Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
#4 Pamela Tahim Thakur, founder and managing attorney of Thakur Law Firm
What if we told you that the safety protocols in contact sports, especially football, are not as robust as they should be, and that the health of young athletes is at stake? This week on Broken Brains, we sit down with Pamela Tahim Thakur, the trailblazing founder and managing attorney at Thakur Law Firm, who has dedicated her career to advocating for better safety standards in sports. Having represented former UCLA football players in their fight against the university, Pamela sheds light on the legal battles, institutional resistance, and the critical role of state legislation in protecting athletes from brain injuries. Her 18-year journey in law, motivated by her immigrant parents' struggles, is a testament to her commitment to justice and advocacy.
We also uncover the powerful role parents play in ensuring the safety of their student athletes. Pamela explains how parents can engage with coaches and training staff to enforce safety protocols, and the severe impact brain injuries can have on young athletes, from personality changes to academic and mental health issues. Through eye-opening discussions on education and awareness, this episode emphasizes the importance of creating safer environments for athletes and influencing societal change. Join us for this compelling conversation that not only addresses the urgent need for better safety measures but also honors Pamela's unwavering dedication to this crucial cause.
Produced by Security Halt Media
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken Brains. I'm your host, Bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation. Today, we have a very intriguing guest, because we don't really talk a lot about the legal aspects of self-inclusive trauma, repeated blast injury and what it means for our children, for our adults and for our athletes, and we're getting ready to talk to a warrior who's actually, you know, walk the walk, talk the talk, and has taken the side of families and athletes that have suffered from, you know, playing contact sports, and we're excited to have her on here. Her name is Pamela Tacker.
Speaker 1:Ms Tacker is with Tacker Law Firm and she's the founder and managing attorney with over 18 years of experience, and she maintains a diverse practice that includes complex litigation in the areas of employment, business law, family law, personal injury and real estate, as well as transactional services, trust and estate planning. Sounds like you do a little bit of everything. We're going to make sure that you give a complete pitch for yourself at the end of this show. She's been selected as a Super Lawyer Rising Star every year since 2016 and a Super Lawyer for litigation from 2020 to 2023. And she's a top rated 10.0 lawyer on AVVO and is a certified lawyer of distinction. What's AVVO?
Speaker 2:That is basically a legal platform for attorneys as well. As you know, it allows interface with different attorneys all over the United States, and then it allows the attorneys to get reviews from clients and to actually communicate with clients as well. There's an interface that allows questions and answers and essentially gives you know different individuals who are looking for attorneys, clients, potential clients, information, education and allows them to connect with different attorneys.
Speaker 1:Well, obviously, with a rating like that, you get pretty. You've got a lot of satisfied clients, which is very hard to achieve in a lawyer space. My first question is I've got a daughter who's a lawyer. She's a practicing attorney at Colorado Springs and you know she knew from the very, very start that for some reason she wanted to be an attorney. We had no idea where that came from. So how did you get into the legal profession? What was your incentivization, your motivation to join legal practice?
Speaker 2:I think I'm a lot like your daughter, bruce, because when I had just started high school, my parents are actually immigrants here in the United States and I would get so upset when they could not handle the legal system and the sense they didn't understand it and they would get taken advantage. And so my parents my mother's a business owner and my father is an engineer and they would somehow just get into situations where they just were at the bad end of the stick and I felt very frustrated that they couldn't understand how to navigate the legal system. So as soon as I started high school, I immediately joined the mock trial team, and that was in 1994. And, believe it or not, back in 1994, when I joined the mock trial team, I actually applied to be a part of the mock trial team and I didn't make it. And so I asked the coach the teacher at the time if they could give me another opportunity to see if I can make the mock trial team. And I did make it.
Speaker 2:And then I was an attorney on the team and had excelled on the mock trial team, and the same thing had happened to me when I went to UCLA. I wanted to join the mock trial team and, for whatever reason, I had to keep fighting for it. But ultimately, when I joined the team at UCLA and in law school in San Diego University of San Diego, I ended up being the best oral advocate for the entire class that I graduated. I think sometimes people look at us and they think, well, how can that person be an amazing attorney or litigator, even on a fake mock trial team? So I had to deal with that throughout my entire career. But I knew that I wanted to fight for justice. I knew I wanted to be a lawyer and I wanted to have that forum to learn the legal system so I could help other people who couldn't understand it or who couldn't help themselves.
