Episode 9: Steve Sitkoff

Harry Nalbandyan
Have you seen any changes in the criminal justice world over the 30 years you’ve been working in it? Here’s the biggest change, with everybody having a cell phone camera, with all the cameras in the public world, with Twitter and Snapchat and Facebook and everything else. Ee’re in this completely voyeuristic world where there’s no privacy. What I find now is that, because everybody’s watching everybody, the prosecutors are acting not to do what’s right, I think, all the time, or what’s appropriate. But rather, their first question they ask themselves is, am I going to get in trouble? Am I going to get criticized. I’ll give you this if I’m not going to get criticized. Welcome to Harry Handles It. Podcast where we dive into the world of personal growth, success strategies and everything in between. I’m your host, Harry Nalbandyan, and today we’re going to chat with an incredible guest who has some amazing insights to share. Remember, no matter what life throws your way, I’m here to help you handle it. Let’s get started.

Welcome Steve Sitkoff to the Harry Handles It podcast. You’re a criminal defense lawyer with over 30 years of experience practicing throughout Los Angeles and probably the state. Welcome.

Thank you.

How are you

Steve Sitkoff
Nice to meet you!

Harry Nalbandyan
Pleasure to meet you.

Steve Sitkoff
You too.

Harry Nalbandyan
Can you tell our listeners a little bit about your journey to becoming a criminal defense lawyer?

Steve Sitkoff
Well, let’s see it started in college, where I was a cinema major at UCLA, and when I graduated, I had no idea what I wanted to be. Took a year off, taught Italian cinema at UCLA for a year. Then I went to law school because the choice from my parents was either go back to school or get a job, and was not interested in working yet. So I thought, oh, let’s go to law school. It can be anything you want. Get through three years of law school, and now I’m really scared, because I don’t like most of the people I met there. I did like most of the subject matter. Fortunately, my criminal law professor was a basketball player and he played basketball with us. He took me under his wing, and he said the only thing that you’re going to have fun doing is in the prosecutor’s office. I’m going to help you become an Los Angeles County DA, and that’s what he did, and that’s how I started in the criminal the criminal world.

Harry Nalbandyan
And so how did you like, I think we were talking offline, and you said, seven years you were in that role for?

Steve Sitkoff
Look, it was, it was a great experience. I mean, I spent my first year and a half in the Compton courthouse, which is one of the most notorious ones in LA. I did probably 20 jury trials in a year and a half.

Harry Nalbandyan
Amazing.

Steve Sitkoff
I mean, that’s probably more than most civil litigators have done their whole life. I then went into the Sex Crimes Division, prosecuted sex crimes. Then I was the only DA in LA. There’s over 1000 DAs in LA the only one doing the serial rape cases. So I prosecuted serial rapists for a couple of years, and then I got promoted. I was in charge of the Compton juvenile office, and then was thinking I wanted to be a judge, and so made some inquiries. Judge Robert Milano, who is the presiding judge of the LA courts at the time, helped me become a superior court commissioner which is what I did next.

Harry Nalbandyan
That’s amazing. How did you like that experience going from?

Steve Sitkoff
So it’s one of those things where “be careful what you wish for because you may get it,” because I thought all I wanted to do was be a judge. I think the first thing that maybe told me this wasn’t so great is my assignment was the children’s courthouse where I got to listen to 50 to 60 cases a day of children being neglected and abused. It’s not as uplifting as you might like, but really what got me is in that courthouse, as you can imagine, there’s a lot of unhappiness. And to make a long story short, I helped a kid get his dog back in the court. The dog was taken away when his mother was arrested for a DUI, and he was in court crying. And this we have no happiness in this courthouse. All the lawyers are always at each other, the county council, the public defender, everybody’s at each other. I brought them all together. I said, let’s do something collaborative. So we all worked. We got the dog sprung from the pound, we brought the dog into the court, gave the dog to the kid. There wasn’t a dry eye in the courtroom. Everybody’s happy, everybody’s wonderful. A couple weeks later, I get a call from the new presiding judge of LA saying, I heard you had a dog in your court. You know, someone could have gotten bit, could have a disease. You know, you’re opening the courts to liability, and I’m thinking, you’ve never worked in this courtroom, have you? And anyway, that was one of and I could go on and on for several hours of how the bureaucracy finally said to me, time, time for a change. And so where I pivoted it was I got appointed as one of 14 lawyers on the first Mexican Mafia Rico case in federal court in LA and that kept me going for about a year and a half, and then I went into my own private practice.

