Podcasts about big law

This episode is sponsored by Smith.ai. ----- Discussing what we learned about legal technology in Nashville. ----- The International Legal Technology Association conference broke its own attendance records as the legal world flocked to Nashville to figure out what's going on with the technology that promises to revolutionize the practice of law... and can't quite stop producing fake cases. Maddy Martin, Senior VP of Growth at Smith.ai -- the sponsor of this episode of Thinking Like A Lawyer -- stops by to recreate the sort of exhibit hall floor conversation she and Joe have had at these conferences for the last several years. Catching up on the state of the industry, what it means for both Biglaw and the small and solo market, and trying to figure out what happens next.

Practical business development in BigLaw begins much earlier than most associates think. Mid-level associates are often told to focus on doing excellent work, meeting deadlines, and learning how to become strong lawyers, while client relationships and business development seem like responsibilities reserved for partners and senior associates. But even before BigLaw attorneys are expected to bring in revenue, they need to learn how to build professional relationships so that they even know how to have foundations for business. The partners with significant practices today did not suddenly develop networks when they became senior. Many of their most important relationships accumulated over years or decades and began when everyone involved was still relatively junior. I explain how mid-levelassociates can start building stronger relationship skills without trying to act like rainmakers too early. BigLaw gives lawyers access to many settings where meaningful connections can begin. The goal is not to collect contacts or turn every conversation into business, but to listen, follow up thoughtfully, and stay in touch. I also cover when to connect on LinkedIn, when to send a brief email, when to keep a partner informed, and why a relationship can be valuable on many levels. At a Glance 01:20 Why expectations change when you become a mid-level BigLaw associate 02:04 Why building a practice starts before you are expected to originate business 02:56 Why mid-level associates need to understand the business behind the legal work 05:25 The difference between building relationships and owning client relationships 06:41 Where future BigLaw opportunities often come from 07:50 How mid-level associates can create opportunities through existing relationships 09:15 Why having a client request you by name matters 10:12 How to spot potential client needs without independently pitching services 11:26 Why your professional reputation matters more at the mid-level 15:17 Why preparing for partnership starts years before you are considered For Apple Podcasts, click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select "Write a Review." Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, follow the podcast here!  For Spotify, tap here on your mobile phone, follow the podcast, listen to the show, then find the rating icon below the description, and tap to rate with five stars. Interested in doing 1-2-1 coaching with Laura Terrell? Or learning more about her work coaching and consulting? Here are ways to reach out to her: www.lauraterrell.com  laura@lauraterrell.com   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauralterrell/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraterrellcoaching/  Show notes: https://www.lauraterrell.com/podcast

Wall Street banks are pushing large law firms to cut fees because of AI, and analysts say Donald Trump's Venezuela oil agreement may not succeed in attracting investment from US companies. Plus, London's Tube is set to finally roll out mobile coverage across its entire network by the end of the year. Mentioned in this podcast:Wall Street banks push Big Law to cut fees because of AICan Donald Trump's 65bn-barrel deal revive Venezuela's oil industry?London's Tube finally escapes its mobile blackoutWant to get in touch? Email us at podcasts@ft.comNote: The FT does not use generative AI to voice its podcasts The FT News Briefing is produced by Sonja Hutson and Saffeya Ahmed. Our show is mixed by Sam Giovinco and Kelly Garry. Additional help from Gavin Kallmann, Michael Lello, Peter Barber and David da Silva. Our executive producer is Topher Forhecz. Flo Phillips is the FT's global head of audio. The show's theme music is by Metaphor Music.Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Big law firms are extending offers to first-year law students before Christmas, pushing the recruiting timeline earlier than ever. Ben and Nathan break down what's driving the frenzy, whether it echoes the pre-2008 hiring bubble, and what it means for applicants counting on those $235K Big Law salaries.Also in this episode:- LSAC postpones removing dual-enrollment credits from applicants' UGPAs- Advice from Demon students who crushed the LSAT- Early decision scholarships from Wake Forest Law and Emory LawStudy with our Free Plan⁠⁠Download our iOS app⁠Watch Episode 574 on YouTubeCheck out all of our “What's the Deal With” segmentsGet caught up with our ⁠Word of the Week⁠⁠ library0:00 Update on LSAC GPA Policy14:28 Test D Question — Broken car23:54 Always Choosing Next Best Answer34:00 Law Firm Hiring Frenzy45:59 Tips from Departing Demons49:39 Early Decision Scholarship from Wake Forest Law57:49 Early Decision Email from Emory Law1:09:12 Word of the Week — imprecations1:12:08 Email of the week

We've launched Minimum Competence CLE, and our first course is now available completely free. Researching Federal Tax Issues After Loper Brightlooks at how the Supreme Court's decision ending Chevron deference changes the way lawyers should research and evaluate Treasury regulations, IRS guidance, and other federal tax authorities.Take the course and earn CLE credit at cle.minimumcomp.com.This Day in Legal History: The Neutrality Act of 1935On August 31, 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the first of what would become a series of Neutrality Acts—laws designed to keep the United States out of the wars gathering in Europe and Asia. This first act imposed a mandatory embargo on shipping arms and ammunition to any nation the president declared to be at war, and it put America's armaments industry under a measure of federal control. It was a legal expression of the deep isolationism that gripped the country between the world wars.Here's the constitutional wrinkle that makes it interesting, and that Roosevelt himself chafed against. FDR wanted flexibility—he asked Congress for a law that would let him embargo arms to an aggressor nation while still selling weapons to its victim. Congress refused. Instead, it wrote a rigid, evenhanded rule: once the president declared that a state of war existed, he had to embargo arms to all sides, aggressor and victim alike. That was a deliberate congressional choice to tie the executive's hands in foreign affairs, to prevent a president from drawing the country toward one belligerent or another. Roosevelt signed it reluctantly, believing he could get it revised—and over the next several years, as the threat from fascism grew undeniable, the Neutrality Acts were indeed loosened, culminating in Lend-Lease and, ultimately, American entry into the war.The significance of August 31, 1935 is as a case study in the perennial struggle between Congress and the president over foreign affairs, and in the moral limits of legal neutrality. The mandatory embargo's great flaw was exactly its neutrality: by treating aggressor and victim the same, it arguably aided aggressors, who were already armed, against victims who were not. That's the tension in today's opening quote from Desmond Tutu—the idea that neutrality in the face of injustice is not really neutral at all. It's a fitting backdrop for a day that includes a story about the government's power over foreign companies, and one about whether the state can suppress speech it dislikes.A federal judge has dealt a significant blow to the administration's campaign to deport noncitizen students over pro-Palestinian activism, ruling that the effort is unconstitutional. In a lengthy 90-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Noël Wise in San Jose found that the administration's use of existing immigration law to cancel foreign students' visas and put them into deportation proceedings—based on their campus advocacy and criticism of Israel—violates the First Amendment right to free speech. The ruling traces the policy back to March 2025, when the government began revoking visas and detaining noncitizens for pro-Palestinian advocacy, starting with the high-profile arrest of Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil. The lawsuit was brought, notably, by the Stanford Daily, Stanford's student newspaper. Here's the core legal principle, and it's an important one that surprises people: noncitizens physically present in the United States have First Amendment rights. The government has broad power over immigration, but the judge found it can't use that power as a pretext to punish people for protected speech—that would be viewpoint discrimination, targeting people precisely because of the ideas they express. Judge Wise sharply criticized the State Department and Homeland Security for deploying immigration law to suppress views they didn't like. The significance connects to threads we've followed all summer—the pressure on universities, the Comey prosecution, the fights over dissent. This is a court drawing a hard line: the immigration system is not a loophole around the First Amendment, and the government cannot deport people for saying things it wishes they hadn't. Expect an appeal, but as a statement of principle, it's a forceful one. Judge deals blow to Trump moves to deport pro-Palestinian activists | ReutersAl Jazeera · The HillNow a story about the business of law: U.S. law firm office leasing surged 17% in the first half of 2026, with firms signing leases for nearly 12.2 million square feet, according to Cushman & Wakefield—and the second quarter was up a striking 27% over the same period last year. This is a boom, concentrated in the big legal markets of New York, Chicago, and Washington, and it includes some eye-popping deals, like Simpson Thacher's roughly 916,000-square-foot Manhattan lease—the same firm we discussed back in July over its rare malpractice trial. What's driving it is worth unpacking, because it contains a real paradox. Firms say their caseloads are exploding under a combination of forces: rising regulatory uncertainty, a more litigious business climate, and—here's the twist—the surge in artificial intelligence. AI adoption in law has rocketed, with something like 62% of firms now using it, up from just 17% a few years ago. And here's the paradox worth sitting with: we covered, a few weeks ago, how AI is thinning out entry-level hiring by automating the document review and first drafts that junior associates used to do. So how are firms leasing more space while hiring fewer juniors? The answer seems to be that the high end of legal work is booming—more complex, higher-stakes matters that generate demand for experienced lawyers and premium space—even as the bottom of the pyramid gets automated. The significance is a snapshot of a profession in transition: Big Law is physically expanding and financially thriving at the top, while the traditional on-ramp for young lawyers narrows. The office towers are filling up; it's just less clear who will be sitting in the entry-level offices a decade from now. US law firm leasing jumped 17% in first half, report says | ReutersCushman & Wakefield · Law360And finally, China's largest memory chipmaker, ChangXin Memory Technologies—CXMT—has sued the Pentagon to get itself off a U.S. government blacklist of companies it says are tied to China's military. The list in question is the Defense Department's roster of “Chinese military companies,” maintained under a provision of federal defense law, and landing on it carries real consequences: restrictions on government contracting and significant reputational damage that can spook customers and partners worldwide. CXMT's argument is straightforward—it says it's not affiliated with the Chinese military at all, and that it designs and sells its DRAM memory chips purely for civilian and commercial use. The most interesting piece of the lawsuit, legally, is a procedural one. CXMT alleges that the Pentagon actually published a notice in February saying the company would be removed from the list—then withdrew that notice the very same day, and later relisted the company in June without adequately explaining why it reversed course. That's the heart of an administrative-law claim: under the standards that govern federal agency action, the government generally can't act arbitrarily or capriciously, and a sudden, unexplained reversal is exactly the kind of thing courts scrutinize. And CXMT isn't alone—Alibaba filed a similar suit in June, and Xiaomi actually won removal from the list through U.S. litigation back in 2021. The significance is a reminder that even in the highly deferential arena of national security, designations like this are reviewable in American courts—foreign companies can, and increasingly do, use U.S. administrative law to challenge being branded a security threat, and sometimes they win. CXMT sues Pentagon over inclusion on list of companies tied to China's military | ReutersUS News · Benzinga This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

