Original Jurisdiction

David Lat
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Original Jurisdiction, a podcast about law and the legal profession, features host David Lat interviewing some of the most interesting, influential, and important people in the world of law. It's the companion podcast to Lat's Substack newsletter of the same name. You can follow David on Twitter (@DavidLat) or email him at davidlat@substack.com, and you can subscribe to his newsletter at davidlat.substack.com. davidlat.substack.com

  1. -4 J

    Judging The Justice System In The Age Of Trump: Nancy Gertner

    How are the federal courts faring during these tumultuous times? I thought it would be worthwhile to discuss this important subject with a former federal judge: someone who understands the judicial role well but could speak more freely than a sitting judge, liberated from the strictures of the bench. Meet Judge Nancy Gertner (Ret.), who served as a U.S. District Judge for the District of Massachusetts from 1994 until 2011. I knew that Judge Gertner would be a lively and insightful interviewee—based not only on her extensive commentary on recent events, reflected in media interviews and op-eds, but on my personal experience. During law school, I took a year-long course on federal sentencing with her, and she was one of my favorite professors. When I was her student, we disagreed on a lot: I was severely conservative back then, and Judge Gertner was, well, not. But I always appreciated and enjoyed hearing her views—so it was a pleasure hearing them once again, some 25 years later, in what turned out to be an excellent conversation. Show Notes: * Nancy Gertner, author website * Nancy Gertner bio, Harvard Law School * In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate, 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@nexfirm.com. Three quick notes about this transcript. First, it has been cleaned up from the audio in ways that don’t alter substance—e.g., by deleting verbal filler or adding a word here or there to clarify meaning. Second, my interviewee has not reviewed this transcript, and any errors are mine. Third, because of length constraints, this newsletter may be truncated in email; to view the entire post, simply click on “View entire message” in your email app. David Lat: Welcome to the Original Jurisdiction podcast. I’m your host, David Lat, author of a Substack newsletter about law and the legal profession also named Original Jurisdiction, which you can read and subscribe to at davidlat.substack.com. You’re listening to the eighty-fifth episode of this podcast, recorded on Monday, November 3. Thanks to this podcast’s sponsor, NexFirm. 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@nexfirm.com. Want to know who the guest will be for the next Original Jurisdiction podcast? Follow NexFirm on LinkedIn for a preview. Many of my guests have been friends of mine for a long time—and that’s the case for today’s. I’ve known Judge Nancy Gertner for more than 25 years, dating back to when I took a full-year course on federal sentencing from her and the late Professor Dan Freed at Yale Law School. She was a great teacher, and although we didn’t always agree—she was a professor who let students have their own opinions—I always admired her intellect and appreciated her insights. Judge Gertner is herself a graduate of Yale Law School—where she met, among other future luminaries, Bill and Hillary Clinton. After a fascinating career in private practice as a litigator and trial lawyer handling an incredibly diverse array of cases, Judge Gertner was appointed to serve as a U.S. District Judge for the District of Massachusetts in 1994, by President Clinton. She retired from the bench in 2011, but she is definitely not retired: she writes opinion pieces for outlets such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe, litigates and consults on cases, and trains judges and litigators. She’s also working on a book called Incomplete Sentences, telling the stories of the people she sentenced over 17 years on the bench. Her autobiography, In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate, was published in 2011. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Judge Nancy Gertner. Judge, thank you so much for joining me. Nancy Gertner: Thank you for inviting me. This is wonderful. DL: So it’s funny: I’ve been wanting to have you on this podcast in a sense before it existed, because you and I worked on a podcast pilot. It ended up not getting picked up, but perhaps they have some regrets over that, because legal issues have just blown up since then. NG: I remember that. I think it was just a question of scheduling, and it was before Trump, so we were talking about much more sophisticated, superficial things, as opposed to the rule of law and the demise of the Constitution. DL: And we will get to those topics. But to start off my podcast in the traditional way, let’s go back to the beginning. I believe we are both native New Yorkers? NG: Yes, that’s right. I