The Next Level Podcast

Raiha Buchanan is the Stockholm-based CEO of GigaPay, a FinTech company built for scaling gig and marketplace businesses. Having emigrated from New Zealand to Sweden right at the emergence of the Swedish tech scene, Raiha was an early Twitter influencer and has since been recognized as part of the Inspiring Fifty in the Nordics. We discuss building a company and a brand on the right side of trends, and how the pandemic has changed the future of work for the better.

Joshua Browder is the founder and CEO of DoNotPay, the world's first robot lawyer, where you can fight corporations, beat bureaucracy and sue anyone at the press of a button. Raised in London, Joshua, who is the son of human rights advocate Bill Browder, is also the founder of Browder Capital, a San Francisco-based investment fund. This is an episode that you simply should not miss. Have a listen and download DoNotPay today!

John Pasalis is the President of Realosophy Realty, a Toronto real estate brokerage which uses data analysis to advise residential real estate buyers, sellers and investors. A specialist in real estate data analysis, John is a frequent commentator on the Toronto housing market and real estate consumer and industry issues. John has contributed to the Globe and Mail, CBC, BNN Bloomberg, TVO's The Agenda, Toronto Star and other media, government and industry organizations. He most recently advised the Government of Dubai on international best practices for the real estate sector. John, who is also currently working on his Doctorate of Business Administration Program, joined me to discuss Toronto as a global example of a city that is becoming financially unattainable for so many people. We take a deep-dive into the hows and whys.

Christopher McCann built his online home, letterpress.se, well over a decade ago, when this Stockholm-based American was working in the world of design and UX. On the podcast, we discuss meeting back when I was living in Stockholm, our shared obsession with great coffee, and Christopher's amazing journey to becoming a Co-Active Coach.

Sandee Kastrul is the president and co-founder of i.c.stars. Founded in 1999, i.c.stars uses project-based learning and immersion teaching to provide an opportunity for change-driven, future leaders to develop skills in business and technology. One of the greatest leaders in the nation, and someone I have known for two decades, Sandee sat down with me to discuss how change in our communities can really happen and why you should care that it does.

Dina Elsayed is the Senior Producer of a superb program, Common Ground.  Originally from Cairo, Dina started her journalism career in 2012 as a producer for NPR's Cairo bureau covering the Arab Spring. In 2014, she was awarded a fellowship position with the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations in Washington D.C. On this episode of the Next Level podcast we discuss how and why Berlin and so many cities in the world have become too expensive for most people to live in and we explore solutions.

Kenneth Artz is the Texas Bureau Chief for Texas Lawyer, part of ALM's law.com legal information and news hub. As he sits at the center of the most timely legal industry news in the nation, we discussed the current state of legal journalism. With so much content out there, how can we be discerning consumers of what we read and believe?

George Simons is the CEO and co-founder of Solo Suit, one of the hottest new legaltech startups in the world. Solo Suit prepares a response to a debt collection lawsuit and instructs you on how to file Zach Posner is the Managing Partner and co-founder of The LegalTech Fund, which invests in legal technology companies - including their investment in Solo Suit - seeking to transform the world.

Angela is THE American in Paris. Having lived in the French capital for the last dozen years, Angela is an important voice in the startup, advertising, and creative worlds. Angela co-founded the esports agency Hurrah.gg, co-authored Generation Creation, and is responsible for the superb Reinventions series on Muse by CLIO, where she is a founding contributor. We discuss everything from the uniqueness of French swear words to the intersection of people, place, and era in bullding innovation collisions.

Erik is a Stanford Law School graduate who has spend the past decade doing several deep-dives as an entrepreneur.  His new venture, Pantheon, is a fitness and wellness app designed for teams - the first social fitness game. Erik and I discuss his hometown of beautiful El Paso (we even play an El Paso trivia game), and how Silicon Valley and tech has become far more generic than it was ever intended to be.

Dan Magnuszewski is the co-founder & CTO of ACV Auctions, a Buffalo company that just had a very successful IPO. When not building billion-dollar unicorns that are the pride of Buffalo and all other small (read "not Silicon Valley") cities across the nation, Dan is a Porsche fanatic, loves great coffee Bills football. This episode is truly a must for any entrepreneur.

Brian Inkster is a lawyer and legal blogger based in Scotland. Through The Time Blawg, Brian expresses his views on the past, present and future practice of law. I sat down with Brian to discuss his coverage of some of the most pressing issues in legal innovation today, specifically the demise of Atrium and the puzzling rise of Clubhouse.