Business development in BigLaw begins much earlier than most associates thinkm but not in the way you might imagine or that your firm is suggesting. Junior lawyers are often told to focus on doing excellent work, meeting deadlines, and learning how to become strong lawyers, while client relationships and business development seem like responsibilities reserved for partners and senior associates. But long before lawyers are expected to bring in revenue, they need to learn how to build professional relationships. The partners with significant practices today did not suddenly develop networks when they became senior. Many of their most important relationships accumulated over years or decades and began when everyone involved was still relatively junior. I explain in this episode how associates can start developing those relationships without trying to act like rainmakers before their time. BigLaw provides access to conferences, client receptions, trade association meetings, fundraisers, pro bono events, and other settings where you can meet people you would not otherwise encounter. The goal is not to collect as many business cards as possible or immediately turn every conversation into a business opportunity - no matter what your law firm may be suggesting about how you immediately start building your network. What is really important at this stage is to learn relationship skills: how to meet people, ask questions, listen carefully, and notice when you genuinely connect with someone. I also walk through what to do after that conversation, including when to connect on LinkedIn, when a brief email makes sense, how quickly to follow up, what not to send, and how remembering a personal detail can be more effective than sending another client alert. I also explain when you should keep a partner informed about a new contact and why you should not judge the value of a relationship solely by whether that person could someday become a client. These may seem intuitive or they may seem like steps you have to thoughtfully consider in a hierarchal law firm environement. You don't want to overstep but you also want to learn how to develop relationships in a natural way that doesn't make you feel like you're instantly selling (you shouldn't be) or just shaking a hand and then moving on (you don't to just be doing that either). Developing the right habits for what it means to form relationships early makes business development more natural and gives you years to become more comfortable in buidling relationships before the pressure to generate work becomes truly critical. At a Glance 01:20 Why client relationships can feel inaccessible to junior BigLaw associates 02:19 Why "keep your head down and do good work" is incomplete career advice 02:38 Why developing business and developing relationships are different skills 03:02 How a casual conference conversation can become the beginning of a professional relationship even when an ask for work may be years away. 04:11 Why junior lawyers often hesitate to follow up after meeting someone 04:32 Why doing nothing because you are afraid of appearing presumptuous is the real mistake 04:51 Why business development begins years before anyone expects you to bring in revenue 05:23 How relationships that begin when lawyers are junior can become important decades later 05:54 Why access to conferences, receptions, and industry events is one of BigLaw's overlooked advantages for relationship potential 06:48 How to approach conversations when you are not yet responsible for generating business 07:12 Why you should follow up within days rather than waiting several weeks 07:38 How to write a personalized LinkedIn connection request that does not feel like a sales pitch 08:02 When a LinkedIn connection is enough and when a brief email also makes sense 08:26 Why your first follow-up should not include a client alert, brochure, meeting request, or sales pitch 09:08 How remembering personal details creates more meaningful reasons to stay in touch 09:28 Why lawyers should stop believing every follow-up needs to "add value" through legal content 10:20 When to tell a partner about someone you have met 10:43 How to build your own relationships while still contributing to the firm's client relationships 11:11 Why the firm does not need to be informed about every professional connection you make 11:32 Why you should not evaluate relationships solely by whether someone might become a client 12:25 A better way to measure success when attending conferences and professional events 13:17 Why developing relationship-building habits early makes business development easier later 13:56 Why junior associates should focus on becoming professionals people remember rather than trying to become rainmakers For Apple Podcasts, click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select "Write a Review." Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, follow the podcast here!  For Spotify, tap here on your mobile phone, follow the podcast, listen to the show, then find the rating icon below the description, and tap to rate with five stars. Interested in doing 1-2-1 coaching with Laura Terrell? Or learning more about her work coaching and consulting? Here are ways to reach out to her: www.lauraterrell.com  laura@lauraterrell.com   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauralterrell/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraterrellcoaching/  Show notes: https://www.lauraterrell.com/podcast

We've launched Minimum Competence CLE, and our first course is now available completely free. Researching Federal Tax Issues After Loper Brightlooks at how the Supreme Court's decision ending Chevron deference changes the way lawyers should research and evaluate Treasury regulations, IRS guidance, and other federal tax authorities.Take the course and earn CLE credit at cle.minimumcomp.com.This Day in Legal History: The National Park Service Is CreatedOn August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Organic Act, creating a new federal bureau inside the Department of the Interior to manage the country's national parks and monuments. Before this, the roughly 35 parks and monuments the government had accumulated were administered in a haphazard, piecemeal way—some by the Army, some by scattered Interior officials—with no unified mission and no consistent protection.The genius of the Organic Act is compressed into a single, oft-quoted sentence that has generated a century of law and litigation. It directed the new Park Service to “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein” and to “leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” That phrasing contains a built-in tension that lawyers and the courts have wrestled with ever since: the Park Service is told both to provide for the public's enjoyment of the parks and to leave them unimpaired—two goals that can pull hard against each other when you're deciding whether to build a road, permit a concession, or limit the number of visitors. That “dual mandate” is the central puzzle of public-lands law.The significance of August 25, 1916 is that it enshrined in law a genuinely radical idea: that some places belong to the whole public, in perpetuity, held in trust by the government for people who haven't been born yet. Today the Park Service manages more than 400 sites across all fifty states and welcomes hundreds of millions of visitors a year. The writer Wallace Stegner, who gave us today's opening line, called the national parks “the best idea we ever had”—absolutely American, absolutely democratic. On a day whose news is heavy with contested executive power, it's a nice reminder that the law is also the instrument through which a society decides to preserve something for the common good.The Supreme Court has handed the Trump administration an interim victory on mail-in voting—but it's important to be precise about what the Court did and didn't do. In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the justices lifted an injunction that a Massachusetts federal judge imposed in June, which had blocked key parts of Trump's executive order restricting mail-in voting in California and 22 other states that sued. That order aims to create a federal list of eligible voters and, controversially, to have the Postal Service deliver ballots only to people on that list. Here's the crucial nuance. This is a stay, not a ruling on the merits—the Court did not decide whether the president actually has the authority to reshape how states run their elections. It merely paused the lower court's block while the litigation continues. And it's partial: the Postal Service's role in the scheme remains blocked nationwide. Justice Sotomayor, in dissent, made the point sharply—she wrote that the decision doesn't suggest the executive branch has any constitutional or statutory authority to do this, it just postpones the day of reckoning. This is the shadow docket in action, a theme we keep returning to: the Court altering the rules for a national election months before that election, through an emergency order, without a full merits decision or a written explanation of its reasoning. The significance is that, for now, parts of Trump's order can take effect for the November midterms—a real-world consequence—even as the fundamental question of whether any of it is lawful remains formally undecided. The status quo the courts had maintained all summer just shifted, at least temporarily, and it shifted on the emergency docket.US Supreme Court lifts judicial hurdle to Trump's mail-in ballot curbs | Reuters Washington Post · NPRThe administration is preparing what would be the largest mass visa revocation in U.S. history: according to the Associated Press, the State Department plans to revoke the tourist and business visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are seeking asylum. The targets are holders of so-called B1 and B2 visas—the standard business and tourism visas—issued between 2016 and 2026, whose holders later sought asylum, with the action coordinated between the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. The legal logic is worth understanding. A visitor visa rests on a premise: that you intend to come temporarily and then go home. When someone on a tourist visa applies for asylum, the government's position is that they've revealed an intent inconsistent with that temporary-visitor status—so it's moving to strip the visitor visa. Importantly, officials say this wouldn't necessarily mean immediate deportation; most people with pending asylum cases would be recategorized, losing their visitor status but not instantly removed. Still, the scale is staggering and unprecedented, and it raises hard questions. Seeking asylum is a legal right, protected by statute and international obligation, and there's a real tension in penalizing people's immigration status precisely because they used the lawful asylum process. There are also due-process concerns lurking in any mass action that recategorizes 200,000 people, and a potential chilling effect on those weighing whether to come forward and claim protection. The significance is that this fits the aggressive immigration-enforcement pattern we've tracked all summer—but at a scale that's genuinely new, using visa revocation as a lever against the asylum system itself.US plans to revoke up to 200,000 tourism, business visas, AP reports | ReutersWTOP · Houston Public Media / NPRAnd a story close to home for everyone in this profession: Google has launched a version of its Gemini AI built specifically for lawyers. Google Cloud unveiled “Gemini Enterprise for Legal,” an agentic AI platform purpose-built for legal workflows—with specialized skills, connectors to legal research and document systems, and an ecosystem of partner tools. And its launch customers are not fringe experimenters; they're elite firms: Cleary Gottlieb, Freshfields, Weil, and Williams & Connolly. When firms of that caliber sign on as launch partners, it's a signal that AI in legal practice has moved from novelty to infrastructure. Here's the significance, and the tension. On one hand, this is the mainstreaming of AI in law—the same shift that, as we discussed a few weeks ago, is thinning out entry-level hiring at big firms as software absorbs the document review and first-draft work once done by junior associates. Google is now competing directly with the specialized legal-AI companies for that market, and its entry accelerates everything. On the other hand, this collides with a problem we've covered again and again: the fake, hallucinated citations, the AI-generated errors, even the litigant hiding prompt injections in his filings. A more powerful, more deeply integrated AI tool doesn't dissolve a lawyer's duties of competence, confidentiality, and candor—it raises the stakes on them. The significance is that the profession is being reshaped in real time. The tools are getting better and more embedded, the biggest firms are adopting them, and the hard questions—about verification, about who's accountable when the machine is wrong, about what happens to the training pipeline for young lawyers—are all arriving at once.Google expands Gemini AI platform for law firms, lawyers | ReutersArtificial Lawyer · Google CloudAnd finally, in my column for Bloomberg Tax this week, I dig into a big loss for Maryland—and a valuable lesson for every other state eyeing the digital economy for revenue. Maryland's first-in-the-nation digital advertising tax just took a potentially fatal blow, with the state tax court siding with Google, Apple, and Peacock in their challenges. My argument is that this doesn't prove you can't tax digital advertising—it proves Maryland went about it the wrong way, by designing a tax around the companies it wanted to pay rather than the activity it wanted to tax.Two design choices doomed it. First, Maryland taxed digital advertising while leaving comparable non-digital advertising—billboards, print, radio, television—completely alone. Second, the tax only kicks in for companies above a huge global revenue threshold, and the rate actually climbs, from 2.5% up to 10%, based on a company's worldwide revenue, not its Maryland activity. The court saw that for what it was: a structure that, in practice, hits big out-of-state tech companies while sparing basically every in-state business, which runs into both the dormant Commerce Clause and the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act. As I put it, using worldwide corporate revenue to set the rate on identical in-state transactions is just a backward way of making big companies pay more—two companies doing the exact same amount of business in Maryland can end up with wildly different bills.There's also a cautionary detail I love, because it says everything: Maryland passed this tax in 2021, but by 2025 the state comptroller had to hire an outside expert just to figure out what “digital advertising services” even means—introducing terms like “programmatic” and “visual” that weren't in the statute at all. If you need to hire an expert four years after enactment to ascertain what your own tax taxes, maybe the problem isn't that taxpayers are being difficult. And the fiscal stakes are real: the tax pulled in about $535 million earmarked for education, but now the challengers may be owed refunds with interest, right as Maryland stares down a multibillion-dollar budget gap. A tax that collects hundreds of millions for a few years and then has to hand it all back, with interest, is quantifiably worse than no tax at all. So my takeaway for states is that the durable path is the boring one—broad tax bases, treat economically similar transactions the same, scale liability to in-state activity. A neutral tax on all advertising would have reached less convenient targets too, including local businesses, and that's exactly the point: a tax principle that only applies when it lands on the politically preferred target isn't much of a principle.Maryland's Digital Ad Tax Defeat Is Teachable Moment for States | Bloomberg Tax This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

Also, Yale Law School grads have a side chat to discuss their infamous classmates. ----- Luigi Mangione's lawyers say their client can't be tried for murder now that he's pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges. At issue is a voluntary admission that his stalking led to the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, which is not an element of stalking but can be a sentencing enhancement. And his team hope this is enough to trigger New York's broad double jeopardy restrictions. Why is the Department of Justice going along with this? Meanwhile, Biglaw giants are taking meetings about taking private equity money, opening the door to investors buying stakes in law firms. The proposal revolves around the "management services organization," the same structure that put private equity in charge of your dentist. And J.D. and Usha Vance's Yale Law classmates maintain a private Signal group to compare notes on a couple they sat next to in Contracts.

