks for joining us here.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:20  

Thanks for having me.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:21  
Long trip up from Milwaukee, huh?

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:22  
It's a nice drive. Beautiful state we live in.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:26  

As I like to say, you guys have the best law firm over on the east coast of the state, and you're coming over here to the west coast of the state.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:33  
It's nice to be over here at the other best law firm. And thanks for the compliment.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:37  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:38  
Not so sure that's true, but we try our best.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:40  
Well, I don't know. Absolutely. So, I know you're in Milwaukee now, but you're a Chicagoan. Is that right?

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:45  
South-side Chicagoan born and raised. Yeah.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:48  
Yeah, tell me about growing up in the South Side of Chicago. What was that like?

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:52  
You know, looking back on it, I think it was wonderful. I'm not so sure it was always wonderful at the time, but that makes me like everybody else, right? Growing up is tough, no matter where and how you grow up. Well, the South Side of Chicago is, you know, there's two sides of Chicago, if you're from Chicago, the north and south right. The north side of Chicago is where the wine sippers live and the Cubs fans. And the South Side of Chicago is the multi- ethnic, multi racial, working-class part of town. There's also a west side. So, I don't want to disrespect my West Side brothers in Chicago and sisters, but you know, to be a lawyer now is unusual for someone that grew up on the south side of Chicago, at least at my kind of level of socio-economic status. Nobody on the block that I grew up in- on, went to college. Nobody on the block beyond those that block went to college. Nobody beyond those blocks went to college.

 

Aaron Nelson  2:44  
Like, the people before you, or the- or like your, your, your colleagues, your peers?

 

Craig Mastantuono  2:45  
The- my elders, so my parents, right? My parents and the parents around me. 

 

Aaron Nelson  2:54  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  2:54  
This was a working-class part of Chicago where the average median income was in, at the time, probably the twenty thousands. And, you know, back then, making it in my old neighborhood was getting a union job. You know, my uncles worked for places like International Harvester. 

 

Aaron Nelson  2:57  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  2:58  
And, you know, getting a union job was kind of the height of making it for working-class Chicagoans at the time. So, you know, in the sense that, you know, I repeat this line sometimes about my clients, I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but like we become what we see, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  3:29  
Oh, sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  3:29  
And if I became what I saw back, then I'd be, you know, a union guy somewhere working, probably getting ready to get done with retirement because my body was giving out-

 

Aaron Nelson  3:33  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  3:34  
Of a lot of years of labor. Or in my case, frankly, my father was a small businessman. Was a deli owner and a caterer who started a business with his grand- with my grandfather, his father. And so, he was a businessman, a small businessman within that town. So, or I would be in the food and hospitality, catering business right now. 

 

Aaron Nelson  3:59  
So, I know you're a small business owner now, and we'll get to that later, but tell me a little bit more about your parents. You were- you're a child of immigrants.

 

Craig Mastantuono  4:08  
I am the son and grandson of immigrants. My father's parents emigrated from Italy in 19- 1921, which was very common wave of Italian immigration at the time. And my mother was born and raised in Mexico City, and she emigrated with her two brothers and parents after World War Two. My grandfather was a foreign national in the US Army and served under General Patton in North Africa. He enlisted in the Army as a foreign national, as a Mexican citizen, when he was 35 with three kids at home, to ultimately get to the States.

 

Aaron Nelson  4:42  
Wow.

 

Craig Mastantuono  4:43  
He was living in the States at the time and sending money back, and he invested during World War Two, which, you know, sometimes I think about that just as an aside. And think, you know, who goes to war, a World War at 35 with a wife and three kids?

Aaron Nelson  4:56  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  4:56  
You know?

 

Aaron Nelson  4:57  
Well, I mean, there was a story that motivated him, obviously. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  5:00  
Right? And, and a desire, I think, to emigrate.

 

Aaron Nelson  5:03  
Sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  5:04  
And, you know, I mean, his, his, he was here, working and sending money home for a reason, right? Things weren't good. 

 

Aaron Nelson  5:11  
Yeah, it was better where, where he was coming to.

 

Craig Mastantuono  5:13  
Yeah, yeah.

 

Aaron Nelson  5:14  
What was the population like, where you grew up then? Were there a lot of other immigrants? Were there a lot of- was there some diversity? 

 

Craig Mastantuono  5:22  
Yeah, there was a lot of diversity, actually. But Chicago is a very racially segregated place, most along residential lines, right? And so, I grew up in a neighborhood, you know, 15 minutes south of downtown Chicago, where you knew what blocks you could go on and what neighborhoods you could go in and had to stay out of, you know?

 

Aaron Nelson  5:41  
Based on your looks, based upon your last name?

 

Craig Mastantuono  5:43  
Based on your skin color. I mean, the biggest thing on the south side of Chicago when you were growing up in racial segregation is they were black neighborhoods and ethnic neighborhoods.

 

Aaron Nelson  5:49  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  5:49  
And back then, residentially, they were segregated hard, and there was danger for, you know, kids who weren't African-American to go to African-American neighborhoods, and certainly the other way around African-American kids to come into white ethnic neighborhoods. And kind of as this half-relative to other Latino people, fairly fair skinned, you know, Italian looking person myself and some cousins of mine that were also half-Mexican and half other mixes. We kind of moved in and around those circles, sometimes with more ease and sometimes with more apprehension. So, you know, Chicago is just a racially charged town.

 

Aaron Nelson  6:14  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  6:14  
Especially growing up, you know, in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

 

Aaron Nelson  6:31  
Did you grow up speaking multiple languages?

 

Craig Mastantuono  6:34  
I grew up speaking fairly proficient Italish and fairly proficient Spanglish.

 

Aaron Nelson  6:40  
Tell me a little bit more about that. What do you mean by that?

 

Craig Mastantuono  6:42  
Well, my mom and- my mom was Spanish. Spanish was her first language, right? But my mom and dad spoke English at home because my father's first language, which was English, he didn't speak fluent Italian. His parents did, but they were immigrants that were, arrive in America. We're going to speak English. We're going to assimilate and become American citizens. So, it wasn't a priority. You know, my dad was born in 1932. It wasn't a priority in the 40s to make sure that your son spoke Italian as much as it was to make sure that your son fit in.

 

Aaron Nelson  7:10  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  7:10  
You know, to society, to larger society. So, he and my mom spoke English at home, so we didn't grow up speaking multiple languages. But, you know, every weekend, on Sundays especially, I was either at my Italian grandparents' or my Mexican grandparents' home, where we were eating what we would call field-to-fork now.

 

Aaron Nelson  7:29  
Yeah, right?

 

Craig Mastantuono  7:29  
But, really back- I didn't know what that was obviously back then. Farm-to-table, field-to-fork. But you know, these were immigrant grandparents that grew everything in large gardens, rolled pastas, made salsas, you know. And interestingly enough, they knew each other as their children had married. And my Mexican grandfather spoke Italian from his service in World War Two. He came up through North Africa, hit Sicily and went up and ended up in Rome for a year and a half, working at an allied hospital, because by then, he spoke multiple languages and served as an interpreter, and it got him out of the last year or so of battlefield duty.

 

Aaron Nelson  8:09  
Yeah, yeah. Off the front lines.

 

Craig Mastantuono  8:10  
So, he would, he would speak Italian with my Italian grandfather, and he thought it was a kick, you know, to do that.

 

Aaron Nelson  8:15  
So, you would hear a lot of Spanish with from the grandparents, a lot of Italian from the grandparents.

 

Craig Mastantuono  8:19  
Of course.

 

Aaron Nelson  8:20  
Do you- are you now bilingual, multi-?

 

Craig Mastantuono  8:23  
I wouldn't call myself bilingual. I would call myself proficient at understanding Spanish. I sling a little Italian for fun. But we serve Spanish-speaking clients. My team in Milwaukee, we have two fluent Spanish-speakers on our staff, our investigator and our legal assistant, and so we serve the Latino community and Spanish-speaking clients with frequency. 

 

Aaron Nelson  8:46  
Yeah, and I want to get into that, because I know you're- I know how that impacts the profession and what you do, the services that you provide, the sanctuary that you can give. But before we get there, just a little bit more about growing up. Did you- were you an only child? Did you have siblings?

Craig Mastantuono  9:03  
No, I was the youngest of four. I have two older sisters and an older brother.

 

Aaron Nelson  9:05  
Okay?

 

Craig Mastantuono  9:06  
And two of them still work in that deli and catering service that never really was great at providing with us with a lot of money, yeah, but was good at providing a structure. And when you're kind of the third or fourth kid in a small business family you start, you have the opportunity, I think, to look around a little more versus your older siblings that are kind of coming up in that business and probably, you know, working harder in it. And I feel that I was privileged by that. I had older brothers- brother and sisters that looked out for me, and I came five years later. I was kind of a little bit more of a surprise baby.

 

Aaron Nelson  9:29  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  9:33  
After the first three were born. And, you know, I wanted, at a pretty early age in high school to get higher education. And you know-

 

Aaron Nelson  9:56  
How did that- I mean, you said, you know you, you are what you see.