was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in an apartment that I think now is a tenement museum, and then we moved to Flushing, Queens, where I lived into my early 20s. DL: So it’s interesting—I actually spent some time as a child in that area. What was your upbringing like? What did your parents do? NG: My father owned a linoleum store, or as we used to call it, “tile,” and my mother was a homemaker. My mother worked at home. We were lower class on the Lower East Side and maybe made it to lower-middle. My parents were very conservative, in the sense they didn’t know exactly what to do with a girl who was a bit of a radical. Neither I nor my sister was precisely what they anticipated. So I got to Barnard for college only because my sister had a conniption fit when he wouldn’t pay for college for her—she’s my older sister—he was not about to pay for college. If we were boys, we would’ve had college paid for. In a sense, they skipped a generation. They were actually much more traditional than their peers were. My father was Orthodox when he grew up; my mother was somewhat Orthodox Jewish. My father couldn’t speak English until the second grade. So they came from a very insular environment, and in one sense, he escaped that environment when he wanted to play ball on Saturdays. So that was actually the motivation for moving to Queens: to get away from the Lower East Side, where everyone would know that he wasn’t in temple on Saturday. We used to have interesting discussions, where I’d say to him that my rebellion was a version of his: he didn’t want to go to temple on Saturdays, and I was marching against the war. He didn’t see the equivalence, but somehow I did. There’s actually a funny story to tell about sort of exactly the distance between how I was raised and my life. After I graduated from Yale Law School, with all sorts of honors and stuff, and was on my way to clerk for a judge, my mother and I had this huge fight in the kitchen of our apartment. What was the fight about? Sadie wanted me to take the Triborough Bridge toll taker’s test, “just in case.” “You never know,” she said. I couldn’t persuade her that it really wasn’t necessary. She passed away before I became a judge, and I told this story at my swearing-in, and I said that she just didn’t understand. I said, “Now I have to talk to my mother for a minute; forgive me for a moment.” And I looked up at the rafters and I said, “Ma, at last: a government job!” So that is sort of the measure of where I started. My mother didn’t finish high school, my father had maybe a semester of college—but that wasn’t what girls did. DL: So were you then a first-generation professional or a first-generation college graduate? NG: Both—my sister and I were both, first-generation college graduates and first-generation professionals. When people talk about Jewish backgrounds, they’re very different from one another, and since my grandparents came from Eastern European shtetls, it’s not clear to me that they—except for one grandfather—were even literate. So it was a very different background. DL: You mentioned that you did go to Yale Law School, and of course we connected there years later, when I was your student. But what led you to go to law school in the first place? Clearly your parents were not encouraging your professional ambitions. NG: One is, I love to speak. My husband kids me now and says that I’ve never met a microphone I didn’t like. I had thought for a moment of acting—musical comedy, in fact. But it was 1967, and the anti-war movement, a nascent women’s movement, and the civil rights movement were all rising around me, and I wanted to be in the world. And the other thing was that I didn’t want to do anything that women do. Actually, musical comedy was something that would’ve been okay and normal for women, but I didn’t want to do anything that women typically do. So that was the choice of law. It was more like the choice of law professor than law, but that changed over time. DL: So did you go straight from Barnard to Yale Law School? NG: Well, I went from Barnard to Yale graduate school in political science because as I said, I’ve always had an academic and a practical side, and so I thought briefly that I wanted to get a Ph.D. I still do, actually—I’m going to work on that after these books are finished. DL: Did you then think that you wanted to be a law professor when you started at YLS? I guess by that point you already had a master’s degree under your belt? NG: I thought I wanted to be a law professor, that’s right. I did not think I wanted to practice law. Yale at that time, like most law schools, had no practical clinical courses. I don’t think I ever set foot in a courtroom or a courthouse, except to demonstrate on the outside of it. And the only thing that started me in practice was that I thought I should do at least two or three years of practice before I went back into the academy, before I went back into the library. Twenty-four years later, I obviously made a different decision. DL: So you were at YLS during a

    52 min

  2. 30 OCT.

