TRANSCRIPTION
David Smith 00:00
Welcome to the Expert Witness Podcast. I am your host, David Smith, and I’m excited to be here today with Lloyd Williams. Lloyd is a respected hotelier with extensive hands-on experience in the management of all operational areas, human resources, staff development and training, finance, marketing, revenue management during all developmental phases of complex hotel and resort assets, with revenues reaching $62 million. A competitive, highly detailed and profit-oriented leader experienced with various ownership structures, recognized for a keen focus on ensuring guest and associate wellbeing, outstanding guest experiences, enhanced reputation, prioritized maintenance, and promoting staff development, superior training and accountability. Mr. Williams is based in Minnesota and does expert witness work all over the country. Lloyd, welcome to the podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you here.
Lloyd Williams 01:10
David. Thanks very much. It’s an honor to be here. I have been looking forward to this. Thank you very much.
David Smith 01:18
Me too. All right. So a question I always like to start out with is expert witness work seems to be a little known career choice, and you don’t hear kids growing up talking about how they wanna be an expert witness when they’re or older. So I’m always curious, how were you introduced to expert witness work? How did you get into this field?
Lloyd Williams 01:39
Well, I’m certainly one of those kids who never thought about expert witness work as a future. I certainly knew nothing about it. I always wanted to be a milkman so you could drive around in one of those cool trucks where you could stand up and drive around like that. I thought that was a pretty lofty goal, you know, when I was seven or eight years old. Certainly times have changed that. But, like most others, I think probably the vast majority of witnesses that I’ve met, just kind of bumped into it. We didn’t and I didn’t know anything about it. We work hard every day at our own trade and working hard at what we do and trying to learn and do the best we can for ownership and those around us and staff and make them better.
Lloyd Williams 02:28
I probably heard, I’m certain I first heard, about expert witnesses in medical malpractice cases, or as we got a little bit older, in major building, construction failures and those kinds of things. But I was busy with my day-to-day work. So my involvement wasn’t exactly an accident from my standpoint. It wasn’t anything that I had identified that I wanted to do, but as it was, it came about as a result of apparently some good work that I had done a few years prior. An asset manager referred my name to a relatively prestigious firm out on the West Coast. They had been in touch, and the attorney said, hey, we need someone to help me on a case.
Lloyd Williams 03:31
They said, oh, I know this guy, Lloyd Williams. He’s done a good job, for us and for our company of asset managers. Give him a call, he might be able to help you. So I remember it was 2016. I was cleaning up my house, checking on my home in Florida after a hurricane. And, I remember, very clearly, I was repairing a kitchen window when he called and introduced himself and outlined the incident for me. We discussed my initial thoughts, obviously right off the top of my head. And, once I settled that I could maintain my full-time job, which was a full-time job, I said sure let’s give it a try. And that’s how it happened. It was interesting.
Lloyd Williams 04:22
It was a major case. Someone who was seriously injured, and I thought I had something to offer. He did as well and off we went. So I went down that path. That case lasted several months. I learned as I went. But in parallel, I did research the expert witnesses business. I nailed down representation and that was it. Things went on from there. So certainly I bumped into it, but I’ve enjoyed it. It’s been challenging, it’s been interesting and it’s allowed me to do good things for people. I hope on both sides, frankly.
David Smith 05:16
Yeah. Very good. That sounds like a natural extension of the work that you were already doing.
Lloyd Williams 05:21
It really was. And the introduction was ideal, from one trusted person to an attorney that he had known. So it worked out pretty well. I’m happy with it.
David Smith 05:33
Very good. Very good. So, I understand that your business does consulting work and expert witness work. Have you found that being active in the industry helps you as an expert witness?
Lloyd Williams 05:50
It’s critical, I think. I’m not interested in stale bread, and neither are my clients. They need up-to-date information. They need people who understand what’s happening today, not what happened 30 years ago when I first entered the business, even though that has some bearing on some accepted operating standards. But they need current information. And, I’ve been able to stay in touch and do some work with owners and asset managers, and people that I’ve had a relationship with in the past that allows me to stay involved in the industry and stay current. So I get real world, day-to-day operational updates. And it not only makes the attorney feel better, but I know what’s going on.
Lloyd Williams 06:48
But my comfort level when functioning on the expert witness side is enhanced. I can feel more confident that my opinions are factual, they’re current and they can help the attorneys, victims and even the courts, a judge, for example, realize that I know what I’m talking about. And I’m not a good faker. I’m a very poor actor, very poor actor. So the information that I gain when I’m on a property, on an asset, or on a group of assets, is important to me to maintain credibility. It’s all about specific competencies and I can only build my specific competencies by being there on the ground floor. So that’s important to me.