Harry Nalbandyan
Wow.

Steve Sitkoff
Now that was an experience working for the Mexican well, not for the Mexican Mafia, but representing one of their members.

Harry Nalbandyan
That experience range is I feel like is pretty elite for a criminal defense attorney in private practice to be able to offer.

Steve Sitkoff
I gotta tell you, it’s one of the things I can say. I’ve seen it from everywhere. There isn’t much I haven’t experienced. I tell everybody, and it’s true. To do what I do effectively, it’s much less important to be number one in your class in law school, you got to be able to dodge fastballs from Randy Johnson in his prime heading for your head. Because that’s what I’m doing all day. I’m dodging those fastballs in my head.

Harry Nalbandyan
That’s a great way to put it.

Steve Sitkoff
I’m reminded of there was an all star game where Randy Johnson was pitching against John Kruk from the Phillies. John Kruk was bailing out before Johnson even pitched because he said, “this guy’s going to hit me.” So every day, I’m dodging balls.

Harry Nalbandyan
In terms of offering this service to the community, how do you advertise for?

Steve Sitkoff
So look, it’s a really good question in it. It raises another question I’m asked a lot, like, “hey, you used to be a prosecutor. You prosecuted bad people. How do you now defend bad people? How do you do that? How do you do that morally?” And I say to them, you know that’s not what it is. First of all, I’m not the lawyer who’s going to be representing, usually representing the person who killed three people in a drive by shooting. That person usually has is not hiring their own lawyer. That’s not my kind of case. What I really do is I help good people who exercise bad judgment and with their lives. I’m not just looking to get someone out of their case. I want them to have a future. I’ll give you a great example of a tiny little crime that could have had an unbelievable negative impact on this person’s life. Person’s walking down the strand of Hermosa Beach with a cup of beer. That’s a misdemeanor. Can’t walk around with a with an open container. It’s not the biggest deal in the world. No one’s going to jail. It’s not going to prison. Not that. But this guy’s in the Firefighting Academy to be a firefighter, and if he gets convicted this, his career is gone. So I helped him, you know, get that dismissed and get his career going. So the crime minor, but big ramification. Another example of a more serious crime. Person’s at a party in Bel Air. They’re drunk and they need to get something from the car. They go down to their car. When they come back, they go to the house next door. They don’t go to the party house, and they break in because they think it’s the house. Then he passes out, and the owner of the house finds him in the morning, passed out, and has him arrested for burglary. The guy’s the head of a major hedge fund, stock broker. He’s got licensing with SEC FINRA. I mean, clearly he wasn’t trying to burglarize the house. He’s being stupid. Now we got to save his career and also help the people whose house he invaded. Those are, those are examples of, you know, where I can really make a difference. That’s what I like to do.

Harry Nalbandyan
Those are great stories. It’s great for people to know that that avenue of help exists. How has technology helped in in your criminal defense practice over the years?

Steve Sitkoff
Well, I think it’s probably, in some, in most ways, it’s helped the way it’s helped most people. You can do so many different things at the same time, or, you know. It’s, it’s the blessing and the curse. I mean, when’s the last time you went on a vacation and didn’t work?

Harry Nalbandyan
Yeah. I mean, it follows you everywhere.

Steve Sitkoff
The only time I think that happens to people who have any kind of ambition is before there were cell phones and email and internet and all that. Right, so what? 30 years? 25 so, whatever, years ago. I think, but with technology, look again, a blessing and a curse. Lawyer advertising, I personally would love it if they if the State Bar disallowed it, because my best cases are from people who know me, referrals from other lawyers, business managers, accountants and I don’t. You know, criminal laws, you’re a PI lawyer, right?

Harry Nalbandyan
Personal Injury. Worker’s Compensation.

Steve Sitkoff
Okay? So same thing, your industry is rife with people who are trying to get over. They’re not, they’re not legitimate. And people lump you, you know, they they call PI lawyers and criminal lawyers, they almost lump us all in the same like something’s wrong with us or something. And really what it is that you’ve got these Internet people. They barely know what they’re doing in court, but they know how to game Google. If a case, if a case, costs $5,000 to do properly, they’ll they’ll charge 5000 but they’ll say, “hey, give me $1,000 now, 50 bucks a month”, and they recognize they may never get the rest of the money. That’s their business model. I’m not taking that case because I’m not going to take a case unless I do it right. And I tell people, I said, I can’t do your case for 1500 bucks, and I’m not going to take a payment plan of $50 a month. I mean, I accommodate people and help people, but I think technology, that’s the negative side. The positive side, though is, I learned the hard way when I lost a pretty good referral when I wasn’t checking my email on my phone. I was waiting to get to my office. I don’t do that anymore.