Speaker 1:Wow and that brings. That's a good point. In the legal profession you can go the path and make a lot of money and really go burn the hours up and I've worked with a lot of lawyers being a businessman over the years but there's a very compassionate side. Burn the hours up and I've worked with a lot of lawyers being a businessman over the years but there's a very compassionate side to the legal profession and it seems like you know folks like you that just you know. You know obviously you are an attorney, you represent the legal profession, do you want to help?
Speaker 2:And so you know the you know, is that what got you in the family law when you could have done so many other? You know IP protection or you know patents and all that stuff Absolutely. In fact, I was at a firm for about 10 years and I had actually successfully tried a jury trial in one of the largest you know, multimillion dollar verdicts for the firm and I was a firm making partner at that firm and I decided to leave and start my own law firm because I wanted to take cases that other firms wouldn't take. I wanted to use my knowledge, my experience as an attorney, to take on difficult cases where people could not get representation.
Speaker 1:Wow, and is that what led you into? You know? Obviously the audience doesn't know this yet, but you've had, you know, some successes on litigating on behalf of plaintiffs who were who had suffered brain damage from I don't know. I know the sports side, so can you talk a little bit about that? I mean, how did you go into this and then how did you gain all the knowledge on the brain to get in there and rip it up and plead the Casey folks?
Speaker 2:Actually it was a referral for one of my clients. Our brother was a former UCLA football player and it was a very sad story of the abuse that this individual, who was the lead plaintiff that I had represented. I represented four former UCLA football players against the regents and their former coaches and trainers for gross negligence that resulted in traumatic brain injuries that could have been avoided. For at least two of these individuals, there was sort of a deployment of essentially anyone who was injured to basically put them back out there and use them as punching guns, and that included numerous hits to the head that essentially ruined a couple of these players' lives and they'll never be able to recover from that. So when she brought in her brother, you know no other attorneys would look at these cases because they're so difficult, they're so expensive. No one sues the regents no one. You know it's football. It's a dangerous sport. You know you sign a waiver Like why would you do this? A dangerous sport? You know you sign a waiver like why would you do this? Why would you find a way to actually get around all of these?
Speaker 2:You know affirmative defenses that have been established in the legal system. The legal system is, in a way, potentially the only remedy, but at the same time it's stacked against student athletes and anyone who's playing football. Quite frankly, it's very difficult to bring a claim to overcome a summary judgment motion or just what the standards are in tort law. So when the case came to me, I took it on as a challenge and I didn't realize what an impact it would actually have to file these lawsuits. The day after we filed these three cases, the media picked it up and it was all over the New York Times, washington Post, la Times. I mean, we had no idea, we were absolutely not expecting it, but it's because these cases are so difficult to bring and try that that was the impact that it would have for these universities on student health and safety and legislation, and the impact is still continuing forward. And so you know that was the reason that I took those cases.
Speaker 1:Man, and when you talk about, you know the defenses, like the waivers. I think it's something that you know we talked about is those waivers. I mean, everybody knows football is dangerous.
Speaker 1:I knew when I, my son played, right, he's going to get his, you know he's going to, you know, you know, get a shoulder, maybe he might break a leg or an ankle, but you know I trusted the coaches in the sport. But nobody ever, ever thinks about brain trauma and mental illness as an outcome of football. And of course you know everybody's afraid that if that has become a well-known, you know outcome, then who's going to play football right, when the fact is, we can make football safer and make it an adult sport where people can enjoy it. I mean, people have played football and survived. Many of you had long, healthy lives.