David Smith 07:42
Absolutely. I agree we do the same thing in our practice doing engineering work as well as the expert witness work. And, doing the engineering work makes us better expert witnesses and doing the expert witness work makes us better engineers. It helps you think about things differently. So it’s a very symbiotic relationship.
Lloyd Williams 08:06
Yeah. It can be a critical eye, it can be complimentary, whatever it needs to be. If we weren’t there, we wouldn’t be able to share that information. We’re not doing it in a cocoon. And all of our businesses, all of our trades, all of our industries are changing all the time and I think it’s important to do our best to stay in touch with those things. And whether that be a corporate staff or a staff in the hinterlands somewhere, we need to know how information is flowing, what’s happening down the pipeline. And, you’re right. We’ve got to keep our fingers on both sides.
David Smith 08:46
All right, very good. So, you had talked a little bit about that first call that you got and you still remember that, and I think most expert witnesses would recognize that attorneys will call and talk to several potential experts to try and find the one that they think will be the best fit for their case.
Lloyd Williams 09:09
Right.
David Smith 09:09
So, in that sense, the attorneys are trying to qualify the expert, but do you think it’s important for experts to qualify the attorneys that call them? For example, would you take any case that comes across your desk, or do you have any thoughts or policies in that regard?
Lloyd Williams 09:32
Any of us in anything we do may have a bigger bank account if we took every case that came in. But morally, ethically, I’ve met no expert witness who was willing to take any case that came across, at least the ones that I’ve met and respected. Not every retainer-based relationship is a good marriage. My initial consideration, before we move forward, is for me to take a mental inventory of, again, I’m gonna use the words specific competencies, during that initial conversation just to be sure that I can complement their skills. I might be more critical of myself and the relationship than the attorney at that stage. because I’m an open book. After all, we are selling, right? We are selling in those early conversations. So, my whole thought process is that I want to help them with the process that they go through.
Lloyd Williams 10:37
And I’m careful to accept cases where I’m very confident that my competencies really relate to the case and probably match up with what their initial strategies might be. You know, somewhere out there there’s a hotel expert that has a deep understanding of why and how people fall and slip and fall in bathtubs. I’m not a slip and fall bathtub guy. I don’t have those competencies and I couldn’t gain that knowledge in a reasonable period of time. So, it’s contrary to my ethical being, for lack of a better term. I just don’t think I can be of much help. And I also, frankly, see some of these cases with a little bit of a jaundiced eye on those things. So I really back off of those, if I receive a request on, let’s say fifty cases during the course of the year, it’s not a huge number, but I think I probably pass on maybe twenty- percent of those.
Lloyd Williams 11:56
Not that I’m such a wise guy, but I don’t know that I have the knowledge and I’m not sure that it is a viable case, even along those lines. I like to win. So that might be part of it as well. But, yeah, that’s that. So I probably pass on 20% of those things. Not that the attorneys probably aren’t skilled in this and that, but it’s probably more to do with the case, and the information that’s available and the circumstances than certainly the attorney themselves, they’re smart people, but it may not be a good match, but I try to cover that upfront.
David Smith 12:40
Yeah, that’s true. Sometimes the facts just don’t match the opinions that they want you to have, so, yeah. No, you gotta pass on those.
Lloyd Williams 12:50
That’s right. Yeah. You can sniff a conflict many times early on and we’re here to avoid as much conflict as possible by knowing what we’re talking about.
David Smith 13:04
All right. So I found that anyone that has done a significant amount of expert witness work has gotten a call and been asked to do their entire analysis and produce a report in a very short timeframe. Clearly that’s not ideal, but what have you found are some of the benefits of being involved early on in a case?
Lloyd Williams 13:28
Well, I learned that fairly quickly. These quick turnarounds are tough for anyone interested in doing a good job. They’re just not fun. I’m not sure that anybody benefits from rush jobs, be it the defendant, plaintiff, court system, whatever. It causes, I think, the details are overlooked or omitted and depositions are more cumbersome, and the other side isn’t provided with an immediate clear picture of me as an expert. And I really believe that’s not good. I want people to understand that I know what I’m talking about early on, and a rush job just doesn’t help that cause. I remember, Bill Parcells, I know you’re out there in the west, but I’ve been a Bill Parcells fan for a number of years. He is, you know, he’s fishing somewhere.
Lloyd Williams 14:25
If you remember he said, if you want me to cook the dinner, they at least ought to let me shop for some of the groceries. I’ve kind of got that outlook along those lines. So it’s been my experience and what I push as energetically as possible is to be involved in the discovery process, rather than being forwarded 600 pages of information that they requested from the other side. Maybe we only use 20% of that, but there are some things that we want to know upfront that really allow us to build a good picture of the case from our perspective. So the opportunity to be involved with the request for documents and what it is, what we need it for and why really helps build that relationship with your client and also moves the, keeps the line moving, and it just makes sense.
