Khurram's Quorum

Khurram Naik
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How elite lawyers make decisions. Traditional legal media focuses on outcomes. But this podcast focuses on operating principles: how lawyers assess risk, build judgment, and choose opportunities. The podcast is a library ambitious lawyers can consult to learn how exceptional lawyers think, and our guests return to document their progress.

  1. 23h ago

    056 Matt Turetzky: how generalists win at the frontier

    Matt Turetzky leads litigation at Kraken after four years at Coinbase, where he helped direct two cases that reached the Supreme Court. His story is about finding asymmetric bets. Matt explains how a question about pausing district-court litigation led him to a circuit split, why a seemingly strong Supreme Court argument ended in a 9–0 loss, and what both experiences taught him about uncertainty. We also explore how Matt acts as an “apex consumer” of legal services: building trust with outside counsel before a crisis, using fixed fees to compare value, and giving trusted lawyers enough autonomy to do their best work. He shares a practical system for decision-ready writing, including why the first sentence deserves most of an editor’s attention. The same logic shapes Matt’s career. He left a safe BigLaw path to become the first associate at a new litigation boutique, asking a question that reframed the choice: “Have you considered the risk of me staying?” That move led to tech litigation, Coinbase, and Kraken. It also reinforced his deeper bet on becoming a generalist who can solve unfamiliar problems at the frontier. If you liked this episode, here are 3 others you might like - 043: Priyanka Timblo on the strategy behind a $101 million verdict, being underestimated, and the benefits of being all-in Priyanka makes the case for deep specialization, offering a sharp counterpoint to Matt’s belief that a generalist can keep winning at the frontier. - 041: Rakesh Kilaru on decision-making tools honed at the White House, trial strategy through subtraction, and what it takes to build a high-stakes trial boutique Rakesh shows how trust, fixed fees, and a generalist trial model can turn the same ideas Matt uses as a client into a law firm’s edge. - 039: Ambika Kumar on defending free speech, building a tech-speech practice from Seattle, and litigating the TikTok ban Ambika’s leap into frontier tech litigation shows how eagerness, concise advice, and smart career bets create opportunities that a safe path rarely does.

  2. Jul 10

    055 Gopi Panchapakesan: the introverted trial lawyer

    Gopi Panchapakesan is a first-chair trial lawyer and an introvert. He's developed an understated approach that is an effective antidote to the typical loud trial lawyer persona. After nine trials, five in the last three years, Gopi broke down the trial techniques he's developed. We cover specific and contrarian tactics for objections, admissions, void dire, impeachment, storytelling, demonstratives, and dismantling the other side’s story.  We also discuss the benefits of constraints at trial, especially in second-guessing the evidence. And we talk about his thoughtful periodic digests that he sends to his network on lessons learned from his trials. If you liked this episode, you'll like these: Ep 049: Louis Tompros on creating adjacent bets Great advocacy can feel less like persuasion and more like giving jurors the tools to decide for themselves.Ep 048: Neel Chatterjee on testing assumptions Juries are powerful credibility judges, and that should shape how lawyers present witnesses, facts, and themselves in court.Ep 045: Joe Ahmad on sincerity over polish, and empathy and risk in trials Honest, disciplined advocacy can be more persuasive than trying to win every point or oversell a case.

  3. Jun 16

    054 Adam Gill: dealmaking in risk management

    This episode is about chopping wood. While the headlines about litigation finance involve splashy deals and volatile policy, Adam Gill takes us to the backroom to show the work of litigation finance is risk management. This is a rare opportunity to examine the operations of litigation finance. Adam discusses how he considers the law firms, parties, budget, appellate risk, settlement posture. The work is aligning incentives for the stakeholders - dealmaking. I'm happy to bring Adam back - he was the first podcast guest and an early supporter in my entrepreneurship. If you liked this episode, you'll like: 001 Adam Gill: how trading stocks led to litigation finance. Adam’s first conversation gives the origin story behind this return episode: how patent-litigation curiosity, public-market analysis, and writing opened the door to litigation finance. 046 Mani Walia: the lunch that launched a fund a decade later - trust, focus, and alignment. Mani shows a different path from trial lawyer to funder, where old relationships and aligned downside become the foundation for a litigation fund. 049 Louis Tompros: what trial lawyers need to understand about winning — Louis gives the trial-lawyer version of a question Adam treats as underwriting: what actually counts as a win for the client?