 

Craig Mastantuono  9:59  
Yeah.

 

Aaron Nelson  9:59  
Right. I mean, it doesn't sound like there were a lot of other people in your neighborhood or in your family or elsewhere that were seeking higher education. So, what do you think it was about you and your experience that led you there? 

 

Craig Mastantuono  10:10  
Yeah, well, probably one thing was the high school that I went to, I was doing fairly poorly in public schools, coming into middle school and out of middle school. In some ways, that was a very good experience, because Chicago schools were desegregated at that time. So, you know, I went to school with black kids and Latino kids and kids of all ethnic- ethnicities, which was wonderful. There was a good diversity of- of community. But for various reasons, I just wasn't doing well in middle school. I was fighting. I wasn't satisfied. I wasn't getting good grades. I was getting incomplete grades.

 

Aaron Nelson  10:46  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  10:47  
So, I ended up going to an all-boys Catholic High School on the south side of Chicago, near my neighborhood.

 

Aaron Nelson  10:48  
Alright. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  10:51  
Chicago has a ton of parochial schools. Back then, a lot more single-sex Catholic high schools. Now they've all mostly-

 

Aaron Nelson  11:02  
Neighborhood based. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  11:04  
Yes, and so the one I went to was Marist High School, all boys, Catholic. I, you know, I did need discipline. I got it there. It took me about a year to adjust to get to the- with the program, but I got with the program, and my older brother had gone there as well. So, I wasn't the only kid that got sent there, and it was affordable for a working-class family back then. I mean, I remember my tuition being about six, about $850 my freshman year, and it poked up to like $1,250 my senior year.

 

Aaron Nelson  11:36  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  11:36  
And that was still a good amount of money for my parents to scrape together and send us to schools like that, but it turned me on to the possibilities of higher education. But it was just the concept of, you know, thinking that learning is cool. Good grades can open doors. You know, discipline is required to get good grades.

 

Aaron Nelson  11:57  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  11:57  
I was an athlete in high school, you know. And so, I just got steered onto the right track and, and my scores were good. So, when we came time to take tests, I did well on the ACT, and I was college bound, you know. So, I started seeking out opportunities. Ended up going to Loyola University of Chicago.

 

Aaron Nelson  12:16  
And is that on the south side?

 

Craig Mastantuono  12:17  
That is on the north side. So, I moved up to the wine-sippers country.

 

Aaron Nelson  12:21  
Wow.

 

Craig Mastantuono  12:21  
Yeah. And it would also, was, you know, I would come home for the weekends fairly enough, you know, not, not too frequently. I wanted the college experience, but I went up there with a plan, and I had enough money to live there my freshman year, and then I became a resident assistant, an RA my sophomore and two more years after that.

 

Aaron Nelson  12:21  
You worked your way through.

 

Craig Mastantuono  12:21  
Yeah. I put myself through college and law school.

 

Aaron Nelson  12:22  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  12:22  
And that was my plana was, if I don't get this job, I'm going to have to figure something else out. So, I waited tables and bar tended my way through college and law school, but that RA job really helped me stay on campus for the rest of my college term, and work for a room and board, and was all free at the time. So that worked out really well.

 

Aaron Nelson  12:59  
So, when you said you worked your plan. Going in obviously, as an 18-year-old young man going to college, you know, everyone's got a plan, or, as Mike Tyson says, everyone's got a plan, until they get punched in the nose. Did you get punched in the face metaphorically?

 

Craig Mastantuono  13:13  
Oh, sure. You know, one of the punches in the face that I got was realizing that being transactional about education, which is what you did when- I don't want to sell it too far, you know, it's not like nobody in my neighborhood ever went to college. Some of, you know, certainly people from that high school that I went to, even though it's kind of a working-class Catholic High School, were college bound. Lots of kids, it was college preparatory school, but we were still very transactional. At least in my small community. If you went to college, it was to get a job. And so, you know, there was a neighbor who did have a college degree, who was starting accounting accountant, and said, "well, get a degree in business. You know, you go to college, you get major in business, get a job". And, you know, two years into my college career, I'm, you know, doing finance work and economics and accounting, going, "I hate this". 

 

Aaron Nelson  14:01  
You're looking at spreadsheets thinking "what am I doing?".

 

Craig Mastantuono  14:04  
Right. Meanwhile, you know, my history class, my sociology class- class, my English class, those are things that I loved studying and reading. And you know, by then, I was in the School of Business, so I finished that degree, picked up a minor in sociology.

 

Aaron Nelson  14:18  
But do you think your- your background of just, you know, school is a tool that's going to get me a job, because that's what I need to do. Did that limit some of what, you know, maybe the freedoms that our children have now? 

 

Craig Mastantuono  14:32  
Oh, 100%.

 

Aaron Nelson  14:33  
Tell me about that.

 

Craig Mastantuono  14:33  
Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, we just thought about education as, at least I did, as entirely for the purpose of getting a job. So, there's a process that you go through, right? It's kind of an awakening of your mind, right? To get turned on to higher learning and to be scholarly.

 

Aaron Nelson  14:50  
Sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  14:50  
And to explore and investigate new things. 

 

Aaron Nelson  14:54  
Seek knowledge, right? 

 

Craig Mastantuono  14:55  
Absolutely. Carnegie Library, you know-

 

Aaron Nelson  14:58  
There you go.

 

Craig Mastantuono  14:59  
You know, always this like place of light, right? You know, so, you know, that was a process for me. And by the time I was nearing the end of my college career, and I got okay grades and was doing fine, I knew I didn't want to come out of college and be a businessman, whatever that was. I ended up majoring in marketing, I did like marketing a lot, in the sense, you know, not in the sense of people think of marketing like television commercials. That's not really marketing. It's looking at society and saying, where's a need, how is business fulfilling it? What is the product that we use to fill that need, you know? And so, advertising is a subset of that, right? But I enjoyed that, but I knew that I didn't want to come out and be like an account exec. at an ad. agency. Something like that. 

 

Aaron Nelson  15:46  
When you were in undergrad, were you- did you start thinking about law school? How did it come to be that law school got on your, on your path? 

 

Craig Mastantuono  15:49  
You know, do you ever think that you look back on your own past and you fill in gaps and invent a lot of it?

 

Aaron Nelson  16:02  
Sure, absolutely. I mean, it's like, it's hard to say now, why- why- why it is that happened, right?

 

Craig Mastantuono  16:02  
All of those days stacked on each other back then, experiencing them and how they added up. 

 

Aaron Nelson  16:11  
I mean, my, my memory of mine, this is, I went to school at UWM, was going to get a teaching degree, but I was also a soccer player, and to become a student teacher conflicted with the soccer schedule. So next thing you know, I'm a philosophy major.

 

Craig Mastantuono  16:11  
Right?

 

Aaron Nelson  16:13  
Those are the types of life decisions that I was making when I was 20.

 

Craig Mastantuono  16:35  
Yeah, so here's my reconstructed memory of one of the biggest influences on why I decided to go to law school. You know, when I was in my third and fourth year of college, when I was ending my college career, I was certainly I was reading stuff like Studs Terkel "Working", you know? I was, I was picking up my sociology minor. I became turned on to the cause of social justice, right? I, you know, at the time, you know, our causes were divestment in South Africa. Our causes were, you know, Central America, the US government was doing to screw things up down there. You know, we were going to the Peace Museum, hanging out at places like the Heartland Cafe, which was a, you know, a beatnik cafe, in, north of, just north of Rogers Park, on the north end of Rogers Park. And so, I cared a lot about issues I think that motivate a lot of defense attorneys. You know, equality of opportunity.

 

Aaron Nelson  17:37  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  17:37  
You know, disadvantages being overcome, challenges being overcome. How poverty can impact lives, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  17:43  
Just basic. At the biggest umbrella- unfairnesses.

 

Craig Mastantuono  17:45  
Unfair- unfairnesses. Yes, unfair unfairness. And so, you know, one of my distinct memories is listening to Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" album for the first time. You know, it's, it's night circa 1987-88, you know, I hadn't really, you know, that album came out 15-18, years prior to that. I hadn't really listened to the lyrics. If you listen to that album right now, they are so relevant. 

 

Aaron Nelson  18:14  
Isn't that crazy? We've been watching some different things. And you go back and you're like, that's still relevant 40 years ago, some of the same issues just keep coming up, right?

 

Craig Mastantuono  18:23  
Marvin was singing about trigger-happy policing, and I can't pay my taxes, and his friend getting home from the Vietnam War.

 

Aaron Nelson  18:29  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  18:30  
Can't find no work, can't find no job, you know. And you know, environmental themes in that album, all kinds of, you know, really relevant themes that still ring home today, honestly, that, you know, in my reconstructed memory made me want to go to law school as much as anything.

 

Aaron Nelson  18:53  
Really?

 

Craig Mastantuono  18:53  
Try to make a difference, you know. But I will say this, if- when I entered law school, you know, and applied to and ended up going to DePaul University, still on the north side of Chicago and moving into an apartment and going to law school, I was one of those entering law students that was telling themselves, you know, you can do anything with a law degree. I shouldn't go work in policy. I can write, you know, I can-

 

Aaron Nelson  19:15  
How many people tell me about that, like, "well, you know, it's just good to get a law degree". I was like, "okay...".