Lloyd Williams 15:40
It just makes sense in the preparation of the case. It really streamlines things and really helps. It’s more beneficial to get involved as early as possible and that early involvement includes the discovery process. So I just think that being involved with that discovery process helps all involved with, with the matters under consideration. And that just so often is overlooked when we’re in a rush job. Like you, I’m sure the opportunity to pass on an opportunity, gee, we need a full report in 10 days. It’s just not good business. It’s very, very difficult. It would’ve to be a very simple, straightforward, directly in my face issue for me to say, oh, sure, I’d be happy to start a relationship with that. But that doesn’t happen very often. It just doesn’t.
David Smith 16:43
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely better when you have time to shop for the groceries. I like that analogy.
Lloyd Williams 16:50
Yeah, you bet. Yeah, he’s an interesting fellow. So he’s someone I’d like to go fishing with. Not hunting guns are dangerous, but fishing would be fun with him.
David Smith 17:02
All right. So, you talked a little bit before about knowing your boundaries, on a case and what you can and can’t testify about. Right? What do you do when an attorney asks you to provide opinions outside of what you’re comfortable with? How do you handle that?
Lloyd Williams 17:23
You know, David. I’ve been pretty lucky. I think that I’ve never, I’ve never felt that an attorney was leading me down a completely different path than what I had anticipated. Pardon me. Now, they’re greater wordsmiths than I, and they may have done that or tried to do that, but I just, in preparation for our conversation today and thinking about just that very thing, I’m not, I just don’t know that it’s happened. And again, I think I’m lucky, but how would I handle it really is your question. I would sit back and really think through my personal thought process, including the technical elements and just to be certain that I was sure that we’re on the same page. And if I thought we weren’t in agreement on a position that I might take or a part of a report or during our, during our preparation for a deposition, I think we just have to sit down and walk through it, because maybe there’s a misunderstanding there.
Lloyd Williams 18:40
And I certainly want to be on the same page, but being on the same page doesn’t always necessarily mean that, I’m speaking of falsehood. I just want to be sure that we’re thinking about the same thing. We’re talking about the technical information that I’m aware of, and that you and your team are aware of. The attorney may not, may not be aware of those technicalities, or there were standard operating procedures or whatever it might be. And a frank conversation on those things, really, I think would, would help bring those things together. So if I can’t state an opinion based on my experience, based on the full understanding of the circumstances surrounding an incident, it’s not going to go in my report, and it’s not going to be part of my testimony. I’ll leave it out and we can have a discussion about that.
Lloyd Williams 19:38
But so far I’ve been lucky. I’ve been working with great people and it’s helped so far. But I think it almost goes back to your other question about, you know, let’s cover the right ground as much upfront as we can. I think that the first 10% of the retainer relationship is as important as the rest of it, because I’m sure we’re on the same page and we understand what our competencies are, and I’ve got a better grasp on what the strategies are. That front end involvement, by the way, also helps straight helps set the strategies. I’m not an attorney. I don’t know the methodology that they may use in setting their strategies, but if I can help just a little bit to make my testimony or my reports more important, I’m all for that. So I think we can get those things done on the front end. Hope that makes sense.
David Smith 20:33
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So a lot of times with these cases where people are injured, we end up looking at risk. And when you look at risk, the people involved are always a consideration. Yeah. What does that look like in the hospitality industry? Is that something that you’re looking at? Are you looking at people more often, or are you looking at, you know, more equipment or policies or procedures?
Lloyd Williams 21:05
It’s a mix, right? It’s always a mix. The hotel industry, after all, is a service industry. It’s a relatively transient workforce, whether it be restaurants, which I stay away from, in hotels or other areas, it’s a transient workforce. And the majority of the folks that are working in a hotel setting have very little, if any training other than what they receive at orientation or on the job. And, at the rate of turnover,it’s very difficult for anyone or for operators in the hotel business to be consistent, to maintain a consistent level of training. So the industry really, if you think about it, suffers from an inverted triangle. If I walk into a 750 room resort in, I’ll make it up, Arizona. I may be the best trained, I would hope to be the best trained and the bullish, well-rounded employee of that operation.
Lloyd Williams 22:26
But I have less personal contact than anyone else in that business. Instead, who are the people that make a guest stay important? It’s that doorman. It’s the bellman, it’s the front desk person, it’s the housekeeper. It’s the engineer who was in the room fixing an air conditioner or a broken bed, or lighting, or takes care of another item in the shower. You know, that there may be a problem. Well or something else like that. So we have this inverted triangle. It’s upside down. I don’t see those guests as often, but they do. So that there’s a constant pressure on operators to provide good quality training to a workforce that’s transient in nature. It’s tough to catch ’em. So an important part of my presentation and my involvement is to test an asset or a hotel or a resort’s training regimen.