    Resolving The Unresolvable: Kenneth Feinberg

    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 davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Yesterday, Southern California Edison (SCE), the utility whose power lines may have started the devastating Eaton Fire, announced its Wildfire Recovery Compensation Program. Under the program, people affected by the fire can receive hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in compensation, in a matter of months rather than years—but in exchange, they must give up their right to sue. It should come as no surprise that SCE, in designing the program, sought the help of Kenneth Feinberg. For more than 40 years, often in the wake of tragedy or disaster, Feinberg has helped mediate and resolve seemingly intractable crises. He’s most well-known for how he and his colleague Camille Biros designed and administered the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. But he has worked on many other headline-making matters over the years, including the Agent Orange product liability litigation, the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Trust, the multidistrict litigation involving Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer—and now, of course, the Eaton Fire. How did Ken develop such a fascinating and unique practice? What is the most difficult aspect of administering these giant compensation funds? Do these funds represent the wave of the future, as an alternative to (increasingly expensive) litigation? Having just turned 80, does he have any plans to retire? Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ken—the day after his 80th birthday—and we covered all these topics. The result is what I found to be one of the most moving conversations I’ve ever had on this podcast. Thanks to Ken Feinberg for joining me—and, of course, for his many years of service as America’s go-to mediator in times of crisis. Show Notes: * Kenneth Feinberg bio, Wikipedia * Kenneth Feinberg profile, Chambers and Partners * L.A. Fire Victims Face a Choice, by Jill Cowan 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@nexfirm.com. Three quick notes about this transcript. First, it has been cleaned up from the audio in ways that don’t alter substance—e.g., by deleting verbal filler or adding a word here or there to clarify meaning. Second, my interviewee has not reviewed this transcript, and any errors are mine. Third, because of length constraints, this newsletter may be truncated in email; to view the entire post, simply click on “View entire message” in your email app. David Lat: Welcome to the Original Jurisdiction podcast. I’m your host, David Lat, author of a Substack newsletter about law and the legal profession also named Original Jurisdiction, which you can read and subscribe to at davidlat.substack.com. You’re listening to the eighty-fourth episode of this podcast, recorded on Friday, October 24. Thanks to this podcast’s sponsor, NexFirm. 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@nexfirm.com. Want to know who the guest will be for the next Original Jurisdiction podcast? Follow NexFirm on LinkedIn for a preview. I like to think that I’ve produced some good podcast episodes over the past three-plus years, but I feel that this latest one is a standout. I’m hard-pressed to think of an interview that was more emotionally affecting to me than what you’re about to hear. Kenneth Feinberg is a leading figure in the world of mediation and alternative dispute resolution. He is most well-known for having served as special master of the U.S. government’s September 11th Victim Compensation Fund—and for me, as someone who was in New York City on September 11, I found his discussion of that work profoundly moving. But he has handled many major matters over the years, such as the Agent Orange product liability litigation to the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Victim Compensation Fund. And he’s working right now on a matter that’s in the headlines: the California wildfires. Ken has been hired by Southern California Edison to help design a compensation program for victims of the 2025 Eaton fire. Ken has written about his fascinating work in two books: What Is Life Worth?: The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11 and Who Gets What: Fair Compensation after Tragedy and Financial Upheaval. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Ken Feinberg. Ken, thank you so much for joining me. Ken Feinberg: Thank you very much; it’s an honor to be here. DL: We are recording this shortly after your 80th birthday, so happy birthday! KF: Thank you very much. DL: Let’s go back to your birth; let’s start at the beginning. You grew up in Massachusetts, I believe. KF: That’s right: Brockton, Massachusetts, about 20 miles south of Boston. DL: Your parents weren’t lawyers. Tell us about what they did. KF: My parents were blue-collar workers from Massachusetts, second-generation immigrants. My father ran a wholesale tire distributorship, my mother was a bookkeeper, and we grew up in the 1940s and ‘50s, even the early ‘60s, in a town where there was great optimism, a very vibrant Jewish community, three different synagogues, a very optimistic time in American history—post-World War II, pre-Vietnam, and a time when communitarianism, working together to advance the collective good, was a prominent characteristic of Brockton, and most of the country, during the time that I was in elementary school and high school in Brockton. DL: Did the time in which you grow up shape or influence your decision to go into law? KF: Yes. More than law—the time growing up had a great impact on my decision to give back to the community from which I came. You’ve got to remember, when I was a teenager, the president of the United States was John F. Kennedy, and I’ll never forget because it had a tremendous impact on me—President Kennedy reminding everybody that public service is a noble undertaking, government is not a dirty word, and especially his famous quote (or one of his many quotes), “Every individual can make a difference.” I never forgot that, and it had a personal impact on me and has had an impact on me throughout my life. [Ed. note: The quotation generally attributed to JFK is, “One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.” Whether he actually said these exact words is unclear, but it’s certainly consistent with many other sentiments he expressed throughout his life.] DL: When you went to college at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, what did you study? KF: I studied history and political science. I was very interested in how individuals over the centuries change history, the theory of historians that great individuals articulate history and drive it in a certain direction—for good, like President Kennedy or Abraham Lincoln or George Washington, or for ill, like Adolf Hitler or Mussolini. And so it was history that I really delved into in my undergraduate years. DL: What led you then to turn to law school? KF: I always enjoyed acting on the stage—theater, comedies, musicals, dramas—and at the University of Massachusetts, I did quite a bit of that. In my senior year, I anticipated going to drama school at Yale, or some other academic master’s program in theater. My father gave me very good advice. He said, “Ken, most actors end up waiting on restaurant tables in Manhattan, waiting for a big break that never comes. Why don’t you turn your skills on the stage to a career in the courtroom, in litigation, talking to juries and convincing judges?” That was very sound advice from my father, and I ended up attending NYU Law School and having a career in the law. DL: Yes—and you recount that story in your book, and I just love that. It’s really interesting to hear what parents think of our careers. But anyway, you did very well in law school, you were on the law review, and then your first job out of law school was something that we might expect out of someone who did well in law school. KF: Yes. I was a law clerk to the chief judge of New York State, Stanley Fuld, a very famous state jurist, and he had his chambers in New York City. For one week, every six or seven weeks, we would go to the state capitol in Albany to hear cases, and it was Judge Fuld who was my transition from law school to the practice of law. DL: I view clerking as a form of government service—and then you continued in service after that. KF: That’s right. Remembering what my father had suggested, I then turned my attention to the courtroom and became an assistant United States attorney, a federal prosecutor, in New York City. I served as a prosecutor and as a trial lawyer for a little over three years. And then I had a wonderful opportunity to go to work for Senator Ted Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington and stayed with him for about five years. DL: You talk about this also in your books—you worked on a pretty diverse range of issues for the senator, right? KF: That’s right. For the first three years I worked on his staff on the Senate Judiciary Committee, with some excellent colleagues—soon-to-be Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer was with me, noted litigator David Boies was in the office—and for the first three years, it was law-related issues. Then in 1978, Senator Kennedy asked me to be his chief of staff, and once I went over and became his chief of staff, the issues of course mushroomed. He was running for president, so there w

