Are you familiar with the world of private credit? If not, you should be. The rise of private credit—sometimes referred to as non-bank, alternative, or direct lending—is one of the most important developments in the American economy since the financial crisis and Great Recession.

Private credit is also one of the hottest practice areas in Biglaw. I’ve been meaning to have a podcast episode about it—for quite some time. And after The New York Times published a lengthy exposé on “the shadowy world of private credit” last month, on the front page of the Sunday business section, I decided the time had come.

I was therefore delighted to interview one of the country’s top private-credit lawyers, Jennifer Daly. A Chambers Band 1 lawyer for this field, Jenn leads the private-credit practice at Paul Hastings, a Chambers Band 1 firm in the space.

Our conversation offered an excellent overview of private credit. But even lawyers who are knowledgeable about the subject will enjoy hearing about Jenn’s unusual career journey, including several years away from the practice of law; why she and her group joined Paul Hastings, a magnet for lateral partners these days; her defense of private credit, in response to claims that it lacks sufficient regulation or transparency; and her predictions about the field’s future, which she believes to be bright.

Show Notes:

* Jennifer E. Daly bio, Paul Hastings LLP

* Paul Hastings Adds Premier Restructuring and Private-Credit Team, Paul Hastings LLP

* Wall St. Is Minting Easy Money From Risky Loans. What Could Go Wrong? (gift link), by Rob Copeland and Maureen Farrell for The New York Times

Prefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.

Sponsored 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 at nexfirm dot com.

As 2024 draws to a close, I’ve been reflecting on the most important topics and trends that shaped the legal profession this year. At or near the top of the list, of course, was artificial intelligence. How will AI transform the practice of law and the legal profession? How will it affect employment opportunities for attorneys? What changes will it bring to legal education and the training of young lawyers?

I tackled all of these topics in the latest episode of the Original Jurisdiction podcast, in conversation with Ross Guberman. One of the nation’s leading authorities on legal writing, Ross has conducted thousands of writing workshops and has written two authoritative books on the topic, Point Made: How to Write Like the Nation’s Top Advocates and Point Taken: How to Write Like the World’s Greatest Judges.

Ross’s most recent venture is BriefCatch, a legal-tech startup that produces an amazing writing and editing tool of the same name. It harnesses the power of technology, including AI, to help lawyers produce their very best written work product.

And as Ross revealed in our conversation, BriefCatch has used AI to address one of legal writing’s most annoying aspects: Bluebooking, i.e., adherence to the copious, complex, confusing conventions for citing authorities of different types. If you hate The Bluebook, then you’ll love this forthcoming addition to BriefCatch. Congrats to Ross and his colleagues on this incredible innovation. (Disclosure: I’m on the BriefCatch board.)

Show Notes:

* Ross Guberman bio, Legal Writing Pro

* BriefCatch, official website

* Point Made: How to Write Like the Nation's Top Advocates, Amazon

* Point Taken: How to Write Like the World's Best Judges, Amazon

Prefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.

Sponsored 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 at nexfirm dot com.

Early wishes for a happy Thanksgiving. As the holiday season gets underway, those of us who have so much to be thankful for should think about—and reach out to help—those who are less fortunate. So as I did last year, I’m using my Thanksgiving podcast episode to shine the spotlight on a lawyer who has devoted their entire career to working in the public interest.

Amol Sinha is a nationally recognized civil-rights leader who has dedicated his career to advancing racial justice, holding institutions accountable, promoting and defending rights and liberties, and spearheading impactful work to protect democracy. Since 2017, he has served as executive director of the ACLU of New Jersey (ACLU-NJ)—which has doubled in size, and tripled in terms of its budget, under his leadership.

In our conversation, Amol and I discussed his long career in public-interest law, including his past positions at the Innocence Project and the New York Civil Liberties Union; what he’s most proud of during his time at the ACLU-NJ, including groundbreaking decarceration efforts; his response to critics claiming that the ACLU has abandoned its commitment to free speech in favor of “woke” causes; and, in a very timely discussion in light of the recent election, what he and his ACLU colleagues across the country are focusing on as Donald Trump returns to the White House.

For the past seven years, Amol has been working in my home state of New Jersey. As someone who grew up in and currently lives in the Garden State, I was especially interested in hearing about what he’s been up to—and I hope you will be as well.

Show Notes:

* Amol Sinha bio, ACLU of New Jersey

* Our Roadmap to Protecting Democracy and Holding Trump Accountable, by Amol Sinha for the ACLU-NJ

Prefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.

Sponsored 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 at nexfirm dot com.

Veterans Day was last week, so it was very fitting that I interviewed Beth Wilkinson, one of the nation’s top trial lawyers and founding partner of Wilkinson Stekloff. After graduating from Princeton and UVA Law, she began her career as a lawyer in the Army JAG Corps. She then continued her public service by working as a federal prosecutor, where she successfully prosecuted the Oklahoma City bombers.