Lloyd Williams 23:36
When are they going to get training? Who’s doing the training? How involved is the training? Is it specific to their particular area? And then, what’s the culture in a property? In today’s world where we’ve got full service and self- service or limited service hotels, and we can talk about that at some point if you like, the biggest issues, in terms of frequency of suits and things that I’ve been involved with, are seen more at the smaller, focused service hotels, which far outnumber full service hotels. And, they don’t have a full-time onsite human resources person or a trainer that are there carrying the ball every day. Not just handling their insurance, but being certain that training is taking place.
Lloyd Williams 24:43
Training at every hotel is the primary responsibility, or the primary overseer of that is the general manager. But most general managers, by far, do not possess the skills of a solid trainer. So it’s a real challenge for third party operators, third party management companies who have good intentions, but they’re stretched thin. They may have twenty five, thirty five, a hundred and fifty hotels in their portfolio, and none of them have onsite human resources personnel. So you’ve got to deploy someone from Minneapolis to Salt Lake City to implement training, execute training programs. Well, that person is there for three days and everybody’s happy, and they take pictures and off they go. And, you know you come back a month later and, gee, how’s everybody? And what happened to Mary and what happened to Joe? They left, they took a job somewhere else. You’ve gotta almost start the whole thing all over again.
Lloyd Williams 25:50
Now, the brands, the Marriotts, the Hiltons, the IHGs of the world have closed that gap with some online training, but that still has to be reinforced at the property level. And that’s where it falls apart too often. Again, as I say, once, once the information gets out to the hinterlands that’s when it gets diluted. That’s when they go, oh, gee, well, we’re here in Salt Lake City, we need to get the sidewalk shoveled today, or we need to get this done or that done. So it becomes spotty. And that’s a huge difficulty in the hotel and resort business. It’s just the ongoing training and the need for ongoing training. So that’s a tough one. So I’ve got to really, every time I go into a case, take a look at a hotel, look at their organizational chart, look at their training programs. It’s a matter of are they able to get it done?
Lloyd Williams 26:52
How consistently and what are the skills of those people that are doing the training? I must tell you that in seventy-five, eighty percent of the cases, that’s where the rubber meets the road. That’s where the rubber meets the road. And it’s tough. It’s tough out there. It’s a tough business from that standpoint. We’ve all stayed in hotels, and we’ve got service levels that are up and down and up and down, and you can tell if they’re well-trained or if they’re not. Right? It happens all the time. I continue to stay in hotels, people that don’t know who I am and frankly could care less. But it really makes it very obvious. Makes it very obvious. So it’s tough in our business, and I’m not sure how many businesses have the “transientness” or the turnover rate that the service industry as a whole has. And on the property level, it’s difficult.
David Smith 27:54
Yeah, absolutely. Training is always, always difficult to maintain and to ensure that people get trained and understand the training and implement the training.
Lloyd Williams 28:08
And I’m sure you see the same thing in your business with the, you know, with the items that you’re involved with on a daily basis. You couldn’t put Lloyd Williams in there to, to work on this equipment that, that you and, and your colleagues have such a huge competency level in, and you can’t train all of that all the time. And there is turnover, and then you’re left with this dangerous void. You’re left with an opportunity for people to get hurt or killed, unfortunately.
David Smith 28:44
Yeah. That is, that is the unfortunate truth.
Lloyd Williams 28:46
You bet.
David Smith 28:47
So one, one of the things that you’d said is that as you go and stay in hotels, you notice the service level fluctuates. And sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s not. So I think a lot of people that listen to this podcast stay in hotels fairly frequently. And, you know, if someone is booking a hotel, are there any red flags they should be aware of that indicate, you know, maybe you shouldn’t stay at this place.
Lloyd Williams 29:15
Well, and this is our public service announcement? We can categorize this as a public service announcement, because there are a lot of ways to find out. But I think our ultimate goal is to eliminate injuries and death. And, that’s really it, you know, whether we be in court or whether you’re involved in a suit or anything else, but we’re never gonna reach that point. There are always gonna be some sort of injuries and and worse, unfortunately, in our business. But, you know, that’s kind of a personal goal to myself to help friends and family and your audience to avoid encountering places where, you know, danger stranger, you know, danger is lurking somewhere. When I’m asked for safe travel advice, the first thing I do is recommend that people go to booking engines, the Pricelines, the Hotels.com, Travago.
Lloyd Williams 30:17
There are a handful of these things out there that many people use and take a look at the hotel or motel that’s close to what they wanna see or do, or convenient, you know, convenient to the highway. They’ll be on the next day. And once they locate three, four, five hotels, but in that location, dig down and read the reviews from prior guests. And I don’t mean just the first page or two, dig down. Some of these people have hundreds of reviews on the pages, some of these hotels. So it’s important. Dig down as deep as you can. Take time, take twenty minutes, and if you travel with children, look for progress and travel with children. If you’re a bit older, look for reviews from older travelers. That fifteen or twenty minutes that you take to do some culling through those different properties, really are going to make her make or break your trip.