Cryptocurrency is at a critical point in its evolution. The existential questions have been answered—crypto is here to stay—and now the main issues relate to how it will be regulated (and by whom). Last year, Congress passed the GENIUS Act, landmark legislation governing a particular category of crypto called stablecoins. And when it returns from its August recess, the Senate will consider the CLARITY Act, a comprehensive market-structure bill covering the entire digital-asset ecosystem.So Molly Abraham, who became the new general counsel of Coinbase last month, assumes her new role at an exciting time for her company—the nation's largest cryptocurrency exchange—and for the crypto industry more generally. After reviewing her impressive legal career (and reminiscing about Wachtell Lipton), we covered the CLARITY Act, how Coinbase's legal team is using AI in innovative ways, and how Molly believes the raging litigation over prediction markets will be resolved.Thanks to Molly for joining me, and congratulations to her on becoming the GC of Coinbase.Show Notes:* Molly Abraham bio, Coinbase* Coinbase's New GC Sees AI as Legal Department's Biggest Opportunity and Risk, by Michael Gennaro for Law.com* Molly Abraham of Coinbase on Legal Leadership, Flying Cars, and The Art of Questioning Everything, by GC AISponsored by:NexFirm helps Biglaw attorneys become founding partners. To learn more about how NexFirm can help you launch your firm, call 212-292-1000 or email careerdevelopment@nexfirm.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidlat.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, I discuss five things BigLaw attorneys often spend too much energy worrying about early in their careers and why those priorities should change as they become more senior. Office location, titles, billable-hour comparisons, being copied on important emails, and proving you are the smartest person in the room can all feel like important signals that you are succeeding. Some of those signals do matter at certain points in your career, but they become less useful measures of your value as you gain experience and better understand how law firms actually operate. The lawyers who continue to advance learn to distinguish between what feels important and what firms, partners, and clients actually value. I also explain how that shift changes the way you should evaluate your own career. Your office matters far less than the quality of the work and relationships you build. Your title matters less than whether it gives you the ability to influence decisions, lead teams, create opportunities, and earn client trust. Billable hours remain an important business metric, but once you are meeting reasonable expectations, the more significant question is what those hours produce for clients and the firm. I also explain why being copied on every email is a weaker indicator of importance than becoming the lawyer people call for judgment, and why leadership means moving beyond proving how smart you are and instead toward asking better questions, understanding what the client actually needs, and making the people around you more effective. Ultimately, career growth in BigLaw involves moving from external signals of achievement toward trust, judgment, relationships, business impact, and the ability to create value. At a Glance 01:20 Why BigLaw lawyers eventually need to rethink the signals they associate with success 02:09 How to distinguish what feels important from what actually affects your career 02:33 Why your office location becomes less meaningful as you advance 03:42 Why your work and reputation matter more than where you physically sit 04:04 How to evaluate a title based on what it allows you to accomplish 04:32 Why reputation and influence matter more than an impressive title 04:58 When focusing too closely on billable-hour comparisons becomes counterproductive 05:57 Why senior lawyers should ask what their hours are actually creating 06:49 Why hours are an important metric but never the entire story 07:11 Why being copied on important emails can create a false sense of significance 07:37 How to move from being included on communications to being called for judgment 08:26 Why being the smartest person in the room is not the same as being the most valuable 09:19 How leadership shifts from proving you know the answer to helping the team reach the best answer 09:50 Why career priorities move from external signals toward trust, impact, and relationships 10:39 How successful lawyers transition from proving themselves to creating value  For Apple Podcasts, click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select "Write a Review." Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, follow the podcast here!  For Spotify, tap here on your mobile phone, follow the podcast, listen to the show, then find the rating icon below the description, and tap to rate with five stars. Interested in doing 1-2-1 coaching with Laura Terrell? Or learning more about her work coaching and consulting? Here are ways to reach out to her: www.lauraterrell.com  laura@lauraterrell.com   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauralterrell/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraterrellcoaching/  Show notes: https://www.lauraterrell.com/podcast

Two Law.com veterans who spend their careers interrogating law firm secrets turn the lens on their own industry's next twenty years, from partner comp black boxes to the real odds of a publicly traded law firm by 2040.  On this episode of the Future is Bright, Howard Rosenberg and I sat down with Gina Passarella, Group Chief Content Officer of Law.com, and David Gialanella, Editor-in-Chief of Law.com. Both have covered Big Law mergers for years and are now navigating one of their own, as ALM and Law Business Research combine into Centellic. That firsthand experience shapes how they talk about what firms hide, including from themselves. One tension comes up again and again. Firms love to talk about their AI strategy in public, but how many of them actually have one? Gina and David suggest the gap between AI messaging and AI reality is wider than most firms would admit. Partner compensation gets the same treatment. Averages sound clean in a press release. They rarely tell you what's happening inside a firm. The discussion turns to a scenario-planning project mapping the legal profession out to 2040, built around three forces: how much power shifts from lawyers to algorithms, whether the industry's tech stack consolidates or fragments, and who ends up setting the rules. Will regulators hold the line on the partnership model, or will client demand and private capital force it open? Gina and David don't pretend to know for certain, and that honesty is part of what makes their read on the industry worth hearing.   Episode Breakdown: 00:00 ALM's Merger with Law Business Research 01:32 Inside a Major Legal Media Merger 09:12 Business Model Shifts in Law Firm Strategy 12:55 What Law Firms Hide From Themselves 20:14 Partner Talent Mobility and Law Firm Business Models 24:17 Mapping the Legal Profession to 2040 29:20 Could Law Firms Go Public by 2040 32:29 How AI Is Reshaping Demand for Legal Services 39:16 The Data Law Firms Don't Want to Share Connect with Gina Passarella: Connect with Gina on LinkedIn  Gina Passarella's Web Bio    Connect with David Gialanella: Connect with David on LinkedIn  David Gialanella's Web Bio     Connect with Howard Rosenberg: Connect with Howard on LinkedIn Howard Rosenberg's Company web profile   Connect with Chris Batz: Connect with Chris on LinkedIn  Follow Columbus Street on LinkedIn Columbus Street Website  MergerWatch Website Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm  

The legal industry is about to change faster than most law firm leaders are prepared for. Private equity is coming. AI is already here. And the firms that keep doing things the way they've always been done are going to find themselves squeezed from both sides. Tim Keith is the CEO and founder of Propense AI, an AI-driven cross-selling and client intelligence platform built specifically for law firms. He's watched private equity transform the accounting industry in real time — and he's convinced the same inflection point is coming for legal, faster than anyone anticipates. In this episode, Tim joins Scott Love to lay out a clear-eyed view of what the law firm of the future actually looks like, what separates the firms that will lead from those that will be absorbed, and what managing partners and partners should be doing right now to get ahead of it. You'll learn: Why Tim believes the traditional partnership model will change dramatically within the next five years How private equity reshaped accounting in under four years — and why legal is next Why "we've never done it that way" is the most dangerous strategy in the current market The "one-firm mentality" — why cross-selling is no longer optional and how the best firms are executing it What non-lawyer ownership of law firms already looks like in practice (Arizona's precedent) How the billing model is shifting toward value-based pricing — and what that will look like in practice Why the "black box" of legal work is disappearing and what that means for your competitive position The rise of niche AI-native law firms — and the partners who are already leaving BigLaw to start them Why the middle market is going to get "swallowed up" and what that means if your firm lives there 3 action steps law firm leaders and individual partners can take right now to prepare Visit: https://therainmakingpodcast.com/ YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ej-q2TZ0eGE ---------------------------------------- If you are a successful law firm partner or law firm founder and want to hear about other options, please book a time on Scott Love's calendar here: https://calendly.com/scott-736/half-hour-phone-meeting-with-scott Or email Scott to connect with him at: scott@attorneysearchgroup.com ----------------------------------------

Andre Gharakhanian left Big Law and built Silicon Legal into a 55-person firm. But that growth did not come from creating one perfect system or following a flawless master plan. It came from learning how to transfer his standards to other people, strengthen the firm as it grew, and stop making himself the center of every client relationship and operational decision.In this episode of Your Practice Mastered, Andre explains what law firm owners must change when they move from practicing law to leading a growing business.You'll learn:How to transition from practicing attorney to CEO of a growing law firmHow to build a law firm that runs without the owner handling every decisionWhy law firm systems and processes break as the legal team expandsHow to document client-service standards across a growing law firmHow to hire and onboard law firm employees for long-term retentionHow better internal communication improves law firm culture and performanceHow small law firms can scale through consistent, incremental improvementsWhy developing the right people matters more than building perfect processes

In this Legal Speak episode, Law.com Business of Law reporter Vivienne Serret speaks with Holland & Knight partner Kayla Pragid about the business of building a niche practice within an Am Law 100 firm. Having founded the firm's equine industry practice, Pragid discusses her path into equine law, how the team serves its clients and the importance of balancing legal strategy with the best interests of the horse. Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Reporter: Vivienne Serret Guest: Kayla Pragid Producer: Charles Garnar

Remember when Trump lost the birthright citizenship case? Because he doesn't. ----- Despite protestations that its deal with the Trump administration didn't forfeit the firm's independence, Paul Weiss reportedly seriously debated letting Stephen Miller review the firm's webpage edits according to the New York Times. The same reporting turned up the $3.5 million the firm spent to make its first openly transgender partner leave quietly. Elsewhere, Biglaw is now the largest employer of new law grads, even though it's a bigger slice of a smaller pie, with first-year hiring down for the first time since 2014. And having lost the birthright citizenship case, Donald Trump signed new executive orders explaining that he won it, moving one antecedent about six words to the left and calling it a holding. It's kicking off a string of proclamations from the White House that it's the real winner of cases it decidedly lost.

Buying a bank during a meltdown sounds like a bad idea until you hear what it takes to survive it. We talk with Triumph's CEO about growing up in small-town Oklahoma, sprinting through Big Law, and then walking away from the safe path with a young family and almost no margin for error. What follows is a candid story of mentorship, risk, and the kind of pressure most founders only admit to after they've made it through. From there, we trace how Triumph goes from distressed-debt ambition to becoming a serious force in transportation finance: transportation factoring for carriers, broker payments and supply chain finance, and now logistics intelligence built on an asset most freight tech can't match, paid invoice data. We dig into why brokers often misunderstand “controlling payments,” how factoring changes the carrier relationship, and what it really takes to sell enterprise payments in a trust-heavy industry. If you care about freight brokerage strategy, carrier liquidity, working capital, or building durable logistics platforms, this one is packed with practical framing. We also hit the uncomfortable realities shaping the market: fraud attempts that target remittance changes, why payments are treated as financial crime, and how post-Montgomery liability breaks the risk-reward math for brokers and demands clearer rules. We close with leadership lessons that apply well beyond trucking: trade-offs, focus, and surrounding yourself with people who love you enough to tell you the truth. Subscribe, share this with a friend in freight, and leave a review with the biggest takeaway you're applying next.Thanks to our sponsors:Cloneops.ai: Not just AI. Industry-born AI.cloneops.aiBitfreighter: Scale Freight. Not Integration Costs. Win More. Accept More.bitfreighter.comTriumph: Accelerate quote-to-cash with AI-powered invoicing, bank-grade carrier payments, and transaction-based market intelligence.triumph.io/morecapacity