  4. Jun 1

    053 Rohit Nath: how curiosity leads to the frontier

    Rohit Nath's story includes crafting a $1.5 billion settlement with Anthropic, which if approved would be the largest copyright class action settlement ever. But I think what's much more interesting is the process Rohit used to get here: following curiosity and overlooked opportunities. We discuss: What Rohit discovered by reading a Supreme Court decision 100 timesThe deliberative and iterative process to crafting a path to victory in a frontier disputeVisualizing arguments to guide whether to take on a challenging matterHow Rohit hones his craft by listening to Supreme Court argumentsThe advantages of following legal issues others find boring If you like this episode, here are three more you might like: 049 Louis Tompros: creating adjacent bets — how small, adjacent matters can become the training ground for a frontier practice.047 Tim Yoo: how to study elite performers to find an edge — turning preparation into a performance system when the stakes move from the brief to the courtroom.046 Mani Walia: the lunch that launched a fund a decade later - trust, focus, and alignment — how lawyer-to-lawyer trust becoming real business years later, this is the relationship-compounding companion episode.About the host: Khurram Naik is a partner at Freshwater Counsel, a boutique recruiting agency focused on patent litigators. Before founding the agency, he practiced patent litigation at Goodwin. Khurram hosts Khurram’s Quorum, a podcast with in-depth conversations with federal judges, first-chair trial lawyers, and chief legal officers on their career challenges and successes. Khurram also shares insights on LinkedIn.

  5. May 13

    052 Tim Chen Saulsbury: doing the up-front work

    Tim Saulsbury is an IP litigation partner at MoFo. Tim's story is about doing the up-front work. Whether it’s: commanding the technical record to make the most out of trial advocacy, looking for creative early wins, orbuilding a moat in Japan with relationship-driven client development Tim anticipates risks by taking a client-centric view of what success looks like and builds a responsive practice.  This is another episode that explores the relationship between being strategic and making the most out of opportunity, and the relationship between focus and diversification.  If you liked this episode, here are 3 others you might like: 047 Tim Yoo: how to study elite performers to find an edge - preparation, physiology, and treating trial work as a craft you can train for.048 Neel Chatterjee: testing assumptions - juries, credibility, and how great trial lawyers revise their assumptions after real-world feedback.049 Louis Tompros: creating adjacent bets - being ready for openings before they appear and building a career through smart adjacent opportunities. About the host: Khurram Naik is a partner at Freshwater Counsel, a boutique recruiting agency focused on patent litigators. Before founding the agency, he practiced patent litigation at Goodwin. Khurram hosts Khurram’s Quorum, a podcast with in-depth conversations with federal judges, first-chair trial lawyers, and chief legal officers on their career challenges and successes. Khurram also shares insights on LinkedIn.

  6. Apr 15

    051 Alamdar Hamdani: seeing around the corner in enforcement

    Alamdar Hamdani is a former U.S. Attorney who now helps clients anticipate where enforcement priorities are forming before they are fully revealed. In this episode, we explore how Alamdar synthesizes executive orders, DOJ messaging, leadership signals, charging patterns, and institutional incentives to help clients see around the corner. This is a rare opportunity to learn how an experienced prosecutor builds a practice from the ground up. This episode demystifies how this new chapter gets written. If you liked this episode, here are 3 others you might like: 049 Louis Tompros: creating adjacent betsHow to find your edge and create opportunities before the market hands them to you. 047 Tim Yoo: how to study elite performers to find an edgeBuilding repeatable systems and using deliberate preparation to create real advantage. 046 Mani Walia: the lunch that launched a fund a decade later - trust, focus, and alignmentHow to compound relationships for years before they turn into visible business outcomes. About the host: Khurram Naik is a partner at Freshwater Counsel, a boutique recruiting agency focused on patent litigators. Before founding the agency, he practiced patent litigation at Goodwin. Khurram hosts Khurram’s Quorum, a podcast with in-depth conversations with federal judges, first-chair trial lawyers, and chief legal officers on their career challenges and successes. Khurram also shares insights on LinkedIn.