Lloyd Williams 31:22
And then what do you look for? You look for, you look for comments like, oh gosh, the locks didn’t work. When I got to the room, the door locks didn’t work. There were people wandering around the parking lot all night. There were police cars that circle the property and drive through the parking lot on a regular basis. No one ever answered the phone when I called the front desk, these are all danger signs that tell the traveler, don’t come here. Lloyd Williams said, don’t come here because of these things. And you just need to look. All the signs are there. You just need to put two and two together. And, there’ll be individual things that will happen. And you’ll get some people who may not enjoy their check-in process. So they’ve got, you know, they’ve got an edge on the, on the remainder of their stay.
Lloyd Williams 32:17
And you can overlook those things. Your listeners are smart people. They’re going to understand that. But you just need to look and put two and two together of the recurring things. But let’s also remember, the company brand sites, the Hilton brand sites, the Marriott, IHG, Hyatt, whomever it is, they’re not going to include that same detailed information. That information is going to be found in the booking engine sites. Call the hotel directly and make the reservations there if at all possible. I don’t go to the PriceLines or Expedia. I go to the hotel directly by personal choice. And I’ve learned from my time in the business that you get the best rate and you can start a personal relationship even if it’s for a one night stay.
Lloyd Williams 33:14
But don’t assume that those danger stranger alerts that I mentioned earlier are going to appear on those engines. They’re going to be in the Hotel Tonight, Expedia type sites. You’ll get great information relative to amenities, location and what’s nearby from the corporate sites, but you’re not going to get all the nitty gritty details that you’re going to get from those corporate or brand booking sites. So, if somebody takes fifteen or twenty minutes related to a long vacation or an overnight stay as you’re driving from Minneapolis to Nashville, it’s worth the time to be invested. And that’s the end of my public service announcement. I hope that helps, but it’s pretty solid information based on my experience.
David Smith 34:12
Great advice, great advice. So having worked in the hospitality industry for your entire career, are there any tenants or basics of hospitality that you think apply directly to expert witness work that make you a better expert?
Lloyd Williams 34:30
Well, during my earliest training, and I was very fortunate to be trained by great people. Bernard Richter was my first general manager. He was a legend. He and his brother, Siegfried Richter were icons of Hilton Hotels going back many years. That training focused on the top of the priority list and the decisions you make every day. Those top priorities were protecting the guest, the employee, and the asset. Those principles were to be the baseline of every decision that I would make throughout my career from the time I finished school. They said, regardless of what you’re thinking about every day, money is fine, income is fine, margins are fine, but you need to be absolutely certain that you protect the guest, the employee, and the asset, the building, in every decision you make.
Lloyd Williams 35:36
That stuck with me. These were good people. And, so you know it’s important for me to say that I’m a big supporter of hotel brands. I may come across from time to time that I’m not, but I’m a huge admirer. I’m an old Hilton hotels guy going back to my primary, earliest training and a couple of nice positions with Marriott Hotels and others. But I absolutely want to make it clear that I’m a rabid supporter of hotel brands. Their directives and their standards are designed to protect guests and the employees. And on the whole, the third party management companies as well, because the hotel brands, the Marriotts and the Hiltons, directly manage relatively few of the hotels that are out there. As you drive down the road, you’re not going to walk in and meet Joe or Mary Smith, who are Hilton Hotel employees or Marriott Hotels employees.
Lloyd Williams 36:38
They’re going to be employees of either an owner who has a management entity or a larger management firm that again could be managing anywhere from 15 to 150 hotels. So that’s an important piece. So, it’s the standards and practices that are passed from the corporate offices to, again, the hinterlands. I think they’re all solid. They’re well-meaning, they’re well-crafted, well thought out. They are definitely the spine and backbone of a brand. So that’s important. Now, for example, every hotel company, every hotel company has a corporate stance on human trafficking which unfortunately is something I’ve been involved on my expert side. The challenge is how well how does that information travel from New York to Boise, for example? How does it travel to Arkansas?
Lloyd Williams 37:57
How does it travel to Los Angeles? Large cities? Small cities? So, that’s really the key. There are certainly basic things that originate from the corporate office that I’ve learned and are important. My experience and the diversity of my experience is what has made me more valuable to my clients. It’s because I’ve been on the ground with different brands in different locations and jobs I’ve had. I didn’t walk into a hotel and became the managing director or anything else. I’ve cleaned diapers out of baby pools, as a kid in college ran kids recreation programs. I worked in night audit, purchasing, as a cook and accounts payables. So, you know, I’ve earned the gray hair that I have. But, the basic line is that, you’ve got to have people and, and follow the tenant of taking care of the guest, the employee and the building. I hope I haven’t gone too far around on that, on that whole thing, but that’s the basis of what I’ve learned in the hotel business, and that’s what I put in place. That’s what’s been effective for my clients on the expert witness side. That makes sense?