    54 min

  3. 15 OCT.

    Trial Lawyer To The Stars: Orin Snyder

    Who’s the Biglaw partner with the most star-studded client roster? Orin Snyder, co-chair of the Trials Practice Group at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, has to be up there. Consider this: at least a half-dozen of his clients have performed at the Super Bowl halftime show, in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, or both. (In case you’re wondering, they are Marc Anthony, Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, The Rolling Stones, and Bruce Springsteen.) Most lawyers would be thrilled to have just one famous client. But Orin Snyder isn’t most lawyers. A former federal prosecutor, he has been recognized as one of the nation’s leading litigators—not just by Chambers and Partners and Forbes, but by entertainment-industry publications like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. In our conversation, we covered Orin’s family history in the entertainment industry; his service as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York; why celebrity clients are often a joy to represent, not annoying or aggravating (which was my guess); and his forthcoming memoir. As a longtime Biglaw partner and member of Gibson’s executive committee, Orin is an expert on the business of law. So we discussed the virtues of boutique practice (he had his own boutique before joining Gibson), why so many Biglaw firms are shifting away from litigation, and why he thinks that’s a mistake. Finally, Orin told me how he came to represent the family of the late Professor Dan Markel, pro bono—for which I am, as a friend of Dan, especially grateful. Show Notes: * Orin Snyder bio, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP * Orin Snyder profile, Chambers and Partners * Meet Orin Snyder, the Deadliest Trial Lawyer in Tech, by Greg Sandoval for The Verge 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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidlat.substack.com/subscribe

    53 min

  4. 1 OCT.

