The Law Lives Project

Today's guest is a civil litigator. We'll discuss his career path from law school to working as a personal injury attorney. We'll also touch on his experience of attending law school while working full time as a teacher.

In today's episode, I'll be chatting with an attorney in private practice at a boutique law firm. She obtained a master's degree while pursuing her law degree. And she's held practically every legal job in the book to working at the North Carolina Department of Justice, transitioning to municipal law practice, moving in-house to serve a business, starting her own firm, and finally joining a boutique firm. We'll also discuss how she navigated becoming a new mother during her first year of law school.

A Texas lawyer describes his journey from Law School to the Attorney General's Office, and how to make friends and contacts from opposing sides on the way. He explains how most cases are settled before they come to court, and how much he loves his work and professional friendships with the Texas judges and lawyers.

In this episode, Anjie will be speaking with another state civil court trial judge. We'll be going over his career path from law school to working in personal injury law to his current role. We'll also touch on his decision to transfer law schools after his first semester and the ins and outs of being a civil trial judge.

In this episode, a military veteran tells the story of his journey to law school, discovering a passion for litigation during law school, interning with the district attorney's office, working for a boutique litigation firm doing admiralty and maritime work, and finally getting recruited into an in-house position in a small company in the energy industry. He explains that he had some misconceptions of being an in-house lawyer when he first started and he learned that being in-house really means serving a lot of different clients and stakeholders within a single organization.

Our guest host this week, Nefertari Elshiekh, is a sophomore at the University of Central Florida Burnett Honors College where she is majoring in economics and international & global studies. Nefertari has interned with Washington Council of Lawyers, the public-interest bar association for the District of Columbia, the New York Times, and Leg Up Legal. She is on the editorial board for the UCF Undergraduate Law Journal and is a researcher with the Institute for Economic Forecasting. She plans to go to law school after college.

In this episode, a lawyer discusses her journey from a state law school, to being a prosecutor, to running her own practice specializing in criminal defense. She was waitlisted or rejected by every law school she applied to, but she applied again in the next cycle and received an offer of admission. Attending a state law school and commuting from home gave her the opportunity to save money and obtain her law degree without incurring a lot of debt. She describes her experiences as a white woman attending a historically black law school as "the best experience that she could have imagined." We hope you enjoy listening to her story.

Our guest host this week is Samina Haneef! Samina is a senior majoring in political science at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is a prospective law student and also an intern at Leg Up Legal.

This week, a CEO of a contracts management company describes her journey from law school to running her own company. She knew she wasn't made for the traditional law firm environment. As a white woman who learned Chinese, she new at a very early age that she wanted to be involved in international business. Shortly after law school, she went in-house for a tubing manufacturing company and eventually made her way to one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, eventually leaving to create her own company in a niche that most people don't even know exists--Contracts Management & Alternative Legal Services Providers. She discusses with Anjie the challenge she faced to express her femininity - a metaphorical and literal "pink dress" surrounded by men in "blue and black shirts" who told her to "smile less." She explains how she survived the sexism to assert, and thrive, as the founder of her own contracts management company, and still be her own professional self.

This week, Anjie chats with an African-American State Court Judge about his journey from Harvard Law School to the bench. Our guest discusses what he learned about litigation and being a lawyer, how he decided to run for election to the bench, the joy he feels from helping individuals achieve justice, and how he rejects the overtures from people who crave influence through compliments. He also shares some candid thoughts about how hard our profession still needs to work at diversifying its ranks.

This week, Anjie sits down with an attorney who had an unlikely start as a broadcast communications student, but she pivoted to a 20-year career in law culminating in a job with a big firm, working as an employment attorney. This week's guest has lots of advice about working hard, finding an area of practice you like, choosing a group of colleagues who work well together, and balancing work and family.

This week, Anjie V. speaks with an intellectual property attorney about the pros and cons of running her own solo practice. Her career path from law school took her through both criminal and civil law.

About the Law Lives Project: Many of us lawyers didn't have it all figured out from the start. It takes time to find your way in law. This podcast sheds light on some of the challenges people face in the earliest part of building their careers. Each week, Anjie Vichayanonda sits down with members of the legal profession, to chat about the paths they took to get where they are now, including the times they stumbled, the times they fell, and the times they needed a little help. To encourage candor, the attorney guests remain nameless, but their stories are laid bare.

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