In this episode, I discuss what happens when your final day at a BigLaw firm arrives and you haven't landed your next role. The concerns in this situation can extend beyond the potential financial impact. Lawyers also often worry that clients and colleagues will assume something went wrong, recruiters will view them differently once they are no longer attached to a major firm, and an employment gap will weaken their ability to compete for the positions they want. Leaving without another role, however, does not automatically damage your career. The greater risk is allowing your transition to become so undefined  that other people begin making assumptions as they, not you, fill in the gaps about what happened and project what you can contribute. Throughout the episode, I explain how to remain visible, professionally engaged, and in control of your narrative after leaving a firm. I discuss why your transition strategy should begin before your departure, how to replace and reclaim the professional signals your firm once generated for you, and how to talk about your search without sounding apologetic or uncertain. I also explain why legal opportunities often emerge through relationships and recognized business needs rather than posted positions; how to diagnose and adjust a search that is not producing results; and when an interim, advisory, or bridge role can be strategically useful. Most importantly, I discuss how to manage an extended transition by defining objectives, maintaining a professional rhythm, evaluating what is working, and continuing to strengthen the relationships, reputation, credibility, and market relevance that can help the right opportunity emerge. At a Glance 01:20 What happens when you leave BigLaw without another role secured 02:30 Why the transition itself does not have to damage your career 03:17 How to remain visible and relevant after losing your firm's platform 04:02 Why you must begin creating your own professional signals so others don't 04:58 How to stay connected without making every conversation about your job search 07:03 Why the absence of a role should not define your professional identity 08:08 How to discuss your transition with discretion and confidence 09:23 Why disappearing from your network can become a costly mistake 10:37 How to shift from being chosen to creating demand for your expertise 11:04 How to translate BigLaw experience into value the market understands 12:00 Why working harder may not fix a stalled search 13:27 How to diagnose where your search strategy is breaking down 15:39 How to evaluate an imperfect or interim opportunity 17:47 How to manage an extended transition like a significant client matter For Apple Podcasts, click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select "Write a Review." Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, follow the podcast here!  For Spotify, tap here on your mobile phone, follow the podcast, listen to the show, then find the rating icon below the description, and tap to rate with five stars. Interested in doing 1-2-1 coaching with Laura Terrell? Or learning more about her work coaching and consulting? Here are ways to reach out to her: www.lauraterrell.com  laura@lauraterrell.com   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauralterrell/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraterrellcoaching/  Show notes: https://www.lauraterrell.com/podcast

Each week, the leading journalists in legal tech choose their top stories of the week to discuss with our other panelists.   This week's topics:   (00:00) Introductions (3:53) Big Law Entry-Level Hiring Declines for 2nd Year in a Row (Selected by Stephen Embry) (12:55) LexisNexis Bets On Build-A-Bear Model For Legal AI (Selected by Joe Patrice) (22:54) Thomson Reuters Says Its Homegrown AI Model Now Rivals the Frontier Labs – I Take A Closer Look At the Benchmarks (Selected by Bob Ambrogi) (32:24) The Law Firms Working With Tech Companies to Build Custom Tools (Selected by Rhys Dipshan) (40:24) Bar Exam Tech Woes (Selected by Victor Li)

What happens when a veteran litigator starts treating AI less like a chatbot and more like an operating system for his cases? In this episode, Zach speaks with Arlo Devlin-Brown, founder of TDB Law, about how AI is changing the way he actually practices law. They discuss why AI may be particularly powerful for litigators, how Arlo has built an AI-powered system that continuously tracks his cases, and why the technology is more useful for exploring arguments and strategy than simply generating finished work. The conversation also explores the future of junior lawyers, why big law's leverage model may be under pressure, and why Arlo rejects the idea that firms should sell themselves as “AI-native” rather than simply being excellent lawyers who use AI well. In this episode: Why AI may be more transformative for litigation than transactional law How Arlo uses AI as an operating system and shared memory for his cases Why AI can make junior lawyers more valuable, not obsolete How AI could fundamentally reshape the Big Law leverage model Why “AI-native” law firms may be missing the point Subscribe to Zach's newsletter https://www.legallydisrupted.com/   Follow Zach on X https://x.com/ZachAbramowitz?lang=en   Follow Along on LinkedIn: Arlo - https://www.linkedin.com/in/arlodb Zach - www.linkedin.com/in/zachabramowitz   Engage Killer Whale Strategies https://www.killerwhalestrategies.com

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike is joined by Dr. Milana Hogan, Chief Talent Officer at Sullivan & Cromwell, and Rob Baker, a former law firm hiring committee member and BigLaw attorney, for a conversation about the increasingly front-loaded BigLaw recruiting process and what prospective and current law students should know about navigating it. Rob has held recruiting roles at large, medium, and boutique-sized law firms, while Dr. Hogan has spent nearly two decades at Sullivan & Cromwell working in talent, associate development, and recruiting.  The group discusses how law firm recruiting has shifted earlier over time and the market pressures driving that change (7:41); whether hiring could move even earlier and why first-semester law school grades may serve as a practical stopping point (13:48); whether 0Ls should already be reaching out to firms and how to approach those conversations from a learning rather than a “will you hire me?” posture (17:13); the value of LinkedIn, low-pressure outreach, and building relationships before recruiting formally begins (20:53); and why the current system may create new opportunities for 2Ls and 3Ls who missed out earlier in the process (24:39).  They also discuss how AI is affecting BigLaw work and hiring, including Sullivan & Cromwell's use of AI as one part of its holistic hiring process (28:34); what can turn hiring partners off in an interview and why trying too hard to demonstrate how smart you are can backfire (31:47); the importance of curiosity, humility, and a willingness to learn from more experienced lawyers (34:45); and why students should take ownership of their careers, seek out opportunities, and practice interviewing before the real thing (37:52). Related resources: Mike references NALP Executive Director Nikia Gray's article, The “Cruel” Recruiting Timeline, which examines the history of OCI and the market forces behind the increasingly accelerated law firm recruiting process. He also references a South Park episode parodying Black Friday's increasingly early start as an analogy for how BigLaw recruiting has continued moving earlier.You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, Spotify⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠. You can read a full transcript of this episode with timestamps here.

This week, Deb interviews 2026 Emmy nominee Kim Estes, who's been in hit TV series' such as “How I Met Your Mother”, “Brooklyn 99”, “NCIS”, “Pretty Little Liars” and many more. His latest project, short form series “Big Law”, has earned him his second Emmy nomination in the same category he won in 2017. Listen to this engaging conversation with an award-winning actor and get the inside scoop on how Emmy nominations work, what the stars experience during the awards and his take on why it's important to support indie films.Website: biglaw.tv

Executive Summary Jared sits down with Carly Savar, general counsel at Steno, to unpack what actually happens when a law firm signs up with an AI vendor. Carly explains why reading the fine print matters more than any feature list, and what separates a vendor you can trust from one that's just telling you what you want to hear. Key Takeaways Read the actual data processing agreement yourself. Don't assume a vendor's security is handled just because they signed a service level agreement. Push for a zero-day retention agreement, and ask about the LLMs your vendor is built on, not just the vendor itself. SOC 2 Type 2 certification means a company's controls held up over a full year. SOC 2 Type 1 only proves a single snapshot in time. Not all training is created equal. Aggregated usage data is usually fine. Your client's confidential content should never go into a model. New billing ethics guidance says you can only charge for the time you actually spent, not the time an AI tool saved you. About the Guest Carly Savar is general counsel at Steno, a litigation support and court reporting technology company. She spent years litigating before founding her own legal recruiting company and eventually moving in-house. Carly now negotiates AI and data agreements from both sides of the table, as counsel to a legal tech vendor and as a buyer evaluating other vendors herself. Links and Resources Steno: steno.com Red Cave Law Firm Consulting: redcavelegal.com Keywords legal tech, legal technology, AI for lawyers, AI vendor vetting, legal AI vendor contracts, data security for law firms, zero-day retention agreement, SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 2 certification, ISO 27001, shadow AI, in-house counsel, legal tech general counsel, court reporting technology, Steno, AI training data, law firm AI policy, small law firm technology, technology competence rule, Red Cave Law Firm Consulting Episode Chapters 00:00:00 Cold open and show intro 00:02:00 Meet Carly Savar and the vexing AI vendor problem 00:03:00 Zero-day retention and why training on your data is the real risk 00:06:00 What to actually ask vendors before you sign 00:08:00 SOC 2 Type 1 vs Type 2 and other certifications 00:10:00 Life as GC inside a legal tech vendor 00:13:00 Clients who want cool tech vs clients who ask the right questions 00:15:00 Not all training is created equal 00:16:00 Keeping up with shifting ethics rules and regulations 00:18:00 Tech competence and billing for time spent, not time saved 00:22:00 Advice for lawyers going in-house at startups 00:24:00 Carly's path into law and out of Big Law litigation 00:27:00 Finding Steno and the frog-in-water approach to tech adoption 00:33:00 Going to law school too soon and learning to fail 00:37:00 Women in legal tech today 00:39:00 Wrap-up and where to find Carly and Steno  

Building a brand is exciting. Protecting it is essential. The Lawyer Stories Podcast Episode 278 features Danielle Garno, fashion, beauty, and luxury goods attorney, General Counsel at FIT:MATCH.ai, Partner at Daniel Ebeling Maccia & Cohen, entrepreneur, and Adjunct Professor of Fashion Law at the University of Miami School of Law. After building a successful career in Big Law, Danielle has become a trusted advisor to startups, emerging companies, and global luxury brands, helping them navigate intellectual property, licensing, advertising, social media marketing, regulatory compliance, and the legal challenges that come with building enduring brands. In this conversation, we discuss Danielle's journey from Big Law to leadership, why she chose to focus on fashion and luxury brands, the intersection of law, entrepreneurship, and innovation, and how lawyers can help businesses protect and grow their most valuable assets from day one. A fascinating conversation about branding, business strategy, entrepreneurship, and the evolving role of lawyers in today's innovation economy. This episode is presented by CallRail. Integrated into your case management system, CallRail helps law firms capture every call, respond faster, spot high-value leads instantly, and drive growth. Join over 3,000 law firms using CallRail to follow up faster, land bigger cases, and grow smarter. Start your free trial: https://www.callrail.com/legal-services?utm_medium=influencer&utm_source=lawyer-stories Join us at REVCON 2026. If you've heard of RevCon before, this is the next revolution. Hosted by Dan Morgan, Operational Anatomy of a Record-Breaking Year is a one-day, CLE-accredited event featuring 14 experts in marketing, management, technology, litigation, and AI.

Kyle Poe is a former BigLaw partner and currently VP of Legal Innovation and Strategy at Legora, a legal AI startup valued at $5.6 billion.Kyle explains why he sees a generational reordering happening in the legal profession, how firms are best institutionalizing partner knowledge as IP, and where the moat exists for lawyers as AI grows in ubiquity. Law of Code is presented by Altitude, visit https://altitude.xyz/law to learn why.Timestamps:0:00 Intro0:56 The billable hour and the incentive problem inside firms2:36 Institutionalizing partner knowledge as firm IP4:02 Why partner buyouts are accelerating5:56 Why AI is different from the internet and email9:31 How top firms are operationalizing AI12:35 Building innovation teams from the top down14:37 More lawyers or fewer? The future of demand19:20 Grinders, minders and finders22:10 What lawyers should be asking about AI25:13 Legora's moatThank you to our other sponsors:Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP: https://www.cahill.com/practices/litigation-digital-assets-and-emerging-technologySolana Policy Institute: https://www.solanapolicyinstitute.org/Hyperliquid Policy Center: https://hyperliquidpolicy.org/Sign up for the free Law of Code newsletter at lawofcode.fm.

And summer bonuses have arrived. ----- The profession yet again forced law school graduates to take a closed-book doctrinal memory test to earn the right to perform a job where answering questions from memory constitutes malpractice. And, yet again, the ritual came with a series of catastrophes and a fully canceled test. In Maryland, the test faced delays. Missouri's delays were even worse, reminding us that the NCBE doesn't guarantee a better exam than the much-maligned California experiment. And in Washington, they had to cancel the whole test. In happier news, summer bonuses came to Biglaw -- or at least some of Biglaw -- with Milbank announcing a special treat. Finally, Wachtell's kissgate scandal spilled over into Gibson Dunn's lateral hiring coup, and we're reminded that work-life balance is important.