Over the decades, Beth has handled—and won—many other consequential cases. Earlier this year, she led the trial team that secured judgment as a matter of law for the NFL in the multibillion-dollar Sunday Ticket litigation. Last year, she served as lead trial counsel for Microsoft in the FTC’s challenge to Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision—and her victory allowed that $68.7 billion deal to go through. And she shows no signs of slowing down: she was recently retained by Visa to defend the payments giant in a bet-the-company antitrust case.

Thanks to Beth for joining me to discuss her fascinating career and cases—and, of course, for her many years of service to our nation.

Show Notes:

* Beth Wilkinson bio, Wilkinson Stekloff

* Beth Wilkinson bio, Wikipedia

* Beth Wilkinson profile, Chambers and Partners

Prefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.

Sponsored 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 at nexfirm dot com.

Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at [email protected]. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here.

If you ever get prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, I wish you luck—because you’ll need it. “The Office” has a very high conviction rate—and, like most U.S. Attorney’s Offices, the vast majority of its convictions get affirmed on appeal.

If you want to maximize your chances of either prevailing at trial or on appeal against the S.D.N.Y., then you should call Alexandra Shapiro (if you can afford her). She’s the rare lawyer who can go up against The Office and win—whether at trial, in the Second Circuit, or before the U.S. Supreme Court.

An alum of the S.D.N.Y. herself, as well as a former law clerk to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Alexandra is the co-founder (with Cynthia Arato) of a thriving boutique, Shapiro Arato Bach. Having her own firm allows Alexandra to take on cases and clients that she might not have been able to handle back when she was a partner at Latham & Watkins—whether because of client conflicts, the desire of large firms to steer clear of controversy, or Biglaw billing rates (because even if she’s expensive, she’s not Latham expensive, plus she enjoys more rate flexibility than a large firm).

Speaking of controversy, Alexandra currently represents two high-profile defendants going up against The Office: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, appealing his fraud convictions to the Second Circuit, and Sean “Diddy” Combs, scheduled to go to trial in May 2025 on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges. She discusses these cases (to the extent that she can)—as well as her own interesting and impressive career, her approach to crafting appellate briefs, and her legal thriller, Presumed Guilty (2022)—in the latest episode of the Original Jurisdiction podcast.

(Programming note: as some of you might have noticed, this episode is a week early, based on my usual every-other-week schedule. But between now and the end of the year, the schedule might get a little funky because of the demanding schedules of my next few guests, plus the holidays. I will try to stick to Wednesday as the drop date, but I can’t guarantee much beyond that.)

Show Notes:

* Alexandra A.E. Shapiro bio, Shapiro Arato Bach LLP

* Shapiro Arato Bach’s Dynamite Trio: A Head-Turning Alternative to Big Law, by Emily Jackoway for Lawdragon

* Presumed Guilty, Amazon

Prefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.

Sponsored 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 at nexfirm dot com.

With a contentious election just around the corner, tensions are running high, and it’s easy to focus on what divides us. So my latest podcast interview, featuring Judge Kenneth Lee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, is quite timely. The son of immigrants from South Korea—and an immigrant himself, who came to the United States at age four—Judge Lee still believes in the greatness of America.

In our conversation, Judge Lee and I discussed his parents, including the challenges they faced after arriving in the U.S.; his high-powered legal career, including stints at Wachtell Lipton, the White House Counsel’s office, and Jenner & Block; the best and worst parts of being a judge; his philosophy of legal writing; and his approach to law clerk hiring. We also looked back on our time together at Wachtell, which is where we first met, some 23 years ago—and where Ken racked up billable hours that you’ll find hard to believe. But as his former colleague, I can attest that he works incredibly hard—now in service to the Constitution and laws of the United States.

Show Notes:

* Kenneth K. Lee bio, Wikipedia

* Kenneth Lee, Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire

Prefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.

Sponsored 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 at nexfirm dot com.

On Monday of last week, the customary first Monday of October, the U.S. Supreme Court kicked off October Term 2024. So I thought it might be a good idea to offer my listeners an overview of the 2024-2025 Term—and I could think of no better guide to the new SCOTUS Term than Morgan Ratner. I met Morgan this past July, when we participated in a Supreme Court “Year in Review” panel together, and I was struck by her talent for explaining complicated cases with exceptional clarity and accuracy.

Morgan’s knowledge of the Court shouldn’t come as a surprise. She has argued before the Court in nine cases, first as an assistant to the U.S. solicitor general and more recently as a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell. She clerked for two of the Court’s current members: then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh, during his time on the D.C. Circuit, and Chief Justice John Roberts.

Morgan graduated first in her class from Harvard Law School. Current and aspiring law students will be interested in—and perhaps surprised by—her advice on how to succeed in law school.

So listen to this episode and learn more about Morgan Ratner. For SCOTUS devotees, she’s someone you should get to know.

Show Notes:

* Morgan L. Ratner bio, Sullivan & Cromwell

* 40 Under 40 - Morgan Ratner of Sullivan & Cromwell, by Lisa Helem and MP McQueen for Bloomberg Law

* 12 Lawyers Who Are The Future Of The Supreme Court Bar, by Jeff Overley and Katie Buehler for Law360

Prefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.