Speaker 1:But it's all about that exposure. So you know how did you deal with those defenses when they say, ah, it's a dangerous sport, because that thing, that thing, I've never seen a. I've looked at you know the, the little helmet stickers and all that stuff. There's nothing in there about brain damage and mental illness, you know. So you know how did you, how did you? You know what were your, what were your, not your loopholes, but what were the gaps there that you were able to take advantage of to bring these cases on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was finding experts in the industry and being able to show that it wasn't just negligence, but it was groups negligence and that the actions against these players the type of thrills, like certain variations of Oklahoma drills that are not actually industry standard that were taking place. You know the way that players who had concussions were treated putting them back out on the field, using them as practice dummies, things of that nature yeah, yeah, I mean it was horrible. We actually were able to get Norm Chow, who was the former offensive line coach, to provide a declaration as an expert witness saying that the standards were not being upheld to, and he interviewed a number of different players. It's so tragic. We just represented just four players, but there were so many additional players who had suffered and tried committing suicide, couldn't graduate from college, unable to work, completely destroyed in their lives, completely, you know, destroyed in their lives. One of them unfortunately tried to commit suicide while the case was ongoing and we had to get involved in helping the family with that.
Speaker 2:And also, you know, after the case was over, the money was never going to be enough because you don't know what the long-term repercussions are for subconcussive concussions.
Speaker 2:And so you know, it's not just the major concussions where you're in the hospital, but it's the minor ones that are most difficult to actually diagnose, to actually diagnose. But those are the ones that are actually the ones that are creating the most impact in terms of negatively affecting a lot of the student athletes. And so the way we got around that was using expert witnesses who were able to look at it and say this is not even negligence, this is gross negligence. And so that coaching staff you know the folks that were involved, they were actually they were terminating and so or they resigned and you know all of this information had come out afterwards. But, quite frankly, you know, it looks like in response to that, a lot of the concussion protocols have been tightened up and there's actually some legislation that's been proposed with the California State Assembly that you know is being looked at very seriously now protecting the health and safety of student athletes.
Speaker 1:And I think that's where I think you and I met. We testified on that California bill and I was listening to you going. Oh, I mean you were angry, I mean frustrated, you know, because you know, here we are, you know you've already, you know, dealt with these, these lawsuit cases. And here is you know, a state and I don't care what side of the political line you're on who's, I think, was trying to do the right thing. I don't think they did the right thing banning football. I mean, it was just, you know, that was.
Speaker 1:I think that might have been the step too far, but, you know, what do you think about that? You know legislation, now that you, you know, you've watched these lives be significantly impacted by nothing more. I always say that you know these kids, the only crime they committed was their passion for a sport. Their parents, you know, like myself, would have committed to my son being, you know, physically active. You know, and we're not even just talking football here, it's just about the lifestyle and what we are allowing our kids to do. I do think that you know, prevention until you know 14 is a good move. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:I think, especially for young children, the later that the child can wait until the child is actually having head-to-head combat. It's easier then, as the child gets older, to deal with concussions or subconcussive trauma. Concussive trauma because the way that the child's body develops and this was a big issue that came out at the committee hearing is that the heads of children are much larger when they're younger and then as they get older it's more balanced. And so it's for especially young children under 14, you know the science and the testimony from other individuals consultants, physicians, parents, family members I think was leading towards educating and informing the committee that it would be advisable to wait until the child is older, and I think 14 is a better age than you know for children under 14. So I think flag football, you know, versus head-to-head combat. I think that was a very positive review by the committee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've actually converted our first police activity league from tackle to flag and I'm hoping to template that and carry it across. Now, when you were in these legal battles I mean we, you know it's. You know you read about how the big leagues or the colleges, they really throw everything at you Like it's I mean, did they, did they drag these courses out, these classes out? I mean you know another. Another question is we know you know fans and parents are crazy like they're nuts and you threaten their livelihood. I mean they were you subject to abuse or any of that stuff or oh, because we're representing the football players, we support football.
Speaker 2:We're just advocating for more safety regulations and you know, I mean it wasn't about, you know, suing the regions trying to. You know, it's not about that. It's about having better protocols and safety and health measures, you know, even within the university system. So it's just about protection of student athletes and their lives. So you know, we actually went to UCLA, so I'm a former Bruin.
Speaker 1:She's torn in two.
Speaker 2:I was advocating for other students, just like you know, just like I was a student. So it wasn't. You know we're not doing the football industry and if anyone thought that was the whole point, it wasn't, it was about hey, this is happening. Something needs to change here. People's lives are being destroyed. What can be done to make this better for future generations? My children are. You know, my son is now in high school looking at colleges and you know he plays sports. He, my son, is now in high school looking at colleges and you know he plays sports. He's on the basketball team in high school.