David Smith 39:28
Yes, absolutely. I hope that by thinking about the people first, that’s one thing that I talk about with the colleagues that I have, particularly when they’re just starting out, is to remember that the attorneys are just people too. You know, a lot of times they seem like a very authoritative figure, right but really they’re just people. And, you know, as long as we can talk to them like people and treat them like people, you know, right. That really helps the relationship.
Lloyd Williams 40:00
I always find it interesting and I’ve had it happen a few times when people know some resorts that I’ve been affiliated with or managed, and I’ve done a number of PGA, a number of PGA tour events, pardon me, a number of PGA tour events and United States Golf Association National Championships. They know these golf courses I have. And, it’s always interesting when there’s a, an attorney, from the opposite side, let’s say, questioning me and going through, going through their side and, and we take a break and they say, chief Lloyd, is there any chance you could get me on that golf course one of these days? And, and that obviously changes the tone, but then we’re back to business. But you’re right, they are, they are people, you know, I, I know they want the best for their client, but they’d also want the same best of safety for their family and colleagues and their family. So that’s always fun. That’s always fun.
David Smith 40:59
Absolutely. All right. So what have been the best, sorry, what have been the best parts of working in the hospitality industry? Do you have any outstanding memories of working on golf courses, meeting famous people?
Lloyd Williams 41:14
Yeah, you know, I’ve thankfully been involved, thanks to those around me and, and, and ownership, and others, you know, with Super Bowls and PGA tour and conferences with people from around the world. All of those things are memorable, but for the most part, it’s been the people that I remember. You know, I think we spoke a little bit about my mentors, you know, Bernard Richter, who was my first general manager, Carl Mottek, rest his Soul, who later became president of Hilton Hotels and watched him closely. Another great hotelier was a fellow named Tony Bayarri, who later managed Casa de Campo which was THE resort in the Caribbean. And my good friend from Williamsburg and colleague, a fellow named Ed Allman, who’s still the best overall marketing mind of the resort sector.
Lloyd Williams 42:18
All those people have been important and I’ve held closely the things that I learned from them. But we, you know, we all meet interesting people. You meet interesting people, and we shake their hand and we move on. But I’ve been fortunate to spend some, some effective, extended time, with some folks who are smart, have great imaginations, and they’re the people who are kind of turning the dials in the background in business and government and sports. I sat with President Obama, I was running a hotel outside of Washington, and we sat in a small, the outer office in the human resources office as he ate a sandwich. I can’t remember what he had to drink Diet Coke or something, you know, before he did a presentation at my hotel.
Lloyd Williams 43:19
But he had a great sense of humor. He was genuine. We told a couple jokes, but he was, he was a human being. Sandra Day O’Connor, I remember I spent, I think around three hours with Sandra Day O’Connor, her husband John. She was on the board of directors at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and then stayed with me. And, there was someone who was obviously very interested in me and my staff and the business, and, um, just really genuine, genuine people. Smart.
Lloyd Williams 44:02
There’s another fellow named Robert Reich. I don’t know if you remember, remember him. He worked in a number of administrations. But we had lunch together and had a snack together another time. And he just spoke to me about public policy and my love of economics and all those kinds of things. And you know, these people, whether you agree or not on their political views and, and, and where they are, there may not, you know, there may not be a match there, but, you know, you can’t get by the fact that these are bright people who are, who are, leaders in whatever they do. But my biggest one, I must tell you, was Laurance Rockefeller. I spent a great deal of time with Laurance Rockefeller.
Lloyd Williams 44:59
I say a great deal of time. It’s not like I moved into his guest room or anything like that. But I met him during my tenure at Colonial Williamsburg. He stayed three nights at the hotel I was managing and he was incredible. Stepped out of the car. Lloyd, you can’t know how much I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, thank you for showing me around and let’s find a place where we can have our photograph taken together. And there was no entourage. He just stepped out of a car, shook my hand and we spoke. We talked about his family’s involvement in Colonial Williamsburg. We talked about the creation of RockResorts and his interest in conservation around the world.
Lloyd Williams 45:47
I have never forgotten those few days with him and will always remember them. By the way, he worked every day. He had a high top table with a telephone and drank some carrot juice concoction. He was just terrific. And, he had fewer special requests than any so-called VIP guest I had ever encountered. He just was kind to everyone he came in contact with. And he was without question my favorite guest. So that’s a really great memory meeting. Some folks like that. And yeah, I’ve been with a lot of baseball players and football players and golfers and this and that, but a lot of those names will disappear in the fog and the Rockefeller name and certainly my experience with Mr. Rockefeller
Lloyd Williams 46:48
was terrific. It’s tough to express the impact he had on me during that time. But I enjoyed it and it was a great experience and working at a terrific place like Colonial Williamsburg afforded me the opportunity to meet many of those folks. But we’ve had some great experiences, and we’ve had some others we’d like to forget, but that won’t happen. I’ve got some gray hair. I’ve earned an awful lot of them, by the way.