Sponsored 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 at nexfirm dot com.

Our independent judiciary has been described—accurately so, in my opinion—as “the crown jewel of our constitutional republic.” And when it comes to the federal judiciary, few of its members are as independent-minded as Judge Jed S. Rakoff.

Judge Rakoff, 81, has served on the Southern District of New York since 1996. During his almost three decades on the bench, he has authored more than 2,000 opinions—many of them groundbreaking and headline-making, and some quite controversial.

In addition to his prodigious judicial output, Judge Rakoff is a leading commentator on the American legal system. He contributes regularly to The New York Review of Books, and he wrote an excellent book of his own: Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free, and Other Paradoxes of Our Broken Legal System (2021).

With a new Term of the U.S. Supreme Court starting next week, I thought it would be interesting to interview Judge Rakoff about his latest column for The Review, which discusses the current Court—and doesn’t pull any punches. And in our conversation, Judge Rakoff didn’t walk back any of his criticism. When I asked him if he respects the Court, he artfully dodged—and later on in our interview, he described the Court’s rulings on gun control as not only “misguided,” but “immoral.”

We found time to discuss fun stuff, too. We talked about his approach to clerk hiring—being in FedSoc is not a black mark—as well as his hobbies. In his spare time, he enjoys participating in international ballroom dance competitions (with his wife Ann), writing satirical lyrics to musical compositions, and officiating at weddings (91 and counting). Check it all out, in the latest Original Jurisdiction podcast.

Show Notes:

* Judge Jed Rakoff bio, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

* Hon. Jed S. Rakoff, by Luke McGrath for the Federal Bar Association

* The Most Conservative Branch, by Judge Jed S. Rakoff for The New York Review of Books

Prefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.

Sponsored 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 at nexfirm dot com.

Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at [email protected]. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here.

Where do I get my story ideas? Most arise organically out of the news, but some come from topic suggestions aka “pitches.” Sometimes pitches come from lawyers in the news, and sometimes they come from a lawyer or law firm’s public-relations or communications team—media-savvy professionals who work for attorneys and firms to help them secure favorable press (or avoid negative coverage).

Over the years, one of my best sources of pitches has been Dawn Schneider. After graduating from law school, Dawn worked in communications for two major corporations, Johnson & Johnson and Altria. She then combined her legal and media expertise and pivoted to focus on law firms, serving as director of communications at Boies Schiller Flexner. And then, ten years ago this month, she launched her own media-advisory firm, Schneider Group Media—where she continues to work for leading lawyers and law firms, as well as clients beyond the legal realm, helping them navigate a challenging, rapidly evolving media landscape.

I have a fair number of readers who are interested in “alternative careers”—roles that don’t involve practicing law, but where legal education and experience are valuable. So I thought it would be enlightening and enjoyable to interview Dawn, who has deployed her legal training and talent for communication in a cool and unusual way.

Thanks to Dawn for joining me, and congratulations to her on Schneider Group Media’s tenth anniversary.

Show Notes (Dawn doesn’t have much of an online presence—she prefers to keep the focus on her clients—but here’s her bio, as well as pieces I’ve written that resulted from her work):

* Dawn Schneider bio, Schneider Group Media

* On The Retirement Of Miles Ruthberg And The Rise Of Litigation At Latham & Watkins, by David Lat for Above the Law

* A Leading Litigation Boutique Turns 25, by David Lat for Original Jurisdiction

* Boies Schiller Star’s Ski Accident Tests Strength—and Builds It, by David Lat for Bloomberg Law

Prefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.

Sponsored 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 at nexfirm dot com.

Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at [email protected]. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here.

Defamation law and copyright law: I have a keen interest in both, which shouldn’t be surprising given what I do for a living. So two litigations I’ve been following closely are (1) the various defamation lawsuits brought by Dominion Voting Systems—including its case against Fox News, which settled for a whopping $787.5 million—and (2) the copyright lawsuit brought by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft.

Besides being fascinating cases with the potential to reshape the modern American media landscape, what do these matters share in common? The plaintiffs have the same lawyer: Susman Godfrey partner Davida Brook. Although she’s only 40, she has already been recognized as one of the nation’s top trial attorneys by Forbes, The American Lawyer, Law360, Lawdragon, and many other publications.

Davida and I first met years ago, when I spoke at Stanford Law School and she was a student (yes, I’m that old). So I thought it would be fun to catch up by having her on the podcast—and it was.

We discussed her impressive career path; the Dominion and Times cases, including their possible societal implications; and what it was like to work with and learn from the late Steve Susman, founder of Susman Godfrey and an all-time great courtroom advocate. You can tune into our conversation, covering these and many other subjects, in this new episode of the Original Jurisdiction podcast.

Show Notes:

* Davida Brook bio, Susman Godfrey

* Meet America’s Top 200 Lawyers (2024), by Liane Jackson for Forbes

* Lawyer Limelight: Davida Brook, by Katrina Dewey for Lawdragon

Prefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.

Sponsored 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 at nexfirm dot com.