For much of the time that I've been writing about the legal profession, the line between plaintiff- and defense-side litigation was clear, stable, and widely respected. Small, scrappy firms took plaintiffs' work on contingency; large, prestigious firms defended corporations for hourly rates. That division has been eroding—slowly at first, then with increasing speed. Today, defense-oriented Biglaw firms are actively seeking plaintiff-side engagements for their corporate clients, competing with the plaintiffs' bar for cases that they wouldn't have looked at even a decade ago.On Wednesday, May 6, I had the pleasure of moderating an excellent panel discussion dedicated to exploring these developments. It featured three great experts: Eva Cole, co-chair of the antitrust and competition practice at Winston Taylor; Evan Meyerson, managing director at Burford Capital; and Avi Weitzman, co-chair of the complex litigation and arbitration practice at Paul Hastings.I'm now pleased to share our conversation with you as a special episode of the Original Jurisdiction podcast. Thanks to the panelists for the time and insight, and thanks to Burford Capital for organizing this great event.Show Notes:* Defense-Focused Biglaw Moves Into Plaintiff-Side Work, by David Lat for Original Jurisdiction* Turning In-House Legal Departments Into Revenue Generators, by David Lat for Original Jurisdiction* Survey of in-house counsel on commercial opt-out claims, by Burford Capital* Litigation economics: CFOs and GCs weigh in on best practices in optimizing legal department value, by Burford CapitalSponsored by:Burford Capital helps companies and law firms unlock the value of their legal assets. With a portfolio of over $7 billion and listings on the NYSE and LSE, Burford provides capital to finance high-value commercial litigation and arbitration—without adding cost or risk or giving up control. Clients include Fortune 500 companies and Am Law 100 firms, who turn to Burford to pursue strong claims, manage legal costs and accelerate recoveries. Learn more at burfordcapital.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidlat.substack.com/subscribe

What happens when you're told, often indirectly, that your future is no longer with the firm while receiving little clarity about when you are actually expected to leave. A practice group leader may encourage you to explore opportunities, a managing partner may suggest thinking about your next chapter, or attorney development may offer to help with a transition. The language can sound supportive, and there may be no immediate deadline, but by the time these conversations are happening, the decision about your long-term future at the firm has often already been made. The issue you are now facing is now timing, not whether you are leaving. In this episode, I explain how to act strategically rather than waiting for the firm to define your timeline. I walk through the kinds of questions you need to ask of your firm beyond just about timing; the decisions you should begin making even without a departure date or if that date is flexible; and why your current title, client access, relationships, credibility, and income give you valuable leverage while you are still employed. I also discuss how to evaluate help from partners, coaches, and attorney development without allowing the firm's desire for a successful exit to dictate your next career move. Most importantly, I explain how to protect your reputation, strengthen relationships, explore opportunities, and preserve your options so that ambiguity does not cost you valuable time or force you into a rushed decision. At a Glance 01:20 How to recognize when a BigLaw firm is signaling your exit 02:10 Why your future may be decided without a departure date 03:46 What firms mean when they encourage you to explore the market 04:35 What can affect how much runway you receive 05:03 How to use your leverage while you're still employed 05:31 What to ask about your timeline, compensation, and transition 06:16 Why no deadline doesn't mean unlimited time 06:43 What to consider about compensation and work commitments 07:40 Why you should start networking and preparing now 08:32 How to leave your firm from a position of strength 09:47 Why waiting can turn your transition into a reactive job search 10:23 How your goals differ from the firm's transition goals 11:11 When the firm's transition help can be valuable 12:23 Why someone else's urgency shouldn't drive your career strategy 12:46 The difference between being receptive and being directed 13:48 How ambiguity can cost you time and opportunities 14:35 Why you should act even without a clear timeline 15:00 What you already know despite uncertainty about timing 15:52 The bigger question of what comes next in your career  For Apple Podcasts, click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select "Write a Review." Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, follow the podcast here!  For Spotify, tap here on your mobile phone, follow the podcast, listen to the show, then find the rating icon below the description, and tap to rate with five stars. Interested in doing 1-2-1 coaching with Laura Terrell? Or learning more about her work coaching and consulting? Here are ways to reach out to her: www.lauraterrell.com  laura@lauraterrell.com   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauralterrell/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraterrellcoaching/  Show notes: https://www.lauraterrell.com/podcast

We welcome back Brad Blickstein, CEO at Blickstein Group, to discuss how private equity principles may provide law firms with an alternative approach to profitability, governance, and even long-term growth. Blickstein's new book, WWPED: What Would Private Equity Do? was written to walk firms through how treating topics like pricing, technology, talent, and client relationships as part of the enterprise value instead of overhead expenses after year-end partnership distributions.Pulling from Jae Um's topics of Cream, Core, and Commodity framework, Blickstein talks about the legal work as the primary competitive battleground. Much like businesses that provide baked goods, firms have to separate the customized legal judgment from the repeatable legal processes, technology, and what alternative legal services providers offer. Law firm leaders should understand what scalable work is, begin building consistent systems to deliver that work, and truly professionalize pricing over relying upon what a partner's gut tells them.We also cover the Blickstein Group's 2026 Law Firm COO Survey where technology adoption and investment ranks as the leading strategic initiative with 38.1% identified practice silos as the largest structural issue and 27% of COOs listed lack of operational authority as another prime issue. COOs are struggling with being tasked with modernizing law firms, but not given the authority to actually overcome the base issues of decentralized partnerships, competing incentives, and overall firm political structures.Add AI into the mix, and the pricing question becomes even more important. Some two-thirds of the COOs surveyed confessed that they were not formally measuring any return on investment (ROI) in which they could later measure any law productivity or direct revenue increases. Blickstein points out that faster work in a billable hour model is not the type of math that law firms want to calculate, and that firms have to address this directly and redesign their overall pricing model on value received by the client, not hours worked by the lawyers. We all discuss the issues of alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) have face in the more than 30 years since Blickstein originally published an article titled "Alternative Billing Making a Comeback." AFAs bring with it issues of shadow billing, client trust factors, and the need to express value not tied to the amount to time spent on the work.We also break down the corporate buyer side and address the Blickstein Group's 18th Annual Law Department Operations Survey which identifies AI pilot projects in corporate legal departments, but very few operational deployments. These may be tied to the long running issue of poor data hygiene along with business objectives that are not clearly tied to overall corporate strategy.Brad gets to be one of the first to answer our new question of "what's true today that wasn't true a year ago?" A nice lead in to our Crystal Ball question. We cover AI token pricing and having to compete with the new "AI native firms" that are spinning up from former BigLaw partners.Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠Substack⁠[Special Thanks to ⁠⁠Legal Technology Hub⁠⁠ for their sponsoring this episode.]Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.comMusic: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Blickstein GroupWWPED: What Would Private Equity Do?2026 Law Firm COO Survey findingsLaw Department Operations SurveyCream, Core, and Commodity legal-work frameworkLegaltech Hub: The Arithmetic of AI, Tokens and Claude in Legal WorkLegaltech Hub: Five Prompting Habits Costing You Tokens and AccuracyLegora introduces consumption-based pricingKirkland & Ellis and its $500 million AI investmentAnthropic Claude CodeLINKSTranscript:

PSYCHO-THERAPISTS WANT YOUR KIDS TO CUT YOU OFF This week we walk through a culture that keeps handing the most intimate parts of life to somebody else. We start with the "CEO parents" spending a quarter million a year on nannies, chefs, and potty-training consultants so they never have to clip a toenail, then jump to the Big Law partner whose ten-second park-bench kiss with a younger associate cost him tens of millions after a stranger's phone did the rest. We dig into the therapists coaching grown adults to go no-contact with their parents and the researchers calling it a family-wrecking racket, we meet the burned-out singles letting a spreadsheet decide whether their date went well, and then we clear the palate with an Australian mom who beat one-in-fifteen-million odds to deliver healthy identical quadruplets. We close in our own backyard, where the Bloodstained Men brought their anti-circumcision protest to a Jefferson City street corner, and we lay out the whole fight — consent, medicine, religious liberty, and where persuasion ends and the state has no business going.

Ruma Mazumdar is a New Jersey real estate and estate planning attorney who built a successful virtual law firm after leaving Big Law. In this episode, she shares how working as a paralegal shaped her legal career, why she chose entrepreneurship despite growing up around family business, and how redefining success led her to build a practice that supports the life she actually wants.Lawyer Side HustlesLaunching her own law firm wasn't originally part of Ruma's plan. Growing up with entrepreneur parents, she witnessed the sacrifices that came with running a business and initially wanted the stability of traditional employment. But after several years in private practice and the shift toward remote work during the pandemic, she realized she wanted to build something on her own terms.   "I wanted to just have that sort of life,” Ruma Mazumdar expresses in Episode 255 of You Are a Lawyer.Today, Ruma operates a fully virtual law firm while living outside the state where she practices. She has also embraced human design as a framework for understanding how she works best, allowing her to build a business that prioritizes sustainability over constant growth. Her journey demonstrates that entrepreneurship isn't simply about owning a business. It's about intentionally creating a career that aligns with your values and lifestyle.This episode is produced by Skip the Boring Stuff, a podcast strategy company for business owners and creatives.

"Culture" is a popular buzzword for law firm leaders describing in vague terms what sets them apart from their rivals. For Winston Taylor's Steve D'Amore, it's a key part of melding the two firms that combined in June in Big Law's latest transatlantic merger. "We put culture at the top of the list of things that were important to make sure we had right," D'Amore said on Bloomberg Law's podcast, On The Merits. That includes blending US and European approaches to consensus building and urgency to attain "urgent collaboration" across the newly minted $1.75 billion firm, he said. Chicago's Winston & Strawn and UK firm Taylor Wessing hired BDO Global to analyze cultural compatibility before the merger was announced and brought the consultants back to look at pain points after completing the tie-up, D'Amore told Bloomberg Law reporter Roy Strom. Winston Taylor's leaders are also trying to bridge gaps on lawyer pay, client conflicts, practice group structures and AI tools. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

One of the biggest compensation frustrations for junior partners is how to move your comp meaningfully as you are still working to grow your practice and especially to originate work and land new clients. At the same time, compensation is no longer driven primarily by hours worked, responsibility assumed, or even the importance of the matters you manage. Instead, compensation increasingly reflects where you sit within the firm's economic structure, particularly your connection to origination, revenue attribution, and client ownership. Many junior partners are carrying enormous responsibility, leading major client matters, and serving as the day-to-day face of important relationships, only to discover that those contributions do not automatically translate into significant compensation increases. In this episode, I explain why firms distinguish between creating revenue and executing revenue, and why compensation committees place greater value on the lawyers who influence client origination, relationship expansion, and long-term profitability. I walk through the important difference between execution and attribution, explain why being indispensable to a matter is not the same as receiving economic credit for it, and share practical ways junior partners can begin positioning themselves closer to origination. Using real-world examples involving client retention, matter profitability, and identifying new business opportunities, I explain how to frame your contributions in ways that compensation committees recognize as commercially meaningful and directly tied to firm economics. At a Glance 01:20 Why junior partners are surprised by their compensation despite carrying significantly more responsibility 02:37 The associate mindset that equates hours, responsibility, and client work with higher compensation 03:35 How compensation committees focus on revenue attribution instead of execution 04:28 What origination really means beyond simply bringing in a new client 05:25 Howrunning major matters is often viewed as execution rather than economic ownership 05:51 Whyrelationship partners receive credit even when junior partners do the work 06:55 Why compensation follows where revenue originates and expands instead of following legal work performance 07:46 The distinction between creating value through client ownership and delivering value through execution 08:13 How junior partners begin connecting execution to origination without already holding origination credit 09:02 Why comp committees prioritize long-term client ownership and attribution over annual workload increases 10:21 Commercially meaningful ways junior partners can strengthen future compensation discussions 10:47 How stabilizing an at-risk client relationship can become a powerful compensation narrative 12:44 Why improving realization, profitability, and matter scope - even without origination creates economic value 15:02 How identifying adjacent client problems can generate entirely new revenue streams 17:00 Why "revenue-relevant execution" is the framework that changes compensation conversations For Apple Podcasts, click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select "Write a Review." Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, follow the podcast here!  For Spotify, tap here on your mobile phone, follow the podcast, listen to the show, then find the rating icon below the description, and tap to rate with five stars. Interested in doing 1-2-1 coaching with Laura Terrell? Or learning more about her work coaching and consulting? Here are ways to reach out to her: www.lauraterrell.com  laura@lauraterrell.com   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauralterrell/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraterrellcoaching/  Show notes: https://www.lauraterrell.com/podcast