David Smith 47:21
That’s, yeah, that’s great. That’s great.
Lloyd Williams 47:23
It’s fun. Sorry to run on about that, but, you know, we could, we could really sit down some day and have lunch and I could completely ruin your day by running through all the nice people I’ve met but I won’t do that to you.
David Smith 47:39
Yeah, it’s good, good to rub shoulders with people like that and those experiences, and clearly it’s had, you know, his kindness and
Lloyd Williams 47:47
Right. I would love
David Smith 47:48
To think that attention was, has made an impact on you.
Lloyd Williams 47:51
Yeah. I would love to think that any of us would have that impact on someone else. But it’s tough. He was around a long time and was fun. And certainly there are pluses and minuses of all these personalities. Again, their political affiliations or his interest in flying saucers and all those other kinds of things. You know what? You’re Laurance Rockefeller, you can have an interest in anything you want. You did an awful lot of good for the world, and it was interesting.
David Smith 48:24
All right. So we find that experts are always interested in getting more cases, and I understand there are a few attorneys that you’ve done repeat business with. What have you done to help build and maintain those relationships that’s helped you get repeat business?
Lloyd Williams 49:06
Well, you know it’s a great question and I kind of had to break it down. First, I am who I am from that standpoint and that’s clear to folks relatively early on. I certainly am respectful and everything else, and I take what they’re doing very seriously, very seriously. But you’re right, I’ve been fortunate to have a core of attorneys who have expressed their loyalty and confidence by allowing me to help them on more than one occasion. And, their trust has enabled me to focus on getting better rather than having to worry about, oh, am I gonna have this client or am I gonna be busy this time? Or, you know, all of that kind of business. Chasing business is not my idea of a good time.
Lloyd Williams 49:37
And, thankfully we haven’t had to do it. But there have been a few, there have been a few things that I’ve done. As we mentioned before, I ask a lot of questions up front so that I understand the strategy, so that my initial responses certainly and certainly subsequent to those initial responses, are relevant and accurate. I want to be certain though, that my specific competencies, knowledge base match their needs. They know early on or can understand early on, I don’t want to waste their time. I don’t want to waste their time if I’m not the person who can deliver appropriate information and background and experience to them, let’s not waste their time. I make it clear from start to finish that I’m available to them seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. And I repeat that, David, throughout our relationship.
Lloyd Williams 50:36
I don’t care if I get a call at eight o’clock on Saturday night. I’m not doing anything anyway, by the way, but I lead a wild life. Yeah, I’ve got plenty of time on Saturday nights to have substantive conversations or if they think of something, call me. You don’t call me? Have your assistant call me. Have a paralegal, call me. Do those things. I’m happy to speak with you during those times and give me something else to think about. I think one thing that folks overlook from time to time is to build a relationship and recognize and respect, for lack of a better term, the support staff the lead attorney may have. That’s the paralegal, or it might be a junior attorney in the firm who’s involved in the case. But it’s important, I think, to involve those people in there.
Lloyd Williams 51:32
Understand I might go to them with second tier questions on second tier items, details, questions instead of taking the time of the lead attorney, I’m respecting the value of the lead attorney’s time, but I’m also positioning those other people as important in the process part of the team. I see it as a team. Relationship. I responded promptly. Whether it’s here it is, these are my thoughts on this, these are my preliminary thoughts, or gimme 12 hours to think this through or do some research or respond promptly. I trace my calendar, something I learned from my old sales days, for two or three days prior to a deposition. When they’re preparing for a deposition, I’m in touch with them and say, have you anything that I can help you with?
Lloyd Williams 52:37
I know you, I think you’ve got a great strategy. You’ve done a lot of work on this, but is there anything I can do to help you firm this up? They like that kind of thing. They like it. You and I would like it if I were in their chair. We like it when our colleagues or someone come to us and offer to help at the last minute. That helps. You know, I wish ’em luck and express my confidence again in their abilities and strategies and everything else. So I really do act as a bit of a cheerleader and a teammate. I’m not gonna call ’em every day and ask if everyone had a, you know, had a great breakfast and I’d just sleep over the weekend and did you see the Cardinals game or something like that.