 

Craig Mastantuono  19:19  
Right. Guess what? You know when you're paying for it, you're taking out loans, and you hit, like, your third semester of law school, what you realize is, I need a job when this is done. And-

 

Aaron Nelson  19:29  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  19:29  
You know who's employing people with law degrees, law firms and places where they employ people to practice law, right? So, I realized pretty quickly I was going to be a lawyer.

 

Aaron Nelson  19:39  
Now I imagine your- your parents, your family, are proud, deeply proud of all of you, all that you've done, but you've certainly strayed away from the blue collar, you know, small bit it's to some degree, the small business doing that. What- at the time that you were doing that, what was, how did that feel like with your family? Did it feel like you were separating from them? Did it feel like that that was-

 

Craig Mastantuono  20:04  
No. I come from a tight knit family. I, you know, what- we didn't benefit from resource and financially, resource-wise and financially, I benefited greatly from a caring, loving family with siblings. I mean, I- I'm still tight with all of my siblings. My father passed away during pandemic. My mother's going to be 94 next weekend.

 

Aaron Nelson  20:24  
Good genes.

 

Craig Mastantuono  20:25  
Yeah. And we're all getting together, of course. And so, I had a tight knit family, so it didn't feel like I was- but it did feel like I was entering into a different world.

 

Aaron Nelson  20:33  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  20:33  
In fact, I remember going home, walking into my dad's shop, my mom was there too, and just telling them about, well, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go to, you know, law school. And they thought that sounded good. And I think for parents in the position where it's their fourth kid, they're not parents that pay for college, they're parents that support and love their children and want them to do better. It was very much: if you can do that, you should do that, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  20:58  
They see you happy. They see you being successful.

 

Craig Mastantuono  20:58  
Yeah, yeah, so.

 

Aaron Nelson  21:02  
So, they, they're okay with your going in that direction, because I could see you're leaving their world and going on to a different world. In some ways, education is just a different world.

 

Craig Mastantuono  21:11  
You know, who it was different? You know, where that contrast really set in for me was a lot of my friends that I grew up with on the south side, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  21:19  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  21:19  
By the time I was in my second year in law school, right? These guys had been working for six years. You know, they had, you know, calluses on their hands. They went to work for a living. They had cars. You know, they were relatively- they would come up and

 

Aaron Nelson  21:20  
Maybe they had kids.

 

Craig Mastantuono  21:33  
Not yet, none of them yet, but surprisingly, but they would come up in cars and visit me on my apartment on the north side, we'd go to clubs. We'd, you know, hit bars. We'd hang around in my apartment and drink, you know. And to them, it felt like I was entering a different world. And for me, it felt like I was leaving that world. In fact, you know, when I was studying for the bar, because I took the Wisconsin bar, I went to a Chicago Law School. I remember them telling me later.

 

Aaron Nelson  22:03  
Yeah, we would leave you alone.

 

Craig Mastantuono  22:04  
Like, if you we would wait for you to say, what are you guys doing this weekend? Or I've got a three-day weekend, because we didn't want you to screw this up, you know, and we didn't want to come because we-

 

Aaron Nelson  22:13  
That scene from "Good Will Hunting" with Ben Affleck's telling the- you're the Matt Damon that they're like, "Dude, you got to do this. If you don't do this, you're disappointing me". 

 

Craig Mastantuono  22:23  
A flavor of that, you know, but that this was real life, and I would never compare myself to a movie, but-

 

Aaron Nelson  22:28  
I understand.

 

Craig Mastantuono  22:29  
But they, you know, they, they were supportive. I remember my friends saying, you know, my best friend Steve dropping me off, and he was my cousin, my mom's brother's son, dropping me off one time, and, you know, by then, he'd been working six years, and he's, like, "you got any money?". "Yeah, I got money, you know, I got a roll of L tokens. I got 20 bucks. I'm, I'm good, you know". And him, you know, "here, take some dough, dude". You know, like, there was stuff like that. My sister dropping off groceries at my- at my apartment, stuff like that. So, I had a lot of support.

 

Aaron Nelson  22:57  
Sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  22:57  
And so that that's where I got the, you know, sense of leaving one world and entering another, was with your buds, because you're 22.

 

Aaron Nelson  22:57  
Yeah, yeah, right.

 

Craig Mastantuono  22:59  
You know, 24, you know?

 

Aaron Nelson  23:01  
And then you- so you start law school. You're there in DePaul, right? And your first year, I think you're, you have a- you have a job, and it doesn't have anything to do with criminal defense work.

 

Craig Mastantuono  23:22  
A couple of them. I was bartending at the hotel Belmont in Chicago, on Belmont and Sheridan banquet. bartendering, bartending, I should say, and but also, I had started working before I went to law school in the summer, full time, and after my first year in Law School for Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago. 

 

Aaron Nelson  23:40  
And you were there- were you gonna- you were gonna maybe give up law school, I've heard. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  23:43  
I wanted to quit law school after my first year.

Aaron Nelson  23:45  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  23:46  
I went to my club director and said, you know what? I hate it. I don't like the community. Frankly, I-

 

Aaron Nelson  23:52  
The people that are the other law students.

 

Craig Mastantuono  23:54  
I'm gonna be honest about that. I wasn't thrilled with my environment. You know, they were all fine people, it was. But I just I wasn't, I wasn't enjoying the community that I was in. It seemed very gunner-like, it seemed very competitive. And so, I went to my club director and said, "Look, I'm running these daycare programs and camp programs for kids that are disadvantaged. I love this job. I'm good at it".

 

Aaron Nelson  24:19  
You're making a difference.

 

Craig Mastantuono  24:20  
Yeah, and they're making a difference in my life, too, and I knew that, so I said, I want this. I'm gonna quit, and I'll figure out a way to pay back the loans, and I'll be a club director like you. And he's departed now, but he was a great guy, and John told me, I'm not gonna hire you, and I'm gonna make sure nobody else hires you either. I'm like, what do you mean? You know? And he said, Look, you- you know, we got plenty of people that want to be club directors, and we have staff, but not a lot of us are going to law school. You're going to do more for the clubs if you become a lawyer and see through your studies than you're going to do as a club director. And so, I don't know if that's true or not, but that was one of the reasons that we set up our annual fundraiser at our firm was to give back to—you know, Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee and Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago, are all part of the same organization serving the same kids, so-

 

Aaron Nelson  25:06  
Yeah, and so you did that. I mean, at least you- you did that. You signed back up for law school. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  25:14  
Signed back up for law school, put my head back down, started completing my studies. At the end of my second year, I got a job at a commercial litigation firm, medium-sized firm, had a good experience that summer. Actually, took a case to trial with one of the lead partners. We had this knock-down, drag them out, battle over a sale of a business and whether fraud was perpetuated within that sale. We won. 

 

Aaron Nelson  25:35  
And you got to do some major work to contribute to that win. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  25:38  
That substantial work. And wrote the closing argument in the case, and didn't give a shit when the verdict came, you know, like, came back. I was-

 

Aaron Nelson  25:48  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  25:48  
You know, I mean, I did in the sense that we did good work and we won, and my partner was very pleased, and the firm made money. But I was like, wow, this isn't, you know, I didn't like our client, you know, I didn't care if he got his several $100,000 judgment, or whatever it was, in the sense that it didn't make me feel, you know, truly motivated, or like I'd accomplished justice, right? I mean, I think we were on the right side of the case, don't get me wrong, but-

 

Aaron Nelson  26:13  
Yeah, but it was not, it didn't- it didn't fill you with joy. It didn't- it didn't motivate you to continue to go on from a, from a, caring, as you-

 

Craig Mastantuono  26:23  
It's a, it's a, it's an interesting thought, because I've never thought about this before. But you know, if you hear about another case in civil world, right? Do we differentiate justice just based on running through our filter, right? Like, oh, you guys won that case, but I don't really care.

 

Aaron Nelson  26:23  
Yeah, yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  26:23  
It's justice, right? It's just not the kind of, it's not my kind of justice or the kind of justice that I want to try to achieve, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  26:46  
Yep.

 

Craig Mastantuono  26:47  
And I, you know, I've never really thought about it that way, but that's what was going on, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  26:51  
How I think of it sometimes is, there's lots of different balloons out in the world, and some of them come fully, fully filled. And I'm like, I appreciate your balloon, and I'm glad that it floats, but-

 

Craig Mastantuono  27:03  
It has the right to float.

 

Aaron Nelson  27:04  
It has the right to float, but there's these other balloons over here that need more air, and I'm gonna give those balloons air, and it sounds like that's where you're just like, they don't need me to fill up those balloons. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  27:13  
Pretty much. And I'm not gonna be happy being that balloon filler, more importantly to me at the time, right? So-

 

Aaron Nelson  27:21  
So, you made a change.

