Latte With a Lawyer

Welcome to Latte with a Lawyer—a leading podcast for attorneys exploring unique legal careers. In this episode, we sit down with Jim Heinen, an Intellectual Property partner at Armstrong Teasdale who feels more like a scientist than a lawyer. Jim shares his unconventional path from making paint and deck stains in a Sherwin-Williams lab to becoming a premier patent prosecutor. He explains how a talk from a Procter & Gamble representative steered him from a chemistry career into patent law, and why he advises aspiring IP attorneys to take the patent bar while still in law school, a lesson he learned after starting his own career as an employment attorney.

Jim demystifies the world of patent prosecution, detailing the process of taking an idea from an invention disclosure form to a fully issued patent from the USPTO. He outlines the critical traits for success in this demanding field: the 'mental agility' to juggle six or seven different inventions a week, the discipline to produce quality work under fixed-fee budgets, and the communication skills to manage deadlines across a global firm. He also gives a look inside his firm's powerhouse 70-attorney IP group and how they handle everything from biochemistry to complex software, making it a major driver of the firm's worldwide growth.

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Welcome to Latte with a Lawyer—the podcast for attorneys exploring the diverse paths to success in the legal field. In this episode, Ezra Alter of Eckert Seamans reveals how his deep study of the Talmud provided a powerful foundation for his career as a litigator, offering a unique 'leg up' in legal reasoning and document interpretation. Ezra discusses how this ancient legal framework shapes his modern defense practice in product liability and employment law, and shares why he's been called a 'misfit' with the righteous indignation of a plaintiff's lawyer working inside a large defense firm.

Ezra also pulls back the curtain on a complex wrongful death case, explaining how he won a unanimous appellate reversal for a French elevator component manufacturer on a crucial jurisdictional argument. He offers his candid perspective on the realities of modern civil litigation, where less than 1% of cases go to trial, and makes a compelling case for the value of a full three-year academic law school education, pushing back against the popular trend of experiential learning.

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FIRM Website: https://www.eckertseamans.com/

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Welcome back to Latte with a Lawyer—a leading podcast for attorneys exploring the strategies of top legal minds. In this episode, we sit down with Brandon M Schwartz, a former professional hockey player who traded the ice for the courtroom to become a formidable trial lawyer. Brandon explains how he and his father built Schwartz Law Firm into a litigation powerhouse by embracing an "old school" generalist approach in an era of hyper-specialization. He reveals the surprising key to their growth: how they can trace nearly 90% of their clients back to the tight-knit hockey community, proving that a powerful niche network can be a law firm's greatest asset.

Brandon shares his "arena mentality," explaining why he prefers being in the battle for his clients over managing a large team, a philosophy that keeps him personally invested in everything from shareholder disputes to a massive $17 billion patent infringement case. He offers a masterclass in modern trial practice, detailing how he prepares his cases with a core theme from day one and leverages technology like courtroom tablets to counter opposing counsel and win motions in real time. Brandon also gives a candid look into the dynamics of practicing with his father, sharing what it takes to build a successful family law firm and why learning from a "damn good lawyer" with a vested interest in your success is the ultimate career advantage.

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Welcome back to Latte with a Lawyer—the essential podcast for attorneys navigating the future of the profession. This episode features Anessa Santos, the founding attorney of IntelliLaw, who shares her incredible journey from single teenage mom to a leading voice in legal tech. Anessa gives a candid account of her strategic decision to enter law, only to be repeatedly stonewalled by Big Law's "pedigree problem." She reveals how the constant question, "Where did you go to law school?" became a career barrier, and how she ultimately shattered that wall by reinventing herself at the University of Oxford.

After being "accidentally orange pilled," Anessa describes tripping and falling down the blockchain rabbit hole—and building a thriving practice there. She demystifies the world of crypto law, detailing her work with Bitcoin ATM operators, digital asset marketplaces, and the complex regulations surrounding them. Anessa lays out a bold vision for the "tokenization of everything," explaining how blockchain will soon make entire industries like title insurance obsolete. She also provides a pragmatic look at AI's role in law, sharing how she uses tools like ChatGPT-4 and stressing the critical need for human verification of its "90% accurate" outputs.

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Firm Website: https://www.intellilaw.io/

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Welcome back to Latte with a Lawyer—a leading podcast for lawyers exploring unconventional career paths. This episode features Candice Shepard, who shares the harrowing story that forced her to abandon litigation. Candice recounts the moment a client—serving seven consecutive life terms in federal prison—threatened her daughter, prompting her to get excused from the case and completely rethink her career. She explains how that terrifying pivot led her to found Shepard Law, a fast-growing transactional firm focused on what matters most: home and family.

Now the CEO and Managing Partner of her firm, Candice details the business strategies fueling her expansion to a fifth location, including a hub-and-spoke operational model and a rigorous, multi-stage hiring process designed to avoid the 'painful lesson' of forcing a 'round peg into a square hole.' From her roots in a tiny Midwestern town to building a paperless, tech-forward practice in the booming Charlotte market, Candice offers candid advice on finding your purpose, asking for what you want, and building a firm that aligns with your deepest personal values.