Harry Nalbandyan
Wow.

Steve Sitkoff
You know?

Harry Nalbandyan
I mean, it’s funny, in this service, you have to provide a legal service, and then you also have to apply client service. So you need both worlds for the relationship to really succeed.

Steve Sitkoff
It’s true. And you know, the the the human beings that we represent have a great capacity to not accept responsibility for their actions. For example, in my world, someone might say, “How come I have to do the year long DUI program?” Well, maybe because you were three times the legal limit. In your world, I’m sure you have people oftentimes saying, “Wait a second, I think I should get more. That’s not how much I should get or how come you’re taking so much when it when you got it done so quickly? I don’t understand.” And people say that to me too, and I say, Well, should I have waited and told you the good results six months from now? And told that I got you what you want, right? So you kind of know what I mean, right?

Harry Nalbandyan
I do exactly. And you know, no good deed goes unpunished, right?

Steve Sitkoff
You know what it’s it’s so true, but I think you know the same professor who helped me get in the DA’S office said you only have to do one thing to be successful in what you do. He says, “be a decent human being.” If you’re a decent human being, everything else will follow. I try to do that, you know, and generally it works. I’ll give you a great example of that. When I was going to court a lot before the pandemic, inevitably, I’d be late to some court. The judge would say, “hey, you’re late supposed to be here a half hour ago.” I hear all these lawyers making all my dog and my homework stories. Every story in the world, and probably most, were legitimate. I’m sure they were not lying. I never did that. I never do that. I always say the same thing. “You know, what your Honor. You’re right, and I’m sorry.” And that’s it, because that’s the end of it. If you just tell the truth, say you’re right, I should have, I should have been here a half hour ago. I apologize. Now what? You know.

Harry Nalbandyan
You’re taking it away from them, you know.

Steve Sitkoff
It’s exactly right. But when you give them the story, then it invites them to say, well, you know what, the fact that your daughter had a meltdown before school is not my problem, right? The dog, you know, pooped in the house and you had to clean up, not my problem.

Harry Nalbandyan
What do you think is a common misconception about the criminal defense attorney field.

Steve Sitkoff
I think that, you know, we’re trying to help criminals get over on the world or something. It’s just not true. You know, the government is so, at times, lazy, confident, uncaring that we, defense lawyers, are needed to to provide insurance that they do things right. I tell the prosecutors all the time. I remind them of what I was told the first day in the DA’s office, your job is not to convict people. Your job is to seek justice. That’s the last time they follow that because what you find when you’re in the DA’s office is, how do you get promoted? You better get convictions. You better win jury trials, you know. The DA said Gil Garcetti was the DA when I was a DA there. He said, “you win no matter what you just you put on your case. The jury makes the decision. The judge makes the decision. You’ve done your job.” I tell the prosecutors all the time when they’re complaining about their.. “hey, do your job.” You know. Just do your job and everything will fall into place.

Harry Nalbandyan
Yeah, follow the rules. These are the rules.

Steve Sitkoff
Follow the rules.

Harry Nalbandyan
Got to remind them.

Steve Sitkoff
And you know, most, most prosecutors, most police, I think, are good people, like in any profession, there’s always bad apples in any but right now, I think police not a great time to be a police officer, or it’s hard. People feel really hard.

Harry Nalbandyan
How do you feel about the the handling of the recent wildfires, or what we could do as a better. Is there anyway to help?

Steve Sitkoff
Well, it’s an interesting one because I’m in the middle of it. I live in the area. I don’t live in. I, you know, everybody calls the Palisades Fire. I live on the border of Palisades and Brentwood. I would just From my backyard, I look into the Palisades. From my backyard, on the Tuesday night it started, I could see the fire in my backyard. I have pictures of videos of airplanes dropping water in my backyard. My house is standing. My neighborhood is a messy world. We’re lucky in that respect. As far as the response, the firefighters, unbelievable. We passed out blueberry muffins to them the other day. We had firefighters who drove three days from Oregon to help who were parked in front of my house in the Palisades. Now the response, the what they should have been prepared for, that’s a whole different thing. Terrible and the opportunist bothered me. So you know this guy, Rick Caruso, who has his little village in the Palisades that was saved because he has private firefighters who took care of it. He’s criticizing the mayor for her being away when this happened. Here’s the problem with that. She left before it happened, and she came back right when it happened. But you know, politicians don’t always say exactly what’s going on. So we’ll see, I don’t know if you know this area, but our whole part of town’s been devastated, pretty bad.