 

Craig Mastantuono  27:22  
So, the following Monday, I went back into that firm and said, "Thank you for the offer. I'm going to work an internship at a student credit internship at 26th in California at the Cook County Public Defender's Office".

 

Aaron Nelson  27:33  
Wow.

 

Craig Mastantuono  27:34  
And you know, you have these guys in expensive suits, and they put a lot of time into training and me and enjoyed my summer there, going with this quizzical look, like, supportive, of course, that's fine. But also, like, really, like, you're gonna go down to that dirty criminal court building. You know, in Chicago, you have daily Center Plaza, right where the civil cases are heard downtown, and you have 26th in California, where the criminal building is. And, you know, these guys don't go to 26th in California, right? So, I thanked them and assured them that that's what I wanted to do, and started law school like the following week, and put in for that internship, got it and you know, the rest, as they say, was history. I fell in love with the work. Did a full year of student practice down at 26th in Cal. Worked for some great public defenders. In fact, one who was young at the time. It was Amy Campanelli who became the Cook County Public Defender.

 

Aaron Nelson  28:24  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  28:25  
Just a few short years ago and had a run as the lead public defender, but I had great experiences there.

 

Aaron Nelson  28:33  
Hello. Just wanted to jump in and thank everyone for listening to the episode. Those of us advocating for the underdog know how hard it can be to carry the hope. We also know that often it takes just one smile, one hug, or one small win to keep us going. My hope is that these conversations not only encourage you to keep going, but to share that energy with others, keeping the whole community moving forward. So, carry the hope, share that hope with a friend, and subscribe now to join us.

 

Aaron Nelson  29:04  
So, 26th in California.

 

Craig Mastantuono  29:08  
Yeah. 26 in Cal.

 

Aaron Nelson  29:10  
26 in Cal. So, you're down there as a as a law student, you've talked about- what do you see?

 

Craig Mastantuono  29:16  
Yeah, you know, one of the most striking impressions I have of that time period is walking back into the holdings area behind every courtroom, right? There's a- there's a bullpen or a holding cell down at Chicago courtrooms.

 

Aaron Nelson  29:28  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  29:28  
They're bigger. The courtrooms are like Milwaukee County, large ceremonial courtrooms that I was assigned to, at least the one that I was assigned to, and the bullpen would hold maybe up to 20 people, right? One thing that struck me is every single person in that bullpen was black or brown. The majority black and a few brown people.

 

Aaron Nelson  29:46  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  29:46  
You know, not one white person you know, stuck on cash bond, right? But all black.

 

Aaron Nelson  29:53  
And when was this? In the 90s, early 90's?

 

Craig Mastantuono  29:56  
1992.

 

Aaron Nelson  29:57  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  29:57  
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I mean, that hits, that hits anyone, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  30:03  
Sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  30:04  
But if you're already, you know, public defender oriented, and, you know, come from a Latino background, you're like, "Wow, man, this, this is stark". Like-

 

Aaron Nelson  30:12  
Did you know that- I mean, again, the experience of seeing it is different than reading about it, but was it, was it, did you even expect that, and we're still shocked, or was it just kind of naive?

 

Craig Mastantuono  30:23  
Remember what it was like at that time, Aaron? I didn't have a lot of expectations. They were all exposures, you know.

 

Aaron Nelson  30:28  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  30:29  
You know, your first job clerking at 26 in California. You're following your public defenders around, trying not to look stupid or say something stupid, you know, and learn as much as you could, right? At least that was my mindset. So, I don't know what I expected, but I know that it struck me like a blast of cold air, you know? It's like, wow, this is something and, you know, and it's not like that was the formative experience that made me vow to do something that was just something that impressed me negatively on some of the, what we now call the racial disparities of the criminal justice system.

 

Aaron Nelson  31:02  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  31:02  
Right? You know, those things motivated me, and as much as it motivated me to want to help kids that had a disadvantaged background, right? So, you know-

 

Aaron Nelson  31:10  
What do you think it was about- I mean, I'm not surprised that you were motivated, but in some ways, that can also just be so overwhelming. The injustice of it is just, you see it and it is like, wow, what- what can I do here? There's just a big, huge brick wall that I can't get through. How does- what do you think in your background, in your- in your youth and your growing up, made you become motivated when you see that, rather than just like, "oh, man, there's nothing I can do here, I'm turning away". 

 

Craig Mastantuono  31:36  
I was one of those people in law school that, to me, never thought about engaging in a practice from the other side of the criminal justice side?

 

Aaron Nelson  30:29  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  31:44  
I wanted to do something about this. And I can't tell you now, it's because of this experience, or it's this because of this upbringing, it's formed, emanates out of all of those experiences, right, that we have growing up. You know-

 

Aaron Nelson  31:59  
10,000 brushstrokes.

 

Craig Mastantuono  32:00  
Yeah. I mean, I saw racial prejudice up front and close from the lens of a non-African American person in some of you know, my experiences in my neighborhood, at my high school, watching Harold Washington become elected, you know, as the first black mayor of Chicago, and watching all of the racial animus that that brought just to the surface of Chicago. So, you know, there's a lot of experiences that add up to make- to motivate you to either want to jump into the fray or run away from it.

 

Aaron Nelson  32:30  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  32:30  

Which, you know, which I didn't do at the time, you know? So, you know, it was pretty clear to me I wanted to be a public defender. And there was a hiring freeze in 1992. So, long story short, I started applying at different places because I had to pay the bill, and one of them was to Wisconsin State Public Defender system. And so, I accepted an offer to go work in a place called Waukesha, Wisconsin, which I later learned was a suburb just outside of Milwaukee, and I told my friends, I'll be back in two years, and it's been 34 now, and I-

 

Aaron Nelson  33:01  
Just keep going farther north.

 

Craig Mastantuono  33:02  
Yeah, right.

 

Aaron Nelson  33:03  
And now here you are up in the sanctuary.

 

Craig Mastantuono  33:03  
Here I am in Hudson. So, I met my wife as a public defender in the Waukesha office, Yvonne Vegas, and was a hot shot public defender that started just ahead of me, and I stayed seven years there, and then went into private practice. We had some good lawyers in that office, and I loved being a public defender.

 

Aaron Nelson  33:04  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  33:04  
And when the time came, I knew that I wanted to be in private practice eventually.

 

Aaron Nelson  33:10  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  33:10  
So when the time came, I still, I still loved the job.

 

Aaron Nelson  33:29  
And when you said you knew that, how'd you know that?

 

Craig Mastantuono  33:31  
You know? Probably that was the point at which I reverted to being transactional again. I wanted to make more money, you know, and I felt like-

 

Aaron Nelson  33:41  
Share that money with others in hell.

 

Craig Mastantuono  33:43  
I'm willing to admit it, right? And at the time, frankly, you know what? I was making $63,500 a year with state benefits in 1999. I made twice as much money as anybody in my family. You know, almost twice as much as I made more money than my father ever made in a year, I was just at the point where I could pay my student loan without having to take a deferment or fall behind on loans. So I was just reaching the comfort zone financially, and knew that if I didn't leave now I wasn't going to leave, because I'd get handcuffed in from a financial standpoint. And I loved the work, but I also thought that I had skills that were good and that I could probably make up that salary, if not better. I wanted to give that a try. So it was one part that, and it was one part I didn't want to work for anybody. I probably did fall back to my father's small businessman-

 

Aaron Nelson  34:39  
Something just in your core, right?

 

Craig Mastantuono  34:42  
Yeah, and I haven't worked for anybody since. I remember telling my father and my uncle about the year that I left. Months after I left. It was Christmas time. I was home for the holidays. And then my uncle particularly saying, so you quit that state job, and you know, your uncle Ed worked for the state for so and so. And look, he's got a pension. And you know. Yeah, yeaheah, are you sure you know what you're doing? And I looked at him and my dad both, and said, because they said, What do you like? And you know, they were supportive, right? And I said, I'll be able to do this. And they said, What do you like about? I said, You know what I do like I can tell anybody I want to go screw themselves. And you know, nobody's ever gonna fire me. And my uncle said, like, yeah, that's pretty cool. That's the shit we make up in our head too. It's not like I've really had to tell people to go screw themselves. I've never had that movie moment, right? But I've also never been afraid of being subject to the winds of a recession, a layoff, a bad boss. You know, being you're out there, like being out there for yourself, is fraught with a lot of peril along other lines, but one of them is not that, like you're not, you're not subject to somebody else's will that you decide could be unfair.

 

Aaron Nelson  35:28  
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  35:04  
Are you sure you know what you're doing? And I looked at him and my dad both, and said, because they said, "What do you like?". And you know, they were supportive, right? And I said, I'll be able to do this. And they said, "What do you like about it?". I said, "You know what I do like? I can tell anybody I want to go screw themselves. And you know, nobody's ever gonna fire me". And my uncle said, like, yeah, that's pretty cool. That's the shit we make up in our head too. It's not like I've really had to tell people to go screw themselves. I've never had that movie moment, right? But I've also never been afraid of being subject to the winds of a recession, a layoff, a bad boss. You know, being- you're out there, like being out there for yourself, is fraught with a lot of peril along other lines, but one of them is not that, like you're not, you're not subject to somebody else's will that you decide could be unfair.