Speaker 2:Great sport by the way, and concessions are commonplace there too. So it's not that we want to prevent these you know activities from taking place. No, it's. How can we make it better? How can we prevent what happened in that one regime from not happening in the future? And if we don't do that and there's no checks and balances, then this is going to happen again and other lives are going to be impacted.
Speaker 1:You know, make a good point too, is as a result of your lawsuit there, other colleges were kind of waking up to you know we can't. We can't do this and we do know that, like the Ivy league colleges, you know they, you know they don't have contact practices at all during the season, and neither does the NFL. We really need to push those good standards down, but there's a limit, right, and that's not happening. I mean, gosh, you look at high schools. You know right now, and and I know, gosh, you look at high schools right now, and I know my son started in July. Man, the season didn't go until, I don't think we started the season until September. It was two months of contact drills and then they had contact every day during every practice, and so outside of the exposure and from 14 to none, just eliminating that.
Speaker 1:You know how could we? You know, is there a way, legally or I don't know, to get these high schools? I'm in a battle with my high schools. They still got a middle school football team. We're getting ready to alert. Note them that that is going to change, otherwise we have to report and they've modified a little bit of that.
Speaker 1:But what can we from the legal profession, the legal side, because it's all about standards of care. It's all about you know, and then making sure that if there is a mistake, like you did, we acknowledge it and we pay for it. What can we do? Do you think, from the the legal perfection, uh, to go ahead and and bring all of football and all of contact sports, whether it's rugby or hockey, you know, uh, you know, to come up with a standard. You know even an age, because, right, you know hockey's 13. I think you know soccer's 12, which is still too young given the development that goes on during that age. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, is there any way to get all these you know to recognize that high risk sports is what we like to call them are, across the board, men and women not healthy in certain quantities or at certain ages. How do we address that?
Speaker 2:Right. So I mean, unfortunately, the only way is to state legislation on a state by state basis, and that's why there are health and safety bills that are being proposed and argued and decided on enforcing, you know, essentially like an audit process for student athletes and also the NCAA, they don't enforce the own rules that they have.
Speaker 2:So, if you look at the rules that the NCAA has, they are meant to protect student athletes, but there's no enforcement mechanism. So, without going through all of their rules and regulations, you know, even if there was a way to implement some of their own standards in the universities, in the state universities but then we're talking private universities how do you enforce it in a private university? So is there a way for another third-party agency to get involved to make sure that those are being enforced? So the NCAA actually does have very clear rules and guidelines for, you know, different sports, including football, including, you know, basketball, but in terms of enforcement, that's just not happening at the university level. That's just not happening at the university level. And so if there is a state, some type of state mechanism that could, you know, that could enforce that, and I think you know the bill that we were speaking at was really just for minors. There's nothing there.
Speaker 2:There are some other bills that have been proposed, but they haven't actually, you know, made it through the finish line. They haven't actually, you know, made it through the finish line. So they're, you know, and the reason that it hasn't is because the health and safety component was linked in with a financial component. And then, of course, you know the schools were lobbying and you know different interest groups were lobbying and saying, no, you can't have a financial component, kind of a financial component.
Speaker 2:But now the NCAA just if you're you know, pulling up the huge class action lawsuit for billions of dollars. That is showing that there is now going to be a shift because there will be some type of pay structure for student athletes. So I think now is the time, because of the voices that are being heard and the nonprofit organizations that are pushing for more accountability. I think some of these bills are actually going to pass in the next few years. And I'm seeing a trend here that before everyone was saying no, student athletes shouldn't get paid, they should just be used and, you know, forgotten about. And now, because of these class action lawsuits, that's changing. So the settlement process is still going through. I don't know all the logistics of it I'm reviewing it myself but I mean this is really going to change the future for student athletes.
Speaker 1:Would that you know, and I guess it's retroactive as well. So if that is the case and you have played contact sports, you never got paid for it. But if you are injured, you know, say you played four years of college and anybody can argue well, you played high school before that. I mean I wouldn't care. And you know, and everybody can argue well, you played high school before that. I mean I wouldn't care. And it sounds like you know some of these folks like you mentioned, whose lives are significantly impacted.