In our last episode, we learned about Michelle Gessner's recent trial in North Carolina, where she was forced to pivot from a regular audio/video presentation, using modern technology, to a courtroom with no microphones, no TVs, no projectors and a single power outlet (already claimed by the clerk and the court reporter!). Click here to catch Episode 170 and hear the back story for today's episode. Michelle used AI to help adapt to this unexpected turn of events, asking it how to craft a visual presentation under these unique circumstances. Today, we learn how it unfolded. You could feel the courtroom change as the case progressed, and this was a quick trial: starting on a Monday, verdict by the end of day Tuesday. Literally two days. In fact, there were some assets to the old-school, analogue approach: better eye contact with jurors, fewer distractions, and more movement. Using what was learned from the focus groups before the trial, and the creative AI suggestions for presenting evidence, Michelle was able to correctly anticipate the jury's emotional reactions as the witnesses unfolded. With AI helping between trial days to make sure she'd met her burden of proof, Michelle then gave her closing argument with foam boards instead of any PowerPoint slides or technology. And the result: she won. If you want more trial prep strategies just like this, but in more depth and delivered straight to your inbox, grab my email newsletter that I send out each month: https://www.larricklawfirm.com/newsletter In this episode, we cover: How the visuals created with AI significantly engaged the jury. Focus groups provided valuable insights for trial strategy. How word choice is so important in your presentation. Closing arguments were enhanced by using visuals instead of technology. Remember to check out Episodes 128 & 129, featuring Michelle Gessner and her $21 million dollar verdict against Wells Fargo: Part 1 [Ep 128] Part 2 [Ep 129] You can also watch today's episode on my YouTube Channel: AI During Trial: Jury & Verdict. Part Two with Michelle Gessner [Ep 171]   Learn more about my guest Michelle Gessner: https://www.mgessnerlaw.com/ michelle@mgessnerlaw.com Michelle Gessner is one of the few lawyers, if not the only lawyer, in North Carolina who has both Big Law and Big Company defense experience, as well as 10 years of employee-side employment litigation experience, which she has been nearly exclusively handling since 2015.  Michelle possesses a deep understanding of the many challenges employees face dealing with wage theft and other illegal employment practices. Prior to its formation, Michelle gained extensive experience in all legal issues facing the retail, restaurant, and hospitality industries by serving as the Chief Litigation and Employment Law Counsel for publicly traded companies such as Family Dollar Stores, Inc. (FDO), Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI), Big Lots Stores, Inc. (BIG) and TriNet (TNET). Michelle also served as the SVP, General Counsel, and Chief Administrative Officer for Ovation Brands, a privately held $1 billion restaurant company. Follow and Review: We'd love for you to follow us if you haven't yet. Click that purple '+' in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We'd love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select "Ratings and Reviews" and "Write a Review" then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast. Have a trial or mediation coming up and want to test with a focus group? Book a free consultation call with Elizabeth to learn more: www.calendly.com/elizabethlarrick Don't miss out on the Trial Lawyer Prep Newsletter that is delivered right to your email with extra tips and 'how to' information. Join the newsletter here:  www.larricklawfirm.com/newsletter

What happens when a veteran Big Law attorney leaves a traditional partnership to help build a law firm from scratch? In this episode, Zach speaks with Batya Nadler, Partner at Norm Law, about her decision to join one of the legal industry's most ambitious AI-native firms. They discuss how Norm combines experienced lawyers with legal engineers and AI agents, why repeatable legal workflows are the ideal starting point for automation, and how AI is changing, not replacing, the role of senior attorneys. The conversation also explores why client relationships remain the foundation of legal practice, what skills lawyers need to thrive in an AI-first world, and why Batya believes the future belongs to firms built around AI from day one. In this episode: Why Batya left Big Law to help build an AI-native law firm from the ground up How legal engineers and AI agents are transforming repeatable legal workflows Why senior lawyers remain essential, even as AI automates more legal work How Norm is rethinking the traditional law firm model around AI-native infrastructure What lawyers can do today to become AI-fluent and prepare for the future of legal practice   Subscribe to Zach's newsletter https://www.legallydisrupted.com/   Follow Zach on X Zach  https://x.com/ZachAbramowitz?lang=en   Follow Batya https://www.linkedin.com/in/batya-nadler-1ba85410     Engage Killer Whale Strategies https://www.killerwhalestrategies.com

Rebecca Bloom is a former employee benefits and executive compensation attorney who spent more than 25 years helping women navigate cancer, work, insurance, disability coverage, and financial survival. She is the founder and author of When Women Get Sick, a book built from decades inside the legal, workplace, and patient advocacy systems most people only discover after diagnosis.Bloom started in Big Law at Simpson Thacher handling employee benefits and compensation work she originally chose to pay off student loans. Then her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Suddenly the language she used in corporate law offices became the language of survival at home. Explanation of benefits forms. Coverage disputes. Second opinions. Disability protections. Medical leave. Bills no one could explain.That collision changed the direction of her life.In this episode, Bloom explains how serious illness quietly turns patients into unpaid administrators managing paperwork, logistics, financial risk, and emotional labor while trying to survive treatment. She breaks down how employer based health insurance shapes nearly every aspect of cancer care in America and why women often carry the invisible burden of protecting everyone else from discomfort while they themselves fall apart.The conversation digs into workplace power, the illusion of the healthcare “safety net,” caregiver exhaustion, and the class divide hiding underneath patient empowerment culture. Bloom explains why educated, insured women with resources still struggle to navigate healthcare bureaucracy and what happens to patients without those advantages.This episode explores cancer care, health insurance, employee benefits, patient advocacy, workplace protections, caregiving, and the structural incentives that force sick people to become project managers of their own survival.RELATED LINKSRebecca BloomWhen Women Get SickBay Area Cancer ConnectionsSimpson Thacher & BartlettFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Episode Overview In this episode of Off the Clock, hosts Keith Maziarek and Justin Ergler sit down with Michael Pierson, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Pierson Ferdinand. Launched in January 2024 as the largest law firm debut in U.S. history with 130 partners, Pierson Ferdinand has rapidly grown to over 300 partners globally across 35+ markets. Michael shares how his background in architecture shaped his approach to law firm management, how Pierson Ferdinand is dismantling the traditional Big Law pyramid leverage model, and why embedding AI natively—rather than as an afterthought—allows their firm to deliver superior value to clients while fostering a culture of "radical inclusion." Episode Highlights Architectural Foundations for Firm Design: Michael discusses how studying architecture at Versailles taught him to think systemically, plan ahead, and innovate within strict regulatory boundaries—skills that were vital when designing a law firm infrastructure from scratch. Flipping the Big Law Model: Traditional law firm leverage models rely heavily on billing clients for junior associate training. Pierson Ferdinand operates with a partner-heavy, lean structure where clients only pay for experienced, direct-value work. The "10x Lawyer" and AI Integration: By embedding tools like Harvey AI into daily workflows (e.g., executing private equity side letters on flat fees), the firm empowers partners to become exponentially more efficient without passing unnecessary overhead onto clients. Culture, Pedigree, and the "No Jerks" Rule: While elite legal credentials are table stakes, Pierson Ferdinand places equal or greater weight on soft skills, radical inclusion, humility, and hiring genuinely great human beings who thrive in a consensus-driven environment. The Junior Partner On-Ramp: Addressing burnout and shifting industry demographics by creating a junior partner class (for 5th and 6th-year associates), offering a sustainable career alternative with direct mentorship from senior partners. Flexible Value Pricing: Rather than enforcing rigid mandates, the firm empowers partners to utilize Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs), flat fees, and data-driven pricing models tailored to specific client needs.

Summary Kara Maciel always knew she wanted to be a lawyer, and a high school trip to Washington, DC sealed the deal. What she didn't plan for was building her own firm. In this episode, the Conn, Maciel & Carey co-founder talks with Kathryn Rubino about the years she spent paying off law school loans early to buy herself flexibility, and how that discipline let her take a real risk later: leaving a comfortable partnership to start something new. The decision crystallized during back-to-back parental leaves, when Kara and her future co-founder each returned from leave with the same idea. Twelve years later, the firm has offices across the country, and Kara talks through what she wishes she'd known about the business side of running a firm, how she's used technology to standardize billing across offices, and why she believes boutique practice offers something Big Law structurally can't. Key Takeaways Paying down law school loans aggressively in your early career years buys flexibility later, not just debt relief. Opening a firm requires business skills most lawyers never learn in practice; hire for that gap or plan to learn it fast. Complementary practice areas and complementary skill sets among co-founders matter as much as shared values. Firm growth can be organic and still be strategic: expand where clients and trusted partners already are. Boutique firms compete on relationship and rate transparency, not just lower prices. Links and Resources [Above the Law](https://abovethelaw.com/) [The Jabot Podcast](https://abovethelaw.com/tag/the-jabot-podcast/) Keywords boutique law firm, starting a law firm, employment law, labor law, law firm founder, women law firm owners, legal entrepreneurship, law school loans, law firm culture, law firm growth, big law versus boutique, workplace safety law, law firm billing, legal technology, AI in law firms, law firm partnership, career advice for lawyers, women in law, Above the Law, The Jabot Podcast Episode Highlights [00:01:15 - 00:02:00] Kara traces her decision to become a lawyer back to a high school trip to Washington, DC. [00:04:15 - 00:05:00] Why she saved aggressively in her first years of practice instead of spending like a typical young associate. [00:08:00 - 00:09:30] The maternity leave story behind founding Conn, Maciel & Carey. [00:10:30 - 00:11:30] "You're a lawyer, you know how to make rain, but you don't know how to run a business." [00:13:15 - 00:14:45] How the firm's California and Midwest offices came together through existing relationships, not a strategic plan. [00:17:00 - 00:18:30] Why the firm runs a deliberately long hiring process to protect its culture. [00:19:15 - 00:20:15] What boutique practice offers that Big Law structurally can't: rate control and direct client relationships. [00:21:00 - 00:22:00] How the firm is using AI to standardize timekeeping and billing across offices.