 

Aaron Nelson  35:58  
Yeah, I mean your independence, right? I mean, you- we work together in a firm now, and I want to talk to you about how important that is to have others around you, but to be able to create your own environment at work, to create your own values, to decide how you're going to run all of that, right? Get your- your family name on the door- was your dad's deli, to have that- to have the name on the door?

 

Craig Mastantuono  36:19  
Yeah, you know, that my father's last name, Mastantuono is on the door with Coffey and Thomas, my two partners.

 

Aaron Nelson  36:25  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  36:25  
But there's a pride in that, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  36:27  
Absolutely.

 

Craig Mastantuono  36:27  
Developing a culture is cool. You know, develop developing the culture of your firm. I don't know if everybody thinks about it, but I certainly think about it, and I think a lot of people do-

 

Aaron Nelson  36:37  
Yeah, maybe that's some of the marketing background, because, actually, we've been doing some marketing here, and it's amazing how much that actually falls into the culture like, well, who are you?

 

Craig Mastantuono  36:46  
Yeah.

 

Aaron Nelson  36:47  
What do you really want to do?

 

Craig Mastantuono  36:48  
Right?

 

Aaron Nelson  36:48  
All comes back to marketing and gets into creating a culture. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  36:52  
Right. Absolutely. So-

 

Aaron Nelson  36:54  
So yeah, tell me about the firm a little bit, because I think you have one of the model criminal defense law firms in the state, and one of the things that I admire is what you've already talked about, is it you know multiple different partners. You have have bilingual, you know people, but you also have an in-house investigator.

 

Craig Mastantuono  37:14  
We do.

 

Aaron Nelson  37:14  
And I'm going to give you your own pitch here, but I don't think there's any other criminal defense law firm in the state really that has an in-house investigator. I've never heard of it, and I'm just- I've always admired that. How many- how did that come to be?

 

Craig Mastantuono  37:26  
Well, first of all, I work with great lawyers. So there are four lawyers at our firm, my partners, Rebecca Coffey, Leah Thomas, and our associate, Claude Allen-Millhome, or Lon, he goes by.

 

Aaron Nelson  37:36  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  37:38  
We are all people I think that care a great deal about the practice, the work, and our clients, as most lawyers would say. And Lon comes from a Haitian-American background. He's a black lawyer. He's in his fifth year of practice. Leah is in her 13th or so year of practice. Rebecca is in her 22nd or so year of practice, and myself. So, we all come from these kind of women or minority backgrounds that I think is helpful, sometimes in a larger urban practice, particularly.

 

Aaron Nelson  38:14  
Sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  38:14  
And that, you know, wasn't by design necessarily, but it evolved by design over time, we have a legal assistant, right like every law office has, or a lot of law offices have.

 

Aaron Nelson  38:25  
Sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  38:25  
And then you asked where it came from to have an investigator. I really liked the public defender system model of having investigators and Client Services Specialists. So, we have an investigator, Marcus Ruiz, who's a Puerto Rican-American, former Marine, served in the Marines and did two tours in Iraq, including the first tour was pretty rough, Battle of Fallujah. He was a Marine infantryman.

 

Aaron Nelson  38:50  
Yeah, that's one of the worst places to be.

 

Craig Mastantuono  38:52  
Absolutely and he's an impressive young man, and he's got a degree from University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, in history. And we also have a part time Client Services Specialist, Jada Miller, who's a former probation agent of state of Wisconsin. She retired after 25 years and was looking for some part time work. Yeah, she's been with us a couple of years now, and we've always had somebody serve that role, a client services role, on a either part time or one of our team members would fill in that role.

 

Aaron Nelson  39:18  
Tell us a little bit. I know I asked about the investigator, but just Client Services. I didn't know you had a separate one. I thought your investigator doubled as a client services-

 

Craig Mastantuono  39:30  
Well, he did for a while.

 

Aaron Nelson  39:31  
Yeah, Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  39:32  
We were able to move him fully into investigation.

 

Aaron Nelson  39:34  
What's client services? What's that about? And why do have it involved. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  39:37  
So at the public defender's office, it was mostly writing PSI's, right, and engaging your clients and our clients in treatment programs, offering them options. I always found they were a little stretched. I always thought, well, I'd like to have a dedicated, you know- when you can divide client services among four lawyers, right? It fits into our philosophy of representation. So, can I bore you with that?

 

Aaron Nelson  40:00  
Yeah. Absolutely.

 

Craig Mastantuono  40:01  
I think we all do this. I just, the way I square it in my head is, we call it a dual-tracking, right? Like I take on a case and I prepare for trial and engage the litigation that I can-

 

Aaron Nelson  40:12  
Sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  40:13  
And I also have my client jumping through hoops, you know, to address the situation that got them into this, right? And, you know, accomplish something during the- whether it's two months or seven months or a year.

 

Aaron Nelson  40:13  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  40:13  
That we have this case pending. 

 

Aaron Nelson  40:24  
Yeah, I always think of it. Look, there's trial in the negotiation. But what you're saying is the negotiation is really, first off, we got to start with our client.

 

Craig Mastantuono  40:36  
100%, you know? Well, I mean we treat people, not cases, right? We represent people, not cases, or not crimes. Quick example, right? I just resolved a case last week in Milwaukee County and it was a bad reckless driving eluding where a guy ran from the police for, you know, a reason is unremarkable, you know. But, led the police on quite the chase. Got away. Later got picked up on the warrant. For seven months while the case was pending, five months, he worked on going to a DMV, DOT traffic safety school, which wasn't insignificant. It was like four-three hour classes on Saturday, right? They were the point reduction type of driver safety school, but he didn't have a license yet. So the second thing was get your license, right? Third thing was maintain the job that you've had, right? And the fourth thing was to write a letter of apology to the police officers. Now, all this goes into the memo, right, prior to sentencing, and we were going to maybe try the case on, you know, some issues or not, but the mitigation, and you know, the build up of mitigation, the review of the discovery, was more, this isn't a whodunit, as much as what to do about it.

 

Aaron Nelson  40:49  
Sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  40:49  
It's what we say at our firm, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  40:49  
Most cases aren't whodunit. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  41:17  
This isn't remarkable work, right? But we have him doing these things. And at the point in the hallway, this was one of those hallway negotiations where DA is: plead to this charge, we'll dismiss and read in these two charges, you know, prison up to the court, right? That's a, you know?

 

Aaron Nelson  42:07  
Woof.

 

Craig Mastantuono  42:07  
Yeah, yeah. So it was, it was a serious and reckless driving, one of the you know how every few years, a crime becomes the crime du jour for prosecutors, for real reasons in Milwaukee, reckless driving and eluding are the crimes du jour right now, because they're a little bit out of control.

 

Aaron Nelson  42:24  
Okay.

 

Craig Mastantuono  42:25  
And they present a public safety risk. So prosecutors are going hard on those. I walked out into the hallway with the prosecutor, let's say November, and we had that back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I had already sent him evidence of all these things that I'm talking about by email. And if you know, it was one of those beautiful things where it's like, you know, what about a stipulated sentence? Do you go there sometimes when you're negotiating and it's gonna be one way or the other, the one way is not good for you so, I'll stipulate to jail. You know? What about, you know, imposed and stayed two years probation, stipulation to six months jail. He comes back 12 months. I go 10 to 12 sold. You know, it was one of those things, right? Go back and tell my client: involves, you know, work release, jail, but you're gonna have to do it, you know? So, you know, Client Services will get all that stuff done for us. Weekly check-ins with that client. How's the traffic safety school going? Did you get your license? Here's your options. Post disposition, deferred prosecution. Our client services specialist is: here's your options for community service. Let'- you know, let's make these DPAs go better, so that our firm has a reputation for making DPAs work. If we can get a reputation for making sure people complete DPAs, we're going to get more offers for the DPAs.

 

Aaron Nelson  43:38  
My clients finish the DPAs.

 

Craig Mastantuono  43:40  
My clients do finish their DPAs.

 

Aaron Nelson  43:41  
Yeah, exactly.

 

Craig Mastantuono  43:42  
Our clients, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  43:44  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  43:44  
Prosecutors know that. So it helps your deals. It helps your clients. In that case that I was just describing, you know, we go in front of the judge. The judge is a good judge. My memo is there, and he says something that struck me, and it makes me think that the limit, there's a limitless possibility of things we can do for clients, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  44:04  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  44:04  
So, Mr. Mastantuono, I noticed that, you know, your client wrote a letter of apology to officers so and so and so and so, and it was a heartfelt letter. He wrote it himself. I didn't have a thing to do with it. Said: "Yes, Judge". He said, "You know, we hear these cases all the time. I've only seen this maybe once or twice". Now, that's not a pat on my back. It made me think, like, these are easy things to do. We should be doing these things as a defense bar. That's a simple thing. You know, you always have "I'm sorry".

 

Aaron Nelson  44:31  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  44:31  
Like, you know, your client always has that leisure. I get it and I'm sorry, you know? And if we ignore those things, we ignore something that may be important to the judge. 