Lloyd Williams 53:20
That’s silly, but I want them to know that we’re there. As kind of an aside from that, I can tell you that I also do extremely detailed billings. I’m very specific on dates, times, duration of calls, titles of all the documents reviewed, the number of pages, whatever that is. I spend a great deal of time. Many people think more than I should on the details related to what I’m working on and include that in on my billings. People forget phone calls and people forget that you had this to do and that to do, I want them to know what it is. So I think all of those things combined help build the confidence in me when I’m not there, when they’re sitting in the conference room talking about the case.
Lloyd Williams 54:16
I want the support of everyone who’s in that room when I’m not in the room. That’s the goal. This may seem silly, but I also feel that in a way that I just don’t experience late payments. People pay me on time. I hate to get into that kind of detail, but I think a great deal of that has to do with those things that I just outlined. There are people looking out for me. They know I’m looking out for them. They want me to get paid on time. They know I’ve done the work. They know hopefully, that my opinions, et cetera, have been valuable and I get paid on time. I know people offer to do billings for me and this, that, and the other thing. No, thanks. No, I’m happy to do that myself. I’ve had one or two where we’ve had, you know, holiday errors or something like that where they missed may have gotten me to 40 days or something like that, but it’s no big deal. These other folks are helping me out as I help them out as well. So I hope that’s helped that, that those are kind of the baseline things of the relationships that I try to build with folks.
David Smith 55:47
Yeah, it sounds like a lot of that hospitality background is coming out in that question. Just taking care of people and being there for them when they need it. So that’s great.
Lloyd Williams 55:57
It’s good, you know, that’s great. I think you’re right. I think you’re right.
David Smith 56:03
All right. So if you could go back, is adding expert witness work as a service, you provide something you would do again?
Lloyd Williams 56:13
You mean in addition to being the milkman in the truck? Yeah. Well, it would of course still be my first choice. I would do it. I would do it, and the longer I’m involved in it, the more likely the more I know that I would want to do it, but I certainly wouldn’t do it immediately. I might do it a little earlier in my career, but I can’t imagine doing it with any less than ten or really fifteen years in the role as a general manager or managing director or a regional position in a diverse range of settings. Again, diverse ownership, diverse types of properties, geographic locations, I would do it. But anything short of that investment in time and being on the ground at those places, not sitting in the palace somewhere in the clouds. That’s the best way to provide good information, substantive information and assistance to my clients. So I would definitely do it again. But I certainly wouldn’t want to shortcut my experience because I would be short changing clients.
David Smith 67:24
Yeah, absolutely. You definitely have to have the expertise to be the expert witness, so that’s great.
Lloyd Williams 57:32
The hotel business is not, as you know, someone walking up and you hand them a key and off they go. That’s a simplistic thought. There is a lot going on at any property but when you get to elaborate resorts with four or five golf courses and 14 swimming pools and it sits on 1200 acres, there are lots of stories in the naked city. There are a lot of things that go on like diversity in the types of assets, ownership, management companies and brands. Certainly you’ve got to be really solid in those things to be successful in this field.
David Smith 58:22
Absolutely. All right. So, if there is an attorney that’s looking for a hotel expert, how can they find you? How can they get in touch with you?
Lloyd Williams 58:37
I am represented by the Expert Institute and they’ve offices in New York, Los Angeles and Milwaukee of all places but we receive a lot of referrals from the Milwaukee office. The Expert Institute has been a backbone of my business for some period of time as well as those attorneys that have used me a number of times. I’ve got my own email address. It’s lwilliams.hotelexpert@gmail.com. Very impressive, isn’t it?
David Smith 59:21
That’s great.
Lloyd Williams 59:22
I’m on LinkedIn but that has become difficult to find people from time to time. But I am not on any of the pay for play sites. I don’t pay for any listings and I’ll never do it. So really, between The Expert Institute and my hotel expert at Gmail address, that’s the best way to reach me. I’m happy to speak with folks and help any experts out there or help any attorneys or operators that might need some help. I’m happy to do it. I work around the country, as I mentioned and Minnesota’s a lovely place. Fishing is good but you know, especially in February, I’m looking for opportunities in the Sunbelt. I get to Florida, thankfully, on some things but I’m more than happy to help folks wherever.
David Smith 01:00:28
All right. Well, Lloyd, thank you for your time. Thank you for your expertise. Thank you for your stories. This has been fun chatting with you today,
Lloyd Williams 01:00:38
Well, I hope so. And I hope it’s been interesting to your viewers and, and listeners and, and I appreciate the opportunity, David, and your confidence in bringing me on today. And we’ll do it again sometime, I hope.
David Smith 01:17:00
Sounds great. Thanks Lloyd. Great. Thank you.
*****
Lloyd Williams is represented by Expert Institute. You can contact Lloyd Williams directly at lwilliams.hotelexpert@gmail.com
David Smith is the President of Alpine Engineering and Design. Alpine Engineering provides unbiased mechanical engineering expert witness testimony. You can reach them at https://alpineeng.com/contact/