Despite three years of law school, passing the bar and snagging a job, lawyers often are plagued by feelings of being ill-equipped to handle the challenges that practicing law throws at them. They've got the credentials and they look the part, but they don't feel the part. Those feelings have a name: imposter syndrome. In this episode, Reed Smith associate Albert Farr talks about his own experiences with imposter syndrome. In addition, law career coach Jay Harrington, a former Skadden attorney, discusses how to turn those fears into assets. 

On this Legal Speak podcast, Supreme Court correspondent Marcia Coyle checks in with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr partner David Bowker, whose May 5 argument in USAID v Alliance for Open Society International was one of the first Supreme Court sessions to proceed by telephone. Bowker discusses the unexpected challenges and shares his advice for lawyers with cases on the docket.

Forget swanky lunches, cocktail parties and boat outings. The coronavirus pandemic means this year's summer associate programs, for those law firms still conducting them, are online endeavors at this point, as Zoom meetings replace law firms' best laid plans. You'll hear from Skadden’s Gavin White, a partner in New York who helps handle the firm’s summer associate program, and from Renee Griffin, who is finishing up her second year at Michigan Law School and who had big plans for a summer associate experience at Cleary Gottlieb in D.C. 

American Lawyer Editor-in-Chief Gina Passarella and Executive Editor Ben Seal share key takeaways from the new Am Law 100 report and explain what the numbers mean in light of the COVID-19 crisis. Later, reporter David Thomas talks with Altman Weil consultant James Cotterman about how law firms are responding to the economic downturn and what he sees as the industry’s biggest vulnerability.

In this episode, we hear from Randy Mastro, one of the most recognized litigators in the country, who describes the coming wave of lawsuits. Jenna Greene, editor of Law.com affiliate Litigation Daily, talks with the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner about bankruptcy litigation, insurance battles, labor and employment cases and how the coronavirus crisis is likely to present an array of novel legal issues. 

David Lat, founder of the blog Above the Law who’s now a legal recruiter, spent 17 days in the hospital—six of those on a ventilator—battling COVID-19. He talks about how he's changed by the experience and what life is like on the other side of a brush with death. Lat also shares what he thinks lies ahead for the legal profession as it struggles to adjust to the economic impact from the pandemic and what lessons it's learned from the 2008 recession. 

Hundreds of millions of people have flocked to the video conference platform Zoom to conduct business, to attend school and to socialize during the coronavirus pandemic. On this episode, Zoom's chief legal officer, Aparna Bawa, talks candidly about the company's unanticipated surge, how Zoom is helping people connect and some of the lessons she's learned from the crisis. Bawa joined Zoom in 2018 after stints at Magento Commerce, Nimble Storage and Inphi Corp. In this interview, she also describes the career experience that's been most critical to her success in-house and what she looks for in outside counsel.