Original subtitles

America

America is

America is about

America is about freedom.

America is about freedom. I'm

America is about freedom. I'm Adam

America is about freedom. I'm Adam Reposa.

America is about freedom. I'm Adam Reposa. I'm

America is about freedom. I'm Adam Reposa. I'm a

America is about freedom. I'm Adam Reposa. I'm a lawyer.

-He's a showboat. -Why are you...

He's gaming the system.

...in my way?!

He thinks he's the smartest person in the room.

I'm a lawyer!

I mean, he finds a way of finding the chaos.

I am a lawyer!

He wants to be the bride at every wedding

and the corpse at every funeral.

And if you're prosecuting my client...

And he does shine in the courtroom.

...you are...

He wins a high percentage of his cases.

...in my way!

Lawyer-wise, I think he's proven that it's effective.

I'm Adam Reposa.

♪♪

Jimmy McGill, Saul Goodman --

Each has his own unique relationship with the law.

When my character, Gustavo Fring,

first sets eyes on Jimmy in "Better Call Saul,"

he is waist-deep in a Los Pollos Hermanos trash can

searching for evidence.

And as Jimmy reinvented himself as Saul,

he fully embraced representing those

who had a blatant disregard for the law.

Now, the garbage Jimmy is willing to step into

can't be contained in a trash can.

Texas Defense Attorney Adam Reposa

is a real-life litigator who is often the last chance

for those on the wrong side of the law.

And like Saul, he has created a persona

that revels in outplaying the system.

Adam's legal strategy is to create utter chaos in the courtroom,

thus causing confusion that will ultimately serve his client.

But how far can one lawyer bend the law

until he finds himself

permanently on the wrong side of it?

♪♪

[Dog barks]

You know, when I was a young kid, my grandmother told me,

"You will be a great lawyer," and I believed it.

And I think that she saw in me at a very young age,

like I see in some kids, a certain defiance,

argumentativeness.

I'm fairly articulate.

I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer.

People ask me, "What's up with all the crazy stuff?"

And I tell them flat out, "It's branding.

It's gonna give me a bunch of traction,

social media or otherwise."

And they're gonna be like, "Oh, God, this guy's really creative,

not scared to go to court and fight."

Brooks: So as a lawyer, I think he's a fundamentally -- He's a pugilist.

He's like, "I'm gonna box 'cause I'm being hired to box."

And in the criminal defense business,

that's becoming more and more unusual, right?

Like, that's rare.

I am freedom!

Baird: When Adam Reposa enters the courtroom,

something different kind of happens.

My whole career, I've been fighting for justice,

and fighting for justice is loud.

You know it's probably gonna be edgy.

You know it's probably gonna be pushing the envelope.

"Mr. Reposa?!" Yes, Judge?

I definitely, as a young lawyer, tried to go glad-handing,

and I used to charge more than I do now.

I used to have a different clientele,

and I used to dress differently and present differently.

Then I was like, "No."

The government is sending dudes to the farm over drugs,

even though everyone does drugs.

If you get it from your doctor or you get it from the street,

it's still the same [bleep]

But these people go to the country club,

these people go to prison.

That's the way America works.

I'm the guy who, a lot of times, is coming in

after these dudes have been told, "You want to take 20,"

and I will get you half of that or double that.

♪♪

You want to be able to separate yourself

from everyone else in the courtroom from a distance.

All will gravitate towards you based on your tie.

You want to win a lawsuit, get you a [bleep] jellyfish.

You get you some nice white ladies on a jury, brah,

that's when you come back out, you hit them with the flowers,

come back and hit them with all these --

I don't even know what you call that.

But you wear that, and everybody knows,

"Oh, yeah. This dude hired a lawyer."

Do you know that everything you say is being recorded?

He has very good success.

He will take any case to trial.

In cases that other lawyers would consider hopeless,

Adam will get in front of a jury and come up with some theory

of why the jury should acquit his client.

Reposa: The truth is, most lawyers never go to court,

Even though you're weak and I could leverage the situation

by demanding due process,

I won't because I'll go along to get along

like the good hump that I am.

That's normal.

Thrown in jail twice for contempt of court,

Adam is willing to push the limits to see that justice is served.

Betts: Well, one of the risks to doing all this litigation

and having such a high opinion of yourself

is that you always think that you're right.

Um, I don't think Adam does a lot of research.

I had a friend that I was defending on a DWI case,

and Adam was really eager

to cross-examine this police officer.

And he crushes the cop.

He gets the cop to basically concede

that he did everything wrong.

And I could see the jury go from "aha"

to, "God, what -- what an [bleep]

Like, why is he picking on that poor cop?"

And the jury comes back out, and they say, "Not guilty,"

but they want to yell at Adam and say,

"We almost convicted him

because you were such a jerk to the cop."

And, of course, Adam walks out of the courthouse like "hurray,"

with no sense that he almost lost the case he won, you know?

The definition of a good lawyer, as viewed by most people --

gets along with judges, gets along with prosecutors,

is viewed favorably.

I'm a terrible lawyer.

Terrible lawyer, great results.

I think Adam has a strong belief in his ability

to try any case as flying by the seat of his pants.

And if you're one of his clients who gets, uh, put in jail for 90 days

instead of the two days that he was asking from the jury,

well, you're gonna have a long time to think about

the game and how it got played.

Do you know who makes my job hard?

Defense lawyers.

Defense lawyers routinely sign their name

to [bleep] that I would never agree to.

Since the '70s to the 2000s,

you have exponentially higher numbers

of people going to prison?

You know how that happens?

Broke defense lawyers.

There is nothing easier than being a lawyer.

They tell you what to say, and you say it.

You wear a nice tie, talk about how great America is.

You thank the judge.

This is the [bleep] royal penis.

[Bleep] That's it.

That's all lawyers are.

And so I say, "You know what you are? You're feeble."

And they say, "You know what you are? You're disgusting.

Deal."

I'd rather be disgusting than feeble.

And I get results.

Is Adam Reposa a legal renegade

or a reckless maverick bucking the system?

♪♪

On liberty.

I know that there is value

in going and challenging what is a terrible status quo.

The government, the power that they wield

in the context of criminal litigation is so lopsided.

I guess the thing that I don't understand

is if you believe that the criminal justice system is broken

and it's just all unjust or whatever --

and there's certainly a lot of justification for that belief --

is why he spends his time trying DWI cases.

The real injustice is in felony cases,

where people are losing their liberty and, perhaps, their lives.

Adam practiced in federal court for about five minutes.

And he realized that the amount of energy and effort

that he has to devote to a case

would not yield the same result.

Because there is not as much flexibility

in federal court or state court.

And that's why he says, "[Bleep] you, federal court.

I'm out."

Reposa: People say I'm a cowboy,

and that's the problem, is that being like,

"You are arresting more people

than you can give due process to,

so you need to stop arresting so many people,"

that's rogue.

Much like Saul,

Adam has his fans and his detractors.

But I have to ask,

wouldn't you want your lawyer to risk everything,

even jail, to win your case?

♪♪