In this week's episode, Legal Speak hosts Cedra Mayfield and Patrick Smith chat with Law.com business of law reporter Vivviene Serret about her new podcast, "Southbound and Down." In its premiere episode, Serret interviews Beatriz Azcuy, the co-managing partner of Sidley Austin's Miami office. Sidley Austin is one of several Am Law 100 firms that have made moves to South Florida within the last five years. The firm is also part of a greater pipeline of Chicago-founded firms flocking to Miami for more than just its weather. In addition to examining the firm's success since entering the market in 2022, the duo discuss client demand and what comes next in the firm's growth strategy.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield& Patrick Smith Reporter: Vivviene Serret Guest: Beatriz Azcuy Producer: Charles Garnar

Tatyana Norman Webler graduated nursing school in May 2020 — straight into the COVID pandemic. She spent three years as an ICU nurse watching the healthcare system fail patients in real time, asking why the left hand never talked to the right hand, and wondering if there was a way to fix it. Then she went to law school.She graduated — in labor — passed the bar with a newborn at home, and landed in big law. Eight months later, she was gone.This is the story of what happened in between. And what the blood work proved.In this episode we talk about the moment Tatyana realized big law wasn't just misaligned with her values — it was bad for her biology. We talk about high functioning depression, the Body Keeps the Score, and what it actually looks like to climb out of survival mode and build a life from scratch that actually fits who you are.In this episode we cover:How a single moment on a hospital ethics committee made Tatyana want to go to law schoolGraduating law school in active labor — and walking across that stage anywayPassing the bar with a newborn and four hours of study time a dayWhat eight months in big law actually cost her — and how her biomarkers told the whole storyThe week she didn't nurse her daughter once because of an artificial deadline — and the rage that followedWhy she left and what happened to her blood work six months laterHigh functioning depression: what it is, how it's different from burnout, and why so many lawyers are living in it without knowing"You can't outthink your way out of depression" — and what she's doing insteadHow coaching helped her stop strategizing and start actually doingThe portfolio career she's building: Lucid Edge Advising, the Ohio Brain Capital Alliance, and her podcast Lucid CommonsWhy two things can be true at the same time — and why that's the permission slip most of us needBooks mentioned:Becoming You by Suzy WelchHigh Functioning Depression by Dr. Judith JosephThe Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der KolkConnect with Tatyana Norman Webler:LinkedIn: Tatyana Norman WeblerPodcast: Lucid Commons (Spotify, Apple, YouTube)Advising: Lucid Edge AdvisingNonprofit: Ohio Brain Capital AllianceWork with Erin Gerner: Erin coaches high-achieving female attorneys who are successful on paper but struggling with burnout, identity, and what's next — helping them redefine success on their own terms.

Earlier this year, Benjamin Gruenstein left Cravath Swaine & Moore, his professional home for almost two decades, and founded his own boutique, Gruenstein Law. Ben and I first met around the time that he launched his firm, after we were introduced by a mutual friend (but not his brother, former Wachtell Lipton partner David Gruenstein, with whom I used to work). I greatly enjoyed my conversation with Ben and thought that I'd love to have him on the podcast at some point.And now, the time has come. In our conversation, Ben discussed three topics in the news: (1) his departure from Cravath, which has seen higher-than-usual partner turnover this year, and why he wanted to launch his own firm; (2) Fernandez v. United States, an interesting and important case that was recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, which Ben argued before the justices; and (3) how AI is transforming the practice of law—and the role it played in Ben's decision to leave Biglaw.Thanks to Ben for his insights—in our interview and more generally—and good luck to him and his colleagues at Gruenstein Law.Show Notes:* Benjamin Gruenstein bio, Gruenstein Law* Cravath Partner Gruenstein Launches Boutique Firm in New York, by Meghan Tribe for Bloomberg Law* Cravath Investigations Partner Launches His Own Boutique, by Ryan Harroff for Law.com* Cravath Partner Launches Corporate Investigations Boutique, by Daniel Connolly for Law360Sponsored by:NexFirm helps Biglaw attorneys become founding partners. To learn more about how NexFirm can help you launch your firm, call 212-292-1000 or email careerdevelopment@nexfirm.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidlat.substack.com/subscribe

Summary Gloria Park always wanted to be a storyteller. She just didn't expect to find that career in litigation. In this episode, the Susman Godfrey partner talks with Kathryn Rubino about growing up in a first-generation immigrant family, choosing law school because it let her "tell stories for a living," and the mantra, why not me, that carried her through six tough years as an associate to partnership. They cover what actually separates strong litigators (hint: it's not the closing argument), why Park chose a litigation-only boutique that hires exclusively from federal clerkships, and how she balances high-stakes cases with church, choir, and a new kickboxing habit. Park also shares her most memorable war story: taking her first deposition eight weeks into practice, alone, against a firm's global head of litigation. Key Takeaways Litigation is storytelling within strict limits: the facts don't move, but how you frame them does. A "why not me" mindset can replace the imposter syndrome that comes with being the first in your family in Big Law. Attention to detail, not courtroom theatrics, is what actually separates strong litigators. Susman Godfrey hires only federal law clerks, which gives its litigators a shared foundation and an edge in the courtroom. Pro bono work outside your paying caseload can sharpen your skills as a litigator, not just your firm's PR Links and Resources [Above the Law](https://abovethelaw.com/) [The Jabot Podcast](https://abovethelaw.com/tag/the-jabot-podcast/) Keywords Big Law partnership, litigation career, Susman Godfrey, federal clerkship, first-generation lawyer, women in law, litigation boutique, associate to partner, legal storytelling, deposition tips, pro bono litigation, work-life balance lawyer, Above the Law, The Jabot Podcast, career advice for lawyers, patent litigation, jury trial strategy, law school advice, big law culture, legal career path Episode Highlights [00:00:35 - 00:01:15] Gloria explains why storytelling, not the law itself, drew her to law school. [00:03:45 - 00:04:30] "Facts are facts. You can't really change it," but there's always a way to frame them accurately. [00:06:45 - 00:07:15] The "why not me" mantra that got Gloria through Big Law without a family roadmap. [00:08:45 - 00:09:15] Why attention to detail, not theatrics, makes a strong litigator. [00:11:15 - 00:12:15] Why Gloria chose a litigation-only boutique over a full-service firm. [00:16:15 - 00:17:30] Gloria's first deposition, taken alone eight weeks into her career. [00:19:00 - 00:20:15] How church, choir, and kickboxing keep Gloria grounded. [00:20:45 - 00:22:00] The pro bono case representing the parents of a girl who died in CBP custody. [00:23:35 - 00:24:20] Gloria's advice: "Go for it. Have that why not me mentality."

One of the most overlooked skills in BigLaw is understanding law firms actually solve problems. Many associates, and even some partners, assume that if they raise an issue with the "right" person and nothing changes, it means no one cares or the firm is unwilling to help. In reality, many workplace frustrations stem from misunderstanding who has the authority to solve a problem, how responsibility is distributed across a large organization, or whether the problem has an owner at all. Learning to distinguish between those situations changes how you approach difficult conversations and helps you navigate your firm far more effectively. Throughout the episode, I explain the three categories of organizational problems every lawyer should recognize: problems with a clear owner, problems with multiple owners, and problems with no owner at all. I share practical examples involving excessive workloads, staffing shortages, associate development, difficult partners, and HR limitations to demonstrate why many common BigLaw frustrations persist. I also discuss how to present concerns in a way that emphasizes business risk rather than personal frustration, why offering multiple potential solutions produces better conversations with firm leadership, and how recognizing ownerless problems can help you decide whether to adapt, coordinate change, or reconsider whether your firm's culture aligns with your long-term career goals. At a Glance 01:20 Why getting "Have you talked to your supervising partner?" often doesn't solve the real problem 02:48 The three types of organizational problems every BigLaw lawyer should recognize 03:22 Why an overworked associate may be asking the wrong person for a staffing solution 04:58 Why law firms function more like networks than traditional organizational charts 05:55 What HR can and cannot realistically change inside most large law firms 07:20 How to identify who actually owns a problem instead of assuming who should own it 08:37 Why some of the firm's biggest problems exist because no one owns them 09:21 The staffing example that illustrates how fragmented responsibility creates burnout 10:12 Why associate training often falls through the cracks despite everyone's good intentions 11:04 How firms allow difficult but highly profitable partners to remain unchanged 11:56 Presenting workload concerns as a client service and business risk instead of a personal complaint 12:54 Why giving leaders multiple solutions creates more productive conversations 13:41 What to do when you've exhausted every formal avenue and nothing changes 14:29 How informal leadership and connecting decision-makers can solve problems without formal authority 15:22 Recognizing when an ownerless problem reflects your firm's culture rather than a temporary obstacle 16:08 Why understanding organizations is as important as understanding the law for long-term success For Apple Podcasts, click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select "Write a Review." Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, follow the podcast here!  For Spotify, tap here on your mobile phone, follow the podcast, listen to the show, then find the rating icon below the description, and tap to rate with five stars. Interested in doing 1-2-1 coaching with Laura Terrell? Or learning more about her work coaching and consulting? Here are ways to reach out to her: www.lauraterrell.com  laura@lauraterrell.com   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauralterrell/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraterrellcoaching/  Show notes: https://www.lauraterrell.com/podcast  

In this week's Legal Speak episode, London-based Law.com International reporter Melina Block sits down with global CEO Justin D'Agostino to reflect on HSF Kramer's first year of operation, following its landmark transatlantic merger. In addition discussing the firm's evolution amid rapid change in the legal industry and global economy, D'Agostino reveals how HSF Kramer is navigating geopolitical uncertainty, shifting client demands, and the growing influence of artificial intelligence in legal services. The conversation also highlights the firm's approach to innovation, the future of Big Law, and the unexpected role of high-profile legal AI advertising campaigns—including those featuring Jude Law—in shaping the public conversation around the future of legal technology.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Reporter: Melina Block Guest: Justin D'Agostino Producer: Charles Garnar  

Billable hours are far more than an administrative task in BigLaw. While most associates focus on meeting annual hours targets, the way you record your time in fact directly influences how partners, clients, and firm leadership evaluate your judgment, efficiency, and long-term value. Every time entry tells a story about the work you performed, the problems you solved, and whether your time was spent in a way that clients will view as something reasonable. Learning how to communicate that value through thoughtful billing descriptions, understanding what clients are actually willing to pay for, and recognizing the financial realities behind realization rates can significantly strengthen both your reputation and your career. Throughout the episode, I discuss practical billing strategies that many associates are never formally taught, including when it matters most to avoid vague time entries , recognizing when work should not be billed, understanding how staffing decisions are influenced by billing data, and distinguishing between productive hours that build long-term career opportunities and hours that simply fill annual targets. Rather than treating billable hours as a necessary task but not a measure of maturity and development, I explain how experienced lawyers use billing judgment as one component of developing stronger client relationships, better business judgment, and greater trust within the firm. At a Glance 01:20 Why billable hours should be viewed as a communication tool instead of an administrative task 03:51 Understanding what clients are actually paying for and how that should shape billing judgment 05:33 Why the "hero lawyer" mentality often hurts both profitability and career development 06:24 The difference between recorded hours and realization, and why partners pay attention to both 07:28 How to identify matters that generate sustainable, profitable work instead of constant write-offs 08:25 Avoiding the invisible work problem and understanding what preparation is legitimately billable 09:08 When exercising billing restraint actually strengthens your credibility with partners and clients 10:17 Why detailed time entries become even more important during a matter's busiest periods 11:01 How billing data quietly influences staffing decisions and performance evaluations 12:05 Why month-end billing spikes may damage credibility inside the firm 13:02 Why billable hours alone are not a long-term partnership strategy 13:55 The difference between productive hours that build your career and hours that simply satisfy annual targets 15:27 How experienced lawyers develop the judgment to consistently bill the right amount of time For Apple Podcasts, click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select "Write a Review." Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, follow the podcast here!  For Spotify, tap here on your mobile phone, follow the podcast, listen to the show, then find the rating icon below the description, and tap to rate with five stars. Interested in doing 1-2-1 coaching with Laura Terrell? Or learning more about her work coaching and consulting? Here are ways to reach out to her: www.lauraterrell.com  laura@lauraterrell.com   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauralterrell/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraterrellcoaching/  Show notes: https://www.lauraterrell.com/podcast