    A Happy Warrior, For Her Clients And For The Rule Of Law: Jeannie Rhee

    Jeannie Rhee is one of the nation’s leading litigators, with the awards and accolades to prove it—including, most recently, recognition last month from Forbes as one of America’s Top 250 Lawyers. But her legal career is not only impressive; it’s also very interesting. The past few years have been extremely eventful for Jeannie. From 2017 until 2019, she worked on a matter you might have heard of: special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. She then became a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Paul Weiss—her professional home until May 2025, when she and several other partners left (itself a newsworthy event). Together with top trial lawyers Karen Dunn (a past podcast guest) and Bill Isaacson, Jeannie co-founded Dunn Isaacson Rhee—in my opinion, the most exciting new firm to launch in 2025 to date. And since starting DIR, Jeannie continues to handle headline-making cases—most notably, the federal government’s antitrust case against Google. Why did Jeannie and her partners leave Paul Weiss? What is their vision for DIR as a firm? Looking back in light of recent events, what does she think about her work on the Mueller investigation? We covered all this and more, including Jeannie’s service as a D.C. federal prosecutor and at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, in the latest Original Jurisdiction podcast. Show Notes: * Jeannie S. Rhee bio, Dunn Isaacson Rhee LLP * Jeannie Rhee profile, Chambers and Partners * Ex-Paul Weiss Stars Balance Big Law Ties, Autonomy at Firm, by Tatyana Monnay 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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidlat.substack.com/subscribe

    50 min

  5. 17 SEPT.

    When You Come At The King: Elie Honig

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com As Omar Little of The Wire famously quipped, “When you come at the king, you best not miss.” It’s a very true saying—and an apt title for the third book by prosecutor turned bestselling author Elie Honig, When You Come at the King: Inside DOJ’s Pursuit of the President, from Nixon to Trump. Special counsel Jack Smith investigated and prosecuted Donald Trump. But before either of Smith’s two cases could go to trial, Trump was reelected. Now Jack Smith finds himself under investigation—by the administration of a president who declared that Smith should be “considered mentally deranged” and “thrown out of the country.” In the meantime, what will happen to the institution of the special counsel, during the administration of a president who is clearly not a fan? That’s one of many topics I tackled in my conversation with Elie Honig. We also discussed his journey for prosecution to punditry, highlights from his time as an assistant U.S. attorney, and how today’s Supreme Court might rule if asked to review the constitutionality of the Justice Department regulations that made Jack Smith’s investigation possible. Thanks to Elie for joining me—and congratulations to him on his latest book. Show Notes: * Elie Honig bio, Wikipedia * When You Come at the King: Inside DOJ’s Pursuit of the President, from Nixon to Trump, 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.

    49 min

  6. 3 SEPT.

    The Maestro Of Mass Torts: Christopher Seeger

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com Mass-tort and multidistrict litigation is one of the most interesting and important practice areas in American law today. But even though these cases represent more than 70 percent of the federal civil docket, involving thousands of plaintiffs and billions of dollars, they don’t get as much coverage as you might expect—including, I must admit, in the pages of this newsletter. To address this gap, I interviewed one of mass-tort litigation’s most prominent practitioners, Christopher Seeger. A founding partner of Seeger Weiss, which he co-founded with Stephen Weiss in 1999, Chris has handled some of the biggest and most famous mass-tort litigations in history, over everything from the painkiller Vioxx to combat earplugs to concussions suffered by NFL players. In addition, Chris and his firm have been in the news because of their involvement in an issue of critical importance to lawyers and the legal profession, namely, judicial independence and the rule of law. Earlier this year, Seeger Weiss made a donation of $500,000 to the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School, to establish The Seeger Weiss/Daniel Anderl Memorial Fund. The Fund will support the Institute’s mission of protecting the rule of law and defending the judiciary from attacks that threaten judicial independence and diminish public faith in the judicial system. Thanks to Chris for shedding light on a fascinating field—and thanks to him and his partners at Seeger Weiss for doing their part to stand up for an independent judiciary. Show Notes: * Christopher A. Seeger bio, Seeger Weiss LLP * Christopher A. Seeger profile, Chambers and Partners * Seeger Weiss LLP Gift Establishes the Daniel Anderl Memorial Fund, New Jersey Business Magazine 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.