Harry Nalbandyan
It’s so, youknow. There are no words to the people who just lost everything.

Steve Sitkoff
There’s, there’s kids in my my kids go to a private school here in the west side. 20 families lost their homes. I mean, it’s just and these are all people who have money. That’s not what it’s about. It’s not about money. It’s about everything you know, all your things, your memories, your style.

Harry Nalbandyan
Your things, your sense of security.

Steve Sitkoff
Yep, yeah, all those things.

Harry Nalbandyan
Well, you know, I’m glad everything is.

Steve Sitkoff
Yes, no, we’re doing okay. Thank you. But, yeah, I’ve got good experience because I’m in the middle of it. We just got back to our house a couple days ago. We were out two weeks.

Harry Nalbandyan
Welcome back.

Steve Sitkoff
Yeah, thank you.

Harry Nalbandyan
Have you seen any changes in the criminal justice world over the 30 years you’ve been working in it?

Steve Sitkoff
Well, yeah. Here’s the biggest change. With everybody having a cell phone camera, with all the cameras in the public world, with Twitter and Snapchat and Facebook and everything else, we’re in this completely voyeuristic world where there’s no privacy. What I find now is that, because everybody’s watching everybody, the prosecutors are acting not to do what’s right, I think, all the time, or what’s appropriate, but rather, their first question they ask themselves is, am I going to get in trouble? Am I going to get criticized? I’ll give you this if I’m not going to get criticized, and I’ll tell you I had a judge. So you familiar with that case up at Stanford where that swimmer got, supposedly, a sweetheart deal and a date rape case, and then the judge got removed from the bench. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Harry Nalbandyan
No. Can you give us some more details?

Steve Sitkoff
Okay, so about two years ago, two and a half years ago, there was a judge who had been a judge 17 years up in Palo Alto. He sentenced a person who got a deal in a date rape case, and the important part is he was criticized heavily by different organizations. A woman professor at Stanford led the charge to have him removed from the bench, to have him recalled because of of his decision, and it was successful. He was removed. He was recalled been a judge 17 years. Nobody knew this person existed until this one case. He made one unpopular decision and lost his job. Now people say to me, Well, do you think what he did was right? And I say it, it kind of doesn’t matter, because the independence of the judiciary is important. So this person does this and now every judge, state judge, because federal judges are there for life, they don’t have to worry about it, but a state judge runs for election every six years and is subject to recall. And I had a judge not too long ago call me up to sidebar off the record say, “Steve, I believe what you’re asking for is appropriate, but I’m not going to do it because I think about that Judge up in Palo Alto.” I said, Your Honor, it’s just like when I say, “hey, I’m sorry, you’re right, I’m late.” I said, “Thank you for being honest. Thank you for telling me the truth.” And I respect that. That’s one of the biggest problems, I think, in the judiciary and in the prosecutor’s offices. They’re too concerned with optics and what people are going to think and how it’s going to affect them, rather than doing the right thing all the time.

Harry Nalbandyan
Well, thank you for sharing all that, Steve. Thank you so much. How can the our listeners get in touch with you? Find you?

Steve Sitkoff
So it’s it’s fairly easy. I have a website that I think is easy to remember, formerdistrictattorneys.com so.

Harry Nalbandyan
That’s great.

Steve Sitkoff
You can find me at formerdistrictattorneys.com Phone Numbers, 310-312-8055 and just Google my name. You’ll find me. Look, I’m one other thing I don’t do. A lot of people charge for consultations in the criminal world. I don’t. Main reason is they’re they’re very emotional, and I don’t want people worrying about money when they take some time to tell me what’s going on. So I am glad to help anyone who has questions. I tell everyone the same thing, if you hire me, great, and if you don’t, you can still call me and ask me questions. And you can ask me questions anytime you want, and hopefully you Harry will never need my services.

Harry Nalbandyan
I will call you if I have any questions. For sure, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for this conversation, Steve, it was a great time.

Steve Sitkoff
You bet you too nice to meet you. Take care.

Harry Nalbandyan
Thank you. Thanks for joining us today on Harry handles it. I hope you enjoyed our conversation and found some valuable takeaways. If you’re facing challenges in your own life or business, whoever, then you’re not alone together. We can handle anything that comes our way. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review if you liked what you heard. Until next time, keep pushing forward and handling life with confidence. You.