My guest today,  Michelle Gessner, joined the podcast back in December of 2024, where we discussed her $21 million verdict against Wells Fargo. Today she's back with the story of a recent verdict success in North Carolina, which suddenly hit an unexpected twist. The case was planned out to make use of high tech video equipment and software, as you would find in a standard, modern equipped court room. But then, it was moved to courtroom that had no technology; in fact, only a single outlet with extension cords. No microphones, no TVs, no projectors. Just old-school visual tools: easels, display boards, pen and notepads, and the projection of your own voice. So how does one pivot, and still incorporate the planned visuals and presentation? AI to the rescue! What was already a useful tool was now needed to address the extra challenge of creating courtroom visuals in a no-technology courtroom. Michelle and I explore how she started by using focus groups to find out weaknesses, then identified what needed to be visual, how to be visual under these unique circumstances, and ultimately AI's creative suggestions. And the focus groups were the key, providing critical demonstratives to bring to life the evidence very early in the case. If you want more trial prep strategies just like this, but in more depth and delivered straight to your inbox, grab my email newsletter that I send out each month: https://www.larricklawfirm.com/newsletter In this episode, we cover: How navigating a no-technology courtroom requires creative thinking. AI is a major asset in effective trial preparation, especially during sudden pivots. Using checklists can streamline witness examination. Objection-proof visuals are key to effective presentations. Remember to check out Episodes 128 & 129, featuring Michelle Gessner and her $21 million dollar verdict against Wells Fargo: Part 1 [Ep 128] Part 2 [Ep 129] You can also watch today's episode on my YouTube Channel: AI for Winning Courtroom Visuals: Case Study with Michelle Gessner [Ep 170]   Learn more about my guest Michelle Gessner: https://www.mgessnerlaw.com/ michelle@mgessnerlaw.com Michelle Gessner is one of the few lawyers, if not the only lawyer, in North Carolina who has both Big Law and Big Company defense experience, as well as 10 years of employee-side employment litigation experience, which she has been nearly exclusively handling since 2015.  Michelle possesses a deep understanding of the many challenges employees face dealing with wage theft and other illegal employment practices. Prior to its formation, Michelle gained extensive experience in all legal issues facing the retail, restaurant, and hospitality industries by serving as the Chief Litigation and Employment Law Counsel for publicly traded companies such as Family Dollar Stores, Inc. (FDO), Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI), Big Lots Stores, Inc. (BIG) and TriNet (TNET). Michelle also served as the SVP, General Counsel, and Chief Administrative Officer for Ovation Brands, a privately held $1 billion restaurant company. Follow and Review: We'd love for you to follow us if you haven't yet. Click that purple '+' in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We'd love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select "Ratings and Reviews" and "Write a Review" then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast. Have a trial or mediation coming up and want to test with a focus group? Book a free consultation call with Elizabeth to learn more: www.calendly.com/elizabethlarrick Don't miss out on the Trial Lawyer Prep Newsletter that is delivered right to your email with extra tips and 'how to' information. Join the newsletter here:  www.larricklawfirm.com/newsletter

Charles Star thought he'd become a union-side labor lawyer but like many law students, he followed the pull of Big Law instead. The prestige and paycheck were there, but the work left him unfulfilled. Charles walked away to pursue stand-up comedy, supporting himself as a hourly contract lawyer. Eventually he landed on the plaintiff side, where he works as a staff attorney on consumer class actions and feels connected to the work. In this episode, Charles reflects on golden handcuffs, career pivots, and what it takes to find a legal path that fits. Charles is a graduate of Columbia Law School.This episode is hosted by Katya Valasek.Mentioned in this episode:Learn more about Juno and private student loansAccess LawHub today!Learn more about Haynes Boone LLP

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERETired of the billable hour, overlearning, and feeling like your tech stack still owns you? In this episode, Tyson Mutrux sits down with subscription‑based attorney and Practi co‑founder Mathew Kerbis to break down exactly how AI tools like Perplexity, WhisperFlow, Paxton, Gemini, and agentic workflows are reshaping how modern law firms are built and run. You'll hear how Mathew went from insurance defense litigator to “AI‑native” transactional lawyer, why he believes the billable hour is bad for both clients and lawyers, and how subscription models and recurring revenue can unlock more freedom, better margins, and a saner life.They dig into real‑world examples: using AI dictation and desktop agents to draft and format complex contracts, running redlines across multiple tools, replacing parts of traditional case management, and orchestrating systems so that actual legal work keeps happening while Mathew is teaching a CLE or recording a podcast. Tyson and Mathew also wrestle with big‑picture trends, MSOs and private equity in law, BigLaw's addiction to the billable hour, and how bar regulators and ethics rules might respond to the AI wave. If you're a law firm owner wondering how to actually use AI to save time, make more money, and serve clients better (instead of just “playing” with tools), this one is packed with practical insights.What You'll LearnWhy the billable hour breaks incentives and how subscription/flat fees create better results for lawyers and clientsHow Mathew's AI stack (Perplexity, WhisperFlow, Paxton, Gemini, Google Workspace) powers his daily legal workWhat agentic workflows look like in practice for reviewing, redlining, and improving complex contractsHow WhisperFlow lets him talk instead of type across apps and replace traditional dictationWhy he runs his practice on Google Docs, NotebookLM, and AI search instead of case management softwareHow standardized templates plus AI speed up NDAs, MSAs, and other routine documentsThe core business model behind Practi and how it helps firms launch subscription legal servicesWhy solos and small firms may be better positioned than BigLaw in an AI‑driven legal marketHighlights00:00 – Challenging the status quo and taking aim at the billable hour06:10 – Lawyers as “professional students” and the trap of endless overlearning09:01 – Why many women and lawyers of color leave BigLaw to start their own firms12:10 – Perplexity, WhisperFlow, and Paxton as Mathew's core AI tools15:01 – Using WhisperFlow for OS‑level dictation, prompts, and text expansion27:43 – Orchestrating AI tools to clean up, analyze, and redline contracts at scale31:00 – Running a subscription practice on Google Workspace and NotebookLM45:15 – MSOs, private equity, and why Practi is being built as an alternative path49:08 – How subscriptions and recurring revenue unlock growth beyond hourly billing56:59 – Letting AI run recurring tasks so work continues while you're offlineAccess Agentic Browser Redlines Demo HereConnect with Mathew KebrisLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerbisverse/

But Sam Alito still has a job. ----- The Fourteenth Amendment lays out birthright citizenship in clear terms. Every subsequent legal challenge and all the scholarly work on the subject -- until about a year ago -- agreed on how to read it. Yet, the Supreme Court still managed to split on the question, with a 6-3 decision knocking down Donald Trump's executive order purporting to overturn the key constitutional provision -- that was more accurately 5-4, with Kavanaugh agreeing with the result on other grounds, but joining the dissent in erasing the Fourteenth Amendment. Or maybe it was 6-3 with an asterisk, because Neil Gorsuch went rogue, mostly agreeing with birthright citizenship in the only scenario the Trump administration really wanted to snuff out. Chief Justice Roberts also took his burning desire to be seen as the middle of the Court comically too far, authoring contradictory opinions back-to-back. And Sam Alito did not retire, despite reports. And in Biglaw, we continue to wonder where all the raises are.

Ari Redbord sits down with Katherine, Jessi, and Vy to talk about SEC clarity, the onshore perps boom, and DeFi's opsec problem — plus why the U.S. should hack North Korea back. Thank you to our sponsor! Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained (use code: UNCHAINED). The hosts of DEX in the City spend every week breaking down crypto's legal fights. This time, they're the ones answering the questions. Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, sits down with Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks, and Vy Le for a wide-ranging conversation on where crypto's regulatory and security battles are actually headed. Vy traces her path from SEC enforcement to her case for "tech-neutral" rules: regulators should regulate outcomes, not technology. Katherine explains why DCMs have become crypto's hottest acronym, as true perps and prediction markets move onshore. And Jessi makes her push to stop calling North Korea's hacks "illicit finance" and start naming them a national security threat: Pyongyang, she notes, is funding a weapons program with stolen crypto. Ari goes further — if North Korea can steal hundreds of millions from DeFi, the U.S. should steal it back. Vy pushes back on the panic over the recent hacks: most, she argues, weren't broken smart contracts at all, just sloppy operational security. The conversation covers SEC clarity, the CFTC's moment, DeFi security, on-chain privacy, and what it really takes to keep the ecosystem safe. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ari Redbord - Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs and Host of TRM Talks Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel. Previously held senior legal roles across DeFi and centralized exchanges. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jessi Brooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, General Counsel at Ribbit Capital⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vy Le⁠⁠⁠ - Co-host of DEX in the City and General Counsel of Veda Timestamps

#352: If you've ever felt the pressure to say yes to everything — every opportunity, every invitation, every trending topic — just because it's available, this conversation is for you. Today I'm welcoming Eni Popoola back to the podcaster. Eni is a content creator, storyteller, and former lawyer, who left Big Law three years ago and has spent every day since building a path that's entirely her own.Eni gets real about what it actually feels like to walk away from a plan you've had your whole life, why she's stopped chasing virality and started chasing alignment, and the subtle but powerful difference between friends who agree with you and friends who truly get you. We also get into what visibility has taught her about herself, how she thinks about privacy as a professional boundary, and why the soft life is something you work hard for — not something that just happens.This episode is for you if:You're wondering whether the "impressive" path is actually the right one for youYou've gone viral and realized it wasn't what you thought it would beYou want to build a following that's small but mighty and deeply alignedYou're trying to figure out what to share online and what to keep for yourselfYou're in your 30s (or approaching them) and finally starting to care less about what people thinkWe talk about...What it felt like to leave law with no plan and no expectations — and why that was actually freeingWhy she's stopped trying to go viral and what she's chasing insteadThe "appropriateness epidemic" and how she decides what belongs on the internet vs. the group chatHow increased visibility taught her she's more social than she ever thoughtWhy her friends don't have to agree with her — but they do have to understand herThe journaling practice that helps her know herself well enough to pick the right peopleWhat running her business "like a CEO" actually looks like day to dayWhy she includes a therapist on her professional teamTravel as a creative necessity — and all the places she's headed nextWhat luck means to her: you can't have it without the work behind itEpisode Links:Watch episode 206, The SECRET to Choosing Yourself with Eni Popoola: https://youtu.be/ewjZAqS-KaQ?si=6b36EVB6UhLkkPVKFollow Eni on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/enigivensunday/Follow Eni on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@enigivensunday?lang=enSponsors:IM8: IM8's Daily Ultimate Essentials replaces 16 supplements in one single drink. Go to IM8health.com/lucky and use code LUCKY for a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, plus 10% off your order.Quince: Get your summer wardrobe essentials at Quince. Go to quince.com/balancedles for free shipping and 365-day returns. Bask and Lather: Explore viral bestsellers and products of healthier hair of ALL types from Bask and Lather. Go to baskandlatherco.com and use code LUCKY for 20% off.Connect with Les:Ready to apply what you hear? Subscribe to the She's So Lucky Newsletter to get weekly episode guides and journal prompts: https://shessolucky.kit.com/newsletterSubscribe to The Lucky Playbook on Substack: https://lesalfred.substack.com/Follow Les on IG @lesalfredFollow She's So Lucky on IG @shessoluckypodFollow Les on TikTok @theluckylesFollow She's So Lucky on TikTokVisit our website at shessoluckypodcast.comThis episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.Produced by Dear Media See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.