 

Aaron Nelson  44:40  
I mean, a bunch to unpack there. I would say, you know, one is, as a lawyer, you have a caseload. You also have to- you're running a law firm. You have business concerns. To make, to know that you have somebody else that's going to do these client services. So it is, as you say, simple, but it needs some. Else to help that. And sometimes, as lawyers, maybe we don't have the bandwidth to do that, because we're- we're doing the law stuff.

 

Craig Mastantuono  45:06  
Yeah.

 

Aaron Nelson  45:06  
We're doing the business stuff. We're doing the marketing stuff. We're doing different things. And so that fact that you, like you said, you set up your- your- your firm to, know, look, I don't necessarily have the bandwidth. It's going to be better served if somebody with the bandwidth can dedicate to it. So, yes, it's simple, but you have to do a lot of upfront planning in order to get it- get the simple done. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  45:29  
You also have to decide to make less money.

 

Aaron Nelson  45:30  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  45:30  
Those are two salaries that need to be filled, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  45:32  
Absolutely.

 

Craig Mastantuono  45:33  
In Jada's case, she's part time, right.

 

Aaron Nelson  45:35  
Sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  45:36  
But it's still money, right? It's still a salary. In Marcus's case, he's full time, you know? And so now he has moved fully over to full on investigation. And you know, what else we do with these two people is, you know, we decided a couple years ago, nobody's trying to case alone anymore.

 

Aaron Nelson  45:41  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  45:44  
One of those two people is always with us in trial. So Claude, Lon, Claude Allen, just won a trial not too long ago in 2025, but in the second half of 2025. Jada, our former probation agent, sat with him in that trial.

 

Aaron Nelson  46:03  
Yeah. Just emotional support.

 

Craig Mastantuono  46:05  
I just had one in October. Marcus tried that case with me. Marcus and I have tried lots of cases together, and he'll testify. Sometimes he'll testify. In fact, I don't think at the PDs office, we didn't put it in my- when I was a public defender, we didn't put our investigators on the stand as often as we should and I- we invite the opportunities to put Marcus on the stand. He hates it, by the way, but, but he's a very good investigator. We go to this- we go to the scenes. We take our own pictures. We discover things. We take measurements. We, you know, we do it on motion stops to on stop motions, you know. We go, go see where the officer says this guy fled from the police. Go drive the route that he drove when he said he noticed, you know, the traffic violation. So he and I will do those things. And you know, you know that the most powerful stuff in a jury trial is the stuff that the state didn't give the jury, that you can give to them.

 

Aaron Nelson  46:54  
Absolutely.

 

Craig Mastantuono  46:55  
So we take those opportunities. And sometimes it's stuff that's not fully critical. Whodunit evidence.

 

Craig Mastantuono  47:01  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  47:02  
But contextual evidence. You know, here's this space where they're saying this workplace assault took place. Let's look at that space. You know, they never showed you any pictures of this. This is how close these two cubicles were. I'm speaking of like a prior case, right, but-

 

Aaron Nelson  47:17  
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Aaron Nelson  48:18  
So, client services... Just a couple more about that.

 

Craig Mastantuono  48:22  
Sure.

 

Aaron Nelson  48:22  
You talked about, about some different ways that we- we can tell stories. Might be missing a birthday party, never having a birthday party, but I've heard you talk about how you have your client interviews and you put them through the ACEs test? Is that right?

 

Craig Mastantuono  48:42  
The ACE questionnaire. Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire.

 

Aaron Nelson  48:45  
Tell us about-

 

Craig Mastantuono  48:45  
Not all of them.

 

Aaron Nelson  48:46  
Tell us about that. What is that?

 

Craig Mastantuono  48:47  
Adverse childhood experiences questionnaire has been used. It was produced as a part of a study in the 80s. You go to CDC website, look up ACE questionnaire, but it is a series of questions, 10 questions that are- that are aimed at trying to uncover childhood trauma. So, all of the questions relate to- prior to you were, when you were 18, prior to years- during the years before you were 18 years old. Did anybody ever or did you ever experience and then it is questions based on trauma. Did anybody ever slap, beat, physically abuse? Did anybody ever belittle? Make you feel unloved? Was anybody in your family incarcerated? Did anybody in your family suffer from mental illness? You know, things like, Did you- did you have a split parent household? Right? 10 questions, scores of five and higher when you went into, you know, what the CDC would deem to be a traumatic childhood, which can later have outcomes. They actually impact- the higher ACE score can impact physical health, later in life, physical health, negative consequences. But also, you know, when we at our firm, started noticing the kind of emergence of the ACE questionnaire, you hear these questions in doctor's offices now when you go in, especially younger people. When the ACE questionnaire started being used more prevalently in larger society, it came to our attention, and I thought it would be a good tool to have some of our clients answer a series of questions. 

 

Aaron Nelson  50:21  
Absolutely. And why did you think- just, I mean, maybe it's obvious, it's simple, but just, why is that helpful? Why do you need to do that as a criminal defense lawyer?

 

Craig Mastantuono  50:30  
Well, look, 90% of what we do right is not go to trial in a criminal case. 90% of what I'm doing is trying to get to a defined goal with a client, whether that's avoid prison, get a reduction in charges, get a DPA. But there are a lot of cases, right? Aaron, I mean, I'm not ashamed to admit it. There are a lot of cases where my clients are convicted of really serious stuff, and a lot of times where I've pled them guilty or no contest to really serious stuff, because that's the best option at the time. And so these become contested sentencing hearings, often where you're arguing about prison or something else, right? And, you know, I just got tired. You know, when I was a public defender into private practice, I got tired of and wasn't very good at trying to, you know, I make fun of it a little bit by the speech that starts off. My client was born a poor black child on the blank part of Milwaukee, or what-

 

Aaron Nelson  51:24  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  51:25  
You know, I just think our judges are like, "Oh, another, another person that had it rough, and that's an excuse for behaving badly in our society". So, I just- 

 

Aaron Nelson  51:33  
Don't come immune to that story.

 

Craig Mastantuono  51:35  
Yeah. And I also, you know, I think we need to open eyes in a different way about what to do about wrong in our community, and open the eyes of the people hearing our arguments. Right? So, I use memos a lot. We write our own now. We produce them in-house. We use pictures. We use- we've been using photos in plea negotiations. E-mail made that a lot easier since before. You know, e-mail was the prevalent way of communicating in plea negotiations. Photos. I don't really do the sentencing videos. I don't know if you do those.

 

Aaron Nelson  52:09  
I haven't done them yet.

 

Craig Mastantuono  52:10  
I haven't either. It's a little too groovy for me. I'm not positive I can get my judge to watch the bio video of my client, but I try to use photos. We use family photos in our sentence memos all the time. I don't know if you do that, but if I can get a nice photo of my client and his family, which I can always get, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  52:26  
Sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  52:27  
You and your kids or your family members, but we'll include the ACE questionnaire. If I think that a client's had a particularly traumatic upbringing, and you would be surprised you- the amount of clients I've had that have eights, nines, and 10s on the ACE questionnaire, and these are questions that answering "yes" to one of- is horrifying.

 

Aaron Nelson  52:48  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  52:49  
I'll tell you something else, though, if I can go on about this.

 

Aaron Nelson  52:51  
Absolutely.

 

Craig Mastantuono  52:51  
The experience of- the experience of administering the ACE questionnaire, you know, you have to tell your client the reason you're doing this, right? You also have to assure your client, you're not asking these questions to belittle. Your job's not to judge. These are very sensitive questions. You don't have to answer them. I'm going to keep it in my file. We'll decide whether or-

 

Aaron Nelson  53:10  
How do we share it or not share it?

 

Craig Mastantuono  53:11  
I don't always share it. I probably share half of them, if that meant, you know, but the process of asking some of my clients these questions makes me realize they've never thought about or been asked these questions before, and these are people that are answering "yes" to 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 of these questions. 

 

Aaron Nelson  53:31  
It almost- you know, is it somewhat that what happened to them in their childhood has become normal, so they don't even- it doesn't even stand out as something that is-

 

Craig Mastantuono  53:40  
Wholly. I had a client who was a drug dealer in Milwaukee, African-American man in his 30s. He said, yeah, come on, you- we can ask these- I asked him all the questions. He- we had to pause several times. He left my office in a puddle. In a puddle. It was- it was- 

 

Aaron Nelson  54:00  
Almost awakening for him.

 

Craig Mastantuono  54:02  
Complete awakening for him. And I had to walk him out. You know, I have my hand around his shoulder, like, we come back next week, and we're talking about how to use- but just thinking about those things in a deliberate way for the first time reduced him to tears that couldn't stop for him, or having trouble breathing. And, you know, so-

 

Aaron Nelson  54:21  
It's almost like this life is at a distance, and now that, in some ways open it up to them.