Speaker 1:Who an employer? If I'm a business owner, somebody gets hurt in a job, like I had guys in Afghanistan and Iraq that got shot, crashed in helicopters. I took care of them. You know, when they got back to the States I didn't say hey, just thanks for going. Not even you already served your country going back and acting as a contractor, but no, we're going to take care of you, send us your bills. We had insurance and we made sure that all these folks got back in their feet. So it should be no different for a professional league or a college to do the same thing.
Speaker 2:And that's the trend that's taking place right now, and there are now, finally, workers' compensation benefits in California now for student athletes were not in place for the regime that I was representing in these lawsuits, which we did settle favorably, there's no amount of money that would compensate these individuals.
Speaker 1:No, you've seen it and I think we could both agree. Or do you see that part of the? Do you feel that these bills, part of the potential success for them passing, is based on the emerging understanding of the impact of these sports careers on individuals' brains?
Speaker 2:Yes, it is, and I think, with your organization putting education information available out there on social media, with the conferences for the public, I think people are now understanding and learning so much more about the impact that this actually has, not just on individual lives but for families and generations.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You know, I spoke last week at a conference of 150 attorneys, nonprofits, judges, all sitting there, and when I started talking about sports and trauma, they didn't have a clue. I mean, they heard a CTE, I think maybe four people. You know, when I said repeated head impacts, it raised their hands. We gave a lot of books away that day, but it also brought up that there's a glaring gap of understanding and knowledge within not even just the legal community but the court systems, for that these, you know, these individuals show up. As you know, they've been arrested, they're facing incarceration.
Speaker 1:So on the judge's side, I've got a whole bunch of judges that we're educating now on. Hey, how do you provide some leniency in addition, with access to care, to go ahead and fix these? You know men and women. And then on the other side, for the attorneys, you know, you know they, they don't even know that this possibility of a defense or, you know, a, a legal argument exists. How do we fix that? I mean, do we? I know that you know, in the medical psychological fields there is no training on, on, on repeated head impacts or repeated blast exposure. What can we do to educate the legal profession and our, you know judges and you know the court system on this issue. You had to learn this all on your own.
Speaker 2:I know, I know, but exactly what you're doing, bruce, I think you know putting education out there, you know putting this, you know on the forefront of people's minds you know, newspaper articles. You know, fighting brave plaintiffs that I represented. They did and that's what needs to be done, and there are a number of advocacy groups and nonprofits that are making this a priority to educate and to try to change legislation through information. So I think it's being done, it's happening.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, ms Dacker, you know a lot of people get ahold of you right. Obviously you're an experienced professional in these aspects of law. Do you have a website or you know, is there? They look, they look up your law firm in California.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it is wwwtalkforpairlawfirmcom and they can certainly look us up online.
Speaker 1:And do you have any recommendations for other lawyers or parents out there? You know you've watched the families you've looked at. You know you've watched them suffer. I mean gosh, you've seen some tragedy. You have any recommendations for those as we close out?
Speaker 2:I mean the recommendation is to really, you know, carefully be involved with your children, their student athletes and, you know, be involved with the coaches, the training staff.
Speaker 2:You know, talk to your student athletes and you know, find out what's going on and see and make sure that safety protocols are being followed and be involved in your children's lives. I think that's very critical and the parents in these scenarios really touched me. Unfortunately, they couldn't recognize their children after the brain injuries, in terms of the children just completely becoming different people becoming very aggressive and very reclusive, know, losing the ability to continue studying or, you know, socializing, or trying to commit suicide. Then the parents didn't understand what happened because they were not either allowed to be involved or they were not making an effort to understand what was happening or educating themselves. So, even if your child has a concussion, what is the best way to deal with it? You know, and unfortunately you know, some experts say that the best way to deal with it is to avoid even doing that head to head combat. But that's not always an option and you know, when it's not an option, it's about being informed, educated and being involved in your children's lives.
Speaker 1:Ms Stackard, it's people like you that are going to make, that are going to help us, you know, make the changes that we need as a society to look at how we play these contact sports, who gets to play them, when they get to play them, and how do we take care of those that have already been injured. And you have led the charge. I cannot, you know. Thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a pleasure testifying with you that day. Thank you for your energy that you bring it to this issue, your commitment to this issue, and we'd love to have you back on someday If you'd like to come back on the show.
Speaker 2:Thank, you so much. Thank you, thank you.