    49 min

  7. 20 AOÛT

    A View From The Top Of The M&A World: David Lam

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com One question I frequently receive, as a lawyer turned writer, is whether I miss the practice of law. My honest answer is no. In my current job, I feel I get some of the best aspects of a legal career, such as the intellectual stimulation and challenge, without the worst ones, such as billable hours (or, for those lawyers who don’t bill time, the stress of being in a client-focused business). But what if I had stayed in the practice of law? And what if I had remained at the firm where I started my post-clerkship legal career, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz? And while I’m taking an imaginary trip down the road not taken, what if I had gone into corporate or transactional work, with a focus on mergers and acquisitions (M&A), instead of litigation? If you changed a few other things about me—e.g., if you raised my IQ and ability to tolerate stress, while lowering my laziness—maybe I’d have a legal career like that of David Lam. We have a number of things in common. After graduating from fancy colleges, we went straight through to Yale Law School, where we overlapped. Following clerkships for prominent federal appellate judges, we started our careers at Wachtell Lipton, where we were sometimes confused with each other (based on our similar names and certain demographic similarities). I left WLRK after a few years, while David Lam stayed—and went on to a spectacular legal career. He’s now one of the country’s top M&A lawyers, according to The American Lawyer, Chambers, Lawdragon, and many other authorities. He’s also co-chair of the M&A practice at Wachtell Lipton, viewed by many as the nation’s #1 firm for mergers and acquisitions. Wachtell Lipton partners don’t give many interviews or speak to the media that often. So I was delighted and grateful when David agreed to join me on the Original Jurisdiction podcast. And I think you’ll enjoy our conversation, covering David’s high-powered legal career, the state of the current M&A market, some secrets of success for Wachtell Lipton as a firm, and more. Show Notes: * David K. Lam bio, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz * David Lam profile, Chambers and Partners * Dealmakers of the Year: The Spinmeister—David Lam, by The American Lawyer 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.

    46 min

  8. 23 JUIL.

    Trying High-Profile Cases For Controversial Clients: Marc Agnifilo

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com Few lawyers in America have handled more headline-making cases than Marc Agnifilo of Agnifilo Intrater. A former prosecutor in both the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey—where he and I met and became friends, around 20 years ago—Marc has defended a number of famous (some might say infamous) figures. His clients over the years have included so-called “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli, former NXIUM cult leader Keith Raniere, and Luigi Mangione, who faces state and federal charges in connection with the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Earlier this month, Marc and his colleagues won acquittals for Sean “Diddy” Combs on federal racketeering and sex-trafficking charges—the most serious charges that Combs faced, which could have landed him in prison for life had he been convicted. Last week, I interviewed Marc about the trial and shared some highlights in these pages; now, I’m pleased to provide the complete podcast. Thanks to Marc for taking the time to speak with me, so thoughtfully and openly, about an interesting and momentous case—as well as his remarkable career as one of the nation’s leading trial lawyers. Show Notes: * Marc Agnifilo bio, Agnifilo Intrater * How Diddy’s Likable Defense Lawyer Helped Save His Unlikable Client (gift link), by Corinne Ramey and James Fanelli for The Wall Street Journal * The husband-wife legal team working on two of today’s biggest criminal cases, by Eric Levenson for CNN 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.

    1 h 7 min
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Original Jurisdiction, a podcast about law and the legal profession, features host David Lat interviewing some of the most interesting, influential, and important people in the world of law. It's the companion podcast to Lat's Substack newsletter of the same name. You can follow David on Twitter (@DavidLat) or email him at davidlat@substack.com, and you can subscribe to his newsletter at davidlat.substack.com. davidlat.substack.com

Informations

  • Création
    David Lat
  • Années d’activité
    2022 - 2025
  • Épisodes
    85
  • Classification
    Tous publics
  • Copyright
    © David Lat
  • Site web de l’émission
    Original Jurisdiction

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