How I Lawyer Podcast with Jonah Perlin

In this episode I speak with Ashley Herd who is the founder and CEO of Manager Method where she helps employers and employees through training, coaching and tools that are engaging and actionable. Previously she was the SVP of People & Legal at Modern Luxury, an Associate General Counsel at McKinsey, a Legal Director at Yum foods, as well as in-house counsel at several other companies and as an employment lawyer at several private law firms. You may have seen Ashley on LinkedIn or TikTok where she has more than 120,000 followers for her fun and interesting videos to teach about HR and legal issues. Ashley is a graduate of Emory Law and Centre College. In our conversation we discuss her decision to become a lawyer from a very young age; the impact of her pre-law school work in corporate America on her professional journey; why she loves working in the employment & HR space; the differences between employment litigation, employment counseling, and day-to-day human resources; how to connect the human parts of her work to the professional and legal requirements; how to share bad news in ways that are effective; what she learned by leaving a great job to move to Australia with her family for several years; why (and how) she became a content creator and how that plays a (mostly) positive role in her professional life; and more.  This episode is sponsored, edited, and engineered by LawPods, a professional podcast production company for busy attorneys. *** Want to Support the Podcast in 2 minutes or less? Leave a Review (this helps the algorithm connect me to new listeners) Subscribe on iTunes or Spotify Purchase How I Lawyer Merchandise Share on LinkedIn or Twitter

In this episode I speak with Helen Wan. Helen is an author, speaker, and diversity and inclusion consultant who previously worked as a corporate, media, and intellectual property lawyer at law firms and in-house. She is best known as the author of The Partner Track which was recently turned into an original TV series on Netflix. Helen was born in California and raised in Northern Virginia. She is a graduate of Amherst College, UVA Law, and my alma mater Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology.  In our conversation we discuss her path from being in the law to writing about it, the real life foundations of the fictional world she created in The Partner Track, the similarities and differences between the life of a novelist and the life of a lawyer, the ways in which her fictional work seeks to shed light on the shortcomings of our profession, the path from novel to Netflix Original Series, and her views on how to have meaningful and productive conversations about difficult subjects like race in professional spaces. This episode is sponsored, edited, and engineered by LawPods, a professional podcast production company for busy attorneys. *** Want to Support the Podcast in 2 minutes or less? Leave a Review (this helps the algorithm connect me to new listeners) Subscribe on iTunes or Spotify Purchase How I Lawyer Merchandise Share on LinkedIn or Twitter.

In today’s episode I am excited to speak with Housing Rights Attorney Sateesh Nori. Sateesh went from pursuing human rights law as a career to working in housing court in Brooklyn. He spent more than twenty years as a legal services attorney at The Legal Aid Society of New York City (including most recently as Attorney in Charge of the Queens Neighborhood Office) and Bedford Stuyvesant Community Legal Services. In those two decades Sateesh became a manager, started teaching as a clinical adjunct at NYU, wrote a book, and even ran for judge. Born in India, Sateesh was the first South Asian attorney to direct a borough-wide office of a legal services organization in New York City. This past spring he took a step back from his front lines representation in housing court to join JustFix, a tech company focused on providing access to justice in the housing space. In our conversation we discuss his somewhat circuitous path to Housing Rights Attorney (and why he almost never practiced as an attorney at all), the unique nature of housing court, managing a significant and court-intensive docket, working in a broken system, his transition to legal tech, the use of technology as a path to greater access to justice, and more.  This episode is sponsored, edited, and engineered by LawPods, a professional podcast production company for busy attorneys. *** Want to Support the Podcast in 2 minutes or less? Leave a Review (this helps the algorithm connect me to new listeners) Subscribe on iTunes or Spotify Purchase How I Lawyer Merchandise Share on LinkedIn or Twitter.

In today’s episode, I speak with Megan Cacace who is a civil rights lawyer and anti-discrimination advocate focused on the intersection of civil rights and technology. She currently serves as the Director of Anti-Discrimination & Equity Programs at Airbnb. Previously she worked as a civil rights lawyer at the law firm of Relman Colfax for almost 14 years. In that role, in addition to plaintiff-side civil rights litigation, she worked on civil rights audits including Facebook’s 2020 Audit. Before joining Relman Colfax, she was a Fellow at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. She started her career as a law clerk to Judge Morris Lasker of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.  In our conversation we discuss her path to civil rights law, her work first as a litigator and now as an in-house anti-discrimination and equity programs leader, the importance of showing demonstrated interested in getting a public interest job, civil rights audit and advising on civil rights best practices, how to prepare for an unknown future when planning a legal career, the importance of passion in your professional life, and more.  This episode is sponsored, edited, and engineered by LawPods, a professional podcast production company for busy attorneys.  *** Want to Support the Podcast in 2 minutes or less? Leave a Review (this helps the algorithm connect me to new listeners) Subscribe on iTunes or Spotify Purchase How I Lawyer Merchandise Share on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Professor Mauricio Noroña, an immigration law specialist, shares insights on his unique path to immigration law, challenges faced by lawyers and clients in this practice area, and his experiences as an immigrant. He discusses different roles as a solo practitioner, non-profit supervisor, and clinical professor. The conversation covers the complexities of immigration law, ethical considerations, navigating work-life balance, and motivations for clinical teaching in law education.