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Welcome back to Latte with a Lawyer—the dynamic podcast for attorneys seeking to master the art of persuasion. In this episode, we sit down with Susan Young, a former award-winning journalist who once didn't speak until age four. Now a sought-after story and speaker coach, Susan explains why 'you are the message' and reveals her powerful 'Avoid JAR' framework for stripping Jargon, Adjectives, and Rhetoric from your communication. She explains how to command attention in a world where you have just 8.5 seconds—the attention span of a goldfish—to make your point and connect with an audience, client, or jury.

Susan pulls back the curtain on her unique process for unearthing a compelling narrative, using what she calls a 'Mad Libs' style of questioning to find the story you don't even know you have. She shares practical tips for transforming dry, text-heavy presentations into engaging talks, and explains why professionals who 'know how to build a room but not how to read it' are losing business. Drawing on her training in Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) and the 'street smarts' wisdom of her Brooklyn grandmother, Susan provides a masterclass in using your personal story to build rapport, establish credibility, and grow your practice.

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Welcome back to Latte with a Lawyer—the essential podcast for attorneys exploring unique legal career paths. This episode features S. Jay Goodman, an energy law partner at Couch White, LLP, who took one of the most unconventional routes to the profession: earning a PhD in cell biology before ever stepping into a law school classroom. Jay explains how he pivoted from studying nematode worms to representing associations of large industrial companies, hospitals, and governmental entities in complex regulatory battles over utility rates and energy policy.

Jay breaks down the nuts and bolts of his highly-specialized practice, from intervening in multi-million dollar rate cases to shaping the policies that govern the clean energy transition. He shares how his scientific background gives him an edge, allowing him to dive into primary research on everything from the effects of electromagnetic fields on fish to the engineering challenges of grid reliability. Jay also details his strategy of reframing arguments—moving beyond simple cost concerns to advocate for clients based on cutting-edge technology development and statewide economic benefits, offering a masterclass in creative advocacy for any lawyer.

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Welcome back to Latte with a Lawyer, a leading podcast for lawyers dissecting the strategies of America's top litigators. This week, host Jonathan Brickman sits down with Chicago trial attorney Brian LaCien, who reveals how he tackles high-stakes product liability and medical malpractice cases. Brian explains his core philosophy of out-preparing the opposition, especially when deposing corporate engineers and medical experts who have all the inside information. He details the evolution of discovery from the 'warehouse box review' days early in his career to the modern challenge of sifting through document dumps of two million files to find the handful of documents that will make or break a case.

Brian pulls back the curtain on a complex case involving a fatal helicopter crash, detailing the fight to hold foreign component manufacturers accountable under the 'stream of commerce' doctrine—a battle that went all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court. He shares how, as the son of a judge, he developed an unwavering faith in the jury system as the one place an individual can achieve 'equal footing' with a massive corporation. Listen in to hear Brian’s tactical approach to distilling overwhelming data into the 'six to ten key documents' needed to prove catastrophic negligence and win justice for his clients.

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Welcome back to Latte with a Lawyer—the essential podcast for attorneys looking to master the business of law. This episode features Davina Frederick, founder of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, who is on a mission to help women-led firms shatter the seven-figure revenue ceiling. After building her own law practice to rapid success only to face crippling burnout, Davina realized that lawyers are trained to be great practitioners, not great CEOs. She shares the story of how she sold her first firm, recovered, and built a second, virtual firm on a new 'lifestyle' model, discovering the principles that now form the basis of her coaching.

Davina breaks down her powerful framework for transforming a law practice from a high-stress job into a sustainable, systems-driven business that can run without you. She explains why cultivating a 'wealth mindset' and destigmatizing conversations about money is the critical first step before implementing the seven essential systems outlined in her book, 'The Wealthy Woman Lawyer's Guide to Building a Systems Driven Law Firm Business.' Learn how she guides solo and small firm owners to escape the 'freelance lawyer' trap, build teams, and finally create a business that provides both wealth and freedom—allowing them to take a vacation without the entire firm grinding to a halt.

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Welcome back to Latte with a Lawyer—a dynamic podcast for attorneys charting the industry's most unconventional career paths. This episode features Keith A Rosten, a partner at Berliner Corcoran & Rowe whose journey defies any traditional legal trajectory. After a brief stint in Big Law litigation, Keith earned an MBA, pivoted to international development, and found himself on the front lines of history. He served as a Fulbright lecturer in Kazakhstan, taught economics in Russian, and spent 15 years helping build the legal infrastructure for a market economy in the chaotic, post-Soviet 90s, including living and working in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

But Keith's story doesn't stop there. After his international career, he launched his own solar energy products company, grew it for six years as a government contractor and e-commerce merchant, and successfully sold it to a private equity firm. Now, he channels that hard-won business and global experience into his practice as an outside general counsel for startups and small businesses. Keith explains how having been a founder, CEO, and government contractor himself allows him to provide uniquely valuable business counsel alongside his legal guidance, helping his clients navigate the same challenges he once faced in the trenches.

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Learn more about EmotionTrac and our AI-driven Emotional Intelligence Platform: https://legal.emotiontrac.com/