  7. Apr 8

    050 Shashi Kewalramani: compounding skills across a nonlinear career

    Shashi Kewalramani has built a nonlinear career across elite private practice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, criminal defense, the bench, and now mediation. This episode is about how skills compound across those chapters. Some of the most valuable legal skills are not built in the most obvious places. In this episode, we explore: Nonlinearity openness to roles that do not look “on path” from the outside why the safe path is not always the path to the best skill development how varied experiences can clarify what you are actually good at CJA trust is built through time, transparency, and action indigent defense can be elite training in client counseling the hardest thing is often getting the truth from your own client Magistrate jurisprudence magistrate roles are underrated schools for writing, discovery, and case management repetition builds judicial pattern recognition Compounding advantage skills learned in one role transfer into the next deep listening, credibility, and clear explanation become differentiators later a nonlinear career can produce a more durable kind of expertise If you liked this episode, here are 3 others you might like: Judge Vince Chhabria for more on why process is substance, and how judges think about managing real cases in real time.Judge Matthew Kennelly for a deeper look at judicial decision-making, docket management, and what credibility looks like from the bench.Louis Tompros for another conversation about nonlinear legal careers, adjacent opportunities, and building something distinctive over time. About the host: Khurram Naik is a partner at Freshwater Counsel, a boutique recruiting agency focused on patent litigators. Before founding the agency, he practiced patent litigation at Goodwin. Khurram hosts Khurram’s Quorum, a podcast with in-depth conversations with federal judges, first-chair trial lawyers, and chief legal officers on their career challenges and successes. Khurram also shares insights on LinkedIn.

  8. Mar 17

    049 Louis Tompros: creating adjacent bets

    Judge Richard Linn first pointed me to Louis Tompros years ago, when he told me my entrepreneurial approach to breaking into patent litigation reminded him of one of his former clerks. The story he shared stayed with me: Louis created his own chance to argue at the Federal Circuit by stepping into a pro bono inventor appeal. In this episode, we explore how Louis has built durable edge through high-agency adjacent bets: Agency create your own reps instead of waiting for permissiontake manageable risks to accelerate learninguse pro bono work, teaching, and relationship-building to create career-accelerating opportunities Adjacency bounded adjacent bets strengthen the core rather than distract from ittrial and appellate work sharpen each otherpatent, copyright, and trademark work inform each otherplaintiff and defense work reveal the other side’s blind spots Teaching teaching forces you back to first principlesit makes you more creative as a practitionerin a mistrust-heavy courtroom, the best advocates help the audience feel capable of deciding Client perspective the client is the fourth audienceyou can win the case and still miss what matters most to the client Gift-giving long-term business development starts with doing useful things for people before there is any immediate returnrelationships compound on an uneven timelinedoing good work and doing the right thing are not separate strategies The throughline is simple: create your own reps, make bounded adjacent bets, and let the learning compound. About the host: Khurram Naik is a partner at Freshwater Counsel, a boutique recruiting agency focused on patent litigators. Before founding the agency, he practiced patent litigation at Goodwin. Khurram hosts Khurram’s Quorum, a podcast with in-depth conversations with federal judges, first-chair trial lawyers, and chief legal officers on their career challenges and successes. Khurram also shares insights on LinkedIn.

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About

How elite lawyers make decisions. Traditional legal media focuses on outcomes. But this podcast focuses on operating principles: how lawyers assess risk, build judgment, and choose opportunities. The podcast is a library ambitious lawyers can consult to learn how exceptional lawyers think, and our guests return to document their progress.

Information

  • Creator
    Khurram Naik
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    56
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Khurram Naik
  • Show Website
    Khurram's Quorum

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