 

Craig Mastantuono  54:26  
Yeah. And I think our judges, over time, some of them, and I'll put in the plug for the ones that have been appointed most recently by the current governor... But I think our judges have, you know, and the industry, the law, the legal field has become in tune with issues of trauma and childhood trauma, right? I think that we- you know, I had a judge, I was going on about the ACE questionnaire that I administered in my client and my client's upbringing and what to do about it. "Not that it's an excuse, Judge, but it informs our decision-making moving forward. Let's talk about what to do and how this- we can respond to this, right?". I had a judge interrupt me and say, "Craig, I read The Body Kept the Score- Keeps the Score", which is the book about adverse childhood trauma, that-

 

Aaron Nelson  55:10  
Oh, "The Body Keeps the Score".

 

Craig Mastantuono  55:11  
"Body Keeps the Score", you know, "I got it. Go on". You know, like, I'm like, "Wow. We've reached the point where the judges have read, you know, the 'Body Keeps the Score'", you know.

 

Aaron Nelson  55:19  
But I heard you- I've heard you also you've, you use the ACE test, but because you've done it so much, and because you've heard different people respond to it, you've, kind of have your own version of-

 

Craig Mastantuono  55:31  
Oh, the ACE plus.

 

Aaron Nelson  55:31  
The Ace Plus, right? Tell me about what's the ACE Plus. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  55:33  
Well, you want to illustrate these concepts, right? So I just started asking additional, additional questions. Did you ever have a birthday party? And that's why I brought that up earlier, is that, you know, you know, every kid should have a birthday party, right? Every kid should have somebody say you're special today, you know. And hopefully it's with family members or friends and a cake and funny hats and, you know, maybe a couple balloons, right? You know. And to many of us, we grew up that way. My cousins would come over with the aunts, would come over and uncles, and we'd have a birthday party. So I would just ask my clients, or do ask my clients, have you ever had a birthday party? You'd be amazed at the amount of, you know, clients that say, "no", you know?

 

Aaron Nelson  55:57  
Never in their life had a birthday party.

 

Craig Mastantuono  56:15  
Another one is like, do you remember, you know, do you have a family tradition, either like for the Fourth of July, or where would you go for Christmas, if your family celebrated Christmas or a special day that you know, you have a tradition, a cookout, or, you know, lot of times, the answer is, no. You know, what was the longest time you ever spent in, living in one house, in one apartment, house, place where you lived. You know, the answers to those questions- the ACE questionnaire is one type of question, but the answers to those questions, or, you know, if they ask, if they answer, you know, "yes, somebody did, you know, belittle me, make me feel unloved". You know, who was that? "Well, that was my mom". Well, tell me, you know, like a little bit about that. You know, the stories that emerge from using that as a tool to get to more information that could be more illustrative-

 

Aaron Nelson  57:08  
Opens our doors.

 

Craig Mastantuono  57:09  
Yeah, opens up a lot of doors. I recently had a client whose mother killed, shot and killed his father, and then, using the ACE questionnaire, he answered yes to the sexual abuse question. I asked him, you know who that was. At the same time that that process was going on, his mother, who was in Taycheedah, who is in Taycheedah for killing his father, felt the need to write my office. This was a pretty serious case. To write- it was a drug dealing case, and to write my office to kind of explain the circumstances of his upbringing and her involvement in his- in her son's life. And I can't remember which one came first. Actually, the letter came first. She said, "You know, I always thought that he was sexually abused as a child, and I suspected it was somebody at this school because he wasn't the same after this". Now I'm asking additional questions in the ACE questionnaire, and I said, I gently said, you know, who was that? And he said it was the principal at this school. Then I asked about it, and he said, he said to me, "yeah, it was, it was actually like on the news at the time- the prosecution". So, a couple of punches on the keyboard later, right? I find that this was a case 11 years earlier that was prosecuted, where the school principal was prosecuted for sexually abusing three or four students. My client was one of the kids that never came forward.

 

Aaron Nelson  58:39  
Sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  58:40  
I call up the prosecutor on the case, who's a Milwaukee County DA said, Do you remember this case? I'm looking at CCAP- CCAP, and it got dismissed. And, you know, this prosecutor is a pretty- I've tried a couple of cases with her. She's tough.

 

Aaron Nelson  58:53  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  58:53  
I said, you know, you wouldn't just dismiss this case. What happens to that? He burned down his house and killed himself in it, the defendant in this, the school principal. I said, I have this client. I explained the situation to her. She goes, I don't doubt him at all. We know he had other victims.

 

Aaron Nelson  58:54  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  58:54  
We were able to, you know, and we, I introduced this information to the prosecutor in my case to say, you know, this is a hard upbringing. Choices have been made as a result of this upbringing, we have to decide what to do about how long this person is going to now be incarcerated. You know, let's inform our decisions, at least with a full knowledge of who this person is and what they experienced. But the ACE questionnaire really produced that additional information and that additional questioning about, you know, some of these questions telling a judge your client never had a birthday party, is, is, you know, it's something that, you know, simple, that connects, and that's anybody can relate to.

 

Aaron Nelson  59:47  
Yeah, yeah, different. I mean, when you were asking the questions about, you know, I am sure I had a birthday party every year that, you know, that I've had a birthday. Just when you had asked the question about houses... like, I've had two houses. I grew up in my childhood home, right? Liesl and I bought a house, and we've been in that house for 24 years. And I think Liesl's background is, I think since five, she was in her same childhood home, and then- so, you know, that's- that just seems common to me.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:00:16  
Me too, and and, you know, those things really mattered in my stable up- my stable upbringing, what was financially unstable was stable in the ways that mattered, the ways that made you feel safe, the ways that made you feel loved, the ways that made you feel like you'd have your parents come home at the end of the day, no matter what. They weren't missing or they- going to be taken away from you. And so I just asked questions based on my own experience of what was special to me, what was formative for me, what made me feel safe and ask questions, or what did I enjoy?

 

Aaron Nelson  1:00:39  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:00:39  
Right. Did you have a public pool near your house where you went to? Did you have a bike? You know? Did you, you know-

 

Aaron Nelson  1:00:54  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:00:54  
Did you participate in sports as a youth? You know, there's all kinds of things-

 

Aaron Nelson  1:00:58  
That we- some of us, might take for granted.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:01:01  
100%.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:01:01  
And then that question is very informative.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:01:04  
Yeah.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:01:04  
Yeah, that's wonderful. You're, you know, sanctuary in the jungle, right- ss what the podcast is called. And a lot of what we've been talking about is what, I think, how your firm creates a sanctuary there for our clients. I talked about it with our first guest professor, Michelle Levigne, about how we need to, we need to get the story from our client, right? How much of that is also related to just language. You said you have different people in your office who speak Spanish, right? You know, I've heard you use many times the word translation, just in- in conversation that- that just, I was like, I don't normally hear that word. So what is it about language translation that is, you think helps you guys make a sanctuary there at your office?

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:01:49  
Well, language that we use, if it's a different language, like Spanish, which we're able to use, right- and I'll jump in with Marcus or Dagmar, you know, our other- our legal assistant speaks Spanish, jump in with my own Spanish. You know, I'll jump in enough to let the client know I can understand, you know, what's going on when you're talking and add my own two cents. Is certainly one way that Spanish speaking clients feel more comfortable. That's just obvious, right? For obvious reasons.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:02:18  
It's not, well, it might be, but sometimes it's not. I mean, I only speak one language, you know. So it's one thing for me to speak to them in their language, but it's another for me to hear- to let them speak in their language. So, I can- they can use the words that are best for them. Can you tell us about that? 

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:02:34  
100%. I mean, they tell us things in Spanish, Marcus will explain things to me, or I'll pick up just those nuanced differences in languages that make you realize the thing they're talking about a little bit better. They can put it into their own words in their own language. You know, language is like that. There's words in other languages that we don't have a word for, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  1:02:55  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:02:57  
You know, and there's ways to use words, like in Italian, ragazzo is a boy, but a ragazzaccio is a bad boy. And you could add accio to any word and make it a bad thing of that noun, you know, which is great, right? Like, you know, and if you bother to use it. Well, but if you bother to explain it that way, it means something very different to an Italian. An Italian would do what I'm doing, as a matter of fact, with their hand. So language is really important, but let's talk about English, right? I think we create a sanctuary for our Spanish speaking clients because they- they are immediately more trusting of the environment they're in if there is proficiency in their language at that law office during this crisis. We're crisis management.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:03:37  
Yeah, I love that about your friends that you, I mean, you put that in your title.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:03:42  
Criminal Defense Crisis Management. You know, our job at the end of the day is not to go to trial. Our, you know, I'm not saying our job is to avoid a trial. What I'm saying is, what we sell to people, what we bring to people, whether we're public defenders or private attorneys, is creating a better outcome from a bad situation. Our clients come to us in crisis, and they need to leave our offices less in crisis, right? Whether that's from the first meeting, because they feel better about having the advocate that they have or about the outcome, we create positive outcomes to difficult situations, right? And so I'm not selling, I mean, thinking with my marketing brain again, I like to think I'm fairly proficient at trials, right? But I'm not selling clients my trial. They don't care if they're avoiding prison, whether they avoided it because I went to trial or because I negotiated an outcome that avoided prison, right? They- they care about, can you deliver me to the place that I need to be delivered to? Returning to my family, not going to prison, avoiding a felony conviction.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:04:33  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:04:33  
You know, just, you know? And this is from simple drunk driving cases to the most complex cases, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  1:04:46  
But even- we've recently been doing some marketing in one of the- we made like a brand video, right? And I thought part of it was, you were in this world. Something happened to you. We're going to be somebody that brings you back. As you said, return to your family.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:05:03  
Sure.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:05:03  
But a lot of what I hear you saying is, "you were in this world, something happened. We're going to bring you back to a better world".