Cece Xie is a trailblazer, a Harvard-educated lawyer and leader of a new generation of people in the legal business who understand how to harness the power of social media and use it for social good. Cece's TikTok page, launched as a fun pandemic project, has garnered over 5 million likes, with several of her posts having gone viral. We discuss not only her work on social media, but the future of the billable hour, how more innovation can come to legal education, and where this all goes from here.

Samir Patel is a Miami-based lawyer at Holland & Knight. As a leader and influencer in the new generation of tech-savvy lawyers, Samir has been involved in the crypto world for close to a decade. Samir joins us to explain everything you could possibly want to know about NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and their application to music, art, and sports collectibles.

Aaron Emery is a lifelong student of BBQ and the founder of Old Road BBQ. Having helped many businesses attain BCorp certification in his previous work, Aaron has taken his passion for conscious capitalism and slow-grilled meats and made it his life's work. We discuss the reality of running and pivoting a food business during a global pandemic and how there is a lot of hope for the future when you are open to evolve.

In the final episode of Season 1, our guest is Emily Orchard - the Assistant Dean, Graduate Programs, at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law. Propelled by Emily's leadership, the law school has built some truly innovative programs, including their very successful GPLLM (Global Professional Master of Laws), a graduate program that brings together lawyers and non-lawyers to look at issues such as innovation and technology. We discuss the legal education landscape and what may become a new normal in how lawyers are educated.

Emmanuelle Chaze is Berlin-based TV political journalist and TV reporter for Deutsche Welle and France 24. A highly-regarded voice in the European news world, Emmanuelle also wrote a book, From Berlin to Lesbos: A diary of the refugee crisis, 2015-2016, about her work with refugees in Berlin. We discuss the elusive Rule of Law and the prospect for a 2021 recovery for a world caught in a perfect storm of the rising Right and a global pandemic.

Natalie Mc Farlane is the Founding Director of a client-centered legal business operating remotely several years before the COVID-19 pandemic. She is also the Director of Legal Affairs in a Biotech company. We discuss a range of topics in law and legal innovation.

This week it was my pleasure to talk with Keith Powell and Ricky Robinson, co-founders of C-Crets, a career advice platform offering career coaching services, online courses, and topical content through blogs and a podcast. We discuss a critically important topic: How can young people - especially people of color and from underrepresented groups - maximize their chances of a successful career as a lawyer or other legal professional. Truly a can't-miss episode for any law student or associate.

Peter Carayiannis is the award-winning founder and CEO of Conduit Law, a law firm that has pioneered the growing market of flexible and On Demand® legal services. He is also, along with our show's host, Aron Solomon, co-founder of Mission Watch Company, a watch microbrand launched in 2017 and soon to release their third watch. Peter shares his design philosophy as both a legal and product designer, and gives his answer to the question "Why do so many lawyers love watches?"

Michael is recognized as one of the top personal injury and medical malpractice lawyers in the United States, and is the founder of The Epstein Law Firm, P.A. A graduate of Harvard Law School with deep roots in his home state of New Jersey, Michael discusses his lifelong support of the New York Knicks, how he nurtured his love of wine and watches, and offers superb counsel to the new generation of lawyers.

Mark Zohar is an internationally-recognized expert on trends. Mark was the founder of TrendSpottr, a company he built and exited. Having made an impact as an entrepreneur in many verticals, he is now the President and COO of Viafoura, the leading audience engagement and content moderation platform for over 600 brands around the world. In this episode, Mark and I discuss many issues, including the nature of trends and how lawyers need to understand and influence them.

Josh Kubicki is a legal pioneer who has worked for years at the intersection of legal design, New Law, and now, legal training and academics. Professor Josh Kubicki is the director of the University of Richmond's School of Law's new Legal Innovation and Entrepreneurship program and is an Assistant Professor of Law. He is also the co-founder and business designer at Bold Duck Studios, the business designers, fabricators, and mechanics of legal services and was the chief strategy officer at the global law firm. Seyfarth Shaw, LLP. We discuss everything from Josh's impressive body of legal work to his Buffalo roots and the myth of the best chicken wings.

Ray Dennis embodies all that is admirable in Los Angeles, one of the world's truly great cities. Ray is the founder of ONE MEDIA MARKETING, a strategic media, marketing and brand consultancy that helps clients identify, engage and convert their target audience into customers. We discuss Ray's work with Disney, the Loa Angeles Clippers, and the lessons he has learned over his career that can help lawyers and law firms.

It's hard to believe that the first guest on our podcast was Jerry Michalski. I've had the pleasure of getting to know Jerry in real life - to say that he helped shape the dot com world would be an understatement. Jerry. the founder of REX, the Relationship Economy eXpedition,. helps organizations navigate the transition from the consumer mass-marketing economy to the Relationship Economy, which is critically important for lawyers to consider, especially as we move into the uncertainty of 2021.