In today's episode I speak with M.C. Sungaila who is an Orange County-based shareholder and leader of the appellate practice at Buchalter. M.C. has briefed and argued appeals in a number of different practice areas at the California Supreme Court and throughout the country. She has won numerous awards including California Lawyer of the Year from California Lawyer Magazine and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. In addition to her practice, M.C. is active in pro bono and professional organizations. Among them, she is the co-chair of the Appellate Practice Committee for the ABA & is active in the National Association of Women Lawyers. She writes and speaks in popular and trade publications and has taught appellate law as an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School for a number of years. She is also the host of the absolutely fabulous podcast, the Portia Project, which interviews women on their path to the bench, the bar, and beyond. To quote Hamilton (sort of), the woman is non-stop! In our conversation we discuss her path to appellate law (and what she loves about it), the pace of her practice, why she thinks that oral argument matters, her writing process (and why having a writing process is so important), the great parts about doing a clinic, the business side of appellate law, why she started the Portia Project Podcast and what she's learned from interviewing top female lawyers, and more. This episode is sponsored, edited, and engineered by LawPods, a professional podcast production company for busy attorneys. *** Want to Support the Podcast in 2 minutes or less? Leave a Review (this helps the algorithm connect me to new listeners) Subscribe on iTunes or Spotify Purchase How I Lawyer Merchandise Share on LinkedIn or Twitter.

In today's episode I speak with Paresh Patel who is currently the Chief of Appeals at the Office of the Federal Defender for the District of Maryland where he has worked for the past 18 years. In this role he represents clients on post conviction matters including direct appeal and federal habeas. He also assists trial attorneys on complex legal issues that arise in their cases. In our conversation we discuss his path to becoming a public defender, the unique role of an appellate lawyer in the federal criminal system, the ways criminal law and criminal prosecutors have changed over the past two decades and how those changes have affected his role, how he drafts briefs and prepares for oral argument, the process for becoming a public defender, the impact of storytelling in his writing, the strategy of balancing the arguments of individual clients and other similarly situated criminal defendants, and the power of on the job learning as a young lawyer. This episode is sponsored, edited, and engineered by LawPods, a professional podcast production company for busy attorneys. *** Want to Support the Podcast in 2 minutes or less? Leave a Review (this helps the algorithm connect me to new listeners) Subscribe on iTunes or Spotify Purchase How I Lawyer Merchandise Share on LinkedIn or Twitter. 

In today’s episode I speak with my dear friend Micah Gibson who is an International Tax Director at Big 4 accounting firm PWC based in Washington, D.C. In this role, Micah helps global businesses structure their tax arrangements to support their strategic goals. He joined PWC more than 8 years ago after completing his JD and LLM in Tax from Georgetown Law. During his time at Georgetown he was an extern for Judge Albert G. Lauber on the United States Tax Court.  In our conversation we talk about what makes tax such a unique area of practice, why being a tax lawyer is exciting because it requires creativity, the difference between working for a law firm and an accounting firm, how he works with clients both internal and external, the way he stays up-to-date in such a fast-changing area of law by digesting the never-ending stream of information in effective ways, the importance of specialization in his area of practice but also the value of having a network who can help you in other areas, the benefit of embracing "hard things," the importance of working with great people, the experience and value of being on the ground during a change in the law, and more. If you enjoy this episode, please make sure to sign up for future episodes at www.howilawyer.com or to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored, edited, and engineered by LawPods, a professional podcast production company for busy attorneys.

Alé Dalton, a healthcare transactional attorney, discusses her journey as a first-generation lawyer, the importance of finding a niche in law practice, and leveraging social media for networking. She provides insights into the complexities of healthcare transactions, emphasizing the need for clear communication in M&A deals. The podcast also touches on the significance of curiosity and mentorship for new lawyers entering the field.

In today’s episode I speak with Christine E. Webber who is a leading plaintiff-side class-action civil rights & employment attorney. Christine is a Partner and Co-Chair of the Civil Rights & Employment practice group at Cohen Milstein. In this role, she represents victims of discrimination and wage and hour violations in class and collective actions. She has represented clients in some of the largest, groundbreaking discrimination and Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) class and collective actions in the United States. She has been recognized with numerous of awards for her work and has served as a leader in a number of employment-law related organizations. Christine started her career as a law clerk to Judge Will on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and as a Fellow at the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights. In our conversation we discuss her path to law which began by lobbying for more rights for girls in her 3rd-grade classroom, the differences between changing the law through policy and through litigation, the importance of seeing both the big picture and the narrow details in plaintiff-side class action work, how she prepares for depositions (in her words, it is like putting a puzzle together without having the picture on the box) and the importance of both planning and flexibility in that process, why she loves working with statistical experts who are so important to her cases, how "winning" differs as a plaintiff-side class action lawyer, the skills that make newer lawyers stand out in her experience (research, details, preparation), why her decision to take a risk early on and jump at an uncertain opportunity made the rest of her career possible, and the various paths to the kind of work that she does. If you enjoy this episode, please make sure to sign up for future episodes at www.howilawyer.com or to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored, edited, and engineered by LawPods, a professional podcast production company for busy attorneys.