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:05:10  
Sometimes.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:05:10  
Because you're getting them services, you're getting them opportunities and other things. Tell me about that.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:05:15  
That's- that's absolutely possible. I mean, you can- you know, the process of responding to a crisis, right, the things that you have to do when the chips are down, right, to overcome something that put you in a position, can absolutely return you to a better place. You know? I mean, kind of back to "we become what we see". A lot of times, I realize that the expectations I have for my clients are the first time they've had aspirational and positive expectations. That, in itself, is a new world for them and a positive experience, right? And so creating expectations to get through a crisis can also create positive steps in your life. You can get to a better place. Client Services can assist that. Investigation can assist that. You want to- you want to create an environment, I think, where everybody in your office is invested in your client's success, right? Whether that's how they're greeted at the door, right? And you know, we- our legal assistant. I tell them this all the time. We've had multiple assistants over the years. You're our front door. You're our front door on the phone. You're our front door when people come in. You're the first person- you have, are vital to our success.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:05:16  
Absolutely.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:06:02  
You're an extremely important person. You don't just answer the phone, you know. You help bring people in the door, make them feel-

 

Aaron Nelson  1:06:02  
Introduce our culture, our environment, our values, our principles.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:06:02  
100%. And it brings me a great pride when I see reviews, either online or otherwise, where people say that first call with Dagmar made me feel better than the five other calls that I placed.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:06:02  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:06:02  
You know, Marcus really made me feel unjudged and like he was going to do something. And, you know, I just think it's more rewarding to have an environment like that for the people in your firm as well, that you're dug in. You know, you want to create success, you want to minimize damage to your clients, and you're helping each other do it. 

 

Aaron Nelson  1:06:21  
Yeah, you know when you were talking about holding them to certain standards, right... There's a quote on the wall over here that actually Liesl introduced it to me, but the line that I'll just read to you is, "If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become who they are capable of becoming". That's absolutely what you just said. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:07:25  
Absolutely. Now, there's a piece of that that I want to talk to a tiny bit is like, you can't, in my opinion, and you shouldn't. You can't come from it- to it from a "I'm in a better place than you".

 

Aaron Nelson  1:07:38  
Sure. There has to be no judgment.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:07:40  
And a realization that, you know, that we're all human, that I'm one slippery step away from failing.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:07:49  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:07:50  
And I was thinking about, you know, some of the themes of your talks with attorneys so far. How do we deal with managing this? How do we, you know, persevere through the struggles of our own challenges, whether it's too much work, whether it's bully judges, whether it's the stress of managing cases for our clients that have life-altering impact on them, right? And one thing, and it is simple and if not profound, but I consider myself in my 34th year of practice to be fortunate and lucky, just not to have suffered a mental health crisis, a physical health crisis. You know, bad business decisions, the impropriety or dishonesty of people I work with. You know, there's many ways that life comes at you.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:08:37  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:08:38  
No matter what you do or plan for, right? Yeah, I try to watch my health. Yes, I try to talk out my issues. You know, yes, I- we all do wellness things, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  1:08:47  
Sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:08:48  
Sometimes life just comes at you. And if I'm able to avoid, you know, the comet's flying, the meteor is flying at me, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  1:08:54  
We only have so much bandwidth, and if work stress takes so much of our bandwidth, we're maybe not capable of dealing with the other things that come at us.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:09:02  
Correct? I mean, I paid off my student loans not too many years ago, when I was 51, right? I mean, I think, like, what if I'd had a health crisis? You know, my wife, same way, we both paid off our student loans at 50 and 51 right? What if? What if you had a mental health crisis? What if you lost your job? What if you got downsized, you know? What if-

 

Aaron Nelson  1:09:10  
Something happened to your child?

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:09:19  

What if you just weren't very good at, you know, making money in private practice, you know? I mean, so, you know, I never discount the fact that I've also just been lucky to avoid some things.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:09:31  
Sure.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:09:32  
You know.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:09:32  
So we've been- well, thank you for your time here. We've been chatting for a little while, but I want to, I have one more question I want to ask you to, just, to just wrap up here at the- you know, this is, as we talked about, this is, this is some hard work, right? This is very stressful. It's grueling, right? It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of tension, emotional energy. But here you are, 34 years in, you know, you're, you're- still sound passionate and enthusiastic about the work that- that we do. What- what fuels your heart? What makes you get up in the morning to say, I'm going to go do this some more.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:10:13  
You know, I walked into- I met my wife, who's also a career attorney, Yvonne, and said to her today, after a court appearance this morning, "you know, I'm pretty good at this, and I still enjoy it a lot". And it was, I wasn't a sentencing hearing that I did... It was a preliminary hearing that was we had to solve some problems on a no-contact order, on a bond provision, and, you know, appear in front of a judge, get that order made, and advise the client how to do this, and connect with the DA who, conveniently, was a former student, you know, deal with a victim who was not- but you're bringing value to solving problems that are big. That meant a difference between this guy seeing his kid or not, right? And, you know, I do take joy from that. I think what you have to do is stop and recognize those moments when you bring value to a situation, which you do all the time in your work, if you're trying hard.

 

Aaron Nelson  1:11:11  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:11:12  
You know, to do it. 

 

Aaron Nelson  1:11:13  
It's not just hearing the word "not guilty" a couple of times a year.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:11:16  
C'mon. If you live for- only for "not guilties"- and I've heard "not guilty" lots of times in my career, you're not making yourself happy on a daily basis. 

 

Aaron Nelson  1:11:16  
You're gonna be thirsty.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:11:16  
Yeah, absolutely. 

 

Aaron Nelson  1:11:17  
You're gonna be thirsty.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:11:19  
No, you gotta- you do have to pause and say, you know, "this was a good moment that I helped my client out, and I did pretty good at it". And there's nothing wrong with that, you know, does it- does it- does it make you feel good? We all got to decide that for ourselves, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  1:11:38  
Sure. Right? But, I mean, I'll, you know, you are talented, smart young man, you could probably have success in lots of different areas. But you chose-

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:11:41  
You think about that sometimes, don't you?

 

Aaron Nelson  1:11:50  
You chose this, you know? Why did you choose this? And why do you keep doing this? Because I get it that you're good at it, but you could be good at lots of things. 

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:12:00  
Sure. Okay, you know, I've spent hundreds of hours and about six years in the last six years, doing two pro bono cases that resulted in people being released from prison on sentence modifications who were going to serve lots more years in prison if we didn't come up with a way to get these cases done. I didn't receive a dime for them, right? But those, in compensation, were some of the most compensating cases to me. They- I got more from those cases than I've gotten from fees in my career. 

 

Aaron Nelson  1:12:37  
And what'd you get?

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:12:39  
I got the ability to connect with people and change their lives. In those cases in an incredibly profound way, because you're walking out of prison when you weren't going to get out of prison, right? And so that's a dramatic way of saying, look, I think the currency of life is not money. The currency of life is connecting with people. Now my education and the way I've chosen to exercise my career gives me the ability to connect with people through trying to help them, right? But if you don't think that's valuable, that's fine. This work isn't for you, but if it is valuable to you, then this work gives you opportunities every single day to make that currency, right?

 

Aaron Nelson  1:13:20  
Yeah.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:13:20  
And, you know, to me, I enjoy that. I enjoy and, you know, there's ego wrapped up in that, too. Don't get- I'm not trying to come at it from a St. Francis type of way. You know, it is a boost to your ego to think I'm a problem solver that can help a situation out. I can bring value to this. I can do something to make a person feel better, and they're going to give me the accolades and gratitude for that, but it's they're also going to proceed forward in a better place the minute that stops, when I can't come home and say that, then, you know, it's probably time to retire. That's fine. You know? That and music, you know, we didn't touch on music. 

 

Aaron Nelson  1:13:56  
We didn't get to jazz, but I was thinking about jazz. We'll save that for the next episode. So, well, thank you so much, Craig, appreciate your coming here.

 

Craig Mastantuono  1:14:12  
You bet. 

 

Aaron Nelson  1:14:13  
Thanks for listening to Sanctuary in the Jungle. This episode was brought to you with the help of MadeDaily and Nelson Defense Group. If you haven't already, be sure to check out our companion articles on Substack. With every episode, I take a deeper dive into the topic at hand, applying the theme to real cases and issues, sharing how it helped me to improve my practice. If you want to learn more, subscribe at sanctuaryinthejungle.substack.com. That's sanctuaryinthejungle.substack.com. We'll see you next time at the library. Until then, stay strong and carry the hope.